When the Champions and Avengers discover the High Evolutionary’s plans, will their combined efforts be enough to stop him?
CHAMPIONS #14
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Humberto Ramos
Colorist: Edgar Delgado
Publisher: Marvel Comics
What You Need to Know:
The High Evolutionary has set in motion plans to phase Earth and Counter-Earth together. The Avengers and Champions have combined forces in order to stop the Evolutionary but things have gone insane. Between Ani-men randomly appearing all over the place, the two teams split in order for one group to face the Evolutionary on Counter-Earth. Leaving the other team to defend Earth from the increasing threats of more and more Ani-men. In the middle of all the chaos, Viv Vision and the Falcon were captured by the Evolutionary and he has decided to “evolve” the daughter of the Vision.
What You’ll Find Out:
Ms. Marvel, young Cyclops, Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Hulk, and the new Wasp are on Earth handling the growing threat of Ani-men appearing randomly from the phase shifts. That is until it is brought to their attention that the High Evolutionary has much more planned than simply bringing the two Earth’s together. Now their priority must change from defending civilians to reaching Counter-Earth in time to warn their teammates of the Evolutionary’s real plan.
On Counter-Earth, Vision, Thor, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Nova, and Hercules storm the Evolutionary’s base. More concerned with finding his daughter and unaware of the true nature of the Evolutionary’s plan, Vision finds Vivian. But what he finds is unexpected as his daughter has been seemingly turned human. The team rescues Vivian and the Falcon and confront the Evolutionary. When the Evolutionary attempts to escape, the rest of the team from Earth show up to stop him and reveal his true plan.
It turns out the Evolutionary wants to destroy both worlds in the hopes of something new evolving out of the destruction. Calling it “ascension” and looking to leave before the two planets make their final collision. The Evolutionary is struck down by the young Cyclops, Vision, and Nova before he can escape. Now both teams must come up with something to stop the ascension before both worlds become extinct.
What Just Happened? Waid has basically set up a threat big enough to warrant both teams being involved. There are two more issues to go and it wasn’t enough to merely play on the “varsity vs jr varsity” aspect of the story thus far. Now it’s crunch time and I suspect the next two issues will be about much more than merely stopping the ascension from happening. Considering the main villain has already been dispatched, presumably. This issue was fast paced and looking to get at the heart of this crossover. There will definitely be fallout from Viv Vision becoming human and there should be more to how the two teams end up saving the two worlds.
Unfortunately, the fast pace of the book hurts Ramos art as his style is bold and in your face and he isn’t really given the chance to do what he’s best at. Save for the opening moments of seeing Viv Vision as human, what makes Ramos art pop, falls flat here as there’s just too much going on to appreciate the detail he can usually deliver. Same goes for Delgados’ colors as things just get too muddled as there isn’t enough space to give him a proper chance to work his magic.
Rating: 6.5/10.
Final Thought:
Unfortunately, Part 4 of this crossover is the weakest in this arc. It’s too fast and too much in such a short amount of time. There isn’t enough for real character moments and this is probably the time it was needed most as Vision comes face to face with his altered daughter for the first time. There are still two more issues to go, so perhaps that will get made up for. As it stands though, it doesn’t help the issue now. Especially when it feels like Waid was just rushing through to get to what he really wants this story to be about. And that certainly isn’t beating the villain as Evolutionary was knocked off in an almost clumsy way. The issue isn’t overly bad though and depending on the final two parts, this issue isn’t enough to simply ruin the entire story. There is still a lot to look forward to considering how strongly this crossover started out. If anything, the fate of Viv Vision and her father are enough to keep any fan intrigued by what happens next.