Contest of Champions II is a five-issue comic book limited series published from September to November 1999 by Marvel Comics. The series was written by Chris Claremont and pencilled by Oscar Jimenez and Michael Ryan. The series is unrelated to the original limited series of the same name – Contest of Champions – published in 1982.
Plot summary
A group of Earth's heroes are invited by an apparently benevolent race to participate in a series of contests against one another in exchange for advanced technology. This, however, is a ruse staged by the Brood. The Brood Queen plans to absorb the powers of the strongest heroes and channel them into Rogue, then possess her and use the heroes as hosts for Brood embryos.
Courtesy of microscopic nanites, all the heroes (with the exception of Iron Man, whose armor protected him from infection) are drugged and become indifferent to everything except the contest, unable to process the anomalies in the situation facing them. Although the losing heroes are allegedly returned to Earth, Iron Man's first victory allows him to confirm that the departing teleporters lack the strength to return the subject to Earth. After Iron Man loses his second match against X-Force