Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

Back in 1982, Marvel published its first ever limited series, Contest of Champions and was largely remembered for introducing China’s superhero, “the Collective Man” to the world. 17 years later, the sequel no-one asked for finally hit the stands, written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Oscar Jimenez (who now goes under the name Juan Barranco).

It’s only a sequel in the loosest of terms, taking only the concept and title from the original. Each issue of the series portrayed various fights, with one main “featured bout” as the villain of the series, eventually revealed as the Brood Queen, selected the strongest super-powered heroes on Earth to host her next generation of brood-spawn.

Despite some hilariously ropey Claremont dialogue that borders on self-parody at best (Iron Man using the word “selfsame”) and cringeworthy at worst (”Does X-Force Rock?” “X-Force Rules!”) it’s hard to argue with his characterisation, and let loose on the Marvel Universe, he actually nails everyone surprisingly well. The issue opens with Iron Man and the Human Torch helping the army in a combat exercise, when Rogue shows up to see what they’re doing hanging out near the X-Men’s base. It quickly devolves into a carefree chase between the Torch and Rogue, while Iron Man looks on dismissively. There’s little point to the scene in the wider plot, but the dead-on character writing showed that Claremont (then the writer on Fantastic Four) might still have the greatness of his initial X-Men run in him.

The point of the series, though, is really the fights - it’s an authorised version of those “who would win?” threads you get on every comics messageboard. Once the heroes are abducted, really get going. The first match - Psylocke Vs Iron Man - might sound like a one-sided proposition in writing, but Claremont makes you believe Psylocke could win it. She doesn’t, of course, but almost. Iron Man’s lead role in the plot makes perfect sense once you realise that the heroes are being controlled, and only he remains immune due to the bio-static nature of his armour. The results of certain match-ups were actually decided by online poll, which perhaps explains how Gambit could beat Quicksilver, though sadly it seems that the exact results of these polls are lost to the ages.

It really is a gratuitous, brainless series that relies on little more than the novelty of seeing heroes fight one another for no good reason, but because it never pretends to be anything more, there’s a certain glee to it all. You even get some hilarious late-90s superheroes showing up, including the Mattie Franklin Spider-Woman, and the Slingers. There’s actually a cute moment later in the series where instead of fighting, the Slingers face the New Warriors in a basketball game, which alongside the Hulk versus Deadpool match shows that Claremont can actually be funny when he tries.

What really makes the series enjoyable, though, is Jiminez’s artwork, finished off by some downright superb colours by Digital Paintbrush. Even Michael Ryan’s substitution as penciller later on doesn’t cause it to lose steam. For all its flaws, Contest of Champions 2 is what superhero comics should look like - vivid and action-filled. It’s a pity the story is so substanceless, but re-reading it for this review was still something of a guilty pleasure. It’s maybe not a story for the ages, but it is still good fun even 9 years after release.

Tags: Chris Claremont, Contest of Champions 2, Juan Barranco, Oscar Jimenez
Publisher: Dusting Off, Marvel