Issue(s): Champions #11, Champions #12, Champions #13
Cover Date: Feb-May 77
Title: "The shadow from the stars" / "Did someone say... the Stranger?" / "The doom that went on forever!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
Bob Layton - Inker

Review/plot:
This arc starts with an invasion by an alien named Kaa, which the Champions fight off with the help of Hawkeye and the Two-Gun Kid...

...but then we pick up on plot elements from the canceled Black Goliath series - the glowing box that Stark said had something to do with Al B. Harper. It turns out that the box is actually the Stranger's Null Bomb, and it has been activated. The Stranger shows up to try and defuse it...

...but the Champions don't believe him and attack. When they realize their error, he sends them off to find the device that will stop the bomb, but in a messy plot, it turns out the device is the Rune-staff of Kamo-Tharn - the device that saved Jane Foster's life and merged Sif with Jane in Thor #235. So after a pointless battle with Kamo-Tharn.. .

...the rune staff, in a supply closet in Donald Blake's hospital, is retrieved and the bomb is stopped. Hercules' face-palm is entirely appropriate here.

Meanwhile, mostly off panel, the Black Goliath gets a rematch with the Stilt-Man, and he wins this time.

There's also an ongoing subplot wherein the Champion's equipment seems to be faulty.

John Byrne's art on these three issues is nice.

Issue #12 has a letter from Kurt Busiek, telling the editors to "get rid" of Iceman and Ghost Rider along with other advice. He does have a good handle on the characters.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: Issue #12 "takes place before the developments in Ghost Rider #22". It also takes place after the Stranger's appearance in Marvel Team-Up #55.

References:

• Iceman makes the obvious point that Bill Foster isn't the same Giant-Man he fought in Uncanny X-Men #9.
  
• Hawkeye left the Avengers to roam the west with the Two Gun Kid in Avengers #143.
  
• The Warlord Kaa previously appeared in Strange Tales #79 (the footnote is for the reprint, Where Monsters Dwell #31) and Hulk #184
  
• The story of the glowing box picks up from plotlines left dangling in Black Goliath #3 and Black Goliath #4. Goliath's grudge with Stilt-man comes from issue #4 as well.
  
• The Stiltman's fear of winged creatures or anything approaching his eyes comes from the time Redwing attacked him in Captain America #191.
  
• The Stranger has tried to destroy the Earth before "several times". The most relevant appearance is when he used the Null Bomb that threatens the Earth in these issues. That was in Silver Surfer #5.
  
• The Stranger is currently involved in another interest, chasing the Soul Gem, as seen in Marvel Team-Up #55.
  
• Sif and Hercules already got Kamo-Tharn's runestaff in Thor #235.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Despite Black Goliath clearly defeating the Stilt-Man, Marvel Two-In-One(around issue #82) states that he never won a decisive victory against anyone.

When I first read #12 in the first grade, I thought Black Goliath had ripped Stilt-Man's head off.

Am I the only one who think Hawkeye and Ghost Rider seem kind chummy for two characters who shouldn't have met before? I know Ghost Rider's been in the Champions, but would Hawkeye even really know who Ghost Rider is?

On the cover to #11, there are two small signs saying Shooter and Stern. Jim Shooter was Archie Goodwin's assistant at the time, but I don't know what Roger Stern did on this book.

There is also a teeny tiny Superman figure there, but it's colored all yellow. Clark Kent also appears to be on a news broadcast in one interior panel.

Byrne tries to give an M.C. Escher-type look to Kamo Tharn's place, but he doesn't have quite the space to pull it off.

Weirdly, the person who initially stole the null-bomb is called "Jerry" in #12 and then "Willie" in #13.

It is clear that if the Stranger doesn't go up in size on that Red Marble bag he wears that he will be needing to replace his own Gem stones. The Champions are another great Super-Group in need of a re-write and wardrobe change. They need to go a bit more West Coast Biker Gang and let a newly revised Marvel Ghost Rider lead the way!

That caption about Black Goliath's victory cracks me up. Like that is a big victory. By the time of the MTIO story he was probably ignoring it because of all of the sarcastic comments his buddies made when he would tell them.

In the story Iceman mumbles for the cold while thinking. He's Iceman, and he's thinking, but he mumbles.