SUE CRADDOCK

Real Name: Sue Craddock 

Identity/Class: Human;
    possible mutant (see comments);
    British citizen 

Occupation: Unrevealed;
    formerconcentration camp prisoner, school student 

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Meggan Puceanu

Enemies: Sir James Jaspers, S.T.R.I.K.E. Beetles

Known Relatives: None 

Aliases: Sue Parsons (see comments) 

Base of Operations: Unrevealed

First Appearance: Mighty World of Marvel II#7 (December 1983) 

Powers/Abilities: Sue may have low level E.S.P. abilities.

Height: 5'7" (by approximation)
Weight: 115 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Blonde

History:
(Mighty World of Marvel II#7 (fb)) -  Shortly after Sir James Jaspers, secretly an insane reality-warping mutant, used his powers to become Prime Minister of Great Britain, he arranged to eliminate any potential threats to his rule by initiating the rounding up of anyone with even slight superhuman powers. Schools did Zener card E.S.P. tests without informing the pupils what they were being used for; when Sue Parsons scored 48%, she was arrested (see comments).  

(Mighty World of Marvel II#7 - (fb) - BTS) - Sue was placed in a concentration camp with other people with powers, housed in rows of huts surrounded by electrified fences and guarded night and day by armored S.T.R.I.K.E. Beetle troops. Put in hut 27, Sue befriended her cellmate, Meggan Puceanu, a feral teen with an appearance that looked like a cross between lupine and chiropteran, and every few nights after lights out they would tell one another stories they had heard over a shared cigarette, especially rumors about Meggan's idol, Captain Britain, on whom she pinned her hopes of eventual rescue. Both girls tended to exaggerate the stories they heard of his exploits.  

(Mighty World of Marvel II#7) - The pair began another candlelight dialogue, lighting their smoke and passing it back and forth. Meggan asked her friend if she had heard anything about him, and Sue was starting to speak when Meggan hushed her, her superior hearing picking up on someone approaching. A few seconds later one of the Beetles shone his torch in through the cell window on the pair, but seeing nothing that concerned him, he moved on. Deciding it was safe now, Meggan told Sue to continue with her information, and Sue began recounting a rumor that Captain Britain had been spotted in a foodline. Sue explained that two Beetles had hauled someone else out of the line and demanded to see his papers, then began beating him up when he said he hadn't received them yet. Getting into the flow of her story, Sue gradually embellished the details, claiming the Beetles had then started slyly insinuating there was something abnormal about the man, insisting he had funny eyes, and that mutants, cyborgs and aliens had funny eyes. According to Sue, the man's girlfriend hysterically turned to the person behind her begging for his help and pulling on his coat, accidentally opening it to reveal his Captain Britain costume. Seeing this, the woman then tried to save her boyfriend by blowing the whistle on the hero, giving the Beetles another target for their abuse. With his cover blown, the hero stood there defiantly facing the Beetles as everyone else retreated away from him.

   Excitedly, Meggan asked if her hero was as big as they said, with golden hair and burning eyes? Sue eagerly confirmed her friend's hope, then said the Beetles rushed the hero all at once. Meggan interrupted, asking what she meant by all, as she was sure Sue had said there were only two of them. Sue hastily corrected herself, claiming she must have forgotten the others, and it was more like thirty Beetles. Enthralled, Meggan asked if he managed to beat them, and Sue responded incredulously - beat them? He'd slaughtered them, until by the end he was fighting his foes atop a pile of bodies fifty deep. Meggan pointed out that Sue had said there were thirty, but Sue insisted she hadn't, and that there were hundreds of Beetles, and Captain Britain still slaughtered them before making his escape. Having finished her by-now massively exaggerated tale, Sue asked Meggan what she had heard.

    Meggan replied she hadn't heard much, just bits and pieces. She told Sue that some people had said Captain Britain had come down from the north, marching into London at the head of an army of telepaths and superheroes. Someone else had said they were going to storm through the streets, crush the Beetles and free them all. Someone else claimed the hero had been killed.  One girl had claimed he'd been tortured and informed on his friends; grinning malevolently at Sue to display her fangs, Meggan extended her claws and gleefully stated that she had scarred the face of the girl who had told that last tale, punishment for lying.

   Having run out of rumors to repeat, they continued smoking in silence for a few seconds, then Meggan asked Sue about how she had ended up in the camp. Sue told her about the school's E.S.P. tests, and asked for Meggan's story. Her friend explained that she had been caught when her family's caravan had been stopped at a roadblock. Meggan added that they had arrested her father as well, and taken away his crawly dolls, which was a shame because if he still had them he would have made them wish they'd never lived, then stated ominously that if she was still in the camp come the next full moon, the Beetles would regret it.

   Meggan pronounced the cigarette to be dead, bringing their chat to a close. Her raised spirits already beginning to ebb, Sue asked Meggan if she was really sure Captain Britain was out there and would come to rescue them. Meggan insisted he would, because he was Captain Britain. Still a bit uncertain, Sue nevertheless agreed that Meggan was right, and the pair wished one another good night.        

(Mighty World of Marvel II#14 (fb)) - Meggan and Sue continued their late night talks by candlelight. Meggan recalled her father telling him how he had once witnessed Captain Britain in battle and been impressed by his ferocity. In light of this, Meggan told Sue that she was sure the hero would make mincemeat of the regime's thugs because he was a real hero. Less certain than her friend, Sue asked Meggan if she was sure he would come and free them, but Meggan insisted he would, as there was no one else who could.

    Glancing out the cell window, Meggan commented that something weird was going on with the world outside. They had been in the camp now for three full months, but there still hadn't been a full moon. Curious, Sue asked Meggan why she looked forward to the full moon so much, and Meggan anxiously avowed that she didn't - she dreaded it.

(Mighty World of Marvel II#13) - Jaspers was slain and his reign ended. As normal reality began to reassert itself, the concentration camp fences were pulled down and the prisoners released. A joyful Sue walked to freedom alongside a grinning Meggan.

(Mighty World of Marvel II#14 - BTS) - Following the end of Jasper's reality warp the world reset, and most people forgot the events of his rule, with even many of the camp victims only recalling their ordeal as vague nightmares.

    This may have been the case for Sue too, as she and Meggan parted company some time after being freed, and apparently never connected with one another again. 

Comments: Created by Alan Moore and Alan Davis.

    The test Sue describes taking is a Zener test, where the cards have a variety of symbols such as triangles and wavy lines; one person picks a card out of a shuffled pile and looks at it, and the person being tested then marks on a sheet which card they think the tester is looking at. Assuming Sue sat the standard version of the test, most people would be expected to get between 3 and 7 correct out of 25 - or between 12% and 28%. Sue's stated score of 48% right is high, but statistically speaking if you test enough people - such as every school pupil in the U.K. - then a certain number will get a lot more than the average right just by guessing, with no psychic abilities involved. So Sue could have actual powers, albeit weak ones, and the source of same might be the X-gene, making her a mutant, but given the only "evidence" the Beetles used to justify incarcerating her was a slightly above average score on a Zener test, there's every chance she was a perfectly normal human.

    Only Sue's first name was revealed during her appearances in the camp; her surname was later revealed to be Craddock (after Steve Craddock, the letterer in her debut story) in the Marvel Atlas' U.K. entry (released November 2007), but was then revealed as Parsons in Meggan's handbook entry (March 2009). Though there are exceptions, standard policy is that, barring further evidence, first reveal is the correct one - she's Sue Craddock. Usually we'd consider merging the names, so she might be Sue Parsons Craddock, but that option is more commonly used when we have two first names, not two surnames. Another option which would allow both names to be correct is that she has used/does use two different surnames. She's a touch young to be likely to have a married and maiden name, but she might have divorced parents, and so have switched between her father's surname to using her mother's, or to the surname of a stepfather. Without further appearances we'll likely never know.  

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Sue Parsons has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Captain Britain TPB, p13, pan6 (main)
Captain Britain TPB, p13, pan5 (headshot)
X-Men Archives Starring Captain Britain#6, p13, pan3 (taking E.S.P. test)
X-Men Archives Starring Captain Britain#7, p29, pan2 (leaving concentration camp)

Appearances:
Mighty World of Marvel II#7 (December 1983) - Alan Moore (writer), Alan Davis (art), Bernie Jaye (editor)
Mighty World of Marvel II#13 (June 1984) - Alan Moore (writer), Alan Davis (art), Chris Gill (editor)
Mighty World of Marvel II#14 (July 1984) - Alan Davis & Steve Craddock (co-creators), Chris Gill (editor)

First Posted: 02/16/2019
Last updated: 02/16/2019

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com

Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!

Back to Characters