The Evil that is Cast …

And so this is how the end of the Champions begins, with a smug Warren Worthington III aka the Angel, lounging around in a Speedo watching TV. It’s reminiscent of how Champions 3 started off, only there’s no Black Widow in a bikini. He gets a call from his buddy, Bobby Drake (Ice Man) telling him that he’s still in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and they want to hang out.

(I was maxin' and relaxin' sippin' a tequila, when Walter Cronkite popped up and said, "Hi, my name is Shelia!")

I guess the Ice Man who we last saw telling Angel and Spider-man that he was going to wander around America looking for himself didn’t work out so well. Angel gives Bobby shit about finally finding a girlfriend, tells him to grab the Champion-car and then informs his girlfriend that they only have 17 hours to fuck before these two people come to New Mexico for a visit.

Since I wrote “New Mexico” I guess I should say that this isn’t a Champions book, but Incredible Hulk Annual number 7, and we quickly move from the Angel’s love nest to a Gamma Base where Doc Samson is showing a news reporter around the base. The run into the Hulk, who is kind of chill but gets angry enough to bunch the gamma-radiated psychiatrist in the head a few times.

That was kind of funny. Doc Samson has never been one of my favorite characters and it’s nice to see him get his ass kicked every once in a while.

The next day Bobby and Teresa Sue Bottoms (the fuck kind of name is that?) show up and Terri Sue seems to have a thing for the Angel. She stares at him, she can’t stop talking to him and she makes him put on his Angel costume all while ignoring Bobby. See, Terri Sue gets hot for heroes and Bobby hasn’t let her know who he is. This puts Ice Man into mopey man mode but it doesn’t last because an intruder has shown up, but he’s no ordinary stranger.

("Wings? Oh yeah, but really, I want you to stare at my hairy chest, m'lady.")

(I have to say, Candy is pretty cool about her boyfriend blatantly hitting on his best friend's girl right in front of her. "Oh that? Yeah, Warren is a prick. No big deal.")

Terri Sue and Candy Southern (Angel’s girl) get into the house, which is good because this guy is a Sentinel. And he’s no ordinary Sentinel, for one thing, he’s a bit of a wise-ass and for another, he’s the Master Mold which means that he’s the top dog. The Sentinel that makes other Sentinels. Ice Man tries something kind cool (no pun) by absorbing all of the heat out of the air, turning everything around him cold but keeping him hot. The Sentinel knows what he’s doing, so he nails him with a Frigi-Blast, and Ice Man is down for the count.

The Angel knows that he can’t beat a Sentinel by himself, so he bolts. As he does, Terri Sue let’s a pretty slick burn on Ice Man.

(Terri Sue, I think I love you.)

The good thing about Angel is that he’s not geographically challenged and knows where he is. He starts flying towards Gamma Base—which is 100 miles away and that seems awfully far for him to fly at top speed while trying to out maneuver a Sentinel, but I guess he does it. Because the Sentinel runs into Doc Samson who punches it and then gets his ass kicked.

This angers the Hulk, not because the long-haired Samson is a friend, but because he just wants it to be quiet (dude, I hear you). He comes out of his room, really pissed off and starts punching the robot, who kicks him.

Now Hulk is really mad and as the Sentinel tries flying away, he jumps on to his boot. Samson tries to help Bruce Banner but miss times his leap and ends up on the ground. He’s useless. Where is the robot flying to? To a meteor base just outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Being in outer space makes the Hulk pass out and when he wakes up he finds himself in a tube that was made for the Blob.

The Hulk freaks, punches his way out and busts Angel and Ice Man out too. He’s really angry now and wants to completely destroy the robot. So he goes looking for him, despite the protests of WW III and Bobby Drake. They both think that they should just silently get the fuck out of there. Which, I mean, way to be heroes, guys. Jeez.

Angel tells the two that he’s going to look for an escape pod – they both realize that they’re in space – and the Hulk says he’s looking for some payback. Ice Man tags along and when the Hulk finds the Sentinel, he starts kicking the crap out of him. Finally, the Sentinel is able to knock Hulk out by frying him with extreme voltage.

Ice Man actually does something smart and tricks the robot into telling them his plan. The Sentinel says that he’s a robot but has the brain of crazy old Steven Lang who you may remember from trying to kill the X-Men in X-Men 100. This is the issue where Jean Grey turns into the Phoenix, so it was a pretty big deal.

The Angel shows up, hearing all of this exposition and tells the Sentinel that he’s not Lang at all. Lang is a vegetable in some hospital back on Earth. This completely confuses the robot who hasn’t noticed that the Hulk has woken up. Oh yeah, the Hulk is even angrier than he was before and literally tears the Sentinel in half. He’s just lying there with his circuits and stuff all over the place.

Angel finds an escape pod and tries to get the Hulk to join him and Ice Man, but Hulk is like, “yeah I’m okay.” Despite being torn in half, the Sentinel is not quite dead though and he overrode the programming so that the pod won’t launch. The Hulk is super angry now and wants to rip the robot to even smaller pieces. Ice Man hits the Hulk with a snowball who retaliates by kicking the pod out of the space station.

The vacuum of space sucks the Hulk out and he splashes down in the ocean next to the two mutants. The Hulk tells them it was nice hanging with them, but he has to go. Ice Man and the Angel are left on an ice raft, with the Angel saying, “We better get back before my girlfriend kills yours.” All Ice Man can think is, “Why me, Lord? Why me?”

I like watching the Hulk punch things, it’s one of my most favorite things about comics. He’s a complete lunatic and he just beats the crap out of everything in sight. That is just great. But I think that I like something else a little better: watching Ice Man get the shaft from the ladies. There were a few times where I actually laughed out loud at Bobby’s bad luck. What’s weird to me is that this girl loves the supes but she doesn’t think that it’s weird that Bobby flies a Champions jet to his friend’s house, who is the world-famous X-Man the Angel and then gets kidnapped by a giant robot.

That’s three pretty huge clues that your boyfriend may have an alter ego. But Terri Sue Bottoms doesn’t get context clues, man.

I liked this issue a lot, writer Roger Stern has a great handle on the Angel and Ice Man’s personalities, which is refreshing. He makes Bobby seem like a guy who’s really unlucky with the ladies rather than a loser, the way Bill Mantlo did. And another cool thing was when TSB was mooning over WWIII, Bobby didn’t act like a baby. He kinda complained about it (which is what I would have done if I was in his shoes) to the Angel’s girlfriend, but he didn’t make an ice razor and try to cut his ice veins.

Also, the Angel wasn’t a prick either, which was a nice change of events.

The art was by John Byrne and it was pretty great. But that’s par for the course for him.

All-in-all, I give this four out of five Hulk babies. This kid looks like my nephew, which makes me laugh even more. 

BTW, I have not given my final synopsis on the Champions as a series. I will do that sometime very soon. Also, there is one Champions book that I have left to read: Godzilla 3, but I have to find it. Don’t worry true believers, I will!

The Sentinels Hunt Again!

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:

1. Ghost Rider – he’s just a thin-skinned asshole who believes the worst of everyone. I hate him.
2. Ice Man – he’s a mopey douche who takes offense to everything. I hate him.
3. 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.
4. Black Widow – She’s cool. I like her.
5. Darkstar – She’s mostly confused about just everything. I like her okay
6. 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?