Quiet Exit: A (Very, Very Late) Review of Champions: Killer App

written by Danny Lore

drawn by Luciano Vecchio

colored by Federico Blee

One could say Kamala Khan, the Paskistani-American superhero known as Ms. Marvel has finally arrived, given that Marvel Comics has recently revealed that they are about to subject her to a fate reserved only for the most elite of superheroes, i.e. those who get their own movies: she is destined to "die."  She's in the big leagues, it would seem. 

Sadly enough, though, one of the books she top-billed, the teen team book Champions, was canceled nearly two years ago, and had such a low-key exit that it took me nearly two years to track down its final collected edition, Killer App.

This slim volume, which collects issues #6 to #10 of the last series of Champions that Marvel published up until 2021, sees the Champions composed of Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Spider-Man (Miles Morales), Nova (Sam Alexander), Viv Vision and Ironheart (Riri Williams) once again going toe-to-toe with the evil corporation Roxxon, who has, in the Marvel universe, served for decades as the stand-in for nearly every blatantly capitalist, greed-motivated corporation that exists in the real world. This story follows up the last one in which the Champions exposed the abuses involved in implementing the Underage Superhuman Welfare Act or "Kamala's Law" which  regulated adolescent superheroes.  Roxxon's role in this abuses was also exposed, and, still reeling from this, Roxxon is seeking to rehabilitate its image with a new youth-oriented app, "Roxx-On!" while the Champions are determined to prove that Roxxon hasn't changed its ways and, more importantly, seek to have Kamala's Law repealed once and for all. To do so, they will have to do the one thing none of them had ever thought they'd do: infiltrate Roxxon.  

If I'm perfectly honest, as much as I loved the first few volumes of Champions as written by Mark Waid and drawn by teen team book specialist Humberto Ramos (whose credits include Out There and Strange Academy) I can understand why this book simply couldn't sustain its readership; there's only so much pontification that the obviously teenage target audience can take.  This book was "woke" before it was even really a thing, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, the reality is that it just wasn't attractive to enough readers to sustain the book.

That's really a shame, because with this volume, the book looked better than it had since Waid and Ramos left to do other things. While Danny Lore's script was serviceable and, if nothing else, an improvement over Jim Zub's so-so writing, the real highlight for me was Luciano Vecchio's anime-inspired, ultra-clean art which was evocative of both Gurihiru and Ed McGuinness. I am really glad that the New Warriors reboot this guy was scheduled to work on got canceled; the previews for characters like "Snowflake" and "Safespace" drew such widespread derision from fans of all political persuasions that it could have been truly damaging to Vecchio's career had that book seen the light of day, and this guy deserves to get all the work Marvel can think of to give him.  This guy (Vecchio) should have been the guy to illustrate Kamala's demise. That'd be worth checking out. 

7.5/10