The destruction of Darkseid has created four mysterious anomalies, all of which have been channeling omega energy through the Earth’s atmosphere. As the Justice League and their allies scramble to make sense of these events, the Challengers of the Unknown have been placed in charge of the investigations. The teams have been set but Ace, Red, Rocky, June, and the Professor have noticed a vibe of distrust coming from Mister Terrific – Michael Holt.
The next day, on the planet Mars, Ace Morgan became incapacitated by the Ds-Anomaly-A as Superman attempted to cut a sample from the immense structure. Now Ace rests in the Watchtower infirmary as Justice League sensors pick up a strange signal encoded within the waves of omega energy. No one recognized the coded output except for the Challengers of the Unknown electronics expert, June Robbins. She had developed the Base64 computer programming language decades prior when her colleagues created the first sentient robot known as Ultivac.
But how was that possible? That Ultivac was destroyed after a coding bug turned the robot into a homicidal killing machine. Its obsession with death was the sentient machine’s downfall. The Challengers had to destroy their friends and fellow teammates before it could eradicate the entire world. It seems Ultivac has returned in some proportion. Time to investigate the unknown!
Reviewer Notes
I’m really impressed with this issue. Christopher Cantwell has revived some of the old Challengers of the Unknown storylines and confirmed the second iteration of the team is still alive and active. I haven’t kept up with the Challengers’ event since Volume 03, which ended in 1998. Sometime between then and now, the original team members have recovered their youth and original characteristics.
The Darkseid events leading up to this series are unknown to me, but you don’t need any outside source material to jump into this series. I give Challengers of the Unknown Volume 05, issue #02, five out of five stars. Purple-suited Batman should be enough incentive to add this title to your pull list.
