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.

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. 

Death Drone

For a comic that has a supervillain who’s a Nazi AND made entirely of bees, this was a pretty boring story.

We open with tens of thousands of bees invading the Champions building through all of the air vents. Hercules rips off a piece of the wall and pushes it against the vent, Angel yells at him for wrecking the place. Fine Warren, we’ll all just get stung a couple million times, but at least your building will be safe.

Finally Swarm, the supervillain Nazi who’s entirely made of bees, shows up and gets one of his robotic giant bees to grab Darkstar. You know, Darkstar is really becoming the lynch pin of just about every Champions plot for the last few issues. It’s a good thing that she showed up, otherwise these guys would sit with their thumbs up their asses for 20 plus pages.

Ice Man, who is smitten with the blonde Russian, sees what’s happening and yells her name. He is stung by the giant bee and both Champions are carried off. Swarm scrams.

The rest of the Champions look outside the window and citizens are getting destroyed by bees. Team leader Black Widow tells Angel and Ghost Rider to go help them. Surprisingly GR doesn’t call Black Widow a bitch for being a woman, but Angel is super mopey about helping people because his buddy Ice Man was kidnapped. Never the less he did what he was told, though he crabbed about it.

(This is a legitimately terrifying image.) 

Ice Man and Darkstar wake up in Swarm’s lair, which is a giant hive. Darkstar hasn’t paid much attention to Bobby Drake, but he still calls her honey. Which, considering where they are, is a pretty solid pun. They’re alone and if I were Darkstar, I’d use this opportunity to patiently explain to the mutant that just because he likes her, doesn’t mean that they’re going out or anything.

(Cool Dad joke, Ice Man. HA! I did it too!) 

Bill Mantlo is having a tough time writing Ice Man. He’s so god damn needy and pathetic that he makes high school me look like Tom Jones. In the last few years, the X-Men from the 1960s were brought to modern times by the Beast, Hank McCoy. It was a plan to make Cyclops realize that he’s acting like a dick. It didn’t work.

In any event, the 1960s X-Men realize that they like the future, so they stick around. In the future, Ice Man realizes that he’s gay and comes out. I guess what I’m saying is that knowing all of that and reading these issues now, it seems incredibly awkward. I’m sure that when this was first written people were just like, “That Ice Man is just unlucky in love” or “He’s trying too damn hard. Just cool it (pun) and the chicks will come running.” (I assume that the person reading this is Fonzi).

(Man, I love Fonzi when I was a kid. I really did.) 

But reading it now, it seems colored. Like this coming on this strong on the ladies (he did the same thing with Polaris back in his X-Men days too) is Bobby Drake trying to lie to himself. It’s more than a little awkward, I think.

Back to the comic. Swarm spends the next few pages giving us his origin. It’s Supervillain 101. The only thing that you need to know is that he’s a Nazi scientist who is made of bees. That’s it.

(This is what he looked liked in the comics.)

(This is what he looked liked when he debuted on TV's Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.)

He explains his plan and wants the two Champions to help him with his plan of breaking the queen of his swarm out of an amber encasement. This is what that guy, an Interpol agent, who Swarm killed last issue was carrying. Darkstar’s like, sure, we’ll do it. And of course, Ice Man goes full bat shit and starts yelling at her. Darkstar now has to explain to Bobby that this was going to be a trick and aww, fuck it, uses her darkforce to shatter the hive and release the queen bee.

(Christ, Bobby. What did I say five minutes ago about being a Fonzi?)

However, that backfires on Darkstar because the queen grows to huge proportions and starts attacking Champions. Unfortunately for her, she attacks Hercules who punches and kicks the crap out of the bee. The bee is knocked unconscious so Herc takes the bees and flings it from the Champion Building into the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the bees follow the queen and guess where that leaves Swarm? Our Nazi scientist super villain covered in bees, is no longer covered in bees. He’s literally now just a skeleton. And that’s how we end this issue with a skull—not Ghost Rider’s—staring at us with it’s mouth agape.

Like I said, this was a bit of a snooze in terms of issues. It wasn’t the worst comic that I’ve ever read, but it’s nowhere near the best. John Byrne did a fine job of penciling, but at the same time, it looks as if he’s a bit bored with his assignment. He’s still really good at what he does, it just seems that he knows what we do that this is book is pretty close to being cancelled.

I’m still not sure if Mantlo has a handle on these characters yet. I know that I complain about this a lot, but I’m still not seeing what’s keeping these people together. Aside from Hercules, most of these characters are jerks. Sure, they’re heroic jerks but they’re still jerks.

Two out of five vested Angels.