Can’t we all just get along? – Challengers of the Unknown #32

A bought this a couple of weeks ago  – it’s the first Challengers of the Unknown comic that I’ve ever picked up.  Their heyday was before my time, and my tastes have always run towards characters of the tights and capes variety (though this didn’t stop me from piping up in a Challengers debate recently).  I recognize their significance in the DC mythos, though, so I was happy to make a start at adding this foursome to my ever-growing archives.

What did I think of this issue, my first foray into the adventures of the Challengers?  On the balance I view it rather favorably.  The first story inside, “One Challenger Must Die,” written by Arnold Drake with pencils by Bob Brown, finds the Challengers tangling with an old foe, that back and bigger than ever Volcano Man.  There’s not much meat on the bones of this plot, and the cover says it all.  The Challengers argue over whose plan will work to stop the monster, the argument boils over into fisticuffs after both strategies fail in the first attempts, and finally they put their differences aside to team up, combine their plans and bring down the big lumbering oaf.

Not the most involving story.

I liked the second, “Cosmo Turns Traitor,” a good deal more – it gives you a healthy dose of Silver Age silliness.  The Challengers are chasing a criminal, Mastermind, and his thugs on a mountain road when the evil-doers’ car is whisked away by an alien.  It turns out the alien, a big spindly yellow dude named D’Jann, is on Earth looking for his pet, J’Suna.  In another one of those wonderful Silver Age coincidences, J’Suna is the Challengers’ super-powered pet, Cosmo.  Mastermind convinces D’Jann that the Challengers are villains and that they’re using Cosmo and his powers for their own nefarious ends.

Hijinks ensue as Mastermind uses D’Jann’s gizmos to try and kill the Challengers, but Cosmo protects his friends, that is, until his alien master summons him telepathically.  The Challengers follow Cosmo into the trap, and Mastermind changes Prof into a cloud man, Red into a wind man, Ace into a two-dimensional man, and Rocky into a flame man (the last is more fodder for the Challengers as Fantastic Four debate, I suppose).  In true James Bond-villain fashion Mastermind leaves the Challengers to accidentally finish each other off with their new powers, but they escape and in the ensuing brawl Cosmo is injured.  Then there’s more nuttiness, until D’Jann finally figures out Mastermind’s double-dealing shenanigans and helps the Challengers capture him.

After all that hoopla there’s a nice little coda to the story.  The Challengers are prepared to let Cosmo go back to his former master, but D’Jann decides to let the little guy stay on Earth.  You see, with D’Jann he’s just a pet, but with the Challengers he fights bad guys.  So he stays with the Challengers.

Awwwww.  Of course, he promptly disappeared from the title never to be heard from again, so I guess the good feelings didn’t last.

As indifferent as I was to the first story, I enjoyed the second one quite a lot.  It was pencilled by Bob Brown, but in my cursory internet search I couldn’t find any info on the writer.  It may be Arnold Drake again, but the different tenor of the story leads me to question that.  And Cosmo, a little orange outer space raccoon, is cute and mute, which puts him in stark contrast to the Martian Manhunter’s voluble and offensively stupid sidekick Zook.  I like Cosmo, and it’s too bad that he apparently didn’t share many of the Challengers’ adventures.

So it’s taken me some time to get into the Challengers, but, thanks to that second story, I’ll be on the lookout for more of them in the future.  And DC Comics – bring back Cosmo.