Comics Magazine #3

While not scintillating drama, this page of The Further Adventures of Jane & Johnny does well illustrate three combat turns in Hideouts & Hoodlums.  Turn 1 is a surprise turn, won by the outlaw.  But he misses! (maybe rolled an 8 on his 20-sided die?)

On turn 2, Captain Bill can act. His movement intentions are to just get off the horse and behind cover, which the Editor rules is close enough nearby that he can do both in the same move. Rather than shoot at Bill while he has the benefit of cover, the outlaw forfeits his attack roll for this turn and moves instead, to get closer. Bill's player also develops the "boot plan" before turn 3 begins.

Now, technically, only a Mysteryman should be able to move silently behind an opponent like that and get another chance at surprise, but Bill's player asks his Editor to go easy on him and give the outlaw a save vs. plot to avoid being fooled by the boot plan.  The Editor goes along with it, the outlaw fails (unlucky dice rolls!), and then Bill succeeds at his surprise roll for turn 3.

On surprise turn 3, Bill may have missed a save vs. plot to shoot a man in the back (very un-heroic!), so now his player is hoping that the outlaw next fails his morale save, rather than turn around and shoot it out.

There is, incidentally, no mobster-type called Outlaw; this is likely a Chaotic Cowboy instead.

Alley Oop's animal of the day is -- oops, that's not Alley Oop, but a disturbingly Chibi Manga-like Alley Oop knock-off.  Anyway, it does feature an archaeopteryx, and the first in comic books. Should that get it statted? Actually, archaeopteryx was so small, it wouldn't even warrant a single hit point.  Maybe an archaeopteryx swarm would be a threat, like a big enough bat swarm...

Now, woolly mammoths, on the other hand, are a worthy challenge for Heroes, and are in fact already statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies. There's also -- huh?  Kangaroos and chimpanzees?  Oh well.  By coincidence, both of these will be statted in the upcoming Supplement V.

Yeah. This page has nothing to do with H&H, other than to demonstrate how much I go through to support the scholarly content of H&H and this blog. The early Comics Magazine/Centaur comics are just astonishingly racist sometimes, and I'm aware of the blackface tradition this stems from, but this page is just so racist it could make a KKK member blush with shame.

And I do it for little gems like this.  Who doesn't want to stock their hideouts with two-headed pigs now?  I'd make it 1+1 HD and give it just one bite attack, though.

Cougars were statted in Book III: Better Quality.

The stats for bears in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies is intended for brown bears. Black bears should "just" be 6 Hit Dice.

Frontier Justice -- the source for the Raise Posse Stunt for the Cowboy class.

Lastly, we have the Sapphire Eye of Sehkmet, a gem that sounds like it functions as a magic Ring of X-Ray Vision.



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum at http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=15437)