If Hollywood had turned Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown into a movie in the 1950s, they’d have had to hire Ray Harryhausen. And I doubt that even that stop motion wizard could have done Kirby’s visual spectacle full justice.
Outsized menaces were never much of a challenge for the Challengers. In the uncanny team’s first appearance in Showcase 6, they tackled something resembling Talos, the bronze giant who protected Crete in the story of Jason and the Argonauts (as recorded in the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes). The Challengers could be seen as 20th century Argonauts.
Cleverly, the four were already heroes before the near-fatal crash that would unite them. That’s because they were flying to film a radio program called Heroes. So they were well prepared to repurpose their harrowing experiences into brave missions that would benefit humanity.
“Showcase 6 (Jan.-Feb. 1957) presented the origin story The Secret of the Sorcerer’s Box!, a book-length tale divided into four chapters,” Schelly wrote. “The book-length story, little-used at National at this time, was perhaps made more acceptable because the chapter divisions looked like separate stories to the casual browser.”
“Of the six bi-monthly issues of Showcase in 1957, three were devoted to Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown. Oddly, only one issue that year featured the return of the new Flash. Ever cautious, Irwin Donenfeld seemed to have wanted to make sure the good sales of Showcase 4 weren’t a fluke.”
Nathan J. Bennett:
ReplyDeleteLoved the concept, but I would’ve gone with a different look. Maybe something resembling a SHIELD uniform…?
Joseph Lenius:
ReplyDeleteThey didn’t cheat in school! They don’t cheat on their taxes! They don’t cheat on their girlfriends! They don’t cheat at cards! But they do cheat death!
S Wesley Mcgranor:
ReplyDeleteOutstanding!
George Blake:
ReplyDeleteMaybe the age of costumed superheroes wasn’t over, but these guys were refreshing all the same.
Athos Bousvaros:
ReplyDeleteI hope James Gunn is reading this post, and it gives him some additional ideas for the DCU. I would love a Challengers movie.
Clayton Emery:
ReplyDeleteThe first Ray Harryhausen "Challengers" movie might be "The Mysterious Island", with four guys escaping a POW camp and landing on kooky island of monsters.
Nils Osmar:
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the dude with the hammer is trying to accomplish on this cover. Killing it before it hatches? Helping the poor little monster in the egg get out? Someone needs to tell him that the way to help an egg hatch, if it's the latter, is not really to smash it with a sledgehammer until the shell breaks and whatever is inside has to try to get out alive. PS. From the looks of it, what will come out will be something with a body the size of a cat and one massive arm. Oh well... Comics 😀
I replied:
He is being demonstratively masculine, Nils. lol
ReplyDeleteVincent Mariani:
Those early issues, especially the ones with full length stories, were ahead of their time when compared with most other comics, and pointed the way towards Marvel, while lacking Marvel's characterizations.
But I don't think Challengers was a proto-Fantastic Four, despite some similarities.
I replied:
Agreed. The FF was inspired by the instant financial success of the JLA, not the Challengers. The Challengers of the Unknown was a mediocre-selling title. The Justice League sold an average of 335,000 copies per month in 1961, putting it just ahead of Detective Comics. The Challs sold 235,000 copies, just ahead of Wonder Woman and behind Archie’s pal Jughead.
The FF are much closer to the makeup of DC’s Sea Devils and Rip Hunter titles — two guys, a teenage boy and a girl — than they are to the Challengers of the Unknown.
Nor was there anything particularly original about the "uncanny adventure team." That goes back at least to Doc Savage's crew and the extremely popular radio show "I Love a Mystery" that began in 1939.
Bob Doncaster:
ReplyDeleteThe one true Challengers.
I would have loved to see a Turok movie with Harryhausen effects.
Roland Charron:
ReplyDeleteAs a boy, I never understood how they were "living on borrowed time." I thought it was some sort of super power but the stories never showed them doing anything special.
Melvin Shelton:
ReplyDeleteI always felt that Ray Harryhausen might have been influenced by the giant in Showcase # 6. The comic was published in 1957 and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS was released in 1963. Food for thought?