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May, 2004 |
Writer and Illustrator: Darwyn
Cooke Synopsis: "Revisit the dawn of the Silver Age as the Challengers of the Unknown are assembled in response to a mysterious evil. Plus: Batman, Martian Manhunter, and the Suicide Squad, courtesy of Darwyn Cooke." (Comic Shop News) |
 "AF772 - Do you wish to declare an emergency?" Unnerving words to open a story. The stark image is a jet falling into a large dial - which we will learn is Red's ticking watch, ironically named a Jetliner. |
Ace doesn't have time to answer. He's trying to keep the jet in one piece as it skips across the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Red's point of view is a panicked jumble of beatnik jive. "Declare, declare - beware, prepare. Declare your scare of the big fat bear - for I fear I haven't a moment to spare." The jet makes its final smash - and flies to pieces. Men fly like pieces of shattered glass...  |
... and Red wakes up screaming. He's back in his trailer at the Circus Colussus in Montreal. The year is 1957.  Every night since the accident, Red wakes up "not dead". His girlfriend offers comfort. Red tells her, "No offense, Chere, but it (sex) don' work anymore. Pills, Jim Beam (whiskey), nothing works." The girl asks, "What has happened to you, my Rouge (Red)?" Red tries to explain. "It's crazy, baby. Like nothing's big enough to see anymore. Like I may as well have died in that old plane." And mounting his bike, he rides away. |
"Skeet, neat, eat to the beat." Red rides to the Rocky Mountains and surveys the crash site. Yet he doesn't even know why he's here. It takes 40 minutes to walk the scar cut into the mountain. "Walk, talk, the roll gotta rock." Red can't understand - and doubts the others do - how in "God's creation" they could have survived. "I can't imagine a less likely event... and then I walk right into one." A voice startles Red. "'Bout time you got here, hot dog." |
"Up here, Red!" calls Ace. "Welcome to the fraternity of Flight 772."  |
Red is spooked. "We all survive this crash and then come back here on the same night?" Prof thinks it's coincidence, but Ace and Rocky agree it's spooky. Red talks about his watch. A gift from his dad, "The thing is so crappy it always stops dead when I make a (motorcycle) jump. It's kinda become my backwards good luck charm. [But] the night we crashed, it didn't miss a second, and hasn't stopped since." "I'm just a country boy. I don't know from fate or destiny. But you gotta wonder... Why did the four of us survive this?" It's quiet. Then Rocky asks, "You guys want to grab a beer?" |
The New Frontier unfolds elsewhere in the comic. Hal Jordan, recommended by Ace Morgan, starts work with Ferris Aircraft - and on Carol Ferris. He trains in test after test without understanding how it fits in with piloting. And he learns how Colonel Flagg got the Suicide Squad / Task Force X killed on impossible missions - over and over. In Tennessee, a black family is wiped out by the Ku Klux Klan. But the hanged man falls prematurely. And crafts a pair of hammers to beat on the Klan, wearing a hood like a hangman. |
The next time we see our guys, they're already famous as the Challengers of the Unknown. Movie audiences across the country thrill to a newsreel "CHALLENGING THE UKNOWN" made by Movietone News. The narrator trumpets, "High atop this mountain outside Colorado, four brave men have struck a bargain with adventure... Their motto: Wherever mankind is threatened by forces beyond its control, the Challengers will be there." "But are they up to the task? You'd better believe it, brother!" |
A shot shows Ace climbing into a jet. "Meet team leader Ace Morgan. One of America's best jet pilots, and the most heavily decorated Air Force pilot in Korea!" We see Red soaring over buses on a motorbike. "Teen heartthrob Red Ryan is the youngest Challenger. Loved by millions the world over as American's Greatest Daredevil, what he lacks in age he makes up for in skill and sheer nerve!" A bathysphere penetrates the sea as an oar fish slithers around. "The brains of the operation.. Professor Walter Haley, the ex-Navy frogman with degrees in both aeronautics and oceanography. Watch out, Professor, that eel looks hungry!" Rocky, in his dashing pith helmet, plunges off a collapsing rope bridge. "And finally, America's favorite sports personality and business tycoon, Rocky Davis! We all thrilled to his decathalon victory in 1950, and Wall Street has thrilled to his 'moves' ever since! But rich and famous wasn't enough for this renaissance man. Rocky's books recounting his exciting exploits have all topped the bestsellers list!" |
The booming tones go. "Here is exclusive footage of the Challengers in action off the coast of South America. What bravery!"  (Compare the original Jack Kirby drawing (Showcase 12).) |
The newreel finishes with the guys standing in front of their futuristic mountain HQ. Rocky gives a speech, obviously rehearsed. "Things happen every day that can't be explained... We four are adventurers at heart. And we want to use our abilities to protect the people of the planet." The narrator concludes, "That sounds like a tall order, Rocky. But we're sure that if anyone can do it, it's the Challengers of the Unknown. Tomorrow's heroes... today!" And in one audience, John Jones, AKA the Manhunter from Mars, thinks, "Up until this moment I thought police detective was the most appealing thing I could be. But these men - good blazes, what spirit!" |
John returns to his apartment to find Batman waiting for him. With orders to investigate a medallion that fits an arcane book held as evidence by the police. Since it was found, acts of violence and mass delusion have been steadily increasing. Batman needs John - wherever he's from - to get that book. "This is not a request." And in the desert, Hal Jordan finally meets the real Ferris Aircraft - underground. What's all this hush-hush buildup? The feds have proof that a Martian landed on Earth. So what does the paranoid Pentagon plan? Hal is going to Mars! While John Jones, Martian in disguise, fits a medallion to a book, and opens it. The obscure text and pictures tell a story of how a Viking Prince met a monster. And how another monster is coming from space. The book crackles with mystic energy. No, John realizes. The monster's here! |
Hoping for more Challengers in Book 4! |
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Comment Learn more about the secret behind the crash. See a map of flight plan and crash. |
