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November - December 1957 |
 If the first page splash doesn't look a 1950's science fiction movie poster, I don't know what does. And the title could fit any episode of "Creature Feature". The first line even asks, "Is Man the only intelligent being in the universe?" Let's find out... |
At a secret conference in Washington, Navy men and scientists meet. Two scientists, Carl Jackson and Warren Moss, disappeared in "Little America" in the Antarctic. They never had a chance to use their survival equipment. One man suggests "we have a problem dealing with the unknown. May I suggest the men most capable of handling it - the Challengers!" A common intro page shows the guys at their best - Ace ejecting at the edge of space, Prof in the depths, Red clinging to a mountain, Rocky wrestling a crocodile. "... living on borrowed time... They've lived up to their code!" |
At their HQ (Prof's mountain house), Ace takes the call. Rocky wears a pith helmet and lugs a shotgun. "I've got a beauty of an assignment - tracking down an ancient Toltec idol in a temple deep in the jungles of Yucatan!" That's off. "We're heading for Little America!" Since Prof is diving off the New Guinea coast, they'll pick him up on the way. |
In the South Pacific, Prof's made an amazing discovery. He chases a trilobite, thought extinct for millions of years! But the sea bed reels, knocking Prof for a loop. He surfaces. An exploding volcano rises from the sea! Prof radios the boys, but Ace cuts him off. Soon Prof is picked up by the Challengers' jet. Prof wants to investigate how an extinct volcano came to life. Nope. "Our job right now is to find a clue to those missing scientists!" |
The Challengers land, get the picture on maps, and take a snow tractor to where the scientists disappeared - a flat empty spot where their equipment was found. A blizzard socks them in. Afterward, Ace and Rocky take rifles to "get their bearings" while Prof and Red dig out. Amid "miles and miles of nothing", the ice shatters beneath them. They drop like stones - - and land on a Star Wars-like bridge. "This giant tube is the handiwork of a strange intelligence! We've got to get back with news of this!" But the walls are sheer ice. |
Above, Red and Prof are knocked down by the tremor. They rush to the crevasse - and are ambushed by aliens! Skinny orange aliens in transparent robot-suits with claws. "Do not attempt escape! We can anticipate your every move!" An ice-covered hatch pops open. "Jumping catfish, Prof!" yells Red. "What are we in for next?" They ain't seen nothing yet... |
 Trapped by aliens, Prof and Red plunge deep into the Earth - floating, not falling. Then gas blasts them. It's the atmosphere from the aliens' own planet. "It reacts like an anesthetic on Earthmen." |
Meanwhile.... Ace and Rocky seek a way off their icy bridge. Climbing, they find a ventilation shaft and enter. They shuck their arctic clothes. "Wow! A guy could roast in here!" Dashing through tubes "that seem to run for miles", Ace and Rocky discover a wonderland under the Antarctic. "Good grief! What's going on here?"  Far below, soldiers march in lock step. "That spells 'army' in any man's language." |
As the guys step out, they find themselves "light as feathers." They weigh less in the "alien's" artificial environment. Rocky wants a weapon. Ace decides to jump a sentry. But the guys are surprised. Even as Rocky dives from behind, the alien whirls and pops him. Spinning, he kicks Ace into a wall so he bashes his head, unconscious. Ace wakes up in a cell with his buds and the two missing scientists, Jackson and Moss. The aliens are from the star-system Tyran, "an aggressive race that wants the Earth for their own." Furthermore, the bump on their heads is an auxiliary brain. "It's like a mathematical computer - a calculating machine!" |
Garnat, a civilian scientist, enters, and boasts. "We can calculate any move you might make to escape." And instantly block it. The scientist even promises to "preserve a few of your species for study on the day of the great shock." "What's he talking about?" How about a demonstration? As seen on the cover, General Tolek blows up a model of the Earth. The explosive charges will knock part of the planet into outer space, changing the Earth's specific gravity. Tidal waves will sweep the planet. The survivors will be easily conquered, and the gravity will be ideal for the Tyrans. "So have the Tyrans conquered many galaxies." |
Ace rebels, but Rocky nabs him. "Don't upset the apple cart." The scientist is the only one keeping them alive. Prof beats his brain. "These Tyrans can't be invincible! There must be a way to outsmart them!" Ace guesses, with their extra brains, they might tire easily. "That may be the crack in their armor!" Catch one during their rest period... Ace has guards summon Garnat in the middle of the night. Ace is in a "trance". Garnat should look deeply in his eyes. Deeeeeep. Garnat is hypnotized. Prof laughs. "We've got ourselves an auxiliary brain!" |
Under hynopsis, Garnat spills the beans. The last of the earth-shattering charges are being planted off the Atlantic Coast. Prof remembers the extinct volcano. "It must have been a preliminary test!" The Challengers bombard Garnat with suggestions to escape. The dazed scientist uses his voice to open a concealed door to a hidden tunnel. Garnat leads them to the gravity control room. The Challs wrassle the guards and turn the gravity from Tyran to Earth. The aliens are pinned. Now they need a way out of the base. |
Dr. Moss explains the aliens don't use spaceships. They arrived by "electronic transmission" from their home planet. They split up. The scientists will dismantle the planet detonator. Ace and Rocky will help. Prof and Red must transmit to Washington, DC. The aliens can set off the last big bomb manually. Prof jacks up the gravity around the detonator to squash the aliens. Then he and Red dive into the crackling light of the transmitter - and vanish! |
Red pops out on a sidewalk in DC. Prof follows. A cop is flummoxed, but Prof saves it for Naval Intelligence. NI checks their story and believes the warning. They offer Prof a fabulous half-submarine suit with a built-in electronic brain. Sensitive to brain waves, "the screen will flash at the approach of anything with an intelligence larger than a fish's."  Soon Prof "torpedoes" out of a lone sub. He finds the undersea bomb site. Swooping and swerving like a dolphin, he eludes the shooting aliens and wrecks the bomb mechanism. Outraged, the aliens decide to assemble their machines and launch an invasion. The Air Force and Navy have arrived off Antarctica and shell the bejeezus out of the Tyrans' army. |
Yet soon, on a tropical island occupied by marines, something rises from the sea - and stomps everything in sight. The marines fall back. Red hears the news. "Prof's done his job. Now let me do mine!" |
"The chips are down! The Challengers of the Unknown have forced the hands of the Tyrans! With their mission revealed, the Tyrans have but one choice - to detonate the rest of the explosives they have planted around the Earth! And humanity's last hope is a handful of men fighting desperately against time!" At the base, Ace and Rocky and the scientists work up a plan. They can jigger some of the gravity, but the aliens will counter-attack any moment - - and flood the room with gas! Ace and Rocky run, but the Tyrans roll after them in pressurized cars with guns. Ducking through a panel, Dr Moss cracks a valve. The base is powered by a shaft to the thermal core. Raging heat traps (and kills) the car-riding aliens. General Tolek runs to plunge the final rod into the detonator, but the heat slags the equipment. Watching a monitor, Rocky yells, "We did it, Ace! The detonator is destroyed! Humanity is saved!" "We're not out of the woods yet," warns Ace, "but we've stopped the main threat to Earth!" |
Thousands of miles away, Red Ryan swings from a helicopter to stop the mechanical monster from the sea - all by himself. "Like a striking cobra," he gets plucked from the air by a claw.  |
A tank and nozzle swing from Red's belt. He's got a secret weapon, "a new mixture, compliments of the labs at the Army's Chemical Warfare Division!" The corrosive gas eats the metal monster like acid. The monster flips over, and Red's flung into a tree, where he's rescued by marines.  |
Events wrap quickly. Ace and Rocky pick up Red. They transmitted in. Prof? He had a three-day supply of air, so should be fine. Ace leads a flight of long-range bombers that pounds Little America. The next day, the guys read the headlines. "Bombs Lay Waste Large Antarctic Strip in Unusual Test." The Tyrans were obliterated. "Mankind will never know how close they came to disaster - or the part we Challengers had in preventing it." Prof sniffles, wrapped in a blanket. "Read the article which tells how that smelly fishing boat picked me up out of the water - Achoo!" The famous deep-sea diver caught cold! And when Ace gets back? "I wonder what he's got up his sleeve for our next challenge of the unknown?" |
Comments Notice how the story gets rushed at the end? Kirby and company never skimped. Making it up as they go along, the creators throw in one fantastic menace after another, piles of wild gadgets, aliens cities, and more. When the story runs long, and an army invades and a monster rises from the sea and - Oops! out of time! - things wrap up off-screen. Still, they can stick in two jokes, Red stuck in a tree and Prof suffering a cold. Amazing what people with imagination could throw at a young and eager audience. Too bad we're all so sophisticated nowadays. |