Champions #1 is what I truly love about the bronze age era of marvel comics. It has the classic look we all instantly recognise in this case the artist is Don Heck. From the cover and first splash page it shows us our new team “the champions” composed of a truly bizarre mix Hercules ,the ghost rider ,iceman, black widow and angel.
A group of iconic marvel heroes, although the costume change for angel seems like a step backwards.
This issue tells us how they all became a group in a happenstance meeting at a college campus.
Angel and iceman are introduced as “ two confused young men” they are students at the college who just happen to get attacked by Harpies from a portal (best way to introduce random bad guys in my opinion) and queue the ice puns during the fight such as “catch my snow drift”. Beautiful.
Hercules is there as a guest speaker talking about “mythology: what is means to you” (is it mythology if Hercules is there in person though?) Hercules then has a small fight with the mutates who just appear and start attacking but don't worry as Hercules narrates the whole fight with the added sound effects of “SPAK” “WAK” “SPRAK” and “BRAKK” to really but emphasis on the fight.
The black widow, an international super spy who has fought countless bad guys and fought alongside some of the most well known heroes is at the college to interview for a job teaching Russian.
Of course she is, apparently she needs the money and is still not over her brief relationship she had with Matt Murdock anyway Amazonian women randomly appear from a portal to fight so black widow rips off her disguise (a skirt) and introduces herself before scrapping.
Sometimes all I want from a comic is for a man to shout “so here's looking at you!” Before clocking an Amazonian warrior on the chin then shouting to the black widow to “strip for action” and this comic does not disappoint.
The ghost rider just happens to be riding through the college on his bike, I think that is the only way he is ever introduced into comics, but it works so why change it.
And in the greatest three panels of the book we see the change from “Johnny the world's greatest stunt rider Blaze” into “the ghost rider” all announced in the third person of course.
I love Ghost Rider but he's a little lacklustre in this issue, he looks menacing sure but he shoots a little hellfire from his hands before riding away, he's the odd one out for the group but sometimes that's needed for a group to grow into something special.
I won't ruin the whole plot but ends with a choice between forced marriage or the end of the universe which is the exact amount of ridiculousness I require in my comic choices.
I just love this comic, yes it's corny and over descriptive in parts like Hercules explaining that he's been thrown through a wall and is falling , while in mid air ,but it adds to the charm , the action the somewhat random plot , the artwork, my god the artwork is glorious.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thousands of comics just sitting in a box for the joy of just owning them , but once in a while find an old one out and have a read , you won't be disappointed.
