10 Best Comics Cancelled Before Their Time

Contest of Champions was originally a video game that pitted heroes against villains, which itself was based loosely off the 1982 comic of the same name. Translating that to a comic book series required a story, which is why Marvel hired Al Ewing to do just that with artwork provided by Paco Medina, Juan Vlasco, and Rhoald Marcellius.

One of the ways Ewing managed to make the book work was by digging deep into Marvel's archives. He pulled out characters few recalled including Punisher 2099, Night Thrasher, and Outlaw. He didn't stop there though, he utilized the entire Marvel catalog to pull in characters from different realities from the multiverse.

The stories and concepts afforded to Ewing for this book made it an astounding read. It was full of interesting trips through the more obscure elements of the Marvel Universe, and thanks to the killer artwork, it looked fantastic to boot. Ideally, this book would have brought in fans of the game alongside typical Marvel readers, but it only managed to last 10 issues between 2015 and 2016.

Because of poor sales, the series ended up getting canceled early, but given the amount of room Ewing had to work with, this could have developed into a remarkable comic.