Avengers the Contest

Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions #1-3

by Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant (Text), Bill Mantlo (Text)

To return his fellow Elder of the Universe, the Collector, to life, the Grandmaster enters a cosmic wager with Death herself, using Earth heroes as their chess pieces! Heroes from around the world, including several never-before seen, battle it out for nothing less than the fate of Earth itself in the Contest of Champions! Featuring every Earth hero, circa 1982! COLLECTING: Contest of Champions 1-3, West Coast Avengers Annual 2, Avengers Annual 16

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, X Men

168 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1999

About the author

Gruenwald got his start in comics fandom, publishing his own fanzine, Omniverse, which explored the concept of continuity. Before being hired by Marvel, he wrote text articles for DC Comics official fanzine, The Amazing World of DC Comics. Articles by Gruenwald include "The Martian Chronicles" (a history of the Martian Manhunter) in issue #13 and several articles on the history of the Justice League in issue #14.

In 1978 he was hired by Marvel Comics, where he remained for the rest of his career. Hired initially as an assistant editor in January 1978, Gruenwald was promoted to full editorship by Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter in 1982, putting Gruenwald in charge of The Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spider Woman, and What If. During this period, he shared an office with writer/editor Denny O'Neil, whom Gruenwald considered a mentor.


In 1982, Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and Bill Mantlo co-wrote Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions, the first limited seriespublished by Marvel Comics. As a writer, Gruenwald is best known for creating the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and his ten-year stint as the writer of Captain America during which he contributed several notable characters such as Crossbones, Diamondback and U.S. Agent. He made a deliberate effort to create villains who would be specific to Captain America, as opposed to generic foes who could as easily have been introduced in another comic.

His 60-issue run on Quasar realized Gruenwald's ambition to write his own kind of superhero. However, he considered his magnum opus to be the mid-1980s 12-issue miniseries Squadron Supreme, which told the story of an alternate universe where a group of well-intended superheroes decide that they would be best suited to run the planet

Reviews

[Nicolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Contest collects the Contest of Champions miniseries and its follow up that appeared in the annuals of the Avengers titles. This is convenient as one can read two stories with standard superhero fare under one cover.

The art is dated, not because of the costumes as it follows the sensibilities of the era, because the artist for the main story, John Romita, Jr. doesn’t draw quite like the JRJR of today. The storytelling skill is already apparent, but his pencils just don’t look like they were drawn by him. He would get better though, but this is one of his earliest works.

The story was Marvel Comics’ first foray into the limited series format an attempt to tell a larger story that would not fit within the confines of the monthly titles they were publishing at the time. It was a commercial success and it paved the way for more ambitious projects like the Secret Wars limited series.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is objectively not a good comic, but it was ahead of its time as an early proto-crossover before Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths.

All the early 80s Marvel characters are brought together, and I mean all, and a random assortment fight each other for seemingly no stakes whatsoever. It is definitely fun to see the room full of dozens, even hundreds of heroes. But very little interaction.

Even for all it's criticisms as a cash grab and the writing, Secret Wars has a far more engaging characterization and plot.

That said, one thing I like about Contest of Champions is how big it made the Marvel universe feel. Many international heroes, obscure ones and new ones, are introduced (and sadly most are not seen much again). The implication is that the world is bigger than just Avengers and X-Men comics, and these other heroes are having adventures we don't get to see.

Nowadays, as much as bloated crossovers leverage every minutiae of continuity, it doesn't feel like the planet is bigger with more going on offscreen. This is a problem with many current franchises, and could go for a lot of other science fiction universes which no longer hint at more but instead get way too inwardly baroque...

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marvel's first big crossover, even before Secret Wars. It was originally intended to be for the 1980 Olympics before the U.S. boycotted. The project was shelved until the inker turned in all the pages a couple of years later. Turns out no one told him to stop. So this was retooled with updated costumes and released. It's the first of what has since become a trope. Forcing heroes to break up into teams and fight or risk extinction. I do like how this incorporates a lot of lesser known international Marvel heroes like Shamrock and Le Peregrine. One thing that I thought was really funny is that the editors didn't realize Shamrock was on the other team and the whole thing should have ended in a draw.

Also included is a sequel that ran across the West Coast Avengers and Avengers Annuals 5 years later. After playing softball in the Astrodome, the Avengers all go to Death's realm where they are forced to fight for Grandmaster and Death again.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0 stars. One of the first of the summer blockbuster mini-series from Marvel Comics. I remember reading this when it first came out and loving that just about EVERY Marvel superhero was included. This was a ton of fun.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cheesy Face off battles of random Marvel heroes for some villain I never heard of....yeah..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Kyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Granted, this collection was first published in the early 80's, upon re-reading this as an adult (some 25 years after I first read it) I found this story to be formulaic, tedious, and misleading. A very disappointing, let-down that has not stood up to the test of time. Here are my notes:

-touts itself as the first crossover in comics history to use every hero from the Marvel Universe or any superhero universe; but really it only uses 24 heroes to tell the story. This edition even printed a list of all of the Marvel Superheroes at the time of original publication in the back of the book, over half of which do not make any impact on this story.

-oh the 80's! When it was cool for Wolverine to light up a cigarette in mid conversation!

-These people sure do like to talk using exclamation points!

-While it is nice to see different nations and races represented in this comic, it is really not cool to be making cultural slurs. If only the PC police had a time travel division. They could go back in time and warn the writers, "A frog is an amphibian, not a person", etc. etc.

-Luck is not a superpower.

-in the introduction to the 2012 edition, Tom Defalco states that this title was the template for "Crisis on Infinite Earths". LOL! In no way is this a template for Crisis. It is a laughable notion which I hope is removed from further printings of this edition. It's not even the first comic to crossover a large group of heroes from different titles to fight a common enemy. Comparing "Contest of Champions" to "Crisis..." Is like comparing Crocs to Prada; they are similar in the broadest of strokes only.

I had to laugh... In this comic, one unseen hero, out of the blue, shouts that all people are subservient to the "one true God"..... even though Thor is supposedly somewhere off-frame, even though they are fighting Death, even though half the cast wield magical powers. I bet it was the Silver Surfer that said it.... the dummy.

I give a couple points for kitschy-ness, and effort, and to the trip down memory lane.
2/5

[Devero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una lettura che risente molto, forse troppo, del tempo trascorso.
Certo, resta il primo crossover con testata propria, una novità per l'epoca, e introduce una visione globale degli eroi Marvel. Ma ha una trama molto banale e poco soddisfacente, e un JR jr ancora decisamente acerbo ai disegni.

[Youssef Almkari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very simple premise. Grandmaster and death use the heroes as pawns for a game to bring back grandmaster's brother? Grandmaster wins, but must sacrifice himself to bring back his bro. Ok. Sure.

Fun fight scenes. No depth. Just an overall OK series.

[Kent Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lackluster. Easy to tell it was kind of 'thrown together' in a hurry. Confusing story.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reprints Contest of Champions, West Coast Avengers Annual #2, and Avengers (1) Annual #16 (June 1982-October 1987). The Grandmaster wants his brother the Collector alive again…and he’s willing to go to any means to do it. Gathering the heroes of Earth in a massive arena, the Grandmaster and his opponent are playing a dangerous game and Earth’s heroes are the pawns.

Avengers: The Contest is a collection of two storylines. The first storyline is Contest of Champions (sometimes known as Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions) which was written by Mark Gruenwald, Bill Mantlo, and Steven Grant and is considered the first major comic book limited series. The second storyline is a follow-up story by Steve Englehart and Tom DeFalco which ran in the 1987 Annuals of West Coast Avengers and Avengers. Contest of Champions (minus the second storyline) was previously released as a stand-alone graphic novel.

I started out with Secret Wars when I was reading comics and the idea of all the superheroes crossing over was very exciting. When I started going to a real comic bookstore, I quickly found Contest of Champions and got to see all the heroes once again working together in teams. In addition to the story there was a great index which listed where characters first appeared (which before internet and if you didn’t have the Handbook to the Marvel Universe, was rather important).

The first storyline is rather typical of old style comics. You get a bunch of heroes together and have them “compete” in three or four page face-off competitions. The competitions are quite weak at points and leave you debating whether the “winning” hero really could win a fight.

The series smartly also used the comic to highlight that the Marvel Universe just doesn’t include the United States and introduced multiple characters of different nationalities. Most of these characters never really took off (where’s my Shamrock limited series?), but the series also marked early appearances for preexisting international characters like the Soviet Super Soldiers, Alpha Flight, Sabra, Arabian Knight, and Captain Britain. It is a bit forced, but I do like seeing “other” superheroes besides the typical Spider-Man, Avengers, and X-Men stuff.

The second storyline from the Avengers and West Coast Avengers annual feels like more of the same but lacking a lot of the fun. This storyline allowed Marvel to tap, dead heroes for battle so you get to see Captain Marvel meet her namesake and other battles…I just wish that they had used the opportunity to bring some of the heroes back to life.

Avengers: The Contest is a nice throwback collection. Modern readers might not like the simplicity of the tale, but it is a fun and quick read. I much prefer the first part of the story to the annuals’ story, but it does help spin a complete tale. A five issue follow-up series Contest of Champions II was released in 1999.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

After enjoying the Avengers Final Threat collection last year, it made sense to revisit another classic Marvel multi-hero romp. This was the wrong collection to choose.
Contest of Champions was an fight-fueled, senseless three-issue mini-series which is now billed as the first crossover event. The plot was silly: Cosmic entity Grandmaster challenges cosmic entity Death to four (?) superhero duels for the life of GM's "brother" the Collector. Three credited writers didn't realize the contest resulted in a 2-2 tie. All the fighting and the establishment of new multi-cultural heroes allowed for little characterization for the more familiar figures that readers would have bought the book to see.
To sum up: no characterization plus dumb plot equals bad story. The only positive was early John Romita Jr. artwork, a classic '80's style which bears little resemblance to his current technique.

A follow-up story from two Avengers Annuals rounds out the collection. More shouting and poor plotting are the hallmarks of this sequel. Writer Tom DeFalco acquits himself best in the final chapter, which also boasts the strongest art of the book. Fantastic work by such teams as Marshall Rogers and Bob Layton, Jackson Guice and Kevin Nowlan, and best of all, Romita Jr. inked by Bill Sienkiewicz, make the finale a pleasure to see, if not to read.

This is not a book to fuel one's nostalgia. There are much better crossovers, and all of the writers and artists featured here have done far superior Marvel work. Readers should seek out those other books, and skip this one.

[David Brzezinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had originally read this mini-series way back in 1982 when it first came out and really loved it, even in spite of the massively glaring error in the series (which, I admit, at the time, I did not even notice). I loved the inclusion of characters from other countries in the original series (many of whom where created for the mini-series). Also as enjoyable are the annuals for the West Coast Avengers and the Avengers which combined to make the sequel. What makes this particularly good is that the events of the issue would have ramifications which would play out in the Silver Surfer series that was being published at that time.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good!

This was Marvel's first ever limited series back in the early 80's.
Every single super hero on the planet is teleported into a space gymnasium and are pitted against each other in a game by two immortals.

This is bronze age comics (the best imho) with 80's art, wit and simplicity.
Simply the best that it gets.

If you have grown up on comics from the past 20-30 years and think that you have it good - that's because you obviously don't know how good it used to be.

Marvel has recently re-released this book (I guess there is a new Contest of Champions that just came out).

Highly recommended graphic novel.

[Morbus Iff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love comics where every line ends with an exclamation! They're soOO different than the moderns.

[Gary Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

1st book read in 2013.

Number 38 out of 293 on my all time book list.

Follow the link below to see my video review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZKpBd...

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contest of Champions is a decent first attempt at a big, universe-wide event from Marvel, even if there is a huge glaring error in the story. Romita Jr.'s art is decent, but there are a bunch of newly-created exotic heroes from various countries that are incredibly contrived.

Secret Wars would later use the blueprint here to be something far better.

Also, included is a story from the 1987 Avengers and West Coast Avengers annuals that explores what happened to the Grandmaster after the events of the Contest. It's very similar in structure, but is solely Avengers-based so may be more appealing to fans of the team.

[Nicholas Ahlhelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting more as an artifact - the first limited series - than any actual story elements.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collects Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions (1982) issues #1-3, West Coast Avengers Annual issue #2, Avengers Annual issue #16

I've read quite a bit of comic book material that is around 25 to 35 years old lately, and some of it can be pretty stiff and hard to get through. I found this collection to be the exact opposite. It was engaging and interesting and gave a fun look at the status quo of the Marvel Universe from this time period. The first part of the collection is the famous, three-issue story from 1982, "The Contest of Champions." The final part of this collection is a two-issue follow-up story to "The Contest of Champions," found in "West Coast Avengers" and "Avengers." The follow-up isn't exactly a sequel, but it does build on what happened in the original Contest.

I had previously read the original "Contest of Champions," so here is my review of that:

This was the first-ever comic book crossover. Before "Secret Wars." Before "Crisis on Infinite Earths." This book featured every major Marvel superhero that was still active in 1982. With that being said, only 24 heroes really get spotlighted in the story, with cameos by many, many others. The basic idea is that two Elders of the Universe decide to have a contest for power, with the competition being one team of superheroes vs. another team of superheroes. No villains were involved in this story.

I didn't expect much from this going in. I imagined that it would be a boring, long-winded read that would be worth it given its place in history. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story was actually quite engaging.

SPOILERS:

As an interesting note, the then-editor wrote an afterword for this collection. In it he admits that they made an editing mistake and actually awarded the victory to the wrong team. Supposedly, there was supposed to be a sequel to explain the mistake, but I'm not sure if that ever happened.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Marvel to re-brand this hardcover reissue of the Contest of Champions TPB as an Avengers book is interesting. It will obviously help it in terms of recognition among modern comic fans, but the reality of it is that the original mini-series was not on Avengers story. Instead, it was the first time that any comic book company had a story that featured every single hero they had in a giant “event”, pre-dating the other famous crossovers by two years. The A to Z supplements in the back of each issue also pre-date the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which in turn pre-dated DC's Who's Who? Handbook series.

In the olden days, before the Internet, kids read comic books and showed their collections to one another. My friend Joey had issue 3 of this series when it came out, and I was awestruck by these heroes whom I had never seen. Sasquatch? Collective Man? Arabian Knight?? Wow! I tracked down cheap-o back issues of this series circa 1985-86, and bought the old trade paperback of this series many years ago. I am opposed to the triple dip, but I got a brand new, mint condition, factory sealed copy of this for $10 at a comic convention. This is the definitive version of this classic, with superior linework and color restoration over the old TPB, and nice paper and sewn binding to boot.
If you've never read this series, I'd say that you owe it to yourself to check it out. What self respecting comic book fan wouldn't want to see what all of these crappy crossovers that we are plagued with nowadays began as. They were really cool, creative ideas at one point in time. Now they are a sales gimmick...like the triple dip.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Grand daddy of the big comic book event minis is still one of the most fun to read.
Two cosmic beings decide a wager using the planet Earth as their game board and teams of super heroes as the pieces.

Guest appearances by every super hero on the planet, some interesting team-ups and fight scenes and the introduction of a bunch of cool looking international heroes that...actually never get to do much else in marvel history.

The action and pacing is solid, there's a great mix of characters, lots of exotic settings and some nice little moments. Just a good, satisfying read.

Now a days, this story would take ten issues to tell and involve at least one pointless and gruesome death.

[Tim B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty well done book. Especially considering it was the first of its kind to bring all the heroes together. It was great to see old favorites alongside new additions. Shamrock was interesting, and it is always great to see Captain Britain. The CoC part was really enthralling. I understand why the editorial mistake made them continue the story in the two Annuals, but they just were not as cleanly written, although fun to read.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of always thought that someone was crowned the champion. But this is a weird team of teams–type competition you might expect to be confused by on one of those live action shows following the Saturday morning cartoons at noon.

The "action" seemed both arbitrary and repetitious.

But the book is not without charm.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, circa 1982 there weren't very many heroes in the marvel universe. They actually all fit into one story, sort of.

Also, who doesn't pick Hulk, Doctor Strange, or Mr. Fantastic for their dream team?

[Devero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raccoglie la prima miniserie-crossover della Marvel, Contest of Champions, seguita da due annual dei vendicatori, costa est e costa ovest.
Pur avendo alcuni ottimi momenti e un paio di idee niente male, sono storie dimenticabili a meno che uno non sia un completista come me.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The grand master holds a contest to try and get his brother brought back to life. Every Earth hero is kidnapped and forced to compete in a scavenger hunt. This is a fun excuse to have different characters interacting with each other. There is also a clever ending. A good read.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I revisited my childhood by reading this series of comics that I loved when I was a kid. Not quite as incredible as I remember, but I still enjoyed revisiting it.