Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 5

We're back, and so is The Lone Eagle! Here we see the Lone Eagle being overcome by four-to-one odds, which I find refreshing, even if it will not be the norm in this adventure from here. Perhaps he levels up quickly! 

Note that LE isn't placed in a deathtrap, but just left behind and they assume he's dead. Who has time to check for a pulse or watch for breathing? 

Now panel 6 is a big mystery, though you might not have realized that it was Where is this "no-man's-land"? You might assume, like I did, this is France - but this was published in February 1940 and Germany did not invade France until May! In February, the world knew Hitler had his eyes on Norway, but most of the fighting in Europe was taking place between Finland and Russia. This panel is like someone wasn't paying attention to current events and just, by coincidence, predicted the future!

I'm amused how Lone Eagle, clearly an Air Force guy, is able to commandeer a tank just by pointing at it. "This isn't Hertz, Lone Eagle!" that officer should be saying (fun fact: Hertz rent-a-car goes back to 1918!). 

I'm calling shenanigans on being inside an exploding tank and emerging unharmed, unless Lone Eagle is secretly a superhero buffed by the Invulnerability power. I think 8-80 points of damage, for being caught inside when a tank explodes, seems more than reasonable.

How did Lone Eagle catch up with Brent? If Brent was there some time ago, asking for the fastest route to German Intelligence, why is he still wandering around the battlefield? Or, if the soldiers didn't believe him and took him into custody - again, how is he now wandering around the battlefield? I feel like we missed at least three pages of Brent's daring escape from confinement.

Lastly, I'm again amused, this time by how Lone Eagle has a secret pocket in that jumpsuit. Come on, LE, the "secret" compartment is one of those huge, obvious cargo pants pockets above your knees, right?  

Great, thanks to this page we need to address the unpleasant subject of torture. Comic book heroes get tortured more often than I enjoy seeing. The goal is never to beat the hero unconscious, but to break his spirit and make him act unheroic. But how to handle that as a game mechanic? It might make sense to consider the whip damage subdual damage -- the hero can no longer resist if he reaches zero hp -- but LE just got over 100 lashes and I'm guessing he doesn't have over 100 hit points. I think how I would handle this is, every time the hero is reduced to zero hp, he has to make a save vs. plot or be broken by the torture. If the hero makes the save, hit points are effectively restored to full and the process can start again. 

But even if the hero is broken, what does that look like? Is the player forced to roleplay blubbering? A player could simply spare himself the headache of the game mechanics and chose this, as it's not really a consequence. But what if the hero lost something crucial - like experience points - if broken? There is precedent for energy draining in the game and, while it's purely supernatural, torture is a draining experience too...

One can't help but wonder what the warden was doing, taking a late night stroll without guards through the prison...but before that is the mystery of how LE got out of his cell. Did he use wrecking things to bust the door down?

Nope, nope, nope - unless that plane was planning to drop a person onto the roof of the train, there is no way LE should be able to leap up to the plane. I can no longer ignore that LE is clearly statted as a superhero, despite his lack of a proper costume and other genre tropes. 

That a superhero could have so much trouble with a single pilot is very much in keeping with how I pictured the superhero class balancing out in H&H; being a relatively weak fighter when not buffed with combat-related powers. 

But he's not just a superhero; it seems pretty clear that he's going to win this 6:1 dogfight (spoiler from next page: he defeats three and then escapes), which suggests to me that he's at least a 3rd level aviator, in addition to at least a 1st level superhero.

I do like the smart tactics of the Germans - trying to stop this unstoppable killing machine indirectly rather than continuing to approach the train with that field gun on it.

There were a lot of comic books published around this time that proved to be prophetic, not that it was hard - during WWII, if you imagined the worst scenario possible, that usually happened sooner or later. This comic predicts a German invasion of the Netherlands three months before it actually happened. Apparently the Dutch failed to believe Lone Eagle's warning. 

Again, this story predicts the bombing of London seven months before it happened. It predicts the bombing of Berlin by four months, though clearly the author is wrong that bombing Berlin first stops the bombing of London.

"Gee, good thing you told us not to miss, Lone Eagle! We were aiming low for a 50-50 success rate!"

A 50-50 success rate is, of course, the norm for 1st-level characters in H&H.

Yes, the British RAF did use some American planes, but most of them were British-made. The implications of this story are, of course, that the English can't save themselves withou the U.S.'s help (again, largely true), and that Americans would seem like superheroes on the battlefield with Europeans (this is just propaganda).

Moving on, we return to what I have long dubbed the Mythic West, a "demi-plane," if you will, that allows for "Wild West" action in the modern day. 

Nueces, Arizona, is not a real place, but is likely named after Nueces County, Texas. 

Panel 3 has some rather disturbing implications.

I had to look up the use of punchers here. From the Internet: "In those early days of cattle drives the cattle were not particularly eager to enter loading chutes or box cars, so the cowboys poked or punched the cattle with long poles to get them in to the cars. The term was first recorded in 1880 and soon became a synonym for all those who worked cattle."  I don't think "Fork-D punchers" has any special meaning, other than they work for the Fork-D ranch...

I had to look twice to verify this, but the guy in the fight at the bottom isn't the Rio Kid; he's just some guy who's about to become Supporting Cast, and is probably at least a 2nd-level cowboy, given how well he's doing in this fight.

Boy, this is one violent comic book! This page is a nice reminder, though, that not everyone in a given organization is going to be the same Alignment. Here we have a Lawful jailer having a disagreement with the Chaotic sheriff. Turn this around when you're stocking your hideouts - make sure there are the occasional Lawful hoodlums who may turn on their bosses and help the Heroes!

Shooting a rope, while riding on horseback, would normally require a natural 20 on an attack roll (at least while I'm running the game) - but this is why the cowboy class, when it resurfaces in 2nd edition someday, will still need to have stunts. 

Tombstone is, of course, a real place. It is likely a portal site that exists in both the real world and the Mythic West, so one could leave Tombstone heading into either.

(Scans courtesty of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Zip Comics #3 - pt. 3

We're still looking at Nevada Jones, and there's a few interesting details here. One is the entrance to the hideout, only accessible from a narrow ledge. This would make for a challenging encounter area if the entrance was guarded.

The way the horse is saddled is an interesting and unusual clue that something is wrong in this scenario.

That's some Spider-Man-level agility Nevada Jones shows there -- he doesn't actually fall 100' into the saddle (the man and horse would both take 5-30 points of damage and Jones would have no testicles left), he appears to be doing something even more impossible. He falls 100' until he's next to the saddle, then grabs onto it and swings himself onto it.

The only way I would allow this to happen in Hideouts & Hoodlums is if he was using the mysteryman class, or the old cowboy class from 1st edition, had a lot of unused stunts (5+?), and offered to spend all of them on this stunt.

If you plan on introducing a non-Hero character earlier in the scenario so they can turn up later as the surprise villain, it probably is not a good idea to use an obvious name for them, like Doc Poser. 

 

We're going to jump into the next feature in progress, Kalthar the Giant Man, King of the Jungle. I've written before about Kalthar and how his height seems to be no more than flavor text explaining his powers, like in panel 4 when we learn Kalthar's flesh becomes like granite while he's bigger. So his density increases even faster than his size? Is that why he tops out at 15' tall, because if he grew larger he'd be too dense to move? It also tells us, from a game mechanics perspective, that he's activated his Nigh-Invulnerable Skin power.

White men and guns. Ugh! And what's up with how that gun's discharge is drawn in panel 8? It always looks like it's backfiring.

Taking weeks to recover from 1-6 points of damage doesn't track with how healing works in H&H, though it's possible Kalthar is just enjoying being nursed. 

Interestingly, Kate taught Kalthar the meaning of "golden" and "tablets," but failed to teach him when to use "I" vs. "me." 

Kybys is fictional, as you would expect from a lost city. 

The two lions are a wandering encounter, and it's interesting that only the male lion chooses to fight, as if random encounter reactions were rolled for each of them.

The good look we get at Kybys, with its domes and spires, begs the question - who built it, and when? It looks vaguely Islamic, and more medieval than prehistoric. A written language is more likely to have been composed later rather than earlier. Why gold tablets instead of paper or parchment, though? 

I might need a new power called Danger Sense for superheroes that stops them from being surprised -- though we don't get to see it in use here, as Kalthar is surprised before he can activate any new powers.

That stonework looks medieval to me, and the Romans used lots of domes. Could these be Roman ruins? 

"Science, ha ha! Gravity is hilarious!"

Panels 7 and 8 look pretty sexy -- until you think about how Kalthar lives in the jungle and probably has lice in that long hair of his. You better hope that's a grain you pulled out of his hair, Kate!

Game mechanics-wise, there is no reason why Kalthar should need the grain to activate his powers or wreck things, except that if he established that once then his Editor can demand consistency from him. 

Kalthar uses Improvised Missile Weapon to catch the dome and hurl it back, but either a very high level version of the power, or the tower was full of dynamite. Check out that explosion! 

We're going to end this post with one glance at the next story, War Eagles. I don't have much to say about this page except that I'm pleased that the activities of the two heroes have consequences, in this case, the Germans flying in larger numbers to defend their planes. I expect there to be a lot of this during the course of an H&H campaign, to the point where history itself could be changing. 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Whiz Comics #2(b) - pt. 1

Back in 2009 I last wrote about Captain Marvel's second adventure on my oldest blog.You can read it here, here, and here.

Back so soon? Now let's talk about that story in terms of playing it out using Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Rushing into combat with Sivana's army, Captain Marvel is buffed by Imperviousness, if not Invulnerability, to be safe from heavy ordinance. He then is able to pick up tanks over his head because he is buffed by a level 4 Raise power. The tanks weigh too much for the Extend Missile Range powers, so that doesn't explain how CM is throwing tanks at each other. Instead, I would say he is using the Wreck at Range power for this. All he really needs the Raise power for is tipping them over, which really is just as effective at taking them out of the fight.

Taking out the tanks forces a morale save from the army. I would not normally roll once for the entire army, nor roll for each soldier, but maybe roll for each sub-commander on the field, and have him pull back his men if he fails.

It's always a conceit of the Captain Marvel stories that CM can't sneak around, but as Billy Batson he can. It certainly has nothing to do with bright colors, since they largely wear the same colors, but with size. I have long been tempted to make half-pints a race option because it seems like it should have its own special abilities, like a bonus for stealth.

CM later chases after an airplane and jumps up to catch it, but it's impossible to say from those panels how fast the plane is taxiing and how high it gets before he jumps, so it's possible he's not using buffing powers at all in those panels. If he is, then Race the Train and Leap I would be sufficient.

CM is rendered unconscious by a gas trap. Given how difficult it is to render CM unconscious, this must be super-potent gas, probably with a big penalty to the saving throw vs. poison.

There must be something special about the chains that Sivana thinks they will hold CM for five whole minutes, given what he knows CM can do. Maybe they get wrecked as if the generator category. Had he stayed there longer, it's possible the explosion would have killed him, but it was probably an explosion with highly variable damage, like 1-100 points, since Sivana survives it.

Golden Arrow's second adventure ever starts more low-key, with him shooting and killing a gila monster with an arrow. It's just an ordinary-sized gila monster, something I wouldn't normally grant a full hit point, but it's apparently venomous enough that it's bite can cause humans damage (1-4 points?).

A rancher hires GA to help find his missing cattle. Interestingly, it's the rancher who does most of the tracking on the journey, demonstrating how important it is to keep a supporting cast member with you in order to give you a second skill check.

When a sniper tries to kill GA, GA shoots an arrow into the man's rifle barrel, "wrecking it." Now, if GA was a superhero, this would merely be an instance of the Wreck at Range power, but I have not seen enough evidence yet that GA should be of the superhero class. If the rifle wasn't wrecked, this would be a simple disarming attack, which you may recall is easier than normal to do against firearm-wielders in H&H. The damage to the rifle could be flavor text if the "wrecking" isn't serious and the rifle is still usable. We never find out because the sniper/assassin misses his morale save and flees on the next turn.

Soon, GA is roped by a lasso and dragged from horseback, but he starts up a contest of Strength and pulls the horseman from his saddle. This is one of those situations I've talked about before that my own H&H rules don't cover, where you have to bring in ability score checks and opposed rolls.

GA summons his horse, White Wind, by calling it to. The cowboy class, if it's going to come into 2nd edition ever, needs to have special skills still that other classes don't have, like Summon Mount.

GA's bow skills prove difficult to explain by the rules again when he shoots an arrow hard enough to break the wooden bar across a pair of doors. At this point, I think I have enough evidence that GA is of the superhero class, just like the earlier archer hero, Arrow. That makes it much easier to explain how he wrecked the bar with the Wreck at Range power.

Moving on to Scoop Smith... the reporter is sent on a mission to look for a missing person in Antarctica. It's amazing that, in 1940, newspapers had bottomless resources to fund months' long expeditions for wild goose chases after stories. They have a freighter, a "snowboat" (it looks like a truck), and a biplane. It seems like it's going to be a realistic story -- until the Antarctic is shown to have natives. And polar bears. Oops! The writer seems to have the South Pole confused with the North Pole! Among the natives are pseudo-giants -- people who the narrator calls giants, but don't really look that much bigger than ordinary people. The natives are supposed to be primitive, but they have elaborate ice palaces. Somehow the palaces are heated so people can wear normal clothes inside, which makes no sense at all.

The Antarctic has some realistic hazards, at least -- mile-deep chasms and snowstorms seem possible. We never see much of either, but I'm guessing they involve falling damage and cold damage respectively.

That natives' deathtrap is a giant block of ice held between the walls by two icy struts, one of which is slowly melted by a lit torch.The weight of the ice would probably make it do a lot of damage, but it would only render the victims unconscious if they were not trapped underneath it (what makes it a deathtrap instead of just a trap).

Scoop is in no hurry for deadlines; after spending months getting to the Antarctic, he spends a whole month just hanging out with the missing man and the natives before heading back home to report his story.

(Captain Marvel story read from Shazam Archives vol. 1, the rest read at readcomiconline.to)

 

Jumbo Comics #13 - pt. 4

I've got time for one more rant session -- I mean review! -- of this issue of Jumbo Comics.

Wilton of the West is in Skull Valley, which is an actual place out in Utah. It should also sound familiar because of the White Boy in Skull Valley strip we already reviewed a few years back on this blog.

Drinking water does not restore hit points in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but giving water to a dehydrated person can count as first aid, and that does heal back 1 hp.

I'll skip most of the story; this page reminds us that the cowboy genre is often set in modern day times, so you can include modern cars in your stories.

I don't know how you jump off a horse into a speeding car, but I wouldn't make that easy. It should require an attack roll vs. a low AC, like maybe 2, or even 0.











Jumping ahead, this is our final story, Inspector Bancroft. Bancroft has been given a lot more supporting cast this story, including a fiancee and...well, I don't know what relationship those two kids are supposed to be to Bancroft or Wini, but they don't figure into the plot anyway.

Lumps of jelly used for containers in medicine that melt in heat are good clues to find in a poisoning murder.

"Swanky!" That's a word you don't see often enough in comic books. 

Bancroft gets incredibly lucky here; his accusation comes way out of left field, and all Benza has to do is deny it and Bancroft has no evidence. Things like this always seem to go incredibly easy for the Heroes in Golden Age comic books, so in a H&H campaign, if you accuse a mobster of a crime, that mobster has to save vs. plot or confess.

The author, "George Thatcher" (likely a pen name), likes unusual words, so he gives us "hoary creatures." I'm not sure if he's referring to the color of the spiders or how old they are...

But speaking of spiders, why place them so far from Bancroft, instead of, you know, throwing them in his lap? It seems like a particularly poor deathtrap, if the spiders choose to go in a different direction. 

Keep in mind, as you're reading this, how badly Bancroft has failed at this scenario. He gets captured. He fails to get himself out of his deathtrap. He fails to capture the killer. He doesn't even phone for the police himself; Wini does all of this for him. The moral is, it's okay to fail when you're playing H&H. You're still a Hero as long as you tried.

If I was Wini, I would be hesitant to untie him too. If Dayton had just stood by and let the cops take him, Benza would have gone to jail. Well, maybe. I mean, Dayton still has nothing on him for the murder other than a confession that Dayton has no corroboration for.

But punching him gives Benza the opportunity he needs to try and run, and the cops are so enraged by this that they don't even shout "Stop or we'll shoot" first. This lack of due process and vigilante justice, though, is entirely appropriate for Golden Age campaigns.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Tip Top Comics #29, 30

Moving on to vol. 3, no. 5 (Sept. 1938), we rejoin Broncho Bill as he's doing some trick shooting. But how we do make this work in game mechanics? How do we transfer the shooting attack to a deflect-hot-poker-into-face attack? A push attack against a non-living object? Yes, that's possible. A stunt? I've written at length about using the Mysteryman class to emulate cowboys (en lieu of needing a separate Cowboy class), but stunts are supposed to be separate from combat (so as not to eclipse the  

need for the Fighter class). But what if that was made different for Cowboys? What if Cowboys could use stunts in combat for trick shots, as long as the shots did not directly hit a living target? That might work, as long as the Cowboys gave up some other benefit of the Mysteryman class, for balance.

Now, on this strip, we learn that falling 175' means "certain death," which may seem strange to our eyes because we're used to thinking of 175' feet as 17d6 damage and, under normal  

circumstances, that only causes unconsciousness in Hideouts & Hoodlums. But this is a case that almost screams out for realism; perhaps a house rule that 60 points of damage all at once always causes death would not be unreasonable.

I don't get the joke in Benny (not unusual, I never find this one funny), but it does give us the prices for men's hats ($3-5), gum (1 cent), and haircuts (20 cents). It's also worth mentioning that this looks much closer to a gumball machine than the gum vending machine we saw in Chris Crusty just days ago.

Wow, this is one mean-spirited fun house. Is that clown zapping Phil with a cattle prod? There is some great fodder here that I wish I'd seen soon enough to send to Jo Kreil before module RT2 Adventures in Fun World got written!

 The amethyst story is somewhat interesting, but the true "gem" here is "The Enchanted Cave of Richmond Hill." Now, I don't believe that was really King Arthur in the cave, because why would Arthur have a diamond-encrusted sword with him when Excaliber was returned to the Lady of the Lake? But the idea of a spooky cave that looks trapped, but actually rewards you if you're brave enough to go up and touch stuff -- that idea I'm stealing.

Now we're moving on to vol. 3, no. 6 (Oct. 1938).

You've never seen Divot Diggers on this blog before, as it's a super-specific subject for a comic strip and doesn't lend itself to adventure. But, it does give us some pricing hints this issue,

starting with $20 for what I'm guessing is some kind of medicinal liniment, and then in the next one the remarkable sum of $500 for a rug (though we've talked before here about how, while many things were cheap in the 1930s, there was still plenty of high-priced stuff for the rich to blow their money on). The lesson here is, when

looting a hideout, check those rugs to see if they're valuable (and try not to get any blood on them!).

We haven't seen much of Joe Jinks on this blog, and certainly not since he started teaming up with Dynamite Dunn. I still don't care for either character, but I do like the snooty rich boxer they encounter here (stealing that character!). I also share this because this is the first I've ever heard of a boxer's license badge.

And lastly, while I get that this is just a stage magician and likely not a true Magic-User, I'm intrigued by some of the tricks he does and wonder if we need to discuss how they would work in H&H. Many of these stunts -- the rabbit out of the hat, the box sawed in half, the disappearing juggling balls, are just sleight of hand tricks and, hence, require expert skill checks. But, I can't say I've ever heard of a stage magician appearing to impale his assistant with a sword before. Could that be an actual spell -- and what spell would it be? Phantasmal Image of a sword, perhaps?

...I also don't get the "Rubber!" joke at the end.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Tip Top Comics #12, 17

Racing hydroplanes are trophy items in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but this would have been a good illustration for one, had I seen it sooner.

This is the second time Bill's tactics involve fire. Are you a pyro, Bill? A ring of fire could force animals to make morale saves to go through it, which would still do damage to them.

Don't mess with Indian medicine men (shamen would be the more appropriate term). Control Weather is a 7th level spell, so that magic-user is at least 13th level! Unless it was just a coincidence, of course...

 Outdoor snow is treacherous terrain, full of (snow-)covered pit traps.

Now we're going to jump into issue #17 (Sept. 1937), and this is also the debut of Jim Hardy on this blog. Those hoodlums in the bottom right hand corner have two suggestions for good places to look for hidden treasure. The wall safe concealed behind the painting is so cliche, but buried in the shed is someplace to remember.

I continue to be surprised by how often cowboys climb, and it's what convinced me early on that cowboys should just be mysterymen.

Barrels of gunpowder can wreck an entire building; it looks like the truck category to me. And, yes, sometimes the Editor just has to wing which category to use for wrecking things, despite there being a fair amount of examples listed.

I included this strip because I wanted to highlight how, in a H&H campaign, treasure could be "buried" around you wherever you go. Not quite at Zelda-level, where you might get a gem for every blade of grass you cut, but still...it never hurts to search around.

I'm intrigued by these toy people as a sort of intelligent golem (or would living statues be closer?). Billy punches one out easily, so they can't be tough, right? Only, what level would Billy be as a magic-user? 2nd level? So maybe the toy people are 1+1 HD.

No strange monsters this time in Peter Pat, though we see our madman is so mad -- he has no clothes! We also see how treasure can be used as a lure to make Heroes move towards traps, and sometimes it pays to have a trigger -- even if it's a big obvious lever -- in the room so the trap can be activated manually. Often, it's best to let the players' curiosity get the better of them and have them activate the traps themselves!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Whiz Comics #2 - pt. 2

Ibis the Invincible is not acting like a 1st-level magic-user here. Create Underpass doesn't seem like a spell that needs to exist, but perhaps a 4th-level Dig spell would explain that.

We learn how much sailing from Manhattan to Cairo cost back then.

Again, I'm skeptical about the need for a Create Money spell (though maybe Fool's Gold could be modified for this). Also, since Ibis would not yet have encountered American money, it seems unlikely he would have known how to make the right kind of money, and makes for a pretty convincing case that this is another illusion that makes you see what you want to see (I had suggested last time that Ibis used an Improved Disguise spell that makes him appear to be wearing what others want to see him wearing).

Create Cottage does have some precedent, lying somewhere between Leomund's Tiny Hut and Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, making this likely a 5th level spell -- but only if temporary. If permanent, this has to be a Wish, and a 9th level spell!

Create Bridge could actually be a spell with a lot of uses, and if it had a short enough duration I could see that maybe being only a 2nd level spell.

Here is a spell version of the power Turn Gun on Bad Guy - maybe called Missile Turning?

Excellent commentary on world affairs, circa 1940.

Wow, okay, this is Protection from Normal Missiles...but instead of 15' Radius, it's extended to 1 mile Radius. And then there's Restore City, a spell that has got to be Wish-level power.

I did have a conversation here in the comments section (an actual conversation with a reader!) recently about the issue of if Hideouts & Hoodlums emulated the power-level of golden age comic book characters well enough. I would use this page as a prime example for my answer: yes it does, as far as I would wish it to emulate those comic books. Because, really, stopping an enemy bombardment in one turn and then reversing all its damage in the next turn -- how do you build a challenging and entertaining scenario when they can all be resolved this quickly and easily?

Moving right along, this is the origin story of Golden Arrow. You only get part of it on this page, and it's interesting how often his story seems to go in a Mowgli-in-the-Wild-West direction and then surprise detours.

This page is still early in the origin story, so I'm not sure what to make of these last two panels, or if I should make anything out of them. Being able to wrestle a bear cub at the age of 5 or catch an antelope at age 7 seem relatively superhuman. It also suggests to me that half-pints be able to have classes like mysteryman or even superhero. I have toyed with the notion in the past of treating half-pints as a separate race.

I'm not entirely sure yet how I would make them a separate race (I mean, obviously they aren't ever going to literally be a separate race, but to separate them out from normal humans game mechanics-wise). It would make sense to take away the free Supporting Cast Member (unless the SCM was a parent). It seems like half-pints would do half damage, but others would have to save vs. plot to harm them. Anyway, it all needs more thought.

This would be a world record for a horse jump (it currently stands at 8'). So, if I did bring back the cowboy class (and I'm not saying I am yet), one thing that would distinguish them is that they could not only push themselves past normal limits with stunts, but they can push their mounts too.

That is one beautifully aimed arrow, but it does create a problem for me. When I revised the mysteryman class, I limited stunts to applying to out-of-combat situations, so as not to take away what makes fighters special. So this can't be a mysteryman-cowboy using an arrow for a stunt, if the result is a trip attack.

So then I have to decide if a trip attack should normally be allowable at range. I guess the answer to that should be yes, though it would make more sense when throwing something heavy at someone else's feet, or launching a lot of marbles across the floor.

And that brings us back to the perennial question: should Heroes get to attack more than one opponent per turn? There is ample evidence of this in comic books, yet I've shied away from this in terms of game mechanics because it's not fair in a group setting to have one Hero get to attack everyone before the others have had a turn. But...what if this was an optional rule for solo play only? I will consider putting that in the Heroes Handbook.

And, lastly, if I do bring back the cowboy class, it will have the ability to fall from any height, without damage, as long as there is a horse and saddle within 10' of where he would have landed.

And now on to Spy Smasher! I'm including this page because it gives my players a goal for how much money they have to save up to buy their own aircraft carrier.

Spy Smasher is a mysteryman, and the surest sign of that is a dramatic window entrance. In fact, my biggest regret with the class redesign is that it included no mechanic for dramatic entrances. I suppose they could use a stunt to ensure they have surprise, but that's not quite what is happening here; this is more like what mysterymen could do in 1st edition, with their intimidate ability, forcing a morale save before they've even done anything. Ah well...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)