Prize Comics #2 - pt. 5

   

This close to the end of the issue, I probably would have been forgiven for skipping the last story, but tucked away at the back of the issue is the only good feature in this issue, so of course we're going to look at Storm Curtis of the United States Coast Guard!

The date on the newspaper clipping tells us this adventure started back on December 26, 1939. There have been at least two real S.S. Lincolns, the first was sunk in WWI and the second was built in 1944 during the next war, but there was likely no real S.S. Lincoln at the time of this story.

Just to make sure we remember our terms, Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. 

A trawler is a vessel that trawls, and trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats.

The reference to a tramp refers to a boat or ship engaged in the tramp trade, which is one that does not have a fixed schedule or published ports of call.

I think this page is really remarkable. When I read it, on the following pages I kept waiting for the trick to be revealed, the trick of how Storm planned to survive that shot in panel 6. A bulletproof vest, most likely, I thought. Only, there was no trick. He really just stood there, face-to-face, with the bad guy, without any protection from harm, because he should.

He does win in the end, though there's more shooting ahead, and a bit of unnecessary sexism in the finale...so I think we're going to end this while we're ahead.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Famous Funnies #68 - pt. 1

We haven't seen Roy Powers in a while! Here he's on a cruise to Africa (the previous page smartly talked about how much school he was going to miss because of this, but he has a tutor on the trip) where there's going to be some big game hunting (booo!). More interestingly, here's the beginning of some mystery on the ship. What do they want in Roy's room? When laying clues, remember to leave olfactory ones too.

Uashin? I think this is referring to Uasin Gishu County, and it is located on a plateau, in Kenya. Interestingly, "Jambo Bwana" is a Kenyan pop song that will come out 42 years later. 
  

Skyroads surprises me occasionally; there is some interesting chemistry between these two characters, and I laughed out loud at "I was born quite young." Also, salt horse is slang for salted beef. 

Sure, we could talk here about how "fagged out" means exhausted, or how "I feel as though I'd been spanked by a trip hammer" reads like innuendo, but what really grabs me on this page is -- how is that record player working? Is it hand-cranked? Battery powered? I know they had the former back then, but I'm not sure about the latter.

Also note the "Wing Tip" about how 1st-level aviators would need to certify their transport rating, in addition to carrying a transport license.

Senor and senorita? That's interesting because, while Spain in its prime was one of the first countries to have U-boats in their navies, by 1940 Spain's military was in tatters from its civil war and did not have many submarines left. This is a good time to remind ourselves, though, that these are all reprints from earlier comic strips, these ones specifically from 1937 (according to comics.org), and -- according to this Wikipedia page -- Spain still had eight U-boats at that time. 

This page is a reminder, if mystery bad guys have been shooting at you, to search the ground for spent cartridges. With a skill check, you can identify which kinds of guns were being used to shoot at you, which could help you plan for your next encounter with them.

It might be easy to overlook this word through all that heavy dialect, but a yawl is that boat; a yawl is a two-masted fore-and-aft-rigged sailboat with the mizzenmast stepped far aft so that the mizzen boom overhangs the stern.

Oaky Doaks has stumbled across a wizard who lived in a cave for 20 years perfecting this flying carpet (giving us some indication for how long we can expect magic item creation to take?). The flying carpet has an incredible weight allowance, probably carrying 1,750 lbs. as it is here. Being able to reach cumulonimbus clouds suggests a ceiling height over 2,000 feet, and possibly much higher than that. There's no sense of how fast it is from this page.

How would you tell if someone is faking delirium? Perhaps a skill check at first aid. Or a Wisdom check. Or both, so characters with high WIS have a good chance of seeing through the deception, but mysterymen can also cash in a stunt for an automatic success on that skill check.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Adventure Comics #48 - pt. 2

And we're back with what I promised, a look at this issue's installment of Federal Men. In it, the FBI gets a hot tip that counterfeiters are working in Northville, and in an unusual way -- a fake $1,000 bill is mailed to them anonymously, but came from Northville. Of course, we're given no indication as to where Northville is but, since so many comic book stories have a New York City orientation by now, it stands to reason that "Northville" means somewhere North of NYC, so...maybe it's actually Albany? Or even Poughkeepsie? Ah well, it's all speculation...

The plot is one we've seen before and will see again -- the hero stumbles across a crime school where a professor (or professors) teach classes on forgery, safe cracking, and killing in exchange for a cut of future profits. This one is pretty expensive -- a complete course costs $5,000, plus 25% of your take for the first year. I would be really leery of allowing a real game mechanic benefit to this.

Steve Carson (our hero) disguises himself as a "tough" by smoking a cigarette, going without shaving, and possibly darkening his eyebrows. He's caught -- not because he looks just like Steve Carson, but because he gets fingerprinted and the Professor somehow has all federal men's fingerprints on file.

Fitting in with the dark themes at DC Comics this month, the deathtrap is a suicide machine -- you're strapped in, with a gun in your hand, and the machine makes you squeeze the trigger and shoot yourself in the head. Without wrecking things, it's a pretty foolproof deathtrap -- so the only way out for Steve is to have one of the hoodlums turn on the Professor and free him. The twist is that the hoodlum did it -- and sent the fake $1,000 bill to tip off the feds -- not out of any altruism, but revenge because he was about to be expelled.

By now, the Sandman has been downgraded from billionaire Wesley Dodds to millionaire Wesley Dodds. Wesley is shown smoking a pipe, and the Sandman carries binoculars for the first, if not only time, in this issue.

Dian Belmont is in love with Wesley already, if her letter to him is written honestly. Her father, the D.A., learns Wesley is the Sandman in this story and seems cool with it, even though the Sandman was wanted by the police in the past.

The Sandman is shown jumping safely from a second floor window. Should stunts be able to lessen falling damage? Maybe. Maybe...half damage per 10', per stunt?

The Belmonts own a Chris-Craft -- Chris-Craft Boats was an American manufacturer of boats that was founded by Christopher Columbus Smith. This page is a good commercial for them -- it's fleet, and can easily catch up to a yacht. 

When Sandman searches Judge Quick he finds a letter in a secret pocket. I'm not sure how you conceal a "secret pocket" on your person. A pocket inside your jacket certainly wouldn't qualify as "secret." Maybe it's sewn to the inside of his pant leg...? The letter is a major clue without even reading it, because it smells of one of the suspects' perfume. 

Sandman climbs a wine-covered trellis (it's called a ladder, but it's pretty clearly a trellis) to an upstairs window, which should be a basic skill check, maybe even with a bonus if the trellis is sturdy. Dian, the Woman in Evening Clothes (and that's including high heels, no doubt) climbs it right after him, and that's got to be an expert skill check.

In one panel, the gas from his gas gun is referred to as "deadly."   

In Socko Strong, Socko is trapped in a deathtrap underwater, but he finds a trapdoor that serves as the drain for this pool. It feeds to an underground stream and Socko is swept into it. He emerges, "finally," on the bank of a river. But how long was he underwater? Were there pockets of air for him, or did he hold his breath the whole time? We're not told, but those details can mean life or death in a realistic campaign. 

The next day, while shooting a film, the guide wire snaps on a heavy arc lamp, and the lamp is about to fall on a small girl. "The entire group all stands motionless in frozen horror -- except for Socko..." Now, there's two possible explanations for that. One is that, as the only Hero present on the scene, the Editor is making sure none of the other characters on the scene can upstage him. Or, the Editor used surprise rolls to determine if anyone was surprised by the falling arc lamp, or perhaps Socko surprises the falling arc lamp, giving him even more time to act.

In an interesting twist, the father of the girl was paid to kill off Socko by sabotaging his parachute for the next scene to film. Doing the good deed pays off and saves Socko.  

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

 

 

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 1

This is Sky Wizard's feature, but we're going to start focused on the bad guys. It's not easy being a Sky Wizard bad guy; not only does Sky Wizard have way more resources than you, but he's got you outnumbered if you count both kids! They are a handy source for slang, though. "Croaked" and "deader than a mackeral" make plenty of sense, but "he did a Brody" took a little research. It's a phrase that was still in use at least up to the 1960s, but actually dates back to 1886. Steve Brodie was a saloon owner from Manhattan who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived, so any seemingly impossible jump became "doing a Brodie/y."

Remarkably, no one seems cold at 10,000 feet, even though they should be freezing already.

New to the author? Modern hydroponic research began in earnest in 1925. Of course, there is little preventing this story from taking place in the past..

The science here might seem more plausible if Hawk had some super-sciency-looking device to send the damaging frequency from. Instead, it looks like he's using a ham radio he picked up at Sears for $5. 

It does not seem in keeping with Arabic culture to suggest djinni come from the underworld. Although, if you believe Wikipedia on this one, the jinn entry conflates jinn with ghouls, and ghouls definitely are from the underworld. I think the entry is wrong on this, though.

Spoiler: Sky Wizard saves the day, though the kids are nearly killed. Oops!

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the New York Blade wasn't a real newspaper -- at that time. Interestingly, a newspaper with that name, focused on gay rights issues, first appeared in New York in 1997.

300 MPH is actually an unusual speed for a plane of that time. It's much faster than a trainer, a little faster than a transport plane, but slow for the average small passenger monoplane, like this. 

Now, the story isn't clear about this, but I'm guessing the blimp island needs to at least get close to the ground before it gets its helium chambers refilled, so it's not like he's giving them glider wings at 10,000 feet and sending them over the side of the island...right?

Oh, and "hey, Jerry, you're, what, 10? Here's a gun. I'm not even going to show you how it works. Just have fun!"

Why does a 10 year old have a paralyzing gun with a kill setting??

C'mon, kids, it's a 25 lb bird, 1-1 HD at best. If the condor is bothering you that bad, how about just flying back to the island and asking Sky Wizard to help?

I like how Vera is so mean-spirited that even when throwing the message she hopes it hits Sky Wizard. It's a pretty innocuous way to deliver the message; if they had really wanted to hurt SW, they could have at least taken the time to find a bigger rock.

Maybe SW should try negotiating. Is there a softer part of Guatemala (consistently misspelled here) they could throw the kids out over instead? Maybe over some peat moss?

You know, rather than take the time to paralyze them, it looks like they could have just hit Sky Wizard with their plane and been done with it.

The paralyzer leaves them free to talk, so this must be its lowest setting.

 

We know how long the Paralyzer's effect lasts from this page (although I suspect the lethal setting is more permanent). One hour is a duration that doesn't fit well with 4-hour rest turns. Of course, since SW is in danger, it's not appropriate to count this in rest turns. One hour is six exploration turns. He's not exploring except to find out how comfy the floor is, but that length of time fits the scenario here.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Zip Comics #2 - pt. 4

We're still on the War Eagles feature of this issue. This is the first guy named Kermit to ever appear in comics and, curiously, we never see him again past panel 4.

Tom's big plan is to gamble on a good encounter reaction roll from General Worth. He gets a great roll too, since Worth gives them a promotion and carte blanche freedom to act without supervision. It's a sweet deal, but perhaps a necessary one -- I've never had players interested in a military-themed campaign where they have to take orders all the time.









The Supermarine Spitfire, or Vickers Spitfire, was a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after WWII, and was produced in greater numbers than any other British aircraft. Beside them are the Hawker Hurricane, a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–'40s. It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire's role during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60% of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the engagement, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War, all according to Wikipedia.

I love the composition and art on this page and wonder what Ed Smalle had for photo references.

There are two "stunts" in play on this page. One is luring a plane into an ambush. Normally, your allies have no chance to surprise an opponent if they've already seen one of you, but that's assuming normal on-the-ground conditions where someone can turn and look in any direction. Visibility in aerial combat is really restricted to your facing, so I would roll for surprise for each individual plane.

The other stunt is forcing one plane to crash into another. This could conceivably happen on the ground too, as ramming damage with a vehicle should automatically force a morale save. If you keep getting "run away" results, and box the person in so he has nowhere else to go, he's going to run into someone from his own side. Although, on the ground, you might get a surrender result too -- something someone in a plane can't easily do.

Panel 1 reminds us Editors of something important: if the bad guys see you use smart tactics, they will try to use those same tactics too.

"Prop shattered" is an aerial combat complication.

My final observation from this page is that Tom's chances don't look too good...

Mort Meskin's Captain Valor returns this month and, while Mort still isn't up to his full artistic powers, there is still a lot to like about this Terry and the Pirates clone. You just have to get past some really bright yellow skin to get to it.

Hop-Lung's party on top of the ledge looks even in number to Valor's down below, but still has three advantages: height advantage gives them a +1 bonus to hit, the rocks along the top of the ledge give them hard cover, -2 to be hit, and the loose boulders give them potent missile weapons. The advantage Valor's party has is they are armed with rifles, with a longer short range, while it looks like Hop-Lung's party is only armed with pistols.

Anyway, what I like about this is that Occupied China is a dangerous place for low-level Heroes, where any act of defiance (like stealing an officer's car) has dangerous consequences. It also inverts how Alignment works; under these circumstances, a Lawful Hero can work with a pirate, because the pirate is an outlaw for defending his homeland. The Lawful Hero can steal an officer's car, because is strikes a blow against the invaders. The Chaotic guys aren't the only ones who get to have fun and go crazy in this setting.

I also like how Valor gets a fresh plot hook immediately upon finishing his first one, in panel 5. That's efficient storytelling/game play!

Are the sentries good shots? Based on what, exactly? Two of them are shooting at the car at short range, before it's had a chance to accelerate very fast, and are still missing.

In a bit of meta-gaming, Valor's player has already won over Angie and Ronny as loyal supporting cast members thanks to good recruitment dice rolls, but in-game is still pretending Valor wants to drop them off at the consulate.

Wait..where was all that dynamite and hand grenades? Sitting in the trunk of the officer's car?? No wonder the sentries didn't want to hit the car while it was still too close!

Valor throws that smoke bomb awfully close to himself. Good thing he's really sure it's a smoke bomb and not an incendiary bomb (skill check to identify, or is it written on the bomb?)!

If you're confused by the sides in this conflict, the bandits are still bad guys because they're attacking white people. The pirates are considered neutral because they only attack other Chinese people. The Japanese are the main bad guys, and every Chinaman is either a bandit, pirate, or working for the Japanese.

It really looks like Ronny's not going to survive that second tier of panels, but it must be a longer fuse on it than it appeared.

It's pretty dramatic, having to surrender the outer walls and retreat into a wooden cabin. If reinforcements had not arrived, I don't think they would have held out long in there. Once the invading bandits get up to the windows, the people inside lose all their cover bonuses (unless there's enough furniture inside to hide behind too).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Smash Comics #8 - pt. 2

I don't care for any other features in Smash Comics as much as Espionage, but that doesn't mean we can't glean anything useful from them. Let's start with Abdul the Arab, our "hero"/traitor to his people, who helps the British steal his nation's oil...

We always pause to examine maps. Kuwait is not drawn by accident inside Iraq's borders; Kuwait had been annexed back into Iraq in 1938. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia.









  
This is an unusual scenario for a RPG, since it can't be solved by violence. Abdul has to prove Holden is stealing Rice's oil (in a Western setting, you could substitute cows for oil and run the same scenario) by getting a confession or finding the hidden pipeline, and by diving the work between himself and his sidekick, he gets both.













I can't verify that there is such a thing as a Cambridge Arsenal, let alone one holding 20,000 tons of high explosives. That seems like a really dangerous building to put that close to London.

Transatlantic flights did not fly every day in 1940, which can delay a scenario that takes place across the ocean. 
 









 
Here's an image of what appears to be a briefcase-sized short wave radio. 1940 Heroes can't easily carry these on them, but if they keep them in their cars they can split up and still communicate.

Heroes can often be notoriously hard to trap when they travel overly cautious, with all their gear and trophy items with them. The trick, then, is to get them to lower their guard and feel safe. Trap them while they don't yet know they've reached the hideout.

Yeah...that is one unconvincing ghost, what with his legs sticking out under the sheet. I know I've always said disguise needs to be really easy in comic books, but I might give the mobsters a +2 bonus to their saves vs. plot to see through this one.

We're going to skip ahead into the Hugh Hazard and His Iron Man adventure that follows. All the backstory you need to know here is that the Batzis are Nazis, Hugh knows they are responsible for sabotage here in the U.S., and he figured out they are keeping in touch via radio. He lucks onto their short wave -- I can't see that being a skill check; perhaps he just has a random 1 in 6 chance of catching one of their messages per rest turn, like a wandering encounter on the radio.

Now, I don't exactly get how this works, but if you connect a super-seper iconoscope to a teleradio, you can get a visual image of the person speaking, even if that person was only recorded with sound. Who knew?

"Krautville" sounds like a racist name for any town with a large German population in it...

Bozo has the Dig power, so that means he functions as at least a 6th-level superhero. And yet...we are treated to Bozo using the "Look behind you!" trick like a grade school prankster. I would say it's amazing that the old guy doesn't hear the propeller right over his head and know that Bozo is still there, only...well, then we also have to overlook that this tiny propeller can make a large robot fly.  I guess you could give the guy a save vs. plot to see if he falls for it or not, but I think a +4 bonus seems reasonable too.

This page kind of undersells this tactic, but a time-tested method of keeping the Hero from capturing the villain until later in the scenario is to have something happen that the Hero has to leave right now to stop. A Lawful or Neutral Hero should then have to save vs. plot to stay and defeat the villain early (maybe Chaotic too, depending on how much is at stake).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Marvel Mystery Comics #5 - pt. 2

We're still in Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner's story in this issue. Namor is heading home! Golden Age Comic book readers know that Namor's home wasn't an Atlantis off the North American Atlantic Coast, but an icy realm under Antarctica. Namor is in the North Seas and says it is 9,000 miles from the North Sea to Antarctica. Bill Everett was either a good guesser or he spent some time with a map working that out. He is actually only a little off; it's 9,500 miles. He says the submarine can make it there in two days; assuming 24-hour travel, that means a speed of roughly 200 MPH; that's almost four times the fastest real submarine speed.

Namor refers to his uncle, the king, as "Holy one," suggesting that royalty is divinity in their culture.

Namor travels via his own power from Antarctica back to New York, a journey of roughly 9,100 miles that he makes in three days, and meaning Namor can travel an average of 126 MPH (though he is said to make this journey by air and water, so it's impossible to say how much of this reflects his swimming and how much his flying speed).

Namor does not yet spend all his time in just swim trunks; he returns to New York in a shirt, pants, gloves, and cloak. Anticipating Edna Mode and her "no capes!" advice, Namor's cloak is caught in the landing gear of a passing plane while he's flying away from police and this knocks him out -- either from the cloak collar strangling him or being buffeted by wings against the side of the plane, though I favor the first explanation. This makes no game mechanic sense, though, as he should have easily been able to use his wrecking things ability to tear the cloak before it choked him or led him to being buffeted unconscious. Unless, Namor was considered surprised by the situation, giving the cloak's strangulation a free surprise turn in which he could not react. It is still harsh, if not unlikely, to say Namor would run out of air in just 30 seconds (the time of a surprise turn in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums).

Actually, Namor is only stunned and when he recovers, he uses "jiu-jitsu" to throw a fireman trying to grapple him. It's unlikely Namor has any direct knowledge of Japanese wrestling moves, but it's not like the Japanese invented the idea of flipping someone over their shoulder.

Namor fails his saving throw vs. chloroform and is knocked out by a really brave ambulance driver and taken into police custody.

Based only on a sergeant's permission, Betty Dean gets Namor released into her custody. Namor is uncharacteristically forgiving of his treatment by the police, pledging to work with them if he is deputized.

At that same time, a subway "accident" floods the tunnel at "5th street." In Midtown, this is likely the 5th Avenue-59th Street Subway Station. There, he uses "the strength of 100 whales" to tip the subway cars upright. I don't know how to measure the strength of 100 whales, but we could talk about the weight of 100 whales, with 100 of the smallest whales (dwarf sperm whales) weighing 25 tons total. This would be a 4th-level Raise power. By watching for air bubbles, he can find submerged passengers to rescue without having to make a search skill check (or does so at a bonus, since the bubbles should be easier to see).

Finding the hole that is the source of the flood, Namor flies into it with "his usual impulsiveness," showing Everett had a strong idea of Namor's character that has stayed with him for 80 years. The hole was made by three robbers trying to drill into the "Treasury," which we would know today as Federal Hall National Memorial. When Namor comes across a vault door, he thinks it will be hard for him to open, but he rips it open easily. Inside he finds the men and beats them up, breaking their bones in the process. The gold vault under Federal Hall was protected by a reservoir of water that they drilled and drained into the subway tunnel.

Next up is The Masked Raider. MR comes to talk to a troubled sheriff, but the sheriff mistakes him for an outlaw and draws on MR. MR is able to close the distance and punch him, despite the gun being pulled on him at range. So, in H&H, random initiative has to take priority over a more reasonable order of attack (not all missiles first, then melee).

MR uses an interesting tactic to lure out the bad guys in town, hanging a threatening sign from an arrow in town as the bad guys have been doing, and then following whoever sees it and looks suspicious. The bad guys plan to off the sheriff with poisoned arrows (the plan is to make gullible locals think Indians did it), but the Masked Raider shoots the head off the first arrow before it's fired and the bad guys all fail a morale save. That was one lucky roll, particularly since MR had to have been at long range to be out of sight; I would have said only a natural 20 would have made that shot.

Next up is Electro, the Marvel of the Age. In it, Professor Zog summons two of his twelve agents (he must have an 18 Charisma to have such a large supporting cast -- unless Zog is a non-Hero character and only his operatives are being played) and assigns them an international mission. He must be using code, though, because he describes a country called "Molivia" being attacked by a country called "Torpis." Molivia is easy -- that has to be a poorly disguised Bolivia. Torpis is going to be trickier. If we go by number of syllables, it has to be Brazil, Chile, or Peru. And yet...if we go by history, this whole story was likely inspired by the Chaco War of 1932-1935, suggesting a renewal of fighting between Bolivia and Paraguay. And yet again...when they finally get to "Molivia" it looks very European, and has a king instead of a president, so...who knows!

The brutality of war is illustrated by dead women and children in the street -- though the figures lack any gory details.

The radio controls for Electro have fantastic range -- 4,336 miles, in fact, if the operatives are summoning Electro from Sucre, capital city of Bolivia (called "Braka" in this story). It is unclear how long it takes Electro to fly the distance; it is possible there is some story compression before and during the siege of the city. Regardless, Electro does make it the entire way without needing to refuel, or that, if statted as a superhero, his Fly power has a remarkably long duration.

At the scene of the siege, machine gun bullets bounce off Electro, suggesting he has the Imperviousness power activated. When cannonballs and bombs dropped from planes fail to harm Electro, we know he has the Invulnerability power activated. Electro's wrecking things ability makes short work of the army, allowing him to even wreck "huge" tanks. If the tanks are truly of abnormal size, I would shift them up one category to battleships. Tanks were not used during the real Chaco War.

In the end, Torpis' dictator, Kalph Belgri commits suicide when his invasion fails, perhaps anticipating Hitler's famous suicide. No one committed suicide after the Chaco War.

(Read at readcomicsonline.to)

Mystic Comics #1 - pt. 2

When we last left Zephyr Jones and Corky on the surface of the sun Cygni 61 the Mad Astronomer had a machine that sprays his secret formula on Zephyr and Corky. He tells them that this will protect them from the heat on the surface of the star, and apparently the blinding light and the crushing gravitational pull as well). Our boys are so gullible, or so smitten with his daughter, that they immediately go outside to see if it worked. Instead of walking on super-heated plasma, this seems to be a rocky place, inhabited by dwarfs that live in caves.

They find that at least nine star-dwarfs had captured the astronomer and his daughter from their ship. Most of them chase after Zephyr and Corky. The dwarves have super-tough skin (like the power, because the heat of the sun has hardened them), but are vulnerable to fire extinguishers because...ah, let's stop pretending any of this makes sense! These aliens remind me of the game Awful Green Things from Outer Space, where you're supposed to try everything on your ship on the aliens, because only one random item will kill them.

To top it off, Zephyr and Corky go back below ground to save the prisoners from eight more dwarfs. They defeat the dwarfs by throwing rope around a group of them and then pulling the rope off the cliff the dwarfs are on. Not sure why none of the dwarfs think to grab onto the rope and pull Zephyr and Corky down first, or with them. If the star-dwarfs are just too dumb, then a fair Editor would make some kind of intelligence check for them (trying to roll under a low INT score) before letting them fight too cleverly. They are very primitive, fighting only with clubs and darts from blowguns.

We've seen Heroes start avalanches to bury or block adversaries before, but Zephyr takes the cake by knowing just where to throw a rock to start an avalanche. That would take some kind of expert skill level in geology, I would think, followed by a successful attack roll vs. a low Armor Class.

The next feature is the 3Xs. The three "Xs" are private detectives, all working anonymously (although they wear no masks to conceal their identities, so it should take too long for people to figure them out), but go by 1X, 2X, and 3X. Each has an area of specialization; 1X does the detective work (high Wisdom score), 2X is a "walking encyclopedia" (high Intelligence score), and 3X is the strong-arm (high Strength score). A later caption explains that 1X is in charge and the other two are his aides (Supporting Cast Members). The 3Xs are good scrapers, but not great, as 13 hoodlums break into 1X's home to retrieve the glove and the hoodlums only fail a morale save and leave after beating all three of our good guys almost to unconscious. None of them use weapons other than blackjack/saps, during this battle. Later, 2X has a disintegrating pistol, a trophy weapon that does extra damage.

A taxi driver tells the 3Xs that his taxi cannot go over 70 MPH.

The Green Terror is a mob responsible for a rash of brazenly public kidnappings, covering their escapes with a smokescreen of green smoke. A clue left behind at the scene of their latest kidnapping yields a clue that requires an expert skill check in botany to identify -- a lost glove on the scene was permeated with the pollen of a rare orchid. Because the orchid is imported, they use freight records to figure out that when the mob came into the country, and when it plans on leaving. Of course, there are some holes in that theory -- what if only one member of the mob worked with orchids? What if the mobsters were on the ship coming, but not on the next boat going? What if an unregistered grower has the same orchids in their greenhouse and they weren't imported at all?

Their leader is also known as The Green Terror. One of the earliest supervillains in comics, The Green Terror is a green-skinned African with the vampiric power to live forever so long as he keeps drinking human blood. However, he's a real pushover in a fight and folds after getting punched by 3X once.

Next up is "Deep Sea Demon," but if you want my impressions on that story you can read here, because this is a barely modified reprint of Fred Guardineer's "Devil of the Deep" from Funny Pages v. 2 #1.

Dakor the Magician is the next feature, and like some other magicians we've seen he's light on actual magic and more of a detective. We also see, like in the 3Xs story, that travel out of the country seems to be public information, as Dakor's assistant Williams is quickly able to learn that their prime suspect in a murder is leaving the country for France.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Flash Comics #3 - pt. 3

King Standish debuts in this issue, a prettily drawn mysteryman feature by Gardner Fox and a William Smith, who I've not heard of before. King is one of those master-of-disguise types, and an excellent pick pocket, able to remove a wallet out of a woman's purse -- while facing her! That's definitely a mysteryman stunt, not possible with a simple skill check (though maybe one at a significant penalty, like making it a 1 in 10 chance).

King's interesting gimmick, at least initially, is his anonymity. He can just show up in evening dress and either admit he's the King or deny it; all he's known by is his calling card, an actual card with a crown on it.

Deliberately walking into a trap to prove to a pretty lady that she's fallen in with mobsters, King is attacked by two thugs in an ambush. Fox doesn't seem to ever get how bulletproof vests work, as King's makes him completely immune to the impact of bullets, and they just bounce off his clothing. King also has a "specially built, high powered car," though we never see what's so special about it. His license plate reads "410-W."

King cracks a combination safe, which would be an expert skill check.

Appropriate for a first level mysteryman, King is about to be overwhelmed by the two thugs along with their boss, and needs to be saved by the aforementioned lady (who's not adverse to killing with a gun, apparently).

In The Whip's adventure, he uses a tripwire to trip at least five running people. The first person reaching the tripwire I would have make a save vs. science to avoid tripping, and then each person after him a +1 bonus. The first person to make their save stops the others behind him from falling for the trap. This is a rather mild trap, only making the runners prone for one melee turn, but since he only uses it to get their attention it is quite effective.

Quite a bit of Spanish is being tossed around in this installment, including common words like "bueno" and "amigos," but also words less common in comic books, like "adelante" (for "go ahead!") and "enredeso" (for "complicated").

The Whip's whip tricks include using the whip like a grappling hook, and then supporting his weight while he climbs a wall, and grabbing and pulling an item with the whip. I hesitant to assign game mechanics to the former; with no time limit, he could just keep trying with the whip until it caught on the balcony (though the actual climbing might require a basic skill check). In the latter case, since it occurs in combat, the grab-and-pull needs to require an attack roll, vs. an Armor Class of the Editor's discretion (it's a complex move, grabbing the shade and pulling it down over someone's head, so I'd say AC 6 or 5).

One of the mobsters the Whip encounters uses the slang "horse-podder." I cannot figure out what that means. In the context of the sentence, it seems to mean BS, and the literal definition of "podder" is "a cup." So I don't get how these things go together.

(Stories read at readcomiconline.to)

Speed Comics #6 - pt. 1

We're back to Brookwood, predecessor of Harvey Comics, and home to Shock Gibson. Shock is, despite being human and having electrical-based powers, very Superman-like. This is great for Hideouts & Hoodlums, because these superheroes are all using the same powers and that makes them easy to catalog.

Here's Shock using the 1st-level power Feather Landing.

And here Shock is using the power Raise Elephant. Since he's not using the truck as a weapon, that is just flavor text assigned to the Raise Elephant power.

Shock would already be a 4th-level superhero at this point, but he still doesn't have enough of a reputation that ambulance drivers recognize him on sight.

Although he's outrunning a motorcycle and a truck, the power in use here is Race the Train.

There are Hold powers, like Hold Plane, that Shock could be using here against the truck, but since he doesn't seem likely concerned about whether the truck is damaged, it's more likely he is simply trying to wreck it.

It's also conceivable that little enough time has passed that the duration is still ongoing for his earlier application of Raise Elephant.

I love how Shock is interrogating the mobsters through the truck while he's holding it up.

Shock's forcefield is likely the power Imperviousness.

Unconcerned that the mobsters on the radio were listening in earlier, knew Shock had the truck, and were attempting to lure him off-track -- Shock just drives off to Kentucky because he was told to.  This is why it's a great idea for Editors to be flexible with their plans. If you weren't expecting them to go to Kentucky and your players go anyway, then it's time to relocate the adventure to Kentucky.

New York to Kentucky, incidentally, is about an 11-hour drive. I wonder if Shock drove straight through or stopped overnight. There's no indication in the story either way.

I love the idea of hiding hideouts in famous, real world cave complexes. I wonder if a map of Mammoth Caves is available online somewhere.

I've talked about Von Kampf zombies before and how they will be in the Mobster Manual (to be released eventually!). I really like how steady Von Kampf is; he's not a Lex Luthor who flits from world conquering plan to plan. Von Kampf is always focused on one plan, taking over with zombies!













I include this page because I very briefly wanted to mention that, in a modern setting, it is very easy to transport mobsters to wherever you need them for your scenario. Mobsters typically found in a different climate -- or even in a lost world setting -- can be flown or trucked into other areas to be encountered.

I'll have to add to the Von Kampf zombie entry that their creator can see what's going on through their eyes (I would assume, so long as he is within so-and-so range and has the appropriate equipment to do so).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)