When the Black Widow broke it off with Daredevil, she said she was intent on not being a sidekick but desiring to establish herself as a single agent for justice. What does she do? She joins a team, or better put, she helps establish a brand, new team based in Los Angeles named "The Champions". Admittedly she ends up being the field leader for this ragtag crimefighting unit, but still and all.
But what a debut it is. Tony Isabella with artist Don Heck is credited with creating this new team from (let's admit it) cast offs from other vintage series. Save for Ghost Rider, who is most misfit of the bunch, none of the heroes had demonstrated the ability to hold a single title. The aforementioned Widow as fresh from the pages of DD, the Angel and the Iceman were X-Men without a home after the arrival of a batch of X-Men with the likes of Storm, Nightcrawler and Wolverine. Hercules had been guest-starring in Thor but save for a single story in an otherwise all-reprint Ka-Zar comic had neverh ad a solo outing in the Marvel Universe. But in tried-and-true tradition these disparate heroes gather together to battle the force of Olympus when one Pluto's schemes to capture Hercules and the goddess Venus from a couple of shotgun weddings.
The battle against Olympus rages in the second issue which turned out to be Don Heck's pentulimate effort on the series.
The sturdy George Tuska checked in with is equally sturdy comic book pages to wrap up what was effectively the Champions origin yarn. Bill Mantlo taps in to script Tony Isabella's plot.
The Widow gets a little more page time in the fourth issue which features more Tuska art with winning inks by Vince Colletta and a one-off story by Chris Claremont. The Champs battle a madman making super-soldiers from mental patients.
In his lasting outing Don Heck returns to help Tony Isabella tell a story about an inventor who is suffering from the pain of economic recession and turns to crime and his super-powerful exoskeleton. The Angel gets his inheritance, and this fortune becomes the money which will hopefully make the Champions a reliable super-team in the manner of the Tony Stark funded Avengers.
Under a crackerjack Jack Kirby cover we get the second part of the Rampage saga and the Black Widow becomes the leader of the brand-new Champions. The art chores are again handled by the Tuska-Colletta team.
Natasha and Ivan become the center of the next story which has the Champions battle a band of Soviet operatives. The Griffin is a spearhead for this attack when attempts to kidnap the hospitalized Rampage. The Widow meets up with the man who trained her to learn important secrets. This one features an Isabella script drawn by the Tuska-Colletta crew.
Rampage is used by the mastermind the Outsider who has a deadly secret related to Ivan. Rampage's anger is used against him. And the Champs encounter the combined might of the Titanium Man, the Crimson Dynamo, the Griffin and a new lovely enemy named Darkforce. Bill Manto becomes the regular writer with this issue joined by a green Bob Hall.
The battle against the Soviet team continues. Secrets are revealed and enemies uncovered. A new ally named Darkstar might have also appeared to assist the Champions in the future.
Bob Hall wraps up his tenure on the book which sadly I have to report was hurt by limited storytelling. But we get to the end of this longest Champions story with the Widow in charge of the team, Darkstar a new member of sorts, and the Angel sporting a better-looking costume. The Iceman is having second thoughts about the team. The cover is very deceptive in that this scene doesn't really happen.
The final issue in this first volume of The Champions Classic brings the team into its finest hour. With the threats at bay the team has a new headquarters and new equipment, though the quality of the latter is called into question. Black Goliath shows up to assist them team against the Stilt-Man. They have a surprisingly hard time against a baddie that Daredevil defeated alone. The big news is that the up-and- coming John Byrne steps in to take on the art chores. If the Champ had looked this good from the get-go they might've caught on with more fans.
In the second volume things begin to improve for the Black Widow a bit. Hercules is the clear focus for the covers of The Champions. and I guess was considered the powerhouse to make the team succeed. That meant that the Widow while being on the covers was rarely featured.
In a story by Mantlo and Byrne which turns out to be a sequel to the stunning Silver Surfer #5, the Stranger appears just as the Champions are presented with the threat of a bomb which will ignite and destroy nearly everything. It turns out the Strange is trying to end the threat, but the Champs don't believe him.
The end up being transported to another dimension to find a talisman which will help end the threat only to learn it was on Earth all along, brought there by Hercules after a battle alongside Thor against the blind despot Kamo-Tharn. After a desperate struggle the threat of the bomb is ended.
Ivan says goodbye to the Widow to deal with some family matters (or so he says) but soon after he leaves the team is confronted with the truly weird menace of the "man" called "Swarm". The bees get some measure of revenge in this Mantlo-Byrne outing.
In what turns out to be John Byrne's last issue as penciler of the mag, the bizarre Swarm is routed just in the nick of time.
The Champions guest-star in 1976's Iron Man Annual in a story by Bill Mantlo and the rock-steady George Tuska. Tuska is my all-time favorite Iron Man artist and he is in fine form on this one. The Champs are recruited to help Shellhead battle MODOK and the secret cabal called A.I.M.
George Tuska is on hand again in Avengers #163 as Hercules, Black Widow and Iceman are lured to NYC by Iron Man and attacked by him. It all has to do with a threat to the Beast and a rarely seen nemesis of Hercules called Typhon. Jim Shooter wrote this one which is a big old battle issue in the classic form.
Then we slip over to Super-Villain Team-Up where Doc Doom has conquered the world by means of a secret gas which has made all of humanity slave to his will. The Champions are just one team among many who are now Doom's willing thralls. Oddly it's up to Magneto to save the day.
That battle carries over into the penultimate issue of The Champions by Mantlo and artist Bob Hall. Hall has improved significantly since his last stint on the team and turns in a solid effort here as the heroes fight among themselves to save the world from Doctor Doom. For the record the "Surprise Guest-Star" is the Hulk.
Bill Mantlo turns once again to George Tuska for the final issue of The Champions. John Byrne supplies the inks on this one to create a very nice-looking finale. The Champions find themselves fighting not only the Sentinels but the evil mutants they appear to be chasing when they crash into the Champions' headquarters. We are promised that the story will continue in a fashion in the pages of The Avengers.
The Champions was an important stop in the career of the Black Widow. She'd left her partnership with Daredevil to find strength in herself and she instead found a team which was in sore need of practical field leadership. She proved fully capable of leading a team of men, even one including Hercules. The Champions failed as a comic book and as a team in the Marvel Universe, but it's difficult to lay much of that failure at the feet of the Widow.
More on the Widow and some of her amazing team-ups next time.
Rip Off
Are we seriously supposed to believe that Hercules would agree to Black Widow leading the team? He's a demi-god, a son of Zeus and he would regard playing second fiddle to a mortal woman as a humiliation.
ReplyDeleteI take your point. I think though he was sweet on her and perhaps that overrode his natural misogyny.
DeleteNice review of the Champions. Although I wasnt a big fan of the team, ut had to many disparate characters for me, I picked up the first 5 issue and a few other issues simply as they were available, but they grew on me . I always felt that Hercules could have been a better presented character at Marvel and been a stand alone character. Perhaps they didn't want to interfere with the Thor myth or there were issue with the copyright - I seem to remember Charlton and DC having Hercules comics -. They did give Hercules a (bland) one off issue in Marvel Premier 29 so they must have been thinking he may have had the ability to host his own comic.
ReplyDeleteHercules had that raucous self-absorbed personality which might've made it hard to focus on him in a series. Bob Layton was finally able to find a fix in the limited series. He's fun, but in the Champions he didn't really show himself all that much. Hercules is likely public domain so I doubt that was a hesitation, it's in fact why we have so many Hercules characters in different comics and cartoons. Can't copyright a myth...at least not yet.
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