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August - September 1965 |
The Challengers jet to "our own private Devil's Island". An island off Baja California is an extinct volcano and the "world's strangest penitentiary". An international court has appointed the Challs permanent turnkeys of the League of Challenger-Haters. (Imprisoned in COTU 42.) The Challs can't help taunting their enemies, who tell them to drop dead. The boys pass out gifts. Kra, King of the Alien Robots, is helpless under a continuous shower. Rocky gives him "a family-sized box of steel wool - to scratch your back!" Drabny, an ordinary human without his telekinetic helmet, gets a stack of comic books - in Chinese. Drabny replies, "You fellows are one big heart! And some day I'm gonna cut it out!" Volcano Man, belted to a wall and kept cool by a thermostat, gets a giant hot water bottle. Multi-Man is oddly friendly. "They're
simply sore losers. I respect winners - even my enemies."
Ace is puzzled, but gives MM a "baby computer to brain-wrestle". |
After the Challs leave, the other villains berate the traitor. MM gloats. "That oil I spread was to keep them from suspecting we're about to break out!" Drabny complains. "You're off your rocker! This volcanic Sing-Sing has got you - Wh-What's this?" A giant (female) hand tears off his cell door. A giant finger flicks away Kra's shower, so he regains his power and breaks his chains. Volcano Man gets "de-controlled" and melts his bars. Who's their giant liberator? They'll
learn after they leave. "Leave how? The Challengers have
this place completely covered by radar!" Ah, but MM has
arranged for a giant staircase to be carved to the bottom of
the volcano. |
In the depths they meet - Multi-Woman! Kra falls for the gorgeous robot-woman with the beehive hairdo. "Kiss me, big girl!" She swats him like a fly. Drabny laughs and climbs her cape. "You need a real man, like me!" He gets flicked off like a gnat. As Multi-Man explains, this robot is Multi-Woman II. The first MW in COTU 34 could shape-change mechanically, "but she was too real a woman! Her female ego defied my control!" How'd she get past the radar net?
MM's laser-mobile tunneled under the ocean floor. How'd she find
MM? His false gold tooth has a secret alloy she could trace electronically. |
The villains escape by laser-mobile, bursting up from the ocean floor. And return to MM's headquarters. MM has a plan to destroy the Challs. Kra objects: they got beat before and thrown into prison. Because of Kra's blundering, says MM. Kra demands, "Who elected you chief mucky-muck?" Multi-Woman, who chokes Kra into submission. MM proposes his plan in a nutshell: to become the Challs' allies!  Is he nuts? No. He'll see the Challenger-Haters welcomed with open arms. Just listen... Back at Challenger Mountain, Rocky's
"trouble tooth" aches. He explains, "There's no
tooth there. I lost it wrestling in Cleveland years ago. But
whenever that "ghost tooth" starts to hurt - it means
trouble ahead!" |
Several days later, in Colorado, "in the black depths of a coal mine," miners sweat at sudden heat. An underground fire erupts. The miners flee and dynamite the shaft. But the fire persists. The mine owners summon the Challengers. Hidden air holes feed the fire. How to locate the holes? Prof offers a powerful pink dye. At a newly-drilled opening, the Challs back their jet to push the dye into the tunnel at 500 miles per hour. (Extinguishing private mine fires? Is this a matter of public safety? Or a paying job?) Cruising overhead in a copter, the heroes spot a plume of pink smoke. Rocky drops a grenade and seals the hole. But a bigger hole looms ahead. "That opening could have kept the Chicago fire alive! We've gotta go in! Break out the asbestos suits!" Deep in the tunnel, the Challs
trigger dynamite and collapse the tunnel. Rocky laughs, "A
good day's work! Now for a two-pound steak and some sack time!" Red is the first to see the danger
outside. "Take a look - if you've got the guts!" Hunh?
Forty minutes ago the valley was warm and green!" |
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A passing motorcyle cop bellows. "Nobody but National and State Guards allowed outside during the emergency! Tune in your radio!" Ace opens Prof's new "micro-miniaturized radio" under his hourglass emblem. News of a world-wide catastrophe sends the boys running for the portable TV in their helicopter. President Lyndon Johnson (1963-1968) announces that, starting from four points around the globe, a "New Ice Age" has covered the globe! Broadcasts show Paris, Central America, the Pacific, and Egypt buried in ice and snow! In North America, the cold wave spread from a mine in Colorado - just a few miles from where the Challs are standing! But what caused it? Scientists believe, says the President,
that a "strange space body" approached Earth, split
into four chunks, scattered around the globe, and started the
"weird thermal effect". |
The Challengers are known to be in Colorado, so the President makes a strange request - to allow "certain criminals" to assist the Challs. And there, right next to the Prez, is "the midget monster", Multi-Man! The runt grabs the mike. "We escaped your volcanic vault like it was nothing - just to freeze to death!" The Challenger-Haters have been offered a pardon, and insist they'll "fight this thing" with or without the Challs. The heroes haven't much choice. They must team up with "those kooks". But they smell a rat. Soon a cargo plane sets down. Out
march Multi-Man, Drabny with mento-helmet, Kra the Robot, Volcano
Man, and "Big Bertha herself!" yelps Rocky. "We
shook that electronic chick to pieces!" MM gloats, "Meet
Multi-Woman II!" Griping all the way, the multi-team
enters a cave. Drabny blasts a passage with "magnfied mental
energy" - and the temperature plunges. A space-dragon is
a "walking refrigerator! And we gotta kill it before it
turns the whole Western Hemisphere into an Eskimo Pie!" |
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Prof gasps, "This must come
from a world like Pluto - with temperatures near absolute zero!
So we'll try heat against it!" He's got some thermite grenades
in the copter - To everyone's astonishment, Volcano Man rushes to battle the dragon! The Challengers gape as the monsters grapple - and Volcano Man freezes solid and dies! Undaunted, Kra charges. "I've got dry carbon lubricants and an electronic brain insulated against any temperature! Here I go!" Yet Multi-Woman begs, "Don't leave me!" She loves Kra! The two robots should stay together! Rocky gulps, "Am I going off my chomp? Did I just hear a love scene between two IBM machines?" Ace tells him to stow the jokes. Kra dashes into battle - and the dragon glows red! In seconds it reverses its temperature and melts Kra into slag! Multi-Woman cries at Kra's sacrifice.
Even Multi-Man is stunned. "I never programmed her to cry!"
Berserk, the she-robot rushes to kill the dragon "with my
bare hands!" Drabny creates a smoke screen from mental energy.
But what's that noise? |
As smoke billows, the Challs see Multi-Woman zapped by dragonn eyebeams. Supersonic vibrations turn her into water! Drabny panics and bolts - straight into a crevass. Red guesses "He must have fallen a thousand feet!" Rocky gulps. "Wow! This death-stuff is getting contagious!" And at the bottom? More cosmic creatures! Yet Ace and Multi-Man notice their cold-wave effect only rises halfway up the shaft. "The earth acts as insulation! If we could bury those things permanently, their effect would die out quickly!" Someone would have to lure the nearby creature into the depths, says MM, "at the cost of their lives!" And MM's no sucker. He's cuts out - only to be snatched and incinerated by the red-hot dragon. "That settles it!" yells
Prof. "I'm going to get dynamite from the copter! We'll
bait the trap with our own lives!" |
Shortly, the Challs tease the dragon to follow them down the shaft. Prof pitches dynamite. "That did it! The cosmic beasts are trapped under a mountain of earth - but so are we!" OK, so their borrowed time ran out. Rocky notes, "I wouldn't have minded borrowin' it for a little while longer." Ace thinks it's "our biggest victory. We actually got rid of every member of the League of Challenger-Haters!" "You really think so?" comes a taunt. Who said that? The space dragons talk? "Ohhhh!" sighs Prof.
"What chumps we've been! What blind dumb idiots! Let me
at it!" He attacks the dragon with a small knife as Rocky
covers his eyes. Prof calls, "You better see what you're
dying for!" Prof slashes the dragon's hide
- and reveals gears and a speaker! |
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Far above ground, Multi-Man gloats via radio. "Don't blame yourselves! How could you detect the most magnificent hoax in history?" Volcano Man started the coal mine fire. An enormous refrigerator plant froze the valley. The news broadcasts were faked from a nearby studio. Drabny posed as President Johnson. The world-wide scenes were minatures doused with shaved ice. A chemical coating made Volcano Man appear to freeze. Behind the smoke screen, a water-filled balloon of Multi-Woman seemed to melt. Dummies of MM and Kra were burned up, and Drabny just hid in a hollow ledge. MM finishes, "Sorry to take
so long with the details, since you only have 30 minutes of air
left in your vault! Goodbye, old foes! I - I'll miss you!" |
A voice trumpets, "We won't miss you, creep!" The Challengers, alive and well, charge from the cave! "Impossible! You couldn't dig your way out barehanded!" No, but Ace can knock Drabny cold barehanded. And grab his helmet, "the key to our counterattack!" Donning the helmet, Ace mentally plucks the Challenger-Haters into the air and bashes them together "like a pile of dominoes!" Crashing into Volcano Man, Multi-Woman II goes up in flames! How did the Challs escape? With MM's own weapon! While he boasted about his great hoax, Prof converted a space dragon into a mechanical shovel and dug them free! Later, back in the dead volcano, the prisoners are again penned up. Rocky calls, "Nice try, haters! Only now there's no Multi-Woman to bake you a cake with a file in it! Ha-ha!" "Drop dead!" yells the
chorus. |
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Challenger Mountain Mail Chute A letter asks who's the leader of the Challs. The editors "hope to clarify the issue... if Bob Brown can find the time to complete the story!" This answers queries from Mike Williams of Philadelphia, PA; Billy McKinnon of Houston, TX; Dennis Heyman of Baltimore, MD; Tom Maves of Presho, SD; David Bates of Schofield Barracks, HI; Arnold Secret of West Linn, OR; Stuart Salchow of Dearborn, MI; Joseph Helminiak of Toledo, OH; "and a whole slew of letter-writers." Herb Morrison of Gregory, UT sent
in a newspaper article of a new find of dinosaur in case anyone
"quarreled with Brown's version, which seemed to depict a
smaller-than-usual dinosaur" in "The Haunted Island". (COTU 43) CLIPS FROM THE MAIL CHUTE: Jim
Mordaunt of Newfane, NY asked about the packets on the boys'
belts. They are "utility packs, stocked with miniature tools,
chemicals, etc. for emergency use..." (Isn't every situation the
Challs encounter an emergency?) Steven Lebowitz of Flushing, NY
wants readers to enroll in his new fan club... "Attention, Robert
Herron, Burbank, Calif. and others who have asked: June and Cosmo may
return in future stories. But these days, the Challengers have
their hands full." D. Palamater of Maryland, NY hopes someone sends him back issues 1-36. A few dissenters |
Comments This story packs in a whole lot
of super-gadgets, mighty villains, vast epic plot, laugh, chills,
and thrills - all in 24 pages. They don't write 'em like that
anymore! |
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