Challengers of the Unknown (1997 DC 3rd Series) comic books
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Issue #1
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Challengers of the Unknown, script by Steven Grant and Len Kaminski, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough; The Challengers are called to Harvest, Wyoming to investigate a string of mysterious disappearances dating back to the 19th century; The locals are hostile, and the Challengers end up in a brawl; A dour man named Saxon contends the unknown should stay unknown. Of Planes, Trains, and Legacies article on the 3rd Challengers series. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #2
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Undead, script by Steven Grant and Len Kaminski (plot and scripting assist), pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough; The Challengers appear on Nina Justis's talk show; She's famous as an alien abductee, until the Challs show photos of her "abducted" in Aruba, vacationing; Nina vows to get even... Meanwhile, in a unnamed city, drug addicts are dying like flies - then awakening in hospitals and swarming over people. The Challengers are called in, though city officials think they're "glory hounds"; They investigate corpses and find no drugs. Then corpses animate and attack. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #3
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Threshold, script by Len Kaminski and Steven D. Grant (plot and scripting assist), pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough; The Challengers fly to Dayton, Ohio to investigate a corpse turned literally inside-out. Article discussing the process of producing each issue of Challengers of the Unknown. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #4
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Expose', script by Steven Grant and Len Kaminski (plot and scripting assist), pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough; Nina Justis, ambush reporter, was debunked as an "alien abductee" by the Challengers (COTU V3 2); Nina sets out to film a documentary exposing the Challengers; Rocky Davis, former Challenger, refuses to talk. So does Sarah Hargate, the Challs' office manager; Nina interviews dozens of people from Challenger relatives to civilians they've saved. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #5
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Private Lives, script by Steven Grant, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Bill Reinhold; After viewing a seven-year-old girl accused of slaughtering her family, Clay goes on a mysterious rampage...; The newest Challengers are called to a grisly family murder - committed by a child. And Clay Brody is suddenly missing; In a NASCAR race, Clay tries to kill himself; Instead he goes on a rampage, grabbing women and beating up bikers; A psychologist-ghostbreaker named Del Colter confronts Clay, demanding, Let him go; Clay slashes the man and blasts off on a stolen bike... Interspersed is a dream of another world where Clay suffers his worst nightmare: crippled, he crawls home to his brutal coal-mining family. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #6
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. 400 million people fall into a coma, and Kenn's daughter may be the key to solving the mystery...; In Salt Lake City, a little girl (Kenn Kawa's daughter) collapses…; In LA, the new Challengers have been summoned by Sarah Hargate, their officer manager; All around the world, every 12th person has gone comatose; The Challs analyze data and discover all the victims were born between October 23 and November 21; By the Zodiac, they're all Scorpios. Clay scoffs, Brenda and Marlon are intrigued – and Kenn bolts out the door! Kenn flies to Salt Lake City to his former home; His ex-wife is still angry from earlier betrayals, and now Kenns daughter, a Scorpio, is comatose. Hes devastated. He brought the girl a topaz, her birthstone; Oddly, the stone moves itself to a childs drawing of a fairy tale about a golden king resting on his bosom. Kenn calls the Challs. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #7
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Last Days - Part One of Three, script by Steven Grant and Len Kaminski (plot and scripting assist), pencils by John Paul Leon and Tommy Lee Edwards, inks by Shawn Martinbrough; Intrigue everywhere...; While Clay, Brenda, Marlon and Kenn investigate incidents where aircraft disappear and reappear in an instant; Everyone on board saw a brilliant light...; Brenda visits an old professor and finds his lab on fire; She's jumped by Saxon, the Anti-Challenger, but escapes; Minutes later, Saxon kills an assassin gunning for the Challs. Kenn, Marlon, and Brenda take a convertible to the Mojave Desert where the planes blipped out...; Marlon meets Rocky Davis and Ed Sands, who founded the new Challs; They're pulling the franchise...; Marlon gets a call from his friends in the desert; Rocky demands they pull out: it's dangerous to venture there; He and Marlon fly a small plane over the desert and see the Challs' convertible disappear into a white light. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #8
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Last Days - Part Two: Beginnings and Endings, script by Steven Grant, pencils by John Paul Leon and Mike Collins, inks by Shawn Martinbrough and Dave Roach; In the Mojave Desert, Rocky, the original Challengers, and Marlon duck mercenaries; Kenn, Clay, and Brenda are dematerialized in their convertible; They recount the origins of their respective teams: both saw a tremendous light, both planes crashed, both saw a second light as if from Heaven; June and Prof remember differently: they weren't killed in the explosion of Challenger Mountain, but transported to an alien planet; They lived there until suddenly zapped into Dr. Carcosa's lab here; They escaped, signaled their friends, met in the desert, and were winked out again (dematerialized) - for five years!; Now they're back and need to scotch Carcosa; They infiltrate the base, pass Tesla generators, and are ambushed by soldiers. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #9
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Through a Glass, Darkly, script by Steven Grant, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough; Under the Mojave Desert, Rocky explains how Ace, Red, June, and Prof were "vanished" and lost for years. Nabbed by guards, they're taken to Dr Carcosa; He experiments with Tesla fields and the Earth's electromagnetic fields; Get them to burp and things vanish; His disappearing ray was originally a government weapon to make planes vanish. Meanwhile, Saxon the Anti-Challenger is shooting up generators and making dials run wild. The Challs jump guards; Prof cranks a dial and, ZOOM! the convertible with Clay, Kenn, and Brenda appears from mid-air. Due to Saxon's damage, the nuclear reactor is running wild - and it's INSIDE the Tesla field!; Rocky KOs Saxon but is gutshot; Slate's twin brother drags Saxon into the Tesla field; Somebody must enter the Tesla field to shut down the reactor, or it'll blow up the state; Wounded Rocky will man the console; Ace, Red, Prof, and June say goodbye and walk into the growing light; Clay grabs Rocky and the new Challs run. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #10
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Broken Spirits, script by Steven Grant, pencils by Jill Thompson, inks by Bill Reinhold; This is Brenda's story... A new city is blooming in the desert; It's designed of radical new materials and will be crime- and pollution-free. Except people keep going mad and seeing ghosts; The Challengers investigate; LSD in the water?; Something in the soil?; Heat stroke?; Brenda is skeptical of ghosts until the room temperature plunges and her DEAD SISTER Eileen appears!; Brenda caused her sister's death driving too fast at age 16; Brenda tried everything occult--tarot cards, ouija boards - to contact Eileen; Finally she abandoned superstition and studied Physics; So she needs a logical explanation; A tower hums as snow falls and ghosts flock. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #11
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Times Fade Away, script by Steven Grant, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Bill Reinhold; The Challengers' benefactor, Edward Sands, has mysteriously gone to Gotham City, where weird things are happening; Batman ambushes a sniper who thinks he's back in Vietnam AND has an extinct Vietnam plant stuck to his boots; Robin tries to help Sands and finds himself in a 1945 riot!; Batman urges the "amateur" Challengers to get lost; Meanwhile, Sands has found his old WWII buddy, Paul Hemmings, who's been lost for decades; Hemmings and Sands witnessed the Hiroshima explosion AND a fierce white light that forever changes people; Hemmings has become "extrachronal", unhinged in time, moving through it like a leaf on a stream, and warping events around him; As the Challengers and Batman confront burned-out vets who've taken Robin hostage. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #12
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Who Knows Where the Time Goes?, script by Steven Grant, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Bill Reinhold; The Challengers and Batman are cast adrift in time by Sands' old friend Paul Hemmings. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #13
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. The Keening, script by Steven Grant, pencils by Jill Thompson, inks by Bill Reinhold; In Seattle, an Irish renegade runs into a church and seizes hostages; The church is cordoned off by police; Marlon Corbet's fiance, Jessie, is among the hostages, as is a pregnant woman. Marlon sneaks in; The thug is an Irish gunman; A swirling-smoke banshee has pursued him from Ireland; He shot his girlfriend and she laid a dying curse; Marlon invites the banshee in. Panicked hostages flee as the pregnant woman goes into labor; Marlon negotiates; The banshee has no power here, and would death honor the dead girl?; The banshee agrees, "a life for a death"; The Irishman flees; He wants to die, but Marlon tackles him; "Everyone deserves a little salvation"; Jessie is grateful, but can't live in constant fear, so kisses Marlon goodbye. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #14
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Dark Waters, script by Steven Grant, pencils by Christopher Schenk, inks by George Freeman; Kenn Kawa, bound and weighted, sinks into the ocean; He reflects how he got here as he pries off the water-soaked knots; The Challs are asked to investigate the disappearance of a young man from an offshore oil rig. Brenda and Kenn visit the rig: no oil in sight, no facial hair on any man; Ashore, Clay and Marlon question an oil executive who goes nuts with a gun screaming "Kolkothak is coming!"; Climbing back on the rig, Kenn learns the young missing MAN is a WOMAN, transformed by other-gody magic; All the crew are women, a sort-of Amazon cult; They're dedicated to Kolkothak, a Lovecraftesque alien squid-monster who was buried under the Pacific Ocean--until the oil drilling set it free. 36 pgs. $2.25. Cover price $2.25.
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Issue #16
$2.50
$2.50
First $2.50 cover price. Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Today Is a Long Time Coming, script by Steven Grant, pencils by John Paul Leon and Mike Zeck, inks by Bill Reinhold and Denis Rodier; In a bar, Rocky Davis regales Clay Brody with stories of glory days, including battles with Tyrannosaurus X and the Iron Dictator; And how the Challengers saved the Space Race; Summoned by the President, the Challengers blew into space to find a missing astronaut; They are zapped aboard a spaceship and pitted against the Alien-like Xerons who plan to destroy Earth; When the Challengers get a chance to destroy the planet Xeron, they balk at slaughtering innocents--and win the contest; The drippy-pod Enochians, Guardians of the Space-Time Continuum, tested both races before they ventured into space; The Xerons are banished to their planet for 1,000 years. 36 pgs. $2.50. Cover price $2.50.
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Issue #17
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Shawn Martinbrough. Black Helicopter, script by Steven Grant, pencils by George Freeman, inks by Bill Reinhold; The Challs travel to Idaho to investigate a series of disappearances from a survivalist group. 36 pgs. $2.50. Cover price $2.50.
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Issue #18
$2.70
$2.50
$2.50
Cover pencils by Mike Zeck, inks by Denis Rodier. Saxon's Story, script by Steven Grant, pencils by Mike Zeck, inks by Denis Rodier; Background: Saxon (first name Noel) has dogged the Challengers since their inception; He's an Anti-Challenger resisting all efforts to probe the unknown; When last seen (COTU V3, 9), Saxon was sucked into a Tesla field to who-knows-where; Punks playing at devil worship conjure Saxon back to this world; Saxon visits his dying father and sister in a hospital; A local invites Saxon to a meeting; Lured to the Aristos, cultists of the Eye of the Dark Flame, the flame reveals Saxon's origin: he was also aboard the jet that crashed, but he turned away from the fierce life-altering light; The flame chooses Saxon as the "Champion of the Endtime!"; Saxon rejects demon worship and shoots the place up; Becky is a cultist: she tried to sell Saxon's soul to save their father. Saxon strangles her; Saxon leaves; His SHADOW gloats. 36 pgs. $2.50. Cover price $2.50.
