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In a "paradise" far away, a young man called Superboy Prime grows increasingly frustrated with his "heavenly" imprisonment. The most powerful human in the universe, he pounds on the walls of reality. Each blow sends ripples resonating through time and space. Events unresolved by the Crisis on Infinite Earths jiggle and settle into new tracks. Among the people affected - without their knowledge - are the Challengers of the Unknown. (Infinite Crisis: Secret Files and Origins 2006.) |
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Without real missions, the Challs are not scrupulous with uniforms. They wear whatever they like, or whatever's in the closet, or don't suit up at all. Only Ace, military-trained, keeps up appearances.  |
Losing track of current events, the Challs are unaware that Duncan Pramble, the former Multi-Man (COTU 81), powerless and insane, is paroled from prison. (Not recorded.) Pramble travels to Challengerville, tours Challenger Mountain, then slips away to a restricted area. He sets loose a toy robot packed with explosives. (COTU V2 1) After endless searching, Prof and June find what looks like a continual exploding-imploding pulse, possibly in another dimension. (They're unaware the energy field hides a demon eager to reach Earth.) Prof and June summon their friends to vote on whether to tap the new source. The Challs pull the switch - at the exact moment Duncan Pramble's bomb detonates. Challenger Mountain blows its top. (COTU V2 1) Challengerville is also destroyed in the blast. 1100 people are killed or missing. (COTU V2 1) Rocky, Red, and Ace crawl from the rubble. They whirl into flattened Challengerville and rescue dozens of people. But inwardly they are devastated - Prof and June are dead. Gradually the picture - broadcasted live on national television - becomes clear to the law - the blast came from inside Challenger Mountain. Not knowing about Pramble's bomb, the authorities arrest the three Challs. Physically and morally whipped, they surrender without a struggle. (COTU V2 1) Duncan Pramble slips away. And the deep space demon gets a path to Earth through the shattered remains of Challenger Mountain. (COTU V2 1) |
The explosion, we learn later (COTU V2 7), hurled Prof and June to the dimension of N'Zrath. They live in a farmhouse in a fishbowl in Hell, more or less. (See more below.) They can communicate with their old friends after a fashion. As the Challs stand trial, Prof sends repeated messages to "Tell the truth." (COTU V2 2.) The idea that Prof and June might be alive somewhere comforts their pals. |
Five months after the explosion, three Challengers stand trial in federal court in Denver.  Their lawyer waxes eloquent about their adventures helping people. The prosecutor (influenced by the space demon) smears the Challs and demands the death penalty. (COTU V2 2.) The defense brings the ultimate witness - Superman. The Man of Steel testifies that the Challs "chose to protect the innocent" and failed, as sometimes happens. His testimony swings the jury. The Challengers are found not guilty of criminal intent, but must pay restitution to Challengerville. And should retire. (COTU V2 2) Ace addresses national television. "It is with great regret, and fond memories, that we make the following statement: We have decided to give up being the Challengers of the Unknown. And pursue our own lives." (COTU V2 2) Watching TV, the mad Duncan Pramble is delighted. (COTU V2 2) In Venice, a mysterious woman reads the news and embarks for America. (COTU V2 2) |
The Challengers meet for the last time at the graves of Prof and June. Then walk away - in different directions. Months pass as the ex-Challs pursue new lives. Ace rents a loft in Greenwich Village and studies magic. Practicing, he pulls Doctor Fate out a hat and gets reprimanded. "Magic is nothing to fool with!" Yet Ace is intrigued by a tiny reference to a lost tribe in the Amazon. (COTU V2 3) Rocky is the only Challenger to visit Challengerville after the disaster. The mountain is fenced off. He hangs in a bar, not sure what to do. An agent approaches - how about making movies? He makes "a slew of action pictures" that are hits, and barrels of money. Then Corinna Stark, our mystery woman from Europe, knocks at his door! (COTU V2 3) Red, bitter as death, drifts across the country and washes up in Gotham City. Seeing crime is rampant, he buys a pistol and cruises for crime. He blows away muggers and crack addicts and graffit artists. (COTU V2 3) Ace seems to cope the best, actively pursuing magic. Rocky just keeps busy, but talks often the good old days. Even Red spraypaints an hourglass on a wall. So our heroes find a purpose, or at least something to do... |
Rocky jet-sets around the world with Corinna Stark. He's note sure why, but Corinna sure likes to party. As months of "fun" drift by, Rocky thinks, "I'm getting too old for this." (COTU V2 4) Red has Gotham City in a panic as the "9MM Vigilante". Until Batman pays him a midnight call and hands him a ticket out of town. Red flies to El Segundo in Central America. Ironically, this is where Red saved the country from a dictator in his origin story. This time he's a technical advisor to the army. Any civilian is fair game. Red is bribed to change sides and kill the generalisimo. "Why the hell not?" Kicking his way into the palace, he's ambushed by his own side. He thinks, "I'm getting too old for this." (COTU V2 4) Ace hang-glides over the Amazon jungle, and crashes. He seeks a lost tribe, the Tuto, and the answer to a riddle. He plies spells to freeze alligators - he's learning magic at last - but falls prey to a hail of arrows and a waterfall. Lying and dying, he thinks of his lost friends. "I'm getting too old for this." (COTU V2 4) Harold Moffet, ace Challenger fabricator, keeps tripping over evidence that "everyone in the world is trying to kill everyone else." Plus he's haunted by Prof's ghost. (COTU V2 4) Because Prof and June aren't dead, just stuck in another dimension. For months they've been trying to contact "the living". (COTU V3 8) |
Red is tortured for weeks in an El Segundo dungeon. Thanks to a fellow prisoner, he stays alive, eventually breaks free, and shoots his way clear. Except his savior is dead, and Red sees no point in living on borrowed time. (COTU V2 5) Wounded by Agre arrows, Ace is rescued by the Tuto, a legendary "lost tribe". Enlightened by the Kuba (Chief), Ace learns to open doors into other dimensions. Yet as he approaches a door to "all the answers he seeks", he's distracted by the real world. Stepping back to our world, he finds the Tuto village destroyed. Given a gift of borrowed time, Ace feels he wasted it. (COTU V2 5) Rocky lives in bars nowadays. Even Corinna Stark has had enough - and besides, he's broke. She marches out. Rocky's so drunk he battles a younger version of himself who claims he's "nothin'". Spiralling out of control, Rocky ends up on the DT Ward of a hospital. (COTU V2 5) He doesn't want to live anymore, on borrowed time or any other kind. Meanwhile, Harold Moffet, acting like a real reporter, tries to get anyone to print his story about "people going crazy all over the world". No one's interested, so Moffet slacks off. Until a box of gold coins arrives at his apartment, and Prof appears in a mirror urging he, "Do your job." Moffet decides to find the Challengers. (COTU V2 5) |
Unknown to our heroes, hundreds of people are answering a demonic command to cross the country and come to the shattered remains of Challengerville. (COTU V2 6.) Harold Moffet pores over hundreds of articles about normal people going nuts and killing themselves and others. One photo looks familiar. Moffet tracks the face to a name to an apartment to a hooker. "Duncan Pramble claims HE blew up Challenger Mountain!" (COTU V2 6.) Rocky flounders in rehab, at first rebellious. But a gentle doctor and hypnosis help him deal with childhood abuse, a storm-tossed life, and a severe lack of love. Rocky reads the dictionary all the way through. He should be ready to rejoin the world soon. "As what?" (COTU V2 6.) Ace is lost in the Amazon, wondering what to do, when he sees Red's incipient suicide in a pool. Ace dives to his friend's rescue. Reunited and surrounded, Red prepares for a last stand - as Ace disappears them! (COTU V2 6.) Alone in a garden, Rocky muses on his non-future - when Ace and Red pop from thin air! (COTU V2 6.) |
Ace,
Red, Rocky, and Harold Moffet gather at the graves of Prof and
June. Now what? Moffet explains Duncan Pramble blew up
Challenger Mountain. The guys saddle up. They find
Challengerville a mess. Rocky figures they'll need their
stuff. At a warehouse piled with their old gear, they pull out
weapons and tools, and adopt new "uniforms": civvies with just a
red-yellow hourglass logo. Rocky will lead The New Challengers of the Unknown.
(COTU
V2 7.) By night they fly for Challenger Mountain, but Ace is possessed: snarky little demons dog them. They bail out as the aircar hits the mountain. A newscopter fires bullets. Rocky covers with a smoke grenade. Climbing, they finally see the ruins of Challenger Crater. All the locals have gone nuts, carousing, raping, and worshipping at an altar. Gunfire chases off the locals. (COTU V2 7.) |
- farm country in broad daylight. They ring the farmhouse door. Prof and June welcome them. Except they're ghosts, though June looks eight months pregnant. So... are they dead? "Not exactly." Panning back reveals the farm in a fishbowl. Looming over them, larger than a mountain, is a wild-eyed demon named N'Zrath. "Welcome to Hell! (COTU V2 7.) |
Rocky, Ace, Red, and Harold Moffet come face to face with N'Zrath in his own hellish dimension. Crazy Duncan Pramble lurks in the background. N'Zrath throws hundreds of demons at the heroes. They fight with guns, fists, and spells, but are overrun. (COTU V2 8) Moffet runs like a rabbit, but N'Zrath heads him off. Trapped, Moffet offers to write the demon's "bio". N'Zrath laughs and explains how he's spun evil for centuries, but couldn't reach Earth until he "nudged" Pramble to trigger a bomb in Challenger Mountain and Prof and the Challs to open a dimensional portal. The explosion let N'Zrath step to Earth. (COTU V2 8) Rocky crawls to Moffet and hands him a nitro bomb. Moffet is flummoxed: "Me?" Duncan Pramble, of all people, acts. He grabs the bomb and jumps down N'Zrath's throat. Boom! (COTU V2 8) All the shattered pieces of the Challs' career spiral back into place. The boys land on a couch in Prof and June's inter-dimensional home. All is well. Except Prof and June, for whatever reason, can't leave. Ace opens a door, and the guys step back to reality. (COTU V2 8) One week later, they place a memorial to Duncan Pramble on the ruins of Challenger Mountain. (COTU V2 8) Two weeks later, they tell the entire story to Lois Lane. Instead of "CHALLENGERS SAVE WORLD", there appears a short obit about Multi-Man, Minor Supervillain, dies. (COTU V2 8 and epilogue) Three weeks later, Ace meditates "We begin again". Rocky tells old tales in bars, but drinks ginger ale. He's happy. And Red practices at the gun range, thinking that just living is struggle enough. (COTU V2 8) Moffet almost beds his colleague Jody, until he reveals he's back at The Tattler with the real low-down on the Challs. It's a puffed up heroic epic that stinks, and Jody walks out. (COTU V2 8) |
In an odd and touching epilogue to their travails, the Challengers learn the final-final fate of the other Multi-Man (II), who asks, "I Know You Are, But What Am I?" (Challengers of the Unknown Must Die Trade Paperback) |
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Mini-Aside So Where Exactly ARE Prof and June? It's clear Prof and June have been sucked into N'Zrath's dimension. The demon says so, though even he/it is unclear how. (COTU V2 8.) What's fuzzy is the farmhouse/fishbowl. Since Prof and June are in a wild alien place, they must imagine the ultra-normal farmhouse to ground themselves in "reality". They may also believe they really ARE dead, which prevents them moving elsewhere - for the moment. After N'Zrath is defeated, (COTU V2 8), Prof and June are still stuck in this "Phantom-like Zone". They can't go back to Earth with their friends. Again, since they believe they're dead, they believe they're stuck. This concept is reinforced by Wizard of Oz imagery. The guests leave by chanting, "There's no place like home." As with Dorothy in Oz, she had the power to return home at any time. She just needed to BELIEVE it. Eventually, Prof and June must decide they're still alive and try to escape N'Zrath's dimension. (Not recorded but implied.) They land on an alien planet peopled by intelligent lizards (COTU V3 7-9). This world may simply be another place in the same dimension. But again, they feel stuck. They keep trying to escape from the lizard planet (not recorded), and eventually are pulled back to Earth during Dr Carcosa's experiments - and are reunited at last. (COTU V3 7-9). |
The world knows the Challengers are back in action (some call them The New Challengers of the Unknown) when they help an army of superheroes defeat Eclipso's super-eclipsed army. Ace, Red, and Rocky journey from Las Vegas to the Moon and back, helping as they can in the rollicking battle. (Eclipso: The Darkness Within 2) Not as forgotten
as they might think, the Challs get a chance to party when they're
invited to the opening of Warriors, Guy Gardner's new superhero-themed
nightclub (GGW
29). Everybody
else in the DC Universe shows up! Red frequents Warriors. He's caught in a cameo with Lady Blackhawk and Wildcat. (Green Arrow 100.) |
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Drained by their personal breakdowns, Ace, Red, and Rocky drift back to Challenger Mountain. (Is this the first, second, or third mountain?) (Not recorded, but they're present for Prof's signal.) Off-screen, Dr Carcosa continues to experiment, making passing jets blip out of existence momentarily. Some fly on unharmed. Some crash in the vicinity. (Not recorded, but explained in COTU V3 9.) Living with lizards on an alien planet, Prof and June are suddenly hit by "a wave". As some targeted plane disappears, they materialize in the underground complex of Dr Carcosa. Recognizing Challengers, the doctor orders them killed and buried in the desert. Prof and June clobber their guards and send a signal for help to Challenger Mountain. Red, Rocky, and Ace get a signal on their private frequency. It can only be Prof! Red, Rocky, and Ace fly to the Mojave Desert. They land. And see Prof and June dashing toward them! Their joyous reunion is short-lived. Rocky smells a trap and steps aside. A gadget pops up and flashes the Challs with a brilliant light. Red, Ace, Prof, and June disappear. Rocky is chased off by thugs. He flees. Off-screen, Red, Ace, Prof, and June are in fact disincorporated. No time passes for them. Two - four years pass while Rocky searches fruitlessly for his friends. Who don't, at the moment, exist. |
Next: Heroes never die! |
