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July 2000 |
"Years ago..." The YOUNG-looking Challengers work on the Gallopin' Gizmo (named by Prof) and joke around between assignments...  ... when a distress call comes in. |
 The Justice League has disappeared and nine supervillains are running rampant: Lex Luthor, Catwoman, Black Manta, and others. (Actually, the villains have switched bodies with the JLAers, but no one knows it yet.) Snapper Carr calls in the DCU's second-stringers to bring in the supervillains. |
Prof has a line on Chronos - via the Internet. "What's that?" ask three guys. Prof explains the new network of computers descended from ARPAnet. Rocky and Red kid around. Rita Farr was a movie actress until an accident made her Elasti-Girl in the Doom Patrol.  Chronos is hovering over Ivy University (home to Ray Palmer, the Atom) on his flying sundial. Chronos (really the Atom) is trying to figure how to shrink himself to enter the Time Pool when the Challs burst through the skylight. Prof yells, "I surmised you'd be after the Time Pool... which means you just flunked Villainy 101!" Rocky adds, "You're getting a crash course in the agony of defeat!" |
 Unfortunately, the wild attack knocks Chronos into the white-dwarf shrinking ray, which hits the Challs. Ace complains, "I really hate being shrunk!" That the Challs are tiny doesn't even slow them up. Prof rolls chemicals together to create corrosive smoke. Ace shoots a pencil from a rubber band. Rocky hauls on a giant finger and sprains it. Prof gets knocked flying into the chronometer (changing the year) while Red makes a paper clip sword. |
But Prof, snagged by a giant hand, explains they have nothing to fear from the ATOM. It must be he, since Chronos couldn't construct a shrinking ray. Chronos/Atom confirms that, yes, the JLA and villains have switched bodies. He hoped to enter the past via the Time Pool and prevent it all from happening. But now there's a bigger problem. Only the Atom's body can sustain shrinking. If the Challs aren't enlarged in 15 minutes, they'll explode! Actually, there's ANOTHER immediate problem. When Prof hit the chronometer, it got set to 5788 AD. Out of the Time Pool crawl creepy-crawlies (some pictured on the cover) obviously evolved for a very nasty predatory environment. A manta-snake grabs Chronos's face. Prof and Red run from more mini-monsters. Rocky battles a crabantula with scissors. Ace climbs on the manta-snake and sends it soaring. "You know us pilots - we see something flies - and can't wait to put it through its paces!" Rocky punches his crabantula and goes sailing, to be plucked from the air by Chronos/Atom. He hurls the icky at the manta-snake, and they fight it out while Ace jumps clear - and lands square on the purple horror chasing Red and Prof, squashing it. Talk about teamwork! BUT the Challs are due to explode in a few minutes, and the shrinking ray is damaged, needing 30 minutes to repair. Looks like the Challs' borrowed time is up. But the Chronos/Atom manages to "think like Chronos". He'll drop the Challs into the Time Pool to "the very threshold of time... a point that is neither past, present, nor future... where time stands still while I fix the shrinking ray!" Brilliant! |
So the Challs get suspended in time. And what do they see?  Enter the Time Pool...Note how the panel border changes from white to black. Is this a signal that we're departing reality? |