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Champions #9: Review

Sep 2021
Danny Lore, Luciano Vecchio

Story Name:

Killer app part 4

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Champions #9 Review by (September 10, 2021)
Among the CRADLE staff leaving are Carolina Washington and Speedball.

Among the rejoicing teen heroes we see:- Moon Girl at home with her parents. Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Gwenpool, Hawkeye (Kate Bishop), Ms America and Reptil outside West Coast Avengers HQ.

Also hanging around with the Champions are Amulet, Hummingbird, Rikki Barnes, Starling, Cloud 9 and Power Pack.

This issue would have made a good ending for the series but there's an epilogue next issue.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Champions #9 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
The Champions are suspicious of Roxxon Corp's supposed new leaf so Miles Morales, Sam Alexander and reluctant Kamala Khan enrolled as interns on the Roxx On! social media app for teens. Using a stolen ID badge they sent Viv Vision in look inside Roxxon's R&D area and she discovered that they were going to use big Chaperone robots to enforce Kamala's Law that bans underage vigilante superheroes. At the end of last issue Miriam Blakemoore was about to discover the intruder and remote coordinator Riri Williams has warned them all.

Riri suits up as Ironheart to fly to the rescue while Miles and Sam run through the Roxxon corridors. But Kamala beats them all and distracts Miriam by buttering her up, apologising for quitting (last issue) and agreeing to publicly endorse Roxx On at their rock concert at the weekend. Viv manages to sneak out while Miriam's back's turned.

Later the team have a conference via their private comms network (Viv is walking Sparky the robot dog at the time). Kamala explains to the others that Blakemoore has given her a prepared speech, and implied that if she messes up this time she'll see to it that Kamala will have difficulty getting in to any college. But they, especially Kamala, really don't want to endorse Roxxon. Sam and Miles will be at the event filming it for Roxxon so they may not be able to function as Nova and Spider-Man, and Kamala on-stage can't become Ms Marvel. So they're going to use Plan B.

That weekend Ms Blakemoore introduces Kamala to the audience and then tells their secret youth superteam led by Fizzle to get ready to cause a disturbance. Then CRADLE forces will swoop in to 'rescue' Kamala. Kamala reminds the crowd how she was severely injured (in civvies) during a super-battle that went wrong, and how her coma state made her the poster-girl for Kamala's Law which Roxxon supported. But now Kamala goes off-script. She tells them Roxxon wants her to say that they've changed (after their extreme interpretation of the Law was revealed by the Champs). But she says that's a lie. And Miriam finds that the control system won't cut her off. And of course Miles and Sam keep streaming what they're recording to the Internet.

Ironheart and Viv have pinpointed Fizzle's gang spread through the crowd. They get taken down by Champions affiliates Wasp (Nadia Van Dyne), NATALIE (Riri's AI), Pinpoint, Brawn and discrete webshot from Miles. Riri and Viv make the Champs network public and announce a new ChampsCharge social media app which the crowd start switching to. And Kamala makes it plain that she doesn't support the Law with her name and rips apart her Roxx On t-shirt to reveal another which says "I'm not your law!"

Miriam panics and sends CRADLE in to take Kamala away. But a line of teenagers stand between them and her. She says she doesn't want anyone hurt in her name, but they say they're standing up for *themselves*. Miriam cuts her losses and calls CRADLE off.

An unknown time later the Champs are waiting to hear the result of the Senate vote on repealing Kamala's Law (it was only suspended in #5) and wondering whether what they did at the Roxx On concert will have helped or hindered. The result is a complete repeal. We see CRADLE staff being fired and Miriam Blakemoore displeased. We see widespread joy amongst teen heroes, including previous members Brawn, Patriot (Rayshaun Lucas), Power Man (Victor Alvarez), Dust, Snowguard, Bombshell, Wasp, Falcon (Joaquin Torres), Locust and Pinpoint in the Champions Mobile Bunker. Viv mends fence with Riri with a cupcake. Sam and Kamala make up too.

Miriam Blakemoore tells André Sims that Roxxon is scrapping his Chaperone robots. But André dons a control helmet and launches 4 of them to prove that they can do the job they were built for.



Luciano Vecchio
Luciano Vecchio
Federico Blee
Toni Infante (Cover Penciler)
Toni Infante (Cover Inker)
Toni Infante (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Clayton Cowles.
Editor: Alanna Smith. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Falcon
Falcon

(Joaquin Torres)
Ms. Marvel
Ms. Marvel

(Kamala Khan)
Nova
Nova

(Sam Alexander)
Spider-Man
Spider-Man

(Miles Morales)
Wasp
Wasp

(Nadia Pym)

Plus: André Sims, Bombshell, Brawn (Amadeus Cho), Champions, Dust (Sooriya Qadir), Fizzle, Ironheart (Riri Williams), Locust (Fernanda Rodriguez), Miriam Blakemoore, Natalie AI, Patriot (Shaun Lucas), Pinpoint, Power Man (Victor Alvarez), Snowguard (Amka Aliyak).

> Champions: Book info and issue index

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