"The End" Week: Challengers of the Unknown #87!

I wasn't going to break my usual title formatting, but this would've been the one to do it, since "12 Million Years to Twilight!" is a heck of a title. From 1978, Challengers of the Unknown #87, written by Carla and Gerry Conway, pencils by Keith Giffen, inks by John Celardo. 

We saw the previous issue recently: most of the Challengers were in the future, along with Swamp Thing, Deadman, and a currently hypnotized Rip Hunter. The local evil head honchos, the Sunset Lords, were dumping their genetic mistake monsters in the past, and fighting local rebel Lucas Lawspeaker, who was a telepath that could 'see' Deadman. He advises the ghost to help the Challs, who make an escape attempt before they can be "re-programmed" like Rip had been. Swarmed by mutant guards, Swamp Thing tells the others to fight on, sacrificing himself to give them time...

Meanwhile, in the past, in the best team book tradition, quit team member Red Ryan un-quits, returning to Challenger Mountain as the injured Prof. Haley, in an exo-suit, still fights a bunch of monsters. They squeak out a win, while the Swamp Thing faces the Sunset Lords' cyborg Persauder, beating it.

Lucas Lawspeaker's rebels then attack, while in the past Red and Prof. are able to contact the JLA (and apparently the Demon and Lightray, just because!) to fight off the time-monsters. Beaten, the Sunset Lords are about to blow up the city, but are stopped by Rip Hunter, who breaks free from their mind-control thanks to Deadman. 

With the future now in good hands, everyone heads home in Rip Hunter's time sphere--and then apparently goes their own way, since this was the last issue. We don't see them break-up or say goodbye or anything. Aw, I don't know if the Swamp Thing ever gets to hang out with anybody like that anymore. Deadman either, I suppose. Lucky reader Andy Proctor had just come up with a new title for the book's letters' column, Address: Unknown, too; but it wasn't entirely: the Challengers would appear again in 1982's Adventure Comics #493.(I kind of liked that serial, although I don't know if there's anywhere to get it other than the digests. One episode begins, with one of the team a little irritated after a recent attempt on his life, while the other guys are reading, watching TV, balancing their checkbook...)