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The back-issue bin |
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The Birth of The Crossover Event:
Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions No. 1; June 16, 2008  Welcome to Hero Realm’s new feature, “The Back-Issue Bin”. Here I’ll review some of the best and worst stories from the last few decades that has come from DC and Marvel. Join us at the Hero Realm Forums to voice your opinion about any back-issues I review, or about the review itself. I welcome feedback of all kind, as does the friendly and lively community of posters at the Hero Realm Boards. Click the following link to check it out: The best way to kick this thing off is with a long-term look at the Crossover Event. Something that should be quite familiar to today’s comic fans. It seems now, more than ever, the crossover event is the main focus of today’s comic book industry. No more is there just a single summer event from each company; but rather one event leads to another which spawns another. Over at DC the current trend began in 2004 with Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis, which led to the Prelude Infinite Crisis Events (Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Rann-Thanagar War, Day of Vengeance, Villains United, and O.M.A.C. Project), which then carried directly into Geoff John’s Infinite Crisis, which was followed up with 52, from that was birthed Countdown to Final Crisis which was the prelude to the currently running Final Crisis by Grant Morrison (Whew!). They aren’t the only guilty party though as Marvel has their own long-running trend going that dates back to 2005 debuting with Brian Michael Bendis’ alternate reality tale House of M (HOM). Decimation (the fall of most of the mutant population as a result of HOM) directly followed HOM, as a result The Illuminati one-shot happened which directly caused the Super-Human Registration Act which we all know caused the Marvel Civil War which concurrently ran alongside the space-epic Annihilation. As soon as the dust settled from that slobber-knocker, Gladiator Hulk and company land on Earth to cause some destruction (World War Hulk (WWH)). Now, shortly after WWH, the long-time planned out Secret Invasion has begun. Supposedly the ultimate brain-child of writer Brian Michael Bendis, which fans seem to have to argument against so far.  /cover-medium.jpg) It was 1982. A Crossover Event was something loyal comic reader had dreamed of, but comic companies were too scared to try as of yet. Every fan conjured up images in their head of the Avengers meeting the X-Men in an all-out brawl, or a threat so immense that it took the combined efforts of all of Earth’s heroes. But the comic companies thought that the overload of characters would cause fans to lose interest, and that it would hinder the story (if they only knew…). Marvel, as usual, was the first one to step-up and try something new. The first attempt was more of an experiment than a grand-plan. The resulting effort was Mark Guenwald and John Romita, Jr.’s Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions. This was a time when Mini-Series were fairly new, let alone Crossover Events. The Direct Market was something just being experimented with as well. So due to changing times in the industry, this series didn’t get the attention that it’s descendant’s would get. Which might have been for the better, because the story was pretty simple and art was nothing to write home about. It was fun though, and was something new and seemed to garner interest slowly over time. The story was basically a bet between the cosmic Grandmaster and an Unknown Being. All the heroes on Marvel’s Earth are abducted and taken to an arena on a massive spaceship. Both sides choose teams of 12 from the selection of Heroes. They then took the “Golden Globe of Life” and split it into 4 pieces. Whoever’s team could recover the most pieces, won. In the meantime the Earth is held in suspended animation as motivation for the heroes to participate in the game, if they don‘t the Earth will never be lifted from it. If Grandmaster’s team wins, he gets to resurrect his brother, The Collector, back to life; if the Unknown Being wins, then the Grandmaster will be stripped of all his cosmic powers and join his brother in death. The sides are chosen as so:  Grandmaster’s Team - Captain America, Talisman, Darkstar, Captain Britain, Wolverine, Defensor, Sasquatch, Peregrine, Thing, Blitzkrieg, She-Hulk, and Daredevil. The Unknown Being’s Team - Iron Man, Sunfire, Collective Man, Invisible Woman, Black Panther, Angel, Iron Fist, Shamrock, Storm, Vanguard, Arabian Knight, and Sabra. Being that it is the 80s, the in thing is for political correctness at the time is racial equality. As a result Marvel created many international character that debuted in this series. Most of them didn’t make any further. Characters include the French Peregrine, the German Blitzkrieg, the Russian Vanguard (an obvious Thor rip-off), the Middle-Eastern Arabian Knight, the Irish Shamrock, and others (see picture above). By the end of the story the Grandmaster’s team wins 3-1. Then the big (and only for the matter) reveal of the story is that The Unknown Being’s identity is revealed to be none other than Death. But any long-time Marvel fan should have identified her in the 1st issue, so no big surprise there really. The cliché of “Never make a deal with the Devil” seems to describe the end perfectly. Death returns the heroes to Earth and returns Earth to normal, but then kills The Grandmaster to use his soul’s energy to resurrect Grandmaster’s brother, The Collector. The Collector then vows to Death to resurrect his brother The Grandmaster. The End. I would say the best part about this series, for me at least, was seeing all the different heroes Marvel really had at the time that were virtually unknown to me up until that point. I didn’t even know characters like Peregrine, Blitzkrieg, Shamrock, and Arabian Knight even existed before this series. They certainly hadn’t had their own comic or special before, or since that I know of. It was that sense of discovery, while still being able to read about your favorite costumed adventurers like Captain America, Iron Man, and Daredevil; that really drew me into those early Crossover Events. I was truly exploring the Marvel Universe like I never had before. Seeing some early John Romita, Jr. art is a great bonus too. Not his best work, but good nonetheless. And between you and me, I think it looks even cleaner than most of his more current work. I also liked the idea of my favorite heroes actually fighting each other, seeing who was truly better than who. Notice I say the idea of them fighting each other, though. The battles were ridiculously short, only a few panels long, and weren’t that action-packed. I think Contest of Champions’ battles inspired Ron Marz’ writing of Marvel vs. DC in 1996. This small piece of comic history was only a prelude to that which was to come. A stepping stone to that which would become one of the biggest money-makers in the comic industry. Marvel took some time to step-back and observe the results from Contest of Champions. The comic book fan-base had spoken clearly, and they wanted to see more of their favorite heroes gather together to fight cosmic threats and each other. Marvel now knew they had started another comic revolution and began planning for the next big Crossover. Marvel Super-Hero Secret Wars was now being whispered about in the merry halls of Marvel. BACK-ISSUE BIN’S FINAL SCORE: 7 out 10 - A good nostalgia read and moment in comic history, but nothing special. Come back to Hero Realm for The Back-Issue Bin’s look at Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars next time. This will come just in time to refresh fan’s memories for Mark Millar’s current event Marvel: 1985. You don't want to miss this one, Secret Wars is when the Crossover Event really exploded onto the comic scene! 
Comment on this review HERE!
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Cemetery Blues: The Haunting of Hernesburg
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