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?

Did Someone Say … the Stranger?

First off, cool title. I think it’s magnificently dorky. That’s the good news.

The bad news, aside from the art and a few cool moments, this book is a bit of a mess. We open with the Stilt-Man and Black Goliath are trading fists over Los Angeles. The Champions are coming back from last issue’s adventure with the Warlord Kaa.

Black Widow is driving so the rest of her teammates (Ghost Rider, Hercules, Angel, Ice Man and Dark Star) all get out and lend Black Goliath a hand. Go back and count how many heroes it takes to knock the Stilt-Man down. Stop, I’ll do it for you; it’s six. Six heroes (including one with Class 100 strength) to beat up a C-level villain that is normally laughed at by literally everyone.

(This is the Stilt-Man. Terrifying, isn't he?)

Aside from being really tall, Stilt-Man has a gun called the Z-Ray, which he proceeds to drop four panels into the story. Darkstar envelopes that thing into her Dark Force power and crushes it. So now, Stilt-Man is just a tall guy. Advantage Champions? You would think, but no.

Ice Man tries to put ice under the Stilt-Man’s stilts. It does nothing. Hercules knocks him over, but as the Stilt-Man (I love his name, BTW) lays on the ground, he telescopes his legs out donkey kicking Hercules AND Black Goliath. The Angel is like, I’m going down to kick his ass but Stilt-Man knocks him out of the sky with literally one punch. This was after being yelled at by Black Widow not to get too over confident.

The Ghost Rider takes a shot and rains hell fire. The Stilt-Man is like, eff this and takes off. Black Goliath tells the team that he’s going after them, so they should all go inside.

That’s where they meet Reggie Clayborne. It turns out that the Stilt-Man wanted a box that she had, but she didn’t want to give it to him because she thought it was bad. Reggie is an African American woman (stay with me, because this is kind of important to the point I’m going to make) and she tells the Champions about what’s in this McGuffin.

Turns out her “old man” Jerry was into drugs (of course he was) and he got “his-self messed up with a bunch of … well, gangsters, to get money, y’know? Anyway, he done stole this box from Stark International! I tol’ him to take it back, an’ I walked out on him when he wouldn’t! … An’ then I remembered hearin’ about the Champions on the TV. How you help the ‘Common Man’ an’, well I’m common, an’ I need help!”

First off, ugh. Secondly, from all accounts writer Bill Mantlo is a really nice guy, but he has to widen his social circle if he thinks that all black people talk like bit characters from “Good Times”. I mean, “he done stole”? C’mon man, that’s terrible writing. And way to boil down everyone to a stereotype: her boyfriend not only is into drugs, but he also steals. And he steals so indiscriminately that he takes something he has no idea what it is from Tony Stark. Alright. Sure. Fine. Let’s move this piece of shit along.

As if on cue, the cosmic entity known as the Stranger shows up. He’s like, I need that box because there’s a bomb in it. The Champions don’t even stop for a second to wonder whether this guy is telling the truth, they just start unloading on him.

Everyone except for Ghost Rider, because he’s still stuck as Johnny Blaze. Apparently Blaze can only turn into GR when there’s danger present—it’s kind of like his Spidey sense. The Stranger isn’t setting off any danger alarms, so he tries telling Ice Man that. Blaze starts to tell Bobby, but all Ice Man can say is, “Shut up Blaze! This big weirdo messed with a lady I like!”

Really? Fuck you, dude. Number one the lady that you like, Darkstar, a. doesn’t like you and b. started fighting the Stranger within seconds of him showing up. So he retaliated. Kind of sucks, but your “lady” shot first, Greedo. This is also not the first time that Ice Man is disgustingly hitting on Dark Star while they’re in the midst of a battle. Relax man, what is your deal. Wait until the fight is over before you start draping your icy meathooks all over her. Gross.

So Ice Man is being a dick to Ghost Rider. While they were fighting Stilt-Man, Black Widow warns Angel not to go into battle too over confidently. He responds by essentially telling her to get off his back, he’s done this a long time and blah, blah, blah. He gets his ass handed to him, really quick. So good job listening to your team leader, Warren.

By the way, Black Widow hasn’t done a hell of a lot of fighting during the last few issues. She’s either shouting vague orders, driving the Champion Car or hanging around in the background. I don’t think Mantlo had a plan for her yet.

Back to the fight, Ghost Rider tries going toe-to-toe with the Stranger who is like, forget this crap and just chucks GR out of 15-story window. Darkstar saves him before he snaps his neck and is Johnny Blaze happy? Nope. He accuses her of saving him because she’s a spy and she’s trying to get all of the Champions’ secrets. Darkstar is acting as a proxy for the audience because we’re all like what the fuck are you talking about, Johnny?

Black Widow is not too keen on Darkstar either. She’s a bit concerned as to how easy the team took her country woman in. It reads like she’s jealous, but that’s kind of dumb. Well, it should be dumb – but we just saw how stupid Mantlo managed to make a black woman sound. So it wouldn’t be surprising if he thought that the first emotion a woman experiences when a new woman joins a group is jealousy.

As this is going on Reggie’s bomb, called the Null-Life Bomb, is growing bigger and bigger and bigger. According to the Stranger, it’s now triggered and it’s going to blow up. Not only will Earth be lost, but the rest of the universe will be too. The Stranger has seen this before, but some guy sacrificed his life to stop it. It is implied that that the guy who did that is Reggie’s boyfriend. At least, that’s how I’m reading it, they never come out and explicitely say it.

The Stranger says that in order to disarm the bomb, all six of the Champions have to go inside the Null-Life Bomb and fix it. The book ends with them inside the bomb, ready to fight whatever comes their way.

I said that there were a few cool moments in this comic.

One of them was the way that Mantlo handled the Stilt-Man/Black Goliath fight. It was broadcast over the Champion TroubleAlert TV screen. They trade punches until BG gets fed up, rips off one of the Stilt-Man’s legs and beats him with it. Once he gets him off the ground, he rips off SM’s mask and bashes him in the face. It is what should have been done by the six of these guys in the first half of the book.

We also got another great cover by Dave Cockrum. I know that when Byrne politicked to get Cockrum off the X-Men, Cockrum still drew covers and it used to infuriate Byrne. I wonder if the same thing went on here? Byrne is doing the yeoman’s work of drawing 20+ pages and Cockrum does the covers. That would probably piss me off too, now that I think about it.

This was a bad comic. Not just for the dialogue but for the logic of it. Six Champions couldn’t get out of their own way to beat up on a guy like the fucking Stilt-Man. Anyone can beat up the Stilt-Man, he’s just a dude who grows tall. Then the Stranger comes into their headquarters and they fight him to a stand-still. The Stranger. He’s not Galactus, but he’s a pretty big hitter in the Marvel cosmic universe.

The Stanger is a weird looking guy. He has a stark white pointy mustache, a weird white beard and a red shirt without sleeves, plus a speedo hidden by a towel. He kind of looks like your drunk uncle who forwards racist emails and posts a lot of Breitbart articles on Facebook, commenting, "Makes you think ..." In other words, he doesn't look like he's tough. But he is. 

Looks aside, how can the Champions fight the Stranger to a draw and get stymied by the Stilt-Man in the same damn book? That makes zero sense. And I get it, you need to make the villain appear to be powerful, but not the Stilt-Man. He gets tall, that’s literally it. If you put him in an Uncle Sam costume, he’d be like the tenth coolest thing at a fair.

And the constant bickering is getting old. I know that Marvel loves to make a big deal about how their heroes act like real people, so sometimes they don’t get along, but do these six jabronis even like each other? Why are they hanging around with each other at this point? It’s not like the Fantastic Four where they’re family or the X-Men where they’re classmates. They’re just a bunch of randoms who all happen to live in Los Angeles.

There is never any time when they seem to genuinely like each other.

I give this two vest-wearing Angels. And that’s being kind.

Next entry, I’m going to get into how the Champions should be a lot more powerful than how they are written. It’s kind of bullshit, to be honest.