Amazing Man Comic #11 - pt. 4

Wrapping up this comic, we return to The Shark. We find the Shark has buffed himself with the Super-Tough Skin power, almost correctly identified by name by the narrator. 

Spoiler: The Shark wins.

Now we'll jump right into Mighty Man.  Here is what finding a secret door in the game looks like. 

Comic book fans are expected to be familiar with Hollow World settings, so the reader is meant to be no more shocked by sunlight in an underground setting than Mighty Man is.

Okay now, if you can look past the implied racism of these black men, the idea of coal giants itself is pretty good and not that different from stone giants in D&D. 

I appreciate that, even know after taking his blows, Mighty Man still doesn't think of them as the enemy and wants to make peace.

Again, if you look past the "White Savior" cliche...and the suggestion of black cannibals, you'll find that this is a surprisingly dark scenario (especially given the Filchock cartoony art), with the 12 missing people having already been eaten and beyond rescue.

The origin of coal giants - that they have to eat chemically altered coal - is ridiculous, but it's not that out of line with golden age comic book origins; we're about a year away from a speedster getting his powers from a transfusion of mongoose blood. 

"Making every blow count" sounds to me like Mighty is buffing his damage rolls. 

This is maybe the first time a trap has been triggered to aid a Hero. It looks like that pit trap really hurt him too, though he could have already taken a lot of damage in the fight. 

So far we don't really learn much about the coal giants, physically, other than they are tough and they are not faster than Mighty Man.

We are told, but do not see the dozen coal giants here. It's interesting that this is the same number as the missing people and it would have been a nice twist if the coal giants were actually the 12 missing people.

The last thing we learn about the coal giants is that seeing fire triggers morale saves for them, and we can presume that they take additional damage from fire (+1 point per die?). 

Didn't the old man tell us that he found the hidden kingdom by a different method? So they're not hidden forever.

 

Jumping ahead into Magician from Mars, we have a rare instance of authority figures not doing whatever it is the Hero asks them to do. Could it be because she's a woman? 

Jane uses pyschic paper!  Or is it a Phantasmal Image spell, cast on the paper...?

500,000 MPH seems fast, except in space travel, where it would still take almost six days to reach Mars from Earth.

Jane casts Wall of Force.

Martian tanks look pretty much like normal Earth tanks, except they have windows? And better shielding around the treads. 

The king's city has a force field, but the generator must be enormous and costly; they don't have the technology for smaller forcefields until Jane teaches them how to make them. Or she just gives them the idea, because they never thought of it...?

Yet another bad guy with a television.

Gravity shoes allow them to fly. They must be wearing some other device that creates the personal force field. 

Jane uses the ...well, there's no Raise Tank power, but the Raise Bridge power should be more than strong enough to let her toss tanks around.  If we didn't know she was a Magic-User/Superhero, we do now!

There's an interesting little subplot building with Taal - you'll have to read the comic to see what happens!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)