Showcase #6 (1957)
by Dave Wood & Jack Kirby
If you’re a casual DC reader, you might have heard about the Challengers of the Unkown because someone suggested Kirby created the Fantastic Four based partially on them, and also… no that’s about it, unless you’ve read stories where they appear that’s the extent of their fame really.
So let’s have a look at their first appearance to see if there’s any truth to that statement.
Oddly enough you barely ever see any acknowledgment that the story was NOT written by Kirby, but by Golden Age veteran Dave Wood.
I haven’t even seen Kirby superfans trying to claim Kirby wrote this on his own.
We begin with those four extraordinary men barely survive a plane crash.
It’s important to know they were perfect strangers before taking this flight.
They consider their unexpected survival proof that they’re now “living on borrowed time” and should, in fact, risk their lives all the time.
Although to me it looks like some of them are still doing what they were already doing.
Ace Morgan was already a jet pilot and now he’s piloting an experimental plane.
Prof Haley was already a diver and now he’s testing an experimental diving suit.
The other two are much weirder: Rocky Davis was a wrestling champion but now he’s rescuing people from the jungle, and Red Ryan was a daredevil who now volunteers to be a guinea pig?
The idea is that the Challengers receive requests from people who want to solve impossible cases, so at this point I would say that the premise resembles Sherlock Holmes more than it will resemble the Fantastic Four.
Also, since they’re the ones being challenged by others, shouldn’t they be the Challenged By the Unknown?
The Challengers are challenged by some creepy guy who brough his entire castle from Europe to the United States.
How many times do comics recycle this idea!? You know that if you have enough money you can build the castle yourself, right!?
What is the agreed percentage anyway? Also, does that include a percentage of the million dollars they’ve already earned, or also on the bonus if they succeed?
Let’s try to keep a score of how different they are from the Fantastic Four.
Differences: more than one is a genius, they work for money, and they’re not family.
Similarities: there’s 4 of them, they go on science-related adventures, they start without a costume, and their villain is a sorcerer with a castle in the US (which counts double, so it’s 5 similarities).
FF differences: 3
FF similarities: 5
The reason they’ve been summoned is to open this ancient giant box.
As it was typical at the time, the story is divided into separate chapters. The second one opens with an AWESOME Kirby panel.
The Challengers take a methodical approach to this, deciding to open the box in a safe place.
Unlike the Fantastic Four they don’t have their own special vehicle.
FF differences: 4
Rocky is the one to pick up the short straw, but he’s excited to open the box.
If it wasn’t for the cover, what they find would be a surprise.
They suspect this might be a dragon’s egg, namedropping the Cadmus myth.
Weird to see that name in a Kirby comic, considering his association with Project Cadmus, but remember that’s now how Kirby called it: it was always “DNA Project” in his stories.
The next day, the egg hatches and Prof completes the translation of the inscription.
He was introduced as a diver but he’s already an expert of everything, so…
FF similarities: 6
This is exactly the kind of high concept spectacle for which Kirby is unbeatable.
This is also a precursor to Kirby’s extended work at stories with giant monsters once he returns to Marvel.
Meanwhile Rocky realizes he hasn’t risked his life yet today, so he opens another part of the box.
Which unleashes a telepathic cold sun.
Sounds legit.
It’s an awesome concept, but that’s not as dangerous as it sounds.
So far this hasn’t been quite 50s enough. Let’s throw nukes into the mix!
Then Prof makes the absolutely WILD assumption that the monster is made of thought.
It’s going to be hard to defeat something so abstract!
(that’s right, that was SO out of left field it warranted TWO memes)
The new part of the box introduces bondage.
This thing is no joke: it’s ALREADY reached Australia!!!
As impressive as that sounds, it’s just a weird gadget.
This is the last mention of the gadget, since the story is wrapping up (pun intended)… which means that, as far as we know, Sydney could STILL be covered with that tape!
But why DID the guy who challenged the Challengers want their help? Turns out the box contained the secret of immortality.
Or not.
And this is the landmark case that ensured all future ironic magical death traps MUST include all the clauses in very small print.
Historical significance: 3/10
The Challengers are always around, but they’ve consistently failed to leave a big mark on the DC Universe.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
All things considered, shocking low!
Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
It’s a rather basic adventure story, whose main fault is that the protagonists are interchangeable and don’t have much personality. The latter is counted against them, so…
FF differences: 5
FF similarities: 6
That being said, it’s not a BAD one-off story, and Kirby’s pencils are a treat.
How close is this to the modern character? Unknown / 10
The Challengers star on Showcase three more times.
These make MUCH better use of Kirby’s spectacle.
These issues also introduce June Robbins, future Challenger herself and an EXTREMELY rare case of a female supergenius.
These must have sold well, because in 1958 they were given their own series.
You sometimes see Jack Kirby mentioned as the sole writer of this series, but he only did pencils and plots: the scripts and dialogue were again by Dave Wood.
This is even backed up by Kirby’s longtime assistant and historian Mark Evanier, so it’s a pity the mistake still shows up.
June is acknowledged in the second issue as a HONORARY Challenger.
Also for a while she goes by a different last name (she didn’t get married, it’s just a mistake).
As you’ve figured out, I don’t buy in the slightest the idea that the Fantastic Four ripped off the Challengers… but it’s understandable that you’d think so when you see that on issue 3, Rocky gets fire powers after going to space!
It’s not because of radiation but because he recovered a weird alien chemical, but still the idea IS admittedly there.
It’s also not JUST fire powers either.
Kirby is practically synonymous with this series, which is weird considering he only stays up to issue 8 from 1959…
…when the series continued until issue 74 in 1970, before turning to reprints.
It’s weird how much Kirby’s short tenure still overshadows a respectable run, which is a immersed in 60s adventure and sci-fi as you can expect.
There’s no mistaking these covers for any other decade.
In this period the artwork was taken over by Bob Brown, with several writers… including (but not limited to!) Ed Herron, Arnold Drake, Bob Haney, Bill Finger, Robert Kanigher, Danny O’Neil and Mike Friedrich.
I must admit I’m not familiar with this series, beyond their crossover with the Doom Patrol, but despite lacking a consistent writer it does seem to have relatively consistent tone.
After several reprints, the series is cancelled in 1971. There was an attempted revival in 1977 on the awkwardly titled “Super-Team Family”, but it only lasted 3 issues.
By this point, June was an official member of the team.
That was enough to revive the series with issue #81 the same year, but even adding Deadman and Swamp Thing (of all people!!!) only managed to last until #87 and a definitive cancellation.
Despite showing up here and there in the DC Universe, there wouldn’t be a second attempt at a regular series until 1991. While pitched as a regular, it turned out to be a 8 issues miniseries.
Issue 5 of this miniseries was my first exposure to the team and to be honest I couldn’t understand ANYTHING of what was going on. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t read the first issues or because this one had very unconventional storytelling and artwork.
I still don’t get it, but I do recognize the artistic merit behind it.
A third volume lasting 18 issues was published in 1998, and a 6 issue miniseries was published in 2004… but these two only used the name: they’re completely unrelated team. From what I can tell, these Volume 3 ones are paranormal investigators and the Volume 4 ones are even more unrelated.
An attempt to modernize the team is done in 2018, lasting 6 issue.
Most recently, a more traditional approach was done in 2025 for 5 issues.
This was just a VERY brief overview of their publishing history: like I said I don’t know as much about them as I’d like.
From what I’ve seen they definitely deserve more attention that just the Kirby connection, as their history goes MUCH beyond his contribution.
It’s also quote telling than when Kirby returned to DC in the 70s he didn’t attempt to bring them back, despite the fact that nobody was doing anything with the team at the time.
Compare with the characters that he DID decide to revisit, like the Newsboy Legion and Sandman.
Despite the efforts to modernize them, the Challengers still feel distinctly 60s.
When they cross over with Scooby-Doo in 2017, which of the two franchises feels the most like a nostalgic throwback?
Looking at your scans from their first appearance, the “four people crashing down to Earth” scene would be another similarity with the Fantastic Four.
The Challengers got lost in the glut of superheroes that dominated the ’70s and beyond. It’s a shame because, like the Blackhawks and, to a different extent, the Doom Patrol, they offered an alternative take on adventure stories.
Like the Blackhawks, the Challs had no powers. They were ordinary men who got by on their smarts and skills. Also, like the Blackhawks, they were a male-only team (hence June being an honorary member), which could be seen, I suppose, as representing the male bonding that occurs in sports and scouts. They also somewhat resembled the then-popular war comics but without the guns and realistic enemies such as the Nazis and Japanese. As such, I view the Challs as a bridge between superheroes and comics that were represented traditional male pursuits.
As for me, I encountered the Challs by accident. When I was nine or ten, someone left an issue of their series in my backyard. I never found out who the owner was, but I was so enthralled with the two stories that I kept the comic. One story featured Red Ryan’s brother, Tino, who was pursued by ghoulish creatures who were trying to kill him in his dreams; if he died there, the cover told us, he would die for real. In the second story, a villain captures Ace Morgan and locks his head inside a helmet that turns out to be a bomb. The Challs have to figure out how to remove the helmet without detonating the bomb.
I still have the issue somewhere, but I don’t remember the number. It must have been toward the cancellation as I never saw another issue until the series was revived in the late ’70s. While that series was good, as I recall, it lacked the previous issue’s creepy atmosphere that bordered on horror.
That description matches #67, cover dated to May 1969. The last issue by Robert Kanigher and Jack Sparling. Not long before the introduction of Corinna Stark and the last few issues of the original run, which ended with #74 guest-starring Deadman.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Challengers_of_the_Unknown_Vol_1_67
Thanks, Luis. 67 it is.
A surprising frequent plot in Challengers stories, particularly in more recent years, is finding, reuniting with, or finding some sort of temporary substitute for specific members that have been separated from the group for some reason or another.
On second thought, that is not very surprising. A big part of the appeal of the team is the bond between the members themselves and their implicit mutual trust even in the direst of situations.
Another version appeared during the New 52 Era in an anthology title, but I forgot the name. In this version the Challengers of the Unknown were part of a reality TV series if I remember correctly…
There’s also the awesome Challengers of the Fantastic Amalgam comic in the second wave of Amalgam.
The first time I knew of the Challengers was in a Superman comic after the Death and Return of Superman where he meets the Challengers while they were travelling in a time cube and our present was their future. I remember thinking this was a really neat idea because at the end when they go back to their time Superman goes to Prof’s tomb. This is the first time I heard of comic book characters that actually died [besides of course, Uncle Ben and (at the time) Bucky and Barry Allen]
Had Kirby decided to recycle something from the Challengers for the Fantastic 4, at least he did a fine damn job of integrating it in his collaboration with Stan lee!