Fantastic Comics #3 - pt. 2

Moving on from Samson, this is Flick Falcon's feature.

"I must do it, Flick."

"Now, hold on, Adele," Flick should say. "We're 12 times the size of these jokers; we don't have to go along with any crazy scheme they come up with!"

As outlandish as it is to build a scenario around putting your supporting cast members in danger, Flick goes along with it.

That dress is the real reason Flick went along with this crazy scheme.

The carnicantileia is definitely going in the Mobster Manual. It appears to be a snake with a crocodile head.

Make that a giant snake with a crocodile head! That sucker must be 30' long, and possibly able to swallow humans whole.

This is Golden Knight, a feature that here decides that historical accuracy is boring and turns into a mix of Arthurian Grail myth and John Carter of Mars.

Kara the Magician, who has a girl name and poses suggestively towards Sir Richard in a short skirt, teleports him to an alien world to recover the Golden Chalice, that sounds remarkably like the Holy Grail. For just agreeing to go, he already gets a magic ring, but not what most players would consider a very powerful one. The Ring of Light sheds illumination like a lantern and can be used once per exploration turn to blind an opponent (saving throw allowed).

It's nice of the inhabitants of this other world to write in English (though, since magic is involved, perhaps it's just magically translated for Sir Richard).

It's also interesting that, aside from this fortress, there are no signs of intelligent life on this other world. The intelligent life must have been killed off (there are a lot of skeletons around).

Although not called such, this is the first hydra in comic books. It shows that hydras can start with as little as 3 heads, and that all but the main head grow back (I guess there's a random chance of lucking on the main head).

We've seen a lot of octopi in comics so far, but this is the first that has used its ink cloud offensively before entering combat.

Swimming in the magic pool triples one's strength. Tripling a Strength score doesn't work mechanically in Hideouts & Hoodlums; it makes more sense to have the pool magically bestow the Get Tougher power for an unknown duration.

Man, Sir Richard is really hungry! His first time seeing a giant bird, and his first thought is to eat it!

Now, I got excited when I saw those "birds" in panels 5-6 -- in silhouette they look like stirges!

Actually, they turn out to be "wild poison bats" (which I'll also be adding to the Mobster Manual). I'll be giving them 1 HD, poisonous bites, and horn damage. They also seem to be particularly vulnerable to fire and heat, since they just fly over the lava and die (+1 damage per die from heat or fire?).

That magical pool must have turned Sir Richard into a full-fledged superhero, as here he wrecks the wall to create his own secret door!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)