Thanks for hanging in there friends! The first blog of 2019 is to talk about an old fighting game, but not one from Capcom. In fact it's not one from any Japanese studio! This is a mobile game that is celebrating 4 years in business. That means it is a seasoned veteran by mobile standards. I don't talk very much about downloadable games on this site. In fact the last time that I did it was to talk about the Warhammer 40,000 game Freeblade. Without hyperbole I called it one of the best mobile games ever made. Freeblade was a great on rails shooter, but that was giant robots and monsters. The game I'm talking about today is an actual fighting game. Marvel Contest of Champions by Kabam is a fantastic game especially if you are a huge fan of the Marvel universe like me. I decided to write about the game thanks to the recently published book; Marvel Contest of Champions The Art of the Battlerelam by Paul Davies. The large hardcover by Titan Books, is the same publisher that brought us the gorgeous Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed. If you are a comic book fan then you owe it to yourself to get both books, like right now, before you even finish reading the rest of this blog.
When the Contest of Champions art book came it out and made me appreciate how far the comic, mobile, and fighting game genre has come in the past few years. I got my first preview of the game years ago in Anaheim during the D23 Convention, which is like the Comic Con for the various Disney properties. I was skeptical that any mobile game would do the Marvel universe justice. Comic book fans had been burned in the past by sloppy adaptations. I kept an eye on the game and as it grew and garnered hundreds of millions of players I learned it was no accident. As I was going through the book it made me realize that we should be celebrating the renaissance of comic book games, films, animated projects, and especially the creators bringing them to life. That's what got me to start writing again.
The game itself borrows a name from a three-run issue series from 1982. In it the series the Elders of the Universe, immortal aliens that specialized in a certain pursuit had a contest of sorts. Well, to be fair the Elders could die if they were gravely injured by another powerful being. In the comic book series the Marvel heroes and villains did battle as part of a cosmic game. En Dwi Gast, the Elder better known as The Grandmaster, challenged Death to a contest so he could win back the life of his brother Taneleer Tivan, the Elder known as the Collector. The two Elders were seen in the Marvel live action features, respectively played by Jeff Goldblum in Thor Ragnarok and Benicio del Toro in the Guardians of the Galaxy. Death accepted the challenge and each side chose warriors to battle. Comic books have always enjoyed a hierarchy of characters that existed beyond the limits of normal humans. These characters rarely popped up on Earth but instead inhabited the cosmos. Some of the most powerful figures could bend reality at will and even destroy entire galaxies if they wanted. Having these characters exist in Marvel canon allowed writers the freedom to do the impossible. They could capture entire rosters of heroes and raise the stakes over a traditional comic book story arc.
Movie fans might not realize it, but crossovers didn't happen as often as they did in the Avengers films. Crossover events used to be rare for big publishers like Marvel and also for rival publisher DC. For the most part the stars of the comic books had their own story arcs, relationships and adventures. They sometimes shared a city like New York. This was the base for Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Dr. Strange. But these heroes didn't always cross paths. They each had to deal with their own problems and clean up their own part of the Big Apple. Often the enemies mirrored the heroes in their own way. The Fantastic Four would sometimes face a team of rivals, like the U-Foes or the Inhumans. Or it would take their combined efforts to stop one super-powered being like Dr. Doom. Daredevil would fight martial arts experts like Bullseye and Elektra, meanwhile Dr. Strange fought mystical opponents like Baron Mordo and Dormammu. The enemies were always at the appropriate level of challenge for the heroes. Despite his amazing abilities Spider-Man would be powerless against magic, but by the same token Dr. Strange would never be able to take a punch in a street fight. Some of the most unique figures in the Marvel universe have rarely appeared outside of the comics. When they did they were usually only recognized by fans of that particular character. For example I was happy to see the gamma-irradiated Leader and Madman in the Incredible Hulk video game. Their looks and abilities were unique but I could understand why some game players had no idea who they were.
The Hulk was famous for getting into fistfights with equally strong opponents but every so often he would sometimes pity his opponents and walk away. In some cases he would figure out their motive and actually outwit them. The relationships between the heroes and villains would change through the years. Even for those as timeless as the Leader or Madman. Like any great storytelling medium it was the growth of the character that kept audiences coming back. Sometimes the monthly issues would be a chance to develop a certain character, to see the world through their unique perspective. The X-Men, a team of mutants with special abilities debuted in 1963. It was a turbulent era in US history. The plight of the mutants in the Marvel universe paralleled the fight for civil rights in the US. While Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four were celebrated in New York, the mutants were feared and despised simply for being born different. It didn't matter when they fought for the safety and security of everyone. This lead to the radicalization of some mutants as well, showing two sides to the struggle. The X-Men had appeared in a number of brilliant multi-part story arcs, like The Dark Phoenix Saga (1980), Days of Future Past (1981), Mutant Massacre (1986), Fall of the Mutants (1988), Inferno (1989), Age of Apocalypse (1995). Many of these stories had now been adapted to animated and live action features.
The collective Marvel universe had very rarely crossed paths despite all of these story arcs. The Hulk would show up every now and then to take on a very strong mutant in the X-Men, and Ben Grimm (AKA The Thing) would help the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man deal with a crowd of bad guys. These crossovers were few and far between. A reason for this was because the writers and editors at Marvel needed to know months in advance how the stories would progress. They needed to hire artists, inkers and letterers to complete the panels before publishing. It would have broken continuity if a character appeared in one title when they were supposed to be dead in another. The three-issue Contest of Champions sparked the idea explored in the mobile game. A more influential battle royale could be attributed to the multi-part Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. The series from 1984 was actually created to help push a line of toys. Kids responded to crossovers, and the word secret during marketing tests. Thus the original arc had to fit in all of the big names and have them playing in the same sandbox in order to appeal to children. In the story an omniscient being known as the Beyonder summoned the great number of characters to fight for his entertainment. They didn't fight on Earth but instead on a makeshift dimension where anything went. Three decades later it was revisited during the 2015 run of the Secret Wars. This time however instead of featuring the characters from one Marvel universe, it expanded the scope to a multi-dimensional crossover. It featured the traditional heroes but also those from alternate dimensions, including the Ultimate (which inspired the live-action movies), 2099, Age of Apocalypse, House of M, and other arcs known to fans.
The stakes in the Secret Wars were pretty high. The Beyonder could shape reality to his will, drop teams of heroes and villains anywhere he wanted, and all of the cosmic forces seemed powerless to stop him. It was a scary opponent for our favorite heroes to face up to, but it was not the literal Earth-shattering event that would be most remembered. For comic book fans I would argue that the most influential crossover event in the '80s was not from Marvel but rather from DC Comics. We shall explore this series in the next blog entry. As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
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