{"id":36697,"date":"2026-10-12T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=36697"},"modified":"2026-10-09T18:21:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:21:40","slug":"showcase-presents-challengers-of-the-unknown-volume-2-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2026\/10\/12\/showcase-presents-challengers-of-the-unknown-volume-2-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Showcase Presents Challengers of the Unknown volume 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\"
\nBy Arnold Drake<\/strong>, Ed Herron<\/strong>, Bob Brown<\/strong>, with Dave Wood<\/strong>, George Kashdan<\/strong> & various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-1725-9 (TPB)<\/p>\n

With a new iteration currently wowing and wooing modern audiences, let\u2019s use the season as an excuse to examine one of the most potent comics team concepts of all time and wonder again at how the majority of their exploits can remain so cruelly out of print… and UNKNOWN…<\/em><\/p>\n

The Challengers of the Unknown<\/strong> were a bridging concept between the fashionably All-American, verifiably human trouble-shooters who monopolised comic books for the majority of the 1950s and the reimagined costumed mystery men who would soon return to take over the industry. After costumed superheroes cautiously began to reappear mid-decade, in 1956 came a full-on super-team – the first of the Silver Age – with no powers, the most basic and utilitarian of uniforms and the most dubious of motives… Suicide by Mystery.<\/p>\n

Blending contemporary Heroic mortal valour and ingenuity with the oncoming outlandish excesses of fear, sci fi and fantasy, their launch was arguably the second most important event of the Silver Age and as such they were a huge hit from the get-go, striking a chord that lasted for over a decade before they finally died\u2026 only to rise again and yet again. The very idea of them was stirring enough, but their initial execution made their success inevitable.<\/p>\n

Jack Kirby was – and remains – the most important single influence in the history of US if not indeed global comics. 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.<\/p>\n

Here however is a rare book dealing with what other creators built upon from his always groundbreaking and influential imagination: another shining example of his gift for coining concepts before moving on, leaving highly competent but never quite as inspired talents to build upon.<\/p>\n

When the comics industry suffered a paranoia-induced, witch-hunt-caused collapse in the mid-50\u2019s, Kirby returned briefly to DC Comics to produce tales of suspense and science fiction for the company\u2019s line of mystery anthologies. In a few episodes, he also revitalised Green Arrow<\/strong> (then simply a back-up strip in Adventure Comics<\/strong>) whilst creating the newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force<\/strong>. At the same time he also re-packaged for Showcase<\/strong> (the try-out title that launched many Silver Age DC mainstays) an off-kilter team concept that had been kicking around in his head since he and long-time collaborator Joe Simon had closed their innovative but ill-timed Prize\/Essankay\/Mainline Comics ventures.<\/p>\n

After years of working for others, Simon & Kirby finally established their own publishing company: producing comics with a much more sophisticated audience in mind. That happened mere months before an industry-wide sales downturn amidst a changing society awash with public hysteria generated by the anti-comic book pogrom spearheaded by US Senator Estes Kefauver and pop psychologist Dr. Frederic Wertham. Simon quit the business for advertising, but Kirby soldiered on, taking his skills and ideas to a number of safer, more conservative and less experimental companies.<\/p>\n

The Challengers <\/strong>were four ordinary mortals; explorers and adventurers who walked away unscathed from a terrible plane crash. Already obviously what we\u2019d now call \u201cadrenaline junkies\u201d, pilot Ace Morgan<\/em>, diver Prof Haley<\/em>, acrobat and mountaineer Red Ryan <\/em>& wrestler Rocky Davis<\/em> summarily decided that since they were all living on borrowed time anyway, 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 in Showcase<\/strong> #6 (cover-dated January\/February 1957 – and on spinner-racks and at newsstands in time for Christmas 1956).<\/p>\n

Kirby, scripter Dave Wood, inkers Marvin Stein and Jack\u2019s wife Roz crafted a spectacularly creepy epic wherein the freshly introduced doom-chasers were hired by duplicitous magician Morelian<\/em> to open an ancient container holding otherworldly secrets and powers. The story and those that followed roared along with all the tension and wonder of the B-movie thrillers they channelled and emulated, and Jack\u2019s awesome drawing resonated with power and dynamism. After 4 try-out issues the guys (plus tag-along temp Dr. June Robbins<\/em> – a requisite appendage of the times in the form of a brave, capable, unofficial fifth Challenger) won their own title. Kirby stuck around for the first year (Challengers of the Unknown<\/strong> #1-8, May 1958 – July 1959). At that moment office politics took him away and fully back to Atlas\/Timely\/Marvel for the first time since 1941. For more on those masterpieces please check out Challengers of the Unknown by Jack Kirby<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The previous Showcase Presents Challengers…<\/a><\/strong> has them too, in spectacular black-&-white, as well as issues #9-17, by a replacement squad consisting of writers Ed Herron, Dave Wood, Arnold Drake and maybe George Kashdan, all impeccably serviced by artist Bob Brown. Kirby had developed a brilliantly feasible concept and heroically archetypical characters. He tapped into an astounding blend of genres to display their talents and courage in utterly unforgettable exploits that informed and affected every team comic that followed and primally shaped his following landmarks with Stan Lee. The Challengers followed the Kirby model until cancellation in 1970, but due to the dispute with Editor Jack Schiff the writer\/artist had resigned at the height of his powers. Kirby magic was impossible to match, but as with all The King\u2019s creations, every element was in place for the successors to run with. Challengers of the Unknown<\/strong> #9 (September 1959) saw an increase in those fantasy elements favoured by Schiff, and perhaps an easing of the interpersonal tensions that marked previous issues (Comics Historians take another note: the Challs were bitching, bickering and barking at each other years before Marvel\u2019s Cosmic Quartet ever boarded their fateful rocket-ship).<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s meat for another book and review\u2026<\/p>\n

Bob Brown was born August 22nd<\/sup> 1915 and died in 1977 following a long illness. He had studied at Hartford Art School and Rhode Island School of Design, and worked with his showbiz folks and sister in a song-&-dance act from 1927 onwards. Brown was drafted in 1940, the year he began working as a comics artist and scripter for Fox, and Timely\/Atlas. As the war intensified, he was an aircraft radio operator, an aviation cadet and served in the Pacific as bombardier and navigator in B-29 bombers, earning six air medals and a Distinguished Flying Cross.<\/p>\n

After jobbing around the industry during the late 1940s & 1950\u2019s Brown settled at National Comics\/DC, co-created the long-running Space Ranger<\/strong> feature, drawing Tomahawk<\/strong>, the western hero Vigilante<\/em>, Batman<\/strong>, Superboy<\/strong>, Doom Patrol<\/strong>, World\u2019s Finest Comics<\/strong> and a host of other features and genre shorts. He migrated to Marvel in the 1970s, illustrating Warlock<\/strong>, Daredevil<\/strong> & The Avengers<\/strong> among many others. Consummate professional Brown drew every Challengers issue from #9- 63, nearly a decade of action-adventure encompassing ravaging aliens, cute-&-fuzzy space beasts, supervillains to truly scary supernatural horrors.<\/p>\n

This volume collects Challengers of the Unknown<\/strong> #18-37 (cover-dated February\/March 1961 through May 1964) and opens with \u2018The Menace of Mystery Island\u2019 – <\/em>probably by Dave Wood, which finds the team fighting crooks on a tropical island that hides a crashed alien probe. This accident has deposited a test animal with uncanny powers that needs stopping, but in the manner of the times, the tenacious troubleshooters instead adopt the fuzzy li\u2019l space-tyke… and name him Cosmo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The second story (maybe by new lead scripter Arnold Drake) delivers darker fare, however, as the team are then shanghaied through time to save \u2018The Doomed World of Tomorrow\u2019.<\/em> One issue later, in the \u2018The Alien Who Stole a Planet\u2019<\/em>, the lads aid refugees from a doomed world, but things turn sour after one of the survivors decides Earth would be suitable replacement home, whilst in \u2018The Beasts from the Fabulous Gem\u2019<\/em>, a soldier-of-fortune uses a stolen mystic jewel to liberate monsters imprisoned within it in ancient times. The squad\u2019s very own supervillain then resurfaces as \u2018Multi-Man Strikes Again\u2019<\/em> in #20, and June Robbins shows up for a spot of beastie-bashing in Wood\u2019s hectic riddle \u2018The Cosmic-Powered Creature!\u2019<\/em> In the next – all Herron – issue it\u2019s apparently just the lads shanghaied to \u2018The Weird World that Didn\u2019t Exist\u2019<\/em> but June plays a major role in the follow-up tale when Cosmo returns in \u2018The Challengers\u2019 Space-Pet Ally!\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Drake\u2019s \u2018The Curse of the Golden God\u2019<\/em> proffers the usual action-packed crime-drama in the South American jungles, whereas #22\u2019s second story strikes much closer to home as the squad\u2019s secret base is compromised by \u2018The Thing in Challenger Mountain!\u2019<\/em> (Herron) whilst next timeout the team find that \u2018Death Guarded the Doom Box!\u2019<\/em> in the form of ancient but still deadly mechanical devices, after which more aliens kidnap humans to \u2018The Island in the Sky\u2019<\/em>. With Drake in charge the action never stops as, in \u2018The Challengers Die at Dawn\u2019<\/em>, the hunt for a swindler leads the team to a lost tribe of oriental pirates in the South China Seas, whilst the big story in #24 is \u2018Multi-Man, Master of Earth\u2019<\/em>: a grand, old-fashioned battle for justice against a seemingly unstoppable foe. Although the stories were also becoming a touch formulaic by this stage, the equation was a trusted one, and Brown\u2019s art was constantly improving.
\n\"\"
\nChallengers of the Unknown<\/strong> #25 (April\/May 1962) was on the cusp of the moment full-blown superhero mania hit the world and, although \u2018Return of the Invincible Pharaoh\u2019<\/em> is a yarn of ancient mystery and slumbering menaces, its plot of a lost secret bestowing super powers was to be a recurring staple for \u201cnormal, human heroes\u201d like the Challs, Blackhawk <\/strong>and even in Batman <\/strong>titles. The second saga, \u2018Captives of the Alien Hunter\u2019<\/em> features another thieving extraterrestrial up to no good and once more both June & Cosmo are required to foil the fiend. \u2018Death Crowns the Challenger King\u2019<\/em> is a bizarre variation on the Prisoner of Zenda<\/strong>\u2019s plot: set in a hidden Mongol city with Prof. Haley replacing the true ruler in a series of ceremonial ordeals, with the rest of the gang running interference against scurvy villains, after which a flamboyant impresario is shown to have an out-of-this-world new act in Wood\u2019s \u2018The Secret of the Space Spectaculars\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

CotU<\/strong> #27 led with \u2018The 1,001 Impossible Inventions\u2019<\/em>, wherein convicts dupe a wounded alien into using his advanced science for crime, whilst \u2018Master of the Volcano Men\u2019<\/em> debuts another perennial villain: rapacious marauding lava beings from the centre of the earth. It was once more rebellious robots causing a destructive fuss in \u2018The Revolt of the Terrible FX-1\u2019<\/em>, but the real show-stealer of #28 is Herron\u2019s time-travel romp despatching the Challs back to ancient Egypt to solve \u2018The Riddle of the Faceless Man\u2019 <\/em>. The next issue brought \u2018Four Roads to Doomsday!\u2019<\/em> (Drake) as satellite sabotage leads the lads into a plot by alien crooks to conquer Earth, whilst the raucous, antagonistic nature of the team is highlighted in Herron\u2019s \u2018The War Between the Challenger Teams\u2019<\/em>, as Ace & Red battle Prof. & Rocky to end a war between two subsea races.<\/p>\n

\u2018Multi-Man… Villain Turned Hero!\u2019<\/em> turned out to be just another evil ploy by the shape-changing charlatan, but #30\u2019s true treat was the introduction of Gaylord Clayburn<\/em> (Don\u2019t. Just don\u2019t. Grow up), a spoiled multimillionaire playboy who wanted to become \u2018The Fifth Challenger\u2019<\/em> (anybody remember Dr. June Robbins?) and was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve his ambition. In #31, \u2018The Man Who Saved the Challengers\u2019 Lives!\u2019<\/em> was the first full-length story since 1960; impressively restating their dramatic origin, by revealing the debt they possibly owed to a shady industrialist, before #32 resumed business as usual with Drake\u2019s \u2018One Challenger Must Die!\u2019 <\/em>Here the boys fiercely compete to learn who would sacrifice themselves to stop another rampaging Volcano Man, before rediscovering the power of teamwork, which was just as well as the second tale revealed how and why \u2018Cosmo Turns Traitor!\u2019 <\/em>(Herron).<\/p>\n

Each an expert in some field of human endeavour, for #33, the Challs were confronted by a superior individual in Drake\u2019s \u2018The Challengers Meet their Master\u2019<\/em>. However, as with \u2018The Threat of the Trojan Robot!\u2019<\/em>, teamwork proved the solution to any problem. Herron scripted terse thriller \u2018Beachhead, USA\u2019<\/em> to open #34, wherein a U-Boat full of Nazis frozen since World War II tries to complete the last mission… blowing up the East Coast of America, with only the Chall\u2019s in place to stop them. Multi-Man then discovers that no matter how smart you are, building the perfect mate is a very bad (and tasteless) idea in \u2018Multi-Woman, Queen of Disaster!\u2019<\/em> This was continued story that concluded in same issue with the Challengers striking back to (apparently) end the \u2018Queen of A Thousand Threats\u2019<\/em>…<\/p>\n

For #35 \u2018The War Against the Moon Beast\u2019<\/em> delivered a spectacular all-action sci-fi romp, balanced by Herron\u2019s quirky prognostications of a carnival seer whose crystal ball predicts an adventure of the \u2018Sons of the Challengers\u2019<\/em>. Then, one of the death-cheaters became a monster in #36\u2019s \u2018The Giant in Challenger Mountain\u2019<\/em>, but was recovered and restored in time to join the others as Bill Finger makes them \u2018Bodyguards to a Star\u2019<\/em> on the location of a dinosaur-infested movie-epic.<\/p>\n

This splendidly daft tome ends with #37\u2019s double bill as Drake scripts \u2018The Triple Terror of Mr. Dimension\u2019<\/em> (a cheap thug who lucks into a reality-altering weapon) before Herron switches to taut drama in \u2018The Last Days of the Challengers!\u2019<\/em> wherein the team struggle to destroy giant robots and thwart an execution-list with their names on it…<\/p>\n

The original Challengers of the Unknown<\/strong> iteration offered sheer escapist wonderment, and no fan of the medium should be deprived of their exploits. These ideal adventurer-heroes act in the evocative settings of the Recent Now; a simpler, better world than ours. Reader-friendly to anyone who loves giants, aliens, crooks, discovery and wild thrills – or Saturday morning cartoons – these long-neglected tales would make the perfect animated kids show too, and cry out to be gathered in a DC Finest volume and digital editions…
\n\u00a9 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Arnold Drake, Ed Herron, Bob Brown, with Dave Wood, George Kashdan & various (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1-4012-1725-9 (TPB) With a new iteration currently wowing and wooing modern audiences, let\u2019s use the season as an excuse to examine one of the most potent comics team concepts of all time and wonder again at how the … <\/p>\n

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