Marvel Firsts: The 1970s, v. 1

Collects: Amazing Adventures #1, 11, and 18; Savage Tales #1; Marvel Spotlight #1-2 and 5; Marvel Feature #1, Marvel Premiere #1; Tomb of Dracula #1; Hero for Hire #1; Combat Kelly & the Deadly Dozen #1; Outlaw Kid #10; Gunhawks #1; The Cat #1; Shanna the She-Devil #1; and Monster of Frankenstein #1 (1970-3)

Released: January 2012 (Marvel)

Format: 392 pages / color (except one b-&-w story) / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785163800

What is this?: The first issues of the hottest new comic books that early 1970s Marvel has to offer.

The culprits: Too many to list, but writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich show up a lot, as does artist Mike Ploog.

Grab-bag books, like Marvel Firsts: The 1970s, v. 1, are a tough sell. I think most readers are looking for a book united by plot rather than looser themes, such as date or character. Still, I was looking forward to reading the stories included in Marvel Firsts.

I have read many of the stories before in the first volumes of Essential series: Killraven (Amazing Adventures #18), Tomb of Dracula (#1), Power Man (Hero for Hire #1), Ghost Rider (Marvel Spotlight #5), Defenders (Marvel Feature #1). Still, the other stories held some interest. The book, I hoped, would give a glimpse into how Marvel was trying to expand its line in the first few years of the 1970s.

The collection kicks off with Amazing Adventures #1, which seems as natural an idea as there could have been in the Marvel Universe at the time: a book with a Black Widow story and an Inhumans story. It’s a good start, too, with the Inhumans story written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby; the Black Widow story is drawn by John Buscema. But from there, Marvel goes in a different direction; there are only three more straightforward superhero stories included: the Defenders in Marvel Feature #1, the Cat in The Cat #1, and Power Man in Hero for Hire #1, and even Hero for Hire isn’t a pure superhero title, as tinged as it is by the Blaxploitation genre.

The two major genres Marvel was pushing into at the time were horror and westerns. On the horror side, Tomb of Dracula #1 started a long-running title, and it is the best story in the book; it’s hard to read the tale, with Gene Colan‘s atmospheric pencils, and not want to know what comes next. Monster of Frankenstein #1 is a less successful attempt to revive a 19th-century classic monster; whereas Tomb of Dracula leaps from the end of Stoker’s novel to the ‘70s, with Dracula being an active character in the book, Monster of Frankenstein is set at the end of the 1800s, and the monster is inanimate throughout. A quicker start would have helped generate interest. Rounding out the Universal movie monster troika is the Wolfman — well, “Werewolf by Night,” in Marvel Spotlight #2. It’s a competent story, playing on themes of family, curses, and the animal inside, but unlike Tomb of Dracula, it doesn’t have Colan’s art to balance its typically ‘70s wordiness.

Some might consider Ghost Rider a superhero (all right, he is), but his origin in Marvel Spotlight #5 is definitely a horror story — horrific deaths, Satanic rituals, a flawed deal with the devil, a curse … yep, that’s horror, no matter how nonsensical the plot is. I’m lukewarm on Mike Ploog‘s art, but the visuals are striking. Savage Tales #1 is a simple but satisfying black-and-white story featuring the first appearance of Man-Thing, written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. (They also collaborated on Tomb of Dracula #1.) Marvel used the magazine format to get impressive art from Gray Morrow; I was familiar with Colan, but Morrow’s art caught me pleasantly by surprise. Conway so liked the idea of a scientist using a formula on himself to keep it from falling into the wrong hands that he used it again in Amazing Adventures #11, in which the X-Men’s Beast transforms himself into a hairy monster. Beast was a hero before his solo stories and a hero after he embraced his transformation, but this is a horror story — right down to a “what have I done?” moment.

The Western was back in the early ‘70s, but there was less variety in the content than there were in the horror stories. Your options were a conflicted Native American (Red Wolf in Marvel Spotlight #1), a former slave and slave owner teaming up (Gunhawks in Gunhawks #1), or a young white guy (Outlaw Kid in Outlaw Kid #10). As you might guess, the books with non-white protagonists are painfully earnest and at times a bit uncomfortable. For instance, Marvel Spotlight #1 is full of pseudo-Indian mysticism, with little to recommend it but the race of Red Wolf, its protagonist. I don’t doubt that some slaves, like Reno Jones in Gunhawks, were treated well enough they might fight against their own interests and hold no ill will against their former masters. But in the long term, it’s problematic — Reno is atypical, and his own self-image eventually has to reflect that. Still, the story of young gunslingers Reno and Kid Cassidy is the most entertaining of the Westerns, with some nice banter between the leads, and Reno and Kid are treated as equals. Outlaw Kid #10’s cover promises a “Western Spider-Man,” and it delivers: the young Outlaw Kid takes on corruption in his home town in a mask, making him seem like a criminal, against the wishes of his blind, pacifist father. It doesn’t catch the magic of Spider-Man, but that’s a high standard, and Outlaw Kid is mostly inoffensive.

Other genres in the book include war, jungle, and sci-fi comics. Combat Kelly and the Deadly Dozen, a Sgt. Fury spinoff, shows why war comics were on the way out, despite the cast’s racial diversity and the inclusion of a female soldier. (Of course, the cast is much too large, and the woman ties her uniform shirt at her sternum to expose her midriff.) Shanna the She-Devil is fine but seems mostly an excuse for George Tuska to draw exotic animals and a woman wearing a leopard skin swimsuit. (Shanna made the outfit herself from a leopard massacred in her zoo so that she could gain “sight-scent recognitions with [the leopard’s] cubs.” Grisly.) Marvel Premiere #1 is nearly as exciting as you would expect a sci-fi story featuring Adam Warlock and the High Evolutionary gabbing to be. Amazing Adventures #18 sets up Killraven’s War of the Words backstory with remarkable efficiency and imagination, although some of its trappings come across as ridiculous today (and I suspect did in 1973, as well).

You would think Marvel would hardly need an excuse to praise their diversity in genre, gender, and race. But they don’t, and that’s my biggest disappointment with Marvel Firsts. I wanted introductory essays. I wanted context. I wanted timelines, charts, figures — something to pull this disparate set of comics together. It didn’t have to be elaborate; it just needed to exist. There is a little provided; each issue gets a flat sentence or two about the title, date, and character (“Amazing Adventures #11, published in December 1970, switched focus from Black Widow and the Inhumans, becoming the first ongoing series for a heavily revamped Beast, formerly of the X-Men”). Between the chronologically ordered issues are pages showing the covers of Marvel’s contemporary new series, with a brief sentence about each (usually, genre, title, date, and whether it was a reprint series). Still, I would like to know more. When did these series end? How many issues did they last? Was there anything interesting about them — I mean, is there a good reason the cover of humor comic Harvey #1 looked like Archie with Marvel trade dress pasted on it? I’d be willing to pay a bit more for this, or Amazing Adventures #18 could have been shifted to Marvel Firsts: The 1970s, v. 2.

As a random slice of Marvel at one of its most diverse times, Marvel Firsts: The 1970s, v. 1, is pretty impressive. I haven’t harped on it, but it’s remarkable how many of the protagonists aren’t just the same old white guys; Black Widow was an established character who got her own series, and the Cat (later Tigra), Power Man, and Shanna the She-Devil were created for their series. At least three members of the Deadly Dozen were not white (and one was not male), and Reno Jones of Gunhawks and Red Wolf weren’t white either. Most of these characters fell flat on their faces — only Power Man kept his series for very long — but you have to applaud Marvel for trying.

It’s unfortunate that most of the art and writing in Marvel Firsts cannot match the best of Marvel at the time, but given that many of these titles shifted their emphasis frequently or were second-tier to begin with, it’s understandable the top talent weren’t assigned to these stories, and those who were weren’t inspired to turn in their top work. It’s also sad that Conan the Barbarian #1 couldn’t be included because of legal reasons (not that the book mentioned this). And I wish there would have been more context. But it’s not wise to focus on what isn’t here; what is here is a collection of frequently enjoyable stories — although occasionally that enjoyment comes from how badly the stories have aged (or how badly they were told in the first place).

Rating: 2.5 of 5

Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic, v. 1

Collects: Ghost Rider, v. 2, #1-10 (1990-1)

Released: November 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 264 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785137351

What is this?: A new Ghost Rider, proclaiming himself the Spirit of Vengeance, takes to the streets of New York.

The culprits: Writer Howard Mackie and penciler Javier Saltares

Part the First: Why was this so popular; or, The ‘90s were a weird time

Despite Gambit Classic not being a very good book, I can understand the popularity of the title character — Gambit is a mysterious rogue who appears to be on the side of heroes, appearing in the most popular comic book of the time. He’s anti-authoritarian. He shows himself equal and similar to Marvel’s most popular mutant, Wolverine. I don’t necessarily agree with that popularity now. But the rationalization makes sense.

Ghost Rider, v. 2 … It’s a nice visual. I get that. But the stories that started the series, reprinted in Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic, v. 1, aren’t good. At all. Was it just that we enjoyed unfettered violence against criminals? Or were we looking for something empty of deep thought, a sort of guilty pleasure that wasn’t a pleasure and should have made us feel something deeper than guilt? (A super-guilt, perhaps.) Maybe after a decade out of circulation, the public was in the mood for a new Ghost Rider, someone who aped the outward form of the character without any of the (God help me) depth the Johnny Blaze version had?

I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to figure it out either.

Part the Second: Howard Mackie; or, The architect of sins

No, I’m not going to think about writer Howard Mackie right now. For all my sins, I don’t deserve that.

Part the Third: Ghost Rider himself; or, The old hero is a new flame

Who is this Ghost Rider? He’s the Spirit of Vengeance, or so he says. Beyond that? I don’t know. Does he have any connection to the previous Ghost Rider? Not that I can see, and in ten issues, he doesn’t really seem to care that much. He does like vengeance quite a bit, and he’s big on the innocents. He has a “penance stare,” which essentially sears the souls of evildoers. Nothing wrong with that, but everyone uniformly calls it the “penance stare” for some reason, without that name being publicized or, you know, obvious. Perhaps he also likes long walks on the shores of Hell and pina coladas. I don't know.

And what about the new host, Danny Ketch? Who is he? I don’t know much about him, either. You would thing, as the hero, we would get to know him. After ten issues, what we know is:

1. He is a bike messenger of some sort. I think. When the series started, I thought he was a high schooler, but evidently, he’s 19.
2. He lives at home, with his mother. She’s not bothered when he mysteriously brings home a motorcycle.
3. He has a … girlfriend? I think that’s the role Stacy Dolan is supposed to fill, but she doesn’t act affectionately toward Danny, and he doesn’t act like he notices she’s a member of the same species, let alone a female. He certainly gives her no reason to like him, and she doesn’t come across as someone that interested in Danny.

That’s it. Ten issues, and that’s it. Danny has the internal life of a goldfish and a good deal less personality.

Part the Fourth: Villians; or, How to make Ghost Rider look well developed

These are who the Ghost Rider fights: Deathwatch. Blackout. Kingpin. Flag Smasher. Masque. Scarecrow. A serial killer named Zodiac. (Or Zodiak — both spellings are used.) Mr. Hyde. The H.E.A.R.T. Corporation, a group of female mercenaries, for Mephisto’s sake. With the exception of the Kingpin, who was about to fall anyway, to call these villains sad is to demean sadness.

The original adversaries are the worse. The H.E.A.R.T. Corporation is an embarrassment, a team of bad girls without the lack of restraint or T&A to appeal to the audience they were designed for; since they appeared in the early ‘90s rather than the late ‘90s, perhaps they were just ahead of their time. Zodiac is utterly generic, except he was given the name of a real, attention-loving serial killer who murdered five people in the Bay Area twenty years before Ghost Rider and was never caught. Blackout is the real nemesis of Ghost Rider, doing him the most damage, but his ability to shut off the lights and his feral nature don’t really work together as well as they should — instead of being creepy, he’s annoying. Deathwatch is a generic corporate thuglord.

As for the pre-existing characters, the Kingpin comes across as a generic corporate thuglord. The Scarecrow, a minor villain, gets a grim ‘n’ gritty makeover and becomes emblematic of the ranting morons who opposed the more violent comic book heroes of the ’90s. Masque never shows up, having the good sense to stay in a Rob Liefeld book. (Not often you can say that.) Flag Smasher is Flag Smasher; nothing that happens is a discredit to such a goofy villain, and the idea of arming inner city youth to destroy a country isn’t the worst in the world.

I will, through gritted teeth, admit to enjoying Mr. Hyde’s issue. He’s trapped as his alter ego, Calvin Zabo, but he still acts the same way he did when he was Hyde — hitting on waitresses and picking fights with bikers. That goes about as well as expected, and we get the same kind of scenes with him as we usually do with inexperienced heroes: the civilian ID huddling in some corner and hoping, almost praying for the superpowers to kick in. It almost makes me feel sorry for Hyde, and then he starts hurting people, so that goes away. And then Ghost Rider shows up, and I don’t know what the hell to think.

Part the Fifth: Howard Mackie (again); or, If you have nothing nice to say

Howard Mackie has a family and friends who care about him. Presumably, he has parents and children who love him very much. They shouldn’t have to hear about what I think about Howard Mackie. Therefore, I will pass over Mr. Mackie at this time.

Also: Mark Gruenwald seemed to believe in Mackie’s talent. That’s something I have to digest before I say anything about him. On the other hand: Did you know Mackie wrote Ghost Rider for more than 5 ½ years without giving the Ghost Rider an origin? I have trouble believing in 5 ½ years of mindless violence on top of mindless violence, but it actually happened!

Part the Sixth: The art; or, I blame YOU

Danny Ketch has a great art team, with Javier Saltares providing the pencils and Mark Texeira doing the pencils. Saltares and Texeira are the only real draws for this book. Saltares has the sort of look you want for a book like this: gritty yet vivid, exaggerated while maintaining some sort of grounding in the real world. This is exciting art, although it does have its problems; subtle emotion — not that the script seems to deserve or call for it — seems to give Saltares trouble, and there are times when I just can’t figure out what the hell is going on. Like when some street punks squirt a homeless person with a water pistol and her jacket catches fire. What’s in that squirt gun? Or was it supposed to be an accelerant, which was lit on fire by something else? That makes sense, given that the punks later flip lit matches around.

A little off topic there, sorry. I’m not sure how that little thing annoyed me when there was so much out there to … Anyway. Texeira is a great artist, but I don’t know how to evaluate his inking here. Since the art looks generally excellent, I’ll assume he’s a good part of it.

Part the Seventh: Children in jeopardy; or, Is there a subtext in here?

There is a lot of violence against children here. A teenage gang / social club are menaced by the Kingpin and Deathwatch’s goons, and one of them (and Danny’s sister) get stabbed through the chest. Blackout murders an entire family — mother, father, and child. A subplot has Scarecrow murdering children. Flag Smasher arms kids, which necessitates Punisher and Ghost Rider beating some of them up. Zodiac isn’t really bad until he murders a child; the other four people, evidently, were understandable. Masque kidnaps kids for … I say “I don’t understand” a lot, but #8 and #9 are baffling. Why does Masque want kids? Why doesn’t he ever appear? Why do other mutants wander through the issues? Why does X-Factor show up without doing anything? Why is Pixie killed? I don’t know, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to know. Anyway, the kids seem to get the short end of the victim stick here.

About the time Mackie started writing Ghost Rider, he and his wife had their first daughter. Is it the concern of a new parent for his child? Resentment for the loss of youth, taken out on fictional surrogates? Or is violence against children just a topical news trend expressed on the comics page? I don’t know.

Part the Eighth: Howard Mackie (yet again); or, I can’t omit this, nor can I resist

Ghost Rider was Mackie’s first regular writing assignment. It shows. Although the these are recognizably, undeniably comic books in every way that matters, they don’t maintain that coherence once you start looking closely at them — much in the way a pointillist painting only resembles a representational canvas when you look at large parts of it but dissolves into meaningless points of color once you focus in too closely.

The characters are ill defined and raise not one iota of sympathy or even interest in the reader. Their emotional bonds are tenuous at best, dissolving into nothingness at the every panel border. The villains are cardboard at best and seatfillers at worst. The dialogue contains phrases no one has ever said before in the history of this or any other sentient species. The plots are meaningless violence piled upon meaningless violence, with deaths that are occasionally noted before the plot moves on.

Yet this series was popular, and its popularity allowed Mackie to get gigs writing Gambit, various Spider-Man titles, and X-Factor. I blame society, and by society, I mean everybody but me. Surely you need to step up and take responsibility, even though I bought this book and you might not have. Shame on you.

Part the Ninth: The Verdict; or, Good God, don’t buy this

Like many people, I’ve talked about how many comics creators have aped the “mature” approaches of Alan Moore and Frank Miller without understanding the subtleties of what’s they are doing. Danny Ketch Classic is a master class on that idea. The deaths pile up with little emotional weight. There’s nothing here that asks the reader to empathize or engage with the material on the page. Things happen; the Ghost Rider shows up to put an end to them; and then more things happen. It’s a pointless cycle without reason or an end. What is supposed to be the Ghost Rider’s moral gray area turns into a moral vacuum; not only are there no strong moral figures in the book, there’s no real expression of strong moral values.

I really disliked this book. I found it vacuous and bad and … and … agh my head hurts. Danny Ketch Classic is a leading cause of deep hurting.

I guess what I’m trying to say is if you’re looking for Saltares art, buy something else.

Rating: (½ of 5)

Ghost Rider: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

The advance of special effects technology is the worst thing that could happen to the Ghost Rider movie.

You see, if there weren’t any special effects — or if the special effects were more difficult or expensive — then director and screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson would have had to come up with some sort of plot. Unfortunately, Johnson didn’t have to: Ghost Rider is merely a collection of effects, sets, and very brief fights. The motorcycle-riding protagonist zooms from one to another withouth having to slow down much for plot points, characterization, or making a whole hell of a lot of sense.

The story, based on the Marvel comic book of the same name, stars Nick Cage as Johnny Blaze, motorcycle stunt rider who sold his soul as a teenager to save his father from cancer. The devil (Mephistopheles, actually, played by Peter Fonda) gypped Johnny, as Satanic beings are wont to do, so Johnny tries to master the terror of knowing ol’ Scratch might call for him at any moment . For this reason, he casts away his teenage love, Roxanne, played as an adult by Eva Mendez. For his part, the life of Mephistopheles isn’t all pleasant blazes and exciting deals; his son, Blackheart, has gathered a trio of villains to find a mystical contract hidden away from Mephistopheles that gives him title to a thousand souls. To stop his son, Mephistopheles transforms Johnny into the demonic-looking Ghost Rider, Mephistopheles’s bounty hunter and general errand boy, during the night.

And that’s where the movie falls down, really. There’s a good movie in there, with Johnny battling with the devil — and himself — for his soul. You or I could probably find an interesting story, perhaps with Mephistopheles tempting Johnny with a chance to regain his lost love. Instead, it’s a race to find some hidden infernal McGuffin that does ... something. I’m not sure what, or why a contract for 1,000 souls equates to personal power. If you’re stockpiling souls, well, then you want that contract. But otherwise ... and for the ostensible Lord of Lawyers, Mephistopheles has a shaky grasp of contract law; for some reason, the contract is a bearer object, giving power to whomever has it, rather than just specifying Mephistopheles gets the souls.

How bad is this movie? More than bad enough. The FX Ghost Rider is stiff and delivers the most hackneyed lines in comics history — little more than dressed up catch phrases that aren’t catchy. Blackheart looks like Hal Sparks in clown white, and while that’s unsettling, it’s hardly my idea of supernatural evil. His henchmen look cool, but it takes Ghost Rider only a minute or so to dispatch the three demons, putting them at the level of video-game level bosses. When a hood stabs Ghost Rider, Johnny needs stitches, but Johnny suffers no ill effects when one of the demon hits Ghost Rider with a semi or when the SWAT team decides to use Ghost Rider as the object of a live ammunition test. Johnny’s attempts to control his demonic power are boiled down to a general sentence in a book and five seconds of concentration. Mephistopheles’s law follies continue when he considers Johnny to have signed a demonic contract when Johnny accidentally bleeds on the paper, but when he wants Johnny to pursue Blackheart, he offers to let Johnny out of the contract if he defeats Blackheart. Why have a contract if you’re going to bargain with your employees’ every time you want them to do anything? And why does the previous Ghost Rider, a cowboy from the 19th century, ride across the desert with the Blaze Ghost Rider to his final confrontation with Blackheart, then give him a shotgun and leave? Couldn’t he have done something in the final fight?

It’s very frustrating, and those complaints are just the beginning. I mean, this is a movie that doesn’t realize how far it is from one goalpost on a football field to the other; the movie keeps insisting it’s 300 feet (not yards, in which a football field is usually measured, but feet). It’s actually 360 feet — the goalposts are 10 yards behind the goal lines.

Cage is the most enjoyable part of the movie. He does his level best, making the good scenes work as well as could be expected and trying to rise above the worst of the writing. There are times when his acting seems more risible than respectable — while he transforms into Ghost Rider the first time, he seems to be suffering an epileptic seizure while his joints freeze — but his dedication to the project shows. Unfortunately, Mendes isn’t given much to do as Roxy Simpson, Johnny’s once and future love. Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles is a neat idea, especially since the motorcycle Mephistopheles gives to his new Ghost Rider is very similar to the one Fonda rode in Easy Rider. Fonda plays the Tempter with a quiet reserve, which is quite a change from the vicious scenery chomping of Wes Bentley (Blackheart). Unfortunately, the role doesn’t give Fonda much room to work with, and the script doesn’t really show how evil Mephistopheles is — compared to Blackheart, he’s practically a white hat.

This is part of Johnson’s blind spot: he doesn’t know how to show the evil and menace of his antagonists. He thinks quick flashes of the character’s faces, glimpses of their skeletal structure, and cranking up the reverb on their voices makes a character frightening; actually, it makes them freakish. Blackheart kills repeatedly, which does show he’s evil, and his resistance to Ghost Rider’s powers shows he’s soulless. But there’s no nuance and no craft there — he just kills everything in his way, which is boring, and his fight with Ghost Rider isn’t all that interesting anyway. Mephistopheles just speaks softly and asks Johnny to kill the evil demon, which makes him slightly sympathetic. (Yeah, I know he damned 1,000 souls a century ago in San Venganzas, but we don’t see any of that, and hey, maybe they weren’t very nice people to begin with.)

All the blame must lie at the feet of Johnson, who wrote and directed this roadburn of a picture. (He also wrote and directed Daredevil and managed to get someone to agree to let him write some part of Elektra.) There’s a good visual here, and the actors involved aren’t hopelss. But what arrived on the screen is impossible to take seriously on any level and possible to enjoy only as a farce.

Rating: 1 of 5

From comic to movie

Compare how the the Ghost Rider movie compares to the comic book.

Champions Classic, v. 2

Collects: Champions #12-7, Iron Man Annual #4, Avengers #163, Super-Villain Team-Up #14, Spectacular Spider-Man #17-8 (1977-8)

Released: January 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 214 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 078512098X

My wife will often point out that many titles in Marvel’s Essential line are not, by any means of the imagination, essential. Essential Ghost Rider, v. 1, is her prime example, at least until she sees me reading v. 2.

Another line of Marvel TPBs that generates the occasional misnomer is the Classics line, which reprints older Marvel titles in full color. While some might argue the forthcoming Alpha Flight Classic is a prime example of misleading advertising, I must protest on two counts: one, that Alpha Flight is a prime example of Marvel being the shizzle in the ‘80s, and two, the worst example of “Classic” is clearly the Champions (Classic). Which is, surprisingly, on its second volume.

The first volume of Champions (Classic!) ended with the Stilt-Man fighting Black Goliath. Where I’m from, that spells awesome, but unfortunately, the Stilt-Man can’t even last one issue in the second volume. He’s barely even a distraction, and the Champions can’t even be bothered to take him out — he’s beaten up by third-stringer Black Goliath. (Such is Stilt-Man’s lot in life.)

The Champions aren’t that impressive a team. Sure, they have Hercules and Ghost Rider, but they have a pair of castoff X-Men (Iceman and Angel) and are led by the non-powered Black Widow. Yes, I know there are some Avengers teams these guys could have taken, but once the villain has tricked Hercules, there’s not much opposition there. Plus there’s little reason for them to stay together; what do the five of them have in common? They are as far away from the common man they are supposed to protect as Hercules is from sobriety or Iceman is from being interesting. (If you think I’m being harsh, let me remind you Iceman’s an accountant when he isn’t a hero.)

Although the first volume of Champions (Classic?) was plagued by the original run’s tendency to switch creators, the second has at least half the problem solved. The underrated Bill Mantlo is the writer for most of v. 2, even writing the crossover issues (except for Avengers #163, which was written by Jim Shooter). The art gets off to a roaring start as well, with John Byrne drawing #12-15. This won’t work won’t be featured in his obituary, but it’s solid enough, drawn back when Byrne was working second-string titles like Champions and Iron Fist and turning in work far exceeding the title’s worth. There’s something about his Darkstar that seems to epitomize this — she’s a minor character marked indelibly with his style, which elevates her just a little.

The rest of the art is provided by industry stalwarts: George Tuska pencils the Iron Man Annual and Avengers as well as the final issue of the Champions, Bob Hall does the Supervillain Team-Up / Champions crossover, and one of my favorites, Sal Buscema finishes the team off in a two parter in Spectacular Spider-Man.

Yet despite some very solid talent, this book never clicks. You can’t blame the crossovers because of the continuity of the creators. I hate to blame Mantlo, but you look at the book, and all the bad ink seems to lead back to him. The two-part story against Swarm, the sentient communal bee colony merged with a Nazi war criminal, is the only effective story in the book. The Iron Man Annual is a bland battle against faceless thugs, despite the presence of MODOK. (If you can’t make MODOK creepy and / or memorable, you’re doing something wrong.) The Dr. Doom / Magneto battle in Supervillain Team-Up and Champions #16 is fondly remembered in some quarters, but it is superceded by the better Emperor Doom graphic novel, and in any event, the ending doesn’t make sense. (Not to mention it has very little to do with the Champions, who are mind controlled while they’re in the story.)

The rest of the stories are forgettable. Not bad … just forgettable. The team doesn’t even get a decent sendoff; they disband off-panel after Champions #17, so Angel has to tell Peter Parker how it happens in Spectacular Spider-Man. Was cancellation a surprise? It certainly seems that way, but you’d think the writing would be on the wall. On the other hand, there was certainly a lot of guest appearances late in the title’s run, so maybe the creative team hoped that would float the title along a little farther.

Maybe it isn’t really Mantlo’s fault. Maybe it’s just time catching up with a very bad idea.

The Champions were anything but classic. The stories in Champions (Classic*) are anything but memorable.

Rating: (2 of 5)

Champions Classic, v. 1

Collects: Champions #1-11 (1975-7)

Released: June 2006 (Marvel)

Because you didn’t demand it, Marvel released the Champions in the 1970s. It was sort of the rock supergroup concept applied to superheroes: recognizeable heroes at loose ends tossed together to see what happens.

Just like with supergroups, the musicians aren’t usually the best, but they are credible. So in Champions Classic, v. 1, we get the Angel and Iceman at loose ends (they don’t like the All-New, All-Different X-Men all that much), occasional active Avengers Black Widow and Hercules, and relatively new hero Ghost Rider. I know what you’re saying to yourself: They put those people on a team? Yes. Yes, they did, and it worked about as well as you might expect.

The character concepts are almost completely incompatible, and all the characters have in common is that they are in Los Angeles. Ghost Rider fits with supernatural tales, Angel and Iceman to mutant rights, the Widow to espionage, and Hercules … well, he’s just larger than life. Despite the writers’ attempts, only Hercules strengths come across. The Widow doesn’t get to spy much, nor does she lead well; Angel doesn’t seem a very good business and is unable to keep the team focused on the raison d’etre he established; Ghost Rider is about as otherworldly as a club to the face; and Iceman doesn’t do much but complain that he’s leaving (until a pretty face comes along).

These problems aren’t insurmountable; they can be used as excellent plot devices. But by the time you get to #11, it’s difficult to think these are plots rather than just inherent difficulties with the team.

Just look at the cover: Herc in his gaudy leather and loincloth ensemble, Angel in his gaudy and Godawful costume, Iceman in his ice form, Ghost Rider in his leathers and motorcycle, and the Black Widow in her slinky black stealth suit. You can find two of these heroes that visually go together with no problem, but linking three is difficult, and five is impossible.

Tony Isabella and Bill Mantlo try their best, heaven knows. They give each hero a plot suited to their expertise: an Olympian plot for Herc in #1-3, a businessman goes bad in #5-6, a Russian four-parter for the Widow and her handler / trainer / sidekick Ivan in #7-10, and Wild West action vs. shadows for Ghost Rider in #11. But the rest of the Champions seem out of place in Herc’s and the Widow’s stories, and no one shines in the other two. It just doesn’t work.

The best storyline is that of Rampage, a genius inventor whose business is about to go bankrupt. The inventor dons the Rampage armor and tries to steal the money to get his business out of hock: sort of an evil Tony Stark. The team works well, the villain has a simple motivation and a reason for fighting the team as a whole, and his arc comes to an end satisfactorily. But there’s little satisfaction to be found elsewhere.

The writing seems to get a spark when Mantlo takes over for Isabella in #8. There seems to be an energy and a plan that had been absent in the first issues, but that could be just because I don’t see what’s coming up. Don Heck draws the first six issues, but it’s not his best work — too scratchy and shadowed for the brightly lit tales, and his line looks a little ragged compared to his best work. That could be the inker’s fault, and in any event Heck is still strong in storytelling and action, but it was a slight relief to my line when George Tuska (#7) and Bob Hall (#8-10). John Byrne, at the top of his game, is a treat in #11.

I’m not sure it’s the artists’ faults, but the costumes are pure ‘70s. The Olympian gods seem colorblind. The Black Widow wears a purple checked skirt over her suit in #1, an ensemble I have never seen before and hope never to see again. And then there’s the Angel’s monstrosity; Rampage destroys it in #8, earning my gratitude. (Also, there’s a scene where Hercules runs through the defense of UCLA’s football team, colored by someone who has never seen their uniforms.)

Now, I have to admit: If there’s a second volume, I will probably pick it up. The final page of v. 1 has the Stilt-Man announcing he’s about to become the Master of the World. If that ain’t a hook, I don’t know what is. (Besides, the team falls apart in v. 2, and that’s believable.)

Rating: (2 of 5)