I certainly like it when Hideouts & Hoodlums perfectly emulates the look and feel of comic books from the golden age...but there are certain stories that make me go, hmm, maybe strict emulation could be taken too far. Case in point: should tanks be allowed to burrow through the center of the Earth, as a "shortcut" from Mongolia to Florida? Not only is that completely impossible, but it's so impossible that air dropping tanks from above would be relatively easy in comparison.
That said, I like that we get our invasion started in Florida for a change. The story imagines a Fort Blane in southern Florida, near the Everglades, but southern Florida only has Navy and Coast Guard bases in it for real.
A superhero using his wrecking things ability would not be unbelievable, except that we just saw (on a page I skipped over) the tanks shrugging off bombs dropped from airplanes like they were nothing. Is there some special vulnerability to fire to these tanks, and if so, how did they ever make it through the heat as they drew closer to the Earth's core?
And yet, there must be a known vulnerability to fire in the design, or there would be no reason for the men to have asbestos suits with them (unless they were anticipating the Flame showing up?).
10-to-1 odds seems too much for the Flame, though he uses Get Tough on at least four of them before taking off.
Oh, come on, Flame! What did that poor huge (5 HD?) alligator ever do to you? It looks like it was only trying to give you a hug to me, you murdering bum! And why do you only
afterwards get the idea to use your flame to drive off the others? (Common sense morale check, at the Editor's discretion.)
More evidence of how easy disguise is in comic books: despite the fact these are see-thru helmets, no one questions the fact that one of the men is wearing the Flame's mask under his helmet.
The Flame can now wreck dams, which means he is at least 6th level -- not a surprise, since we've already seen him use the high-level Teleport through Focus power. He's only been published in enough pages to warrant being 3rd level by now, so there are plenty of brevet ranks in play here (if not for the teleport power, it would be possible that his flame-gun is a trophy item that wrecks at a higher level, and that the gun is not itself just flavor text describing how he uses his powers).
As loony as this story has been...that is one gorgeous page of art.
Here's that Teleport through Focus power we were just talking about! It would appear that we are talking about a range that can take him halfway around the world...but we also don't have to assume that the Flame made this trip in just one jump. Perhaps it took him days to teleport from open flame to open flame until he got to Mongolia.
Genghis Khan villains are apparently high kickers. I'm not sure how that makes a game mechanics difference, but it sure looks impressive!
A very rare example of a sword being used as a missile weapon.
Despite being a relatively inexperienced superhero, the Flame already commands the respect of the U.S. Army.
It should not surprise you to learn that Evergreen Chasm is not a real place. Florida is relatively free of chasms.
Sinkholes, on the other hand...
Not the first time we've seen plot hook characters literally crash into the Heroes.
Nor is the first time we've seen Heroes feel they have to escape bad weather by heading indoors, no matter how spooky the building looks (save vs. plot required).
That still looks like Eisner to me, but comics.org tells me this is Bob Powell doing a good Eisner impersonation. I'm impressed by the sense of space in the castle interior. The door knocker, the height of the door and ceilings, the rafters, and the blazing chandelier are all dressing details for a good hideout.
Yarko, despite having gone spell-to-spell with the Devil already, can't overcome this one guard. Granted, the grappling rules are not kind towards magic-users (with their low attack bonuses), and perhaps we've finally discovered Yarko's weakness here, that he needs his hands free to cast spells.
Poof! is a 1st-level spell in 2nd ed.
H&H. It only works on one person, so this is perhaps a higher-level version (Poof II?) that allows multiple people to disappear. It's also possible that more pf them than just the baron is casting versions of this spell.
No comments:
Post a Comment