Episode #84 (Superman & The Challengers Of The Unknown)
This time around I will be splitting some of the duties with my Guest Host, Kirk Greenfield. Kirk starts with an introduction of himself and then will tell you about Superman‘s Guests with a Spotlight on The Challengers Of The Unknown. Next, he will take you through DC Comics Presents #84. Finally, I will take us on a trip to The Comic Spinner Rack.
The DC Comics Presents Show 
Nice job, Mr. Greenfield! An odd team-up, to my mind. I don’t see the Challengers of the Unknown as being in the same “class” as Superman, generally, and, in this case, it’s not as if they were really working with Superman, at least not consciously for the most part. The business of the Kryptonian card cancelling Zo-Mar’s super powers isn’t really explained in the story, so I’ll “No Prize” an explanation: Since the card did affect a fully powered Superman, it seems likely it was a magical object. Zo-Mar, as a Kryptonian, would also be vulnerable to magic, so I’ll say that part of the card’s magic cancels out the super powers of its user, which is why Zo-Mar had no powers while using it, but displayed the normal Kryptonian-under-a-yellow-sun powers when lost the card to Superman. Superman wasn’t using the card, so it didn’t cancel his powers. That’s my guess.
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Thanks for your comments, Dave. I learned a lot by doing this project for Russell First, I didn’t know as much about the Challs as I thought…and they’ve changed a great deal over the years. Second, I would have done better to relax and just casually chat about the issue, rather than “lecture”, as I feel this comes across. A tip of the hat to Russell for editing my raw audio to make it fit his format. He added a lot of info that I had either glossed over, or ignored. Third, I have since learned that this issue may be the absolute last work Jack Kirby had ever done for DC…and so, this issue may hold some special significance for Kirby completists. Fourth, I assumed that the listener might not have the cover, flash card or story in front of them, so I belabored the design and image far too much. As I said, it’s a real stretch to make sense of the simple image of the card. (Maybe it doesn’t make sense to us non-Kyrptonians…)
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