After freeing the zombies, Tex forgoes fighting the whole tribe of natives by rushing straight to their chief and challenging him in single combat. Now, normally, the cliche is that this works and the Hero gets to win the scenario with just one fight -- but this time it doesn't work and Tex gets knocked out and put in a deathtrap (tied on a spit over a roaring fire) -- so maybe he tried to save vs. plot to make that happen and failed?
Likewise, the story makes use of the cliche of the chase over the rickety bridge spanning a deep chasm, and this time the natives do pursue across, like in the cliches, even when they see Tex cutting the ropes on the other side. Maybe they missed their saves vs. plot too.
The Three Aces are in the Koyukuk "Valley" in Alaska, which is a real place. Golden Age writers always seem more comfortable using real places if it's in Alaska. Gunner uses semaphore to communicate with the other two aces in their plane -- a rare instance of a language being used that not every Hero necessarily knows.
Gunner rescues a stranded father and daughter. The father is hurt, but Gunner gives him hot broth to "bring a stir of life to him." It is not the first time I have considered allowing healing after eating -- though I'm not there yet.
We learn that Gunner Bill is an orphan, possibly being the closest we ever get to an origin story for one of the Three Aces.
Gunner, the father, and daughter Tony are trapped in a blizzard for an entire week. Only after the week ends do they finally meet a wandering encounter, a pack of at least seven wolves. Very unusual for an adventure strip, the thugs who attacked Tony and her dad and left them stranded are caught and arrested behind the scenes, without the Heroes involved at all (which is what happens when you don't want to continue the scenario next time).
The Zatara story, curiously, takes place earlier in the summer of 1939. The "mist death" strikes in Africa, Asia, and Europe, killing hundreds every time the mist appears. It is not a choking hazard, but burns the skin like acid. The Prime Minister of England (if you squint really hard, it even looks like Neville Chamberlain a little) recruits Zatara to investigate.
Zatara is visited by a moon woman. Moon women are like full-sized Tinkerbells. This one is crazy; she thinks moon people came to Earth thousands of years ago and wiped out most human life. Zatara casts a "Fly" spell so he can accompany her from England to India in a matter of hours. The Fly spell does not allow transportation that fast, so they are more likely teleporting slowly -- unless some more powerful version of the Fly spell exists.
Instead of attacking from the Moon, the moon men are attacking from underwater caves off the coast of India. Unlike moon women, moon men look like 5' tall goblins, with green skin, big, orange, saucer eyes, and lower jaw tusks. It is unclear if the moon men have horns, if they just wear horns attached to the chainmail coifs they all appear to be wearing.
Zatara casts some kind of a spell that turns rays from the moon man's raygun into firecrackers. It seems overly-powerful that Zatara uses a spell powerful enough to transform energy into matter (that's a high-level polymorph spell -- at least 6th level!) to overcome a lone sentry, so perhaps it is a simpler weapon that makes weapons misfire (I could see that as a 4th level spell). Then -- because this is Zatara and he always burns his most powerful spells right away -- he also casts Wall of Stone (another 4th level spell) in front of the moon man as he's running away. When he meets the moon men's dictator, he uses Telekinesis -- a third 4th level spell! -- to tip his throne over on him.
Zatara is attacked by nitons -- winged snakes (with sail-shaped wings) that have magic resistance and are immune to mind-affecting spells. Very unusual for Zatara, he has to flee from the nitons and uses Wizard Lock on their three remaining cages (maybe Wizard Lock should affect more than one portal?) so more nitons cannot be released. And then he casts Hold Person on the nitons' keeper (though the spell makes it appear that chains have wrapped around him).
The next two spells are confusing. To save Nala, the moon woman, when he finds she's been captured (the moon men view her as a different race, by the way), he casts a spell that makes a glass wall (Wall of Glass -- 2nd level spell?) appear around her. That keeps the moon men from harming her, but it does not explain how it gets her away from them by the next panel. Then Zatara casts a spell that teleports every net (nets are used for catching nitons) located in the moon men's sunken city into one big pile. This has got to be some advanced version of Teleport called Collect, and I would put it at 8th level (it can collect every example of one type of item found within a certain radius, so if you cast it to collect doors, every door in the hideout within a 1,000' radius, or something like that, would appear in a pile by you). Then he tosses a Fireball on the pile of nets, because the nets go up in a cloud of smoke.
Next, Zatara casts Polymorph Any Object three times to turn the cages of nitons into pearls. He uses Polymorph Self to appear to be a moon man. He uses Charm Person -- a very rare 1st level spell! -- to make one of the moon men scientists his best friend and tell him their whole master plan.
Moon women can turn invisible. Nala claims moon women lived on Earth millions of years ago before migrating to the Moon. Although, bear in mind, she's a fruitcake. Zatara indulges her because he likes how she looks in a bikini.
Earlier, Zatara claimed the moon men were a thousand years more advanced than Earth men. Little bears that out, though the moon men do have a monorail, and they can turn radium into gaseous form (that accounts for the death mist). Zatara plans to kill all the moon men with a combination of the radium gas and the nitons -- though, to be fair, the moon men also plan to end all life on Earth, so it's kind of a kill or be-killed situation.
Zatara either owns a Cloak of Invisibility, or casts an Invisibility spell in the form of a cloak.
Zarara must have some spell cast on himself that protects him from radiation, as he withstands a lot of exposure to it while moving through the mist-filled city, more so than can be explained by his amount of hit points.
In a rare instance of Zatara claiming a trophy item, he takes a moon ray gun, which can wreck at short range.
Moon men and moon women were both statted in Supplement I: National.
(Read at fullcomic.pro.)
No comments:
Post a Comment