#JackedKirby - Meet The Challengers!!! ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ Jack introduced the Challengers of the Unknown in Showcase #Issue6 for National Comics back in 1957. The team was unlike anything that was being published at the time, and would serve as a precursor to on of Jackโs most important co-creations, the Fantastic Four! ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ One of the coolest aspects of Kirbyโs earliest Challengers Stories with writer Dave Wood has to be the way the duo portrayed the team as being instant โCELEBRITIESโ for their exploits. After all, Rocky/Walter/Ace and Red were not super powered beings... these were regular dudes that had specialties and were part of a cohesive team. But due to their exploits, they were quite famous to regular folks in the real world (at least according to Kirby and Wood they were!) ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ Here is the page that followed the opening splash page in #Issue7 of Showcase which was published in April of 1957 and is the second published Challengers feature. You gotta love the individual exploit panels of each team member, allowing Kirby to convey some powerful abilities on these โregularโ dudes who lacked super Powers!!! We see pilot Ace in an ejector seat, professor Haley in an undersea exploratory vehicle, Red climbing Mount Everest and Rocky wrestling a crocodile!!!! No super Powers... NO PROBLEM!!! ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ One of the funniest things about this issue is it features a naming error of one of the main characters!!! Professor Haley is somehow called PROFESSOR HARRISON for this issue only, with the error being caught and corrected before the teamโs next appearance in Showcase #Issue11. This major oversight is proof positive that the creators in the comic industry in the 50s and 60s were more concerned with pumping out content and meeting deadlines then they were with continuity... a far cry from the meticulously connected continuity of comics soon to come due to the Marvel revolution of the 60s following the release of Fantastic Four Issue 1!!! ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ #JackKirby #KingKirby #Kirby #NationalComics #DCComics #Challengers #ChallengersOfTheUnknown #Rocky #Ace #ProfessorHaley #Red #TeamComics #Showcase #Comic #Comics #ComicBook #ComicBooks #50sComics #ComicsOfThe50s #IGComics https://www.instagram.com/p/BwZgHBhBlZu/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=15thismgdowsa
