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December 1963 - January 1964 |
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But something's moving up there!  A "moon beast" with an organic jet comes KA-WHOOSHING to Earth. |
Naturally, the Air Force goes into Monster Attack Mode and fires its own atomic missile. The beast eats it. ""That thing is almost beyond destruction! This is a menace to the world!" (A little paranoid, aren't we? The beast hasn't DONE anything yet.) The Challs join "the stake in keeping the world alive!" RADAR tracks the beast to a mountain bridge - which it blisters with its organic jets. It then eats the molten metal. Prof wonders if it has "a reason behind its actions." Ace needs no reason. It's "a mad dog from space!" (More like a hungry dog, but hey.) They tail it. |
The beast lands and scorches a tunnel into the ground, and enters. Ace and Rocky follow with flares. The tunnel walls are melted metal. But deep down ace spots an oversized crown of brass. Rocky finds a bottle and sniffs it - and drops like a rock. It's some powerful anesthesia. Prof and Red, meanwhile, have found ancient giant footprints. The four confer. Prof guesses the huge crown fit a giant head, and presses it against his brow. "It's sending images right to my brain!" |
The recording is a ship's log. Ancient green duckbilled giants were attacked by the moon beast, and couldn't stop it.  They flew to a primitive planet, prehistoric Earth, to lure the beast - - and the recording stops. Rocky comes to. The anesthesia was the alien invention to stop the moon beast. Prof can duplicate it. |
Except here comes the beast! "Don't run! Light your flare!" ARROWRR! The beast turns away. "After 100 million years beneath the surface of the moon, its eyes can't adjust to extreme light!" But the flares are sputtering. Prof runs up with flasks of knockout gas. (Fast lab work!) The potion dissipates in the air and only slows the beast. Maybe they need to FEED it! Rocky volunteers. He climbs the groggy beast - who revives and roars! Rocky loses the flask. The beast zooms into the sky. Prof has one chance to pitch the last flask right down its gullet (as on the cover). He does and the beast crashes to earth. Rocky quips, "That's the last time I fly a non-sched airline!" Soon the beast, sealed in a capsule full of knockout gas, is loaded onto a rocket and fired at the moon. As long as no one opens the container - and who will on the moon? - it'll sleep forever. |
"Sons of the Challengers" |
The splash shows the Challs peering into a crystal ball as their sons tackle felonious fish-men. But Rocky complains, "Where's my kid?" Open at Fun-Land. The Challs put on a benefit show. Rocky wrestles a gorilla. Red scales a man-made mountain. Prof plays tag with an octopus. And Ace swoops down in a jet with a Challenger dangling from each wing on ladders. They're supposed to pick up Prof with a rope, but a truck snaps a guy wire and the high-diving platform topples toward a tent. Ace's "hawk eye" spots the danger and he changes course. Red and Rocky get the message and snag the tower. |
Landing, June introduces Madame Zaddum, who was asleep in the tent. As a reward for saving her life, she'll tell the Challs' fortune. Rocky objects. "I don't dig that! Think I'm a kook?" Ace adds, "Besides, June, we'll be late for that steak you promised us." Dinner can wait. The crystal ball glows. Madame Zaddum sees "the cloud of time passing away..." A ship appears. Strange figures soar from the sea. Waving ray guns, the Flying Fishmen demand the portable nuclear generator from the hold. "It can power a ship - but is small enough to be carried by one man!" But three figures approach in a boat. "It's us!" shouts a Chall. "No, take a closer look. It's Kid Challs. They swing and kick and ride the Fishmen like broncos. Figuring the Coast Guard must have heard the same distress call, the FF dive overboard. The Challenger kids are heroes! |
Ace wonders if this is a trick movie. Rocky is miffed because his kid was left out. "Let's scram!" But wait... A future barbecue at Prof's place in the Rockies shows the Challs in civvies with their wives. Only Ace's spouse is clear: it's June gone gracefully gray. Ace is stunned. June snaps, "You're not complaining, are you?" "Where are the kids? Probably in their mountain hideout playing Challengers." |
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Not all of them. Future Rocky calls for his kid, and sees "a dame, a girl! But she's a tomboy!" Beating up three boys with a shiner as trophy. She tells balding Rocky, "Lay off that 'Roxanne', Pop! I'm Roxy!" Ace warns the boys not to tackle a dangerous job like those Fishmen again. "Remember, you're not living on borrowed time - as we were - so you can't take the chances we did!" |
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Humph. This calls for a session in Challenger Mountain. Roxy is not invited - No girls allowed. But June was a Challenger. Honorary, but "you can't win an argument with a girl! Come on!" Roxy even dresses in a Challenger suit she made. Hot message! The Fishmen are trying to steal a cargo of gems at the heliport! The Sons zoom off in their own helicopter with a Prof Jr-built engine. In the city, the Fishmen fire "energy bullets". The helicopter is forced to land. Young Red scales the building and lowers a rope - except the Sons won't pull up Roxy! "Stay out of trouble!" The Sons grab a fuel line and trip up the Fishmen, but are soon outnumbered and carried aloft, prisoners. Roxy watches. "The meanies! Serves them right!" Roxy listens to the police report. The Fishmen not only took a man's diamond ring, but cash from his wallet. Roxy begins to see the light. |
The Fishmen board a submersible and descend into the ocean. They pass through an airlock into a fantastic undersea city. Except the Sons recognize it. "This was used in the movie LOST ATLANTIS!" The Fishmen are just ordinary crooks in fish suits! The jet suits make them fly and their "energy guns" only shoot explosive pellets. They drive through the city in fish-cars. The Sons are sealed in a glass dome to be hostages. But an alarm sounds. They were followed! Comes a battle cry, "Tim-ber!" It's Roxy with a fish-truck, and she smashes open the dome. And out jump the original Challs. "Our pops! How'd they get here?" |
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Roxy figured it out. A fishman might need a diamond, but why ordinary money? But how could crooks live under the sea? Then she remembered the old movie set, grabbed skin diving from their cave - and here she is. The Dads spotted Roxy leaving and followed her! Back in the present, Rocky is thrilled. "My little cookie is a fightin' genius!" But Ace reminds him it's not real, more like hypnosis. Madame Zaddum chides, "You might think about what you saw - over your chicken dinner tonight!" Oh, no, June ordered steak. But arriving at June's apartment, they find the package with a note from the butcher. "He was out of steak - so sent chicken!" |
Comments The Moon Beast story is a trite and spotty muddle chock full of sloppy coincidences. The laser just happens to hit the beast's burial site? And an unsatisfying ending. Bottle a menace up forever? Hardly heroic. Why not put it to work in a junk yard? Or digging tunnels? Funny note about lasers. People had heard of them in 1963. "Will they be the next death ray?" But the first demonstration for most was in the movie "Goldfinger", where the villain threatens to slice James Bond from groin to gullet. |
The "Sons of the Challengers" is the saving grace of this issue. Glimpsing the future Challs - even as speculation - is delicious fun. Will the Challs reach a ripe old age? Will Ace marry June? Who are the other wives? Will they have adventurous kids? It's fun to guess. Of course, the idea that the Challs' borrowed time never runs out runs counter to their whole philosophy, but then, it might all be a dream... |