Wonderworld Comics #9 - pt. 2

We rejoin Yarko the Great still messing with con men. He clearly casts Telekinesis, and maybe a Ventriloquism spell? Unless he's still just using ordinary ventriloquism skill there.

Now he casts Teleport and Speak with Dead.

I am going to spare you the first part of the Shorty Shortcake story, a racist tale about how Mexicans are lazy and sleep all the time, only waking up to watch cock fights. Here we see that thrown stones -- well, gold nuggets -- do damage. I would treat them as improvised weapons and do 1-3 points of damage.

I would be extremely cautious about allowing people to be tied up like pretzels in Hideouts & Hoodlums, as it might be too unrealistic for H&H combat. However...if you did enough grappling damage to break lots of bones, maybe it is possible...

So where is the fighting zone where Patty O'Day is? It's got to be Finland, unless this is an earlier story, and then maybe Poland. The officer arresting them speaks French; France has not yet been attacked, but French soldiers may have reached their allies in Finland or Poland. Plus, forces were already massing on both sides of the France-Germany border, so while no fighting had taken place yet, it was definitely a zone.

It's peculiar that this is "against regulations," as war correspondents were common in WWII and female ones were not rare. She must have just failed to gain permission.

I think Patty would be dead three times over by now if it wasn't for Ham. Here he displays successful skill checks at raft-building, sailing/navigation, fire-building, and hunting/tracking. I'm sure it's a product of the times that Patty can't be shown as being good at anything, but it leaves me puzzled why this feature isn't just called Ham.

Ham appears to get in two punches -- including a "two-in-one" punch -- before anyone can attack him back, but unless Ham is a buffed superhero, that seems unlikely. More likely, Ham has attacked over two turns (the "two-in-one" being flavor text for two hits in the same turn) without anyone being able to land a hit on him until the end of the second turn.

That Patty and Ham are locked in their cell with their camera stretches my suspension of disbelief. They must have made a save vs. plot to not have it confiscated, with something like a -3 or -4 penalty.

That is one stupid guard. She either scored a max roll on her encounter reaction check or he badly failed a save vs. plot to resist falling for that (an Editor could use either mechanic in that instance). The guard entry in the Mobster Manual is going to include a penalty on saves to resist whatever ploys the Heroes come up with to fool them and a chance for guards to stupidly turn their backs on Heroes.

The Moth seems like one of the earliest costumed supervillains in comics, or would be if he really wasn't just a bodyguard to the main villain. The Moth's costume is bulletproof, which only means it is at least as hard to hit as AC 7.

The gas gun looks to have a range of at least 15'.

The scientist/madman responsible for the Moths thinks they fly because they are "sensitized to a powerful energy wave," but it seems obvious to me the one in that first panel is wearing a jetpack.

This is one of the first evil scientists to use shrinking technology, and definitely the first for such a novel purpose.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)