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Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions (1982) has an arguable status as the first event comic, yet its similarities to the more legitimate first attempt, Secret Wars, abound. Originally created to accompany the Summer Olympics of 1980, it was delayed when, well, the United States did not participate in the 1980 Summer Olympics. The Cold War was going strong and the Olympics-hosting USSR had just invaded Afghanistan causing many nations to drop out of the games which left Marvel with an unpublishable book. And that is essentially the most interesting thing you will here read.

With a few alterations here and there, and a couple years distance, Marvel proceeded to release this mini-series as the forerunner of the inbound deluge of limited series for Marvel: the first of its kind. This is a part of the one true value of this little story, its quality as an historical artifact. Today, if you were to be strange and go to a comic shop, you could find a dozen or more active mini-series on the shelves. Well, on a non-COVID Wednesday. Contest of Champions was Marvel’s first attempt at the limited series. DC had pioneered the effort in 1979 and were continuing to explore its potential and honestly would revolutionize comics by this means in the 80s (Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, e.g.). Contest of Champions would be a less than stellar first step onto the field for the House of Ideas.

Bill Mantlo was given the scripting duties for the project and who knows what kind of guidelines and limits restricted him. Mark Gruenwald and Steven Grant also get story credit, Gruenwald even getting a primary position in the listing so perhaps most of this is his fault. Back to Mantlo, he was known as the fill-in writer. When a book missed a deadline they had a catalog of premade fill-in issues that had a vague enough place in continuity that you could render a couple pages for placement and then the rest was a harmless little story. He was also the king of the licensed toy comics, turning the storyless toys of the Micronauts and Rom into popular and thriving ongoing series. What I personally think of when I consider Mantlo are my possibly favorite era of Hulk comics as well as his writing Spectacular Spider-Man during one of the best periods of the Wallcrawler’s fictional existence. I suppose his tragic accident that has left him severely debilitated comes to mind as well. None of that matters here. Mantlo is a writer for hire with no passion for the project. My common practice for events and mini-series are to blame the editor when it is bad and celebrate the writer when it is good. I am sure that causes many false credits on my part. All that to say, Mantlo’s writing does little here. He includes little moments of characterization but if I were a stranger to the comics nothing that would entice me to explore one of their books.


The art may be even worse. John Romita Jr had already broken into comics in the shadow of his father and was developing his distinctive style of which he is recognized today. This style is rarely here. What this really looks like is Romita provided some rough layouts and inker Pablo Marcos had to do the lion’s share of the art production. I see this in the fact that you see what appears to be a lot of copying of other artists’ art. I see Frank Miller show up, a lot of John Byrne characters, even a few moments of Jim Steranko which hardly fits the style of this book. Love or hate John Romita Jr, this book does not represent him. This art compliments the writing well in the fact that no one seems to care about their end product.

The reader immediately sees the former ties to the Olympics in the stress on athletic training to open the book, the international flavor, as well as the competition involved. However the competition feels especially pointless and the results arbitrary. The new super heroes created are all stereotyped international characters that have had limited impact or appearances since. The one with the most appearances I have seen is Collective Man... you see he’s from China... and they are communist... Collective Man... get it?Writers have gotten some mileage from the character, at least more than I am aware for the others. (Antagonists are another story, but we will get there)


Issue #1 begins with all of the heroes of earth being teleported off to a satellite and tasked with playing a game of hide and seek MacGuffins for the survival of Earth. An interesting foretaste of both Marvel’s Secret Wars (1984) and DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) which involved cosmic beings teleporting heroes (and villains) to space stations. You can see they need to get things rolling quickly so there is no build-up. The beings responsible for the teleporting are the returning Grandmaster (played by Jeff Goldblum in the MCU) a previously revealed Elder of the Universe and the Unknown whose reveal may be the most significant internal item of this book. Grandmaster desires to revive his deceased brother and fellow Elder of the Universe, the Collector (performed by Benicia del Toro in the MCU) who found his demise at the wrong side of all-powerful Korvac in the much-better-than-this Korvac Saga. Here are the slender ties to continuity that seem to give this story a smidge of significance.

The subsequent Easter Egg hunts in issues #2 and 3 are bland and pointless. Forced characterization attempts to help the reader know these characters quickly but in the end nothing matters. The structure and pacing of the story resembles the original Silver Age Justice League books in the worst way. Split off different teams, tell their individual story where they essentially fail or succeed at the villain’s task in the same way, reassemble them all and then resolve the story in some other inane way. Rob this breakdown of the bizarre and silly uses of powers and weaknesses which is the bright spot of those Justice League stories and you have Contest of Champions. 


Possibly the best inclusion to these books are the lists of characters and a simple description along with first appearances for every hero of the Marvel Universe in 1982. It is an amusing little catalog.

I shouldn’t waste more time on this. Let me cut to the pros and cons and final review.

Pros:
- this is an historical artifact as both Marvel’s first limited series and as a proto-event comic. A later series as well as a steal-your-money mobile game is named after this story thus the title has some extended life.
- some minimal continuity concerns regarding the Grandmaster, the Collector, and...
- the first appearance of a cosmic entity that would be significant for later events. Do you need to read this for that? No, but if you are a continuity leech like myself...
- I appreciate the character lists at the end.
- it is only 3 issues? You don’t suffer long. I actually think Secret Wars could have profited from more brevity.

Cons:
- It is only 3 issues. It likely would not have made it good, but how do you represent all these characters in 3 issues. Clearly you do not.
- The art is bad. Inconsistent and stealing from other artists, this is a patchwork of things that do not fit. 
- Even if you are here for a powers showcase, one of the shallowest things to open a comic for, you are still not rewarded. Not really. Usually the worst comics fall into the trap of just throw super powers at the reader, and this book is even bereft of that.
- The competition, the conflict, doesn’t matter. It seems like it does, because of the threat to the Earth. But the characters are brought into others’ conflict and have only the smallest agency in its resolution.


Final Review: This is what a lot of people think of when they ignorantly assume what super hero comics are. This is most of the things bad about pre-80s comics all in one package. I would not steer anyone toward this book unless they are already an established comic reader who wants a taste of history. The 80s may be my favorite decade of comics, but this, this is not a part of the goodness.

Rating (-5/+5 scale): -3

Availability: After that if you still want to check this out, it is available on Marvel Unlimited. Otherwise you are buying it via trade paperback or Comixology. Or I am seeing it at $20 for the individual 3 issues on eBay... but you have better ways to spend your money.

What to read instead: Most anything else, but I suppose the best answer is Secret Wars (1984). The truer first event comic is more of the undelivered promise of Contest of Champions, though not without its own faults. If you want a taste of a good limited series from this original push, Claremont and Miller’s 4-issue Wolverine may still be the greatest story of the hirsute Canuck.

The Events Master List:

1. Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions (1982)

Being first means you are simultaneously the worst and best. 

Next up: speaking of those secretive wars, Marvel tries to beat DC to the presses with their first true event comic. 

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