Challengers
of the Unknown Volume 3
1998
18 Issues
Four
newbies
run around the country as the new Challengers. They are Clay Brody, NASCAR driver. Brenda
Ruskin, physicist. Kenn Kawa, computer games designer. Marlon
Corbet, commercial pilot. They have an official office, secretary,
web site, and press releases. They stop sacrificial wackos, drug-juiced zombies, vengeful ghosts, Amazon cults, Lovecraftian monsters, mass suicides, humming buildings, and other oddities.
These four people
ALSO survived a plane crash and celestial "white light"
that sets them apart from humanity. The new team gets advice
from Rocky Davis, who's older and grayer and mysteriously alone.
A new spate
of plane crashes and disappearances erupts. The new Challs investigate, and
two vanish. The OLD Challs pop up in the desert, totally bewildered,
along with Prof and June, who should be dead!
New and old Challs
unravel the truth. Prof and June were hurled into another dimension.
They reappeared in a secret lab under the Mojave Desert. Dr.
Carcosa, rogue scientist, tests a defense system to make planes
vanish - in a fantastic white flare. He crashed the old AND new
teams' planes! As the lab explodes, an expanding Tesla field
threatens to engulf the countryside. Gutshot, Rocky mans the
console. Ace, Red, Prof, and June enter the fierce white Tesla
field to shut it down - and are gone.
The younger Challs
vow to carry on challenging the unknown.
Backstory
Writer Steven Grant
deserves praise for this underrated series. He created new Challs
for X-Files adventures. AND he softened the Loeb-Sales massacre
to resurrect the old Challs with dignity. These stories are well-crafted,
clever, and exciting. They suffer from two flaws: dark murky
art and tie-ins to the "DC Weirdoverse" and red-sky
epics. Still, we thank Steven for being true to the Challengers
spirit.
The series ran
18
issues.
Grant planned a magnum opus (18 was the prologue), but the book
was cancelled.
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