| Issue | #40 |
| Published | October-November 1964 |
| Cover Price | 0.12 |
| Pages | 36 |
| Editing | Murray Boltinoff |
| Notes | Learn more about the Challengers at http://www.challengersoftheunknown.com. |
| Characters | Ace Morgan; Rocky Davis; Prof Haley; Red Ryan; Multi-Man. |
| Genre | Super Hero; Adventure; Hero Team |
| Pencils | Bob Brown |
| Inks | Bob Brown |
| Notes | Learn more about the Challengers at http://www.challengersoftheunknown.com. |
| Characters | Ace Morgan; Rocky Davis; Prof Haley; Red Ryan; (Challengers of the Unknown); two crooks. |
| Synopsis | Three Challengers work on gadgets while Rocky lifts weights. A flying machine like a giant red grasshopper snatches a railroad box car. The Challengers find it emptied of its gold shipment. Something plunges into the ocean. Borrowing a salvage ship and diving bell, the Challengers descend - and are almost rammed by the flying machine. Prof releases an inky cloud and they surface. Needing special tools, the Challengers rush to finish their gadgets. Ace uses his jet pack to trails the flying machine and is almost fried by a flame nozzle. Red counters with CO2 from his electro-suit, then zaps the ship with lightning. The ship dives. Prof pursues with his super-inflatable SCUBA suit, is almost rammed, and tangles in cables. Rocky dives after the machine and, bare-handed, tears open an access panel. Water rushes in and the craft must surface. The “flying amphib” is an air-sea rescue ship built in Switzerland. Two thugs stole it from the factory. The super-gadgets need work, but “Rocky’s are built-in”. |
| Genre | Super Hero; Adventure; Hero Team |
| Script | France Ed Herron (signed) |
| Pencils | Bob Brown |
| Inks | Bob Brown |
| Characters | Ace Morgan; Rocky Davis; Prof Haley; Red Ryan; (Challengers of the Unknown); Mr. Voodoo/Multi-Man. |
| Synopsis | The Challengers rush to an art gallery being robbed by Mr. Voodoo, a walking tiki mask. Voodoo pulls a flare gun, blinds the heroes, and escapes. As the Challengers leave, a robot spider boards their jet. Back at Challenger Mountain, Ace and Prof work on “Operation M-E”. The robot spider photographs the mountain HQ, trips an alarm, and whooshes away back to Mr. Voodoo. Who is Multi-Man in a tiki exo-skeleton. His weird hideout is filled with robot insects. He develops the film to find the location of Challenger Mountain, but clouds obscure the location. Interior pictures let MM build a diagram of Challenger Mountain. Again the Challs are summoned to an art gallery, a false alarm. MM drinks Liquid Light and morphs into a grasshopper-bodied leader of a robot swarm that sneaks into the Challengers’ copter. Back at HQ, the guys test Operation M-E, which can turn living matter into energy. Prof demonstrates by rematerializing an African fly, then a totem pole. Multi-Man’s robot army attacks. Rocky swats them with the totem pole, but the Challs are blinded by fireflies and snared in spiderwebs. Prof kicks over the M-E machine and releases the tse-tse fly, carrier of sleeping sickness. MM panics and the robot horde spins out of control. Prof rematerializes a condor that grabs MM. The fly was a common house fly, “and it drove you bugs!” |
| Genre | Adventure; Hero Team |
| Script | Arnold Drake (signed) |
| Pencils | Bob Brown |
| Inks | Bob Brown |
| Notes | "Revealed for the first time: a diagram of the secret Challenger Cave!" |