Keen Detective Funnies v. 2 #8

This is from a one-shot story called "Fingerprint Murder". This page makes me think that gangsters could be a special type of hoodlum, able to make people save vs. plot to avoid getting into cars with them.

I'm including this page because it's pretty good detective work. Rearder has figured out that the killers must have observed him at the crime scene, they could have seen him from the opposing window, and he finds out from the landlord that the opposing room was recently rented. Though it seems odd that the landlord doesn't know the name of the renter, at least the identity can be found out by searching the rented room for fingerprints, which had been wiped so judiciously at the crime scene.

I'm amused by this page and how hard Rearder works to avoid his boss. I've had some H&H players really embrace the dual identity of their characters, and others avoid their day jobs with this much fervor.

It's interesting that this character is called a "special policeman". Did the term "security guard" not exist in 1939?

And Rearder punches the man in the face so hard, the man's hat vanishes!

This is The Masked Marvel.  I thought at first that this was going to be a good example of changing geography any way you need to in your campaign -- but there really are two volcanoes in Mexico (Popocateptl and Colima)! Still, it must be the dead of winter for there to be that much ice and snow on Mexican volcanoes...

For the first half of this story, I forgot The Masked Marvel was a superhero! Here he is using two powers. The first one looks like "Hold Plane". There is no Hold Plane power. It would be weaker than Hold Train, and stronger than Hold Person. Interesting that I left such a large gap in the power list.

The other power appears to be Detect Evil. I'd actually taken this power off the powers list in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, because I'd been waiting so long to see actual evidence of it. Of course, maybe The Masked Marvel is just saying he "senses" The Hawk because it should be pretty obvious to sight or sound that the tram is moving.

The asbestos suit and gas mask is a pretty useful trophy item. Bear in mind that asbestos does no harm to people back in the 1930s (because no one knew better!).

The Masked Marvel is either displaying more powers -- like Different Physical Structure and Resist Fire -- or just showing off that he has a lot of hit points.

TNT Todd gets knocked out and takes a whole day to recover to consciousness (but if he's at 1 hp when he confronts Charlie Sin, he's pretty bold!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)