Contest of Champions II is a limited series written by Chris Claremont, with issues 1 to 3 penciled by Oscar Jimenez and inked by Eduardo Alpuente, issue 4 penciled by Michael Ryan, and issue 5 penciled by Jimenez and inked by Ryan. Despite the title suggesting it's a sequel to Contest of Champions, the plot isn't directly linked.
Earth's heroes are abducted by aliens who organize a friendly tournament, or so they say. In fact, they have the surrounding areas full of nanites that cause the violent tendences to rise, leaving only Iron Man (in his sealed armor) and Shadowcat (due to her intangibility) with a clear mind.
Eventually, the aliens reveal themselves to be the parasitic Brood, now allied with the Badoon, who are using the tournament as a way to pick the best hosts among the heroes.
Tropes used in Contest of Champions (1998)
- All Your Powers Combined: The Brood Queen takes Rogue as a host so that she can absorb the powers of the winning heroes, which includes Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, Gambit, and Spider-Man.
- Applied Phlebotinum: The combination of Cable's time-travelling nature and Scarlet Witch's hexes create temporal rifts that draw Lockdown and Rosetta Stone into the conflict from their own dimension.
- As You Know: Arguably applies as Psylocke has to brief Iron Man on the nature of their enemies once she realises they’re facing the Brood, but justified as the X-Men dislike talking about their confrontation with the Brood due to how close they came to death and the team's own issues with sharing their secrets.
- Badass Normal: Black Widow manages to take down Wonder Man and then X-Force single-handedly.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: A lower-key example, as the heroes are just 'provoked' by the nanites infecting them so that they don't stop to consciously think about the holes in the scenario that’s been presented to them, making them more focused on winning their fights rather than realising what's wrong.
- Brought Down to Normal: After losing their matches, the contestants are teleported to another part of the ship and the nanites they were infected with suppress their powers, until Iron Man arrives and can modify the nanites to do the opposite.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Of all the battles depicted, this definitely describes Deadpool and Black Widow being pitted against the Hulk and Thor respectively; Thor barely needs to tap Widow with Mjolnir to win his bout and Deadpool spent most of his trying to get away from the green goliath.
- Disability Immunity: May apply to Shadowcat, who is unable to be taken as a host by the Brood as she is currently stuck in a partly-intangible state where she requires a conscious effort to stay solid, preventing her being infected by the nanites or used as a host.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Depicted confrontations include;
- Iron Man VS Psylocke
- Wolverine VS Hercules
- X-Force VS Iron Man
- Human Torch VS Spider-Woman
- Hulk VS Mister Fantastic
- Human Torch VS She-Hulk
- Storm VS Human Torch
- Scarlet Witch VS Cable
- Spider-Man VS Beast
- Domino VS Power Man
- Daredevil VS Firestar
- Phoenix VS Justice
- Hawkeye VS Wasp
- Iron Fist VS Colossus
- Gambit VS Quicksilver
- Black Panther VS New Warriors
- Black Widow VS Wonder Man
- Deadpool VS Generation X
- Invisible Woman VS Iron Fist
- Thor VS Storm
- Deadpool VS Daredevil
- Black Widow VS X-Force
- Thor VS Black Widow
- Phoenix VS Thing
- Hulk VS Deadpool
- Spider-Man VS Domino
- Captain America VS Black Panther
- Gambit VS Wolverine
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The fact that so many heroes are willing to dive into the fight is one of Iron Man’s many clues that something is wrong with this situation.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: With some battles reduced to just single-panel shots identifying which hero won, this certainly applies to Black Widow managing to defeat experienced fellow Avenger Wonder Man and the entirety of X-Force with nothing but her own training.
- Only Sane Man: When all of the abducted heroes are infected by mood-altering nanites to ensure they focus on the contest, Iron Man is the only one immune as his armour sealed itself off completely when he was abducted to protect him from a potentially hostile environment, allowing him to analyse the aliens’ claims and notice the flaws in their story.
- Ragtag Band of Misfits: The initial opposition to the Contest organisers is led by Iron Man, Psylocke, and the displaced heroes Lockdown and Rosetta Stone; none of the four have worked together before and the latter two are from another dimension altogether.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Human Torch loses his fight with Storm because the only way he could win against her current hurricane attack was to hit her with a Nova Flame blast that could have killed her, even the fight-happy Torch refusing to go that far.
