we'll keep on fighting ... til issue 17

The Champions
Tony Isabella/Bill Mantlo/Don Heck/George Tuska/Bob Hall/John Byrne/Vince Colletta/Mike Esposito/Bob Layton
Marvel

... or cancellation.

what do you get when you combine a debonaire rich kid with wings, a frozen introvert/showoff, a Greek (half)god, a spy and a misunderstood outsider with supernatural powers? why, you get a team for Survivor. or a team for The Apprentice. or a Big Brother episode.

or you get The Champions, a hodge podge of somewhat popular Marvel characters who were just sitting around doing nothing, before writer Tony Isabella had this bright idea and said "why don't we throw them all in together in one supergroup?" (reports have it that it was an editorial decision). i mean, this was probably before the term 'supergroup' was even a word - although Isabella may have been a fan of CSNY, Blind Faith or even the short-lived Dirty Mac.

let's look at the membership. we have two ex-X-Men, the Angel (Warren Worthington III) and Iceman (Bobby Drake), who were pushed aside because Professor Charles Xavier just recruited new members (they had this cutting edge-fella by the name of Wolverine). flying and icemaking just weren't cool powers anymore (Storm could do both). so two confused young men ... okay, let's not go there.

- right now, we gotta punch your face.

we also have Hercules, the son of Zeus himself, an established Marvel character (DC had its own too - so i wonder what happens when they crossover? anybody thought about that, geniuses??), and the Black Widow (Natasha Romanova), a Russian spy (Cold War was still cold, baby). both had been and would still be members of the Avengers. Hercules appears here and there, notably helping out in the Avengers books and getting drunk, while Romanova was reluctantly coming off a particularly heady affair with Daredevil (can't blame her; what girl wouldn't want a man who senses every single emotion she has? nyahahaha!).

even her words sting - yobanaya suka!

and last but not least, we have the Ghost Rider - Johnny Blaze when he still had control over his powers. with Evel Knievel being hot at that time, a biker with a flaming skull seemed cool. in a 70's kind of cool. if they had made a movie out of the character then, they would have Dennis Hopper playing it.

ghost rider hates dogs.

would this goofy team work out? it seemed like a good idea then - the Champions was based out in L.A., which probably was both welcomed and spurned by the locals (New York has the most superheroes per square mile - and they're threatened by all sorts of bad guys all the time). by current continuity, the name Champions have been associated with embarrassment (even the Defenders, a "non-team" of sorts, had a better rep), and referred to in inside jokes (in the New Avengers series, when Captain America states he has a Champions license - meaning the prerogative to form any superhero team he wishes - Spider-Man flatout refuses, thinking the good Captain was reforming the Champions).

what he said.

the team's first adventure, where they all (conveniently) bump into each other at the UCLA campus, includes being attacked by creatures of Greek myth. Bobby and Warren are deciding whether to enroll or not, Natasha debates whether working as a professor for Russian languages is right for her, and Hercules is actually on-campus as a - go ahead, laugh, puny mortal - guest lecturer on mythology. Isabella busts out the usual cannon fodder - the Harpies, Cerberus, a few mutates (i never read that in Greek Myth 101) and a lame-ass joke called the Huntsman, all sent over by Pluto, god of the Underworld (a different one from the one inhabited by Kate Beckinsale), to capture Venus (whom you all know as the Goddess of Luuuuuv). the Ghost Rider then also conveniently drives by and conveniently gets involved.

everyone's gone deaf because of iPods.


"away, o ignominious fleas!"? - who writes this crap?

Venus, for reasons unknown, takes the guise of a professor of humanities (?), intent on meeting Natasha (??), of all people. i would think the Goddess of Beauty and Luuuuuv doesn't have to learn anything more from a wandering spy and adventurer (and tramp and harlot, if i were to believe the tabloids). Pluto reveals himself by the end of issue #1 and explains (if there's anything comic book villains are good at, its explaining themselves and their brilliant master plans) that they want to arrange marriages between Ares and Venus, and Hercules and Hippolyta (Queen of Amazons, mother of Wonder Woman - we smell crossover!!!). Pluto figures that by virtue of marriages between inhabitants of Olympus and Hades, Zeus would be powerless when Pluto begins his hostile takeover of Olympus, because of the divine policy that a spouse may not go against another, effectively taking Hercules and Venus out, because they'd be married to Pluto's allies. only Zeus doesn't see through this ruse, and he is friggin' taken by surprise at the possibility. Hercules learns of the deception and taunts his dad that he's lost his balls. the divine dumbness.

Herakles Moment #1

if anything at least, we get the priceless scene of Herc on a bike

so what do you know, the group invades Olympus and puts an end to the unholy matrimonies, with the usual family fisticuffs. seems like anyone can invade Olympus these days - there's an Amtrak Acela servicing that route, i heard.

Ares would get his revenge years later.

by issue #4, things get too hectic for Isabella that he takes a break - leaving the chore of resolving the issue of finding a direction for the "team" to - drum roll please - Chris Claremont! they stop an insane doctor who creates mindless superdrones from mental hospital patients - and then they find their calling in life? the shit is so bad, even Claremont probably insisted on selective lobotomy for this one.

Hercules: "but ... but .. where's the beer?"

everything falls together for the Champions, as Warren finally sees how much his inheritance is worth, effectively becoming the team's bankroller, and they hire their own manager. even the Black Widow agrees to lead them, despite misgivings by her partner Ivan Petrovich (every other Russian dude is named Ivan). Iceman though, plans to leave as soon as the corporation papers are filed and he gets the chunk of the merchandising rights.

Bobby and Warren checking their Apple stocks.

yes, even more menacing than the black plague, bird flu and AIDS. the team's next challenge comes in the form of a working man, Stuart Clarke, who tries the supervillain business because the regular one is so bad. creating an armored exoskeleton (allegedly Stark International, a.k.a. Iron Man's company, got the fat government contracts), Clarke hopes to get out of debt by ... robbing a bank. having too much pride i think, to open a bagel shop.

Clarke then fails to rob said bank because Iceman was walking by, and his inexperience causes more harm to civilians than necessary, leading to his press-given moniker, Rampage (sounds gay). but to his credit, (a) it takes four of the Champions to bring him down, and (b) he decides to commit suicide rather than hurt any more people (and promptly fails). i don't know which is worse - 4 world-class superhumans (okay, two, because Angel wasn't Archangel yet, and the Black Widow is just human) can't defeat a rank amateur individually, or said rank amateur cops out sobbing, hungry, broke. that bagel shop was a mighty better idea.



Herakles Moment #2

Prince of Power? pfah! more like Prince of Powder.

after Rampage, the team runs afoul of Communists in a complex, convoluted scheme involving Ivan's son (now called the Crimson Dynamo) and his hired hands (Titanium Man, Darkstar and the Griffin) and the Black Widow's former mentor. turns out the commies want Ivan and Natasha back in Moscow.

at last! the link between Natasha and Captain Jack Sparrow!

since we have a lot of silly things to say, let's have this splash page where everyone screams what they think. who needs a spokesman? Angel, in particular, asks the crowd a million dollar question. to which they should've answered, "who cares?"

while we're here, let's have another one:

The Champions find shocking vidcaps of Natasha's alleged sex tape

the Champions are champs again, defeating the Soviets in battle on a submarine, but Ivan and Natasha seem reluctant to tell everyone what the hell was going on. this spy-vs-spy shit wears down on the rest, again putting the status of the team up in the air. Darkstar however, defects to the Yankee side.

Herakles Moment #3

Hercules: "hey - don't - this is not my son! aw c'mon, guys!"


ready for more convoluted plots? the Champions meet up with Hawkeye and the Two-Gun Kid to beat up some space ghost called Kaa ...



somewhere out there, someone's going to sue Hercules soon


the Champions also meet Black Goliath (Bill Foster, now dead), as a sort of in-house tech guy. he loses no time in involving the Champions in his troubles with Stilt-Man (yeah that's direct marketing for you), who's after some sort of box.

just like Rampage, Stilt-Man proves too much for a beefed-up group (with Goliath and Darkstar), fighting them all to a standstill. with his pride hurt, Black Goliath goes after him, while the rest try to find out what's in the box.

am not even going to comment on what Darkstar says in the panel on the left.

if a D-list villain can beat you, you need to be cancelled.

the box contains a spacetime wormhole (call Shaider, quick!), from which the enigmatic being called the Stranger emerges. i say "enigmatic being" because that's what he's usually called by writers. meaning, who the fuck knows.

"five fighters for justice united to battle for the common man ... because the world still needs heroes!"

so what are these Champions doing in outer space, battling a blind petulant sorcerer (Kamo Tharnn), trying to prevent a cosmic bomb from exploding as per instructions from a space-traversing demi-god? shouldn't they be ... uhm, i don't know, keeping their activities local? common man, my ass. at the most they should be kicking out power-mad dictators.

Herakles Moment #4

are you ready for some football???

the next few story arcs still find the Champs being attacked for seemingly no reason, or helping out their other superhero pals with their own problems.

they fight a swarm ... embodying a man ... who just wants to free the queen bee ... say what?

its ... a ... giant ... fart!

then they get involved in a Dr. Doom-Magneto tug of war, resulting in mind-controlled people including the Hulk and the Avengers, and they spend most of the story beating each other up (yeah, we don't get too much superhero fights until Civil War changed that).

when God gave them superpowers, it didn't include better brains

Iron Man also involves them in another mindless slugfest with Modok (whom i'll just let my blog-brother Brian Hughes yap about). the armored Avenger starts out by wrecking stuff, and ends the same way, and in between punches fellow heroes "by instinct." ehh?

when you don't mean something, you punch someone to tell them you didn't mean it

we have other side issues, which would have made for great drama.

can't blame Natasha if she falls for the half-naked godling walking past her everyday. after cleaning the Augean stables, it'd be easy for Hercules to do the dishes. but wait till he wants to go out drinking all night long. they don't call her the Black Widow for nothing.

how come he never accorded the Wasp the same affection?

there's the Ghost Rider's seeming lack of self-esteem, as least when it comes to Darkstar, whom he thinks was accepted too easily by the group, because she doesn't have a flaming skullface. crap! a few issues more and we'd have the Ghost Rider-Iceman mano-a-mano because the latter wants to play kissy-face with the girl.


Herakles Moment #5

who wrote 'Ambosia' on Hercules' script? who??????

and i don't seem to remember reading an explanation why their equipment was malfunctioning in several issues. i guess they got canceled before Isabella was able to follow up on that.

even an overt plea couldn't stop cancellation.

and so at issue #17, just after they stop lame-ass X-Men villain the Sunflower, er Vanisher and his reprogrammed Sentinels (really?? i thought the Vanisher was just sneaky, not smart) from using them as decoys to kill the X-Men themselves (??), we're left hanging as to the future of the team. the remaining 9 fans who faithfully read the Champions committed suicide all within the calendar year 1978, just before the Jonestown incident in Guyana. there is no word if some fans actually traveled there to drink the Kool Aid.

so where are they now? Angel become Archangel and back to Angel, and he and Iceman have rejoined the X-Men and left their goofy days behind. Hercules is still a boozer and still flouts authority. the Black Widow is still out there being a spy. and the Ghost Rider, after several incarnations of his own series, joins the select circle of Marvel superheroes who have their own movie. apparently, somebody remembered them to include them in a team up with X-Force in a 1998 annual (more mutants!) but i have yet to read that.

at least the demise of the Champions also meant the end of "stupid crime-fighting methods". or maybe not (see New Warriors, Civil War).

i guess no one invented CGI yet
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issues read: #1-17, Iron Man Annual #4, Super Villain Team Up #14