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Cover: Perez and SmithJune 2008 "Sunstroke" |
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Cover: Perez and SmithJune 2008 "Sunstroke" |
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Continuing from last issue (Brave and the Bold 11)... Heroes zoom in Wonder Woman's borrowed invisible plane. Even it's magic shielding is taxed. The passengers roast - as they approach the green sun!  |
Piloting are Hal Jordan and Ace Morgan. Red, Rocky, and June are there. As are Superman and Ultraman, both powerless; a JLA distress call to Green Lantern is all that saved them. But Hal's ring is almost exhausted. And Megistus has a ton of magical artifacts looted from Earth's past. How much power does that give him? "Enough to wipe out the human race any minute now." |
June Robbins, most of all, suffers as in a trance. "I'm flying into the sun..." Red assures her, "True, but you're one of us. You're a Challenger of the Unknown, yeah?" Ultraman disses them both. Red snarls, "June's lucky. She didn't have to go through what the rest of us Challengers did. She didn't have to cheat death. She's here purely on pluck." |
GL's power battery and alchemy turned the sun green, making it a giant "alchemical magnet" for the red radiation cloud that will mutate all life on Earth. (Never mind. Keep reading.) Green Lantern hopes to get the energy back. Using a "pod-suit" morphed from the ship's hull, he dives from the jet into the sun - as his ring runs out of charge. Hal utters his famous oath, "In brightest day, in blackest night -" And feels the power fade. "Ah, the hell with it! Recharge already!" Zam! He's in costume, the green energy gets siphoned into the ring, the jet is under his protection, and - "We're going in!" |
Inside the sun, Megistus waits in his citadel for the red cloud to arrive. Various widgets percolate, especially a rack of magical artifacts channeling mystic energy and a round furnace powering the whole scheme. The ancient mage drools over the idea of Earth mutated into "a laboratory the size of a planet". |
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Megistus addresses the furnace, thanking it for its sacrifice. The furnace, we see, is Metamorpho mashed into a sphere, unable to reform! And heroes smash in! Superman, Ultraman, GL, and Challengers! The superguys plow into Megistus, now in battle armor with alchemal powers. He can turn into a gas, form battering ram arms, knock superguys around like ten pins. "I AM alchemy! I AM power!" Prof spots the many magicaly artifacts. Red asks, "You recognize that from a glance?" Then adds, "Who am I talking to? Of course you do." Challs spring, ready for action. Except... what to do? |
Prof assesses the situation immediately. "There's the radioactive cloud, slowed by the absence of the green sun, but still on course. We're not protected. That's not a monitor, it's a portal. So unless we solve this -" "The cloud'll take us, too," finishes Red. June suggests, "The Book of Destiny! It'll say what happens!" "No go, Junie," Rocky explains. "'Member, we Death-Cheaters aren't in it - and neither is the stuff we can or will do." "But," frets June, "how do we defeat a cloud?" |
"We start busting everything we see!" orders Green Lantern. "I'll take apart the (Metamorpho) furnace and see what it's channeling! You get to work on the artifacts!" June races off. Rocky calls. Ace barks, "Let her hide, Rock! It's too much for her! This way!" Challs boost Prof up the artifact rack. "You know what you're tearin' at, Prof?" His reply: "If not, the backlash will consume us before we know I made a mistake." Red gibes, "You are the least comforting human being I have ever met!" Prof grabs for the first artifact, the Philosopher's Stone, but gets zapped. June rushes up with insulated gloves that Megistus dropped. Prof apologizes, having assumed she'd fled. "Don't tempt me!" |
GL cracks into the Metamorpho-furnace. "Work with me, buddy!" Some mystery-object inside powers the scheme. As GL tears off the door, he finds - Firestorm? Superman battles Megistus. Who was, incredibly, on Krypton when Jor-El was called a crackpot. Superman counter-taunts the "Metamorpho knockoff". "If (you can become anything), you'd have changed to kryptonite by now." "What a marvelous suggestion!" And Megistus slugs Superman with a kryptonite fist. |
June stares out the portal. She can see the red cloud surrounds Earth, already touching down in the Northern Hemisphere... On Earth, Flash and Wonder Woman scoop up people to evacuate a town. But the red cloud's tendril are spreading. Elsewhere, the Teen Titans battle a mutant octopus. With a "thousand mutant flying fish" coming... |
In the sun citadel, GL frees Firestorm, who last remembers heading for a JLA meeting. Metamorpho can't help. Megistus charmed him. He can't shift. Superman takes a kryptonite beating - but he's smarter than Megistus. Because kryptonite makes Ultraman stronger! Thwam! Still, Megistus is tough. He coils up Ultraman and pitches him through the portal. "See first-hand what the red cloud can do to even you!" Ultraman gets mutated horribly, probably to die. Superman yells, "Use that magic word Mixyezpiteliz gave you to return home!" "Numartlu!" And Ultraman vanishes back to Earth 3. |
Overwhelmed, June frets. "Dear heaven. What chance do we have? We're down one more!" "No," says Superman. "We're up two! June Robbins - meet my cousins Supergirl and Power Girl!" Supergirls zoom into the citadel. "Sorry we're late." "We *will* make up for it." |
Prof grabs an artifact, the Orb of Ra. "If I remember correctly, the Orb of Ra jumbles Metamorpho's molecules. Maybe -" Prof is right. Metamorpho gets unfrozen. "Lighter-head" (Firestorm) is OK. Ace yells, "Top priority is to negate the pull that's drawing the cloud!" Firestorm gestures to kill the force field around the artifacts. Ace looks for the Philosopher's Stone, fearing it got evaporated. "It was right here..." While the Challs gadgetize, the power heroes whale the tar out of Megistus. Superman demands, "Release the cloud, you lunatic!" Too late. "Its course is set!" |
Rocky begs. "Prof, do somethin'! Build somethin'! A shield, a nuke -" Prof's only hope was "a transmutative explosion from the Philosopher's Stone was our only bet! Without that -" "There!" yells Red. "June's way ahead of us! She grabbed it!" June, looking panicked and brave, stands before the portal leading to the red cloud. "June! We need that!" to make some kind of bomb - "- then it'll need someone to detonate it!" hollers June. |
June's in control. "I - I understand now this thing works!
It... bonds with its holder. Like a living thing... with a
voice... It just might transmute that whole, giant cloud - but only if someone takes it right to the target!"
And June dives through the portal! |
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The Challs can't go after her. "Don't be an idiot! It's the vacuum of space!" She's protected by the stone. They wouldn't be. Ace yells for June to come back over the commlink. "There isn't time, guys! Every second counts! What, I'm not part of the team? Isn't this unknown enough?" "June, stop it!" calls Prof. "You don't have to prove yourself! Turn around -" Let the big guys handle it. "You saw Ultraman," says June. "This is a suicide run, and we all know it! Give me the chance to be one of the brave and the bold, all right? Red was right... I'm not a death-cheater! I'm not special like you!.. I'm just sick and tired of being scared! ... my chance to be ..." Her signal is breaking up. June is being cooked by radiation. |
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Amid crackling interference, her last words are, "Goodbye, guys... love..." And June is gone. And so is the cloud. Earth is saved. And Megistus is beaten down. And babbling something strange... "You cretins! You win! The cloud's been destroyed - and with it, your only hope for survival! You never understood! I wasn't condemning your precious little mudball! I was preparing it for the near future! For the crisis when everything changes! Fools, I could have saved you..." Megistus fades away. The heroes finally look out the portal. "The cloud's gone. Prof, what happened to it?.." |
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Returning to Challenger Mountain, the glum Challs are considering a memorial... When they discover Destiny, the Keeper of the Book of Destiny, come to reclaim the Book. "Much of what it has told you will soon fade from memory." (Recall the Challs were poring over the book obsessively.) "With Megistus defeated, time and reality are mended. I thank you for your service... and regret your sacrifice." Prof says, "Destiny, we've done a lot on your behalf. We've lost a lot. We ask one favor before you go. We want to look in the book one last time. To read June's story." |
Oddly, June is blanked out.  "All this shows is her vanishing. Surely her body - her ashes - ended up somewhere! Keep reading!" |
"Nothing," Prof marvels. "I can't find any reference to her, past or future! She's not. In. The Book." Rocky grins. "But we're livin' proof that the only way not to be in The Book of Destiny -" "Is to cheat death! She's alive! June's alive!" Rocky gives Red a noogie. They don't know where or even when, but "she's out there somewhere!" Prof thanks Destiny, who fades away. |
Already the guys are running for the hanger. Ace asks, "Think June even realizes that she's a full-fledged Challenger now?" Rocky replies, "No idea. You c'n ask her when we find her. But where do we start lookin'?" "That's easy," says Prof. "Destination: Unknown!" And the Galloper roars off into the Colorado skies. |
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Comments So... We have the guys back, young again. (De-aged by the Crisis?) We even got Red back from Hypertime. (A story yet to be told.) But we've upgraded June to a full-blooded Challenger, and launched the team into a new adventure. Whether we get to see it remains OUR challenge. |