1996 series (volume 3)
| Challengers of the Unknown | |
|---|---|
 Cover of issue #4, art by John Paul Leon and Shawn Martinbrough. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics Weirdoverse |
| Schedule | monthly |
| Format | standard |
| Genre | Adventure, Superhero |
| Publication date | February 1997 – July 1998 |
| No. of issues | 18 |
| Main character(s) | Kenn Kawa, Clay Brody, Brenda Ruskin, Marlon Corbet |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Steven Grant |
| Penciller(s) | John Paul Leon |
| Inker(s) | Shawn Martinbrough |
Started as a part of DC's Weirdoverse group of titles, the 1996 series was published for a total of eighteen issues, cover dated February 1997 to July 1998. The characters were a mix of races and were, like the original group, the only survivors of a plane crash:
- Kenn Kawa: A man of Japanese heritage and originally a game designer.
- Clay Brody: A white male, originally a race car driver.
- Brenda Ruskin: A white woman, originally a physicist.
- Marlon Corbet: An African American man, originally the pilot of the plane that crashed.
The 1996 series was originally conceived as the basis for a television series that never came about, as writer Steven Grant revealed in 2000:
COTU (as I took to calling it, to distinguish it from the Jack Kirby's original Challengers of the Unknown, nicknamed "The Challs") actually started a year earlier, when I was brought in to create a new COTU for a TV pitch DC wanted to make to Warners. Yes, it can now be told, and I freely admit, that we threw out the original team because, Space Cowboys aside, trying to pitch a concept built around four aging white guys to a TV market focused on a youth audience and pushing a veneer of multiculturalism (plenty of activist groups argue it's a pretty thin, even invisible, veneer, and they make a good case) would have been flat-out stupid, a waste of everyone's time and money. So: out with Ace, Rocky, Red and Prof; in with Brenda, Kenn, Marlon and Clay.[1]
