Led by Hercules and Black Widow, the original Champions made their debut 50 years ago, but never really took off. — Photos: Marvel Comics
The title of “champions” is usually given to the best of the best, or the winners of something, in recognition of their achievements. Unfortunately, it also happens to be the name of one of Marvel Comics worst ever superhero teams!
Introduced half-a-century ago, the Champions is actually the precursor to the original West Coast Avengers (or LA Avengers), but the team was doomed to fail even before it made its debut.
Why bother then? Well, co-creators Tony Isabella (writer) and Don Heck (artist) were probably optimistic it would be a success, despite their initial plans of highlighting Black Goliath as the lead character being hijacked; or maybe they just couldn’t care less, as there was a revolving creative team ready to replace them.
Anyway, with a roster of Hercules, Black Widow, Ghost Rider, Iceman and Angel at their disposal – what could go wrong? Well... how about everything! Today, we revisit one of Marvel’s biggest flops and analyse whether could things could have been done better.
The concept was initially simple – the Avengers are based in the East Coast, so a West Coast branch would make sense in terms of the logistics and area they would cover.
However, unlike future West Coast Avengers franchises which used established Avengers in their roster (Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Hank Pym, Iron Man, Wonder Man and Tigra), the Champions had (only) two recognisable ex-Avengers (Hercules and Black Widow) and the presence of two ex-X-Men (Angel and Beast) was somewhat confusing. It wasn’t even a case of Avengers + X-Men = success, as these were not even grade A team members at the time!
So, it wasn’t surprising that the idea of throwing together a Russian spy, two mutants, a demi-god, and a demon, and expecting them to carry on the tradition of Earth Mightiest Heroes, proved too tall of an order for them.
Led by Hercules and Black Widow, the original Champions made their debut 50 years ago, but never really took off. — Photos: Marvel Comics
In an interview with Back Issues #65, Isabella explained that the Champions was not meant to be a team book, but a humorous heroes-on-the-highway series in the vein of Route 66, featuring Angel and Iceman.
Black Goliath (whose series Isabella was writing at the time) was planned to join the Champions later. His choice of the Black Widow, Hercules, and the Ghost Rider was to cater for team dynamics (a woman, a strong man, and at least one character with their own series). Anyway, it is what it is and October 1975 marked the debut of the Champions.
Had the same roll call be used in present day, I still doubt it would have worked. With the Black Widow already team-tied with the Thunderbolts, only a visually appealing Ghost Rider will illuminate the team. I really can’t picture Hercules, Ice Man or the Angel pulling in the sales.
The presence of some X-Men in the team was quite confusing.
Despite the “challenges”, the Champions still managed to last 17 issues. On paper, the scripts – which include a plot to overthrow Zeus by Olympian Gods, the marriage of Hercules and Venus, a botched super soldier serum, the gathering of Russian super villains, and the Sentinels invading LA – all make for interesting reading material. Alas, at the hands of the Champions, we have a combination between a comedy of errors and horror of horrors.
To be fair, there were some notable breakthroughs in this series, i.e. the introduction of Darkstar (a Russian Mutant) and Swarm (a bees-made monster who later appeared in the Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends cartoon), and some Black widow revelations. Too bad, they were not revolutionary enough to carry this team forward.
Not even getting Black Goliath in the book helped it become a success.
The entire 17 issues journey was a tough one. Firstly, publication was erratic; with the series switching between monthly and bi-monthly throughout its run.
In a span of 17 issues, the series had 12 different writer/penciller/inker combinations! Heck, had it not been for the legendary John Byrne filling in for #11-#15, I would have never even bought this book. In between all this, one of the sub plots involved the Champions Headquarters being their biggest enemy.
In the end, the above mentioned issues were just the least of the team’s problems, as the root cause was actually the Champions lack of a proper identity. Having two ex-Avengers and ex-X-men sandwiching an anti-hero doesn’t create an instantly winnable super team. Whether it was a West Coast Avengers or Isabella’s Route 66 vision, truth is these visions never materialised.
There were half baked efforts to save the team, i.e. induction of Darkstar and (drum roll please) Black Goliath, but it was to no avail. Even having A-grader villains like Doctor Doom and Magneto pop up (#16) couldn’t prolong the Champions’ life.
The saddest part was they didnt even have proper closure in their own series but had to disband (in flashback mode some more) in the pages of Spectacular Spider-Man #17 and #18.
Marvel eventually created a new team of Champions comprising teenage superheroes that had nothing to do with the original.
In October 2016, a new Champions team was introduced, comprising trending (key word) teenage superheroes (Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan version), Spidey (Miles Morales), Nova(Sam Alexander), Hulk (Amadeus Cho), and Viv Vision (Vision’s daughter).
The emphasis here is that they have no connection (whatsoever) with the original 1970s Champions team permanently closing all doors (and multiverses hopefully) for an original Champions reunion.
