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August-September 1959 |
Our story begins with a mystery. Roman relics, hidden until auction, go missing. The dealer who would have sold them is struck with amnesia. June Robbins is at one scene at Marine Horizons, where speciments from their next diving expedition are also stolen, and a scientist stuck with amnesia - the fourth case in a week. June calls the Challengers who are - in some headquarters with a large window (not yet Challenger Mountain). Ace asks questions and sees a pattern: the victims were all going after sunken treasure to a secret spot off the coast. Soon a powerful boat (like a PT boat) cleaves the water. A bad guy in a cape orders his henchmen to open fire from their boat. Undaunted, the Challs leap aboard, fists flying. Until...  June boats out to update the Challs on the news. Each victim had a visitor named Dekkar who carried a small bag. The bag contained a ray machine that can steal memories! Originally the machine was a medical device to induce hypnosis and amnesia. But Dekkar became secretive and... Uh, oh. When June finds the Challs,
they can't remember who they are, or their capabilities! " This
is going to be great!" sighs June. |
Meanwhile, Dekkar and his sailor henchmen gloat as they replay the Challengers' memories from disk. Viewing these disks is how they learned the locations of the various treasures. June has to use all her powers of persuasion to convince the hapless Challs that, yes, they are capable of death-defying feats. She tells Red, "You don't know it, but you're the world's best mountain climber!" Red tries, and finds "By golly, I CAN climb - like a human fly!" June tells Prof, "No arguments - you know no peer as a diver!" Swimming like a seal without equipment, Prof reflects, "She was right again! I feel very much at ease underwater!" June leads Rocky and Ace back up the pass toward Dekkar's lab. (Where are Red and Prof? Still atop a mountain and underwater?) June tells the pair, "YOU two never let three men stop you before!" Trusting June, the Challs plow into a fracas, while June dashes on.  And doesn't June look fetching
in riding breeches and neckerchief? |
June reaches the machine, but is caught. When the Challs race in, Dekkar talks fast. "This girl is - er - under our care! Whatever she told you is untrue!" Then, grabbing the ray machine, Dekkar zaps the Challengers to remove their most recent memories. June urges, "Do something!" And after a brief pause...  They do. The Challengers flatten Dekkar's gang. Dekkar asks, "How? They shouldn't have remembered anything!" Ace agrees, for their memories are back. June explains. While with the machine, she inserted the Challs' memory disk and set the dial to reverse. Dekkar re-planted their memories when he zapped them! Leading the gang away, Ace remarks,
"We've been in an adventure and can't even remember all
of it!" June replies, "Buy me dinner, and maybe I'll
tell you all about it!" |
"The Plot To Destroy Earth" |
 A strange space craft circles Earth, then fires "baby craft" that hurtle to the ground. A red shell cracks open and reveals a giant green lizard tha t promptly marches into the sea. It didn't harm anything. What is it seeking? From another shell comes a purple flying squid. Is it a space invasion? Better call the Air Force! And speeding to the scene come the Challengers. But when their jet nears the flying squid, they're knocked for a loop by its crackling force field. The squid then vanishes into the clouds, again without attacking. Ace muses, "One went into the sea, one into the sky - and the radio says another has landed in the hills." This is a giant blue mole that burrows into the earth. Okay, they'll follow. "An oil company recently invented a machine for boring into the ground called The Ferret. We'll borrow it!" And Prof notes "the Navy has a new one-man sub that can descend to tremendous depths!" Prof sets out in his tiny sub,
but we can see from the picture how he fares. |
Rocky and Red will take The Ferret underground. (Are the writer and/or artist trying to out-Kirby Kirby here?) Ace will take the pilot craft back into space. Very daring!  In a crystalline cavern, Red and
Rocky do diddly-squat to the mole. It shrugs off bazooka shells
and cannon blasts, and almost fries them with heat beams from
its eyes. "Turn around and let's get out of here! And hope
Prof's having better luck!" But Prof, we've seen, is almost
boiled alive as he loses the sub. These creatures are unstoppable! |
Ace is faring a little better, or at least learning. He piloted the shuttle craft into space and up the ejector tube. Inside robots are busy - and totally ignore him. Ace sees the rays aimed at the Earth, and digs through plans. A fantastic plot is revealed!  The robots were set into motion
by an alien race of a dying world. Having found a planet similar
to theirs, the robot crew carry out their plan - to carve Earth
into segments like a melon and haul it away through space! The
mole will slice the earth from benath. The sea monster projects
force-field sea walls to keep the ocean from rushing in. The
flying squid projects more invisible walls to trap the air. And
away will go the Earth! |
Desperate, Ace tries to wreck the ship. But even pistols shots don't work. The ship is indestructible! Air Force jets are hammering the squid without success as Ace putters back to the surface. He delivers the bad news to his chums. But he has plan, though they'll have to work in secret in case the aliens are spying on them from the spaceship. A truck with a giant tarp-covered
SOMETHING backs down the hole after the mole creature. Then the
mole emerges - and collapses and dies, turning into an oily liquid.
Air Force brass cheer. "Whatever the Challengers cooked
up - it worked!" The sea creature washes ashore dead, and
the squid plummets from the sky. And, having witnessed these
failures, the alien spaceship blasts out of orbit, never to return. |
But hey! There's the flying squid, still flying! Don't fret. The squid crashes to earth and Ace explains all.  Secrecy was needed for fear the
aliens would spot their trick. The Challs made replicas and inflated
them to look like the real thing. (Giant Macy's Thanksgiving
Day Balloons, essentially.) The general gets it. When the aliens
saw the dummies die, they thought we'd dreamed up a weapon to
kill them. They immediately ordered their craft to depart. And
when the energy power was cut off to the aliens, they DID did.
"They were indestructible to us - but not to their own masters." |
Comment This is the first non-Kirby issue,
and the writer (whoever he is) seems to have a good handle. The
two stories are varied, intriguing, fast-paced, even funny in
spots. So the new team is off to a good start, with plenty of
excitement to come - as you'll see. |
A Mexican reprint showed up on eBay. The Challengers are called the |  |
The art showed up in a PhotoShop contest entitled, "Art Leaps Off the Page". Clever.  |