“Yesterday’s” Comic> Challengers Of The Fantastic

“Can you help me? I have a major hangnail.”

Challengers Of The Fantastic

Amalgam (Marvel; June, 1997)

A successful test of the cosmic ray shielding could have still been tragic when Victor Von Doom betrayed Reed “Prof” Richards and Sue “Ace” Storm, agent of SHIELD. The ship crashed but Reed and Sue, joined by Sue’s brother, Johnny “Red” Storm and Senator Ben “Rocky”  Grimm, decided that cheating death to help others (since they were all on borrowed time), to challenge the fantastic, would be their new way of life. However, they would soon face their greatest challenge in the form of Galactciac, who has come to destroy the Earth! And June Masters’ computer, Computo, has predicted one of them will die. It turns out to be Johnny’s little clone self, whom the Silver Racer had come to claim, but Doom, now known as Doomsday, gets to the god of death first and steals his cosmic power as part of his continued war on Richards.

What they got right: I’ll get into it in the amalgamation reviews but I like how they got the Challengers to imitate the powers of their Fantastic Four counterparts. The story borrows heavily from the Four’s first meeting with Galactus, right down to the chapter names (which is why I didn’t add an issue title to the credits) and the often-reworked story of Doctor Doom grabbing the Silver Surfer’s powers, but we do get a different take thanks to the DC elements. As a bonus, the Amalgam version of Earth-2 merged DC’s old Earth Two with Marvel’s failed “New Universe” imprints, as Reed mentions Spitfire & The Blackhawks and the Infinity Kickers Inc. (I wonder what he would have merged Star Brand with?)

What they got wrong: For some it may borrow TOO heavily from an existing FF story instead of giving us a new adventure. Admittedly it does come off as simply a “What If?” style story. (I wonder what the Amalgam version of What If? and Elseworlds would be called?)

• Reed “Prof” Richards (Mister Fantastic/Prof Haley): I’ve only read one Challengers Of The Unknown story so it’s hard for me to judge how well the amalgamations go so I can only review the character. To replace Reed’s stretching powers he’s forced to use Doctor Octavius’s robot arms. (Remember, in the Amalgam universe Doc Ock helps out Spider-Boy, and yes, they do mention that Reed was cured of the evil DNA between Amalgam sets.) He seems less of a jerk than Reed can be though.
• Sue “Ace” Storm (Invisible Woman/Ace Morgan): I don’t know what to make of this one. I guess Sue’s haircut is to match Ace’s (who is actually the pilot so why isn’t HE merged with Ben Grimm?) but it doesn’t do her any favors. Neither is the fact that she is torn between Reed and the Aqua-Mariner (the merger of Aquaman and Sub-Marnier who is part of JLX). Like I said, the story is TOO close to the FF of the time. She gets a force field belt that she’s only able to use once so she really gets the short end of this story. She also got the short end in the Fantastic Four stories of those days so I wonder if that’s Kesel’s further tribute to this story?
• Ben “Rocky” Grimm (Ben Grimm/Rocky Davis): Looking at Rocky’s DC Database page Rocky was never a senator. Why is Ben a senator? He’s turned into a four-armed version of the Thing by Galactiac (which Reed and Sue trick into destroying his master’s machine, which turns him back to normal), and I don’t know if that’s a reference to something that happened to Rocky (being four-armed) but in a twist this Ben wants to be a controlled version of that thing so he can be a help to the Challengers in the future.
• Johnny “Red” Storm (Johnny Storm/Red Ryan): Did Red have an action figure-sized clone of himself? I see no evidence of it. The Marvel fan wiki claims he’s actually tied to the Scrapper-Trooper of the Newsboys, which I think he was connected to in Spider-Boy. The clone, mentally linked to Johnny by Uatu The Guardian due to Johnny’s gaming skills, destroys Galactiac’s body from inside thanks to a flamethrower. It works.
• June Masters (June Robbins/Alicia Masters): I don’t know if June and Rocky were romantically involved at all but she’s only here to be another red herring as to which Challenger is going to die (she has honorary status like Johnny Stormtrooper, Red’s mini-clone). She also fulfills Alicia’s role in the original story by convincing the Silver Racer to help fight Galactiac.
• Silver Racer (Silver Surfer/Black Racer): Again, just filling a role. I’m guessing the only reason they went with this fusion is because the Black Racer uses skis while the Silver Surfer uses a surfboard and for Kesel’s purposes those paraphernalia were interchangeable. At least they were able to adapt Black Racer’s job for the Surfer.
• Uatu The Guardian: I understand that there aren’t a lot of options on the DC side for the Watchers since the DCU doesn’t have a counterpart, but why the Guardians? Wouldn’t they be the exact opposite since all they do is interfere, via the Green Lanterns? Why not use a Linear Man, or even Waverider?
• Galactiac (Galactus/Brainiac): Soooooo….that amalgamation happened. I’m guessing it has something to do with them both being connected to dead planets or something, and Brainiac’s stealing cities thing is included, but like all of the other amalgamations this only exists so Kesel can homage the origin and Galactus storylines.

Would I buy the series: If the series was nothing but homages to Fantastic Four adventures, probably not. While I can respect what they did in this story it lacks some of the imagination of the other Amalgam comics I’ve looked it. And making the Red Ghost the liaison for a commie-run Gorilla City (I didn’t know it was in Crimea) doesn’t count.

Recommendation: While rather weak as an Amalgam story thanks to Kesel just rewriting the Galactus story with amalgamated characters, it still stands a fun idea, just not one that works in this grouping. Ah, check it out anyway.