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.

 

The Shadow from the Stars

Champions 11 has the “pulse-pounding pencil” debut of John Byrne. To say that John Byrne was my favorite artist as a kid, is an understatement. I thought that his realistic and detailed take on comics was amazing. He had a style that was second-to-none as both a draftsman and in his perspective.

Heroes were always drawn bigger than life, when a dramatic moment was shown, Byrne zoomed up close and we saw the worry of favorite heroes. He had a way of drawing that was hard to beat: detailed, but at the same time minimalistic. Lines weren’t drawn just for the sake of drawing them. There was a reason. And every character was distinctive and had that unmistakable John Byrne flair.

So yeah, I’m a bit of a fan and even though he’s a bit raw in these pages, he’s much better than Bob Hall, George Tuska or Don Heck. Those guys weren’t bad, per se, but their art didn’t have much weight. They looked like two-dimensional drawings on a page. Byrne provides a 3D world for these characters to play in.

With that out of the way, the Champions are flying home in their brand new Champion Sky-Car when Angel yells to Black Widow, “What do you mean the controls are frozen!” Shit is going down, son! The thing is is that he’s the only one that seems freaked out about this, which is weird because Hercules, Ice Man and Black Widow (the others in the car) can’t fly.

Scientist Bill Foster is watching this happen from the roof and he’s worried because he’s the one that designed this sky-car. Good thing for Foster that he’s Black Goliath and he grew and caught the car before it hurt anyone. The Champions are a bit perplexed, Ice Man dances around the fact that Foster isn’t white guy, Hank Pym. Hercules hasn’t got time for the PC bullshit and comes right out and says, “Aye, in truth thou art neither Henry Pym or Clint Barton (Hawkeye, but he went as Goliath for awhile)! The Prince of Power hath fought beside both and – and they skin color doth mark thee as another!”

 (The costume from the middle panel is what BG looked like in this issue. He didn't get that more groovy uniform in the third panel until later.)

Real smooth, Herc. I’m sure your NAACP card is in the mail. Foster then explains who he is and why his name is Black Goliath*.

(The guy on the left is Clint Barton and the dude on the right is Henry Pym -- you can't sneak anything past the Son of Zeus!)

* There was an issue of Marvel Two-In-One (an excerpt shown above) where the Thing is talking to foster about his name. He basically said, “Everyone knows that you’re black (except Daredevil, I suppose), why do you need to have the word ‘black’ in front of goliath? Seems kind of dumb.” And Foster’s like, yeah, that is sorta dumb and kinda racists (he didn’t say the last part, but it’s implied) and changes his name to Goliath. It would be cool if he had a talking dog named Davey (reversal!), but he doesn’t.

 Oh yeah, remember how Darkstar was a bad guy for the last four issues? She’s a good guy now and everyone seems to dig her, especially Ice Man. But Black Widow is unsure. Which is kind of shitty because Natasha was a bad guy once before too before she signed on with the Avengers. They gave you a chance, girl. Pay it forward for your Russian pal.

  

All of a sudden Ghost Rider is in Arizona and he’s got in the middle of a cow stampede. He’s about to get trampled when all of a sudden Hawkeye (he’s white!) and the Two-Gun Kid show up to save his ass. Seems as if there’s a UFO in the area and it’s driving people plum loco. They look over their collective shoulders, and there it is right there on top of that mesa!

The Champions are working on their sky-car when the Disaster Scan picks up news of the UFO, which has been turning farmers/cowboys into zombies. One, how many farms are in Arizona? Two, how many real cowboys were there in the mid-70s? The scan showed Ghost Rider and Ice Man is all pissed off, “Ghost Rider! That flaming cycle freak’s right in the middle of it – we have to hear it on the boob-tube! So much for all our ‘one for all’ jazz!”

But Bobby forgets about it and starts hitting on Darkstar again who gives him the, wait for it, the, one more second, the COLD SHOULDER! The Champions fly off to Arizona leaving Black Goliath sitting around their headquarters. Sweet vetting process, Champions, Jesus. You just met that guy and you’re giving him the keys to your house.

They get to the Arizona desert and it turns out that the Warlord Kaa is back to bring havoc on the world. He’s a shadow alien who takes control of your mind if you’re in his presence. Basically he turns you into a zombie and you’ll fight for him. So the challenge for the Champions and Hawkeye and the Two-Gun Kid is beat the crap out of Kaa and his buddies, but not harm the zombie farmers and cowboys.

To make a long story short, they do and everything is great. Until the last panel. Look at this!

(The Stilt Man, Fool!!! indeed) 

Here’s a few things we learned in this issue:

-       Remember how I was complaining about the lack of coherency in Ghost Rider’s diction? One panel he’s talking like a demon, in the next he’s speaking like a surfer from Malibu? Turns out that’s on purpose. Ghost Rider does it on purpose. I guess to scare people, which is weird because you would think that a flaming skull might set people on edge. But I guess not. What is interesting is that the Angel is sick of how Ghost Rider talks and says, “Why don’t you knock off the spook routine and get on with it!” Truer words were never spoken, Warren.

-       I guess writer Bill Mantlo is trying to create some more tension. Black Widow feels weird about Dark Star, Ice Man doesn’t particularly like how they found about Kaa, Ghost Rider thinks that Hercules thinks he’s a demon (he does, he keeps telling it to his skull) and Angel thinks that GR shouldn’t be so fake. Which I know I agreed with you a paragraph ago but, fuck you, WWIII. I’m not sure if this tension is good or not, but it does seem to be a plan for future bitch sessions.

Overall, I liked this issue a bunch. It gets an extra Angel for the art alone and I liked the low-stakes action of it all. Plus, the cover is boss as hell. I’m going to give Champions 11, FIVE out of FIVE ANGELS! First time.

The Man Who Created the Black Window

This is another good issue of the Champions, writer Tony Isabella has really found his groove and things are going along pretty well. This is a classic set-up issue where stories are being laid out, so there’s not a ton of action. Well, meaningful action.

It opens with Hercules, Ice Man and Champions business manager Richard Fenster being attacked by some sort of remote control bomb. It takes them about three pages for the trio to capture it and then they give it to Natasha and her pal Ivan. The Russian ex-pats are going to look into this thing because something seems a bit too familiar about this rocket.

While this is going on, Ghost Rider and the Angel are visiting Stuart Clarke, aka Rampage, in the hospital. The Angel is trying to get Clarke to accept his gift of a lawyer, so that he can be defended in court. Clarke doesn’t want it (I don’t blame him) and he’s being a bit of a dick about it too. Oh yeah, he’s smoking. In a hospital. The 1970s were a weird time, man.

Angel wants to help Clarke because he feels bad for him. Johnny Blaze is like, “Dude, that’s dumb. I’m going to turn into Ghost Rider and scare him into taking your charity!”

As he bursts into the hotel room, he sees the villains Darkstar and the Griffin taking Clarke. Ghost Rider is so taken aback he yells, “Sweet jumping catfish!”

I didn’t read a ton of Ghost Rider books when I was a kid, but I don’t remember him talking like a stereotypical 1950’s TV cowboy. It’s really strange to see a guy with a flaming skull for a head, speak with these south western, homespun axioms. I’d think that you want a guy who looks like a demon, to talk like a demon. But that’s just me.

Otherwise he sounds like Jethro Bodine.

(I know this guy isn't a cowboy, but man alive Ghost Rider, any second now you're going to be prattling on and on about your ce-ment pond and Mrs. Drysdale. BTW, I really did not like "The Beverly Hillbillies". Even when I was a kid, I thought it was too low-brow and I genuinely like "Car 54, Where Are You?" and "Gilligan's Island")

Speaking of looks, the Griffin looks absolutely ridiculous. He’s got brown wings, a chalk white face that surrounded by shockingly yellow mane and he’s clad in a bright red onesie. Ghost Rider calls him “a homicidal maniac”, but he looks completely ridiculous.

(He even has a picture of a griffin on his belt! The fuck, dude?) 

While GR is fighting the bad guys, Angel rescues Clarke. How does Clarke repay WWIII? He punches him in the gut with one his exo-gloves that Darkstar smuggled in for him. Angel and Ghost Rider regroup and go back to the Champions headquarters, located in downtown LA.

Hercules, Ice Man and Fenster are walking around looking for the bomb perpetrator and the Champions business manager won’t shut up about tomorrow. Apparently, the Champions are going to announce to the world that they’re a new super team and looking for a bad guy in their headquarters could be bad publicity. Ice Man gets pissed and calls Fenster, “Dickey Boy” all while completely missing one of the bad guys hiding behind a file cabinet.

Apparently, Ice Man can either come up with a sick burn or be a detective. HE CAN’T DO BOTH!

The trio think that they stumble upon the bad guy, but it turns out to be a crybaby kid who wants the Champions to help him. We don’t know what, exactly, he wants them to do but he starts sobbing on Hercules and hugging him. Zounds indeed! The stealthily hidden villain, who I think is the Outcast (they never get around to mentioning his name), goes down the back staircase and out the door to freedom.

Which is fine because we move our attention to Ivan and Natasha. Ivan has taken apart the bomb and realizes that it wasn’t really a bomb at all, it was a remote-controlled device that was delivered a message. The message? One black pearl. That’s all Black Widow needs to hear and she jumps out a window. Was the pearl scary? No, she saw a guy on the rooftop, so she decided to track him down.

She meets up with him and realizes that it’s her old teacher – they guy from the title of this book! The man who created the Black Widow! He was about to tell her something, but he got shot by the Titanium Man. And that’s where this book ends.

When you think of classic Marvel teams like the Avengers or the X-Men or the Fantastic Four, they all came about in the early 1960s. The Champions debuted 15 years later, which isn’t really that much time, yet it feels like a completely different dynamic. Like I said, I think things are starting to go in the right direction for this book, but it still has a weird, ad-hoc sort of vibe to it.

When you go back and read those other team books, it seemed like there was more cohesion, it was more tightly knit. And I’m not sure whether that’s due to the writing of Stan Lee and art of Jack Kirby (two of the all-time titans of the industry). Or whether it’s because I didn’t read those first books until much later, after I already knew the stories and the background, so I was more familiar with the characters and willing to smooth over the rough, early patches.

But even though Isabella is doing a fine job and the books are entertaining, something seems to be off. Perhaps it’s because I know that I’m reading a finite book that most people have forgotten and that has colored my view – almost as if I’m looking for the one panel where the collective comic community threw up its hands and said, “We’re out!” but there’s no real sense of gravitas here.

It sounds as if it’s me, I’m the one who needs to change my perspective on this book and just read it for what it is: a fun, weird book centered around some C-list Marvel characters and not worry about any larger significance. One of the things that bugs me about modern comics is how super serious every character seems to be. I like books, like Kate Bishop: Hawkeye (I know that’s not the title), where there are some stakes, but the writing is bouncy and fun. The Champions are a lot like that, but in a more ironic way. It is intended to be serious and full of consequences (Ice Man has been having an existential crisis and bitching about quitting the super hero game to become an accountant – which sounds really funny after I reread it) but it’s not.

In a few issues, the Champions are going to fight a former Nazi scientist who’s made of bees. And that sounds pretty damn awesome.

BTW, despite the aesthetics of the Griffin, the cover is pretty damn dope. Six out of seven!

Anyway, I’d give this issue of Champions three out of five Angels wearing a vest.