I would say, then, that all mysteries after Poe tend to follow either the rational model of the Dupin stories, where the detective's acumen resolves all the problems, and or the irrational model of "The Oblong Box," where even the solution of a given problem merely generates a sense of greater mystery, often of some mystery that remains insoluble.-- RATIONAL AND IRRATIONAL PROBLEMS, 2019.
In Part 2 of this series, I mentioned that Infantino's investment in infusing "Rational DC" with the irrationality of the Gothic was signified by (1) the "spookification" of HOUSE OF MYSTERY and the debut of DEADMAN, both in 1967, and (2) the reinvention of the 1950s character The Phantom Stranger in SHOWCASE #80, in 1969. But in between those two, another DC stalwart showed similar changes in 1968, a little before the Bat-books went full-bore Gothic. I have no direct testimony that Infantino intervened to alter the direction of DC's CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, which had dealt with rationalized versions of the metaphenomenal since its genesis under Jack Kirby and Dave Wood.
For roughly six years Arnold Drake had been writing the CHALLENGERS title, often with art by Bob Brown, and all of their contributions had fallen into the rational model. By some odd chance, their last two issues on the title effectively launched the irrational, Gothic direction for the remainder of the series' original run. In issue 62 (June-July 1968), Drake introduced a new set of villains for the heroes, The Legion of the Weird, which comprised five villainous wizards from different cultures: the vaguely East European Count Karnak. the Egyptian Kaftu, the possibly American Mistress Wycker, the archaic Brit druid Hordred, and the unspecifically Indian medicine man Madoga. Drake had used this multicultural approach to sorcerous evildoers before in a 1964 Mark Merlin story, which took much the same rational approach as everything else DC published in that year.
The Legion "weirdies," as one panel calls them, uses various mystic forces against the Challengers, not least with a gigantic mummy named Tukamenon. However, for whatever reason Drake and Brown were unable to finish the Legion's battle with the "Challs."
Though #63 ended in a cliffhanger, the next two issues of CHALLENGERS were fill-in stories written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Jack Sparling, who would be the closest thing the title had to a regular penciler. Though many of the stories that followed involved mad science as much as mysticism, Sparling, whatever his limitations, was much better than Brown at rendering freaky-deaky visuals, so it's not unlikely he was selected for just that purpose.
Issue #66 finishes up the Legion of the Weird story with Sparling and a Mike Friedrich script. The villains are defeated but escape, never (as far as I know) to return. Denny O'Neil then took over the series for the remainder of its original run, and he certainly showed even more penchant for supernatural mystery-stories than anyone previous. O'Neil's stories for the title were as pedestrian as those of Drake and Kanigher. but there are a couple of minor landmarks in his run. In #69 O'Neil finds a reason to get charter Challenger Prof Haley out of the way so that he can bring in the Challengers' first regular female member, Corrinna Stark, to take Prof's place. In the early sixties the Challs had a recurring "irregular female member" named June Robbins, but Corrinna was the first regular female Challenger.
O'Neil didn't really think that much about the character, though. She starts out helping the Challs because her mad-scientist father half-killed Prof, but though she offered to take Prof's place, she didn't really have any skill except that of being a hot girl, depending on whether she was drawn by Sparling, Dick Dillin or George Tuska. Three or four issues into O'Neil's run, Corrinna suddenly gets psychic medium-powers for the sake of some more spooky stories, and there's a moderately entertaining story in #74 that guest-stars both Deadman and O'Neil's private dick Jonny Double. Then in #75, Corrinna and the four guys finish the last of the mag's new material with a one-page introduction to a Kirby reprint, and such reprints take up the rest of the issues until cancellation with #80. (Technically the book on its bimonthly schedule ended in #77 and the last three Kirby reprint-issues appeared about two years later, in 1973.) There's a mention of Jack Kirby's new works for DC in the lettercol to issue #76 (1970), and that's probably the only reason the dying book went reprint at all. Someone, maybe Infantino, thought that Kirby fans might desert Marvel to pick up anything the King did at DC, even old work that was largely out of fashion.
So the CHALLENGERS title spent most of its life as Rational Fantasy, detoured into Irrational Fantasy for its last two years, and then went back to its origins for its unspectacular finish. Infantino's Gothic preoccupations had some great results for the Bat-titles and tapped a market for horror-tales that Marvel never quite accessed. But despite preceding PHANTOM STRANGER into the new Weirdie terrain, "Gothic Challengers" is a mostly forgotten chapter in DC history.
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