1958. Communists, aliens, terrorists. As the nation faced these many dangers, President Eisenhower brought together the greatest heroes of the day as the Avengers. Together, they protect America from the threats of this world and of others. Avengers 1958 Annual #1 Written by Bob Gansler

Cast of Characters

Previously

Marvel Boy (Bob Grayson)  An Earthman armed with the skills and science of the Eternals of Uranus.  Human Robot  A thinking and feeling robot Gorilla-Man (Ken Hale)  A man cursed to to live in the form of a powerful gorilla. 3-D Man (Hal & Chuck Chandler)  When Hal dons a special pair of glasses, his brother Chuck emerges as the triple-power 3-D Man. Venus  Olympian goddess of love  Nemo  The former youth "Subbie", now revealed to be a clone of Namor the Sub-Mariner.

Six of the members of the mighty Avengers - Marvel Boy, Venus, 3-D Man, Gorilla-Man, Human Robot and Nemo - were gathered in the Oval Office before President Eisenhower. The team had responded to a request from the President relayed via Interplanetary Cosmic Radio. The five core members had been meeting at their headquarters at Heath Airfield on Long Island. The part-time member Nemo happened to be checking in with the team when Eisenhower's call came.

"Nice to see you all again," Eisenhower said earnestly. "It's especially nice to see you again, Nemo. It's been a while."

While Nemo did have the genetic makeup of the oft-times arrogant Sub-Mariner, his demeanor was much more well-behaved. Perhaps it was because he could not ignore the confident aura of power that Eisenhower radiated. "Good to see you again, Mr. President."

"How's your cousin, Namora?" Eisenhower asked.

"She's fine," Nemo replied. "She's busy trying to find Namor. She's determined to find him."

"I'm sure she will," the chief executive nodded. "The Sub-Mariner was a big factor in the Allied war effort, him and the rest of the Liberators. I hope nothing bad befell him, as seemed to many of his comrades."

"You called us here for a reason, sir?" Marvel Boy spoke up.

"Yes, I did, son. I did, indeed." Eisenhower handed a map to the nominal leader of the Avengers. "You recognize the location?"

The Human Robot's photo-electric eyes focused on the map. "The island nation known as Iceland. Territory - 100,250 square kilometers, estimated 1960 population – 175,000."

"Quite right," Eisenhower chuckled. "More importantly, it's the location of one of our naval air stations, in the city of Keflavik to be particular."

Venus winced at the mention of the words "naval air station". Anything that pertained to the sphere of her fellow Olympian Mars made her uncomfortable. What other reaction would be appropriate from the goddess of love?

Gorilla-Man jostled Nemo with an elbow. "Have you been sinking ships again, fishface?"

Before Nemo could respond, 3-D Man put his hand on Gorilla-Man's hairy shoulder. "Don't give him grief, furry face. Nemo's an Avenger."

Gorilla-Man had to strain to work against the force that 3-D Man was applying with his triple-powered strength. He did manage to move the red gloved hand off of his shoulder. "I'm just kidding with him, 3-D. Don't get your goggles all steamed."

"Ahem," the President interrupted. "The reason that I called you Avengers in is that there has been strange activity around the naval station there."

"What kind of activity, sir? Communist activity?" Marvel Boy asked.

"We don't if the Reds are involved or not," Eisenhower responded. "Starting last night, there's been a great deal of electromagnetic activity in that area. Bright flashing lights in the sky, radio interference, radar interference, sonar interference."

"You think the Commies are thinking to attack the base?" Gorilla-Man bellowed.

"It's possible," Eisenhower admitted cautiously. "We do use the base to help keep tabs on the Soviets' Atlantic Fleet."

"Is there any data on the cause of the interference," the Human Robot queried.

"None at all," the President sighed. "I'm loathe to put the fleet on alert because of it. I don't want to create an escalating situation, especially if the Reds are behind it. That's why I want you to find out what the cause is, and put a stop to it, whatever it is."

"You can count on us, sir," Marvel Boy announced. "Will we be getting the assistance of Captain and Bucky or the Cold Warrior?"

"No," the president shook his head. "Director Hoover says that he needs them for a stateside mission of some sort."

"Mr. Hoover won't tell you what it is?" 3-D Man asked.

"Hoover has a lot of years and power built up here in Washington." He folded his hands in front of him. "Even the President of the United States doesn't have complete control over him."

"I guess we'll have to make do without them, then." Marvel Boy smiled. Missions seemed to go much better when 'Hoover's boys' were not involved, at least in his opinion.

"Best of luck to you, Avengers," Eisenhower stated.

"Thank you, Mr. President," Venus answered. "We'll do all we can to keep the world from plunging into another horrible war."

The northeasterly trip in the Silver Bullet across the Atlantic did not take long. After radioing the station for landing clearance, Marvel Boy brought the sleek craft to a soft touchdown on one of the air-strips. A detail of enlisted men escorted the Avengers to the commanding officer's office.

As the Avengers entered the office, the commanding officer, Admiral Jack Kelsey greeted them. "Thank you for coming, Avengers. The President notified us that you were coming, but I didn't realize that you would be here so quickly. What kind of speed can that ship of yours make?"

"Faster than you could believe," Marvel Boy said proudly.

Kelsey was somewhat taken aback by Marvel Boy's smug answer. "Be that as it may, I wish I had been notified that you would arrive so soon. My men haven't had time to prepare proper quarters for you."

"That's quite all right, Admiral," 3-D Man replied. "We won't be staying at the base long. If you could give us whatever information you have about the disturbances, we'll get cracking. Hopefully, we can clear everything up before nightfall."

"Don't have much in terms of hard intelligence," Kelsey shrugged. "Lots of interference. Radio, sonar, radar, you name it. If you ask me, it's the Reds."

"It may be," Marvel Boy replied. "If you could give me whatever data tapes you have, we'll run it though the computers onboard the Bullet and come up with a search plan."

"You want to do what?" Kelsey laughed. "Any computer you got on that ship of yours isn't going to be able to do much more than put 2 and 2 together and get 4 on a good day. I have computers that take up a whole building to analyze our data. The day that they can fit a computer in a vehicle is the day I retire from the navy. Rotten machines!" He looked over to the Human Robot. "No offense."

"None taken," the Human Robot responded mechanically.

"The electronics industry is moving very quickly," 3-D Man proclaimed. "I'll bet someday everybody will have a computer in their home."

"Dream on," Gorilla-Man sighed.

With the help of some of Kelsey's men, the Avengers gathered up all of the data tapes and brought them back to the Silver Bullet. Nemo, 3-D Man, Venus, and Gorilla-Man sat down to wait while Marvel Boy and Human Robot got to work. The Human Robot had opened his chest plate to allow access to his internal tape drive. He fed in some of the tapes to do some pre-processing while Marvel Boy prepared the Silver Bullet's onboard computers.

As the Human Robot's circuits went to work on the data, new data tapes were printing and scrolling out. Marvel Boy fed these new tapes into the computers and skillfully adjusted the many levers and dials of the computer. He then waited by the output port for the results of the analysis. After a few minutes of churning, a printed report emerged from the output port.

"Hmm." Marvel Boy looked at the report studiously. "Interesting."

"Care to enlighten the rest of us regular human brains?" Gorilla-Man asked sarcastically.

Marvel Boy looked up, a twinge of disdain in his eyes. "There's not a whole lot of data to go on, but whatever this occurrence is, it's certainly not a natural phenomenon."

"How can you be certain of that?" Venus asked.

"I've cross-referenced it against every known natural phenomenon - aurora borealis, sunspots, even atomic activity - and there's no match at all."

"So even the vaunted mental powers of Marvel Boy can be stymied," Nemo chuckled and Gorilla-Man joined him.

Staring at them, Marvel Boy continued. "I may not know what it is, but I know where it is. By interpolation, I've deduced that the center of the effect is located a few miles inland from the base. We'll zoom up there and see what we find."

"All I see is a lot of nothing." Gorilla-Man commented brusquely. "I don't know about the radio or radar, but I certainly haven't seen any lights in the sky or nothing."

"You will." Marvel Boy took a quick look at the Bullet's chronometer. "In about ten seconds."

All of the Avengers moved towards a porthole to get a view of the outside. After ten seconds, the sky became ablaze with multi-colored lights. The colors swirled into one another, lighting the entire landscape and giving it the look of the work of some sort of deranged painter.

"Great Neptune!" Nemo exclaimed.

"I'm sure the lord of the sea has nothing to do with it," Venus said sadly. She had fought against Neptunia because of the Sea King's death at the hands of an undersea atomic bomb test.

The fantastic display in the sky was even more pronounced when the Avengers arrived at the place Marvel Boy claimed was the center of the activity. After the Silver Bullet touched down, they all filed out, expecting to find something there. However, all that was there was the frozen Icelandic landscape.

3-D Man put his hand over his goggles and peered with his triple-powered sight, but he saw nothing unusual. The Human Robot's photo-electric eyes picked up nothing, even when he switched to other bands of the spectrum. Nemo's eyes, strengthened by years in the murky depths of the ocean, could see nothing that could explain the overhead light show.

"There's nothing here, Spaceboy!" Gorilla-Man raged. "You sure you did your figuring right?"

"Of course," Marvel Boy shrugged. His eye caught those of Venus (as he was wont to do, who could resist her after all?). She seemed strangely silent. "Venus?"

The goddess of love waited a moment, and then brushed a strand of blonde hair back over her left ear. "I feel something." Her Olympian senses were piqued by a strange sensation, almost imperceptible, but definitely there.

"What is it, my lady," Nemo asked deferentially.

"I feel …" Venus said unsteadily, "I feel a disturbance in the fabric of reality."

Marvel Boy shook his head. "The sensors on the Bullet don't back that up. There's no gravimetric disturbance causing this. There's no warping of space."

"Not space," Venus replied. "The fourth dimension of reality - time." Now she could feel the disturbance even stronger. She pointed over to a spot only twenty yards away. A pulsing red aperture seemed to form out of thin air. A corona of energy materialized around it. The Human Robot and Gorilla-Man were able to continue standing, but the others were knocked back towards the Silver Bullet.

A humanoid figure came hurtling sideways out of the portal. A few moments later, it was followed by a large grey rectangular prism. The aperture seemed to explode in a dazzling shower of crimson light and completely disappeared. When the Avengers could see again, they could tell that the humanoid figure was certainly human, dressed a red and yellow outfit of military appearance.

3-D Man looked at the box for a moment. It was about 10 feet tall, 8 feet wide and 8 feet long. In the front near the top was a small strip. Inside of the strip were the illuminated letters "1958". Also at the front were what looked like two sliding doors, albeit closed. "It looks like an elevator to me, gang," he exclaimed.

The heroes rushed over to the stricken figure. He was just beginning to regain consciousness. Venus carefully rolled the man over onto his back. The man's cap had the letters "CF" emblazoned on it.

"Is he alive?" Gorilla-Man asked.

"Yes, just stunned," Venus replied.

The Human Robot's eyes were fixed on the box that 3-D Man had termed "the elevator". "I detect activity from the box. The doors are beginning to open."

The attention of the Avengers was now focused on the box. The doors were sliding open. Once they had completely retracted, a figure emerged. His form was silhouetted by a bright light from inside of the box. Once he had completely emerged, they could see that he was wearing a blue spacesuit, like something out of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.

Then a second figure came out of the box. This one appeared to be a man in medieval armor. There was a third, a man in a grey military outfit, a leather strap across his chest. Then a fourth came out, this time a woman in a green and black wetsuit, with a large green fin running from the back of her head down to the middle of her back. The fifth occupant of the box was a gorilla, about the same size as Gorilla-Man. The final figure emerged. He was a blonde man wearing a light red bodysuit. There was a red cross emblazoned on his chest. At the center of the cross was a clock symbol.

"How many people can they fit in that thing?" Gorilla-Man exclaimed.

"Tim, when are we?" the gorilla asked the blonde man.

"Give me a moment to get my bearings, Gorilla Greg," Tim replied. He looked down at the metallic band that encircled his right wrist.

"Is this 1958?" The man in the military grey's voice indicated he wanted an answer, and he wanted it now.

"It would appear so, Major Meteor," Tim responded. He looked at the display on the front of the box. "That's what the Time Elevator says, but I don't recognize any of the figures before us."

The Avengers and the newcomers moved cautiously towards one another. The man who had come through the portal on his own had now struggled to his feet. He maneuvered his himself so that the Avengers were between him and the newcomers. "Help me!" he cried. "They're hunting me down to kill me!"

"Perhaps that ploy would work in the comic books, but the Avengers don't just start fighting without knowing who our foes are," Marvel Boy declared sternly. The fact that that man's accent sounded suspiciously Russian only cemented the Uranian Wonder's decision.

"Neither do the Silver Stars," Tim said in-turn. "I'm assuming that you Avengers fight on the side of right?" Seeing the nods of the Avengers, Tim understood the answer.

Gorilla Greg peered over the heads of the Avengers. "Give it up, Comrade Future. You're not going to dupe these strangers into fighting us."

Both teams pivoted to face Comrade Future. The look in his eyes had the look that he knew he was more than outnumbered. He sat down and crossed his legs. "More bourgeoisie capitalist heroes, it would seem."

"Your friend Comrade Future is a Soviet agent, I take it," Marvel Boy inquired warily. He wondered who these Silver Stars were.

"That's correct," Tim answered. "My Time Elevator isn't wrong, is it? This is 1958, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is, by the Earth calendar," Marvel Boy responded. "But who are you? We were sent here by President Eisenhower to investigate the strange lights that …" He suddenly noticed that the skies had returned to their normal blue hue.

"President Eisenhower?" Gorilla Greg bellowed. "Was there an election I didn't know about? He's still Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

"Hmm," Tim rubbed his chin. "I think I might know what's going on here. Let me ask you something." He looked towards the Avengers. "Do the names of the superteams the Golden Agency or the Seven Sentinels of Valor mean anything to you?" All Knights Temporal (of which Tim was one) knew that superhumans tended to be distinguishing characteristics among different dimensions.

"Nope." 3-D Man was the first to answer. He was proud of the fact that he knew his heroes. "Invaders, Liberty Legion, Liberators, Crusaders, sure, but those names sound like something out of a comic book."

"Who the heck are those guys," the man in the spacesuit remarked. His voice apparently was broadcast from the small microphone inside of his glass helmet.

"Apparently, the superteams of this world." Tim turned towards his comrades. "You see, we are in the right time, but not in the right place."

The woman in the wetsuit looked around, as if she were getting her bearings. "That can't be. My homing sense tells me we're in Iceland. That's where we were when we went in pursuit of Comrade Future."

"You're right, Marlin," Tim explained. "We are in Iceland, but not in our Iceland. We're in the Iceland on an Earth that's parallel to ours."

"Parallel worlds!" 3-D Man exclaimed. "That sounds like something that Gardner Fox would write about in Amazing Stories."

Tim chuckled. "It would appear that some things are the same in other universes." He addressed the Avengers once again. "Avengers, we're from a dimension that must be parallel to yours. As I said before, we're the Silver Stars. I'm Tim Zeit, the Knight Temporal." He turned towards his teammates. "Stars, introduce yourselves, if you would."

"I'm Marlin," the woman in the wetsuit announced.

"Major Meteor," the man in the military grey said gruffly.

"This unit was designated 'Atomach' by my creator Mr. Amazing," the armored figure said.

"Spaceman's the name," the man in the blue spacesuit declared proudly.

"You can call me Gorilla Greg," the talking gorilla stated with his brutish voice.

"I'm Marvel Boy," the Uranian Wonder put his finger to the fleur-de-lis design on his chest. He then pointed to the Avengers and announced their names in turn. "That's Venus, 3-D Man, Gorilla-Man, the Human Robot, and Nemo." He then directed his gaze towards Tim again. "If you are from a parallel dimension, then what are you doing here?"

"We had traveled back in time to 980 AD in pursuit of Comrade Future here." Tim gestured towards the still-sitting figure. "I'm a Knight Temporal, as I mentioned before. We're a group dedicated to opposing the Scarlet Centurion in multiple time eras on our world. Comrade Future, though a Soviet agent, is also a puppet of the Scarlet Centurion. The Comrade has been trying to mess up America's present by messing up crucial points in its historical development."

"Comrade Future was trying to destroy the Icelandic colonies that the Vikings had established in the tenth century," Marlin continued. "Without ports in Iceland, who knows how many centuries later America would have been discovered? Maybe not until the 15^th or early 16^th. If Comrade Future had his way and the United States wasn't founded in 1539, the Soviet Union would probably have the upper hand in world politics."

Inside of the Human Robot, his tape drives whirled as he accessed his historical databases. He noted that there had been Viking colonies in Iceland that had been abandoned by 1000 AD.

"Once we stopped Comrade Future from destroying the Icelandic settlements, he escaped into the timestream and we commenced pursuit," Major Meteor added.

"But just as we ascended with the Time Elevator into the Time Stream, heading for our own era, we were hit by what could be described as a time storm. We rode it out, but it took us over a day, our relative time, to make it back to 1958, and then we arrived here."

"Ah." Marvel Boy was beginning to understand. His courses in temporal physics back on Uranus were of immense help to him now. (And Lilli had said that temporal physics were such nonsense!) "That era must have been a divergent point between yours and ours. The 'time storm' as you call it, must have knocked you from your timeline into ours."

"Apparently." Tim was surprised that someone from this era on this world could grasp the concept so quickly. "We wouldn't want to overstay our welcome, so if you'll let us take Comrade Future into our custody, we'll get to work to return ourselves back to our own reality."

"Comrade Future is going nowhere," the Chronal Communist howled. He leapt to his feet and spread his arms. His body began to shimmer and pulse. Then additional images of his body began to superimpose themselves over each other. There were six images in all. All six images laughed, a fraction of a second separating each cackle. Then each image flew off in a different direction, leaving the Avengers and the Silver Stars alone.

"Uh oh," Tim said. "I should have expected that."

"Where'd your Commie go?" Gorilla-Man demanded.

"He performed a chronal cloning, separating himself into multiple versions of himself, a nanosecond out of synch with each other," Tim replied and then waved his hand. "Come on, into the Time Elevator. We can find out where he went."

"All of us are going to fit in that box?" Nemo said incredulously.

"It's bigger inside than outside," Marlin replied as she looked at Nemo with decided interest. "Tim says it's 'Dimensionally Transcendental', whatever that means."

The Avengers and the Silver Stars filed into the Time Elevator, one by one. True to Marlin's word, the Time Elevator was much bigger on the inside than its outside dimensions would indicate. Inside, it still appeared to be 10 feet high, but its length and width were on the order of 500 feet.

"Amazing!" 3-D Man commented.

Venus had to marvel at the construction. She had not seen anything of this type of trans-dimensional engineering outside of Olympus. "There be clever mortals on this other world," she noted.

Tim had headed straight for the control area at the center of the Time Elevator. He quickly manipulated the many buttons and dials until the readouts of the display screens showed him what he wanted to see. One screen had an image of Comrade Future with a number of meter readings next to him.

"Just as I thought, he doesn't have enough energy to power his devices to enter the timestream on his own," Tim explained. "He's split himself up to gather temporal energy."

"Where's he going to find temporal energy here?" Gorilla-Man sneered. "Maybe on your world you can go down to the local store and buy it, but here it's a little harder to come by, I think. Back me up on this Marvel Boy?"

"He could find temporal energy wherever time travel had occurred on this world," Marvel Boy answered. "However, Earth-technology hasn't achieved time travel technology yet. They don't even offer temporal physics at the universities."

"You're thinking to linearly, Marvel Boy." Tim brought up a world map on a display screen. There were yellow dots superimposed on it. "It wouldn't have to be time travel from this era, but rather time travel from future eras to places in the past, relative to 1958." He pointed to the six locations. "I've discovered the six locales with the highest concentrations of background temporal energy. That's where Comrade Future undoubtedly has gone."

Tim indicated each location, one by one. "Mexico, Egypt, Arizona, Paris, England, and Constantinople."

"It's Istanbul on this world," Venus commented. "The Western Roman Empire fell a long time ago."

"City names aside," Tim continued, "that's where he's headed. Then he'll have to reform here once he's absorbed the energy."

"Right then." Marvel Boy began to determine team assignments. "The Avengers will take three of the sites and you Silver Stars can take three as well."

"A point concerning strategy," Major Meteor interrupted. "We Silver Stars are well-versed in Comrade Future's tactics. I would suggest that we pair off, Avenger and Silver Star, together at each locale."

"Well-versed?" 3-D Man nudged Gorilla-Man in the side. "Then why didn't they expect him to pull the split and then split?"

Gorilla-Man chuckled. "You got that right."

The mumbling caught the attention of Major Meteor. "You fellows have something to say?" He shot a stern look at 3-D Man and Gorilla-Man.

"Nothing, sir," 3-D Man replied.

"Good plan," Gorilla-Man added.

"Yes, good plan, Major." Tim looked over the group. "Let's do it this way. Gorilla Greg and Gorilla-Man together in Mexico. Nemo and Marlin, why don't you take Const … I mean Istanbul. Major Meteor and Venus, you two get Paris. Atomach and Human Robot, your assignment will be Egypt. Texas will be for Spaceman and 3-D Man. Marvel Boy, you and I will go to England."

"Me, with a civilian woman?" Major Meteor objected.

"Paris is the City of Love, my dear Major. I'll protect you," Venus said coyly.

"OK. Let's all go to my ship, the Silver Bullet, and we'll drop everybody off at their location." Marvel Boy did not wait for an answer but instead ran towards the doors of the Time Elevator. The remaining Avengers and Silver Stars looked at each other, and then followed Marvel Boy out and into the Silver Bullet.

All of the Avengers and Silver Stars appeared almost simultaneously about ten yards away from the Time Elevator. They could see the six chronal clones of Comrade Future, all suffused with temporal energy, merging back into a single being.

"Tim! Our clone said he was going to disable the Time Elevator to strand us here!" Spaceman blurted.

"We’ll see about that!" Tim answered. "It's no good, Future. We're all here and we'll stop you."

"Will you now, Knight?" Comrade Future's voice sounded like an almost instantaneous echo since the merger was still not complete. "How will you, when I have all this power?" His hand darted out and a bolt of temporal energy emerged from it. A band of Viking warriors appeared where the bolt had struck. "These will keep you busy while I consolidate my power and then wreck your Time Elevator. I could jump into the timestream now, but I'd rather eliminate the possibility of pursuit."

The Viking warriors stood between the heroes and Comrade Future. A few of them also stood between the heroes and the Time Elevator. They brandished the spears and swords menacingly.

"Silver Stars Strike!" Tim called out and the Silver Stars formed behind him. "I have to get into the Time Elevator!" He could tell that Comrade Future had imbued each Viking with its own temporal signature. Tim could not disrupt them all at once.

"Go Avengers Go!" Marvel Boy cried. He pointed towards Comrade Future. "Work your way towards Future. He's the real menace."

Atomach went directly in front of Tim while Marlin took the left flank and Gorilla Greg took the right. Major Meteor and Spaceman took the rear positions. As a five-pointed star with Tim in the middle, they moved towards the Time Elevator.

The Avengers were not as precise. They all waded into the Norseman and began wreaking havoc. Nemo and Gorilla-Man tore through them, one tossing a warrior to the side while the other punched away. The Human Robot paid little attention to the iron weapons. They had little chance of harming him. His power cells had recharged somewhat, and he electrified his body as he struck at the warriors.

Marvel Boy was blasting away with both bands, blinding the warriors left and right. Venus was trying to reach out to the Vikings' hearts, but she could not get past the berserker fury that burned within them. 3-D Man stood by her side, fending off any Norseman that tried to attack her.

The Silver Stars' formation cut through the Norseman and made it to the Time Elevator. Comrade Future had already finished his recombination and was assaulting the time machine with high-level temporal blasts.

"I can't get in while Future's blasting away," Tim declared. "I just need a millisecond!"

"Consider it done." Spaceman activated his rocketpack and lifted above the melee. He deployed his laser torch and fired at Comrade Future. The shot was not enough to hurt the Chrono-Criminal, with the temporal energy swirling about him, but it broke his concentration. Future's assault subsided for the barest fraction of a second, and Tim was able to slip through the doors into the Time Elevator.

"No matter," Comrade Future declared. "Tim Zeit will just die sooner when I destroy the Time Elevator."

Spaceman descended to the ground and resumed his position in the Silver Star formation. The team was beginning to break through the Viking line and get to Comrade Future. Viking spears broke against Atomach's armor. Marlin was merciless as she tossed Vikings into their brethren. Major Meteor was punching with precision and laying a Viking low with each punch. Gorilla Greg was just too much for them.

The Avengers finished off the Vikings in their area and were ready to take the battle directly to Comrade Future. The Chrono-Communist was continuing to blast away at the Time Elevator. The time machine was beginning to ripple, as if it were an image on a pond.

The Silver Stars broke through as well. They saw what Comrade Future was doing to the Time Elevator. They knew its destruction would mean they would be stranded in this world.

"Silver Stars Strike!" Major Meteor shouted as he flew towards Comrade Future.

"Bah," Comrade Future growled. "This won't leave me with much power, but the Time Elevator must be destroyed!" He focused his energy and unleashed a furious wave of temporal energy at the Avengers and Silver Stars. All of them were frozen in their tracks.

"Ha ha!" Future laughed. "I've timelocked them. I've stopped time around them! Now to finish off the Time Elevator before the timelock fails." He refocused his efforts on the Time Elevator.

"You're finished now." Tim's voice was projected from the Time Elevator.

"I think not. Don't your sensors inside tell you how temporally unstable I've made your craft? In a few moments, you'll temporal structure will crumble."

"Not so fast," Tim replied. "You forgot to take something into account." A small cylinder rose out of the roof of the Time Elevator. A grey beam shot out from the cylinder and struck Comrade Future.

"An anti-time beam?" Comrade Future laughed. "You can't generate enough power to counter all of the power I've collected here."

"No I can't." As the beam continued to strike Comrade Future, Tim explained. "However, I can disrupt it since the temporal matrices between our world and this one are different. Your devices operate according to our temporal matrices, the power you gathered operate on this world's. They're compatible, but not a perfect fit."

"No!" Comrade Future screamed but he knew it was the truth. Already he could feel the temporal power slipping away from his control. He could still jump into the timestream, but he would rather see the Time Elevator destroyed. He unlocked the captive Avengers and Silver Stars, hoping to use that energy against the Time Elevator. Before he could harness it, the heroes were on top of him. They pounded and blasted away at his temporal shields and brought him down.

The heroes took a deep breath as they realized the battle was finally over. The Vikings that Comrade Future had summoned vanished. The Avengers and Silver Stars exchanged hugs and handshakes.

Tim emerged from the Time Elevator, sweat dripping from his forehead. "Thanks, Avengers, Silver Stars. Comrade Future had to keep on regenerating the Vikings to keep you from getting to him, and then he had to timelock you. That gave me the time to make the necessary changes to the anti-time beam."

Gorilla-Man scratched his head. "I'm not going to begin to understand what a timelock or an anti-time beam is, I'm just glad that the Commie is down for the count."

Other chuckled at Gorilla-Man's comment, but most of them were as much in the dark when it came to temporal physics as he was.

"Atomach, if you would?" Tim said.

Taking Comrade Future by the collar, Atomach dragged the Chrono-Criminal into the Time Elevator.

"With that, I think we'll take out leave, Avengers," Tim declared. "I think I can plot our way in the timestream back to the divergence point and then back into our own timeline. It was a pleasure working with you, Avengers." He shook Marvel Boy's hand, and then the other Avengers in turn.

All of the Silver Stars and Avengers exchanged good-byes and then the Silver Stars filed into the Time Elevator. Once all were inside, Tim stood in the doorway,

"Perhaps we'll work together again in the future," 3-D Man called out.

"Time will tell," Tim said and then the doors closed. A few seconds later, a energy portal formed underneath the Time Elevator, and the time machine fell slowly through it. The Time Elevator was gone, and the portal closed.

FLASHBACKWORDS

You might have noticed some similarities between the Silver Stars and some of the smaller stars that appeared in DC Comics in the 50's and 60's. Here are the DC inspirations for the individual Silver Stars.

• Atomach - A combination of the Atomic Knights and Automan
• Spaceman - Adam Strange
• Major Meteor - Captain Comet
• Marlin - Dolphin
• Tim Zeit, Knight Temporal - Rip Hunter, Time Master
• Gorilla Greg - Congo Bill/Congorilla (with a nod to the Flash-foe Gorilla Grodd for the name)

I had originally thought about calling the team "The Challengers", as in Jack Kirby's great 1950's creation for DC, "The Challengers of the Unknown". The name would have been closer in sound to the Avengers, but I decided on coming up with something original that would have some sort of reference to the Silver Age - hence, "The Silver Stars".

I hope to write more adventures of the Silver Stars someday. Perhaps I could have an annual crossover between the Fifties Avengers and the Silver Stars, assuming people like this tale. I have some ideas about their origin adventure involving the already-mentioned Warsaw Pack. Look for it to appear on the Tapestry Branch in Journey Into Unknown Worlds one of these days (along with my other ideas for other heroes in the Earth-S timeline).

Comments, criticisms, and concerns for FLASHBACKWORDS accepted at rgansler@facstaff.wisc.edu

The Avengers 1958 web page is at http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~gansler/avengers58/av58.htm