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March 1991 |
Yesterday. Multi-Man screams "The Challengers Must Die!" And flipping pages show the Challs valiantly battling Kra, Volcano Man, spacemen, and other menaces...  |
Cut to Jennifer Taylor, Senior Editor of the Tattletale, a supermarket tabloid known for weird stories. Jennifer yells at a "lazy jerk" named Harold Moffet. He's a reporter, except most of the Tattletale's stories are made up. He's submitted another Challengers story, but Jen finds it "too Fifties". The Challengers have been around for 20 years. Lately they face competition from real superheroes. "When was the last time the Challengers saved the universe - or saved anything, for that matter?" Jen sends Moffet packing to Colorado to dig up a new angle. Today. "Welcome to Challengerville." A town that's gone overboard exploiting their local celebs. Challenger Mountain is the 14th most popular family attraction in America. The town's population is 2,000 with 15,000 visitors daily. Everything has a Challengers label slapped on. (See the HQ tour for more pics of town.) One visitor, an unnamed nutbar, wanders into a store full of Challenger junk to buy a ticket to tour the mountain. On sale are Challenger bobbleheads, lunch boxes, action figures (Challenger Haters too!), autographs, baseball hats, ice cream bars, and more. The tour costs $18.75 and includes the tram ride. The nutbar also buys a Kra toy robot. |
Up in Challenger Mountain, Prof and June watch a screen. Power readings run off the scale. Have they finally found an alternative energy source, non-nuclear, more stable than prometheum? Out in deep space, a sinister blood-red glyph begins to form. As if something were writing a cosmic magic spell.  Moffet flies in on Epsilon Flight 12, Kennedy to Challengerville. "Epsilon, the official Challengers airline." In the mountain, Red kicks a trainer-bot to pieces. Moffet asks a cabbie for Challengers news. Rocky got a cat, but it died. It's been slow. Ace ponders quotes about a town being "a living cemetary" full of "walking skeletons" while holding a crucifix. The Texan's gotten religion hard, it seems. Moffet checks into the Royal Challenger Hotel. The nutbar tours the mountain, then sneaks past signs marked OFF LIMITS. Rocky lays in bed, drinking beer and watching reruns of Charlie's Angels. The blood-red glyph hardens. |
Now. Deep in the bowels of Challenger Mountain, the nutbar sends the Kra robot marching down a pipe. Packing a BOMB!  |
Prof's machine hoots in alarm. His screen lights up with a garish red-pink glow (the same color as the deep space glyph). He calls the others. "Get down here! I need you!" By the red glare, we get our first glimpse of the aging Challs. They look strung out in more ways than one.  June is thrilled. "After years of searching... we found this incredible energy force... more powerful than a black hole... imploding... exploding..." It could be an unlimited energy supply, enough for all mankind! Prof isn't sure they can contain it. June better get to safety. "You are kidding, right?" The Challs vote. Rocky thinks they might "blow us all up!" Ace thinks the light could be perfection (God). He votes to pull the switch. Red agrees. "Anything's better than talkin' about it!" Prof pulls the switch. |
Whether Prof and June could have contained the energy will never be known. For all this time, the robot-bomb has been plodding deeper into the mountain.  |
The narrator (Moffet?) notes, "Fate has a sense of humor. A lot of heroes die. And the Challengers' slogan? 'Four men living on borrowed time?'" The Kra robot reaches the heart of Challenger operations - and explodes. "Time's up."  |
The worst is yet to come as the issue continues... |