Champions #2 Review: The Cookout That Surpassed The Avengers
By Alex Widen
The Champions ship at the same time as the latest Avengers relaunch. Despite each having the same writer, it’s the kids who have the edge this week!
Champions #2
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
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They’ve randomly met, saved some civilians, and punched out a clown. The teenage superheroes who’ve declared themselves the Champions are officially a team now! What’s their next step? Waid and Ramos deliver the answer, which is high on laughs and interaction. Rather than go on patrols or pick more fights, Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) has settled on a cookout. She’s invited Nova, Viv Vision, Hulk (Amadeus Cho) and Spider-Man (Miles Morales) to a camping Q and A session.
Image by Marvel Comics
Her aim, as the unofficial leader, is to get the team more familiar with each other tactically and emotionally. Plus, kids always want to hang out and chill, right? This allows their individual personalities to come to the surface and interact without it being in the midst of battle. They exchange stats about their powers, show off, and do a tame version of “truth or dare.” Cho oozes big green testosterone at every turn, while Nova may or may not be trying to flirt with Viv.
Image by Marvel Comics
Enter: Cyclops! The Rodney Dangerfield of X-Men!
Little do the Champions know that they’re being stalked in the woods! It isn’t a super villain or anyone’s parents, it’s Cyclops. Specifically, it’s the teenage version of Cyclops stranded here from the past via the time travel shenanigans of All-New X-Men. After mistaking the Hulk for a threat, the young Cyclops quickly finds himself on the wrong side of a team he wanted to join. Who could blame him, he was on the last issue’s cover! If he can survive a team vote, Cyclops is in!
Image by Marvel Comics
Few characters have had as a long a history as well as bad a rap as Cyclops lately. The original X-Man from 1963, Cyclops has been placed in no-win situations with fans for decades. In 1986, the formation of X-Factor caused him to abandon his wife and son for a reunion, which began his spiral into unwinnable situations. From 2011’s Schism to 2012’s Avengers vs. X-Men to this year’s Death of X, Cyclops’ desperate and controversial efforts to save mutants have made him a pariah.
Image by Marvel Comics
As such, I can imagine Marvel’s senior editors see Cyclops as a messy character. Their attempt to deal with it has been to kill him off, claim he was always evil, and replace him with a teenage version of himself. If this sounds familiar, it should. Marvel did the exact same thing to Iron Man in The Crossing, an event from 1995-1996. Kang revealed that Iron Man was his mole all along, and a teen version replaced him. It stank back then, and it won’t work much better now with Cyclops.
Image by Marvel Comics
The Kids Are Alright!
Therefore, we are in a strange place in X-Men lore. Currently, Magneto and Sabretooth are considered run-of-the-mill X-Men, with Wolverine a legendary embodiment of the cause. Cyclops, at least the adult version, is literally compared to Hitler in this comic. In Death of X, Cyclops is fighting to prevent his own minority group from being gassed to death by indifferent aristocrats (the Inhumans). To Mark Waid’s credit, he works around all this to make a point against profiling.
Image by Marvel Comics
There are no super villains or explosive threats in Champions #2, but it doesn’t need them. It is a triumph of a comic full of memorable scenes with interesting characters. As only the second writer to handle Viv after Tom King, Waid seems to be in his element exploring the teen android. Kamala Khan’s progression from novice to inspirational heroine proceeds organically. Ramos’ art works well with large figures like Hulk, and it is an all around fun and engaging comic.
Image by Marvel Comics
What Feels Like the Billionth Relaunch Within a Decade!
Image by Marvel Comics
In fact, it is much more so than the relaunch of Avengers this week. Also written by Mark Waid, it features art by Mike del Mundo with Marco D’alfonso as co-colorist. What is left of the team tag in with Hercules to fight the monster Hoarfen in Central Park. The undermanned Sam Wilson quickly invites the son of Zeus back onto the roster in time for an important meeting with a potential investor. It’s Peter Parker, head of Parker Industries, doing the worst Tony Stark impression ever.
Image by Marvel Comics
Much like Cyclops, Peter Parker’s recent struggles began when senior editors wouldn’t let him be happy with a beloved red head and instead wanted to set back the clock by twenty years. That was 2007’s One More Day, and in many ways Spider-Man has never been the same since. The same editors who felt a married Parker was “too unrelatable” see no issue with having him be possessed by Dr. Octopus for a year or become a womanizing international billionaire overnight.
Image by Marvel Comics
Speaking of Iron Man, he’s absent, but Parker’s recent rivalry with him oozes throughout. Recent Amazing Spider-Man issues saw the pair fight over training Miles. This one sees Peter Parker all but beg the Avengers to allow him to fill Stark’s checkbook for them. The idea of the Marvel Universe being a large sprawling interactive thing is great, but not when it doesn’t allow characters to be individual. Champions is fine with its cast, but Avengers may struggle with this.
Image by Marvel Comics
If the Champions Are the Future, Are the Avengers the Past?
Image by Marvel Comics
The actual plot involves Kang (and his counterpart Scarlet Centurion) going after Vision for events chronicled in some of the last All-New All Different Avengers issues. The Vision went forward in time and kidnapped Kang’s infant self to stop his path to villainy. It didn’t work and now the Avengers are in peril of their own infant selves being destroyed. Kang appeared in a third of the previous Avengers volume’s issues, and at this point, he is becoming very repetitive.
Image by Marvel Comics
Next: See the Champions channel the New Warriors in issue #1!
Most characters at Marvel or DC Comics hit a road block once they develop beyond a particular profitable status quo. When that happens, or when senior editors have a midlife crisis, they’re zapped with a reset button. The young cast of Champions are still at a stage where they’re developing in new and exciting ways. It arguably has one of the most genuine lines about Cyclops in years. It represents new and exciting potential, which can be rare at Marvel Comics lately.