The Demi-God Must Die!

As a Champions story, this wasn’t too bad. As an Avengers story, this wasn’t too good.

We open the action with Iron Man hurtling himself towards the Championcar. As Black Widow said, “He’s diving at (us) at missile speed!” Since I just finished reading Iron Man Annual 4 where the Champs help ol’ Shell Head, to see him attacking his new/old buddies was a bit confusing. Writer Jim Shooter, who was a terrific writer back in the day and has a better handle on the Champions than the team’s regular writer Bill Mantlo, doesn’t give a lot of clues as to why Tony Stark is doing this.

Iron Man starts beating the shit out of Hercules. When Black Widow and Ice Man help their Olympian friend, they get a pretty nasty beat down too. Herc, BW and Ice Man are the only Champions that appear in this book because the others are all off doing something. It literally took Iron Man two pages to take down Ice Man and Natasha. And he did it in a douche-y way too. He crumbled a building on Black Widow, when there were a ton of bystanders around –don’t worry about collateral damage, Tony! And after Bobby encased him in ice, he used his chest beam to drill him in the back.

For the rest of the issue it was a slugfest between Hercules and Iron Man. They took turns trading punches. Hercules would punch Iron Man in the chest, IM would gasp about how he almost just died. Iron Man would punch Hercules in the mouth and Tony would wonder why Hercules wasn’t dead. Every other panel would center around Hercules asking Iron Man if he had lost his mind. Why was he attacking him? WHY?

Turns out Iron Man and the Beast were chilling at the Avengers Mansion—most of the other Avengers were still in the hospital after their recent fight with Ultron—when an Olympian Titan named Typhon came out of nowhere and captured the two Avengers. Seems as if Typhon has a score to settle with the Lion of Olympus and he heard that this was Hercules’ last known address.

Iron Man has to explain to Typhon that Hercules doesn’t live there anymore, but he’d be happy to get him. Typhon tells Stark that he better get Hercules and kill him otherwise he’s going to turn Hank McCoy into a furry blue pancake. In a wonderful moment, the Beast tells Iron Man not to do it, he doesn’t care if Typhon kills him and that he doesn’t want to be a pawn. You know what Iron Man says?

“Shut up, McCoy.”

("Fuck you, dude." That's what I would have said.)

See Tony Stark was always a dick, it wasn’t just the movies.

Typhon tells Iron Man that when Hercules makes it to New York, he has to fight him and if he sees him screwing around, he’s going to kill the Beast. By the way, Typhon is doing all of this because he’s trapped in Hades. Pluto, the ruler of Hades, said if Typhon can kill Hercules, he can leave the underworld. You may remember Pluto from Champions 1, 2 and 3. Typhon is down with that because Hercules clowned him a few years back so he can get revenge AND escape from eternal torment.

That’s win-win, in the bad guy business.

So now Iron Man has to go toe-to-toe with a demigod and his plan of telling the Black Widow is out the door because she’s knocked out thanks to falling debris. Debris, that Iron Man, made fall on her. Bad plan one.

He doesn’t want to tell Hercules what’s going on because “Typhon forced me to set up a monitor for him! He’s watching every move I make.” Okay, I know that people were kind of tech stupid back in the 1970s, but c’mon. Who’s filming this? How is the monitor that Typhon is watching picking up everything that these two guys are doing? I mean, they’re literally fighting over all of Manhattan. It’s a pretty big place. Iron Man couldn’t have whispered to Hercules his problem?

By trying to explain the holes in his story, Shooter just digs more.

Finally, Hercules and Iron Man fight their way to Avengers Mansion. Despite being glued to “his monitor”, Typhon doesn’t realize this. Maybe he’s never been to New York City before and doesn’t know where the Mansion is in relationship to where the fight was.

“Mid-town, I thought that the Mansion was downtown! Oh, fiddlesticks,” Typhon could have said. But he didn’t.

Hercules and Iron Man have pretty much exhausted themselves beating the shit out of each other. But guess who’s awake and followed their teammate to the Avengers Mansion? Ice Man and Black Widow! They try to attack the titan, but are getting the short end of the stick. All of a sudden, the Beast gets free and kicks Typhon.

Then he says, “Rottsa Ruck, Cluck!”

(Kinda concerning? BTW, that image of Typhon is ghastly.)

I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds kind of racist. I may be a little on edge after all of the shit that went down in Charlottesville this past week, but WTF Hank? Seriously? You’re doing a fake Chinese accent. And Typhon’s not even Asian, he’s Greek. You couldn’t have thrown a “Cheebugger, Cheebugger, Cheebugger!” John Belushi thing at him? Your’re better than this, man.

Anyway the Beast kicks Typhon into the air and Ice Man freezes him solid, just like they did in the X-Men days. He breaks out, but Typhon is now facing Ice Man, the Beast, Black Widow, Iron Man and Hercules. Pluto calculates the odds and realizes that Typhon isn’t going to win and brings him back to Hades. Before he goes, Typhon vows vengeance! Vengeance on the Avengers, I like that.

Iron Man apologizes to Hercules. Our Greek buddy is a stand-up dude and tells him not to worry about it. Hercules likes trading fists, so I’m sure that he was not bothered by it at all. The last panel shows the Beast having a crisis of confidence, but we won’t find out about that because that’s an Avengers’ problem, not a Champions’ problem.

A few things:

•  If you’re Ice Man and you find yourself in the Avengers Mansion, do you walk around and check stuff out? I would. How many times has Bobby been invited to the Mansion? Once maybe twice? I’d walk around, go to the bathroom (number two, just to say I did it), nose through the silverware, maybe have Jarvis make me a sandwich. That would be cool (no pun). What’s Iron Man going to do, kick you out? You just saved his ass. I’d probably sprawl out on the couch, let out a big yawn and loudly say, “I could get used to a place like this! I really could!”
•  Jim Shooter really is a hell of a writer. I wish that he wrote a couple of issues of the Champions. I better they’d be really good. BTW, another issue with no petty bickering between teammates. I like the Champions better when they’re in another person’s book. If I was reading this book as an Avengers fan, I don't think I would have loved it. For one thing, there was really only one Avenger: Iron Man. Beast was locked up for 95% of the book and this was a flimsy plot. Plus, it seemed like a fill-in and a favor. Like they could have printed this thing any time they felt like it. And the favor comes from getting some eyeballs on a book (The Champions) that no one is reading. Bleh. 
•   The cover art is great. I love George Perez, he can really draw. In fact, I think that I might like him more than John Byrne. That’s saying something. I also enjoy that the Beast calls Iron Man "Shell Head" when he's in the middle of kicking the shit out of Hercules. George Tuska’s comic art was fine. It wasn’t anything great. He does a workman’s job. Nothing awesome, but nothing terrible either.

This was a pretty good Champions story, I’d give it three disco Angels out of five. However, it was not a very good Avengers story. I’d only give it only one one-legged Wasp pants suit.

 

Or:

I know that it was the 1970s and the Wasp was supposed to be fashion-forward and everything, but what the hell was she thinking? Like WWIII, she's rich. Why is she flying around in a costume that looks like it was designed by a blind guy? Comics. 

The Doomsday Connection

“Someday we’ll find it

The Doomsday Connection

MODOK, AIM and me!

La, la, la, la, la, la!”

Not many people know this, but that was Jim Henson’s original lyrics for “Rainbow Connection”. He was intrigued by Mobile Organism Designed Only for Killing (MODOK) and Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) and wanted to spread their gospel.

Seriously.

Anyway, you’ll notice that the above image isn’t of a Champions comic, rather it’s the 1977 Iron Man annual. Comics are a lot like professional wrestling or hip hop, when something isn’t doing very well, the powers-that-be try to pair them along with something that is successful. For a wrestler, it might be to have him form a tag-team partnership with someone more popular. Or they can feud with someone who has more juice. For a hip hop artist, they can guest on a more popular artist’s record. Or be photographed with him or her.

You want someone that isn’t popular to seem as though they are popular. The quickest and best way to do that is by having them orbit around something that is cool.

I’m not sure how much more popular Iron Man was than the Champions in 1977. Tony Stark has been around Marvel for 15 years and was a star of one of their flagship books, the Avengers. He had cache and the Champions did not. My guess is that Marvel editors decided that the Champions needed to be around more popular heroes. So, without a lot of setup, they guest starred in the Armored Avenger’s annual.

Written by Champions writer Bill Mantlo and penciled by former Champions artist George Tuska, it wasn’t if the creative team needed to get their arms wrapped around the team. Both men knew who the Champions were, so they were dropped right in the action.

Iron Man was in California investigating an AIM laboratory and was looking for MODOK. Iron Man battles through a bunch of robots, but can’t find the big-headed, small-bodied man. He realizes that the majority of the West Coast is now in a blackout and he fears that MODOK is syphoning off energy for some dastardly plot. He decides that it’s a good idea to pay a visit to the Champions Headquarters and see what his old colleagues, Black Widow and Hercules have to say.

I guess Tony Stark has always kinda been a dick because even though he says that the Champions haven’t responded to his radio signal, he decides to bust through their HQ anyway. There he runs into the Ghost Rider, who is rightly pissed off that this happened. Being that this is a comic book, they get into a fight. Angel, Hercules and Ice Man are about to kick Iron Man’s ass (they saw GR go flying through a wall) when Black Widow tells everyone to chill out. They do.

Iron Man breaks out a mini film projector—it’s so cute and tiny—and he explains to his new buddies that MODOK is serious business and that they need to find him before the world blows up. Iron Man suggests that they split up because there are three places that MODOK could be. Angel, Hercules and Natasha decide to head out to Redwood National Forrest.

(Look at that thing, how quaint. It's like being in grade school and IM is your lazy teacher and it's filmstrip day!) 

Here Angel flies around for literally a minute and talks about how good it feels to stretch his wings. OK WWIII. Hercules and Widow start flirting and it looks as if the Prince of Power is going to seal the deal. But those AIM jerks are back again and they start firing on our heroes. Hercules is so taken by the beauty of his surroundings that he rips up a gigantic redwood tree and starts bashing AIM cronies with it. Eventually the trio gets snared.

(In another panel Black Widow is like, 'Oh Hercules, I feel so safe in your arms!" Hercules was getting there, man! -- Shout out to little recognized "Dazed and Confused" sad sack Hirchfelder. Who actually left a pretty good looking chick to go find O'Bannion. Stupid Mitch. Stupid Tommy. Stupid AIM.)

Ice Man, Ghost Rider and Darkstar go to an undersea AIM base near San Francisco. There, they learn that evil corporation is doing unspeakable experiments on fish and turning them into monstrous killers. They are attacked by another set of AIM goons and when Ice Man tries to help Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze acts like a royal prick.

(You're just an asshole, dude. And Darkstar doesn't even like him like that! Way to rub salt in those wounds, Johnny Blaze.)

Darkstar ends up getting knocked out. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, Ice Man loses focus when he sees that happening to Laynia and he gets coldcocked. Eventually the trio gets captured.

Iron Man heads to the Mojave Desert where he happens upon a Franciscan Mission and a gigantic monk. Turns out the monk works for MODOK and proceeds to beat the crap out of Iron Man. Unlike the Champions, Iron Man leaves the monk—who is walking around talking about how he beat up Iron Man and that he’ll be running AIM in less than a week.

Somehow the Champions all escape their messes and jump in their Championcrafts and head to where Iron Man is going: Nevada. He goes back to the place that he destroyed at the beginning of this issue and guess who’s there? MODOK! Turns out while IM was destroying his lab, MODOK was invisible and waiting for him to leave. Just like James Comey used to do when President* Trump drop by.

MODOK explains his plans and starts fighting Iron Man when the Champions come busting in. MODOK decides that enough is enough and blows his entire mountain lair up, seemingly crushing the heroes. But Iron Man has an adaptor and plus one side into his armor (through the yellow circle in his chest) and the other into the Doomsday Chair (I forgot to say that this is the thing MODOK created to blow up the world). The DDC transfers so much energy into Iron Man’s armor that he is able to use it to blow off the mountain that Hercules was holding up. It reminded me of this:

(I loved this issue and this cover, look at how pissed off Hulk was. And this was much cooler because the Molecule Man dumped an entire mountain on these guys and Hulk held it up. Incredible!)

We are on the second to last page and The Champions are like, “Phew, I’m glad we’re safe but what about MODOK?” And Iron Man’s like, “Oh yeah. That dude.” He fires his repulsor rays at him to “stabilize” the bad guy but ends up blowing him up. After dropping the Champions off, Iron Man walks away and thinks that he should probably go to his factory and see how everyone is doing down there.

This was a pretty good issue and I think it’s because the Champions were NOT the focus of it, which doesn’t say much for this team. Ghost Rider was the only real asshole in this issue (aside from Tony Stark) but Bobby didn’t whine so much about Darkstar, the Angel didn’t act like an entitled prick and Hercules and Black Widow had their nice moment too.

I would read more about this team, if I was a kid who picked up this comic off the rack and had no idea who these Champions. They were just eclectic enough to make it work in this Annual. I’d give it four disco-shirted Angels.

I'll start it off with this guy, because he loves to get the party started: