DC Universe Presents #6: Challengers of the Unknown

Normal humans versus a mountain! Who will win?!

The second chapter in the DC Universe Presents series focuses on a group of heroes I've never been interested in and is also written by Dan DiDio who did OMAC. Now a lot of people seemed to think OMAC was fun but more people thought OMAC wasn't even worth giving a chance. I thought DiDio concentrated too much on the mindless mayhem and not enough on Kevin Kho's OCD. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. But this isn't about OMAC! This is about the Challengers of the Unknown! Who are these people? Well, let me tell you about their old DCU version!

Oh My Chaos, Tim Sale! You are the most horriblest artist ever! Didn't you also shit all over No Man's Land? Was that your feces in that?

Here we see the Challengers of the Unknown! Red (probably because he has red hair)! Rocky (probably because he's the muscles)! Ace (probably because he's the leader)! And Prof (probably because he's the smart one)! The names of these guys line up fairly well with my synopsis of human groups without super powers I wrote about in Blackhawks #1. Here we have the Muscle-man, the leader and the nerdy technician. So Red is either the Fat Guy or the Woman. Maybe he's a fat skinny guy. Or he's a woman in disguise since this team began in 1957 and no freedom loving group of explorers was going to be slowed down by some woman in a house dress and apron!

The description in Who's Who keeps using the word "diverse" to describe them. I guess since you can only tell them apart by their hair color, you kind of need to be convinced that they're all totally different. They were a group of diverse talents brought together to get young kids off the couch and exercising! Or to inspire them to greatness. One of those. Basically, they were the Monkees of the Super Hero world. And like the Monkees, they were brought together for marketing purposes but then went on to become what they had been faking being all along! For the Monkees, they became real musicians (I know a bunch of you cynical assholes are snickering at that. They had some really decent subversive songs for their time. Also a song about date rape!). For the Challengers of the Unknown, they became real heroes!

Okay, enough with the time travel. It's time to learn about the New Challengers of the Unknown! The group with an actual female in it!

The story opens with an article from Cat Grant of the Daily Planet, Arts and Entertainment Editor, about a reality show called "Challengers."

I like the premise so far but what d-list celebrities exist in the DCNU? Just made up ones that will be as interesting as if they weren't celebrities anyway, right?

Ace and Maverick are piloting the plane (although the cover shows it as a helicopter) loaded with minor celebrities. We know they're celebrities because Brenda has big boobs and a viral video and Kenny Kawa was 4 million followers on his, ugh, "Flutter" account. I really hate the Comics versions of real life corporations or products. Especially Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, and Starbucks. This version of Red is a musician. Since he's D-list, he's a one hit wonder, of course. Rocky is also on board and he's probably some Ulitmate Fighting phenom. There's also some guy named Clay who knows more about the location their headed to than he's letting on. And then a mountain walks in front of the plane!

The mountain says, "You will be my vessel."

And then everybody's lost!

Get it? LOST! Plane crash! Bwa ha ha ha!

No, they're not lost at all. Just Ace the Mountain Vessel is lost. The rest of them wake up in Nanda Parbat, the city of the God, Rama Kushna, that turned Boston Brand into Deadman. Will all of the DC Universe Presents comics have some link between them? That would be interesting.

Before waking up, June has a nightmare in which Ace is killing everyone because they should have died and because he's unlike the others. Of course he's not! He's been possessed by a talking mountain! June is also led to believe he's dead by the High Priest of Rama Kushna. She's told his body was placed in the Well of Souls which lies just beyond the walls of the city. She jumps to the conclusion that he's dead.

Since the trip to the Himalayas was Challenger's host Clay Brody (like Brodie from Mallrats who becomes a game show host?!) chose the locale and hinted to June that there was a bigger reason for the trip than the game show, June heads to him for an explanation.

And now Ace wants revenge!

The high priest of Rama Kushna (and since the God is named Rama KUSHna, I'm pretty sure the title is the high as in stoned priest of Rama Kushna) brings everybody together for their after-plane-crash feast. Red speculates on what might be happening.

I don't think that's it either. It's more like Big Brother than Amazing Race. But I am willing to bet the whole thing is part of the television show!

During dinner, the entire cast are given drugged wine and they pass out. They wake up in the snowy Himalayas around the wreckage of the plane. Now it's more like a reality show based on Alive! They're all wearing parkas with the Challengers of the Unknown hourglass symbol on the left breast. But Ace is still nowhere to be seen, dead or alive.

A rescue helicopter appears but can't find a place to land so they have to climb the mountain to get to where it can land. That's how the reader learns that Red wasn't just a one hit wonder with his song, "Heart's Mountain", he was also an expert mountain climber! As they climb, something beneath the surface of the mountain begins chasing them! But they manage to reach the chopper without losing anybody. It's all very exciting and tense! Not really. But it might be if I were watching it live instead of sitting in my cozy little office eating Oreo cookies and drinking Iced Tea while my cat in a shirt snores beside me.

Here is my cat in his shirt. He keeps licking his chest raw. The shirt is the cure. The shirt is also cut up the back and flopping open because he's much bigger than in infant. I guess I should have purchased the 3 month old set. The shirt says, "Mommy's little explorer" on it. It is quite the humiliation for a cat.

And a picture from the comic as well:

Shit. How much more can go wrong? Which one of them is going to get Space Madness?

Nobody gets Space Madness and none of them end up being a serial killer and no pack of rabid dogs attacks them. Instead, Clay Brody the Host is swallowed by a Great Old One.

This is even more suspicious. The host disappears first? Yeah, this is a television show!

DC Universe Presents #6: Challengers of the Unknown Rating: No change. So far, I like the premise and it's written well. Or else I'm just in a positive mood! But this comic really doesn't have much chance to go any higher in the rankings. It would have to do something spectacular for that to happen! From what I read about the old Challengers of the Unknown, I really have a feeling this entire thing is a television show set-up which will make the Challengers super famous as adventurers. It will only be later stories where they'll have to really take on the mantle and do some serious super heroics. Although, the whole thing might be a set-up but maybe there will be one thing the producers didn't count on and things will go horribly wrong. Like maybe Ace being the Vessel of whatever he's the Vessel of. And the Challengers will end up really saving the day as they're filmed live for their television reality show.