Noteworthy Issues: DC Challenge #3 (January, 1986)

Here we go.  The next installment of DC’s experimentation with round-robin storytelling, where each creative team had to pick up where the last one left off with a whole host of rules I covered last time and the time before.

Will it make sense?  As much as it ever does!

Issue:  DC Challenge #3, January 1986

Writer:  Doug Moench

Artists:  Carmine Infantino and Bob Smith

The Plot:  Damned if I know.

Commentary:  OK, to be fair, this series is hardly incomprehensible.  It just has a new creative team doing more or less whatever they want with the previously established story each issue.  Here it’s Doug Moench writing it, DC legend Carmine Infantino on pencils, and Bob Smith on inks.  And with a story that so far has included Superman battling Mongul on the moon, Wonder Woman looking into weird stuff, Batman bouncing all over the place, Aquaman dying in the desert, B’wanna Beast and Congorilla fighting a demon thing, and Jonah Hex in the present behind the wheel of a car about to hit some nuns and kids crossing the street.  With all that in mind, who exactly does the creative team start with?

The Viking Prince, of course.  Oh, and W.C. Fields because there are still these dead celebrities popping up, but since Fields is in the time of the Viking Prince, why would anyone know who Fields is centuries before the real comedian was born?

Wait, am I trying to make sense of DC Challenge?  I think I know where I went wrong.

But the plot moves!  B’wanna Beast and Congorilla beat their foe sort of accidentally!  Aquaman finds moisture long enough to find a lagoon by chomping down on a vulture’s neck and using the animal’s blood to refresh himself!  The bad guys are shapeshifting aliens!  I think!  And Batman brings in Hawkman and Hawkgirl, only for Katar to get zapped to Rann where Adam Strange has his own problems!

Will this ever make sense?  Beats me!  All I know is this issue didn’t work as well for me as #2.

Grade:  B-