Challengers of the Unknown: Archives - Volume 2
In 1957 comics legend Kirby created the Challengers of the Unknown, a team of four adventurers who, having survived what should have been a fatal plane crash, devoted their lives to heedless risk taking since they were, as the scripts repeatedly iterated, living on borrowed time, anyway. (They borrowed enough time for the comic to survive well into the 1970s.) Mixing sf, high adventure, nonstop action, and scant characterization, the series may be seen as a prototype for Kirby's far-more-successfulFantastic Four, which debuted in 1961 and owed much of its appeal to the heroes' vivid personalities, courtesy of writer Stan Lee. In the contents of the second book reprinting Kirby's entire Challengers run, fellow comics legend Wally Wood inked over Kirby's pencil drawings in a collaboration brilliantly yoking Kirby's power and Wood's high-tech sheen. The Challengers' longevity--attempts to revive the strip continue to this day--testifies to the strength of Kirby's concept. None of his successors, however, came close to matching his blend of visual pizzazz and unabashed derring-do.Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved