It Came from the Long Box: The Champions, issue 2

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The Champions, Issue 2, January 1976. “Whom the Gods Would Join…”

When last we left the odd collective of second banana superheroes who would (briefly) become the Champions, we found them assembled for the flimsiest assortment of reasons imaginable—one of greatest examples of It’s In the Script I can think of—on the campus of UCLA. There, two mutants, probably the only two Greek demigods who live on Earth (and who at the moment were completely unaware of each other’s proximity), an ex-Soviet master spy and a Hollywood motorcycle stuntman with a demonic alter ego found themselves battling a host of supernatural menaces.

In the end, they found themselves confronted by those behind the whole thing:  Pluto, the Lord of the Underworld, and his sidekicks Ares the God of War* and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Arrayed against them is Hercules, the Black Widow, the winged Angel, Iceman and Ghost Rider, with a special appearance by Venus, the Goddess of Love.

As our second chapter opens, Our Heroes listen as Pluto proclaims that, by the order of Zeus, King of the Gods (and Hercules’ father), Herc and Venus are to return to Mt. Olympus. There, Herc will marry Hippolyta, and Venus will wed Ares. Hercules, who is sort of the ultimate muscle bound hero / doofus type, shouts that this cannot be so.  Pluto insists that it is, and moreover, that if the heroes resist, “The universe dies!”

The impetuous Hercules attacks, easily routs Ares, but is personally powerless against Pluto due to events detailed in an old Thor comic book from way back in 1966.  (Marvel fans looove their continuity!) As Herc gets his Olympian ass kicked, Angel wants to jump into the fray. However, the beauteous Black Widow points out that they are way out of their league.

Instead, she formulates a brilliant plan.  Angel and Ghost Rider will distract Pluto by attacking him head on (while miraculously keeping from being killed), as the Widow and Venus manage to drag the 325 lb. Herc to safety in the five seconds that Pluto is blasting Angel and Ghost Rider with some phony-baloney ray beams from his hands.

Although the action is poorly drawn by artist Don Heck, the idea is that (I guess) everyone is congregated right around a wormhole through which the baddies appeared, one connecting Mt. Olympus and the UCLA campus. However, the evil Olympians are all on the other side. So after the good guys get themselves and Hercules to safety, Iceman seals up the portal with a boulder-sized hunk of ice (as drawn). This despite the fact that the text describes him having created a literal mountain of the stuff to do the job.  Again, the art here is none too great.

Ares and Hippolyta want to batter through the ice, but Pluto is like, Screw ‘Dat, and spells them to Zeus’ court for a clumsy wad of exposition.  Pluto has made a deal with all the other various Marvel Lords of the Underworlds—Marvel had a lot of supernatural stuff back in the ’70s, and there were numerous underworld gods and Satan analogues running around, including, well, Satan— and their demand to keep the peace is for Zeus to marry off Herc and Venus to Hippolyta and Ares.  If not, the Underworld Alliance will attack Mt. Olympus.  Under such an onslaught, even Olympus would eventually fall, and since it’s a mystic realm, its destruction would destroy the universe.  Or something.

Luckily for Pluto, Zeus is as much of a dull-witted hothead as his son Hercules.  (Which, to be fair, isn’t too far off from the actual Greek mythos.)   Not one for thinking overmuch, Zeus has given in to Pluto’s demand, albeit with characteristic truculence.

Zeus heatedly stalks off, which conveniently allows Pluto to declaim on the true purpose of his plan.  According to him (or more accurately, Tony Isabella, the author of this story) , the “sacred laws” of Olympus dictate that “wife may not oppose husband, nor husband wife.”  (That gender neutral clause seems a little progressive for Mt. Olympus, doesn’t it?)  The idea is that the only two gods who could stop Pluto, Ares and Hippolyta from overthrowing Zeus are Hercules and Venus.  If they are married to the conspirators, they would be forsworn from opposing their coup.  There seems to be several problems with that line of thinking, but that’s the idea.

Back at UCLA, the various heroes are comparing notes, as Hercules typically blows a lot of guff.  Then a character called the Huntsman appears (apparently last seen in an issue of Sub-Mariner[?]), who is, we are told, “The one creature no Olympian can conquer!”

Here we’re getting into some real nerd territory.  Unless I miss my guess, this is one of several character meant as an in-joke F.U. to former Marvel Editor in Chief* Jim Shooter.  Shooter was a gangly 6′ 6″ and at one time sported a Moe Howard bowl cut, and was apparently considered by many to be a major-league dick (although he wrote some really good comics), and who eventually found himself the butt of elaborate jokes like this.

I remember another Shooter surrogate in a DC comic issue of their Legends mini-series, written by John Ostrander and drawn by John Byrne. This cast a very obvious Shooter surrogate (Byrne being a much better artist than Heck, after all) as the epically bombastic yet inept Sunspot. This fellow was clearly modeled on the Star Brand character from Shooter’s New Universe line, an attempt to create a completely new comic book universe over at Marvel.  The Guy Gardner Green Lantern kicked that guy’s ass.

Most of the Marvel higher ups, however, which definitely including Shooter, were against this idea. Shooter eventually rewrote a key issue to minimize Jesus’ presence, and the latter disappeared from the book.  (Indeed, ‘Satan’ was later retconned in the series as having been a disguised Mephisto, a safer Satan analogue.) Shooter maintains that he was ordered to rewrite the story, and this makes sense, because he was only an Assistant Editor at the time and would have lacked authority to do so on his own. However, The Champions started up shortly after all this had happened, and Isabella was clearly carrying a grudge. The more intriguing question; did Isabella’s editors get the myriad of Shooter references? It’s hard to believe they didn’t, but in any case, they ended up in print.]

Shooter had a reputation as an egomaniac and control freak, and many resented how he pushed his weight around when he became Marvel’s editor-in-chief.  So it’ s not just the fact that Huntsman is tall and skinny and has that haircut.  It’s the fact that he pretty much gets his ass handed to him while shouting things like, “Disparage not my physical appearance, whelp.  For besides my Zeus-given ability, I can now command the flaming weapons of Pluto as well!”  In other words, Huntsman is only powerful because his higher-ups have lent him their authority.  Moreover, he’s several times rendered powerless when his “staff” is taken away from him. (Get it?) In any case, he’s knocked out by one of Ghost Rider’s hellfire blasts with perfunctory, embarrassing ease.

Anyway, I hope I am right about all that, because otherwise that’s a useless discursion even for me. I’m pretty sure I am, though, especially now that I’ve learned about the Isabella / Shooter Ghost Rider thing. It should also be noted that Isabella was either taken off or quit Ghost Rider shortly thereafter.

Before this, though, Huntsman’s whammy had knocked out Herc and Venus, who as Olympians are especially vulnerable to his magical weapons.  (Again, this is a reach.  Hercules, like Thor, is pretty monty in the Marvel Universe, and surely any weapon effective against him would kill ordinary humans.  Of course, a lot more superheroes would get killed if they followed logic like that.)

Huntsman runs off, and with Angel nominating the Black Widow to lead the team into action (“You’re a darned site more attractive than the last team leader I worked with,” he gushes). She accepts, and assigns Ghost Rider to watch over the unconscious Olympians while she, Angel and Iceman pursue the Huntsman.  (Kind of ironic, eh?  Because he’s the Huntsman…never mind.) This makes TOTAL sense, by the way, because it was Ghost Rider who just took out the Huntsman with ease like a minute ago. And so the Widow’s legendary reign as one of the worst team leaders ever is off to a grand start.

Anyhoo, the Huntsman calls up a big glowing monster, a rather dumb one to start with and further sabotaged by the bad artwork, and a boring fight ensues. However, the Black Widow figures out a way to electrocute the monster, and conveniently at the same time the juice travels up Huntsman’s wooden staff and zaps him, too.  In case you are saying wait a minute, we get this lazy explanation:  “The Huntsman’s staff is made of wood native to Olympus—wood that is, against all mortal logic—conductive!”  You heard it here first.  And last.

Huntsman can bend time and space, I guess (for such a powerful character, he sure is lame) and he threatens to send the heroes “elsewhere.”*  Meanwhile, another portal opens up near where Ghost Rider is guarding the napping gods.  Pluto, Ares and Hippolyta pop out, and GR tries to stop them with his mightiest hellfire blast.  Sadly, though, the apparent villains are in fact the Widow, Angel and Iceman, teleported there and disguised by Huntsman’s magic.  As GR freaks over taking out his buddies, he’s clobbered himself.

Huntsman zaps his demigod victims back to Olympus.  After this, the rest of the heroes wake up, and Ice Man tears Johnny Blaze (who mystically changes to Ghost Rider whenever there is danger afoot) a new one.  With no seeming way for four mortals to get to Olympus, they dejectedly split up:  “There are many paths a man may take, and many the paths of others he will cross in a lifetime.  But there are times when all paths seem to lead but to one destination.  And when that destination is despair—something within the human soul dies.”

Wow!

Next:  The Assault on Mt. Olympus and the end of this team origin storyline. However, since the book came out bimonthly, it took some patience to get there. Sadly, the lame art and halfhearted story didn’t provide much recompense.

As I noted earlier, I basically read the Champions because I dug Ghost Rider (the only Champions character to have, at this point in time, his own book).  How does he fare here in this issue?

The Good:  When Huntsman’s magic takes out everyone else, Ghost Rider is shielded by “my Satanic power.”  He is then able to zap and temporarily disable the Huntsman.  Ghost Rider’s unique powers had many little employments, although this one smells of a plot convenience.

The Bad:  Huntsman makes GR into a chump by getting him to attack his own “friends.”  (As he calls them, even though he’s known them for about half an hour.)  His impotence is emphasized by the fact that in the aftermath of this, he turns back into ordinary old Johnny Blaze.  By the way, I’m not sure how Ghost Rider avoided either killing his buddies or frying their souls, since presumably he launched his most powerful blast attack against what he perceived to be a trio of super-powerful demigods rushing him.

Note: The Champions issues 1-11 can be found, reprinted in full color, in the trade paperback edition The Champions Classic, Vol. 1.

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