Cover: Keith Giffen & Romeo Tanghal

Adventure Comics #493

Nov 1982 · DC · 1.25 USD; 1.50 CAD

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“When Destiny Calls!”

About this Issue

Adventure Comics #493 holds a specific place in DC publishing history as one of the digest-format issues that kept one of comics' oldest titles alive during a transitional moment: after Adventure Comics was effectively cancelled with #490, DC revived it in a smaller, newsstand-friendly digest format beginning with #491, and #493 sits squarely in that endangered run. The issue's new Challengers of the Unknown story — dedicated to Jack Kirby, the team's co-creator — represents one of the handful of genuinely original features produced during the entire digest era, alongside a curated anthology of reprints spanning more than two decades of DC history. Its reprint of Adventure Comics #282 (March 1961) brings Star Boy's debut — the first appearance of Thom Kallor, one of the earliest Legionnaires added after the Legion's founding trio — to a new generation of readers alongside Paul Levitz commentary contextualizing Legion history. The issue thus functions simultaneously as a time capsule of DC's anthology tradition and as a bridge connecting Silver Age Legion mythology to early-1980s readers discovering those stories for the first time in digest form.

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writer Steve Skeates · artist, inker, letterer Jim Aparo · colorist Bob LeRose · cover Keith Giffen, Romeo Tanghal

More listings for this title

VG $3.2 FINE $6.5 FN $6.8 FINE $8.95 FN $9.98 FN/VF · Newsstand $9.99 VF $12 Newsstand $12.95

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History

Adventure Comics was cancelled as a standard-format ongoing with issue #490 (February 1982), but DC moved quickly to rescue the numbering by relaunching it in digest size starting with #491 — a format then being used to target supermarket and drug-store checkout aisles. Editor Carl Gafford, working under managing editor Dick Giordano, assembled #493 as a mix of one new story and several curated reprints, a format that defined the entire digest run from #491 through #503. The new Challengers of the Unknown feature, written by Bob Rozakis with art by George Tuska (who had worked on the team's original run years before) and a cover by Keith Giffen and Romeo Tanghal, was explicitly dedicated to Jack Kirby, honoring the Challengers' co-creator in the pages of a title trying to honor its own deep legacy.

Trivia · 8 facts

Cover date: November 1982; on-sale date: August 5, 1982. Published in digest size (approximately 5" × 7"), part of the relaunched Adventure Comics digest run covering issues #491–503.
The only original story in the issue is the Challengers of the Unknown installment 'When Destiny Calls,' written by Bob Rozakis with pencils by George Tuska and inks by Andy Mushynsky; the story is dedicated to Jack Kirby, co-creator of the Challengers.
Cover pencils by Keith Giffen, inks by Romeo Tanghal; editing by Carl Gafford (editor) and Dick Giordano (managing editor); colors by Anthony Tollin; letters by Gaspar Saladino.
The Superboy story reprinted is 'Lana Lang and the Legion of Super-Heroes' from Adventure Comics #282 (March 1961) — the first appearance of Star Boy (Thom Kallor of Xanthu), written by Otto Binder and drawn by George Papp. In this original 1961 story, Lightning Lad is still referred to by his earlier name, Lightning Boy.
The Aquaman reprint — drawn by Jim Aparo, written by Steve Skeates — features Black Manta in a story involving Mera's abduction, and is taken from Adventure Comics #419.
The Zatanna reprint 'A Nightmare Called Gorgonus,' written by Len Wein with art by Dick Giordano, also originates from Adventure Comics #419.
Writer Paul Levitz provided published commentary on the two Legion stories reprinted in the issue, helping contextualize Legion continuity for readers newly encountering the Silver Age tales.
The Challengers of the Unknown's new five-part origin retelling, of which this issue contains one chapter, ran across Adventure Comics #492–497 and represents the final original ongoing series to appear in the title before the book became entirely reprints.