Inclusion debates/Inclusion debate: Special Executive appearances in "Captain Britain" (The Daredevils)

Captain Britian was an eleven-part comic and flagship story of The Daredevils, a 1983 Marvel UK anthology that also reprinted DWM comics Star Death, 4-D War, and Black Sun Rising (hence it already having a page on this wiki).

While this Captain Britian series is currently considered invalid by this wiki, I believe there is overwhelming evidence for most of it being part of the DWU via Merlin the Wise and the Special Executive. Let's go over the four little rules:

1	Only stories count.

They are stories.

2	A story that isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count.

They were licensed by relevant copyright holders, namely Marvel UK.

3	A story must be officially released to be valid.

They were officially released in 1983.

4	If a story was intended to be set outside the DWU, then it's probably not allowed. But a community discussion will likely be needed to make a final determination.

Now, this is where we get to the debate; was Captain Britain meant to be a crossover between DWMs comics and the Marvel universe, and is thus a valid part of the DWU? First, let's look at precedent of this wiki:

• This wiki is no stranger to covering crossovers, but we only cover stories directly part of the DWU.
• This wiki originally covered Death's Head (1988) issues #5 and #6 as valid as they directly include characters that originated in the DWU crossing over with Death's Head. Issue #5 was a crossover for including Keepsake, Bahlia, and Keepsake's vulture from COMIC: Keepsake. The situation with Merlin and Special Executive in Captain Britain is the same scenario with DWM characters in another Marvel UK comic. In fact, it's an even higher profile crossover.
  • (The other eight stories have since been ruled valid, but only The Incomplete Death's Head versions.) So there is a precedent for how we cover Doctor Who/Marvel crossovers, even if they don't cover every issue of a series.
• Captain Britain is already valid on this wiki thanks to his crossover cameos in COMIC: Party Animals, a story published in 1991. Some may have hesitated to include Captain Britain on this wiki, but it is a non-issue.

I think the evidence for inclusion is significant:

"He wouldn't have known me..."

• Issue #1 features an appearance of Merlin the Wise from COMIC: The Neutron Knights and The Tides of Time as one of many faces of Merlyn. His DWM Merlin the Wise incarnation says "[Captain Britain] wouldn't have known me...", a nod to his appearances being in DWM comics and not interacting with Captain Britain.
• Issues #5-11 feature appearances of the Special Executive team from 4-D War and Black Sun Rising.
• In fact, Alan Moore's Star Death, 4-D War, and Black Sun Rising are reprinted in issue #5-7 to give explicit context for the reader about the DWU origins of this team. (Star Death was given one alteration: Merlyn gives the framing narration in place of the Fourth Doctor, but the word balloons are left unchanged.)
• Alan Moore wrote these Captain Britain stories, showing his authorial intent. Moore explicitly explains his intent for this to be a continuation of his Special Executive stories in "About: The Special Executive!" of issue #5:

The Special executive grew out of a series of years ago for inclusion in DOCTOR WHO MONTHLY as back-up strips.

I won't bother running through all the peculiar ins and outs of [4-D WAR]. Bernie will be reprinting it in these pages next month so you can catch them for yourselves.

BLACK SUN RISING... was just about the last story I did for DOCTOR WHO, so the Special Executive were seemingly cut down in their prime before I could explain who they were, how many there were of them, how their odd time-based powers functioned or any of the rest of the material I had planned. Imagine my glee when I was given the go ahead to use them as supporting characters in a couple of issues of The Daredevils, some two or three years later. So basically, here they are again folks: Wardog, Cobweb and Zeitgeist, along with previously unseen operatives like Fascination and Legion and a whole bunch of intriguing silhouettes that feature briefly in the opening frames of this episode and should give some idea as to how many of these oddballs there actually are. Whether the Executive fare any better in this incarnation, aided by the excellent visual interpretations of good old Alan Davis, is largely up to you.Alan Moore, abridged quote

• The word Parahuman is used in issue #5. In issue #6, there is an oblique reference to the Time Lords when Wardog says: "We've worked for time travellers, we've worked for sentient mold-cultures, and right now we work for Saturnyne." (Not to be confused with the planet Saturnyne.)

Here's a handy table to organize all the pertinent info about this series:

Original issues (1983)	Captain Britain (comic series)	DWU characters	DWM reprints	Captain Britain colourised reprints (1995)
The Daredevils #1	A Rag, a Bone, a Hank of Hair...	Merlin the Wise, a face of Merlyn		X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain #2
The Daredevils #2	An Englishman's Home...	None, so outside the DWU	X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain #3
The Daredevils #3	...Thicker Than Water
The Daredevils #4	Killing Ground
The Daredevils #5	Executive Action	Special Executive (Wardog, Cobweb, Zeitgeist)	Star Death
The Daredevils #6	Judgement Day	4-D War	X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain #4
The Daredevils #7	Rough Justice	Black Sun Rising
The Daredevils #8	Arrivals
The Daredevils #9	Waiting for the End of the World	X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain #5
The Daredevils #10	The Sound and the Fury
The Daredevils #11	But They Never Really Die

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This should be ample evidence that Captain Britain (but only The Daredevils #1, #5-11) is a Doctor Who crossover and is intended to be part of the DWU, and as such, should be covered by this wiki.