Contest of Champions II

[superboyprime]

All this A vs. X stuff lately has put me in mind of another "Let's see 'em all fight!" series Marvel put out in the late 90s: Contest of Champions II. ("II" because there was a previous one Marvel did as an Olympic games tie-in... in the year the US didn't attend the Olympic games. Oops.)

It was written by... actually, you know what? See if you can guess. The writer's someone who has a distinctive style.

Here's a third of issue one and a third of issue two.







Okay, setup's out of the way. First round: Psylocke vs. Iron Man.









Winner: Iron Man.



Next up: Iron Man vs. X-Force (the whole team)





That was issue one. On to issue two!

















Also in issue two but not posted here because of the page limit: Torch vs. the John Byrne Spider-Girl (Winner: Torch) and Mr. Fantastic vs. the Hulk (Winner: Hulk).

Comments

[magus_69]

It's Claremont, isn't it?

[icon_uk]

Who else would refer to Storm having a "carousal" with Yukio? :)

[michael_ellis_day]

Who else but Claremont would base an entire series around "heroes are mind controlled to act out of character and experience their fondest wishes?" That's his number one trope!

[superboyprime]

Yep.

[pallas_athena]

"MEN always beat girls, except when they let a girl win because of EXTRA MANLY HEROISM" seems to be the message here.

[darth_cloudo]

I was wondering about that also. . _.

[auggie18]

Which is a little weird, considering that this is written by Claremont. I'd be expecting women to be kicking all sorts of ass under his pen.

[pallas_athena]

Yes, I like Claremont in general and like how he writes women, so this does seem a little strange.

[wizardru]

SO...MUCH...MONOLOGUEING.

Oh, Claremont, I'd now it was you anywhere. "But...is it what I want?" That breathless introspection that seems to go on forever in the middle of combat? I'd know you anywhere, BODY AND SOUL.

[auggie18]

What, why does the Torch get to fight again? Didn't Storm win this one?

(Also, there was a John Byrne Spider-Girl?)

[superboyprime]

The Torch/Spider-Woman (not Spider-Girl, as I mistakenly wrote) bout was before the others.

[riddler13]

It's like when Roulette captured the JSA.

[lucky_gamble]

Thank you manly heroic Human Torch. Considering both fights, he should've lost both. Dehydration? On a hulk? Really?

[jeyl]

This must be the only required reading that Marvel movie producers ever read.

[nefrekeptah]

... why? It's not like there's been a lot of Superhero fights in the movies yet.

[jeyl]

But almost all of those fights are almost focused entirely on the male super hero. Like this comic, it's not really giving the female characters a chance to shine.

[donnblake]

I think that's more an issue of general numerical gender imbalance. I don't think Black Widow got particularly less time to shine than the other team members did, but she was the only female team member, as opposed to five guys. Point taken on say, the Fantastic Four though, where I recall being less than impressed by Jessica Alba's Sue Storm (although maybe that was my disappointment at the movie in general seeping through, it's been a while).

Add in the fact that there hasn't been a well received solo female superhero movie in... has there ever been a well received solo female superhero movie? I recall both Elektra and Catwoman being panned, and no other examples spring to mind.

That's not to say it isn't an issue, just that I think the issue is more of a quantitative imbalance than a qualitative one.

[auggie18]

There was also a Supergirl movie that bombed.

[jeyl]

Well, when you look at those two solo female movies you've described, what do you think is the problem? Is it because the movies are poorly written, directed and executed, or because they star a woman?

[wizardru]

This is a subjective call, but the general opinion of Elektra, Supergirl and Catwoman is that they are TERRIBLE movies. I mean, not just bad, but TERRIBLE. Worse, Elektra is a spinoff of another terrible movie, Daredevil.

The only time we've seen any good female superhero movies, they haven't been the lead. A 'Black Widow' movie might be viable now, but the best female superhero movies (or at least most successful) have not actually starred superheros (i.e. Resident Evil, Underworld). It's a problem made more difficult by the fact that there are only a handful of actual big name female superheroines to begin with...and the most famous ever has only managed one semi-ironic TV show in the 1970s and an animated direct-to-video movie a few years ago.

[donnblake]

Well, my *main* issue with Catwoman was that it didn't seem at all like they wanted to make a Catwoman film. It seemed like they wanted to make a film about a woman who gets mystical cat powers (so, I don't know, Tigra?), and somehow got stuck using the Catwoman name. There are elements that seemed like they could be interesting, but, IMHO, they never really came together.

[esco]

Like the Daredevil movie, Electra was downright terrible and maybe a bit worse. Catwoman was Uwe Boll level bad and Supergirl is probably the best of those three.
The best female starring film off the top my head is Salt and she's close enough to being a super hero I guess.

Found this list: listal.com/list/my-top-10-female
Not all are leading ladies in their respective film but that's a really good list of bad ass females

Personally I think Black Widow shouldn't have her own film and would be better costarring in a Shield film with Hawkeye and have cameos from the regulars and new ones like Carol Danvers, Wendall Vaughn, Sharon Carter, Hank Pym, etc.

[jeyl]

Ladies can be bad a**es, but the fact remains that if no one wants to let them become a protagonist to their own story, than that's all they are. Just a couple of bada**es who are only remembered for being able to stand up against a challenge.

As for Black Widow not being able to have her own movie? Well, your comment just proves my point. You're not looking at her as a potential character who can have a story of her own unfold and give not only her world, but the world of shield more exposure in how it operates. You're only looking at her for what these films are only capable of giving her without taking the spotlight away from the leading men. Just a female bada** who isn't worthy of having her own story.

After all, her story is about a young girl is brought in at a very young age to do very bad things, but later wants to personally redeem herself and do some good. There was a movie released not too long ago that dealt with that very same story line and it was called Salt. Sure, it wasn't a smash hit, but when your budget is 110 million and it made almost 300 million world wide, are you really going to stick with your belief that a Black Widow movie wouldn't work?

[esco]

I just think that a Shield movie featuring both Black Widow and Hawkeye would be a better direction for Shield to go because it could introduce new characters and spin offs from it can happen like Ms. Marvel. A separate film for either Hawkeye or Black Widow could work too if done right.

Its not that I'm fanatically against a Black Widow movie but a Shield movie seems like a good way for Marvel to expand the world and introduce more characters. Personally I don't care who is in the leading and supporting role as long as the film is good. Could there be and should there be more diversity in films/tv? Easy, Yea. I don't want to take this too off topic but this reminds me of something that I looked up this past week which although I knew beforehand I just didn't realize? Know what I mean? Anyways what I was searching for was a list of best actresses (for casting the Guardians of the Galaxy) and the first couple of lists at the top of the google search were all(mostly) white. Same with best actors. Same when searching for most beautiful actor/actress. It might have to do a lot with most of the great roles going to white actors/actresses but even that doesn't seem right. Sorry for going off on a tangent.

[superboyprime]

The Torch/Spider-Woman fight was done from the latter's point of view.

[jeyl]

Pity it wasn't worth posting here.

[bmaryott]

DAMNIT!!!


What happened to Damage Control?