Quarter Bin 106 "Challengers of the Unknown"

Challengers of the Unknown #5 (DC)
from July 1991

This was a series I originally discovered, randomly, rummaging through back issues, so it's always nice finding it again that way, even though eventually I read the complete story in the trade paperback collection that ought to be reprinted, perennially, as the classic it is.  Unfortunately it's mostly remembered, if at all, as the first pairing of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, who later ended up collaborating on Batman: The Long Halloween, and a host of other stuff that brought them far greater acclaim.

Reading an issue again, now, is to be reminded just how special it really was, a truly inspired work of art in which Loeb felt free to write exactly as he wanted, completely untethered.  I became an amateur fan of the Challengers after discovering this, and sampled later versions, but beside the fact that none of those could ever hope to compete with it, I'm still surprised that DC hasn't even tried to bring them back recently, whether in the New 52 or, so far, in Rebirth.  Heck, even in the new Young Animal line.  Loeb's Challengers, like disgraced Gerard Jones's Green Lantern: Mosaic, was Vertigo material that was never identified as Vertigo material, even though in hindsight it clearly was, as Vertigo was in its nascent days, when Grant Morrison was doing Animal Man and Doom Patrol, and not so much The Invisibles. 

Reading these original issues also helps me keep tabs with what readers were thinking.  And you know the concept is doomed when the editor is begging those readers to spread the word, "and with any hope there will be more!"  This never means anything good.  And it's a shame to report, more than a quarter century later, that this stuff is still waiting to be discovered.