Challengers From Beyond

History
Once upon a time, before Rebirths and reboots, there was once a gathering of the Multiverse’s Monitors: 52 to be exact. At this gathering, plans were discussed, ideas were exchanged, and stories were shared. During this gathering, the 27th Monitor had a revelation, realized where things were heading and though he tried to warn the others, no one took him seriously.

Knowing that his days were numbered, the 27th Monitor returned to the part of the Multiverse he chronicled and tore it asunder, breaking it down to its base components and taking that with him as he fled deep into the dimensional Bleed between the worlds.

Once far from the reaches of the other Monitors and anything else that might seek to stop him, the 27th Monitor created his own barriers or ‘Murums’ of Time, Space, Logic, and Belief. Once the four metaphysical walls were in place, the Monitor began creating the Multiverse to his own liking (a ‘Microverse’ if you will). Much of what was created had been modeled after that which had been done before to create stability, with only minor tweaks as needed to fit within the confines of the Monitor’s vision.

To conserve energy, the Monitor dialed down the powers of many powerful beings, especially those that could rival his own (his own powers declining due to exerting himself to stretch this limited power further, sapping additional power from the Source itself and from unknown variables). Still needing more power, the Monitor also removed time travel from the equation of this new multiverse and only created one realm of reality, not bothering with the creation of parallel Earths. As time went on, the Monitor became curious as to the happenings in the original multiverse and sent scouts to travel through the Bleed and investigate.

While waiting for his scouts to return, the Monitor settled into a quiet life in his favorite city of the Multiverse, Gotham City. To assess the integrity of his creation, the Monitor assumed the appearance and identity of a human and took a job that gave him the means needed to be able to speak with some of the Multiverse’s most iconic beings.

When the scouts finally returned with their report, the Monitor incorporated some of these ideas into his new Multiverse but ignored much of what was reported to him. With the scouts’ purpose complete, the Monitor attempted to dismiss them from existence but found that the energies of the Bleed had changed them, making them partially immune to the Monitor’s whims and thus the Monitor got creative and tweaked the scouts. The scouts that were most successfully reshaped became beings that would not be taken seriously by the rest of the characters within the Multiverse: beings like Ambush Bug, Bat-Mite, and Mr. Mxyzptlk. The other scouts were locked away in the depths of the multiverse for fear of them derailing everything… in hopes that a cure could be found.

Those scouts that were locked away however began to change. Kept in such close proximity for too long, the energies of Bleed began to fuse, pulling them together and reshaping them into a singular being forged by their shared hate of the one who had done this to them. In time, they grew strong enough to break free of their prison and took a name reflective of the eternal nemesis of their captor’s race: the Anti-Monitor!

After hearing of the Anti-Monitor’s escape, the Monitor began formulating a strategy to beat the Anti-Monitor. Knowing that the scouts that had made up the new Anti-Monitor were well-versed in the strengths and weaknesses of the beings that the Monitor had recreated from the old Multiverse, the Monitor put his Harbinger to task with finding the artifacts created through chance and circumstance, beings unique to this new Multiverse: original characters.

These beings would become the Monitor’s secret weapons against the Anti-Monitor, should that abomination ever arrive to threaten the gem at the center the Monitor’s creation: Earth-27.

Trivia and Notes

 * The "Artifacts" are the original characters created by fans and incorporated into Earth-27 by Roy.

Links and References

 * Appearances of the Artifacts
 * Team Gallery: Artifacts
 * Membership of the Artifacts