The first issue opens with Red, White, and Blue, my personal favorite feature from All-American Comics until the introduction of Red Tornado in Scribbly.
Some unusual 1940 lingo from this story: a found purse is called, instead of a purse or even a handbag, a "pocketbook." The owner's ID card inside is not called an ID card, but a "name card." An agent of G-2, the U.S. Secret Service (as it was also known at that time) presents her credentials and they look like a pamphlet.
Reg'lar Fellers features a simple trap -- or is
it simply a trick? -- where an intruder trips a tripwire that rings a
gong and announces his presence. There's also a good chance of the
tripwire simply knocking the intruder prone (save vs. science?).
The very first Hop Harrigan adventure begins with his origin story -- how, as a young boy, he flees by plane after getting in a fight with his evil uncle. Hop and the uncle have a short, but dramatic struggle over a weapon -- a hatchet -- that the uncle planned to use on the plane. Rather than a disarming attack, it seems Hop initiated a grappling contest instead.
Hop makes reference to his aviation heroes Lindbergh and Corrigan. Everyone has heard of Charles Lindbergh, but Corrigan was Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Hop's first plane is a "Jenny" biplane, which is very appropriate because that's the plane I assigned to 1st level aviators.We also learn that a Jenny was worth $500, used!
The Mystery Men of Mars is a great name for a feature, but it starts with some shaky science; three men are going to fly to Mars in an anti-gravity ship. "I don't work with power! I work with the laws of gravity! I found a vay to reverse them und ve can reach Mars by simply falling upwards!" For one thing, there's nothing simple about that. Two, even if you could repel yourself from a center of gravity, how would you gain speed? The further away you "fell," the weaker the repelling force. The trip is going to take a month, which may seem like a long trip to a young reader in 1940, but means that the ship is "falling" at roughly 50,000 MPH. Despite this, the ship does not disintegrate on contact with Mars' atmosphere, and lands so safely that it occurs off-panel. Oh, and Mars has breathable atmosphere and even a pleasant clime. Who knew!
In Ben Webster, we learn that the most expensive fur-lined winter coat in a men's clothing store was $200.
Moving on to issue #2...
Red, White, and Blue find they have to catch a train for a secret mission, so quickly that they don't have time to get their baggage from the hotel. Red isn't worried, because he can wire the hotel from the next town and have them send the baggage to them. Which I point out because it seems an outdated service and one we wouldn't think of hotels doing today.
Red's friend, Christophe Amore, who conveniently shows up has psionic powers (see 1st edition Supplement III). Psionics is, of course, my go-to whenever some form of magic in the comics breaks the rules of magic. Here, Christophe has the ability of Detect Thoughts -- like any magic-user of level 3 or higher -- but with the extra ability of being able to transfer that ability to others for 24 hours. What's more, the range on this power is measured in miles, making it fantastically powerful (and well beyond the 3rd level spell!). I'm beginning to think that psionics needs to be kept out of the players' hands and used by the Editor whenever he needs a magical effect like this that breaks the rules of magic.
The science about helium is actually good in this story, including about how it is extracted from natural gas, but the stuff about it only being produced in the U.S. and the U.S. having a monopoly on helium is pure bunk.
In Mutt & Jeff, we learn that a pedigree dog goes for $60.
That Hop Harrigan's mentor's plane has a ceiling height of 22,000 feet just shows what humble beginnings Hop has; planes were breaking that ceiling height record as early as 1916.
Hop's first SCM, "Ikky", faints in a tense moment. I actually added "fainting" to the morale save results table for just such an occurence.
In Mystery Men of Mars, Ted, Alan, and the Professor encounter Martians riding around in somewhat resemble the dreadnought crabs we saw in Amazing Man Comics a while back. These crabs can go 600 MPH despite walking on stilt-like legs. The Martians inside are called bugs, and look like pillbug men. They have telescoping third arms that come out of the center of their chests. They are encountered in groups as high as 13. The Martian bug men have advanced transportation, but primitive weaponry; they are armed only with spears. They use simple traps like portcullis traps.
(All-American Comics read at ReadComicOnline.)
Red, White, and Blue find they have to catch a train for a secret mission, so quickly that they don't have time to get their baggage from the hotel. Red isn't worried, because he can wire the hotel from the next town and have them send the baggage to them. Which I point out because it seems an outdated service and one we wouldn't think of hotels doing today.
Red's friend, Christophe Amore, who conveniently shows up has psionic powers (see 1st edition Supplement III). Psionics is, of course, my go-to whenever some form of magic in the comics breaks the rules of magic. Here, Christophe has the ability of Detect Thoughts -- like any magic-user of level 3 or higher -- but with the extra ability of being able to transfer that ability to others for 24 hours. What's more, the range on this power is measured in miles, making it fantastically powerful (and well beyond the 3rd level spell!). I'm beginning to think that psionics needs to be kept out of the players' hands and used by the Editor whenever he needs a magical effect like this that breaks the rules of magic.
The science about helium is actually good in this story, including about how it is extracted from natural gas, but the stuff about it only being produced in the U.S. and the U.S. having a monopoly on helium is pure bunk.
In Mutt & Jeff, we learn that a pedigree dog goes for $60.
That Hop Harrigan's mentor's plane has a ceiling height of 22,000 feet just shows what humble beginnings Hop has; planes were breaking that ceiling height record as early as 1916.
Hop's first SCM, "Ikky", faints in a tense moment. I actually added "fainting" to the morale save results table for just such an occurence.
In Mystery Men of Mars, Ted, Alan, and the Professor encounter Martians riding around in somewhat resemble the dreadnought crabs we saw in Amazing Man Comics a while back. These crabs can go 600 MPH despite walking on stilt-like legs. The Martians inside are called bugs, and look like pillbug men. They have telescoping third arms that come out of the center of their chests. They are encountered in groups as high as 13. The Martian bug men have advanced transportation, but primitive weaponry; they are armed only with spears. They use simple traps like portcullis traps.
(All-American Comics read at ReadComicOnline.)
No comments:
Post a Comment