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Volume 3, 11 December 1997 |
In Los Angeles, Rocky Davis, dapper and gray, dedicates a statue to his missing partners - not that they're dead. Flashbulbs pop. The press are out in force. More details here. |
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Clay, Marlon, Brenda, and Kenn watch quietly and wonder why Mister Sands missed it.  Rocky shakes hands with the New Challengers. Brenda wishes they had really met the originals. She emailed the data on Tesla fields to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Rocky will head to Boston to continue the search for his partners. Don't tell "the vultures. Man, I hate dealing with the press." |
In Gotham, a military-dressed sniper shoots a woman from a rooftop. Batman pounces like a ton of bricks. And finds a "conundrum". The sniper is a burned-out veteran of Vietnam, now homeless in the Old Dutch District. He thought he was back in Nam shooting at the enemy. The weird part is his boots really are caked with mud from Vietnam and fresh leaves that were defoliated out of existence in 1973. Alfred suggests contacting the Challengers, currently meeting Commissioner Gordon. |
Robin, meanwhile, escorts Mister Sands. "A man could get lost forever in this fog." Robin stumbles on an old-fashioned riot in full swing. Cops on horses and soldiers roust civilians in hats. The original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, blasts the Icicle off a building. "This can't be happening!" |
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It's not. Robin gets bushwhacked by scruffy vets with guns. The captain, in WWII fatigues and helmet, greets Sands. "Hello, Ted. You're looking good for your age." The Challengers check the Hotel Gotham. Sands checked in but never used the bed. He took a cab to the Old Dutch District. Batman checks too. He raids a hotel room and finds an old photo of soldiers. Sands and Hemmings. The Challengers cruise in a convertible. Kenn objects to the mission. Sands has done nothing bizarre, "so it's out of our jurisdiction." Brenda objects - and screams. Batman hops into the convertible. Brenda hollers, "Jeez! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" |
Kenn Kawa is not impressed. Bats asks, "Something amusing?"  "Is that outfit really supposed to scare people?" |
Bats vaults out of the car. "Gotham City doesn't need any amateur adventurers." And he's gone. No help there. Clay grouses, "That went well." Brenda adds, "Most people don't even think he exists." |
Cut to... Ted Sands, an elder civilian, talks to a young Hemmings. Sands would rather forget that riot, when as soldiers they pounded Hispanics who hadn't gone to war. "I wish you hadn't shown me that." And where's Robin? "Safe enough. I don't harm children.. unless there's a good reason." Hemmings suggests they walk and chat... and just like that, they're on a Pacific island. Sands is stunned. "How did you?..." "Quiet, now. You have to see this." Down on the beach are two young soldiers: Sands and Hemmings. "That's us! What time is it?" Hemmings comes here often. "If you still believe in time..." "... It's 8:15. Morning. The northern coast of Okinawa. August 6, 1945." |
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The atom bomb dropped on Japan. Hemmings says, "Every time I see it, I'm in awe." No, says Sands. "Whatever we saw, it wasn't the bomb. We were too far away for that strong an effect." (In fact, it's the mysterious fierce light that keeps resonating through the Challengers' lives. More on that later.) Hemmings is haunted. "It doesn't matter what it was. I changed. Time ended... People think of time as a stream, but it's an ocean... We drown in it... I have reached the shore, Ted! The first extrachronal man!" Basically, Hemmings considers himself the next evolution of man. "I've left time behind! And the whole human race will follow me!.. There's no word for what we'll become... No future, no past, no present... I am a virus of evolution! It is my duty to infect the world! We must abandon time!" "You're insane," says Sands. "We've got to get back. Someone is intruding." |
The Challengers wander the fog of the Old Dutch District. Sands grew up here, an Army brat. Clay halts. "Everyone turn around and walk away, right now." "Or not," adds Kenn. Soldiers get the drop on them. "You're behind enemy lines." A batarang knocks the weapons aside. Batman is back. He tells the Challs, "I thought we got off on the wrong foot." The soldiers regroup. "We are not beaten!" |
Robin's bound with a shotgun wired to his head.  "You five will surrender. You get to the count of one to decide... One!" To be continued... |
The letters column deals with COTU 7, which reintroduced the original Challengers. One fan finds the reappearance "weird but intriguing. With Rocky and the government trying to hide information from the Challengers, and then Rocky taking the name back from the group, the ending put everything in proper flux." He worries that with the Weirdoverse titles folding, will Challengers follow? "Not to worry." Another fan tries to unravel the mystery, recalling Saxon and Nina Justis with her alien abductions. He's glad there were no footnotes to break the flow. The editor notes they don't use thought balloons or sound effects either. "No KRA-BLAMMS!" A writer compares the comic to the SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE and "The Twilight Zone". A writer from Italy wants crossovers like Jack Kirby's Fourth World. "How about Batman?" |
Comment In one of his CBR columns, Steven Grant noted this book was a departure because 1) it was two-parter, and 2) had a big-name guest star - unfortunately. "You know your book is in trouble when your editor suggests that Batman guest-star." |
The cover is one of "The New Faces of DC" gallery. Every cover that month featured a head shot. A cool effect staring back at you from the comics rack. The issue even got a unique logo. (Go look.) The title riffs on the saying, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." That echoes Rocky's dedication and statue to his missing friends, old soldiers gone missing... |
