If you weren’t in the know, Champions #1 (tagline “Because the world still needs heroes!”) dropped today from Marvel, as part of their NOW! imprint they’re now running. You need to be reading this if you want to run a game of Masks, because this comic is Masks all over the place.
If you’ve been away from Marvel for a while, here’s the context you need: they ran Civil War II as a sequel to the original, this time tackling policing tactics and the surveillance state through the idea of whether perfect precognition could justify pre-emptive superhero force.
The fallout of this event brings us to Champions #1. Miles Morales (Spider-man) and Sam Alexander (Nova) have left the Avengers after being told they had to fight their friends “because the adults said so,” and Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) is all sorts of disenchanted with the Avengers because they’re happy to throw down with villains but they don’t put in the elbow work afterwards to do things, like, repair train tracks or fix people’s shops and homes. So, Ms. Marvel, Nova, and Spidey decide they’re going to be the kind of heroes they think the world deserves: ones who affect lasting change and who don’t get absorbed in big baby slap fights over politics every few years.
The premise of the comic alone is crammed to the brim with Masks concepts! The adults losing Influence over the PCs, the different ideologies of the different generations. It gels so nicely. The trio pick up Amadeus Cho (The Totally-Awesome Hulk) and Viv (Vision’s daughter) to round out their crew and they get to work kicking the ass of a villainous clown who is trafficking young women. Yeah, right off the bat, through the fun character dialogue and wacky teenage personalities, this comic brings out the big guns with a villain who is not a laughing matter, not a larger than life cartoon.
On the last couple pages, Champions spells out its philosophy: this team exists because the people deserve credibility in their protectors. There has been far too much “punching down” (the actual phrase used by Ms. Marvel and its great) by people with authority, lethal force used when it hasn’t been right. She says that they’re inheriting a world where violence does the talking, but that they can do better.
And when its all said and done, the kids have themselves a trending hashtag on Twitter.
I’m telling you, Masks through and through, and a really awesome start! Go give it a read, fill your brains with more Masks inspiration!
Totally agree. Let’s hope they keep that sense of optimism and energy going forward. Makes a real change compared to other comics.
read it today and it is SO Masks. So much!
This game is going to make me get back into buying print comics, I know it. Thanks for sharing. I’ve been wanting a teen heroes series for a while.
Victor Wyatt If it helps, you can get Marvel Unlimited (online comics) for like 10 bucks a month. You break even vs buying print issues pretty much as long as you read 3 or 4 comics a month. You cant read anything current, but the back catalogue will have you covered on teen series like Young Avengers, Runaways, and All-New Ultimates (when it was a teenager team of Kitty Pryde, Miles Morales, Cloak + Dagger, Bombshell, and such) amongst others.
I’ve been using Comixology recently but this series makes me want to check it out in print.
I’ll have to check out Marvel Unlimited too. Thanks for the tip.
This sounds awesome. I’m gonna have to locate my local geekshops and track down a copy!
I ended up checking this out based on your post. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I burned out hard on comics a few years ago (and superheros some time before that), but I’ve been wanting to dip my toes back in recently. Champions was just what I needed. Strangely, it feels like it’s gone full-circle for me. In the 90s I was head over heels in love with the comic Impulse, which at the time had the same creative team!
It was meant to be, Chris Wigley!
Alfred Rudzki haha clearly!
Just to put this on record, I went out and bought my first comic book in oh so many years on the basis of your recommendation, Ser Rudzki. And I am not disappointed! Gonna have to follow this one, moving forward.