I am also interested in selling this comic as well as my others, if anyone is interested and can direct me to information showing its true value, I would consider selling it. Thanks again.

And the very best part: the X-Men try to sneak down to ringside, and their disguises consist of Cyclops and Wolverine in trenchcoats, with Cyclops in a fedora and Wolverine in a Gilligan bucket hat. I’ve always mentally filled in the argument that surely preceded that scene, with Scott finally pulling rank and reminding Wolverine that he beat his ass judo style in the past in order to get Wolverine to put on the Gilligan hat.

Anyway, kind of the best thing ever, this comic.

Aside from the awesomeness of the final fight itself, the highlight has gotta be Iron Man's explanation for the perfectly good question of why She-Hulk wasn't invited: "Maybe our alien's a male chauvinist!"

So young to be so jaded, MarkAndrew!

What about that Thing/Widow MTIO, though?

I had to haul out my Essential Two In One and reread, 'cause the only thing I remember from that story was the last panel.

And, yeah, that was pretty darn good! MThe art was definitely better than in Annual 7, and the Thing and the Widder-Woman had a nicely comfortable relationship.
If I ever get around to doing the Top Ten issues of Marvel Two In One (which I've been planning in my head for a while, but will probably have to come after the Top Ten Marvel Team Ups and Top Ten Brave and the Bolds) that will certainly make my list.

The Champion’s “manager” was some alien multi-armed something-or-other who made it quite clear he was not the physical type

Yeah, that bothered me too, actually.

I really like early DeFalco. Coincidentally, I just picked up a run of Dazzler (you heard me!) on eBay this week and the early DeFalco issues are lots of fun, packing in a bunch of guest stars, soap opera drama, and super-hero action. Reminds me a lot of early Spidey, although not as grim and certainly not as groundbreaking. Two-Fisted Tom also saved the Machine Man revival (the original series after Kirby left) after a really boring issue or two scripted by IIRC Marv Wolfman.

I think there's a lot of antipathy towards DeFalco from comics fans of my generation because Marvel deteriorated so much under his watch as E-i-C. But that's not really fair -- his management failures don't have much bearing on his writing, and anyway all that multiple titles, heavy crossovers, and chromium covers stuff was imposed on DeFalco from the men upstairs. Perhaps he should have fought it more vehemently, but he had a ringside seat for what happened to the last guy who tried to maintain some integrity across the line.

How can you people be blowing off the Project Pegasus saga? Or the multi-parter where Ben went to jail? There was lots of good stuff in the pages of MTIO if you're just looking for some fun stuff from yesteryear.

That being said, I thought the Champion annual was kind of lame - I thought the art was weak and I hate it when they introduce new characters for the sole purpose of seeing a hero finally get defeated. I have the same complaint about Bane and Doomsday.

Seriously though, Im in my early 30's now and consider myself a pretty discerning comic reader, but a big superhero boxing match involving most of the heavy hitters of the Marvel U, and an omnipetent Alien?? Thats what comics are about!!

Or Hyperstorm?

Oh no, that's right: Hyperstorm's way more powerful than God.

Sheesh, I thought Silver Surfer #1 rehabilitated Champion.

Fun with guest stars, although I remember as a kid wishing Hercules and Power Man were in there (although looking back, Power Man would have gotten killed, but Hercules not only would have been strong enough to put up a good fight, he would've been into the whole competition thing more than anybody else).

It seems like Sasquatch was appearing all over the place around this time, what with this annual, Hulk, and Contest of Champions. It nicely whetted the appetite for an Alpha Flight book.

As I recall, Silver Surfer #1 had the Surfer mopping the floor with Champion, which I thought was dumb, since in this annual his power is compared to Galactus.

What about that Thing/Widow MTIO, though?

And just to be clear, I’m happy to read DeFalco now — who can fail to be charmed by Spider-Girl?

Right here.

In theory it's the kind of thing I like. Spider-man centric. Young hero. Young female hero. All of those are plusses in my book.

In practice... It's completely unreadable for me. I dunno... I LIKE a lot of old comics. I just can't stomach current comics that try to be like old comics.