By Jack Kirby & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1087-8
The Challengers of the Unknown were a bridging concept. As superheroes were being revived in 1956 here was a super-team – the first of the Silver Age – with no powers, the most basic and utilitarian of costumes and the most dubious of motives – Suicide by Mystery. Yet they were a huge hit and struck a chord that lasted for more than a decade before they finally died… only to rise again and yet again. The idea of them was stirring enough, but their initial execution made their success all but inevitable.
Jack Kirby was – and still is – the most important single influence in the history of American comic books. There are quite rightly millions of words written about what the man has done and meant, and you should read those if you are at all interested in our medium. I’m going to add a few words to that superabundance in this review of one of his best projects, which like so many others, he perfectly constructed before moving on, leaving highly competent but never as inspired talents to build upon.
When the comic industry suffered a collapse in the mid 1950’s, Kirby returned briefly to DC Comics where he worked on mystery tales and the Green Arrow back-up strip whilst creating the newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force. He also re-packaged for Showcase (a try-out title that launched the careers of many DC mainstays) an original super-team concept that had been kicking around in his head since he and long-time collaborator Joe Simon had closed the innovative but unfortunate Mainline Comics.
After years of working for others Simon and Kirby had finally established their own publishing company, producing comics with a much more sophisticated audience in mind, only to find themselves in a sales downturn and awash in public hysteria generated by the anti-comic book pogrom of US Senator Estes Kefauver and the psychologist Dr Frederic Wertham. Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, if less experimental, companies.
The Challengers of the Unknown were four ordinary mortals; heroic adventurers and explorers who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we now call “adrenaline junkiesâ€, they decided that since they were all living on borrowed time, they would dedicate what remained of their lives to testing themselves and fate. They would risk their lives for Knowledge and naturally, Justice.
The series launched with ‘The Secrets of the Sorcerer’s Box!’ (Showcase #6, dated January/February 1957 – which meant it came out in time for Christmas 1956). Kirby and scripter Dave Wood, plus inkers Marvin Stein and Jack’s wife Roz, crafted a spectacular epic as the doom-chasers were hired by the duplicitous magician Morelian to open an ancient container holding otherworldly secrets and powers.
This initial story roars along with all the tension and wonder of the B-movie thrillers it emulates and Kirby’s awesome drawing resonates with power and dynamism, which continues for the sequel, a science fiction drama caused when an alliance of Nazi technologies and American criminality unleashes a terrible robotic monster. ‘Ultivac is Loose!’ (Showcase #7, dated March/April 1957) introduced the beautiful and capable boffin Dr June Robbins, who became the fifth Challenger at a time when most comic females had returned to a subsidiary status in that so-conservative era.
The team didn’t reappear until Showcase #11 (November/December 1957) as The Flash and Lois Lane got their Shots at the big time. When the Challs returned it was in an alien invasion adventure ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’, with the unique realist Bruno Premiani inking a taut doomsday chiller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats even today, and by the time of their last Showcase issue (#12, January /February 1958) they had won their own title. ‘The Menace of the Ancient Vials’ was defused by the usual blend of daredevil heroics and ingenuity (with the wonderful inking of George Klein adding subtle clarity to the tale of an international criminal who steals an ancient weapons cache that threatens the entire world if misused), but the biggest buzz would come two months later with the first issue of their own magazine.
Issue #1, written and drawn by Kirby, with Stein on inks, presented two complete stories plus an iconic introductory page that would become almost a signature logo for the team. ‘The Man Who Tampered with Infinity’ pitted the heroes against a renegade scientist whose cavalier dabbling loosed dreadful monsters from the beyond onto our defenceless planet, before the team were actually abducted by aliens in ‘The Human Pets’.
The same creators were responsible for the two stories in the second issue. ‘The Traitorous Challenger’ is a monster mystery, with June returning to sabotage a mission in the Australian Outback, whilst ‘The Monster Maker’ finds the team seemingly helpless against a super-criminal who can conjure and animate solid objects out of his thoughts.
The third issue features ‘Secret of the Sorcerer’s Mirror’ with Roz Kirby and Marvin Stein again inking the mesmerising pencils, as the boys pursue a band of criminals whose magic looking glass can locate deadly ancient weapons, but the most intriguing tale for fans and historians is undoubtedly ‘The Menace of the Invincible Challenger’ wherein team strongman Rocky Davis is rocketed into space only to crash back to Earth with strange, uncanny powers.
For years the obvious similarities of this group – and especially this adventure – to the origin of Marvel’s Fantastic Four (FF #1 was out in November 1961) have fuelled speculation. In all honesty I simply don’t care. They’re both similar and different but equally enjoyable so read both. In fact, read them all.
With #4 the series became artistically perfect as the sheer brilliance of Wally Wood’s inking elevated the art to unparalleled heights. The scintillant sheen and limpid depth of Wood’s brushwork fostered an abiding authenticity in even the most outrageous of Kirby’s designs and the result is – even now – breathtaking. ‘The Wizard of Time’ is a full length masterpiece as a series of bizarre robberies lead the team to a scientist with a time-machine. By visiting oracles of the past he found a path to the far future. When he got there he intended robbing it blind, but the Challengers found a way to follow…
‘The Riddle of the Star-Stone’ (#5) is a contemporary full-length thriller, wherein an archaeologist’s assistant uncovers an alien tablet which bestows various super-powers when different gems are inserted into it. The exotic locales and non-stop spectacular action are intoxicating, but Kirby’s solid characterisation and ingenious writing are what make this such a compelling read.
Scripter Dave Wood returned for #6’s first story. ‘Captives of the Space Circus’ has the boys kidnapped from Earth to perform in a interplanetary show, but the evil ringmaster is promptly outfoxed and the team returns for Ed Herron’s mystic saga ‘The Sorceress of Forbidden Valley’, as June Robbins becomes an amnesiac puppet in a power struggle between a fugitive gangster and a ruthless feudal potentate.
There are also two stories in #7. Herron scripted both the relatively straightforward alien-safari tale ‘The Beasts From Planet 9’ and the much more intriguing ‘Isle of No Return’ where the team must defeat a scientific bandit before his shrinking ray leaves them permanently mouse-sized.
Issue #8 is a magnificent finale to a superb run as Kirby and Wally Wood go out in style in two gripping spectaculars (both of which introduced menaces who would return to bedevil the team in future tales). ‘The Man Who Stole the Future’ by Dave Wood, Kirby and the unrelated Wally Wood, introduces Drabny – a mastermind who steals mystic artefacts and conquers a small nation before the team defeats him. This is a tale of spectacular battles and uncharacteristic, if welcome, comedy, but the real gem is the science fiction tour-de-force ‘Prisoners of the Robot Planet’, with art by the Kirby and Wood, and probably written by Kirby and Herron. Petitioned by a desperate alien, the Challs travel to his distant world to liberate the population from bondage to their own robotic servants, who have risen in revolt under the command of the fearsome automaton, Kra.
These are classic adventures, told in a classical manner. Kirby developed a brilliantly feasible concept with which to work and heroically archetypical characters in cool pilot Ace Morgan, indomitable strongman Rocky Davis, intellectual aquanaut Prof. Haley and daredevil acrobat Red Ryan. He then manipulated an astounding blend of genres to display their talents and courage in unforgettable exploits that informed every team comic that followed and certainly influenced his successive and landmark triumphs with Stan Lee. But then he left.
The Challengers would follow the Kirby model until cancellation in 1970, but due to a dispute with Editor Jack Schiff the writer/artist resigned at the height of his powers. The Kirby magic was impossible to match, but as with all The King’s creations, every element was in place for the successors to run with. Challengers of the Unknown #9 (September 1959) saw an increase in the fantasy elements favoured by Schiff, and perhaps an easing of the subtle tension that marked previous issues (Comics Historians take note: the Challs were bickering and snarling at each other years before Marvel’s Cosmic Quartet ever boarded that fateful rocket-ship). A number of writers, many sadly lost to posterity stepped in, including Bill Finger, Ed Herron and possibly Jack Miller, Bob Haney and Arnold Drake, but one man took over the illustrator’s role: Bob Brown.
To our shame very little is known about this wonderfully capable artist. I can’t even confirm his date of birth, although he died in 1977 following a long illness. He co-created the long-running Space Ranger, drew Tomahawk, Vigilante, Batman, Superboy, Doom Patrol, World’s Finest Comics and a host of other features and genre shorts for DC before moving to Marvel in the 1970s where he drew Warlock, Daredevil and the Avengers among others. He was a consummate professional and drew every issue of the Challs from #9 – 63, almost a decade of high-adventure that ranged from ravaging aliens, cute-and-fuzzy space beats to supernatural horrors.
‘The Men who Lost their Memories’ found the team fighting crooks with a thought stealing machine, but ‘The Plot to Destroy Earth!’ was a full-on end-of-humanity thriller with monsters sent to carve our world into chunks for their resource-hungry alien masters, and only the guts and ingenuity of our heroes could save the day. A destructive giant with a deadly secret was the premise of ‘The Cave-Man Beast’ and #10’s cover featured second tale was another time-travel conundrum as the boys found their own likenesses on a submerged monolith in the Sci-Fi thriller ‘The Four Faces of Doom’.
Issue #11 was a full-length action-packed interdimensional romp subdivided into ‘The Creatures from the Forbidden World’, ‘Land beyond the Light’ and ‘The Achilles Heel’, but the two-story format returned in the next issue, which contained ‘The Challenger from Outer Space’ with an alien superhero joining the team and ‘Three Clues to Sorcery’ with the four adventurers once again forced to endure exotic locales and extreme perils to acquire mystic artefacts for a criminal mastermind, this time there’s a deadly twist in this oft told tale.
‘The Prisoner of the Tiny Space Ball’ finds the team rescuing the ruler of another world whilst Rocky is possessed by the legendary Golden Fleece making him a puppet of ‘The Creatures from the Past’. Issue #14 opens with one of the few adventures with a credited scripter. Ed “France†Herron was thirty year comics veteran and ‘The Man who Conquered the Challengers’ is one of his best tales, with crooked archaeologist Eric Pramble stealing an ancient formula for “liquid light†which makes him immortal. Moreover, every time he’s killed he reanimates with a different super-power! As Multi-Man, he became the closest thing to an arch-villain the series ever had, and even graduated to becoming a regular foe across the DCU. Once again wits and nerve found a way to victory that sheer firepower never could.
In the other yarn ‘Captives of the Alien Beasts’ all five Challs are teleported to another world by animals that have invaded a scientist’s laboratory, a relatively innocuous tale, compared to #15’s all-out fight-fest ‘The Return of Multi-Man’ and the bizarre ‘The Lady Giant and the Beast’ wherein June is transformed into a fifty foot leviathan just as a scaly monster cuts a swathe of destruction through the locality. Issue #16’s ‘Incredible Metal Creature’ sees an Earth thug join forces with an escaped alien criminal, no real Challenge there but the second story finds the team in Arabia as ‘Prisoners of the Mirage World’ and the knights who have been trapped there since the time of the Crusades. This thrill-stuffed tome concludes with the #17’s supernatural crime whimsy ‘The Genie who Feared June’, and the interplanetary mission of mercy ‘The Secret of the Space Capsules’, both solid pieces of adventure fiction that if not displaying the unique Kirby magic are redolent with its flavours.
Challengers of the Unknown is sheer escapist wonderment, and no fan of the medium should miss the graphic exploits of these perfect adventurers in the ideal setting of not so long ago in a simpler better world than ours.
© 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.