The following article was printed in CSNsider 897.

Cliff Biggers of Comic Shop Newsarama has generously supplied the text. The article explains the genesis of the series and compilation. It includes comments from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. (Thanks, Cliff!)

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© 2003 Comic Shop News Inc.

Loeb & Sale Take the DC Challenge
by Cliff Biggers

A group of people survive a cataclysmic event, only to discover that their world is far more complex and far less safe than they ever imagined. They survive, but their lives are forever changed.

Sound like the plot of Howard Chaykin's new Challengers of the Unknown series? Well, it is the plot of the Challengers of the Unknown... but in this case, it's Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Challengers of the Unknown, a 1991 limited series that marks the first time the two creators ever paid a visit to the DC Universe. All but forgotten for more than a decade, this limited series is returning to comic shops this fall in a trade paperback volume that perfectly complements their Batman and Superman projects.

The Challengers of the Unknown Must Die begins with a very sedate Challengers team living the happy semi-retired life at their Challengers Mountain base, surrounded by a tourist community that has built up around them. Their hero days are behind them, it seems... until an enemy with a major grudge blows up the entire mountain, killing one Challenger and causing incredible collateral damage. The surviving Challengers' struggle to find a new focus for their lives leads to several surprising twists.

What led Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to take on the almost-forgotten Challengers, who hadn't starred in their own comic for a decade and a half prior to the debut of this limited series? "I hadn't written any comics at that time," Jeph Loeb told CSN, "This was my first comics work-and it also ironically, turned out to be the first Loeb/Sale project as well. I had been working as a screenwriter and a producer in film and television (still am). I had written Teen Wolf and Commando and a few other things, when a producer named Stan Brooks, one of my closest friends, spoke to Warner Brothers about my doing a Flash movie. We got very near to making that happen, but as it often does in Hollywood, it all fell apart.

"But, out of that, Stan introduced me to then DC President Jenette Kahn, who was a fan of my writing. She asked me if I wasn't going to write a movie for them, would I write a comic book? I was thrilled - I've said before it was like Santa coming to the house and saying 'Sorry, I missed you last year, but let's go out shopping at Toys R Us and you can get anything you want!'"

"I was, and will always be a comic book fan first and a comic book pro second. I love going to the store on Wednesday and getting the books. It's been that way since I was a kid and to be able to be part of giving something back to that wonderful world is a very special thing for me.

"I had turned in my proposal to Dick Giordano (who was V.P. Editorial at the time) and who Jenette handed me off to. We looked for artists - the funny part was I still have samples in my files from Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, and Rob Liefeld, who were just on the cusp of becoming hugely famous (and all passed on the project!). Barbara Randall, who was our editor eventually, she showed me Thieves' World, which were a series of black and white graphic novels that Tim had done [based on the books by Robert Asprin].. I saw the work and knew he was the guy. Tim hadn't done any superhero work and was more of a Marvel fan, but he was interested in the material. My guess is he regrets that decision to this day!" Loeb said with a laugh.

"Yes, Challs was our first thing together," Tim Sale said, "but as Jeph said, I had done some stuff before that. I started with the black and white books Mythadventures with Robert Asprin and Phil Foglio, and Thieves' World, with Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey, then moved to color with The Amazon [referring to the river, not Wonder Woman]and Grendel before Challs."

What led Sale to take on this initial DC Universe project? " In 1991, I was just looking for work, something to keep food on the table," Sale said. "My interests were not mainstream, but I certainly don't consider what Jeph wrote a very mainstream story - this was the time of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns though, so 'mainstream' was much more experimental than it had ever been."

Was Sale familiar with the Challengers prior to taking on the series? "It's somewhat embarrassing to admit, but no, not at all. That's why we played around with it as much as we did - and believe me, plenty of folks took it as an insult! I plead the fact that I was a Marvel Zombie growing up.  Let me say, though, that what Darwyn Cooke is doing with the Challs in DC: The New Frontier makes me want to immerse myself in the DCU!"

What was it about the Challengers that appealed to Loeb? "Honestly? It was the comic that I was given," Loeb said. "I had asked for Superman, Batman, Deadman, the Atom, Aquaman - the list went on and on and truthfully, I think they were a little afraid of this kid who only worked in Hollywood. How much the business has changed, given the success of folks like Joss Whedon and JMS and Kevin Smith and Brad Meltzer! My guess is that they allowed me to play with the Challs since I could hurt very little in the DCU. I still snuck in a Superman cameo in the second issue, and there's a Batman moment - Tim's first time drawing both those characters!

"We were given almost complete free reign - with the exception of that Superman cameo. Elliot Maggin at that time became our editor (over the months that this project was put together, we went through four editors!), and he wrote a note when I turned in the script that I had somehow captured Superman's voice in this little scene in Challs #2, and that someday folks would go back and look at it and see my love for the Man of Steel. It's odd that someday I would write so much Superman, given its beginnings here. But, DC was very protective of Clark's appearance, so there were lots and lots of hoops to jump through - most of which Elliot ignored. I think it cost him his job," Loeb joked.

In their early years, the Jack Kirby-created Challengers were a sort of nexus between DC's mystery-sf-supernatural books like House of Mystery, House of Secrets, and My Greatest Adventure and DC's growing superhero universe; they were normal people fighting the sort of menaces that seemed to escape from those horror books, but they had the trappings of costumed heroes. In his story, Loeb played with that aspect of the Challengers identity, but he added an interesting twist. "I liked the idea that they had all these fantastic adventures with both science fiction and fantasy elements and could still interact with the superhero world. In this series, my take was that they were older now and were looking back on their lives. The stories we had known in the comics were fictionalized versions of their adventure - and then, BOOM!, in the first issue their biggest most insane adventure began. But, historically, it's so clear how much Jack Kirby had worked out for the Fantastic Four by doing the Challs first. And being a diehard FF fan, this was a big plus."

(Sketch that accompanied story. Will it be in the collection?)

Did Loeb & Sale have any trepidation messing with characters who not only the fans loved, but were the creation of one of their comic book heroes, Jack Kirby? "At the time, we didn't know what we were doing, so it was all about telling the story. But when the first issue came out, it right around the time of the San Diego Comic Con. Jack Kirby was there - Tim and I were nobodies, but we thought we should thank him for the years of enjoyment and like fanboys, brought a copy of our Challs #1 signed for him.

"We both were so nervous, I turned into a puddle. But, he was so warm and generous. He looked through the book and said he was glad that someone had worked with his characters. He told us that it didn't matter if we made them older or changed them, his feeling was unless anybody used the characters, they would fade away and a new generation of readers would never know them. It was a milestone moment for Tim and me! So for the fans who have been angry at us for all these years, go argue with the King!"

While there's no doubt that he made some changes to the Challengers' history in this series, Challengers of the Unknown Must Die isn't an Elseworlds tale. "This was an in-continuity story," Loeb said. As far as the changes he introduced, "I had a way to retrofit it all back together, make the Challs young again and really have them living on borrowed time, but the second miniseries never materialized."

The project began a long string of Loeb-Sale collaborations - a string that continues in September with the debut of Catwoman: When in Rome (which CSN will tell you much more about next week!). What makes the collaboration so successful that it has continued for more than thirteen years? "That's more for others to say, I think, but I know that Jeph and I have very similar tastes in sentiment, and I believe that is an important and unusual element in what we have to offer. The emotional moments that make a hero heroic and still human, that define what it is that shapes someone to become someone who works for the greater good, and the consequences that follow... that's important to both of us." And of course, readers will find those themes play a major role in The Challengers of the Unknown Must Die.

While Sale handled the interior honors, an impressive listing of talent signed on to contribute cover art for the series. "We had a wish list of artists. Some came through without a hitch - Brian Bolland, Michael Golden, Kyle Baker, Art Adams - while some were choices that Elliot made, like Gil Kane, who turned in one of my favorites." There were some disappointments, however. "We had really wanted Neal Adams and Steranko to do one each - I think we got closer with Steranko, but it didn't come together. Again, all of this was a fanboy's dream. I never imagined anybody wanting to do the covers for this little miniseries, but something caught their imagination. They are all great covers!" So great, in fact, that DC is including all of those cover images in the trade paperback.

One other bonus included in the trade paperback is a previously-unprinted story that supplements the main tale. So what's the story behind this short piece? Loeb offered an explanation - but not without issuing a SPOILER WARNING first. (Readers might want to skip the next paragraph if they'd prefer to preserve the surprise).

"There's a longer explanation that I've written inside the trade, but the short version is that after the miniseries was over, the villain who is behind it all ... died. But, as only comics can, the character continued to pop up all over the DCU and in particular the JLA which really got me steamed. So, I whined and complained, and Brian Augustyn - our fourth editor - was working on a JLA Annual and had a spot for a twelve-page story. I pitched this Guy Gardner idea that would explain how this was possible for the villain to be alive and he went for it. Guy was a huge character at the time, and I thought this would get play for sure! So, Tim and I went off and wrote it, penciled it, inked it, Bob Pinaha lettered it and ... the annual got canceled. The story was shelved and Tim got the artwork back, where it sat until DC finally agreed to do the trade."

"We are the last ones to be manic about continuity," Sale added, "but DC had been nothing but manic during the run, and so it was funny that nobody seemed to care about this contradiction. This short story was Jeph's response." It also marks an artistic experiment on Sale's part. "I tried - and failed, it seems to me - to emulate Adam Hughes and the Gaijin studios in my art, because that was what was happening in the Legion books at the time."

"It's a pretty cool bonus in that it's the only story we've ever done that hasn't seen print," Loeb said. "Richard Starkings finished up the lettering and Mark Chiarello - really the finest colorist in the business - labored over coloring it while trying to keep it 'of it's time.' I also have to point out that JG Roshell - who designed all the hardcover Marvel 'color books' DD: Yellow, Spidey: Blue and Hulk: Gray - came up with this wickedly fun and cool design where the Challs trade actually looks like the tabloid newspaper that plays a very important role in the story. He actually went back and researched a whole bunch of Weekly World News issues from that time period and used those for inspiration - and the result is quite inspired!"

Loeb is pleased that the series is returning to print, where it may well reach a larger audience than it enjoyed in its initial publication - and he's equally pleased that he was able to enlist one of the series' most high-profile fans to supply the introduction. "The biggest giggle of all is that we always joked that we had seven readers (the book was a 'critical success' but hardly a commercial one). As it turned out, Brian Michael Bendis and I were having dinner one night and he brings it up. He was one of our seven readers! He starts blah, blah, blahing about how great this was and that was - and to tell you the truth, I hadn't read it in so long I just agreed with whatever he said... I still can't find the whole Yakuza storyline he was talking about!" Loeb said with a laugh.

"Anyway, I knew DC was about to reprint the whole thing ,so I asked Brian if he'd do the intro. He really was up for it, but it required a whole bunch of people at both Marvel and DC to allow him to do it because of his contract. But, eventually, they let him out of his Ultimate shackles and he wrote this very funny, very endearing introduction to the trade. I wanted the ads to read: BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (in great big huge letters) - INTRODUCES THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN MUST DIE! (in medium sized letters )-with 'by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale' in really little print!" Loeb joked. "So, if you love Bendis, you have to buy this trade, because it's a rare occasion that he's ever going to work for DC!"

Would Loeb and Sale like to do that undeveloped Challs followup project now? "I don't know if we'd ever revisit those characters, but I never say never. Heck, I wasn't supposed to do anything in comics after it, and it's pretty much been my second career. I'm very, very proud of all that work-particularly with Tim."

The Challengers of the Unknown Must Die, a 224-page trade paperback priced at $19.95, is scheduled for September 29th release.

Comments

This article is great, because Cliff asks hard questions about fans' (angry) reaction. That Loeb and Sale that the new team actually planned to restore the Challs AND got the blessing of Jack Kirby !!! goes a long way to soothe hurt feelings.

For another review of the original series, here's "It Came From the Quarter Bin" posted on www.newsarama.com a couple of years ago. See if you agree.