Famous Funnies #24

Ah, Captain Easy, the gift that keeps on giving.  Here we are introduced to witches, a mobster-type so hideous that anyone seeing them must save vs. spells or fall prostrate in front of them!



Alley Oops's animal of the day is the glyptodon.  Never yet statted for Hideouts & Hoodlums, a glyptodon would be 11 Hit Dice, but using 12-siders because of their massive size and mass!

Hairbreadth Harry has me a little stumped this time. Catching something should normally be a simple act of hitting something in reverse, so I would use the same "to hit" mechanic -- but does catching in mid-air suggest something much tougher that should be a specific stunt?  I'm on the fence on this one...

You might not have guessed, at a glance, what I want to talk about from Flying to Fame this time. No, it's not the sub-machine gun, but you're close -- it's the use of cover by the sub-machine gunner, and how the girl in the fight turns the cover against him by slamming the door into him as a weapon.

Now, you might not think it on the face of it, but this has fairly large implications towards how cover works in combat. Should there ever be a chance of your cover being a liability?  Should Captain America have to worry about his opponent grabbing his shield and pushing it up in his face?

You may have guessed, based on my last example, but I feel this should not become a game mechanic. More likely, the gunner simply missed his to-hit roll and knocking him with the door was the flavor text for explaining how he managed to miss at point blank range.

This rare sighting of Nipper on this blog is for the glider, an excellent transport trophy for low-level Heroes, that solves the issue of how to make Heroes airborne, without giving them too big an advantage.

Can tapping a table really disrupt a dictagraph?  I don't know, but that's a pretty good tip for Heroes concerned that they're being recorded by a concealed one...

Ah, Seaweed Sam, you silly source of inspiration.  Here we have an unusual example, Pre-Clarke, of science being indistinguishable from magic. The "XYZ Ray" seems to be a sort of transmutation raygun that can change back anyone previously transformed into gold or stone, which does seem a handy thing to have around.

There is also a reminder here that helium tanks are on the minor trophies list.

This version of the sphinx is likely not a mobster, but some kind of trick -- but a good one, and one time-tested in that Other Game.  Just use a slightly harder riddle than this one.

I never thought I was going to have to refer to the extraordinarily bland Babe Bunting on this blog, but this page brings up the issue of, just who should be able to track?  Tracking started out in H&H just as a skill the Explorer class had.  Then Mysterymen picked up an urban version of that skill.  Then it became a stunt Cowboys could use.  But this page suggests that any Tom, Dick, or Harry can follow the faint tracks of  little girl through dense woods. Should tracking even still be a special skill, or should everyone get a chance to find tracks, like looking for secret doors?  It bears strong consideration.

Lastly, this section on forced landings would be educational for anyone playing an Aviator.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum at http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.org/index.php?dlid=21647)