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December 1962 / January 1963 |
"In their camouflage hideout deep within the recesses of the Rockies", the Challengers check out a plane while listening to news. A third unmanned satellite has exploded before reaching orbit. (Reminder: This is 1962. We'd only shot John Glenn into orbit once. And a quibble: The Challs do not have a "hideout", they have a headquarters. Bandits have hideouts.) The satellites have to wait. Prof is flying in a geophysicist, Dr. Dutro, who asked for Challenger help. The scientist is blindfolded, but so is the alien with him! Suboko, a flamingo-like alien, is a captain of the Space Police. Some criminals came to dominate Earth with four fantastic machines. |
The machines need to be placed in the lowest, highest, hottest, and coldest spots on Earth. One will absorb sunlight, another cause earthquakes, etc. Suboko and his men can't get near the machines because of a protective energy field. The field won't affect humans, so... "Looks like we've got our work cut out for us, fellers." After "two days of intense planning", Rocky and Ace arrive at the South Pole. A copper cone glows menacingly. It will generate enough heat to the melt the poles. "Swift, incredible tidal waves would pound cities to rubble." Plastic explosive doesn't dent it, but Ace has an idea. "We CAN move it out of here!" Chaining the machine, they drop it from a jet into a deeep crevasse. Rocky pours gasoline to melt ice and bury the machine in a "deep freeze". Ace radios Prof and Red the new plan. |
In the Western Pacific, Prof has "a highly advanced bathysphere" that drops 37,000 into the Marianas Trench. He spots the silver-ball machine, hooks on, and deposits it on an uncharted island. "They'll never find it now!" In the Libyan Sahara, Ace and Rocky sweat in a military truck. They find a round table-like device under magnifying glasses. It's supposed to concentrate solar energy "to create whirlwinds to bury the cities around the Mediterranean." Rocky reaches, but Ace shoves him. "Don't touch it, Rocky!" Ace tosses a silver coin on the surface. (Dimes and quarters were once real silver, believe it or not). The coin melts. |
Ace fetches a bazooka from the truck. Rocky argues, "I don't dig you, feller! You know the alien metals can't be blasted!" Ace takes careful aim and...  ... blasts the magnifying lenses. |
Finally, Prof and Red, near the summit of Mount Everest, simply push the last infernal device off a cliff. "We're done! We've removed the four 'time bombs'!" Back to HQ, the guys swap war stories over dinner. The news blares. A satellite has been successfully launched since the "mysterious space explosions". And there's another mystery. "Dr. Wayne Dutro, geophysicist, was brought unconscious to Franklin Hospital after being imprisoned in his own home for a week!" But the Challs saw Dr. Dutro just four days ago! "There's something crazy here! Let's go, men!" Dinner must wait. |
Dutro lies in a hospital bed. "So the alien criminals succeeded in tricking you into removing those machines! What a pity!" Didn't Dutro bring the alien to the Challs? Nope. That was an alien in disguise. Days before, three alien space police came to Dutro. They needed assistance "identifying four vital points on your world."  There's a band of criminals, all right, and they intend to dominate Earth, but they haven't landed yet. The space police want to set up a defense network to thwart the attack. |
Convinced they were sincere, Dutro flew in their spaceship and helped plant the four machines around the world. And went home and was bushwhacked by two alien criminals who'd stowed away on the police ship! Together the four machines created "a shell of energy unable to be penetrated by the criminal ship." Ace gets it. "That explains the exploding satellites! They crashed against that shell!" But the Challs moved the devices and disrupted the shell. "We've got a tougher job now - replace each machine - before the aliens attack!" "In a frantic race against time", the Challengers load their plane and fly to the South Pole. Thermite bombs melt the first device free. Ace flies and hooks on. Rocky laughs, "Bulls-eye! Man, that Ace could thread a needle on a roller-coaster!" The first machine is back in place. |
From a trawler in the Pacific, the Challs drop the second machine with a cement weight to keep it upright as it sinks. A helicopter plunks the third machine back on Mount Everest. One to go. "If we don't pull this one off, the others were for nothing! And this the toughest one of all!" The lenses are smashed, but Red notices a smaller antenna. The electronics expert guesses the lenses collected solar power, but the antenna converted it to electrical energy then radioed to the other three devices. Oh. Any source of power will work! They load the machine on a tractor to haul it to the nearest power plant. |
They don't get far. Blue-robed riders approach on camels. Alien criminals with ray guns!  |
Ace orders the guys behind the machine. The rays bounce off - the energy field repels their weapons! "I suspected if they could, they'd have blown up the machines themselves!" Furthermore, "we've got our weapon right here!" Creeping the tractor toward the aliens spooks them. "Stop! This energy field can kill us! But it will do you no good." By the time the machine is hooked up, the alien fleet will have landed safely. Never daunted, the Challs enter a power plant. Red hooks a generator to the alien machine. "It's working! All systems functioning! That means the protective shield around the Earth is reactivated!" Rocky yells, "Cool, man, cool! We stopped the alien invaders!" |
Eeeeee! The generator fizzles. Red and Prof can't find anything wrong. And a space ship spills space police. "Earthmen! We come in peace! We are law officers from a distant planet!" Rocky snarls, "Don't try that on us again! Get going - or we'll toss tihs king-sized firecracker!" And holds a lighter near dynamite! The space police don't argue. Pulling a remote, they deactivate the machine's energy field. Rocky barks, "Wowee! It's gone! I'll get 'em!" Ace snags the dynamite. They must be space police if they have a deactivator! True. The energy shield locked out the criminals' ship, not the cops'. They just landed to pick up the last two villains. They fly off. Red wants a vacation. "Where'll we go? Some place high or low, or some place hot or cold?" Rocky laughs, "Cool, man - real cool!" |
"The War Between the Challenger Teams" |
On a sailboat in the Pacific Ocean, Prof and Rocky don color-coordinated diving suits. Rocky jokes, "Maybe I'll be as good as Prof!" Prof wants to investigate "disturbances" near an abandoned oil field. Rocky's "like a kid with a new magic trick." Prof is showing off, calling Rocky "Sonny" as they descend. Then lava geysers up from the sea bed. It hardens and seals off a cave. Prof wanted to see inside the cave, so he sets a dynamite charge and blows it open. |
"Power-swimming through a vast, dark grotto," the guys are ambushed by fish-men! With their radios dead ("kaoyed in the fighting"), Ace and Red don't know what happened. Led through a "seemingly endless world of caverns", Prof and Rocky are brought to an underwater city. The "sea weirdies" talk. They mean no harm. They intercepted the humans "to save them from the Lavanites - and because we need your help!" Rocky is spooked by "thought communication", mental waves. Prof cracks, "Sure they're getting through to you, Rocky-boy?" |
The amphibians are Marintels. The Lavanites fear them "because we are different". The lava-men keep sending jets of lava to seal off the amphibians' caves to dry them out "and destroy us!" Rocky snarls, "They do, huh? Just wait'll we catch up with those characters!" The narrator notes, "But two others are about to catch up with the Lavanites first..." Ace and Red scuba-dive and search. They run into "What a nightmare!" Two lava-men grab the Challengers to save them from the Marintels! And they must hurry to save their friends. The Lavanites can't expose themselves to water for more than a few seconds. But the humans with rebreathers can. |
There's the danger - the ocean breaking through into their caves. The Marintels are flooding the Lavanites out!  |
Ace and Red swim, and find the abandoned oil pipes. The Marintels have redirected the pipes with water to flood the caves. But Ace has a plan how to use the bottled-up lava. Meanwhile, the Lavanites thank Prof for rerouting the pipes! They hope the lava-men get the message and stop threatening the fish-men. "We'll be hearing from them soon, I'm sure!" Indeed. Ace and Red are swimming along, and are attacked by a giant seahorse. Red pops an "octopus ink" capsule. The guys get clear of the monster. |
Later, Ace and Red drag more pipe to the Lavanites for rerouting. Soon lava pours into the fish-men's cave.  Prof and Rocky have a new challenge. "We've got to find the source of lava - and wreck it!" Prof has blasting caps. They can blast fissures in the volcanic floor and "freeze" the lava to stone. "That'll make 'em cry Uncle!" |
Elsewhere, Ace plans to blow open a vent in the volcano and seal the Marintels' caves. "They'll have to surrender and free Prof and Rocky." Even the narrator is alarmed. "It's one Challenger team pitted against another Challenger team in a final showdown! Who will win?" Marintels on seahorses, led by Prof and Rocky, flock toward the volcano. While inside the volcano, Ace and Red set a dynamite charge and order everyone to get back. (As seen on the cover.) "The undersea world is rocked by a fearsome blast!" Two Challengers and fish-men on seahorses are flung like seaweed. In the boiling aftermath, Ace swims to Red - and finds Rocky instead! And here comes Red on a seahorse with Prof. "Hiya, pal! Seems that we've been at war with each other! We've got a peace confab coming up!" |
 The Challengers remind the antagonists, "Both sides will be destroyed if you continue to fight! We want your solemn word you'll live as friends - in peace!" Rocky adds, "Or we'll be back to thrash both of you!" The non-humans link hands in a peace sign. "The all-clear." The Challengers split before their rebreathers quit. Up in the sunshine, the guys laugh. "What a bunch of kooks" fighting because they're different. Rocky says, "Look at me - I'm different from you guys - and we get along!" Red says, "Right. But let's stay on the same team from now on!" |
Comments In truth, both stories are overly complicated and hard to follow. Maybe because they were written by former science fiction pulp writers who usually had more elbow room in a story. The saving graces are the noble themes. The Challengers selflessly agree to help, get gulled, then correct their mistake in the first. Then they serve as champions and broker a peace treaty. |
This issue showed a new star in SHOWCASE, Tommy Tomorrow. TT had his own shorts in ADVENTURE when space was big. Interest had long since died, but DC tried him out in SHOWCASE *four* times! Poor Tommy never left the launch pad, but Johnny DC in a space helmet is cute.  Of course, DC could have tried running Green Arrow in SHOWCASE. GA had been popular in ADVENTURE forever. Aquaman became a success, why not Green Arrow? "C'mon, who'd buy that?" Gotta love DC, where the motto is, "Find out what the readers want and make damned sure they don't get it." |