Fantastic Comics #2 - pt. 4

Welcome back! We're still on January 1940 and this is still Space Smith. Unlike many features, "Space" doesn't seem to be his nickname -- it's his actual first name!

The science is wacky here -- especially weird, being a Fletcher Hanks story. The effect of "long range power lights" is not altogether clear, but they seem to be holding Space's ship in place.

The same applies to "radio-phonic detectors." It's not just a radio, but some sort of eavesdropping device for listening across the vacuum of space. And how did the ogres hear Space's radio call? Do they have some sort of "radio-phonic detector" too?

And then there's "anti-Earth demolishing rays." How exactly are they anti-Earth? Would they not work against other planets?

Ray-resistant shielding is new. If your campaign has too many rayguns floating around in it, your players will want ray-resistors too.

Ramming with spaceships seems fraught with peril, but ogre's must be very confident in their own shielding. Vehicular ramming damage is something that can be found in the 2nd edition basic book's trophy-transportation section, and even for airborne flying objects the ramming damage can be extremely high. I can't imagine how much damage to assign to ramming with a spaceship.

Are the ogres flying without any aid? The demolisher guns can be fired by ogre-sized opponents as if handguns, and superheroes should be able to do the same regardless of size.

Quick-shrinker bombs can take a 10' tall ogre and reduce them to...not sure, but probably under 3' tall, or at least 70% shrinkage, with a corresponding loss in strength (and, I would presume, carrying capacity, and damage). Of course, I'm assuming Martian ogres are 10' tall; given how stocky they look, perhaps they are shorter.

This is the next story, Captain Kidd, and the real mystery here is, where is Morgia Island? This page says it is in the tropics, and the legend of bamboo torture comes from Asia. But where would you find an island in that area? The South China Sea? Well, maybe; there are over 250 islands there, but none of them are known for having gold...

What interests me far more is the design of that temple. Windowless, accessible only by a front door that is only accessible by going underwater, and vaguely shaped like a cubist elephant -- brilliant stuff!

I'm not sure how the hat keeps the gun dry, but maybe we do need a mechanic to see if guns still work once they're wet. 2 in 6 chance of not firing? Anything to discourage players from overly relying on firearms!

I like the idea of a large statue that works like a slot machine; tug the arm and out pops a whiskey bottle from where his kidney should be!

I like the detail of the grenades mounted on the wall -- thank goodness the natives never mistook them for torches!  It would also be a nice encounter for Heroes to walk into an occupied room, see grenades on the wall, and then whoever wins initiative has a chance to grab the grenades first.

Those gold ingots look pretty heavy, and gold was worth $34.50 an ounce back then.

Oh...so that's why you don't want your front door underwater. Actually, I think the real lesson here is to always have a secret escape route from your temple.

Not sure how Kidd knows the bad guy was called "The Voice," since only the narrator called him that up to this point. Maybe one of the natives told him.

This is from a short humor strip called Professor Fiend. People are out to get the Professor for inventing a raygun that fires (*ahem*) permanent waves and curls people's hair.

Shrinking in order to hide is actually a good tactic, if you have the magic or the science for it. A "normal" potion of shrinking (as found in the H&H basic book's trophy section) stops at shrinking you down to about 6" tall. Here, the Professor shrinks to one-quarter of an inch tall, pauses, and keeps shrinking to the size of an atom (not unlike some future superheroes!).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)