''Challengers of the Unknown'' is the title of a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

series used on various occasions by

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

. Most of these series dealt with the original

Challengers of the Unknown The Challengers of the Unknown is a fictional group of adventurers appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The quartet of adventurers explored paranormal occurrences while facing several fantastic menaces. The characters' provenance is ...

. The concept behind this team was a group of individuals surviving a disaster (a plane crash with the original group) and deciding to collectively do something with the "borrowed time" they have left. On two occasions DC used the name and concept, with a new set of characters, as the basis for a new series. The first of these two, intended to be an

ongoing series In comics, an ongoing series is a series that runs indefinitely. This is in contrast to limited series (a series intended to end after a certain number of issues thus limited), a one shot (a comic book which is not a part of an ongoing series), ...

, was published from late 1996 to mid-1998. The second was a six-issue

limited series Limited series may refer to: *Limited series, individual storylines within an anthology series *Limited series, a particular run of collectables, usually individually numbered *Limited series (comics), a comics series with a predetermined number of ...

published in 2004.

1996 series (volume 3)

Started as a part of DC's

Weirdoverse The Weirdoverse is a group of semi-related comic book series published from late 1996 to 1998 by DC Comics. The idea of Dan Thorsland (the editor of all four series), the Weirdoverse titles were connected by the fact that they all fell into the my ...

group of titles, the 1996 series was published for a total of eighteen issues,

cover date The cover date of a periodical publication is the date displayed on the cover, which is not necessarily the true date of publication (the on-sale date or release date); later cover dates are common in magazine and comic book publishing. More unusu ...

d February 1997 to July 1998. The characters were a mix of races and were, like the original group, the only survivors of a plane crash: * Kenn Kawa: A man of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese heritage and originally a

game designer Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in ...

. * Clay Brody: A white male, originally a

race car driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...

. * Brenda Ruskin: A white woman, originally a

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. * Marlon Corbet: An

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

man, originally the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

of the plane that crashed. The 1996 series was originally conceived as the basis for a

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

series that never came about, as writer

Steven Grant Steven Grant (born October 22, 1953) is an American comic book writer best known for his 1985–1986 Marvel Comics mini-series ''The Punisher'' with artist Mike Zeck and for his creator-owned character Whisper. Biography Comic books Grant has ...

revealed in 2000:

2004 series (volume 4)

The 2004 series was a six-issue limited series, written and drawn by

Howard Chaykin Howard Victor Chaykin (; born October 7, 1950) is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker. Early life ...

. Unlike the other two versions this group didn't originate in a plane crash, instead, it was made up of survivors of a large scale terrorist attack in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

: *Zach Dyamond *Tessa Crowne *Rydell Starr *Kendra Harte *Holden Crosse

Collected editions

References

External links

* * * *{{comicbookdb, type=title, id=7498, title=''Challengers of the Unknown'' (2004 series) 1997 comics debuts 2004 comics debuts Comics by Howard Chaykin DC Comics titles DC Comics limited series