My Rating
“Last Days – Part Three of Three”
“Through a Glass, Darkly”
Deep inside a top-secret research facility hidden somewhere in the remote Mojave Desert, the rogue killer known as Saxon has just saved the Challengers of the Unknown from certain death. A group of heavily armed mercenaries had captured both generations of Challengers and received standing orders to shoot to kill. Before the gunmen could pull their triggers, Saxon swooped in and mowed them down.
Both generations of Challengers stand in shock. Marlon Corbet and Matthew Ryans had been attempting to negotiate a surrender when all hell broke loose. Saxon’s reckless gunfire may have saved their lives, but it also ended any chance of learning something from their captors. Before anyone can apprehend him, Saxon disappears deeper into the complex. With few options remaining, the Challengers decide to find whoever is running this mysterious operation.
As the group makes its way toward the command center, they discover enormous power generators and arrays of Tesla coils scattered throughout the facility. The equipment appears capable of producing energy across various frequencies, the type of technology someone might use for experiments involving electromagnetic fields and theoretical physics. Whatever the people behind this operation are trying to accomplish, they certainly aren’t worried about the electric bill.
Things quickly go from strange to downright bizarre. Brilliant lights and powerful magnetic fields begin appearing throughout the complex as the equipment pumps out tremendous amounts of energy. The experiments have apparently weakened the barriers between dimensions, causing holes to open in the fabric separating one reality from another.
Then the entire facility begins to shake.
Mysterious portals rip open throughout the complex, and suddenly a late-model 1980s Cadillac convertible comes screaming through one of the breaches! The driver slams on the brakes, but it’s already too late. Clay Brody crashes the Cadillac land-yacht directly into a Tesla coil, leaving himself and his passengers unconscious amid the chaos.
Will the Challengers of the Unknown stop the machines before they tear the Earth apart from within? Can the original members recover their missing friends, or are they trapped forever in some unknown parallel dimension? Will the two generations finally uncover the truth behind their strange connection? Most importantly, what kind of gas mileage does an ’80s Cadillac land-yacht get anyway? Collect the series to find out!
Review
We finally get some closure! “Last Days” answers several questions surrounding the breakup of the original Challengers while also giving the new generation something they desperately needed—the blessing of their predecessors. After the fragmented storytelling and unanswered questions of the previous issues, it was satisfying to see the two generations come together and finally acknowledge one another. All’s well that ends well.
One of my favorite things about this series is the writers’ attempt to work real-world science into the plots. We get electromagnetic fields, Tesla coils, energy frequencies, field theory, and dimensional barriers mixed into what is essentially a wild science-fiction adventure. Obviously, the comic eventually takes these concepts into fantastic territory, but I appreciate that the writers at least start with recognizable scientific ideas before jumping headfirst into parallel dimensions and Cadillacs flying through portals.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a soft spot for the old Stan Lee school of comic-book science, where a few gamma rays, cosmic rays, or an experimental machine could explain just about anything. However, Challengers of the Unknown takes a different approach. The writers give the strange events enough scientific grounding that I occasionally found myself wondering where the real science ended and the comic-book science began. For a series built around paranormal investigations and unexplained phenomena, that approach works surprisingly well.
Issues #7 through #9 also gave me something I had wanted for several chapters: more information about where these new Challengers came from and how they connect to the original team. Not every mystery gets wrapped up with a neat little bow, but “Last Days” provides enough answers to make the journey worthwhile. The original Challengers can pass the torch, the new team can move forward, and I can finally stop wondering how an eighty-year-old man was doing Olympic backflips. Four out of five stars.