Feature Comics #21

This is the first issue of Feature Funnies after a slight name change. These were good days for Feature Funnies/Comics, when Will Eisner's Espionage was right at the front of the book. This issue begins in New York City, which would soon be overrun with all kinds of heroes, but in 1939 was still not the default setting for comic book stories. I like not treating New York as the default setting for Hideouts & Hoodlums, but letting each Editor make that decision for his own campaign.

This is probably the first mention of the Holland Tunnel in comics. Using familiar landmarks is a good way to reinforce the idea that the Heroes are in a real place that exists.

The plot is an interesting one. Black X, as it turns out later, has already mailed the critical evidence to Washington, D.C., but still goes on a roundabout trip to D.C. himself in order to lure a whole bunch of agents out of hiding with himself as bait.

Although I was initially New York ignorant enough to think that Pennsylvania Station would be in Pennsylvania, I learned that this is still another NYC location. This "Washington Special", then, would have been the fastest way from New York  to Washington, D.C., short of taking a plane.

This is from Gallant Knight, a still-entertaining Prince Valiant rip-off. I'm still amused by the idea of someday running a medieval/fantasy campaign using H&H rather than D&D. I imagine it would be something like Gallant Knight. And it's good to know that princess ransom typically goes for 50,000 gp in the Gallant Knight's world.

Archie O'Toole, for a humor strip, has a lot of adventure elements and a Potion of Transformation is tempting to make an addition to H&H. It makes you so ugly that people of 1 HD or less have to make morale saves when they see you, and if you see your own reflection you have to save vs. spells or faint.

This will be neither the first nor the last story I'll be reading that takes place at the 1939 World's Fair. Like above, it serves as a location for adventures, but also a topical location.

Lala Palooza isn't normally a strip I would look at for inspiration. This might not change my mind...but half-pints, being able to stand on each other's shoulders, so they can all hit the same target...that's a little tempting.

Getting tired of using the same types of hoodlums in your campaign? Maybe shake up how the hoodlums try to get away, like you see here in Richard Manners, the Super Sleuth. This one has both a seaplane and a motorboat. Of course, your Heroes can always claim these transports when the battle's over, so don't be too generous right away.

The ol' loose tobacco in the face trick. Maybe save vs. missiles or be distracted for 1 turn?

Solo scenarios for 1st-level half-pint fighters -- like Toddy -- need to be not too challenging. So, a lone bat could be a distraction. Some falling plaster could be startling. A loose floorboard smacking you Chevy Chase-style might do 0-3 points of damage. A door falling on you might do 0-1 points of damage.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Crackajack Funnies #12

The theme for today's post is stunts, a game mechanic from the Hideouts & Hoodlums supplements that is being radically overhauled for 2nd edition. In 1st edition, stunts had one-shot activations, like powers and spells, and then automatically worked so long as you made it into the duration before it expired. What will replace this are skills, that you always have a random chance of succeeding at. Mysterymen will still get a chance to use stunts -- a limited number of times per day they can auto-succeed at a skill, with extra panache.

So, despite how heavily the new rules will talk about Mysterymen, they apply equally to Cowboys. Cowboys are from Supplement III: Better Quality, will not make it into the 2nd edition Basic Rules book, but might make it into a later book expanding Hero creation options for different settings/genres.

Here, we see Tom Mix and another cowboy performing a stunt together. Leaping from one moving horse to another seems like a skill anyone might have a chance to accomplish -- though I would make it an expert skill with a lower chance. But leaping while your hands are tied behind your back? That's something extra, and has to be a stunt.

This is something that I had not considered a skill at first, probably because Heroes don't resort to it too often, but hiding is definitely a skill.

Captain Easy is often a good source of inspiration. Here, he teaches H&H players a thing about perseverance! Without any clues to go on where the pirates who kidnapped the girl he was responsible for are hiding, Easy and Tubbs start visiting every island where they could be hiding and checking every one. They have searched 17 islands so far at this point, and are about to finally strike pay dirt on the 18th...

This is a situation where a stunt, Increase Speed, that originally debuted for the Cowboy class, made so much sense that it was also given to the Aviator class (in The Trophy Case v. 1 #6-7), and then to Paladins in Supplement V: Big Bang.  Now it makes sense to just let everyone have a chance at it, which is why it will now be a skill.

I don't have a lot to say about this, and any wargamer worth their minis already knows this, but tactics are important even when your Hero is in a Naval battleship, or a bomb-dropping blimp.

The tropes of the genre work both ways. There's no way that mask should be able to conceal anyone's identity. But if it works for the heroes, it works for the villains (and everyone still has to save vs. plot to recognize him through the mask).




(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Jumbo Comics #8

We rejoin Hawks facing 20 to 1 odds on board an enemy vessel -- and those are not good odds for a 3rd-level Fighter with no armor and armed with a sword, even if he does get to combat machine these guys. Luckily, a quick-thinking supporting cast member creates a trap for the opposition by turning a sail into a net. Nets seem to be particularly effective in comic books. Whatever the size of the net, half that space below it will be covered in net and all in that area must save vs. science or be trapped underneath for 1-3 turns (you can see the two who made their saves here).

I'm less charitable to the use of the cloak during the fight; I really don't see what game mechanic advantage to give to someone fighting with a sword in one hand and a blinding cloak in the other. Hawks' player is going to have to choose between the two each turn. On turns Hawks uses the blinding cloak, his opponent will, if he's hit, have to save vs. science or lose his attack that turn. It's not an effective attack, but more of a delaying move, really.

This is not the first, nor will it be the last, time I see a half-pint kicking a mobster in the shin and disabling a grown man. Half-pints might need a special power of getting a +1 to hit mobsters in the shin, requiring a save vs. science if they hit or the mobster is stunned for 1 turn.

This is a special feature related to the World's Fair. Frank Buck reminds me that cobras and pythons need to be statted for Hideouts & Hoodlums 2nd ed. Pythons were not singled out by name in 1st ed., but there were stats for regular constrictor snakes. 2nd ed. will have stats for both regular and giant constrictor and poisonous snakes. I might include a note about how cobras can be caught in a sack, if you beat them in initiative and successfully hit them with the sack.

Is Wilton taking a risk, bringing Snorty back to town to see a doctor, or is he close to leveling and looking for that 100 XP good deed award for fixing up Snorty? Plus another bonus for including a supporting cast member in the story?

Ignoring the fact that Doogah looks more like a Muppet than a real person, this page is worth pointing out for the new trophy item -- the language chair. Anyone putting on the attached helmet and sitting in the chair will immediately learn the language of the next person to speak to him.

Here is an Editor at work trying to balance the challenge level of this scenario. Knowing that he plans to put Sheena and Bob up against a machine gun, he makes sure they have access to grenades to even the odds.

In this instance, Bob is not rescuing Sheena for a good deed XP award, since it does not count towards saving fellow Heroes. Instead, Bob is just playing smart and working to keep his comrade-in-arms alive.

That Bob is able to rush into the line of fire of the machine gun, pick up Sheena, and run out either means the Editor has rolled horribly for that machine gunner, or he's being too merciful to his players and deliberately unbalancing his game.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Terry and the Pirates (Large Feature Comics #2)

Like when I covered the first Large Features Comic, I did not have access to this particular issue. But I did have access to the daily strips it covered, from '35-'36, thanks to The Complete Terry and the Pirates vol. 1. Now I just have to think of some things to say about it.

Which was tricky. Although an action adventure strip -- if not considered the action adventure strip -- Pat and Terry spend a lot of there time in these early adventures getting captured, escaping as circumstances change around them, and then getting captured by the next villain.

One thing that strikes me as worth mentioning is that -- unless you want a higher mortality rate for Heroes than you see in the comic books -- villains are going to always choose to capture the Heroes when they can, even when it makes way more sense just to kill them out right. Even if the Heroes have already escaped from this villain before, he will nevertheless accept their surrender every future time it's offered. Maybe he wants to gloat. Maybe he is planning a fitting deathtrap for them. Maybe he just has to wait until after this important meeting he has to take (which Heroes then get to observe and glean plot information from!) before he can do justice to killing them.

Another thing is that Pat Ryan is the perfect example of a Hero who trades up on his supporting cast. Normandie is a cute, sweet romantic interest, but unarguably less than one hit dice. Pat can get more XP for forgetting her and moving on to a more dangerous femme fatale, like Burma, and then dump her for The Dragon Lady (obviously a higher-level Fighter) when she turns up. One thing about femme fatales I should clarify in the next edition rules -- even if they are in conflict with you, they still count as supporting cast.

I had been convinced by others that "hide in shadows" no longer belongs as a human trait, since the Mysteryman class essentially turns that into a class-based trait. Still, Pat, Terry, and Connie spent a lot of time hiding, and using darkness to their advantage. Now I'm not so sure again...

Adventure Comics #38

Yesterday, I was wondering if surprise should not offer more advantages game mechanics-wise. In "The Original Game" that inspires Hideouts & Hoodlums, the side that has surprise before combat not only gets a free turn to act, but goes first in the next turn of combat. I always thought that was inherently unfair, though, and everyone should have the chance to have the advantage of going first, each turn. But...I am seeing an awful lot of evidence in the comic books of surprise giving Heroes big advantages.

Take, for instance, Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard. In this issue, Kent charges through a secret door, sees the secret plans on the table, runs up, grabs the secret plans, and runs back out through the secret door before anyone can stop him. I don't think all of that should happen in just a surprise turn, but even if Kent has the initiative on the following turn, I'm surprised none of the spies at the table get free back attacks on him when he turns to run.

Tod Hunter has the spell Phantasmal Force/Silent Image cast at him, but sees through it (got a save vs. spells to disbelieve) because the bowmen firing arrows at him make no sound.  Without resolving this storyline, the wizard simply disappears and Tod leaves to go exploring elsewhere. He finds a wanted poster that mentions rape, the first time this subject is ever addressed in a comic book. At the end of the story Tod is shot -- and is never seen again!  Tod Hunter is not the first Hero to have his series canceled in comic book history, but he is the first one to apparently die in his last appearance.

District Attorney Steve Malone is handy in a scenario without being present; he tracks reports of fleeing armored truck robbers by radio, compares them on a map, and tries to predict where they are heading next. This could be a good puzzle for H&H players to try and solve (particularly if there is no wrong answer and the bad guys head where ever the players guess).

Captain Desmo's player might be calling shenanigans in this story -- Desmo and Gabby come across Tartar warriors raiding a village and drive them off. Before the warriors all leave, though, some of them somehow managed to get behind Desmo and snatch Marie, one of his new traveling companions. It's a plot device, clearly, but did not need to be. The Editor could have mapped out the scene, placed all the combatants and noncombatants on the map, and made it clear that Desmo had the double priorities of defending the villagers and his own supporting cast. Could Desmo keep from being outflanked?

Tom Brent is in trouble when he is captured by mobster Vic Gano, but Tom talks his way out of it, pretending to want to join Vic's operation, and thereby gets a new encounter reaction roll out of it, modified by Tom's Charisma.

Vic takes Tom to Vic's boss, or at least a swank apartment where a woman speaks to Vic through a wall. Now, Tom could probably follow up on any number of clues at this point, like finding out who owns that apartment, but Tom chooses instead to get invited to a swank party that night, figuring anyone with that swank an apartment would be invited to it. And turns out to be right!

Skip Schuyler is also captured, but in his case he's tied to a chair and whipped until he has scars on his face. Although rare in comics, maybe there is starting to be some evidence here that there should be a small chance of permanent scarring on Heroes.

Anchors Aweigh reminds us of another use for flashlights: sending Morse code messages to each other (and every Hero seems to know Morse code!).

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Detective Comics #27 - pt. 2

There was a time when Speed Saunders was top billing in Detective Comics, but now he just gets to come second after The Bat-Man. A beat cop who must know Speed summons him to the scene of a corpse found on the riverfront, tied up and strangled. Speed sees an unusual design on the man's collar that he takes to be a clue. Smartly, he heads to the public library to research it. Weirdly, the library is open to him, even though it appears to be nighttime. Did Speed just break into the library, because he couldn't wait until morning to look for clues? That sounds exactly like some players I've had...

Speed finds a weird trap in a man's house; behind a secret wall panel is a mannequin arm holding a gun, so that one only has to pull a string at the back of the arm to make the gun shoot. It seems overly elaborate at first, but it would allow someone to murder within the house without getting any powder burns on the killer's own hand.

Buck Marshall, Range Detective, does a first class job of searching for clues -- checking for how much blood leaked from each wound, checking the local soil against the soil on the dead man's clothes, checking the nearby horseshoe prints, considering the effects of the weather on dating the tracks, considering the direction of the shots, checking for loose hair, and considering the length of the stride to estimate a man's height -- all things a Hideouts & Hoodlums player can look for while investigating.

In Spy, the Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee dies -- which is actually kind of a funny pun, because in 1939, the Chairman of the Commitee's name was Martin Dies.  Or is it the same Committee? Bart Regan says there were five members on the Committee, but there were actually seven members in 1939, a fact that should have been easily verifiable, and none of the actual member names are even close to the fake ones used in the story.

Here's another wrinkle -- though Bart Regan is often referred to as a spy, his actual credentials here show he works for the Secret Service. Or are those fake credentials? That could be a good trophy item...

Bart has an interesting encounter with a wandering encounter; when a gunman climbs through his hotel window, Bart is immediately incredulous. "How in heck could you have known so soon that I'm on your trail?" Bart wails at the unfairness of it. But the gunman turns out to be a hungry thief, unrelated to the case. I can just imagine an out-of-character exchange going on, between player and Editor, with the player complaining that the Editor was using knowledge of the player's actions unfairly, and the Editor backpedaling and changing the encounter.

Bart encounters an unusual murder weapon -- miniature "bombs" wrapped in cellulose and concealed in food. The cellulose dissolves and the bomb goes off on the inside, apparently for lethal damage (though it's hard to imagine a bomb that small doing much damage...). It's also hard to believe the enemy spymaster falls for the old "switch the bananas when you're not looking" trick - but I guess he missed his save vs. plot.

I learned a history lesson from The Crimson Avenger when he refers to a miniature camera as a "candid camera". And here I thought that phrase was invented for the TV show!

Again, The Crimson shows unusual abilities -- leaping a 6' fence, climbing the drainpipe of a building, and snapping rope bonds when tied up -- all too weak to be superpowers, but possibly Mysteryman stunts.

Bruce Nelson is investigating a Voodoo-related murder in New Orleans, and the author seems to have actually done some reading on the subject; the crosses and snakes at the murder scene seem like appropriate motifs. I wonder if the Creole words are authentic or just gibberish. Anyway, I always try to put some research into my scenarios like that.

Bruce encounters a harmless snake -- obviously not there to challenge him, but it did frighten him enough that he whipped out his gun and started shooting. He also finds the murder weapon -- devil smoke, a "green, gummy substance" that, if burned, produces a lethal cloud of smoke. Good for a deathtrap!

You don't have to learn languages in H&H, normally, but if the Editor did insist that your Hero had to learn a language, Cosmo the Phantom of Disguise learns Chinese in just 30 days. Cosmo, in disguise, gets a job in a Chinese shipping business. In the back of the shipping room, concealed behind boxes, is a secret door that opens onto a passage that leads below the wharf behind the building. Then a second secret door opens into the back of a fake coal barge.

And, lastly, Slam Bradley takes a trans-Atlantic clipper to Switzerland, which might have necessitated a save vs. plot to arrange. As I understand it, there were a lot of travel restrictions on traveling from the U.S. to Europe during the War.

(Issue read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #27 - pt. 1

It had to happen!  I finally reached the first appearance of The Bat-Man. But, I'll get to that.

The first item in this issue is a new filler called Crime Never Pays. It includes a bunch of true facts about forensics, law trivia, and police history. The most interesting fact, that I'd never heard of before, was the "traveling crime headquarters" -- basically a mobile forensics lab in a trailer that can be hauled to a crime scene. I've never seen one of these show up in a story!

Now we get to The Bat-Man!  The first panel practically defines the Mysteryman class for us "a mysterious and adventurous figure....his identity remains unknown."  Any class can be adventurous or conceal their true identity, but the Mysteryman alone does so to create an air of mystery about himself. It's this air of mystery that allows him to intimidate.

Right away, we get introduced to one of the most important supporting cast members in comic book history, Commissioner Gordon. It is apparently very handy to make friends with your local police commissioner -- they take phone calls about murder investigations in front of you and then invite you to the crime scenes!

It's also worth pointing out that Gordon already knows about The Bat-Man, so even though this is the earliest case we see for many years, this is clearly not his debut outing. Now, in terms of a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign, that could mean that the Editor has decided to start The Bat-Man out with some XP already under his belt, just so he won't have to wait so long to hit 2nd level.

We first encounter The Bat-Man in a rooftop battle with two robbers (robbers statted in Book II).  He sacrifices his surprise turn in order to try to intimidate the two robbers, but they must both make their morale saves. The Bat-Man still wins the initiative in the first melee turn and punches out a robber with one punch (if robbers are 1 Hit Die and punches all do 1 die of damage, then this is likely for anyone). If the other robber attacks The Bat-Man next, we don't get to see his attack (maybe he missed by a lot). On the following turn, The Bat-Man wins initiative again and grapples. There is no specific game mechanic for a headlock; if The Bat-Man's player wants a headlock he just rolls to attack and if the robber misses a save vs. science, he's in a headlock. And then, because The Bat-Man does what he wants, he just tosses the robber off the roof to take falling damage after that.

When police converge on the scene, orders them to "get" The Bat-Man. This adversarial relationship with the lawful authorities is an important part of the Mysteryman class.

The Bat-Man next turns up in Stryker's hideout. As a laboratory basement, the hideout has plenty of lab dressing -- tanks, chemical glassware, and machines of unknown contents and purpose. It also has a glass dome at least 6' in diameter that can be lowered from the ceiling to the floor and pumped full of lethal gas (an unusually large gas chamber for guinea pigs!). It certainly qualifies as a deathtrap.

Note that, before The Bat-Man races into the deathtrap to save Rogers, he snatches up a heavy wrench, but he doesn't grab the handkerchief he uses to plug up the gas from anywhere. And he isn't using Rogers' handkerchief, because that's still shown in his pocket in the drawing. That means The Bat-Man carries around his own handkerchief with him -- which actually makes a lot of sense. Apparently, handkerchiefs are very handy for foiling gas traps (I'd give a bonus on the saving throw, rather than letting it automatically foil the trap).

Breaking the glass dome with a heavy wrench just seems like a given to me; I probably wouldn't even require a roll for it (unless it was bulletproof glass, of course, and then it might take a wrecking things roll!).

The Bat-Man can "seclude himself in the shadows" (just a fancier way of saying hide in shadows) so as to go unseen. In 1st ed. H&H, "hide in shadows" is used differently, as a human skill for using dim light to their advantage during combat. This is more like the invisibility ability of Mysterymen.

Lastly, The Bat-Man punches out Stryker before Stryker can attack (The Bat-Man's player is very lucky at rolling for initiative!). There is nothing about that punch that should have knocked Stryker back through a metal railing and plunge into an acid tank -- that is all flavor text added by the Editor. What is telling is that The Bat-Man makes no effort to catch Stryker and keep him from falling. If this was my game, I would have given The Bat-Man a free attack roll to snatch Stryker -- if his player wanted one -- even if it wasn't technically a new melee turn yet.

(Bat-Man story in Batman Archives Vol. 1; filler page read at ReadComics.net.)