Generally I’m not a fan of superhero team books as they tend to be formulaic and dull - we gotta punch that big thing together while vapidly bantering! So I was surprised to find myself kinda enjoying the first volume of Mark Waid and Humberto Ramos’ Champions.
The Champions are the youngs of the Marvel superheroing world: Ms Marvel/Kamala Khan, Nova/Sam Alexander, teen Cyclops from the past, Vision’s daughter Viv, Spider-Man/Miles Morales, and the Totally Awesome Hulk, Amadeus Cho.
I’d heard that Champions was very social justice warrior-y, which is pure anathema to me and why I stayed away from it initially, but it isn’t really. It doesn’t play up the obvious diversity of the group at all, and only Viv brings up anything remotely snowflake-y once - “microaggressions” - and even then I’m not sure if it was sincerely meant or ironic (she’s tres deadpan - it’s a synthezoid thang).
It does mention inclusivity a lot but in a way to empower people to become the heroes of their own lives - everyone and anyone can be a champion - rather than depend on someone else to save them, which I thought was a wonderful and inspiring message.
The team’s focus is mostly on real world issues: human traffickers, the rights of women in Middle Eastern countries, and racism in the southern states, which is a more interesting angle than some banal supervillain tryna take over da universe agin. On the other hand, none of them are actually a real challenge to the team and they’re easily able to defeat thugs with guns, etc. which doesn’t make for edge-of-your-seat reading either.
Though I did like that, in the Muslim women storyline, the Champions (sigh, that name...) take extra care to not be seen so that the women standing up for their rights look less like victims in need of help and that they and their supporters are able to stand up to the oppressors by themselves. A little unconvincing in the long term perhaps but you can see Waid’s putting extra thought into these storylines at least.
And speaking of thoughtful, I liked that not all of the stories ended with the team resolving it without resorting to hitting things - it’s just a shame that Waid has to actually have Ms Marvel say that out loud, which takes away from the artistic subtlety of the storytelling.
The team squabbling over who the leader is was repetitive and silly, how the team came about its name (and its immediate global popularity) was contrived, as was Ms Marvel’s reason for quitting the Avengers in the first instance (sometimes property damage is unavoidable when fighting massive threats!), and the Atlantis and Gwenpool episodes were very bland, even though I’m a Gwenpool fan.
The camping trip episode was fun though - putting in the time to character-build is always worth it - and Waid’s ability to quickly and convincingly pull this team together was impressive. They’ve good chemistry as a whole, their aims are more focused and cerebral than simply “buh save world”, and the stories feel more fresh and original than what’s on offer in other superhero team books. It might be a bit too earnest for its own good but better that than too cynical.
Champions, Volume 1: Change the World isn’t consistently high quality throughout but it’s a cut above most team books on offer from Marvel (and DC).
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