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Shipwrecked sailors bring Red ashore in a lifeboat. One laments, "I'm not sure we ought to land there!" "Yeah!" says another. "We had enough of that giant. And if that box he came from is still on this island - I'm for going elsewhere!" Red assures them, "It's okay! Before I was carried off by that giant, the other chambers were shut tight!" "I still don't like it," returns the sailor. There's something wrong here - I know what's wrong! It's cold! I'm chilled to the bone!" |
Red runs for the box. And finds Rocky, "frozen stiff!"  Beside him are "pieces of a broken glass tube. I wonder what's been released now?" |
Meanwhile, overhead, Morelian circles in a plane. He notes, "two chambers to go - and one contains a secret I must possess!"  |
Trouble. Red sees the other side of the island "flare up like a new dawn." Sailors stumble out in blind panic. "That thing - it blinds you - freezes you!" Red dons a pair of "Polaroid glasses" and pushes on. "Until he comes within sight of a living being of blinding, seething energy!" "Great scott! I-It's a freezing sun! And it draws heat from every bit of matter around it!" It gets worse. It's telepathic, and Red can hear its thoughts! "I can live here - expand and thrive!" A tongue of light lashes out for Red. "Ah - more delicious heat -" "Then begins a grim battle of survival between the Man of Earth and the Thing from some dark corner of the unknown!" |
Red runs, but the sun can "trail the heat from your body".  Red keeps moving. "I've got to think fast! I can't dodge this thing forever!" |
Red runs, but the sun can "trail the heat from your body". Red notes, "I've got to think fast! I can't dodge this thing forever!" "In an almost instinctive move, Red darts toward the mystic box." The sun-monster stops. "That thing is afraid of the box!" Red hunts clues, and crunches broken glass. "Of course!" |
Searching camp, he pulls together equipment.  "I think I have the answer! An empty gas tank, an electric pump, and me as bait!" |
Red works "feverishly the rest of the day". Come night, he seeks out the freezing sun. It hovers over the two seamen, who are frozen solid. Red waves his arms. "Hey! You forgot me! I'm still warm! Come and get me if you can!" The sun comes flying. Red runs like a rabbit. "If this doesn't work, I'll be an icicle in no time!" A steel tank sits with the top open. Red dives in. The freezing sun follows - as Red slips out a hidden door in the end. Red slams the lid and turns on the pump. "I've got you, I hope! Let's see if you can thrive in a vacuum. I'm betting you can't!" |
It works, and Red sits atop the tank, tired but triumphant.  "No wonder you couldn't get out of that box. Someone fashioned the perfect cage for you - a vacuum tube!" |
Meanwhile, out in the Pacific, Ace and Prof have dropped a 500 pound bomb on the Dragon Seed Giant, "but he's still going strong!" Well, it's somebody's lucky day. (And hands up, all who saw this coming.) The giant wanders into a hydrogen bomb test area! "At that moment, the elements erupt with all the fury of the atom's fantastic nature."  |
Zip. The giant keeps walking. Ace groans, "What in blazes is he made of?" Prof snaps his fingers. "What is it that can't burn, drown, explode, or fuse by nuclear fission? Thought, pure thought! The giant is a thought in three-dimension form by virtue of the unknown forces of an ancient science!" (If you say so, Prof.) |
"Prof knits his brows and concentrates with deep intensity.  Suddenly the giant halts - falters - fades. And with a thunderclap, vanishes!" Ace laughs. "You did it!" Prof smiles. "The answer was under our noses all the time. I wished him out of existence!" |
Jet ahead to Chapter Four, the stunning conclusion! |
Comments This chapter captures in a nutshell the essence of the Challengers. One menace is an ancient giant from a well-known legend. The heroes throw everything at it to no avail. But as any scientist can tell you, "There's no such thing as a failed experiment." No matter what result you get, you learn something. Prof concludes that, if brute force won't stop the giant, it must operate on some other principle. It can only be a thought, so Prof un-thinks it. |
Another menace is a freezing sun - a living energy vampire from some dark corner of the universe. Yet Red can analyze the available data: broken glass formed a vessel. Jerry-rigging a contraption from camp gear, he single-handedly stops the horrific other-worldly monster. |
The Challengers really do battle The Unknown in any form it takes. They throw everything at trouble super-fast and think on the run. As one attempt after another fails, they narrow their attacks until the menace is defeated. The Challs might run, make mistakes, retreat, and fail repeatedly, but they keep trying until they succeed. Or their borrowed time runs out. |
Like all early comics, there's a text story. A page of all text ensured the comic met Post Office requirements as a magazine. Essentially, the text story is a magazine article. The text stories never included the main title characters. Again, to qualify as a magazine, the book needed at least two different features. This is why many comics had short unrelated backup stories with unique characters. Text stories were puff pieces. Stan Lee's first job in comics was churning out text pages. Editors didn't expect they'd be read. |
This story, "I Fought the Phantom Planes", was unusual for two reasons: it ran two pages and had a picture.  In this story, a pilot chases strange planes. Later he discovers his ship has SQUARE bullet holes. So were they UFOs? |