Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "champions"

Champions, Volume 1: Change the World by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In the aftermath of Civil War II, Ms. Marvel, Spider-man (Miles Morales), Nova, etc. are disillusioned by the Avengers and adult heroes, so decided to establish their own team.

Coming in, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about this book. It could be a very super preachy and self-righteous screed that it takes itself way too seriously? My answer is no. In many ways, this reminded me of the First Season of the Supergirl TV series. While there were political undertones to that series, it was still fun to watch because they found ways to make the lead character likable and someone you'd actually care about.

The Champions does that. Waid does a nice job establishing this team and give them motivation to join the Champions. Who in comicdom isn't disappointed in the adult heroes. That's a good motivator right there. The stories also are fun and have them deal with real world problems, sometimes controversially. And still managing to balance that with fun.

The weirdest thing in this book is that apparently Cyclops had turned evil but a kid version was here in the present and joined the Champions. They also did that with Jean Grey. That's striking me as exceedingly lazy, but I don't know whether bringing him back was a Waid decision or not. He does seem to be a bit of a contrivance at this point.

While I don't know if it will continue to work, this volume does shine through and while I don't agree with all of Mark Waid's politics, he's a darn good writer and that helps him turn this into something that's actually interesting.





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