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Volume 3, 6 July 1997 |
The young Challengers of the Unknown were conceived as part of the DCU's Weirdoverse, "the dark side of the DCU". The inevitable crossover was called "Convergence" (as in "coming together", get it?). The letters page tells us about these other must-reads, all with skull-and-spider frames. "Elsewhere in the Weirdoverse..." |
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 "Wherein the renegade Prince Topaz seeks help from Fate, only to get half of Boston leveled when Emerald Shocktroops arrive looking for him!" |
 "The Conclave wants Winters taken out. Topaz needs his help, and the Infinity Cult makes a second attempt at subvering the natural evolution of human culture." |
 "Fate, Etrigan, and the 'Tactics must join forces to save the world from the Conclave invasion!" But the 'Tactics don't play well with others. |
This story, Part 3 of "Convergence", is Kenn's story... In Salt Lake City, an Asian-American woman reads the newspaper while her daughter plays marbles. Except the girl suddenly collapses, comatose.  The woman is Sue Kawa, Kenn's ex-wife. His daughter is Danni. |
Early morning, Sarah Hargate summons the Challengers of the Unknown to their office. The website nearly crashed after 14,000 emails.  The good news: they all concern the same emergency. Around the world, every 12th person went into a coma. |
At a hospital, the Challengers see hundreds of people laid out. The CDC has collected data, but found no links. The comas cross sex, race, age. Kenn feels the solution is close, and tries stream of consciousness wordplay. Marlon tries speaking to coma victims. Clay investigates what people were doing when they collapsed. Brenda crunches data and learns something the CDC finds, "curious, but statistically irrelevant." All the victims were born between October 23 and November 21. By the Zodiac, Kenn notes, they're all Scorpios. Clay scoffs, "Let's go cure them with some crystals! Let's study the bumps on their head!" Kenn, normally cool, yells. "I was just pointing out a fact!" Marlon says there haven't been any cataclysmic events in the sky - |
Kenn grabs his coat and runs. "I'm sorry. I have to be somewhere. I'll explain when I get back." Clay objects. "What, you mean we can walk out anytime we feel like it?" Brenda notes, "We're not Kenn's jailers. He knows where to find us." The remaining Challengers brainstorm. Brenda muses, "I doubt the problem's medical. Can't imagine an intelligence behind it. Four hundred million people in a coma. Who could gain anything from that?" |
Kenn lands in Salt Lake City and taxis to Foothill Drive. There Sue Kawa and her mother, Yvonne, fret about Danni's coma. Sue runs out for macaroni and cheese, her daughter's favorite. Maybe the aroma will rouse her. Sue is touchy and takes any comment as a slam. "Why can't you ever have any faith in me?" Kenn arrives and sees his daughter is a zombie. He chatters. "Brought you a present. Meant to bring it on your last birthday, but... you know your mom." He hangs a necklace with topaz pendant around her unfeeling neck. "It's your birthstone." Then he cries over "... my beautiful little girl...." |
His ex walks in. "You son of a..." and SLAPS him. Sue never wanted to see him again. After her "ran around on her" and she divorced him... etc. He should just go. Kenn argues, "Five years have changed me a lot." Save it. Kenn goes to kiss his daughter goodbye. But something's changed in the room. "A closed space is like a lake. It's got boundaries and stillnesses. If something in it moves, the surface ripples." Sue thinks he's nuts and orders him out. Then Kenn sees it. |
His daughter's new necklace now lies on a child's drawing. "The cosmos just left us a message. Where's your phone?" |
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Kenn calls Brenda, who tries to convince Clay and Marlon, who are just sitting doing nothing. "Kenn thinks topaz will cure them. We need a large supply." The reasoning? If comas are "neurotic in origin", and Jung believes they're "really blocked psychic energy", then a stone can become a fetish-touchstone to release the energy - "All right, all right! I'll get the rocks!" says Clay. Frantic and embarrassed orders go out. Find tons of topaz - cheaper than cut glass lately - and distribute it around the world to every victim. Whose nutty idea is this? Says one doctor, "It wasn't my idea. The Challengers of the Unknown." Brenda insists, "Please, we don't want credit on this one." |
The team flies to the Thomas Range of bald mountains south of Salt Lake. They meet Kenn and - surprise! - his ex-wife and comatose daughter. They've laid out a topaz man on the sand. As many victims as possible have been given a topaz. Clay argues, "Fun's fun. Now enlighten me." Under pressure, Kenn snaps, "Clay, just go withthe damn flow for once in your life!.. I'm going with guesses and intuition. There's some sort of energy flowing to these people. It's too much for them, and they shut down. Basic self-preservation. Topaz is the key. Unlock the door and let the energy flow out." |
Gently Kenn lays his daughter on the Topaz Man. "We're standing on the biggest topaz deposit in the United States. Some people believe it's a place of power."  This is insane, say his teammates. |
But Danni wrote her dad a fairy tales about a golden king who wanted peace and justice, but was blown into golden pieces. The king waits for someone to free him. Danni wrote the story AFTER she fell into a coma and, "She's never lied to me before." Nothing happens. Maybe if they hold hands. Brenda gives up. "Why not?" Marlon says, "What I believe doesn't matter. Kenn's a Challenger. We owe him the benefit of the doubt." Even Clay joins in. "Oh, hell." At the touch, the space closes, and power ripples. "In the center of the circle is calm, and peace." The magical energy flow travels around the world. In thousands of hospitals, coma victims wake up. |
There's also "freedom."  The "golden king" of Danni's fairy tale (and crossover comics) bursts from the Topaz Man - and vanishes into the sky. |
Danni wakes. She's glad to see both her parents. Kenn promises Mom will explain it all later. Sue asks, "I will?" The Topaz Man mosaic is gone. Everyone saw the apparition, but what was it? An angel? A hallucination? Clay saw "all those people". Brenda teases, "Funny how nothing happened until YOU joined the circle, Clay. Almost like it was asking your permission." Clay mutters, "Nothing to do with me. My birthday's in the middle of January..." |
In the letters column, one reader is pleased someone other than "the spandex crowd" is exploring the darker side of the DCU... The editor reports "instant sellouts" of the first four issues... Another reader likes the characters and art, but finds the stories too cramped in single issues. Then urges, "Ditch Brenda's scarf. It's ugly." The scarf stays, say the eds... A reader likens the book to X-FILES, but also KOLCHAK and CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. He wants every mystery solved: Bigfoot, Yetis, Loch Ness Monster, and more... Still another writer likes how the backgrounds of the "mysterious characters" are teased out slowly... All positive letters. In the next issue, "The past meets the present when the Challengers of the Unknown meet the greatest unknown of all: the Challengers of the Unknown!" |
Comments This is a "red sky" issue, a forced crossover pushed on the writer. Steven Grant later thought it hurt the series. Certainly it's clunky, since the Challs never meet their other-book counterparts, or guest star. Without reading all four books (and would anyone?), we're in the dark about the Topaz Man as much as they. And while the Challs get credit for being clever, they're never in any danger. The cover implies Kenn is exploding with weird energy as Brenda reads from a book and watches a crystal ball, but that's not how it pans out. Such are crossovers: messy but necessary for sales. Kenn's family is never mentioned or seen again. As for the Weirdoverse, none of the other titles made it past 12 issues. |