Champions Annual #1

For being such good kids, here’s the mind-boggling origin of Giant!

The comic opens on the excavation of a strangely Grecian temple in the middle of the Egyptian desert. A rat-faced man, cleverly named Ratte, is whipping some workers as they open up a tomb in the middle of the ruins. William Johnson, your standard square-jawed rugged type, tells him to stop abusing the workers after the ropes holding the cover slab break and he gets even nastier.

Melissa D’Arque, the head of the expedition, shows up to settle the dispute and sides with Johnson. Only partially because he’s her boyfriend.

They descend into the tomb that night, which is exactly when Ratte and some goons raid the temple and seal the tomb with dynamite to keep whatever’s down there, down there. So he was part of the expedition intending to sabotage it from with in. If his behavior today was normal, though, he’s only got himself to thank for failing.

Trapped down in the tomb, Will and Melissa find themselves in the resting place of Persephone. They read a story depicted on the walls of how Persephone, queen of the dead in Greek mythology, was possessed by a demon of malice and stole the immortality of her fellow gods, just as Zeus had stolen it from his father who’d stolen it from his father.


“What’s important is the fact that her captors would have come so far from Greece and gone to this much effort to entomb her,” exposits Melissa. We at least find out the answer to the second part when Melissa touches the black diamond on the woman’s head: she’s still alive and takes over Melissa’s body.

To have the power to escape she sucks the life out of Will with a kiss, then blasts out of the tomb and once free decides to name herself Dark Malice.

Zeus appears to the nearly dead Will, telling him that a harness also contained in the tomb was created to give birth to a champion in case the demon-possessed Persephone ever escaped.

Will puts on the harness and finds out it not only restores but vastly enhances his strength, allowing him to fight off a group of skeletal warriors who show up just so we can see him in action. It even lets him enlarge himself, heal quickly and summon divine lightning. But Zeus warns that if he stays big for too long it’ll burn him out.

 

After explaining all this and supplying a two-toned costume Zeus disappears, leaving William Johnson to discover what it means to be a champion on his own.

So we have William Johnson, whose daughter married James Jensen. The creativity just blows your mind, doesn’t it?

There’s an interlude by writer Dennis Malonee explaining that a true understanding of contemporary events comes from an understanding of the historical events that led up to them.

No, it didn’t, and even people who only read the summation on this blog wouldn’t have thought there was no prior history to those characters and their world.

Yet nowhere in the twenty-six pages it took to tell that story did it answer some big questions.  Why was Persephone entombed in Egypt? Too much life in Greece that she might absorb it and escape? Why the elaborate temple covering the place, allowing people to discover her tomb, if the idea was to trap her? Why couldn’t Zeus take back the gods’ immortality if he could defeat and capture Persephone? Especially when he did it to Cronus already. And why devote space that could’ve answered those questions to Zeus explaining the powers of Giant? Both when he leaves our hero to figure things out for himself and when Giant’s one of the least featured of any hero in the company’s stable.

See, after the original miniseries ended the guys who wrote the comic went into business for themselves and published a monthly book about the surviving Champions. Giant didn’t appear again until they did an arc where he finally fulfilled his duty of dealing with Dark Malice, and was subsequently written out of their main universe because he’d done what he was created to do. They’ve revived the character in the 21st century via the previous Giant’s adolescent son, Billy, and are trying to make more use of him, but we’re talking about when the year was 1988.

There are two more features in this issue, the first being a backup story where Malice finds Ratte and gets even with him for trapping Melissa in the tomb by pulling his face off and decrying other divinities. ‘Cuz she’s evil like that. Seriously, the whole point of the backup story seems to be establishing that yep, she’s evil.

What's wrong with your faaaace?

So...she's evil?

The rest is profiles of major villains from the ongoing Champions series, but if those were put up now it wouldn’t make any sense to anyone who hasn't already read these comics.

For now let’s just close the book on a comic that took fifty-two pages and told us practically nothing that hadn’t been told already.

Then again, maybe it’s a good thing we saw so little of Giant.

Champions #5 & #6

In the 80’s it was starting to occur to people in the comics industry that in fact, they had readers over the age of eleven and certain publishers decided to include things catering to those older readers. We see one such thing that would become a hallmark of this comic’s style when Flare comes out of the shower in a towel. With some prodding she tells Rose about her backstory.

She and her three siblings were raised by escaped Nazi scientists who bred them to have superhuman powers. Her sister Olga had electric powers, brother Thomas was super-strong, and brother Philip could change himself to look like anyone he wanted. And he became her lover. Because light hurt him and he didn’t want to have to worry about her fighting him.

And the comics want you to see her as this unspoiled paragon of glamor.

Before this can get any more disturbing they hear the explosion of “Malace” resurfacing downstairs.

Stick with being goddess of spring, goddess of proofreading isn't working out for ya.

The Champions try to fight back, but caught flatfooted by an angry goddess they’re quickly overwhelmed, with Rose, Donnah (who’s now a brunette, although at least they’ve stuck with that since) and the doctor captured and Icestar chucked out the roof. Marksman and Flare escape to regroup. And save Icestar from falling back to earth if they remember.

Donnah turns back into the DM, who proposes a partnership. Amused by his offer, Malice hands over the soul shards, allowing him to complete the Hellfire Crown at last.

The Champions retreat to their base, but Marksman has no luck calling in the reserves.

Incidentally, after moving to another publisher they later put out an expanded reprint of the original mini-series. One that showed Dove is actually a woman.

Foxbat shows up having bypassed their security with no trouble. Let’s chalk that up to the base still being a mess from the battle in the second issue and move on. Despite Flare wailing on him, he still wants to help them out, warning that DEMON has Giant’s family and probably Giant by now too. He adds that DM’s going to attack soon to prove his worth to Malice.

That's the company line, anyway.

Flare’s not happy that the others are willing to hear Foxbat out and goes for a lap, where she sees Giant but it turns out he was bait to lure her into a trap. Yeah, he’s being coerced to help DEMON in exchange for his family under the stipulation that nobody gets killed.

For being the first in the business you'd hope he'd know better.

Also like how he says "especially not Flare." Over his family, that is. The one he decided was more important than being a superhero.

Malice attacks Flare, and says she could kill the blonde bombshell like she could’ve killed Rose or Dr. Arcane.

If I did, the company would be out a flagship character!

Giant, DM and Malice attack the base but Giant changes sides when DM tries to fry Foxbat. Deciding he’s done playing around, DM unleashes the crown’s full power and enlarges into a giant as the issue ends.

This issue’s sheet is for Marksman and some of his favorite gadgets.

Nothing too mentionable other than his only real “power” being a genetic gift for longevity and the fact that he’s probably in his mid-50’s. Which will make things kind of weird when the book starts pushing him and Rose together (she's eighteen at the time of this storyline).

Wait, weren’t we promised Giant and DM in a battle to the death in this issue? Don’t you hate it when–

Oh, there we go.

The issue opens briefly on the DEMON base where Rose is thrown in with the real Donnah and Dr. Arcane after being raped and beaten by the guards.

This has the traumatic effect of Rose having short hair for a few issues.

Rose’s powers have been suppressed as a precaution, but she has just enough to spark Donnah’s latent magical potential and turn her into the new Dr. Arcane to help them bust out.

Back at the Champion HQ, Giant goes toe-to-toe with DM, and even having his wife and son around to threaten fails to get him to back off. Although Malice points out he couldn’t hear what’s going on so far away anyway. She also confirms what you were probably thinking, that DM is Flare’s incestuous shapeshifter brother. Man did this comic take a turn for the dark last issue.

Malice tries to hedge her bets by cozying up to Icestar (must not want to exert herself), which Giant is somehow able to hear in the midst of a fight with an evil wizard-god.

His wife remarks that Giant’s harness was meant for her father, so it’s not as effective on her husband for some reason. It certainly doesn’t make him any smarter as he forgets about fighting DM to grab Malice, allowing DM to grab him from behind and fry him.

Welcome back to more Great Moments in Stupidity!

Giant tells himself he has to think, but rather than thinking about a way to counterattack he thinks about how he became a hero.

And this is why you should stay focused in the middle of a super-fight. One to grow on.

Everyone’s taken back to DEMON HQ and Malice is thrown in the brig with the others with her powers blocked for trying to play both sides. Donnah promises to restore her powers if she’ll bring Dr. Arcane out of his stupor, which she does, and once out of the cell they spring Foxbat and start fighting their way out.

Upstairs DM’s wining and dining Flare, Icestar and Marksman with Giant’s harness hung up as a trophy. For her part, Flare’s had enough and blows him through a wall. She starts tearing up the base with her light blasts channeled through the crown, but it’s not until she shoots the vino DM’s trying to drink in the middle of all this out of his hand that he calls foul.

You were going to rule the world, were you?

Despite being fed up with his games she agrees to hear him out and he turns on the charm. She loses it all over again and kills him with a point-blank light blast, leaving him a skeletal husk.

As the dust settles Foxbat and Malice have gone missing, but Malice shows up again to finish off DM and retake the power she gave him. Bet we won’t be seeing her again.

The final character sheets of the miniseries are for Dr. Arcane and Donnah. Or Lady Arcane if she’s in the right mood.

Once again not a whole lot to report, except that for odd circumstances surrounding her birth Donnah has the potential to be an even greater wizard than her grandfather. It’s largely neglected potential because she thinks there are enough costumed do-gooders around that Frisco doesn’t need another one (although according to this she used to be a Champion under the name Transpower and was kicked off the team for deadifying a criminal, which might have something to do with it as well).

And she’s hunted by someone called the Black Enchantress…

That…was not a very good comic series. If anything hurts the proceedings it’s the fact that the heroes were created as the protagonists for a role playing game, not something where their adventures are seen by outside observers. The Champions game has come a long way, and looking at the characters seen in this comic it sure seems like the reason they’re motivated to fight crime is…they were player characters in a superhero RPG, and there would’ve been no game session if they didn’t. Even in the years since these comics were made, little was done to flesh out the characters. The company instead, regrettably, relying mainly on T&A and “mature” story content to sell books.

A strategy they employ to this day.

If "costumed" is the word...

And yet, it would be a lie to say the comics didn’t start to come together a little toward the end there. It was kind of gutsy of them to kill off a hero in the opening miniseries (although it helped that he was the most resurrectable). The dark turn in the last issues was also pretty unexpected after what had been a pretty standard superhero comic up to that point. Maybe that's why they did it.

Rose’s casual rape, however, was revolting. It was in-character for the lowlife scum that DEMON employs, sure, but it was unnecessary and disgusting. It seems as if it was included just so we’d be absolutely 100% percent sure these people were evil. In the next issue she's completely bounced back. Yeah, she's a superhero and probably tougher than the rest of us, but if that was the rationale than it cheapens a horrific crime even more. And it's only fair of me to say she gets raped by another bad guy down the line, and the only effect is wanting to kick his butt.

As noted this series was later reprinted with extra content they had supposedly meant to include all along. From the ones seen in the back of Flare Adventures, though, that extra content didn’t do much in the way of answering the niggling questions that arose while reading the originals. For crying out loud, the first thing they do with the extra space is have Foxbat mess around with a bunch of DEMON-supplied bathing beauties.

Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the company’s priorities.

Champions #3 & #4

Some captions bring us up to speed, blah blah blah DEMON stole the Hellfire Crown, blah blah blah race to collect the jewels (“soul shards”). We’re also warned that the real owner of the soul shards is on the verge of awakening, and if she does “then the threat DEMON poses will seem less than a spark against the fires of her vengeance.” Something the writers weren’t actually prepared to show.

An astrally projected Dr. Arcane speeds into the wilds of northern Canada, followed by Icestar who follows by icing the ground under his feet as he goes. Icestar remarks there isn’t much around and Dr. Arcane replies “You have to know what to look for.” And what are they looking for? This.

The doctor parts the water and Icestar freezes it so they can get in, and they come across the slumbering body of “Melissa D’Arque, whom I knew only as Dark Malice.” Which he obviously didn’t, if he knows two different things to call her.

Get it?

Apparently when Dr. Arcane and the original Giant captured Malice before, they took the three soul shards to leave her lifeless like she is, but they didn’t hide them well enough and some DEMON agent found them and figured out to combine them with the Hellfire Crown. Something the Champions have to prevent this time.

Dr. Arcane possesses Malice. Why? “Only Malice can retrieve this fragment of her blackened soul!” Meaning yes, this veteran wizard thought his last idea for protecting the jewel wasn’t good enough so he decided to set things up so the last person he wants to get the jewel is the only one who can.

The Dino Squad kids aren't that dumb.

Wait, green?? We wanted the evil sorceress's underwater castle down the block! Sorry!

Oh, it gets better. After they get the soul shard and get out, the castle collapses into nothingness. The castle was never really there, apparently, and the only reason Icestar could see it was because he was with Dr. Arcane. So only wizards could find the place. People who could probably pull the same possession trick he used. People like the ones he was trying to hide the soul shard from in the first place by setting all this up.

And lest we forget, it won’t be long before Malice wakes up. Which Dr. Arcane hangs onto her body for the time being to prevent.

Icestar being attracted to a woman doesn't actually mean there's anything special about her, Doctor.

Cut to Donnah, Dr. Arcane’s granddaughter who’s enjoying some fun in the sun.

No kidding. Aren't you supposed to be blonde?

Donnah calls to check in on her grandfather (and with what we just learned about the way he thinks, that’s probably a good idea). Flare answers but Foxbat grabs Donnah and her boyfriend, and hits on Flare.

Rather than wanting to break every bone in his body, she thinks he’s trying to imply he wants to help them.

Marksman and Rose are in New Orleans (but it might as well be any city) to get the last soul shard and pull up to the D’Arque Museum. Rose apologizes to Boris, the curator, for being late to the appointment she set up because she had to wait for the others to get back. Even though she just told Marksman if DEMON knows where any of the soul shards are, it’ll be this one. So why did they save this one until last, let alone wait for the other Champions to get back with theirs?

Rose talks about how smart it was for Dr. Arcane to entrust the soul shard to Boris, who calls Malice his “mistress.” Yes, smart to hide it in a museum which is the first place you’d look for valuable ancient relics. And wait a second, Dr. Arcane turned the soul shard over to one of Malice’s followers to keep it safe? Huh??

Admittedly there’s a certain logic to having a follower of Malice protect one of the soul shards in that he’ll probably try even harder to keep anything from happening to it. But that would seem to include keeping you and your friends from getting his mistress's treasures, since you guys are NOT followers of her order. Which proves to be exactly the case when Boris turns into a monster and uses the soul shard on Rose to give Malice a new body.

Some DEMON flunkies do show up try and steal the soul shard but are easily taken out by Marksman, who runs inside to find Rose possessed by the soul of Malice.

Boris easily knocks the hero aside, but it turns out Boris’s power “is naught but an illusion!”

Yeah? Whatever.

Rose refuses to elaborate as they leave with what they came for. The DEMON flunkies call on the awesome power of Slimer to get the soul shard. Seriously, Slimer.

Luckily for the Champions the soul shard gives off so much energy Slimer explodes. Legions of 80’s children thank you, Malice.

Foxbat brings Donnah before the DEMON Master, who turns himself into her twin sister.

This issue’s character sheets are for Giant and the DEMON Master.

Funny how the characters written up in this issue are barely in it. Again not much to report, except that for a superhero with his name Giant actually grows as rarely as he can due to how much energy that power uses up and how long it takes for it to come back. And that he gains “most” of his predecessor’s abilities. That’s mentioned several times throughout later comics involving the character, but not really what makes this Giant a fraction of the original.

DEMON Master's write up doesn't reveal much about who he is, except he used to be a shapechanging spy called the Chameleon.

As the next issue opens, “Donnah” comes back to the Arcane household and finds her grandfather still possessing Malice.

Which is why the team goofus is in here with me juggling snowballs.

Realizing he’s still in Malice’s body when Donnah’s weirded out by this strange woman embracing her, Dr. Arcane runs off to get his regular one. Because it wasn’t established he couldn’t leave yet or she might wake up. Maybe he’d reached the point where it was okay and just forgot, which is entirely possible with the mental acuity he’s shown so far.

Upstairs, Flare’s broken up that Giant left already, not really getting this “married with a kid and another on the way” thing.

Aren't you supposed to be blond too, honey??

 Doing something smart for the first time in the miniseries, Dr. Arcane tells Donnah and Icestar he plans to do what he should’ve done forty years ago. That is, he’s planning to banish the power of the soul shards and could use the help of Donnah, who has significant mystic potential of her own. Icestar tries to talk him out of it because Rose has said doing so would be too dangerous.

While there’s nothing wrong with a second opinion of the doctor’s plans after everything we’ve seen, we’re probably still supposed to see him as the learned old veteran. He refuses to change his mind and hops back into Malice’s body to go diving through her mind.

That's not what you said two seconds ago, Icy.

Back at DEMON HQ the real Donnah tries to escape from her cell but Foxbat stops her, basically saying he’s the only person in the base who wouldn’t do so by blowing a hole in her skull. And her boyfriend’s already past saving. And no, she can’t have anything to wear besides the bikini they kidnapped her in. He doesn’t actually say that last one, but you get the feeling that’s because despite not wanting her dead, he’s still a leering little freakazoid.

Meanwhile Dr. Arcane manages to find Melissa D’Arque inside Malice’s mind and saves her from a demon of her subconscious. With Dr. Arcane taking the place of the man who would become the original Giant, they venture into a mental recreation of the tomb where Malice’s body was discovered.

Uh...yeah.

Speaking of, Foxbat shows up at the Jensen household and kidnaps Giant’s wife and son.

Dr. A and Melissa head in deeper, mentioning the carvings on the wall that detail how the Titan Chronos stole immortality from his father, Uranus, and in turn how it was stolen from him by Zeus, which was in turn stolen by someone else (if you’re wondering why the tomb was in Egypt if the occupant was Greek, you’re not alone).

Somehow not letting Melissa touch the black diamond that became the soul shards this time will free her, but that’s when Malice wakes up, rendering Dr. A catatonic.

She sees through “Donnah”’s disguise and says thanks to his thirst for power, she’s going to destroy the world.

 

Malice unleashed! Foxbat vs. DEMON! Flare in a towel! Giant vs. the Demon Master in a battle to the death! All this and more in our penultimate issue on sale in thirty!

This time the character sheets are for Rose and Malice.

Surprisingly, Rose  knowing more about matters mysterious and magical than Dr. Arcane as in the last review might be justified, because according to her sheet she’s the reincarnation of a white witch “who has battled the powers of dark magic since the beginning of time.” Her recall of her previous lives is only “fragmentary,” though. Her powers of telepathy, teleportation and mental attacks are actually psychic in nature, not magical for whatever that’s worth. And whenever she uses her powers you can smell flowers for some reason. Hence the name.

As for Malice, she was a malicious spirit who was entombed after stealing the secret of immortality from the god Zeus. Eventually the tomb was discovered by Melissa D’Arque, who became the new host of her soul. To recharge herself after centuries of confinement she sucked her companion dry, but lucky for the world he found a magic harness in the depths of the tomb that not only saved his life but changed him into the first Giant. Which the gods had left for a champion to find to use to destroy Malice. Rather than take back their immortality since they had, after all, already neutralized her.