Speed Comics #5 - pt. 3

And we're back with Crash, Cork, and the Baron in their Ceylon adventure. I was very pleased to look up arrack and find out that's a real thing, but it's only an Indian liquor. So, he wasn't actually "doped" so much as they just got him drunk.

Covering him with leeches was an unusual deathtrap.

I'm not sure how this would work, game mechanics-wise. Nooses are a simple entangling attack, but how to handle pulling them up into the trees? A second save vs. science to avoid (the first save would be vs. the ensnaring)? A skill check does not make much sense here; it's almost necessary to introduce ability score checks so the Heroes could make Strength checks for this.

This is Ted Parrish, the Man of 1,000 Faces. Thankfully, we don't have to discuss disguise again this time; I'm sharing this page because of the unusual entangling attack. It looks like he's attacking two people at once with the bed sheet, but in the next panel it is clear that the two men are tied up in separate bed sheets; Ted must have thrown one over one mobster's head and then a second sheet over the other on the following turn (since he has surprise for the first attack, the second could have occurred at the beginning of the first regular combat turn).

Since bed sheets are not made for ensnaring attacks, I might give the mobsters a +1 bonus to save vs. being ensnared.

Now we'll jump ahead into Biff Bannon of the U.S. Marines. Biff has an unique challenge to start this scenario, as I can't think of any comic book before or since where the Hero had to park a battleship. Looks like a failed expert skill check, but here the Editor allowed something good to come of the failed roll; Biff crashes into the underground lair of saboteurs (just feet away from hitting all their dynamite too -- lucky he only missed his roll by 1!).

All of Biff's mini-adventures in this installment are random/wandering events. Here, a subway driver has fallen unconscious behind the wheel and Biff has to jump onto a careening subway train. Jumping is a skill check when you have to jump higher or farther than normal, but to jump "on target" like that, you need to make an attack roll instead.

The following newspaper headlines make it clear these mini-adventures are taking place in New York City.

I'm just going to share this one page of Smoke Carter as we race through this issue, and for just two things. One, this long-winded confession is emulated by only one game mechanic, the unconditional surrender of mobsters who fail morale saves. And two, "Flames like the stamp that seals his doom" is so melodramatic that Stan Lee should have used it as the title in a Marvel Comics story.

Now we'll jump to Landor, Maker of Monsters, who creates a 20' giant mole in this story.

It makes no sense at all that a) Landor has his pet mole start digging from so far away instead of driving it closer, and b) that Landor left no guards behind to protect his castle, even though he knows Tony Terrence knows where the castle is. Further, I am skeptical of gunshots causing a cave-in so quickly, but maybe it could happen...plus it's a good way to make guns less of an option in an underground hideout.

Now this is Texas Tyler, and this page demonstrates how easy it is to get information out of drunken hoodlums (I'll have to add a note to their stat entry).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)