Planet Comics #2 - pt. 2

I'm picking up where I left off in this issue's Flint Baker adventure, as there's still a lot of interesting ground to cover here.

This page introduces a new alien, only referred to as "the creature" or the "tiny fiend." I'm tempted to call him a little green man, but I think he's being treated generically enough that he only needs to be statted as an alien. 

Last post I talked about this giant "white" ape, and now I found out that it's actually some sort of super-science golem, created from a combination of animate and inanimate parts. This transmogrification tube, or whatever you'd call it, is some huge mad science. It's essentially a mobster-maker.

Despite being so cartoony-looking and having no name or personality -- man, that's one tough adversary, unusually tough during a time in comic books when most adversaries go down after one hit or one shot. He's strong enough to do a lot of "pushing damage" to Parks. The ray unaffects him -- although, if it's a wrecking things ray, it wouldn't affect anyone anyway.

Our little unnamed alien even uses smart hostage-taking tactics.

Here, though, we have another example of how easy it is to disarm and grapple someone in comics. Even though we're told how fast and agile this alien is, the two unarmed women easily disarm him and knock him prone.

This caption is the only proof we have of the alien's agility, unless his twisting himself free is agility.

His ability to throw boulders (even small boulders) suggests the alien is statted as a superhero of at least 1st-level, with the Extend Missile Range I power activated.

Wrecking missile weapons before they can be used is actually a tactic that got used in my last Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign (and quite a lot, towards the end)!

Wait...what is Flint trying to do to the alien? I don't think he was trying to explode him into atoms, that was a random result of tinkering with the machine (I can just imagine the random mishap table to go along with the machine, with blowing up being the worst result)...but what result was he hoping for?

Time to finally move on to the next feature, which is Tiger Hart, the goofy Fletcher Hanks' one attempt at making a Prince Valiant-like strip. And there's certainly some goofiness here, like the name Tiger Hart, naming his horse Zip, the fact that Zip knows how to power dive, and that impossibly barrel-shaped chest on Tiger -- but I do like that trapped bridge. I'm not sure how the hanging rope triggers it, but the bridge folds up into a box, trapping anyone on it, which is a pretty cool trap.












Tiger is nice enough to give the men some privacy while they strip off their clothes, searches them (a very thorough tactic, by the way), and then lets them put their clothes back on -- before threatening to feed them to tigers. So Tiger isn't so much nice to his prisoners as he just didn't want to see them naked. And isn't he just like a Batman villain here, incorporating an animal in his name into his deathtrap?

But most bizarre of all -- how do you hide a glowing gem that big inside a horse's mane?? A saddle bag, maybe, but inside the mane? And how did it not just fall out?

Bending bars isn't that hard for comic book Heroes, but should maybe be slightly harder than doors - so, treat as machines.

Talon men would be a new mobster type. Its distinguishing features are, obviously, those over-sized claws that would let it do extra damage (maybe 2-8 with claw attack?).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)