Planet Comics #2 - pt. 4

Last post on this issue! We're still looking at Captain Nelson Cole of the Solar Force. On this page, their tiny fleet encounters floating radium asteroids. Instant destruction within 1,000 miles? I don't know about that...how about giving them a saving throw vs. poison at least? Saving throws don't work like that for inanimate objects like spaceships, but if the crew all dies, that's effectively the same as destruction, right...?

Skipping ahead...Nelson is the sole survivor of his entire fleet and when he arrives on the planet they were heading for, he gets upgraded with magic trophies. How awkward it would have been had more crew survived than there was magic trophies to go around to!

So, one, it's a pretty weird shift to go from a science fiction story into a magic-fantasy story. Weirder, he's given a fake mustache and told he has to pretend to be this world's Zorro now. What a mid-campaign shift!

Two-headed giants are already planned to be in the Mobster Manual, but this one at 40' tall might mean revising the entry to be tougher.

In Hideouts & Hoodlums terms, it's possible that Nelson/Torro hasn't been given actual trophy items at all, but has been allowed to switch classes to Superhero. Or maybe one or more of the items gives him levels in Superhero. Because the first thing he does seems very much like the 1st-level power Feather Landing. And then he wrecks things on the tree with his magic whip.

Wrecking things in front of mobsters provokes a morale save, as we see here.

"Boy, let me tell ya all about what my magic clothes can do! And don't get me started on what my socks and underwear are capable of..."

This makes me even more strongly suspect that "Torro" is a superhero now using flavor text to describe how his powers work -- because it seems a lot like he's describing Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, Leap I (well, technically, a much higher level Leap power, but maybe he's exaggerating), and wrecking things to me. Or maybe the clothes give him 1 level in Superhero, and the whip gives him another.

And lastly, we're going to jump ahead to the final feature, Auro, Lord of Jupiter. Again, there's a lot of John Carter of Mars influence here, right down to how common apes are just wandering around.

Auro is likely another superhero, buffed with one of the Get Tough powers, to be able to beat a gorilla bare-handed like that.

It's going to take weeks for that bite wound to heal? Does Auro have an immune system deficiency, or is he just making that up to score pity points from Ava?

Actually, if he was statted as an alien, and needed to have a racial weakness, I would allow slow healing to be his -- though I can't imagine a player choosing such an agregious handicap.

So the game mechanic question here is, is there a combat penalty for fighting with one hand behind your back? Technically, no, and judging by this page, there shouldn't be. However, I think an Editor would be well within his rights to assign a -1 penalty to attacks, and maybe a -2 penalty to grappling, while one-armed.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)