I have always loved a good teen superhero team. A team of teenagers with wild powers is a blast to read about for me no matter my age. When a comic captures the emotions and inner thoughts of youth and add the intensity of having powers and fighting bad guys, it is a winner in my book. These comics always have KOOL villains and wild and crazy adventures.
When I was a little kid back in the 70s, my father had a subscription to Legion of Superheroes. This was my first exposer to teenagers superheroes. I read his back issues over and over again. I loved the love triangles and the interesting personalities of this humongous team.
In the 80s, I grabbed a hold of both the Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans. Both comics focused on well written and drawn teenager superhero teams. They both captivated me all the way through my teens. I couldn’t wait to read the next issue. These comics were always 1A and 1B in my book.
In the 90’s, I found myself engrossed in the New Warriors. I loved reading this comic with the goofy Speedball, the serious Night Trasher, and the budding romance between Marvel Boy aka Justice and Firestar.
After the dust settles on Civil (not so Civil) War II, a group of young heroes will split off and start their own team of teenager superheroes, the Champions. Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan), Spider-Man (Miles Morales-not Peter Parker), and Nova (Sam Alexander) were members of the Avengers but they want no part of that team any longer. Ms Marvel and Spider-Man have older mentors and they may not be pleased with the choices of their mentors. Amadeus Cho is the new Hulk and he will join this disgruntled team of teens. The Vision’s daughter Vi (seen in the new Vision series) and the time traveled young Cyclops (Scott Summers) will fill out the team. The personalities and experiences and fears of these characters should make an interesting team.
The Champions were a Marvel superhero team in the 1970s consisting of Angel, Black Widow; Darkstar, Ghost Rider, Hercules, and Iceman. Marvel ran into problems with using the name Champions in the 2000s (after decades of not using it) because Heroic Publishing has used the name “The Champions” for a role-playing game series which has been adapted into comic books. This dispute has been settled and both companies can now use the name.
The Champions’ creative team is writer Mark Waid and artist Humberto Ramos. I love the stories of Waid and the art of Ramos so I am excited about this comic. Waid described the Champions by stating “They are ultimately very socially conscious, very activist-minded, and very positive about being superheroes, so the name had to feel like a really upbeat superhero name,” in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
Stay Geeky My Friends!
