The Challengers of the Unknown vs. King Kong? Well, why not, presuming Jack Kirby is pushing the pen?
‘” The team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby — the pair of comic book entrepreneurs who gave the world The Boy Commandos, Captain America, The Newsboy Legion, Fighting American and the entire genre of romance comics — broke up in the 1950s, when comics sales were at their lowest ebb to date,” wrote comics historian Don Markstein. “The first thing the newly partner-less Kirby did was Challengers of the Unknown. It was a leftover concept from the Simon & Kirby shop, but as published by DC Comics in 1957, it looked like pure Kirby.”
Instead of superpowers, the purple-clad partners had expert skills. “The Challengers were Ace Morgan (crackerjack test pilot), Red Ryan (mountain climber and all-around daredevil), Rocky Davis (heavyweight boxing champ), and Prof. Haley (scientist specializing in underwater exploration),” Markstein noted.
In Challengers of the Unknown 2 (June-July 1958), the intrepid band tackled The Monster Maker, a criminal named Roc who’d gotten himself exposed to an experimental mind-over-matter device.
Gaining the ability to create whatever he wants out of thin air, Roc immediately throws an explosive missile and a Kong-sized gorilla against the team.
The 14-page story includes one of Kirby’s favorite techniques: having someone imagine and describe the fantastic devastation that the menace of the day might deliver. That provides colorful throwaway scenes that don’t actually have to be included in the plot.
Despite their individual skills and access to high-tech gadgetry, the Challs often seemed on the verge of being overmatched by the menaces they faced.
“Many readers have long since pointed out the similarities in the origins of both COTU and the Fantastic Four,” observed comics historian Ken Penders. “What many fail to recognize are the significant differences. Fantastic Four is a more hopeful series, while Challengers is a more pessimistic one. The Challs didn’t have the benefit of cosmic powers enabling them to survive the horrible crash they experienced. It’s clearly spelled out that they should have died, but didn’t. Every mission from here on in could be their last, and they know it. The FF, on the other hand, look forward in wonderment to the next adventure. Thus, we can plainly see how the attitudes of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee each affected their approach to writing their stories.”
This time, the Challengers actually do require superpowers of their own to tackle the Monster Maker’s multiple giant menaces.
“Any attack we could mount would be crushed in an instant by Roc’s thought powers!” Prof. Haley muses. “No… We must somehow fight fire with fire! Of course! We have got the means to combat Roc… The thought machine! One of us can submit himself to a treatment, and fight that villain with equal powers!”
The machine’s inventor, Dr. Hascomb, exposes Ace to its effects, and the blond pilot is immediately able to conjure a spaceship out of nothing.
The battle of manifested wits that follows was somewhat like the new Green Lantern’s exploits, which would begin the next year. When Roc materializes giant hands (a DC Comics favorite), Ace creates giant handcuffs to restrain them. A fire-breathing dragon is countered by a giant knight, and so forth.
Ace is finally able to break the stalemate and subdue Roc by creating hypnotic pinwheels.
In an era when some comics had been rendered staid by the four-year-old Comics Code Authority, Kirby still provided vivid action with Challengers of the Unknown. Unfortunately, the artist had only six issues left on the title he’d created.
“The book proved successful, even after Kirby left with issue 8 (June-July 1959), lasting for 77 issues,” noted comics historian Bill Schelly in American Comic Book Chronicles. “Its 13-year run was proof, if anyone needed it, that Kirby could have done a lot for National if he had been properly appreciated and utilized.”
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