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June - July 1964 |
"Up from the depths of a murky pool it rose, fearful and beyond description! A moment before, this had been a man! Now it was The Menace the Challengers Made!" "In a Central African village,
four men who live on borrowed time stalk a human quarry." |
Tearing along in a jeep, they see Starke, who wears a red bandana (remember that) enter the Red Forest with a rifle. The guys follow. The jungle is as bright as the Scarlet Jungle of Krypton. "Some odd mineral content in the soil," guesses Prof. |
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Starke holes up in a cave. If they rush, someone will get hit. Prof yells, "Surrender or we'll blast you out!" A bullet knocks off Rocky's "derby".  There's his answer. |
"From his silver cigarette case that serves as a mini-lab, Prof extracts a baby bomb." He pitches the bomb and blasts hell out of the cave. There's no sign of Starke, just a murky pool. But bubbling up is - "It's alive!" The green gloppy monster rises from the muck - and wears Starke's red kerchief! Prof guesses the explosion loosened some strange minerals that turned Starke into a monster. "And we're responsible!" |
It gets worse. Lumbering out, the Ooze touches a tree, absorbs it, and gets bigger! Maybe it can't absorb non-living matter. The Challs roll a boulder and hit it "right in the breadbasket!" The thing absorbs the rock, then their Jeep! "We've got to empty out the village on the double! Nothing's safe from that thing!" The Challs run to warn the village. The chief is ticked. "I warned you not to enter the taboo country!" Now they must evacuate the village and burn it. Ace nods. "The smart old cookie he's out to starve the Ooze to death! Whichever way it turns, we'll burn the jungle before it!" |
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The scorched-earth policy fails. The Ooze consumes the ground it walks on, leaving pits behind. There's no way to starve it! "We couldn't even shoot it into space," says Rocky, "'cause it would eat the rocketship first!" (The Challs had recently shot a Moon Beast back into space.) Prof thinks furiously. "It could be contained in something that has no substance! Come on, men! There's a heap of work to do!" Red radios the 51st Air Wing(?). The radio operator laughs, "The CO says if anyone else had radioed for that wild request, he'd have ordered a psychiatrist for them!" They'll get the jet engines "Pronto!" |
Ace has juicy bait, all right. He rides an elephant! First he swats the beast toward the Ooze, then away. "We've got a long way to lure him and don't want him to get too close!" The Ooze lumbers after. |
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Ace's "monster-bait" leads the Ooze on, but it's coming too fast. Rocky and Red dash in front as a distraction, jumping and yelling - - and tripping! Rocky goes down. Instantly the Ooze sucks up his leg. "It's like slippin' in a vat of warm fudge!" Prof and Ace grab Rocky's arms and PULL. "I think the Ooze hurts me less'n you guys! Get out of here! Save yourselves!" Another swipe, and three Challs are caught like flies on flypaper. The only one free, Ace drives the elephant close - then makes it dance aside. The Ooze lunges - - and crashes through the leafy cover. A dozen jet engines kick on. WHOOSH! |
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Starke doesn't remember a thing. "Just as well," chides Ace, "it would haunt you for the rest of your life in prison!" The Challengers vow to return with experts to rebuild the village and study the weird soil of the Red Forest. The wise old chief replies, "It is best that way! When men can make their own light, why should they live in darkness?" |
"Time Bomb on Holdout Island" |
The Challs walk around a jungle island, where, "It's so quiet you can hear your heartbeat." Until Japanese soldiers open with burp guns! The narrator tells us, "It should've died out 20 years ago on the remote Pacific dot but it still trembled with the hot, volcanic breath of war! Now, unless the Challengers could stop it, there would be a shuddering blast heard 'round the world from the terrible Time Bomb on Holdout Island!" |
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"A couple of choppers - tryin' to air-condition our suits - with holes!" yells Rocky. Ace is in the path of bullets, but Prof swings his portable seismograph in the way. So far they've seen no one. "What in blinkin' blue blazes is going on?" They move closer. "Maybe a couple of ghosts blasted away at us!" Not ghosts, because here comes a grenade! Red trips. Rocky snatches up the grenade - "It's playin' my song!" - and pitches it back to the brush. Without effect. There's no trace of the gunmen. "We came here to solve one mystery and landed smack in the middle of another!" The Challs were supposed to investigate why the dead volcano started smoking. If it's a danger, air traffic needs to be re-routed. Now they must find the sniper. The teams split up. |
Soon Ace and Rocky feel the ground shake. Ground foliage splits - and an elevator pops up! Complete with two Japanese soldiers and a machine gun! "Jack in the box soldiers!" yells Rocky. The champs KO the chumps. They must be "holdouts from World War II who never said uncle." Tell Prof and Red or take the elevator down? They tie up the two "Nips" and descend to the "bargain basement". Down below, Rocky and Ace "Dig this cr-razy subway!" And a train's coming! The guys wait for it to slow on the curve and jump aboard. (True stuff. The Japs built small railways under Okinawa and other islands to haul supplies.) The train pulls into a station to a cry of "Yankee spies! Kill them!" Ace yells, "Let's move!" The Japs armed with rifles and machine guns! "Only one thing to do! Smack 'em and hope!" Fists fly, but the guys are nabbed. The Jap commander would shoot, but a voice calls, "Nein! Halten! (No! Stop!)" |
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"Whatta ya know! A Ratzi here with the Banzai Boys!" It's Doktor Heller, an aristocratic chief scientist and Nazi. Rocky snarls, "Look, you left-over Hitler, the war ended 20 years ago!" "Ja, we know the war ended but not for us!" Heller wants to use the Challengers for a dangerous experiment. The brutish and unshaven Jap, Colonel Takawa, wants them shot, but agrees rather than risk his men. (Oh, for the simple days of racial stereotypes.) |
Ace and Rocky are prodded at gunpoint. The island is honeycombed with tunnels and factories to produce weapons. "The smoke from the big forges was released through this volcano!" Doktor Heller explains - because the Challs will soon be dead - that he was a scientific advisor to the Japanese Empire when Hitler died. They vowed to fight on, and recruited a Jap Youth Brigade. They prepare for "Der Tag II", the Second Big Day to defeat the Allies. His secret weapons? One is a flying saucer! Yes, early models were sometimes spotted and reported. This model is untested - and Ace and Rocky will test it! Rocky scoffs, "A couple of guinea pigs, eh?.. This is the age of missiles! Even if this thing's a success, we've got stuff that'll clobber it so fast, you won't know what hit it!" |
Ah, but Heller has a second secret weapon: mysterious gold particles. He sprinkles some in a steel box, and the box vibrates to pieces! The particles "emit powerful sound waves. I needn't explain what will happen to [your missiles and] great cities when such pellets are dropped!" Oops! This nutbar is a REAL threat! Ace and Rocky are strapped in. They'll have manual control, but Heller has master ground control. "Don't attempt to escape!" Rocky's for it. "Let's cut out, Ace! Take a chance flyin' out to our 7th Fleet! This island's nothing but one big time bomb ready to blow up the world!" Heller laughs over the radio. He heard. "Take a R-I-D-E!" The saucer skitters around the sky. Rocky yells, "This thing's going- crazy!" |
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Ace and Rocky are tossed, shaken, and looped loopy. Heller brings the saucer back down. Prof and Red, on the volcano rim, see their pals out cold. As the dazed pilots stagger from the saucer, Heller orders them shot. They're shoved against a wall. Rifles lower - and Prof and Red burst on the scene, fists flying! "Don't you know it isn't polite to point - especially a rifle?" The rescuers shove Ace and Rocky back into the saucer. Prof smashed the controls. |
The saucer hops straight up. Prof'll stop the bad guys "by fumigating!" and plops the saucer atop the smokestack. Smokes floods the underground factory. The guys radio the 7th Fleet and raise rifles. Heller and the Japs stagger out begging for air. Ace promises, "You'll get plenty of salt air! A battlewagon from our navy is on the way - and you characters have a long voyage ahead of you!" |
In the letters column, "Challengers' Mail Chute", fans demand more of those "clever, cunning, conviving kids, little Prof, Ace, Red, and Roxy." They'll return in "Phantom of the Fair". A fan wants detailed diagrams of ChallengerMountain. Another writes she's "flipped" over Rocky. "To me, he's the greatest!" In "Chit-Chat from the Mail Chute", one fan wants more imaginary stories, and is pointed to the Junior Chall adventures. Another wonders why the guys don't wear guns anymore. They do "when the occasion demands". A fan got the best Christmas present, a subscription to Challengers of the Unknown. "Incidentally," asks the editor, "have YOU taken advantage of our big subscription bargain!" An ad is conveniently posted on the opposite page. Someone from Provincetown, Mass
writes about old sailor superstitions such as whistling at sea
is bad luck. One wants more Multi-Man, another announces
a new Challengers club in Albuqueque. They're even devising
a theme song! "All submissions and correspondence
should be addressed to CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, National Periodical
Publications, 575 Lexington Ave, New York 22, NY." And "New York 22" is a relic: the address predates zip codes. |
One of the great strengths of Challengers' stories was that, while the elements were outlandish, they were never stupid. Though intended for kids, the writers never dumbed things down. All menaces had scientific explanations, and even small details were spelled out. The Japanese soldiers are all young because the officers recruited a Youth Brigade. The Challs need help to round up the baddies, so radio the 7th Fleet. As the Ooze first starts rampaging, the Challs experiment with ways to stop it, first trying a boulder, then scorched earth. They retreat while scrambing for a workable plan. Unlike many comics with random foolishness tossed in, Challenger events always follow a logical progression with explanations on the fly. And small things make up the greater whole. |
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World War II was never far from our minds as kids in the 1960s. COMBAT was on prime-time TV. Movies like THE LONGEST DAY and ANZIO filled the theaters and drive-ins. Our dads and uncles were heroic veterans. GI Joe was the most popular boys' toy ever, and back cover ads such as Task Force ran in every comic book. The Challengers had just fought a batch of thawed Nazis in "Beachhead U.S.A." My mother once admitted that, "The fighting and dying aside, WWII was the most exciting and fun time of my life." Everyone had jobs, plenty of money, war-related dances and rallies, and lots of news. Too, nostalgia for "The Good War" was growing in the early 1960s because Vietnam was being played out on the nightly news. Nuff said. |
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