Marvel Masterworks The Champions 1 - Hardcover

Tony Isabella; Bill Mantlo; Chris Claremont; Jim Shooter; Roger Stern

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0785196927 ISBN 13: 9780785196921

Publisher: Marvel Enterprises, 2016

Synopsis

Join the Black Widow, Hercules, Ghost Rider, Iceman and Angel as they form an all-new super-team: the Champions! This massive Masterworks collects the Champions' complete adventures in a single volume! Every issue, every highlight, every page as the lives of these Marvel icons play out together. Their struggles will reveal the origin of the man who created the Black Widow, pit them against the combined might of Magneto and Doctor Doom; unleash the Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man on Los Angeles; team them with the Stranger in the fight for an Infinity Gem; and bring fan-favorite artist John Byrne aboard for some of his greatest early work, including stories featuring the Sentinels and Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!

Written by Tony Isabella, Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, Jim Shooter, & Roger Stern

Penciled by George Tuska, John Byrne, Bob Hall, Don Heck, & Sal Buscema

Cover by Gil Kane & Dan Adkins

COLLECTING: CHAMPIONS (1975) #1-17; IRON MAN ANNUAL (1970) #4; AVENGERS (1963) #163; SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP (1975) #14; SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN (1976) #17-18, HULK ANNUAL #7

About this title

From the Author

"I have always had mixed feelings about Champions because the title was so different from my original concept of a buddy book starring Iceman and the Angel, traveling around the country like the heroes of TV's Route 66, having adventures and helping out people like you and me except that a great many of those folks would be beautiful young women. Instead, the group expanded to five members with the additions of the Black Widow, Ghost Rider and Hercules. They were based in Los Angeles and had the high-minded mission statement of being "heroes for the common man." That mission wasn't accomplished per se, but that didn't seem to bother the readers.

"Something about the weird mix resonated with readers, then and now, because, when I'm signing comics at conventions, the comics I am most asked to sign are Black Lightning, Ghost Rider, Hawkman and ... Champions. I've met Champions fans who weren't born until a decade or more after the series was launched and ended.

"Rereading the stories for this collection, I was reminded of just how good veterans Don Heck and George Tuska were at making even my most convoluted plots look good. I was impressed by the early work of future superstars like Bob Hall, John Byrne and Bob Layton and, especially Bill Mantlo, surely one of the unsung heroes of Marvel's writing corps. Mantlo and Byrne created one of my all-time favorite Marvel villains of the 1970s -- Swarm -- in a two-issue story I think was the best Champions story of them all.  There's a lot of great reading in this tremendous tome." -- Tony Isabella

About the Author

Tony Isabella has been a comics writer and columnist for more than 35 years. He got his start working for Stan Lee at Marvel Comics as a writer and editor. At DC Comics he created Black Lightning, the company's first headline African-American hero.

Bill Mantlo is a comic book writer, best known for his work on Micronauts, Rom, and The Incredible Hulk, and for co-creating Jack of Hearts and Rocket Raccoon. 

Chris Claremont wrote The Uncanny X-Men for seventeen years as well as the novelization of the movie X-Men 2. He was the co-creator of several top-selling series for Marvel Comics, including Excalibur and New Mutants. His debutnovel was Firstflight, to which he wrote two sequels, Grounded and Sundowner. He collaborated with George Lucas on three novels in TheChronicles of the Shadow War, and has delved into fantasy with thepublication of Dragon Moon, a dark fantasy novel co-authored with hiswife, Beth Fleisher.

Jim Shooter is a writer, artist, editor, and publisher. He started professionally in the comics medium at theage of 14, and he is most notable for his role as Marvel Comics ninth editor-in-chief, and his work as editor in chief of Valiant, Defiant, and Broadway Comics. 

Roger Stern has written for radio, television, the stage, and theInternet, creating scripts for everything from sketch comedy toflash-animation. For ten years, he was the senior writer of the Superman series for DC Comics. Stern has written hundreds of storiesabout such diverse characters as Green Lantern, Supergirl, Starman, andthe Justice League for DC Comics; and Spider-Man, Captain America, theIncredible Hulk, and the Avengers for Marvel. His first prose novel, The Death and Life of Superman, was a New York Times bestseller.

About this edition

• Publisher: Marvel Enterprises
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0785196927
• ISBN 13: 9780785196921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 449