Following the fallout of Civil War II, Avengers Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales, AKA Spider-Man, and Sam Alexander, AKA Nova, form their own team centered around their ideals for a better future for everyone. Determined to change the world, they are the teenage Super Hero sensations: The Champions!
Squad Goals
When the Avengers fail to live up to their ideals and become divided in a second superhuman Civil War, members Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, and Nova leave the team to form their own. Their mission: to bring more meaningful change to the world.
They recruited the new Hulk, Amadeus Cho, and the synthezoid Vivian Vision, AKA Viv Vision. When they crack a case involving trafficked girls by Pagliacci, Ms. Marvel announces on social media that they were the heroes that were needed. Social media users dubbed them the Champions. A time-displaced, teenage Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, was inspired and joined the team as well. With a full roster, the teenage team kicked off the next generation of heroes with lofty goals for a better future.
Dynamic
In the early days, the team fights over who’s team leader, particularly Cho and Khan, with the latter taking the reins as leader. Though she occasionally doubts herself, she finds inspiration in other heroic leaders. Nova tends to be hot headed, resulting in some team tiffs, but their shared purpose keeps them together.
Fearsome Foes
The team goes up against the Leviathons, giant monsters who rain down from the sky and wreak havoc across the globe.
Eshu, the Master of the World, is a recurring villain that the Champions face. They first meet him in the arctic where he was attempting to cure climate change with the intention of ruling the planet, and doing so on stolen land. He escaped and the Champions next found him in Weirdworld where he brainwashed them.
The Champions also go up against the corrupt corporation Roxxon, the subversive organization Hydra and an evil Captain America, the demon Blackheart, and the Valkyries known as the Dísir.
Heroic Friends
When there are world-ending threats, the Champions ally with the X-Men, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Inhumans, Alpha Flight, and even their predecessors, the Avengers.
A Better Future
When the Champions heard about townships in the South Asian country of Sharzad actively defending women and girl’s rights, Khan encouraged the group to leave immediately and offer aid. When they arrived, they faced militant oppressors and freed a group of young girls, where they met Amal, who implored them to help them make a public statement. Her plan was that her and her group would fight with ideas while the Champions would use force. The plan worked and the Champions defeated the aggressors.
The Champions also fought alongside Gwen Poole, AKA Gwenpool, in fighting xenophobia in the Daly County’s police department. They soon joined other heroic teams to stem the invasion of monstrous Leviathons across the Earth. At this time, they ran afoul of the Roxxon-sponsored teen mercenaries, the Freelancers, who attempted to discredit their good work, though they cleared their name.
The Champions soon faced a national threat when an evil version of Captain America helped Hydra take over the United States government. The team separated with Nova unable to reach Earth while Ms. Marvel teamed up with Daisy Johnson, AKA Quake’s Warriors, to rescue Inhumans from internment camps. Spider-Man, Amadeus, and Viv joined the Underground to help resist Hydra, joining Riri Williams, AKA Ironheart, Nadia Van Dyne, AKA Wasp, Joaquín Torres, AKA Falcon, and Rayshaun Lucas, AKA Patriot.
Spider-Man and his new allies soon joined super spy Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow, to assassinate Captain America, something that Inhuman Ulysses Cain predicted of Spider-Man. Though Black Widow’s assassination failed and she perished in the process, Spider-Man stepped up to the plate, but Wasp stopped him, having learned that Black Widow was trying to help avert the prediction, to protect Miles, and died for nothing should he go through with it. In the final push to end Hydra’s reign, the Champions reunited and they were ultimately defeated, with the return of the real Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America.
After a meteor strike, Earth and Counter-Earth began to bleed together, so the Champions reluctantly joined the Avengers to avert the crisis. Violent Ani-Men appeared on Earth, and Viv and Falcon were pulled to Counter-Earth, captured by the sinister High Evolutionary, who evolved Viv into a human being. She sacrificed herself to save both worlds. Viv’s father, Vision, rebuilt Viv to say goodbye, but it turned out that Viv didn’t die, she was trapped on another plane of existence and upon her return, she met the new synthezoid that took her place: Viv 2.0.
The team argued over which Viv to accept onto the Champions, as Viv 2.0 heard their discussion over a video camera feed and worried that having Viv’s friends around would complicate things, and decided to expand her abilities. The team then heard of a half-dozen subway trains going haywire and rushed to help—a distraction created by Viv 2.0 to get Viv alone so she could get rid of her. During this time, the Champions added Ironheart, Falcon, Patriot, and Fernanda Rodriguez, AKA The Locust, to the team to compensate.
Attacking Viv, Viv 2.0 called her flesh flawed. Viv defended herself by stabbing Viv 2.0 in the chest with a lamp. The Champions arrived to find the deadly scene. Viv left, having never taken a life before and thinking her father would hate her, she hid. When her father found her, she was in tears and asked to see her sister, but Viv 2.0’s consciousness was gone. Unhappy with being human, she had Wasp help her transfer her consciousness into Viv 2.0’s body to save them both. The team welcomed her onto the team like she had never left. Champions member Cyclops was then called away to help his other time-displaced X-Men.
The Champions and their new recruits investigated some unusual ice-level readings in the arctic using their new mobile bunker. But when they arrived, they found a strange facility repairing melting ice caps. They were attacked by the drones guarding the facility, leaving Nova shot through the chest. The facility’s leader, Eshu, the Master of the World, offered them help and when questioned about the facility’s purpose, he claimed to be repairing the sea ice to halt global climate change so that he could rule the planet later. The team was torn about whether to let the Master heal the world despite his world-conquering plans, and they soon encountered native protesters of Pangnirtung, who demanded their land back. Ms. Marvel felt uncomfortable about the situation but Wasp reassured her that they could help the Master and the village reach an agreement.
The Champions were interrupted by Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, and the Canadian Super Hero team, Alpha Flight, who weren’t happy about the Master’s plans. Meanwhile, Spider-Man checked out the facility using his camouflage ability and found a young woman whose life force was being used to power it. The two powerful teams fought over the issue at hand, but they were interrupted by a monstrous creature, that turned out to be the young woman Spider-Man discovered: Amka Aliyak who had merged with the Inua spirit known as Sila. The Master defended his actions and departed, but not before setting off a self-destruct in the facility. The Champions and Alpha Flight resolved their issues as the Champions realized they weren’t listening to the people of Pangnirtung. The Champions then invited Amka to join the Champions, and with her shapeshifting ability she became known as Snowguard.
When the Infinity Stones were reborn, both heroes and villains raced across the universe to locate them. Thanos killed the leader of the Chitauri and the Chitauri became dependent on him. Warbringer, the greatest warrior of their people, hoped to take the Power Stone and use it to reclaim his planet from Thaons, but his quest failed. He instead attempted to destroy his own people rather than see them live under the Mad Titan. The Champions intervened to protect the innocent, even though it was Thanos’ new army. Nova knocked Warbringer out and afterward, Ironheart confronted Thanos only to have her armor destroyed. Taking Warbringer to the Nova Corps, Nova had his helmet confiscated as he wasn’t an official member of the corps. He suffered depression from the loss of his powers, while Riri designed new armor for herself. Amadeus also suffered from some depowerment and started going by the name Brawn.
The Champions next traveled to Africa to investigate a contaminated water source but suffered an attack by the mysterious Ted Sallis, AKA Man-Thing. While most of the Champions escaped, Wasp and a powerless Sam were dragged through a portal to Weirdworld, where they were recruited and brainwashed by the Master of the World. The Champions attempted to follow their teammates using the Siege Parallel, but it had an unintended effect of scattering them across Weirdworld, and granted them various fantastical identities. Only Ironheart remembered who she was and it was up to her to help the others remember. The Master attempted to steal crystals from the New Crystalium, which would fulfill his world-conquering conquest in Weirdworld, but the Champions even without their original identities, they teamed up for battle. When Ironheart was under attack, Viv merged with her to combine their powers and undo the magic that had befallen their teammates. Nova took a little convincing but the Champions were soon reunited and the Master escaped again. Thanks to Snowguard asking politely for Man-Thing to send them home, they were able to return unscathed.
The Champions added a few new recruits to their roster, including Lana Baumgartner, AKA Bombshell, Qureshi Gupta, AKA Pinpoint, and Victor Alvarez, AKA Power Man. Together, this packed roster faced the electric Zzzax in Dubai and the team lost both Ms. Marvel and Viv in the battle. Miles and Brawn accepted an offer from the cosmically powerful demon Mephisto to return them to life, which he accepted. Miles returned to Dubai where he found out the price: a girl named Faridah whom he had saved originally had died in place of Kamala and VIv. Kamala followed him there to demand answers while the rest of the team encountered Kaldera, a space assassin determined to get revenge on Sam Alexander, whom he ultimately left with on a quest to retrieve his stolen helmet. When Kamala found Miles, she insisted on knowing what was going on with him and he revealed the truth. Kamala feeling responsible as team leader threatened to quit, but out of shame, Miles quit the Champions instead.
The Champions continued helping others while Brawn started working with the Agents of Atlas and Wasp with G.I.R.L. The team soon fought Rock Trolls in Australia during the War of the Realms, where they met up with an adult Cyclops, who took charge of the team. He shared that his younger, time-displaced self’s memories had merged with his. He inspired Kamala to take over team leadership again. Cyclops vouched for Sooraya Qadir, AKA Dust, and the Champions gained a new member.
Despite being inspired by Cyclops, Kamala still had doubts about leading the team. But the Champions were called to action when the people of São Paulo were threatened by the Dísir, the Valkyries of Bor Burison, AKA Bor, from Asgard who had rebelled against him. In the fray, Power Man sacrificed himself for Kamala but didn’t lose his life, instead he took Chi from the Dísir and the Champions were able to defeat the rogue Valkyries. Sam rejoined the Champions after having found his helmet in possession of the Thieves Guild of New York, and sent Kalder to Nova Corps for imprisonment.
Soon, the Champions faced corruption by Blackheart, Mesphisto’s meddling son, which helped bring Miles back into the fold. To help free their comrades from Blackheart’s corruption, Miles and Kamala revealed their identities to Nova, which released him, while Viv’s affection for Ironheart helped her be free of Blackheart’s corruption. Both Miles and Amadeus were eventually liberated from their guilt over Mephisto’s cosmic do-over, and the team was united against Blackheart, who was ultimately taken down by his disappointed father.
After a battle at Coles Academic High School went awry, leaving Viv apparently slain and Kamala hospitalized, the U.S. government passed a law that would outlaw underage Super Heroes. They named it Kamala’s Law in her honor. The government-sponsored task force C.R.A.D.L.E. enforced the ban and arrested defiant young heroes, sending them to sinister “reform schools.” The Champions went on the run. When C.R.A.D.L.E. corned Ms. Marvel, Nova, Spider-Man, and Ironheart, they were rescued by their former teammate, Cyclops and Dust. Meanwhile, the person who revealed their location was Viv Vision, presumed dead after the Coles disaster. The Champions take refuge with Cyclops and the Marauders, but choose to return home and fight for their beliefs. Viv eventually saw the light and helped break her friends out of the inhumane reform schools, which were run by the corrupt corporation Roxxon. The Champions exposed Roxxon’s true agenda to silence young activists by scapegoating teen Super Heroes, Senator Patrick agreed to temporarily pause Kamala’s Law.
Suspicious of Roxxon’s new social media app aimed at teens, Miles, Sam and a reluctant Kamala go undercover as interns. While there, they uncovered Roxxon’s plans to use giant Chaperone robots programmed with data from the app to enforce Kamala’s Law. Kamala agreed to speak at a Roxxon Broadcast Concert but spoke out instead against the law. Her demonstration, with the support of other teen activists, led to the repeal of the law. Though it drew the ire of Roxxon developer André Sims, who targeted the Champions with the Chaperone robots. The Champions protected innocents around them until Roxxon pulled the plug, all in a PR stunt to save the day and stop their wayward young developer. Despite not defeating the evil Roxxon, the Champions took a moment to be thankful for taking down Kamala’s law, and that they’d have plenty of time to take down Roxxon in the future.
