First Appearance
Created by Jack Kirby in 1957, the Challengers of the Unknown, although obscure now, are considered the first team of heroes in the Silver Age. Note that the term super doesn’t precede the word heroes, for the Challengers of the Unknown didn’t have any superpowers. They were adventurers investigating the weird and disturbing, monsters at first but more paranormal entities as time went on.
It’s characters like these, with a long and rich comic book back story, who could make for interesting human interactions in the Monsters part of the upcoming DCU Gods & Monsters phase.
The Challengers made their debut in Showcase #6. There are 218 copies in the CGC census, none graded higher than 9.0. It’s been a year now since one of those 9.0 copies sold in a June 2022 Heritage auction for a record-setting price of $26,400.
It had been eight years since one had sold previously for $8,664. Would that all comics we held onto for eight years experienced a 205% increase in value.
In the more pedestrian grade of 6.5 there was a sale in the June 6 Heritage auction for $2,160. That’s down almost half from the previous sale in the grade in a March 2022 Heritage auction for $5,280.
There are 14 copies in the 6.5 grade as opposed to the four copies in the 9.0 grade, so not surprising that the lower grade was more subject to the current slide in prices we’ve been seeing for most comics.
Other Showcase Issues
The Challengers of the Unknown made their second appearance in Showcase #7. This was the first issue scripted by Dave Wood, a prolific DC writer from the mid-1950s through the 1960s. He wrote many of the team’s early adventures as well as some of the later ones.
There are 108 graded copies with a singular copy in the 9.2 grade, which last sold in 2006 for $3,594. The most recent sale was a 6.5 going for $1,463 in the March 17 ComicConnect auction.
There were two more appearances by the Challengers in the pages of Showcase: Showcase #11 and Showcase #12. A 9.2 graded Bethlehem Collection pedigree copy of Showcase #11 sold in the March 17 ComicConnect auction for $8,165, the only known sale in that grade.
An 8.5 graded copy of Showcase #12 sold in a September 2022 Heritage auction for $2,640, keeping to what has been a relatively flat sales curve since 2008.
First Series
The Challengers were the first of DC’s Silver Age creations to receive their own series, beginning with Challengers of the Unknown #1 in March 1958. There are 195 copies in the CGC census with a lone 9.4 that has no recorded sales.
An 8.5 sold in the March 15 ComicConnect auction for $4,255, a nice 121% increase over its only other recorded sale for $1,926 in a 2012 eBay auction.
In general, the next seven issues of Challengers of the Unknown are the ones most sought after by collectors. CGC census counts range from 66 for Challengers of the Unknown #3 to 35 for Challengers of the Unknown #5. In the mid to lower grades, most of the issues can be found for roughly $100 or less while peak prices in the higher grades are in the $1,000 to $1,200 range.
Challengers of the Unknown #8 was to be Kirby’s final issue. He would leave for Marvel, where he had a hand in creating something called Fantastic Four that bore some similarities to Challengers of the Unknown. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
Later Series
The initial series of Challengers of the Unknown would survive until the release of Challengers of the Unknown #75 in 1970, with subsequent issues being reprints. The Challengers pretty much disappeared after that until the 1991 release of Challengers of the Unknown #1, the first issue in an eight-issue series detailing the adventures of the team in middle age. B
est known as an early work by the team of Jeph Loeb and the late Tim Sale, there are only a few graded copies of the first issue and none of the later issues.
Final Analysis
And that, unfortunately, is really it for Challengers of the Unknown. While DC has used the team name sporadically over the years, they’ve pretty much butchered the concept. It’s an idea, however, that has a great deal of potential in the DCU with opportunities abounding for adventures in an X-Files vein.
There’s enough weirdness in their stories to attract the interest of James Gunn, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them make at least a guest appearance on the low end and receive a possible TV series on the high end.
Are you a Challengers of the Unknown fan? Do you think they’ll be a part of the DCU? Let us know below.
