Iron Man and the Champions

cover art by Al Milgrom

Iron Man Annual #4 (August 1977) does just what an annual or giant-sized comic should do. It tells an entertaining adventure story featuring characters we enjoy, but one that stands alone, not concerning itself with whatever ongoing stories might be taking place in the pages of those characters regular series.

Writer Bill Mantlo and artist George Tuska start off the story with a bang. Iron Man, who has just learned that villain MODOK is still alive, is smashing into an AIM base in search of the big-headed bad guy.

I don't think I read this one when it first came out and I'm pretty sure I'd remember it if I did. The cover, drawn by Al Milgrom, is great. MODOK's visual design is unusual and effective--he should be silly-looking, but in the hands of a good artist, he is always creepy looking. So featuring him on this effectively composed and action-packed cover would have been a selling point back in the day when paper-route money would have been enough to make it a viable impulse buy. The slam-bang opening would have added to book's appeal had I thumbed through the first few pages.


Iron Man trashes some robots and other booby traps, then realizes that MODOK is already gone, taking along a power source that is undoubtedly meant to power a super-weapon.

This is all taking place on the West Coast, so Iron Man decides to seek out some West Coast help to track down MODOK. Since this is before the West Coast Avengers, then the Champions become Iron Man's go-to hero team.

But this plan gets off to a bad start when Tony sees Ghost Rider and automatically attacks the scary-looking guy.

This leads to a brief tussle between Iron Man and the Champions before Black Widow orders everyone to shut up and platy nice. I think this largely entertaining issue is open to some criticism here. The cause of the fight between Iron Man and the Champions is pretty contrived and seems to be there simply because is obligatory for heroes to briefly fight each other before teaming up against the villain.

But Iron Man and the Champions do calm down and start playing nice. Iron Man explains the situation and briefs them on SHIELD intel about three different AIM hideouts in the area. Iron Man fights a mook who has been turned into a powerful robot, but he realizes all these battles are just a decoy.

Figuring that MODOK and the super weapon are at one of these spots, they divide into teams. Three Champions apiece check out two of the sites, while Iron Man investigates the third.

It's here that my other criticism of the story comes into play. It would have been nice to have Iron Man directly interacting with the Champions during a battle. For most of this story, he and the super-team are battling bad guys separately. Gee whiz, this is a team-up story. Let 'em team-up!

Anyway, it looks as if Black Widow, Hercules and Angel are about to get beaten by AIM agents, while Iceman, Dark Star and Ghost Rider are about to be eaten by sea monsters.

He rounds up the Champions, who had regained the upper hand in their own battles, and brings them back to the secret base he had raided at the beginning of the story. Iron Man has figured out MODOK's double-bluff in pretending to abandon his original H.Q., only to later return to it.

But MODOK has finished building his new power source into his chair, which greatly enhances his mental powers and allows him to essentially drop a mountain on top of the good guys. Hercules, though, manages to hold the mountain up long enough for Iron Man to Macgyver some of MODOK's equipment and boost his own power enough to blast everyone free.

MODOK's chair is damaged in this blast. Iron Man does try to save him, but the villain crashes to an apparent death despite this.

I've pointed out a few minor flaws--the contrived but thankfully brief fight between Iron Man and the Champions and the relative lack of interaction between the Avenger and the West Coast team. But overall, this is an exciting and well-constructed adventure tale. I enjoyed the Marvel superhero comics from this decade and appreciated extended story arcs, but I also enjoyed those annuals that effectively told a self-contained story that could be enjoyed entirely on its own. Comic Book Universes are big places. There's room for both long and short tales with their borders.

Next week, we ride one last time with the Pony Express.

But We Haven't Ended the Story Yet!--Part 2

The Champions was a fun series. It came into existence in 1975 and seemed to have been created to randomly toss together established heroes who (with the exception of Ghost Rider) were not being used elsewhere. Hercules and Black Widow were not active with the Avengers at that time. Angel and Iceman had recently left the X-Men when the new team members had been introduced. Tossing Ghost Rider on a team seems odd (and his presence was sometimes a little awkward in the series), but what the hey. Every superhero (or cursed-by-the-devil stunt cyclist) should have a chance to join a team, right?

It ran for 17 issues, plus a guest-star appearance in Godzilla. That Godzilla issue, by the way, contains one of single most entertaining moments in comic book history. The Champions are in San Francisco, trying to drive off the big monster. The Golden Gate bridge is damaged and Hercules throws a chunk of it at Godzilla--only to miss and accidentally knock a SHIELD helicarrier out of the sky.

An ongoing plot point in The Champions involved their headquarters--an L.A. skyscraper built with Angel's family fortune. The contractors used shoddy materials, so the security system was always either failing or actively trying to kill the heroes.



The 17th issue ends with the Champions defending their HQ against Sentinels, who had pursued some frightened mutants into the building. The robots are defeated, but then that's it. The series is cancelled.

But writer Bill Mantlo was able to borrow Spider Man for a brief time to finish up the Champion's story. In Peter Parker, Spectacular Spider-Man #17 (April 1978), Peter is sent to L.A. to get pictures of the break-up of the Champions. So obviously something has happened off-stage.

Angel--the only one left at the headquarters--explains that the various heroes suddenly decided it was time to move on for various personal reasons right after the Sentinel fight ended. Only Angel stayed, hoping to reform the group, only to discover that "the world does just fine without us."

It's actually a bit abrupt and not completely satisfying for anyone who had enjoyed The Champions. Another option might have been to have the Champions still together, teaming up with the webslinger, and allowing the events of the story to convince them it was time to call it quits. Or perhaps the Champions could have stayed together, available to pop up in other books when a writer wanted to use them. This second option, though, might have limited the availability of the individual characters to appear as needed. Angel, for instance, played a role in the X-Men's Death of Jean Grey story arc a short time later.

Also,  readers of a Spider-Man book are looking for a story that revolves around Spider-Man, so turning it into a Champion story (a book many of the readers probably hadn't been following) would admittedly have been a little unfair.

Oh, well. Bill Mantlo is incapable of writing a story that doesn't entertain you at some level. The ensuing story involves more shenanigans with the malfunctioning HQ, plus a villain who has mind-controlled Iceman to get belated revenge on the Champions.

This leads to a great fight scene illustrated by Sal Buscema. It begins in Peter Parker #17, with Iceman's identity initially concealed from both Spidey and the readers, then concludes in issue #18.





Iceman's identity is revealed, but the mind-control makes him hate Angel and Spider-Man to the point of wanting to kill them. And the story does a pretty good jog of pointing out just how powerful Bobby Drake can be if he isn't worried about hurting people.

In an inspired tactic, Spidey breaks the mind-control with a sudden shock--caused by carrying Iceman out of the building and into the scalding heat of a nearby car wash. The bad guy is defeated and Angel sics his lawyers on the building contractors. I also enjoy a moment in which Spider-Man isn't sure if Bobby Drake has a secret identity, so provides him with a web mask so that no one will recognize him coming out of the car wash.


So,though Peter Parker #17 & #18 doesn't really give us an emotionally satisfying end for the Champions, it does give us a cool fight scene and remind us of the importance of always knowing where the nearest car wash is located.