Wonderworld Comics #9 - pt. 3

This is still Dr. Fung (and Dan Barrister, who never gets title billing). It seems the shrinking process of Karno takes two days, which is an unusually long onset time for comic books.

I had long toyed with the notion of allowing a stunning blow to the back of the head. It finally made it into the 2nd edition Basic book as the "head blow" rule (page 90).

Dr. Fung moves silently with an expert skill check to avoid detection.

Dr. Fung is still making skill checks.

It is difficult to say what that ray-gun does exactly. It can definitely strike two people side-by-side at the same time. Since Dr. Fung says it "blasts," maybe it shoots pure concussive force, allowing it to both do damage to opponents and wreck things.

It's worth noting that this is a distinctly different chamber than the throne room we saw Karno in earlier, and possibly also different from the lab Irene was imprisoned in. The rest of the hideout seems to be caves, other than these three chambers.

Tex Mason used a skill check to disguise himself as an Indian.

The bank robbers are consistently called bandits on this page, so they must be statted that way.

The last bandit should be shouting "It's over, Tex! I have the high ground!"

Willis Rensie is likely a pseudonym for Will Eisner (though the art is Bob Powell). Will seemed to have a great deal of apprehension about the War in Europe and here wrongly anticipates three Axis powers in Europe. He likely assumed that Spain would join the Axis. Unofficially they did aid Germany, but could do little because they were so wiped after their civil war.

Of Diableef, Riano, and Morga, it will be interesting to see which represents Germany, Italy, and Spain.

"Ahh, no, please -- the coat is rubbing on the fresh wounds from my lashings! Take it off!"

K-51's bizarre sentence seems to be something in Italian written out phonetically, but I can't guess what it is.

If I'm right, though, that makes Morga the Italian guy!

The uniforms look an awful lot like chauffeur uniforms...

"Guten abend" means that Diableef is the German guy (though, really, that one was not a hard guess).

It's a little bizarre that the plot of this scenario is to save Hitler.

Only this early in 1940 could someone think Hitler was just being manipulated by Mussolini and would be willing to sign a peace accord with Europe.

Stories like this were often ripped from the headlines (even if it was the headlines of a few years past). This is interesting because it is based on no real life sugar shortage that I can find. Sugar rationing did occur during the war years, but not until 1942 for the U.S.

"Daily Globe" is a fairly generic newspaper name used in a lot of cities, so it does not tell us where Mob Buster Robinson takes place.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)