A World Lost!

When I was in grade school, I liked comics. My father got me into the hobby and not only did it fulfill my love of reading and weird stuff* but it also satiated my artist side. I loved drawing and creating and doodling and art, basically. Comics did two things: it allowed me to read and allowed me to look at cool pictures.

* I remember being in second grade and going through my school library’s entire collection of real ghost stories, UFO tales and cryptozoology books. I was obsessed with scaring the shit out of myself. I loved it. It didn’t stop when I went through Amesbury Elementary School’s “weird shit” (real name of the section) shelf. I went to the Amesbury Public Library and read through their stuff too. If I had the internet back then, I would have exhausted that too. While most kids were buzzing about Jude Blume or Beverly Cleary, I was stuck on ghosts.

In my neighborhood, all of my friends liked comics. Of course, they did, there were only three of us. If one of us liked comics or He-Man or Transformers or baseball cards; the others usually followed suit. At school, it was a different story. Nobody liked comics, so I had to find kids who did. In the early 80s, comics and sci-fi weren’t considered cool or mainstream like they are now. You could get your ass kicked if someone heard you talk about Wolverine or Spider-man or Bat Man.

Other than me, the only person that I knew who liked comics was a girl in my class named Robin. She liked all of the weird stuff that I liked, therefore she was one of my closest friends. I’d go over her house and we’d read and trade comics and she would do the same at mine. It was cool.

I told this story before way back in the first entry on the Champions, but one day I was looking through her books and I saw this comic, Champions 16. At the time, I thought that I knew everything there was to know about Marvel comics, but I never heard of this team. Two ex-Avengers, two ex-X-Men, Ghost Rider and some Russian girl? What the heck were they doing? Why hadn’t I heard of them before? Why aren’t they still around?

I read the book and was blown away by the action. The Champions were under the control of Doctor Doom and fought Magneto and the Beast. Oh yeah, the Hulk and Jimmy Carter were there too. It was crazy, just how much stuff was going on. I had to have it. I don’t remember what I traded her, but this comic was now a part of my collection and I must have read it 50 times. I didn’t even know that it was part two of a two-part story.

When I read this book the other day, I was a little apprehensive. Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “You Can’t Go Home Again” and from my perspective on a lot of stuff, he’s right. When revisiting things you once loved, chances are you’re going to be disappointed. I had built this book up so much, honestly it’s one of the main reasons why I bought this collection, I didn’t want to be let down.

It didn’t. This issue was bonkers from the first page to the last and I loved every minute of it.

The book opens up with the Champions fighting Magneto and the Beast. The LA super group is still under Dr. Doom’s mind-control and they’re not sure why they need to beat these two, only that they feel compelled to do so. The fight stalemates after a few pages so Magneto decides to go to Washington DC and take Doom head on. The Champions follow.

Doom is sitting in the Oval Office and he’s surrounded by President Jimmy Carter and all of his advisors. They’re all kissing Doom’s ass, which pisses him off because he doesn’t know whether they’re still under his control or whether they’re just covering their asses. The more things change, Victor. Instead of John Byrne drawing this tale, we have Bob Hall. Unfortunately, Bob can’t quite get Carter’s good side. Instead he looks like Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman’s older brother.

(Pissed off Doom is the best Doom.)

Doom storms out and summons the Hulk. He doesn’t say exactly why he summons the jade skinned monster, but he does, which is good news because Magneto and the Beast show up to kick Doom’s ass. At the same time, the Champions show up too. Magneto is still pissed off at the good doctor for humiliating him in Super-Villain Team-Up and is planning on beating Victor Von despite having to go through the Secret Service, the US Army, the Champions and the Hulk first. Plus, he’s convinced that he took the wrong Avenger in the Beast and keeps shitting on him throughout the entire issue (which, despite me loving Hank McCoy, is kind of funny because Magneto had the choice to choose whomever he wanted).

Magneto throws the Hulk into Hercules which prompts these two titans to start fighting. Of course, most of that action happens off panel, which is pretty dumb. Ghost Rider doesn’t breathe like most people so he’s not affected by Doom’s mind-control gas and realizes that Magneto and the Beast have been telling him the truth. Shit runs downhill, so the Beast starts making fun of Johnny Blaze, who ends up getting angry.

I am not joking when I say each page has a pretty decent fight on it and this goes on until the Beast falls on Doctor Doom. Doom is starting to choke the furry blue mutant out, when Ghost Rider jumps into action. He brings literal hellfire down on Doom’s mask which really makes the ruler of Latveria angry. He scorches Ghost Rider and then takes off his mask. That was a mistake because a. it breaks his mind control over every one and b. allows him to breathe his own gas. This turns his brain into a Mobius Strip of himself trying to control himself. It’s pretty cool, actually.

As the battle dissipates, Hercules isn’t mad that he had to fight the Hulk, in fact he was pumped that he got to fight him. Magneto is down-right giddy that he beat Doctor Doom. So happy, in fact that he tells the Champions that he could kick all of their butts if he wanted to (and he probably could) but he won’t because he’s so happy that Doctor Doom isn’t the ruler of the Earth and a babbling lunatic. He takes off.

(I bet Doctor Doom turns out to be an android. No one makes Doom look dumb!)

I love this issue but there are a few plot holes (which, BTW, are fine. This is a comic):

• The cover is boss as hell. I wonder who is going to get the business end of that chunk of rubble the Beast is going to throw? BTW, Ice Man looks completely useless. He's not even wrapped up, he's just sleeping.
• Why did Doom bring the Hulk to DC? I still don’t really understand that.
• Don’t dis Magneto. He’ll go to the ends of the Earth to reap his vengeance. Jesus.
• Doctor Doom already has the Avengers under his control, he should have called them to DC when it looked like Magneto was out for blood.
• No one respected Jimmy Carter, huh? That’s too bad. He turned out to be a pretty great guy.

There aren’t a lot of comics that take me back to my childhood, but this one did. If all of the Champion issues could be as half as good as this one, I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be a Champions movie. There’s no bickering, no unrequited love, no grousing; it’s all action. I loved it.  

All these years later, I still can’t believe Robin traded me her copy.

Unsurprisingly, this gets FIVE disco Angels out of five.