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December 1966 - January 1967 |
"DC once more - in typical modesty - introduces a sensational new villain-team, the most spectacular since Villo and Brainex made their earth-shaking debut! Now meet Dimension-Man and the Iron Dictator!" "Also, the Challengers find a new headquarters - the strangest ever found on Earth! You'll ask yourself - is it really a new HQ - or one big booby trap? Read on!..." Can any story live up to such hype? Let's see... |
One comics historian has commented on DC's effort to match Marvel, with a clear resemblance between the cover of Fantastic Four 49 and this issue. Did the editor hold up a competitor's comic and demand the cover artist mimic it? Decide for yourself.  |
Puzzled Challengers move like sleepwalkers, compelled to climb into the Gallopin' Gizmo. Ace can only say, "There is some place special - where we've got to go - but, blast it, I don't know where or why!" Rocky complains, "Pals, this is real wild! I feel as if I'm outa my cotton-pickin' mind! It gives a guy the willies!" Drawn by the strange (yellow) force, the Challs land at a remote spot. (Not far from a city, we'll learn.) "Never saw anything this off-beat!" says Ace. |
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Inside, Rocky bleats, "Holy mackerel - with apologies to Robin, the boy wonder, if Batman doesn't object!" A lab built by "some superior brain" has been trashed by a "superior force - like a tornado!" But why were they drawn here? "Greetings, Challengers!" says a voice. "I summoned you here by mental-influence waves! It was vitally important that certain information be turned over to you!" The boys goggle. "Who's doin' the yakkin'?" Upon entering, the Challs triggered a recording. "But rest assured, I am a friend!" The mysterious "friend" assumed the lab will be trashed, and urges the Challs to find a projection machine the voice will describe. In that instant, Red gets socked in the jaw - invisibly! "I dig this now - he lured us here - into a trap!" The Challs link hands and sweep the room to find the fink. Instead they find the recorder, so that part of the story is true. But who socked them? Must be someone else! Prof sets up the projector. A screen shows a bald scientist in a lab coat (is there any other kind?) who "promises to stagger your imagination!" The scientist can disappear by stepping into another dimension - and the transmission goes haywire. The projector is damaged. Probably by the thief who wants the dimension formula. But what happened to Scientist X, as the Challs dub him? Prof fiddles. The recorder skips past the formula. Scientist X offers three clues to the location of other inventions. "Purposely difficult to stymie the stranger who's been prowling around this vicinity... but I feel certain that you four men, who have survived a thousand strange adventures and defied death innumerable times, can solve my cryptic secret..." The three clues are "sound, substance, and light! The rest is up to you!" |
"I don't dig any of this jazz!" gripes Rocky. "I ain't about t'say I'm the smartest cat in the world, but I ain't the dumbest either, and - Hey!" Behind them has appeared - out of thin air - an eavesdropper! And Rocky's "chin has an itchy feelin' he's the bird who bopped me!" A fast left hook goes through the villain's face. Ace dives "for the big whammo" and flops on his belly. Red dives and gets laughed at.  "I'm here to show you the futility of fighting me... Dimension-Man. D-Man for short!" With a snort, D-Man disappears. |
Still chuckling, D-Man steps out "elsewhere" into a sumptuous apartment where the furniture is all giant Ds. (Even his helmet is big Ds.) D-Man stole the dimension formula. If he can figure out what "sound, substance, and light" mean, "nobody on Earth can stand against me!" But D-Man can use a cohort (or flunky) to help him, "mad as he is." Focusing a beam on a wall, he releases from limbo the Iron Dictator! The Iron Dictator claims to be Der Fueher. He left an aide to die in that Berlin bunker, then was imprisoned for years in that "dratted dimensional world" by Scientist X. "By Himmel, won't the world be shocked to learn that I am still alive!" Raising a Nazi flag, the Iron Dictator promises to start with a few troops, then rally legions to "once again make the world tremble at the sounds of marching jackboots and the thunder of tanks!" D-Man is unimpressed. "Must we go through that again?" (Like Villo and Brainex, these partners also bicker.) Iron Dictator wants revenge on Scientist X. D-Man argues "He's somewhere among the stars, millions of miles away. You see, X was not from this world!" |
D-Man (who read Scientist X's notes) tells how X arrived on Earth, shrank and transformed himself to appear human (although salmon-pink). His scientific mission? "To help this primitive world achieve scientific triumphs that would otherwise cost them centuries of work and experiments! But I must hurry, for my time is short!"  X's notes also indicate the Iron Dictator is an imposter obsessed with the idea he's Hitler. Which is why X locked him away in a dimensional "prison" as a crackpot. The Iron Dictator rants. Dimensional-Man excuses himself to "check on the Challengers." Leaving ID with a small "dimensional contact" ray gun, he vanishes. (For the record, the Iron Dictator must be a fraud. Upon arrival, Scientist X looms over a car suspiciously like a 1960's Mustang. Obviously he didn't arrive in 1945 to scuttle Hitler.) |
The Challs, meanwhile, listen to music - five discs over and over. They must contain the clue to "sound". D-Man invisibly waits for the solution. Back home, the Iron Dictator pulls a curtain and greets his storm troopers, "the cornerstone of a new reich to last a thousand years!" ID triggers the ray gun to summon D-Man. The Challs are spooked as a living nightmare pops out of thin air. The alien laces into them. The Challs "couldn't dent it with an atom bomb!"  D-Man realizes the Iron Dictator pushed the wrong button and summoned "that weirdo from another dimension." Since D-Man needs the Challs alive to solve the three-clue riddle, he vanishes back to headquarters, grabs the ray gun, and banishes the monster. |
The Challengers go back to music. D-Man returns to eavesdrop. Prof finally gets it. All five songs are in the key of C. Use another spelling and you get "SEE" and "SEA". Ace finds a transparency "so oddball it might be a clue." Holding the transparency over a similar wall mural reveals an X over a tiny island in the Pacific! It must be Scientist X's cache of inventions! D-Man smiles.  |
D-Man orders ID's neo-Nazis to rob a bank. The Iron Dictator is insulted, but D-Man only wants to stall the Challengers while he checks out the island. Within the hour the Gizmo's emergency alarm CLANGs. "Storm troopers robbing a bank? This is so nutty it's gotta be a gag!" says Red. But the faithful Challs zoom in and battle "Ratzis". Fists and finks fly.  |
Dimensional-Man pops up on a Pacific island. "No sign of human life! No sign either that Scientist X was ever here!" D-Man will need weeks to search "this dreary place". He can't trust Iron Dictator, so he'll tie up the Challs another way. "And will they be surprised!" Things get even MORE complicated... In the bank, the Challs dodge bullets from ID's tank. The lights go out. The Challs get clobbered one by one... When they wake, ID and his storm troopers are gone. The Challs wonder, "Which of you guys got slug-happy in the blackout?" Each is saw another Chall's arm in the dark. Prof wonders if D-Man might have whisked one Chall away and brainwashed him, then whisked him back in seconds. He checks the projector machine and - a new scene! - D-Man has an anonymous Chall in a chamber and hypnotizes him with a light beam! So "One of us is a traitor!" Completely under D-Man's control. Fortunately, Prof has identified another gadget, a mind-probe machine. |
Golly, D-Man didn't anticipate that! He sics the ID and Nazis on the Challs again. They surround the lab and pour in. "Heil Hitler!" Rocky roars, "Heil - punch in the nose!" Time to go! "Inch by inch, foot by foot, the Challs slam their way to the Gallopin' Gizmo!" Red jokes, "So many people trying to keep us from leaving! I didn't know they cared!" Rocky adds, "You'd think Batman was here - signing autographs for his fans! Holy uppercut!" The Gizmo roars skyward. ID takes aim, but Ace pushes a button, and the Gizmo splits into four pieces - the main ship and three independent jet pods! As they reassemble, Prof explains, "There is no traitor!... I figured a controlled mind wouldn't cooperate in a test to determine the traitor's identity, so... since every one of us was willing to submit to the test, I knew D-Man had pulled a cutie!" |
And the island? Prof guesses it's the second clue, "substance. We'll go beneath it," sticking to the first clue, "sea". An undersea cliff shields a golden dome. "It could only have been built by an alien!" And the third clue, "light?" Scanning the dome with a light beam trips the airlock. "I don't see a welcome mat, but let's go in!"  "Just as Scientist X wanted, we found his storehouse of awesome scientific secrets!" Ace figures they shouldn't reveal the secrets yet - if they can figure them out. And Red thinks, "This would make a great headquarters for us, hidden away from the world!" But the narrator warns, "those secrets could be dynamite! And don't forget D-Man and the Iron Dictator are still looking for you!" |
Comments One thing's for sure. You get 12 cents' worth. The book is crammed with villains, aliens, horrors, neo-Nazis, a bank robbery, a new secret headquarters, several fights, a traitor subplot, and three mysterious clues and puzzles. Compare that to modern comics where the heroes can't make a phone call in 24 pages! Note there are TWO plugs for the Batman TV show. DC was raking in a mint from that show. But it's good for the Challs. They were "redesigned" to be superheroes because of super-exposure. The Challs might have actually inherited two secret HQs, one on land near a city and the other under the Pacific, but when last seen, the Iron Dictator had possession of the wrecked lab. Which wasn't all that big anyway. Speaking of which, the Dimensional-Man and the Iron Dictator and his Nazis are still loose - and the Challs never get back to rounding them up. At least, not that we see... For more on the Challengers' new HQ, scroll through the Headquarters section. |
Ad ad for this issue, complete with the infamous Go-Go Checks, ran in other comics.  How come the Challs never got to guest-star with Jerry Lewis? |