Contest of Champions II
Cover of trade paperback for Contest of Champions II (1999).
Art by Michael Ryan.
Publication information
PublisherMarvel Comics
Schedulemonthly
FormatLimited series
Publication dateSept. 1999 – Nov. 1999
No. of issues5
Main character(s)Rogue
Iron Man
Human Torch
Various Marvel super-heroes
Creative team
Written byChris Claremont
Penciller(s)Oscar Jimenez
Michael Ryan

Contest of Champions II is a five-issue comic book limited series published from September to November 1999 by Marvel Comics. The series was written by Chris Claremont and pencilled by Oscar Jimenez and Michael Ryan. The series is unrelated to the original limited series of the same name – Contest of Champions – published in 1982.

Plot summary

A group of Earth's heroes are invited by an apparently benevolent race to participate in a series of contests against one another in exchange for advanced technology. This, however, is a ruse staged by the alien race the Brood. The Brood Queen plans to absorb the powers of the strongest heroes and channel them into the captive mutant heroine Rogue, to whom the Brood Queen has transferred her consciousness using Rogue's mutant power, subsequently using the winning heroes as hosts for Brood embryos for the new invasion of Earth.

Courtesy of microscopic nanites, all the heroes (with the exception of Iron Man, whose armor's automatic life support systems protected him from infection) are drugged, and become indifferent to everything except the contest, unable to process the anomalies in the situation facing them. Although the losing heroes are allegedly returned to Earth, Iron Man's first victory allows him to confirm that the departing teleporters lack the strength to return the subject to Earth. After Iron Man loses his second match against X-Force, he learns that the heroes are actually teleported to a different part of the ship to either destroy each other or be hunted by various animals. After encountering Psylocke, he is able to use his resources to reprogram the nanobots and use them to cure the other losing heroes, he and Psylocke forming a strike force to determine their location and gather the other heroes together to oppose the Brood's scheme. The Brood Queen's plan is eventually disrupted by the hero Hawkeye, who was overlooked in the early stages of the contest, and Iron Man, who leads several defeated heroes against the Brood. The Brood are defeated and Rogue is cured by heroine Ms. Marvel, who makes the Brood Queen withdraw from Rogue's body by convincing the Queen that she will kill Rogue if she does not.[1]

List of conflicts

Winner Loser Notes
Iron Man Psylocke Psylocke attempted to use her powers to create the illusion that she was still 'Lady Mandarin', but Iron Man used his armour's close-range defences to knock her out when she tried to attack him physically.
Wolverine Hercules
X-Force Iron Man After easily gaining the upper hand against most of X-Force, Iron Man was distracted by the discovery that Siryn had recently sustained damage to her larynx preventing her from using her powers, his concern for Siryn distracting him long enough for Bedlam to get the drop on him.
Human Torch Spider-Woman The Torch trapped Spider-Woman in a fire vortex and drained oxygen out of the resulting dome to suffocate her.
Hulk Mister Fantastic Hulk inhaled Mister Fantastic into his mouth as Richards tried to contain the Hulk by wrapping his body around him, keeping Richards contained and trapped until he ran out of oxygen and fainted.
Human Torch She-Hulk The Torch heated the air around them until She-Hulk passed out from heatstroke.
Storm Human Torch After a prolonged chase, Storm forced the Torch into unconsciousness with a continuous wind assault, leaving him with no way to win other than using a nova flame assault that could have killed her, which he opted not to do.
Scarlet Witch Cable The Witch's hex-spheres combined with Cable's time-travelling nature caused minor temporal rifts that drew in other-worldly heroes Lockdown and Rosetta Stone into the ship, where they helped Iron Man and Psylocke tackle the threat.
New Warriors Slingers Objecting to the idea of a straightforward fist-fight on the grounds that it would be boring, the two teams competed in a basketball game that the New Warriors won.
Spider-Man Beast
Domino Power Man
Daredevil Firestar
Phoenix Justice
Hawkeye Wasp
Iron Fist Colossus
Gambit Quicksilver
Black Panther New Warriors
Black Widow Wonder Man
Deadpool Generation X
Invisible Woman Iron Fist
Thor Storm Thor literally took Storm's breath away by kissing her and inhaling her oxygen.
Deadpool Daredevil Deadpool's unusual physiology due to his healing factor, combined with his constant talking and a fake baby, distracted Daredevil's heightened senses long enough for Deadpool to get the drop on his foe.
Black Widow X-Force
Thor Black Widow A simple strike with Mjolnir ended the fight quickly.
Phoenix Thing Fighting on the Blue Area of the Moon, Phoenix forced the Thing out of the perimeter of the combat zone and held him there until he ran out of breath.
Hulk Deadpool Hulk literally landed on Deadpool after dropping him through a hole in the ground.
Spider-Man Domino Spider-Man outstripped Domino physically despite their similar ability to predict the other's moves.
Captain America Black Panther Black Panther's internal resistance to the current conflict gave Captain America the edge he needed.
Gambit Wolverine Wolverine was distracted by the appearance of the Brood Queen — now in Rogue's body — long enough for Gambit to land a finishing blow.
Gambit Hawkeye Gambit fought Hawkeye and defeated him. Gambit's agility, accuracy and mutant ability to charge cards was more than a match for Hawkeye's archery.

Collected editions

Title Material collected Published date ISBN
Contest of Champions II Contest of Champions II #1–5 January 2002 978-0785108139

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Contest of Champions #1–2 (Sept. 1999); #3 (Oct. 1999); #4–5 (Nov. 1999)
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