Superman is nearly a two-year old concept by this point. He still works for the Daily Star, so this is still taking place in Cleveland. Or is it? This is the first story in which the city is called Metropolis. Ultra-Humanite is still his main villain (now villainness). Clark Kent writes an article for the Daily Star about Terry Curtis and his atomic disintegrator, an article that Ultra reads, making Clark responsible for the danger Terry soon finds himself in.
Although Clark gets a serious clue as to who Terry's new girlfriend is (she looks like the very actress Ultra's brain now inhabits? Hmm...), it takes him a surprising amount of time -- a week, in fact -- to guess at the truth (clearly he has not read much fiction and doesn't know how villains return from seemingly dying). Superman's player has to take the full blame for this, as there is no game mechanic for solving clues. It seems like the player was just tired of going after Ultra, feeling the Editor was forcing the same villain on him too often. Instead of being flexible, the Editor simply ups the ante, as Ultra is soon extorting $2 million from Metropolis over the threat of the disintegrator, forcing Superman to finally deal with this.
Ultra forces Terry's obedience with a "torture ray" that projects a blinding light into his eyes. It only takes several hours (1 rest turn) for the ray to break him. The new version of the disintegrator Terry makes is a raygun that can be mounted on the front of a plane. The narrator calls the plane a "fantastic air-vessel," but it clearly resembles a 1937 Boeing Flying Fortress.
Ultra demonstrates the disintegrator on the Wentworth Tower. I can't find any evidence of anything like a Wentworth Tower in Cleveland, so that seems to be more evidence that we're in a fictional new city now.
Superman finally uses a power, Raise Building, to hold up the tower until all the bystanders are clear. It is very unclear if Superman is flying or leaping in this story. He manages to dodge the raygun in mid-air, but then has to descend to the ground. This is why I put into the power Leap III that the leaper can make a 45-degree turn in mid-air.
That Superman is able to trigger an eruption in the volcano Ultra is using as his new hideout makes me suspect the location is Ecuadaor, since the last time a volcano erupted in the Americas was the Sangay Volcano there in 1934. Superman hitches a ride on an airplane -- on top of the airplane -- to get to Ecuador, so the only power we need concern ourselves with here is perhaps the use of Hold Breath when the plane rose too high in the atmosphere, or perhaps a Resist Cold/Endure Elements power to cope with the temperature at that altitude.
Ultra's hideout is a glass-sheathed "city" inside the volcano. It is the first, but not the last, time that Jerry Siegel would toy with the notion of hiding lost ruins of forgotten civilizations in Superman's world.
Ultra sics "huge" robots on Superman, making it his first battle ever with robots. They appear to be man-sized, though.
Superman is stopped by a trap -- if he crosses a photoelectric beam in the room, a disintegrator raygun aimed at Metropolis will be turned on remotely. It's a diabolical trap, but it's got some issues. Could Ultra have really created an intercontinental remote control, or is he bluffing? And what if Superman just left the room, came around it, and broke through the opposite wall? Instead, Superman allows himself to be suckered into a false offer to trade Curtis' life for some "crown jewels" being stored in Metropolis. Perhaps Superman is just curious to see what Ultra's game is...
There is no explanation for why the crown jewels are in Metropolis, or what country they are from. It was long rumored, while war was raging in Europe, the UK shipped its crown jewels to the U.S. for safekeeping (and now it is rumored that they never left Windsor Castle).
Superman returns to the U.S. by running up through the Americas. It is suggested by the narrator that he is only at outrunning train speeds, which means he might have taken days to get back. Race the Plane would have got him back home in 7 hours.
Regardless, it is enough time for the National Guard and the city's police force to assemble to stop Superman (when Ultra phones ahead to tip them off). They certainly don't come prepared; their one cannon is pre-WWI vintage.
Superman makes a subtle use of wrecking things to wreck open a fire hydrant. A long time ago on this blog I talked about using the water pressure from a fire hose as a ranged push attack, but maybe it should be strong enough to do damage too?
Instead of just wrecking his way inside, Superman uses the power Wall-Climbing...I'm guessing because he expects to see the crown jewels through a window.
The National Guard get inventive with trying to stop Superman. They chop off the flagpoles so Superman can't use them to help climb (but he's using the power, so he doesn't need them). When that fails, they try to drop a safe on him from at least two stories higher up. The safe maybe weighs around 600 lbs (3 men can move it). So what damage would a 600 lb. safe cause falling two stories onto someone's head? Someone weighing an average of 180 lbs. does 1-6 damage with a weapon. If we double that for each d6 of progression, we get 3-18 damage for the safe (rounded up). If the damage progresses at +1d6 per 180 lbs., we're still at 3-18 damage -- at this weight -- but that makes dinosaurs SUPER dangerous. It the safe falls 10' it takes/does 1-6 damage, +1d6 for each additional 10'. So we're up to a whopping 5-30 damage for the falling safe -- good call, National Guardsmen, this safe is about as dangerous as a cannon! Unfortunately, Superman comes up with an unusual use of the Raise Car power, negating damage when something is dropped on him (because he can lift it away). Indeed, Superman then buffs himself again with Extend Missile Range so he can toss the safe back up onto the roof (a harmless move, but one that might trigger morale saves at the Editor's discretion).
Superman takes the uncharacteristic action of holding the National Guard Commander over the side of the roof, to force the surrender of his men. It's unclear how he recognizes the man as the commander, since he's not wearing any special uniform. Presumedly, Superman was bluffing and did not really intend to drop the man to his death, but this early in his career no one knew that about him.
Superman is able to rip open a vault door as "tho' it were a toy," which is why all types of doors all wreck at the same category.
Superman is able to disregard tear gas because of the Different Physical Structure power and machine gun fire because of the Imperviousness power.
The situation escalates when three Army fighter planes show up and bombard the floor Superman is on with gunfire -- presumedly killing all the National Guardsmen inside. Superman "outmaneuvers them" in a panel where he appears to be running on clouds. I'm not quite ready to introduce a Cloud Walking power yet, as I believe that was not the artist's intentions. Indeed, I believe Shuster intended that to be smoke from the gunfire around Superman, not clouds, but was changed by Siegel's narrative caption.
Superman returns to the volcano in Ecuador "shortly later," meaning that he definitely used a higher level Race the- power this time. Ultra immediately "double-crosses" Superman by trying to kill him in a death trap; it's unclear if Superman really planned to trade the crown jewels for Curtis until the double cross. The death trap is four panels that raise out of the floor around a 5' square and close in on a single target, each with two diamond-tipped drills set on the inside of the panel. One could presume this trap would do up to 8-48 damage, provided all eight drills hit. I would probably roll to hit for all eight (as 4 HD mobsters), accounting for the victim's ability to squirm in the available space and avoid them. Superman simply wrecks his way out of the trap. Not only does he wreck the drills, but he is shown to break the diamond bits in half with the force of his punch. It's difficult to assign a category to that, but I would go with battleships or dams.
The atomic disintegrator also comes in rifle size, but this weapon is not a raygun; it shoots a thin beam (that looks like fire) that the attacker needs to roll to attack to use (spoiler: he misses Superman, so we don't find out if Superman is immune or not).
Superman lets Ultra jump out of the room, assuming the volcano would kill him, feeling that wrecking the larger raygun is more important. Causing a volcano to erupt by wrecking things would be in the dam category.
Pep Morgan's feature follows; it's a standard vs. gamblers plot, but is marked by the meta-humor of Pep reading a copy of Action Comics.
(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives vol. 2, the rest read at fullcomic.pro)
No comments:
Post a Comment