Over at CNET, Marvel’s announced a new ongoing series based off their video game, Contest of Champions from Al Ewing and Paco Medina. Also, they’ve had a video game based off Contest of Champions out since 2014. Go figure.
The series, the latest to follow Marvel’s trend of giving throwbacks to 80’s crossovers, will focus on Marvel heroes held captive by The Collector and forced to fight each other. This convergence of characters will include new faces like new character Guillotine (whose concept art you can check out below). As the cover above shows, expect the Maestro to make an appearance after “Secret Wars.” Since Iron Man shows up in his All-New All-Bendis armor, “Contest of Champions” is likely to take place in, or at least in relation to, the main 616 universe. Also, since Spider-Gwen has been announced for the game, expect to see her show up here too.
Truth be told, I’m pretty divided. On one hand, this feel like a total shill for a Free-To-Play mobile fighting game which is my kryptonite. Maybe Contest of Champions is the lone diamond in a sea of awful, but I’ve played WWE Immortals and feel like I’ve gotten the gist of both games. If I can’t be impressed with a genre that has John Cena in a literal Superman costume, there’s no hope.
That said, it makes perfect sense for Marvel to put out this series. Do you remember Injustice: Gods Among Us? Do you remember how that game’s tie-in lasted until freaking now? There’s a precedent for successful comics that fill in the gaps of fighting games, even if CNET acts like this is the first time a video game has informed a comic book. And with the talented Al Ewing and Paco Medina on this title, “Contest of Champions” might even be pretty darn good.
No matter how good this comic ends up being, I hope I have to either pay $1.99 or wait eight hours to turn every page. Really stay true to the source material. While you wait for your power meter to cooldown(?) check out this nifty interior page from Medina.
“Contest of Champions” #1 drops this October and Contest of Champions is available now on iOS and Android.
