More Weird Mystery Tales
1996

"Welcome to the Dark Side of DC"

Cover: John Paul Leon & Bill Reinhold
Script: Adam Philips
Art: John Paul Leon & Bill Reinhold
Letters: Ken Lopez
Colors: B&W interior
Size: 6.5 H x 5 W
6 pages
Free
Story and art © DC Comics

Characters: The new Challengers: Marlon Corbet, Clay Brody, Brenda Ruskin, and Kenn Kawa. Mike Carlin, Fate, DK Torslund, the Dread Kali.

Synopsis: Mike Carlin asks the Challengers of the Unknown to investigate weirdness brewing in the DC offices.

This booklet was a freebie to promote CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN 1 and THE BOOK OF FATE 1, both part of DC's "Weirdoverse". An earlier WEIRD MYSTERY TALES handout covered SCARE TACTICS and NIGHT FORCE.

"The black tower of Broadway remains filled with fear after the visitations from beyond." (From WEIRD MYSTERY TALES, anyway.)

Alone in his office, Mike Carlin, DC Editor-in-Chief, jumps as a hand descends on his shoulder.

"A moment ago, they were not there. Now, they stand in the place, yet apart from it." (Spoooooky.) It's the new Challengers, Marlon Corbet, Clay Brody, Brenda Ruskin, and Kenn Kawa. Marlon asks, "Shall we begin?"

Mike Carlin laments, "We've got these editors who've gone... kinda strange... on us."

Strange, like Fate hacking at some monster crawling through a portal? "Naw. He just pops in every now and then."

Brenda waves her spirit-detector thing around. "I get the feeling there's a lot of history I could dig into."

The afflicted editors are DK Torslund and the Dread Kali. They look dead. "We tell tales of dark truths." They hold up a comic book showing the new Challengers. "That's us! But how?"

Fate crashes in. Marlon asks, "Have you figured out whats going on here?" Fate says, "Somethin' new. Never saw anything quite like it before." Looking at the comic, he asks, "Just get my haircut right, OK?"

Mike Carlin laments, "We're supposed to tell stories, get readers interested in these new books were starting. Not scare people..."

DK Torslund gloats, "Your tidy little DC Universe will never be the same."

Comments

So there's the very first appearance of the new Challengers of the Unknown.

And the birth of the Weirdoverse, the dark side of the DCU. Which got explored for exactly one and a half years. SCARE TACTICS, NIGHT FORCE, and THE BOOK OF FATE lasted a year. CHALLENGERS went 18 issues.

As the kids say, "Whatever."

Here's the cover of the companion WEIRD MYSTERY TALES.

These little handouts are harder to find than regular comics, believe it or not. They were disposable, an odd size, free, hard to categorize.