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August - September 1977 |
"I told you Prof was dying, but no - you wouldn't listen!" Gaylord Clayburne natters as Rocky carries Prof to the jet. June hollers, "Shut up, Clayburne! If Rocky doesn't hit you - I will!" Ace orders no arguments. They barely had time to don their new protective uniforms. (Protection against what?) They're off on "a journey into the unimaginable." Gaylord crows about how he discovered Prof's medical report on the computer AND the name of the one man who can save Prof's life. Red threatens to punch in his face. Rocky hauls Red aboard. The jet roars off. Gaylord mutters how every time he wants to join their "precious group", he gets the runaround. "But they'll beg me to join them... and then we'll see who laughs." |
We get a rundown on the Challengers. Red now adds to his resume "amateur electronic genius". Ace is "one of the eight men who have walked on the Moon." They're flying to Perdition, Pennsylvania, though the computer first said Massachusetts. "So the computer's got a bug." The Challengers's VTOL touches down in Perdition, a farm town. Where sinister farmers chuck pitchforks!  |
Attacked with axes and picks and fists, the Challengers are overwhelmed and beaten down - - until a gravelly voice "cuts like a blade" and the mob draws back. A man apologizes for his "provincial" friends. "My name is Heathcliff Monroe." |
The Challengers stand in the private surgery of Doctor Monroe. Prof lies on the table. "Is he going to die?" Monroe pulls back the sheet. "The infection is wide-spread." Prof's covered with fungus (as seen on the cover). Rocky is shocked. The fungus wasn't there a few hours ago when they dressed Prof. June caves. "I can't stand to see Prof this way!" |
Ace and Red ask, "So what is it? And why did the townspeople attack us?" Monroe relates local history. The townspeople recognize the disease. Seventy years ago a man named Abraham tried to save Perdition's failing mines by summoning a demon. He couldn't control it, and it took over the town, demanding sacrifices - a secret kept for seventy years... |
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Then a "shambling mockery of a man, a 'Swamp Thing'", entered town. It descended into the mine and fought the monster. It came out and the mine collapsed "sealing the demon beneath a thousand tons of mountain for all eternity!" (Recap courtesy Swamp Thing 8. Panel inked by Bernie Wrightson.) |
"Are you sure the demon is really dead?" Monroe sneers, "Man is rarely sure about anything, Mr. Ryan." Monroe made a career out of studying fungoid infections. For a case as advanced as Prof's, he'll need "certain equipment available in only one place... the dictatorship of Borotavia." Ace and Red promise to fetch it, and moments later jet off to Borotavia. (Like it makes sense to look for advanced medical equipment in a third-world hellhole rather than, say, Boston?) Rocky and June, no dummies, sense "something's wrong with this town... very wrong!" If June only knew how many eyes watched her from behind shutters, "she might even scream!" |
Inside one house, leprous goons hold a tractor salesman captive. He begs for his life, but gets clonked on the head and dragged away. June and Rocky explore the library with its occult books. Rocky notes one under glass. "Glom the title." VISIONS OF A DEAD PRIEST by Malcolm Monroe, Physician to the Court of Henry IV. The book "reeks of evil". And a scream sounds from the church! |
Racing to the church, Rocky and June find hooded acolytes pitching a sacrifice to a tentacled god. Their very souls "rebel at the horror!"  (And yes, this comic came out in 1977, and the soul going to perdition does resemble Richard Nixon complete with finger Vs for Victory. A good joke, if dated. Nixon was once considered the most evil and corrupt president of all time, but not any more...) |
Rocky dives into the fight. June goes down from one punch. The champ rips off a hood and finds a ghoulish stringy face. "You're even uglier than Red Ryan!" The narrator notes that "Rocky would never have left himself open" in his championship days, but "they were long ago. In small ways, Rocky has lost his edge." So he gets coldcocked. |
Over the heartland of tyrannized Borotavia, Red Ryan leaps from the Challenger jet and soars on a jet pack. (An editor's note says to see Action Comics 467 for more on Borotavia.)  Red's determined to find Josf Rabinovitch, a Nobel-winning scientist imprisoned by the government. Red lands atop a mountain and scales downward. |
At some icy compound, a bearded guard raises a gun. A silenced bullet knocks away the gun and a well-placed fist lays the guard low. Six minutes later, Red dashes out with the "blood-recycling unit Monroe sent us to find." Ace bores down in the jet to scoop up Red, but he's bracketed by Borotavian jets. Ace carves a double loop in the sky that sends the jets crashing into one another. He snags Red on a line and they tear away. (And what of the imprisoned genius, inventor of the medical marvel? He's left to the mercy of angry guards?) Ace and Red zoom to get the medical machine to the mysterious Monroe, "little knowing the man who sent them on their mission is totally mad!" |
Mad, all right. Monroe and other cultists have Rocky bound to a post in a mine. Rocky's stripped to his purple undies. He asks about June. She's fine. "We've been waiting for you." Rocky asks how a doctor got involved with a "devil cult". Oh, my, not a devil. After Swamp Thing left town, having buried the monster under a mountain, Monroe found something left behind. His cousin, Jason Monroe, was infected by a remnant of "a higher form of life - a creature named M'Nagala." Monroe tried to cleanse the fungus, but over time, became seduced - and infected - by it. "M'Nagala welcomed me into his being!" Oh, he's loony. The cultists leave. Rocky thinks, "That guy's got more screws loose than Arnold Palmer's got golf balls." He glimpses someone in the shadows (Swamp Thing?), then works to burst his bonds. Worried about June and Prof and the others, "Rocky struggles with the forces within himself" and finally rips free. "I did it! I did it!" |
Rocky staggers out of the cave as the jet touches down. June's held in the church, Rocky warns. The three Challengers storm the door...  ... and find June poised before M'Nagala as a sacrifice! Ick! Monroe warns, "If you wish to see her live, you must do as I say." The Challengers have no choice but to agree... |
Next issue: Seven Doorways to Destiny |
Comments Another bare-minimum story by the heavy-handed Gerry Conway. Plot holes, trite dialogue, and melodrama abound. The Challengers get hammered by farmers? On the other hand, even with 17 pages and cheap paper, Mike Nasser laid down some sensational art. He also drew sweet scenes for Green Arrow, Black Canary, Manhunter from Mars, and The Legion. Then he moved to Israel, where he drew a comic called Captain Israel. Their gain, our loss. |
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Here's some original unspoiled art caught on eBay. Click for the big pic. |
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The revived letters page is now "Challenger Mountain Mail Room".  Except there are no letters yet... |
...so they ran a bio of Mike Nasser, who drew this self-portrait.  But is he confusing an hourglass with a telescope? |
Trying to compete with Marvel, in the mid-1970s DC introduced a slew of titles as part of the "DC Explosion". Most bombed so fast the effort was dubbed the "DC Implosion". Here's an ad for a Showcase and Doom Patrol revival. The ad cites earlier successes -including the Challengers.  |