Challengers Of The Unknown 1958 3

"The Secret of the Sorcerer's Mirror." The Challengers face a villain who intends to use a sorcerer's tool that will give him magical powers. Plus, "The Menace of the Invincible Challenger." An alien chemical gives Rocky superpowers, but also drives him mad.

Jack Kirby reinvented the superhero genre with his sprawling saga of the Fourth World—a bold storytelling vision that was decades ahead of its time. In honor of this extraordinary talent’s centennial, DC Comics is proud to re-present the groundbreaking work of the King of Comics in a brand-new series collecting his classic DC titles in all their four-color glory! After walking away from a seemingly un-survivable plane crash, test pilot Ace Morgan, mountain climber Red Ryan, heavyweight boxing champ Rocky Davis and underwater explorer Prof Haley make a pact to continue defying death and seeking out mystery around the world. Their motto is “Dare Anything,” and their assignments are the most unusual and incredible tasks ever encountered! There is no danger that they fear, or risk that they will not accept! They call themselves…the Challengers of the Unknown! Discover some of comics’ most daring writing and dynamic art—and thrill to the imaginative power of one of the medium’s greatest masters—in CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN BY JACK KIRBY, collecting all of the King’s stories from SHOWCASE #6-7 and 11-12 and CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #1-8, accompanied by illuminating essays from former DC editor Paul Kupperberg and acclaimed Kirby historian John Morrow.

Four years before Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created Marvel's Fantastic Four, there was another adventurous foursome co-created by Kirby that set forth to challenge the unknown.

ÒTHE CREATURE FROM THE END OF TIME!Ó A giant box appears in Toronto, and the Challengers, accompanied by Swamp Thing and Deadman, investigate. When Deadman tries to enter the box, it opens and releases a monster. After they kill the monster, the Challengers haul the box and carcass to Challengers Mountain, where tests indicate the box is from the future. The heroes fly to Rip HunterÕs desert lab, which appears abandoned. Swamp Thing pushes a button and RipÕs Time Sphere appears with a skeleton inside. They use the time sphere to travel to 12,000,000 AD. Amidst crumbling ruins, they are surrounded by future-men and Rip Hunter in rags and a crown.

ÒTHE WAR AT TIMEÕS END.Ó In the present, Prof is wheelchair-bound in Challengers Mountain, where he is attacked by a mutant lizard from the future. Future-boxes keep releasing monsters around the world, and Red (who quit) battles some in the streets. In the future, Rocky, Ace, June, Swamp Thing and Deadman find Rip Hunter (and his crew) are brainwashed pawns of the despotic Sunset Lords. After a fight, theyÕre overwhelmed and captured, but Deadman, sneaking around in a borrowed body, meets Lucas Lawspeaker and his rebels.

Major Sky Masters leads American space exploration.

Conventional wisdom holds that comic books of the post-World War II era are poorly drawn and poorly written publications, notable only for the furor they raised. Contributors to this thoughtful collection, however, demonstrate that these comics constitute complex cultural documents that create a dialogue between mainstream values and alternative beliefs that question or complicate the grand narratives of the era. Close analysis of individual titles, including EC comics, Superman, romance comics, and other, more obscure works, reveals the ways Cold War culture--from atomic anxieties and the nuclear family to communist hysteria and social inequalities--manifests itself in the comic books of the era. By illuminating the complexities of mid-century graphic novels, this study demonstrates that postwar popular culture was far from monolithic in its representation of American values and beliefs.

"The presence, or absence, of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) can be seen as a proxy for poverty and for the success of interventions aimed at reducing poverty. Today, coverage of the public-health interventions recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) against NTDs may be interpreted as a proxy for universal health coverage and shared prosperity - in short, a proxy for coverage against neglect. As the world's focus shifts from development to sustainable development, from poverty eradication to shared prosperity, and from disease-specific goals to universal health coverage, control of NTDs will assume an important role towards the target of achieving universal health coverage, including individual financial risk protection. Success in overcoming NTDs is a "litmus test" for universal health coverage against NTDs in endemic countries. The first WHO report on NTDs (2010) set the scene by presenting the evidence for how these interventions had produced results. The second report (2013) assessed the progress made in deploying them and detailed the obstacles to their implementation. This third report analyses for the first time the investments needed to achieve the scale up of implementation required to achieve the targets of the WHO Roadmap on NTDs and universal coverage against NTDs. INVESTING TO OVERCOME THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES presents an investment strategy for NTDs and analyses the specific investment case for prevention, control, elimination and eradication of 12 of the 17 NTDs. Such an analysis is justified following the adoption by the Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly in 2013 of resolution WHA6612 on neglected tropical diseases, which called for sufficient and predictable funding to achieve the Roadmap's targets and sustain control efforts. The report cautions, however, that it is wise investment and not investment alone that will yield success. The report registers progress and challenges and signals those that lie ahead. Climate change is expected to increase the spread of several vector-borne NTDs, notably dengue, transmission of which is directly influenced by temperature, rainfall, relative humidity and climate variability primarily through their effects on the vector. Investments in vector-borne diseases will avoid the potentially catastrophic expenditures associated with their control. The presence of NTDs will thereby signal an early warning system for climate-sensitive diseases. The ultimate goal is to deliver enhanced and equitable interventions to the most marginalized populations in the context of a changing public-health and investment landscape to ensure that all peoples affected by NTDs have an opportunity to lead healthier and wealthier lives."--Publisher's description.