Champions 17 is a sad issue of the Champions because it’s
the last issue of the run. Marvel made a last ditch effort to push the
Champions in the middle of 1976 when the team appeared in Iron Man’s annual, the
Avengers and Super-Villain Team-Up (as well as an issue of Godzilla, but that
comic wasn’t included in this omnibus due to licensing issues. Will I buy it
off eBay? Probably!).
Apparently, the push didn’t go well and this was the last
stand for Los Angeles’ favorite super hero club. I guess if you’re going to go
out, you may as well go out in a mess. The art (George Tuska is listed as the
artist, John Byrne as the embellisher) felt sketchy and incredibly rushed. The
writing from Bill Mantlo was probably one of his worst in terms of the plot hanging
together.
Spoiler alert: it’s not good. But here goes …
Three former members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
(Blob, Unus and Lorelei) bust in on Black Widow and Hercules who were on guard
duty at the Champions Headquarters. They looked freaked out because they
brought friends, the Sentinels. the mutant-hunting giant robots are the latest
villains to destroy a wall of Angel’s precious Champions Tower (“I PAID BIG
MONEY FOR THIS PLACE!”).
The one cool thing that the Widow does is hit the Champions
Signal, which turns the windows of the tower into a gigantic “C”.
("C" for Champions! Get it? I wonder how many times they had to explain this to Ice Man?)
It makes for a cool visual but there are a few problems:
What if the other Champions aren’t outside when the signal
is lit. Or what if they are, but they can’t see the building?
On the page prior, the Sentinels were clearly shown ripping
down a wall. How was the Champions signal lit when a quarter of the building is
gone. Even if the Sentinels ripped the opposite wall down, that building isn’t standing
tall.
Whatever. Something is going on because the Vanisher is in
the corner and he looks sinister.
Warren Worthington III is flying around and he notices that
the signal is lit and he knows that he has to tell his other teammates. Good
thing that Darkstar and Ice Man are at Johnny Blaze’s new movie premiere. I
guess after months of being ignored, Bobby and Laynia are now a couple. Though
Ice Man is still acting like a douche and throwing major shade at his comrade’s
new movie, “Biker flicks are the pits!”
He sees the Angel flying overhead and he immediately ices
out. This excites the crowd into an anti-Mutant riot and they try to kick his
ass. Darkstar knows that her boyfriend (is that what we’re calling him?) is in trouble
(because of course she is) and she unleashes the darkforce on the angry citizens
of LA. This makes them even more scared and they try to attack her.
Johnny Blaze arrives on the scene, angry that his premiere
has been ruined by his buddies, and attempts to start punching. He turns into
the Ghost Rider which scatters the other people waiting to see the film.
Ice Man and Ghost Rider bicker for the eight millionth time
and it’s all so exhausting. Read the panels below if you want to be bothered by
two assholes.
(No Angel and Ice Man, that's a total normal way to get one of your teammates to a battle. Looks cool!)
Ghost Rider is such a world-class dick throughout the entire run of the Series that he's number one with a bullet on the Worst Champion list:
- Ghost Rider – he’s just a thin-skinned asshole who believes the worst of everyone. I hate him.
- Ice Man – he’s a mopey douche who takes offense to everything. I hate him.
- Angel – he’s a rich prick who would be the lead in every slob vs. snob movie in the 80s. Not only that, but he’s completely useless. I can fly! Big deal. I hate him.
- Black Widow – She’s cool. I like her.
- Darkstar – She’s mostly confused about just everything. I like her okay
- Hercules – Surprisingly super cool. I like him a lot!
Black Goliath doesn’t get votes because he wasn’t in the
comic very much.
The Champions assemble and quickly kick the Sentinels’ ass.
Like, it was really easy. The only really funny thing is Bobby saying how slow
these Sentinels are in one panel and then two panels later, a Sentinel grabs
him. This forced Ghost Rider to save his icy ass – which I’m sure pissed both
men off.
The Angel is surprised to see the former BoEM members in
Champions HQ and smells a rat. Great job, Warren, maybe you’re not so dumb
after all. Too bad, the Vanisher appears and shoots them all with a gun. The
entire Champions team is knocked out. Blob suggests that they should just
fucking kill them and the Vanisher lays down a solid burn, “For one so slow,
Blob, you are remarkably lacking in patience! I want to savor this moment!”
The Vanisher is dumber than the Angel. He starts telling the
people whom he recruited for his rouse all about his plan. Remember, the
Champions are knocked out so they can’t hear him say that he found a Sentinel,
reprogrammed it and then had it chase Blob, Unus the Untoucable (I love this
last part of his name, BTW) and Lorelei to Champions’ headquarters. He thought
that the Champions would then lead them to the X-Men somehow.
The Vanisher would have then killed both teams. Okay, dude.
Sounds completely plausible. Great plan.
Anyway, after this long and dumb story winds down, Darkstar
wakes up and uses her darkforce power to reanimate a Sentinel so that it
attacks the three evil mutants. It kicks their ass. As Vanisher realizes what’s
going on, he’s about to vanish when Darkstar hits him with her power. The
villain is frozen between being tangible and vanishing.
Ice Man is like, “Holy shit! Is he dead? Wow!”
Darkstar answers, “Oh Bobby, hold me!”
And Ice Man is like, “Sucks for you Vanisher, but awesome
for me!”
(All it took was for a man to almost die for Ice Man to get a little bit of tenderness. Good going! You know that Bobby is the guy who leaves a strip club convinced that all of the dancers love him, for real.)
So the last issue ends on a cliffhanger bout Darkstar and
her weird powers that we are promised will be answered in an upcoming Avengers,
but I don’t think that happens because there are only three comics left in this
collection: two Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-man issues and a Hulk
annual. I don’t think Darkstar is in any of those mags.
Like I said, this was a pretty shitty issue; especially
coming on the heels of the best issue from last month. I’ll save my final
thoughts on the run as a whole for a later blog entry. As for this issue, the
cover is pretty good though it looks like Ghost Rider is running away from the
battle. The one thing that I know that I keep harping on, but it’s true, I am
shocked at how much bickering these people do. They’re all jerks.
I give this issue two Disco Angels, and that’s being very
kind.
You know what, this is a pretty goofy picture of Angel too:
What is with this guy? How come no one can draw him looking cool?
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