Why Isn’t Marvel’s Contest of Champions More Respected as a Game Changer?

Few things can bring as much action and suspense as a well-written crossover event. Reading a favorite hero’s stories is already great enough. But a whole roster of heroes, all together and working as one? Of the many crossover events fans have enjoyed over the years, there’s one that helped set the bar not just for Marvel, but for the entire industry. Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions is not only the publisher’s very first limited series but is also the very first major crossover event in the history of the company.

1982’s Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions (by Mark Gruenwald, Bill Mantlo, Steven Grant, and Bob Layton) was a major undertaking for Marvel Comics upon its release. Marvel’s heroes had teamed up together to fight evil as far back as the late ’60s with heroes like Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and more coming together. Even the wedding of Reed and Sue Richards posed as one of Marvel’s first important crossover events as it brought nearly every element of the Marvel universe together in one story. What sets Contest of Champions apart from previous stories and publications like Marvel-Two-In-One and Marvel Team-Up is that it didn’t just bring together a mere handful of heroes: it brought them all.

Contest of Champions United Marvel’s Best and Brightest Heroes to Save the World

The plot of Contest of Champions is fairly straightforward. Unbeknownst to the heroes of Earth, The Grandmaster and another unknown cosmic entity have agreed to wage a friendly game between them. Each contestant has their stakes, but the twist is that neither can participate in their game themselves. Without warning, every single superhero on Earth is teleported to a massive spacecraft in the depths of space.

The Grandmaster and the unknown figure inform them of their game and give them the terrible parameters of the contest: should the Grandmaster win, his brother The Collector will be returned to life; if the unknown figure wins, all life on Earth will remain suspended in stasis forever. Choosing to throw the matches is not an option. Both celestial figures choose 12 heroes each and task them with finding the pieces of the Golden Globe of Life, which are scattered across the Earth.

The Grandmaster chooses Captain America, Talisman, Darkstar, Daredevil, She-Hulk, Captain Britain, Defensor, Peregrine, and Blitzkrieg. The unknown figure chooses Iron Man, Vanguard, Shamrock, Iron Fist, Storm, Arabian Knight, Sabra, Angel, Invisible Woman, Black Panther, Sunfire, and Collective Man. As the heroes battle one another, the Grandmaster wins the contest; however, the unknown figure reveals a terrible secret. To bring The Collector back to life, life must be sacrificed in exchange. The figure reveals herself to be Mistress Death, forcing the Grandmaster to choose to sacrifice himself to bring his brother back to life. In doing so, the contest comes to a close, the heroes are returned to Earth, and the stasis field cast over the planet is lifted.

Contest of Champions Popularized the Concept of Limited Series and Major Crossovers

While it might seem a bit simple by today’s standards of crossover storytelling, Contest of Champions stands as an important moment in Marvel’s history and nearly didn’t happen at all. In 1980, the Summer Olympics were held in Moscow. Deciding to capitalize on the international event, Marvel created Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions as a fun means of having its characters engage in the Olympic Games themselves.

What made this plan complicated was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, an event that prompted the US to not attend the Olympic Games. Not wanting to scrap their entire story, Marvel instead decided to sit on the story for a few years before altering the plot to remove any connections to the Olympics. When Marvel did release the three-issue Contest of Champions in 1983 it marked not only the very first limited series that Marvel ever produced, but it was also the largest crossover event in comics, predating DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths by two years.

Unlike previous Marvel events where only a few heroes would join forces, Contest of Champions brought together as many as possible. This isn’t to say that literally every single hero in the Marvel universe appeared; as the heroes were told in the story, only human heroes were brought together for the crossover event, excluding mutants, Eternals, Atlanteans, and Inhumans. While this might seem like a disservice to fans of those respective characters, it was a necessary move to ensure that the various power levels of the heroes involved stayed on an even level.

As powerful as Captain America may be, there’s very little he can do against the likes of Silver Surfer or Thor. Many original characters were created for the event as well, with Shamrock, Talisman, Defensor, and Peregrine making their debut in the story. Making the event a three-issue limited series gave each team and event room to breathe, rather than having the action fly at a breakneck pace. Later stories such as 1984’s Secret Wars and DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths upped the ante from Contest of Champions, putting their respective heroes in even more dire situations against even greater odds.

Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions is exactly what its name suggests: it is a collection of Marvel’s superheroes brought together to perform against one another. Of course, such events always bring about heated discussions from fans as to who should actually come out on top in such trials. Despite having countless heroes standing at the ready, only 24 were chosen to perform, another factor that undoubtedly led to even more heated discussions among fans.

Contest of Champions brought the Marvel universe together in its biggest event yet and proved that juggling so many different characters, personalities, powers, and motivations could not only work but could work very well. Even though a few characters showed their true colors in some truly reprehensible ways, Contest of Champions still aged well. It’s exciting, funny, and full of heart.

Over the years, crossover events and limited series have become more and more common. The ’90s were filled with Spider-Man’s Clone Saga and the X-Men’s double feature of Age of Apocalypse and Onslaught, and the ’00s had World War Hulk, as well. Crossover events are useful ways of wiping the slate clean and pressing a giant restart button. As the dust settles, new pathways are revealed for future stories, with many characters undergoing dramatic transformations in the process.

While a good crossover event can be one of the most exciting comic stories to read, they’re only exciting when they’re done right. Contest of Champions was done right. The stakes were through the roof and the heroes were pushed to their limits, but in the end, everything worked out and the day was saved. A simple but effective superhero story if there ever was one. It might not seem like it to today’s fresh readers, but Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions was a game changer not just for Marvel, but for comics as a whole.