Marvel relaunched The Champions this century with some great success and a different point of focus. Which is to say, any point of focus because the 1975 Champions notably lacked all focus.
The Champions – sometimes called The Champions of Los Angeles, at least by me – were designed to… uh… They were tasked with… they were five superheroes that just sort of hung out together and then stopped.
Specifically, they were Angel and Iceman (late of the then-cancelled X-Men), Hercules (who you used when Thor was not available), The Black Widow and Ghost Rider. They came together basically because they were all fighting the same villain (Pluto of Greek Myth, though I wish it were the mouse’s pet dog) and thought “say, we should be a team.”
Also, there weren’t many west coast teams at the time. So, I guess, think of them as sort of a ur-West Coast Avengers.
So the first question is, as always, why add them to the MCU? Especially when there’s a more interesting version of the Champions in existence right the fuck now?
Well, I think there’s a compelling story to be found here if we treat them like a one-off team instead of an ongoing business. Here’s my pitch that only becomes an actual pitch when the WGA strike is settled in the writer’s favor.
First, team line up. Angel and Iceman are about to join the MCU, but they’re part of the “popular” line-up of X-Men. The Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider (I just learned) appeared in Agents of SHIELD, so he’s already there. Hercules was introduced in Thor: Love and Thunder and was sent to Earth to kill Thor and put the fear of the gods back in humans. The Natasha Romanov Black Widow is, of course, dead in the MCU, so we’ll need to replace her. Yelana Belova is scheduled to be part of Thunderbolts, but since The Champions is going to be a one-off adventure, this can still work. Her determination to rescue (the introduced in this series) Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar is central to the whole story.
So this is essentially an “on the road” story told as a miniseries. Bobby (Iceman) and Warren (Angel) have left the X-Men and have decided to drive to Los Angeles. They both feel like they’ve lived their entire life hiding and want to get to know the United States. As our story starts, Angel (who grew up with his wings and is super wealthy) is pretty comfortable in his own skin. Bobby, who doesn’t look like a mutant unless he’s using his powers, is still reluctant to embrace his identity – both as a mutant and as a young gay man.
We see flashbacks to their contrasting lives before joining the X-Men. Warren’s extremely wealthy family treats his mutation as something pretty amazing. In fact, he’s become the symbol of their company. While he hides his wings for Bobby’s sake, he’d really be pretty cool just going around as himself all the time.
Bobby’s family, on the other hand, is pretty fricken middle class and racist and homophobic and mutantphobic. When he comes out to them, they kick him out of the house. In fact, they try to send him to one of those evil conversion camps. The stress of these people trying to kidnap him causes his mutation to trigger and he freezes them (albeit not fatally). He’s come out as mutant to the X-Men, but hasn’t come out as gay.
We are introduced to Yelena as she rescues a young woman (the aforementioned Darkstar) from a typical Marvel Red Room/Funhouse style prison/training room/place where evil guys experiment on people. Darkstar was part of a Black Widow/Red Room adjacent program that used the Darkhold to give her dark matter related powers, quite against her will. She’s the only one from her program that survived without turning completely evil or totally dead.
This, if you’re familiar with your Agents of SHIELD era Ghost Rider lore is what pulls him into the story – he hates that Darkhold/Dark Matter shit and returns from hell to destroy the base Black Widow and Darkstar escaped from. Learning that there’s a person with Dark Matter energy on the loose, he leaves to seek out the two.
In brief, Angel and Iceman pick-up Black Widow and Darkstar, who are fleeing from Ghost Rider. Epic flaming car chase followed by ice powers vs hellfire powers crazy bonkers battle. In the end. Ghost Rider is just too powerful. He grabs Darkstar, stares into her eyes ready to do his incineration thing and then his burning skull turns back to his regular face. He’s seen that she is essentially innocent and, despite her possession of dark matter energy, doesn’t think she deserves Hell (or even death).
Black Widow seizes on this opportunity and recruits Ghost Rider to their cause – the guy who did this to Darkstar is also pursuing them and (in fact), when she saw the hellfire she assumed at first that he was the big bad. The Spirit of Vengeance in Ghost Rider really wants to chain whip the big bad for forcing dark matter on an innocent, so he’s TOTALLY in.
Meanwhile, Hercules preparing to leave on his father Zues’ mission, but he has misgivings. He is, after all, half-human. A Demi-god. Furthermore, he knows nothing of Earth since ancient Greek times, so he’s brought to Earth by his charioteer and bro in ancient times, Iolaus, who has been living on Earth. It becomes pretty clear that they used to be a couple and that even after a couple thousand years they still have that tense ex energy.
Iolaus dresses like a modern businessman and Hercules at first mocks him, but then gets irritated that his ancient wear doesn’t allow him to fit in. He spends some time over the series trying to figure out a look that he likes. COMIC RELIEF.
Hercules doesn’t even know where to start on his mission so Iolaus suggests he come and work for his boss – somebody Hercules knows. Turns out it’s Hercules uncle, Pluto, and he’s been working on his own to make earthlings fear the gods again. Unfortunately, his latest experiment has escaped… Darkstar. He sends Hercules and Iolaus to get her back.
And that’s how the various Champions eventually get together to fight the big bad, Pluto. Over the course of the series, Darkstar learns to use her powers, Bobby/Iceman comes out and is surprised by how none of the Champions have the least bit of issue with this (and maybe there’s a hint of something between him and one of the Greek gods), Yelena/Black Widow proves to be a natural leader, Ghost Rider and the Spirit of Vengeance grapple with the idea of multiple pantheons (and gets to take Pluto to his “hell”), Warren/Angel discovers some self reflective shit or other, and Hercules comes to respect humanity again and decides that, instead of killing Thor, he wants to out-Thor Thor.
Six awesome episodes of this and then they all go their own way, though Hercules is thrilled to have all their numbers in his new iPhone. He specifically heads to New York to assume his place among the Avengers (of course, he thinks, they’ll welcome him).
Oh, and the group name is because Hercules identifies them as humanity’s champions.
You know you want to watch this.