Champions

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Context

“The Champions” has been the name of several teams super-heroes.

This profile covers the Marvel Comics team of youths that appeared in 2016. It was essentially a “let’s have our most popular teenager heroes — who aren’t with a team — band together” project.

This profile covers everything in Champions volume 2 and volume 3. So, 2016-2019.

There’s no link between this team and the 1970s Champions of Los Angeles.

As usual with our “base camp” team profiles, this article provides the core info so we don’t have to repeat it in every member profile.

Oh yes, this article has plenty of S P O I L E R S.

Profile

Organisation

Full Name:
Champions.

Purpose:
Save people, make for a better world, relieve the oppressed, and have cool adventures.

Modus Operandi:
Small-team superhuman crisis response.

Interventions are often based on real-time online intelligence processing by Vivian Vision.

The Champions are explicitly distancing themselves from traditional super-heroics. They see these as :

They thus seek to bolster local, there-for-the-long-haul allies rather than barge in, punch people and fly out.

In practice, the Champions spent a significant percentage of their activities responding to global crises. During such, they largely had the standard combat role they otherwise sought to avoid.

(“Global crises” meaning “Marvel events and crossovers”. As with most Marvel series during the 2000s and 2010s, these constantly interrupted the series’ organic narrative flow.)

Extent of operations:
Global.

Bases of Operations:
Originally none. The Champions organised via smartphone to assemble on-site using their vehicles and powers.

Later on, their HQ appears to be a simple basement in the New York City area. But it has good computer, audio-visual and gaming equipment.

Major Funding:
We don’t need no steenkin’ funds.

Known Enemies:

Known allies:

Membership

Organizational structure:
Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) is the leader, mashallah“By God’s grace” more or less. But she may smoothly let Cyclops or Hulk take the lead on tactical or technical issues.

Vivian Vision does the heavy lifting when it comes to comms and data handling.

Roster (2016/2017):

Roster (Red Room):

Roster (2018):

Roster (2019 core team):

Roster (2019 reinforcements):

Roster (2019 pool):
Several persons were mentioned as willing to join if necessary. The list included Cloud 9 (Abigail Boylen), Honey Badger (Gabby Kinney), Moon Girl (Lunella Lafayette), Prodigy (David Alleyne), Red Dagger (Kareem) and Silk (Cindy Moon).

Membership requirements:
Cooptation.

Extended membership:
Within months, more groups of Champions emerged worldwide. These are youths civic projects. Typical activities include beach cleaning, voting registration, building housing, food banks, etc..

The idea is that any such activists are welcome to call themselves Champions and use the “C” logo for increased visibility.

The Champions soon lost the legal rights to their logo. But some months later they started using it again, perhaps illegally.

Equipment

Compact in-ear, high-performance tactical radios. These were presumably built by Amadeus Cho.

The Champs have used a succession of vehicles, all modified by Amadeus Cho.

In 2018 Vision, Williams, Cho and van Dyne pooled their technical expertise to build the CMB. The “Champions Mobile Bunker” was a combination rescue vehicle and mobile base. It did Mach 0.5 as its cruise speed. The insides were a bit like a submarine or a spaceship.

In 2019, the CMB was forced to crash by Kaldera. It couldn’t be repaired for months.

Soundtrack

Something contemporary and that says 2016. Mmm… Young M.A’s debut album ? Nah, too hardcore to fit the book.

Let’s go with The Weeknd, which pretty strongly says second-half-of-the-2010s, matches the characters’ age and is markedly more innocuous.

Ladies and gentlemen… The Weeknd ! 

History (Champions Vol. 2)

In 2016, the three youngest Avengers quit in quick succession. This was mostly out of frustration over the second heroic civil war  .

But within days, Ms. Marvel had contacted her friends and former colleagues Nova and Spider-Man. She then recruited the Hulk, who recruited Vivian Vision.

The newly-assembled Champions intervened to free prisoners of a human trafficking ring. Ms. Khan then gave one of her patented speeches about the team’s philosophy. This caught the attention of many younger folks online.

On the next day, Cyclops applied to the team. After some hesitation, he was allowed to join.

2017 begins

The Champs next intervened in Sharzad. Outside militants had recently taken over to impose a gender-segregated order. They were now beginning to use violence against an uprising of young women.

(Sharzad is presumably a tiny, autonomous-ish part of Pakistan. Its existence is likely tied to history unique to the Marvel Universe.)

The team coordinated with an activist leader named Amal. They covertly made it look like Amal and her crew had some sort of faith-based magic power over earth.

This forced the small-ish cadre of fundamentalists to retreat or be buried. It also made Amal’s movement look strong and righteous across the ummahThe greater Muslim community and beyond.

On the return flight the Champions ran into a hostile Atlantean patrol. But they narrowly escaped.

We are the Champions…

The team then responded to a deteriorating local situation, somewhere in the US’ Midwest.

The new, very popular county sheriff had been emboldening far right elements. This resulted in a litany of hate crimes.

There wasn’t that much the Champions could do. But they assisted a beleaguered deputy, who knew just how corrupt his boss was. He reluctantly started an outreach campaign to expose the sheriff.

… my friends

During their first clash with the Freelancers, the Champions became involved with the giant monsters global crisis of 2017. They joined a task force of Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, X-Men, etc. fighting the kaijuJapanese term for a rampaging giant monster, like Godzilla..

But in the meanwhile, Might of the Freelancers trademarked the Champions’ logo. Themed merch soon flooded outlets. This made the Champions look like utter sellouts.

However, Nova publicly denounced the owners of the Champions trademark. He successfully called for a boycott.

And we’ll keep on fighting ’til the end

During the 2017 takeover of the USA by Hydra, the Champions were summoned by Iron Man (Tony Stark) to Washington DC.

This battle was a disaster. As was a subsequent one, waged under the mistaken assumption that Captain America (Steve Rogers) was only leading Hydra due to brainwashing.

Furthermore :

This trio ran a number of ops. A big one was to free a prison town for Inhumans, to support Ms. Marvel.

The Champions in Nevada came to operate with three other youths, whom Ms. Marvel had been considering approaching for recruitment. These were :

We are the Red Room, my friends

This group volunteered to help the Black Widow murder Captain America (Steve Rogers). A vision from the future had shown Spider-Man (Miles Morales) killing Cap, and they sought to help Miles avoid this fate.

Ms. Romanova named this team (Hulk, Wasp, Spider-Man, Vivian Vision, Ironheart, Falcon) the Red Room. She trained them as assassins, though they were highly reluctant.

However, this likely saved their lives. They were away training when the resistance’s headquarters fell.

The assassination attempt failed. Natasha gave her life to prevent Miles from becoming a murderer, but this also allowed Hydra!Steve to survive. The Red Room team was arrested.

Hydra licks goats

However, the resistance’s Hail Mary plan succeeded. It freed the heroes that Hydra had trapped outside of Earth, and within a DarkforceJet-black, solid energy from another universe bubble in New York City.

Taskmaster (Tony Masters) and Black Ant (Eric O’Grady) then betrayed Hydra, in an attempt to be on the winning side. They freed the Red Room team, who joined the battle.

Eventually, the real Steve Rogers defeated the Hydra version. This ended the occupation.

Back to the so-called normal

The Champions re-formed with their pre-Secret-Empire roster.

They soon stopped the Psycho-Man, who was manifesting on Earth to steal quantum batteries.

In late 2017, the Champions and the Avengers jointly responded to a global threat from Counter-Earth. The two teams still didn’t get along, but they made do.

Earth and Counter-Earth were only saved by the thinnest of margins. Vivian Vision seemingly sacrificed her life to prevent a collision.

Her father built a Viv 2.0 to replace her. But a now-human Vivian miraculously returned to Earth. She and her successor eventually merged.

The Champions were also among the many heroes who saved lives when the Earth started breaking up in 2018. This was caused by the game between the Grandmaster and the Challenger. The Avengers intervened and narrowly won.

The Champs also helped against the brief Vedomi robot/aliens occupation. And with the attack of the Poisons and their weaponised Venom-like symbiotesIn the Marvel Universe, an alien species. Venom or Carnage are symbiotes.

I’ve paid my dues, time after time

Miles then enlisted the Champions to stop his uncle Aaron, aka the Iron Spider. Though he was badly wounded and the Champs were almost overrun by Lucia von Bardas’ troops and allies, Mr. Morales was successful.

Teenage!Cyclops then had to re-rejoin the X-Men. This accelerated the Champions’ plans to recruit. Ironheart and the Wasp joined, and helped the Hulk and Vivian build a new base/vehicle.

The Champs then flew to the Canadian Arctic, to check the Wasp’s G.I.R.L. lab’s climate research sensors. This led to a clash with the automated defences of a base of the Master of the World. Nova was nearly killed.

The Master credibly presented his activities as rebuilding melting ice to preserve the polar caps. The Champions thus hesitantly backed him. However, Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) and Alpha Flight barged in to arrest the Master.

Before the situation could fully degenerate, it was discovered that the Master’s miraculous energy source was an imprisoned Snowguard (Amka Aliyak). Once she was freed, this InukA member of the Inuit people teenager agreed to join the Champions.

But it’s been no bed of roses…

The Champions then got into a battle with the Chitauri Warbringer. Humiliated to see so many of his people being Thanos’ thralls, the Warbringer was trying to kill off Thanos’ Chitauri troops.

Said troops were immobile, as Thanos did not issue them any order. The Champions engaged Warbringer to prevent him from reaping the helpless evil aliens.

The Champs were successful. It was in the aftermath of the fight that things went bad :

Still, the Champions mostly recovered.

… no pleasure cruise

The Champions assisted the Avengers and Deadpool when Groffon — *allegedly* a Celestial — invaded Earth.

The Champs then went to assist contacts in Tanzania. Geological damage during the Grandmaster’s “game” had disrupted access to water.

The team ran into a berserker Man-Thing, who seriously injured Viv. While rescuing her, Sam and Nadia were sucked — along with the Man-Thing — into a magical vortex.

Amka conferred with spirits, and received an artefact to rescue her friends – the Siege Parallel.

(This artefact looked very much like the Siege Perilous, famously once used by the X-Men to create new lives for themselves. There are at least three Siege artefacts, with the third being the Siege Courageous.)

Using the Siege allowed the Champions to leap through the Nexus of All Realities and pursue the Man-Thing. However, the Master of the World had been monitoring them, and followed the Champs.

Dungeons & Champions

In this new dimension — the D&D-like Weirdworld — the Champs were slightly different people.

On the other hand, Nadia and Sam were now serving evil. The Wasp was a sort of bad sprite, and the magic-crystals-wielding Nova Knight was adopted as a son by the Master of the World.

The Master of the World was building an evil empire, Jadis-style. But the Swamp Queen and her forces resisted.

(Weirdworld is an unstable realm, which was created as a part of the 2015 Battleworld. However, it frequently incorporates aspects of older heroic fantasy Marvel settings, such as Polemachus, Crystalium – or the original Weirdworld seen in 1970s Marvel Super-Action issues).

(Time passes weirdly in Weirdworld. This was heightened by the Siege’s magic, so most Champions felt like that had been there for their entire life.)

Advanced Dungeons & Champions

Ironheart was the only one remembering life on Earth. She worked to reunite the team, but they couldn’t remember.

Still, the Weirdworld version of the Champions agreed to fight the Master.

During the battle, Riri and Viv managed to restore everyone’s memories. Amka then convinced the Man-Thing to warp them back to Earth-616The main Marvel Comics version of Earth.

As the team recovered, Ms. Marvel finalised her plans to further expand the Champions concept…

History (Champions Vol. 3)

The Champions and other teen super-heroes had been increasingly socialising on private online forums. Ms. Marvel leveraged this to expand the team.

Her goal was to be able to launch multiple rescue missions at once. Even in those circumstances when the core team had to respond to some major super-crisis.

The first stab at this (simultaneously freeing enslaved workers in Mexico, rescuing storm victims in Japan, and stopping Zzzax in Dubai) seemed to go just right.

But actually, it hadn’t.

A man of wealth and taste

What actually happened was that Kamala and Viv were slain by Zzzax, as well as thousands of locals.

As the other half of the team on the ground — Miles and Amadeus — tried to cope with this, they were approached by Mephisto.

Mephisto offered to roll back time by several minutes, no strings attached. Miles took the deal. This allowed the Champions to stop Zzzax much quicker, with far fewer casualties. Both Viv and Kamala easily survived.

But in the aftermath of this :

War of the Realms

Ms. Marvel rounded up her remaining Champions. A global invasion was underway from Asgard’s enemies.

During this War of the Realms, the Champions defended Melbourne from armies of trolls.

As they were about to collapse, they were unexpectedly reinforced and rallied by Cyclops (Scott Summers). After Teenage!Scott had returned to the past, Adult!Scott had gained his memories of having been friends with the Champions.

The Champs then redeployed to Brazil. The Enchantress (Amora of Asgard) was attempting to conquer South America using undead armies from Niffleheim. When the Champions stopped her armies, she sent in a Disir unit – fallen Valkyries from Hel.

The Champs might have been slain. But Power Man (Victor Alvarez) realised that the Disir were awash in symbolism and cultural significance. Which he could metabolise as chiA sort of universal life force/energy in Chinese-influenced cultures. to become a juggernaut. This won the battle.

In the fray, the evil Valkyries had subjected Ms. Marvel to a vision of her death. This forced the shocked Kamala to take some downtime.

Chase the Devil

In the meanwhile, Sam was looking for his Black Nova helmet. Kaldera forced him to invade the Nova Corps HQ, but the helmet had just been stolen by the Thieves’ Guild… and taken to Earth.

With Snowguard’s help, Sam recovered his Nova power and arrested Kaldera.

While Kamala was away, Viv led the teams. These continued to deploy in small groups of about four.

But Mephisto sent his son Blackheart to corrupt the team.

The core of the team (Kamala, Miles, Sam, Amadeus and Viv) managed to escape the corruption. But even with their greater experience and teamwork, they couldn’t take on the rest.

However, Viv convinced Riri to break the spell. Ironheart then used her non-lethal arsenal to stun everyone, giving the team time to rally and bolster each other to regain their free will.

From there they defeated Blackheart.

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