Planet Comics #3 - pt. 3

We're going to look at two more features from this issue of Planet Comics today. First is Buzz Crandall, who lives in a future where the Moon is like the Wild West, with isolated outposts surrounded by danger. This is far from the last time I'll be making a space-cowboy parallel observation on this blog.

The autoped reminds me just enough of the real moon lander to intrigue me. Use your imagination; if you redesigned the moon lander to be mobile, wouldn't it look something like this?

But more interesting are moon bats which, to a D&D player, loo exactly like giant stirges! Look at how that one in the last panel is the same size as the autoped and can damage it just by diving into it! I'm thinking 4+1 Hit Dice, and those  probiscises can suck 1-8 hit points' worth of blood out of you per turn, or it can crash into you in a dive for 1-10 points of damage.

Now how did our astronauts manage to avoid the lunar land squids? Look at the size of that baby -- I'm thinking 16 Hit Dice for this one, and maybe using d10 for those HD. It's big enough that it has a chance of swallowing even a large opponent whole (maybe on a 20), and a medium-sized foe on a...18-20? Anyone not swallowed takes 4-32 points of damage from those giant teeth.

Like Noah and the Whale, Buzz winds up alive in its belly -- but that situation seems like it could change because the missing people from the outpost are all skeletons in his belly (in the next page I'm not bothering to show you). Being in the autoped seems to buy him some time, as the digestive enzymes need some turns to wreck it down (1-4 turns?).

Now we're going to look at the next story with Nelson Cole. Those pirate ships remind me of Zaxxon! But the real reason I'm showing you this page is "We'll keep in constant touch with you by radio." Now, radio waves travel at the speed of light, which is plenty fast, but it's not instantaneous in space-sized distances, so Cole is essentially on his own.















Where the heck in space is this? Are they flying through a nebula? This is a really busy nebula, with a lot of planetoids of varying size inside it.

The concept of "attractor-beams," or tractor beams as they are more commonly known today, comes from SF novelist E.E. Smith, but had not come into common comic book parlance yet by 1940, where we still see things like "magno-rays" doing the same affect.

I appreciate the cutaway map of the inside of a spaceship in panel 2. Those ships sure don't provide you much protection out in space, do they?

Now this is remarkable because I think it's the first page of a comic book story to show how different styles of planes (or spaceships in this case) have different degrees of maneuverability that give one an advantage over another.

A previous page I didn't show you told us that Cole had a raygun hidden in his belt buckle, but I assumed it was a tiny gun he would pull out when he needed it, not that he would be shooting it from inside his belt buckle. I wonder what the triggering mechanism is -- voice command? "Pew pew"?

Yet another story that assumes spaceships would land on the ground like conventional planes.

I guess Cole was shot by an electric raygun and the conductive lever saved him? More likely he just made his saving throw vs. science -- but it's always nice when you can come up with an explanation using science (or something that passes for science!).

Didn't I say Cole was on his own? I'm not sure how the Solar Force just happens to show up here, since Cole never called for them. Cole is able to use radio to talk to them without breaking science because the battle is taking place in low orbit.

Only a charitable Editor would give the Solar Force bonuses to hit thanks to Cole calling out plays on the sidelines.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Planet Comics #3 - pt. 2

We're back and still looking at the debut of Amazona the Mighty Woman. Looking at this bottom panel, I was initially bothered by the fact that I couldn't tell which mobsters had been taken down by Amazona and which by Blake. Then I realized, it not only didn't matter, but this, in a nutshell, is the heart of what makes Hideouts & Hoodlums special. It's a game where fighters and superheroes can fight side by side and both feel important in the combat.

Interestingly, one power Amazona conspicuously doesn't display here is Outrun Train, needing to hop a ride to keep up with the fleeing car. Or maybe female superheroes suffer some sort of movement penalty while wearing heels?

We're going to jump ahead to the next feature, Red Comet. I don't particularly care for Red Comet, and this installment certainly didn't change my mind. The King of the Giants of Jupiter looks about as dangerous as your dad when company comes over but he doesn't feel like getting dressed. Red Comet himself isn't much better, remembering to put on his mask and cape, but forgetting the rest of his clothes other than his matching underwear. It's like a nightmare a superhero would have that ends in everybody laughing at him.

Perhaps most frustrating about this page is Red Comet's size-changing power. If he shrinks before climbing on the giant's knee, does that mean that the giant isn't really that big? Or did Red Comet just shrink down a little?

Whoa - things just took a super dark turn! Bear in mind, Golo hasn't done anything at this point other than threaten to invade other planets. Not a soul has actually been hurt yet; his threat has been less harmful than the average Trump tweet. Yet, Red Comet has slaughtered a whole squadron -- at least 15 giants, given my count from the top panel -- just to teach Golo a lesson.

Red Comet is using the Imperviousness power in this last panel, the only power that would protect him from all rayguns.

And lastly we're going to look at Spurt Hammond today. For once, I can say I'm glad to do so! There's some unexpected history with H&H here...

Way back before Comic Book Plus and the Digital Comic Museum were things, scanned comic books were still hard to come by. Some people, like Steve Rogers, made their own websites for them. Some people posted them to the files sections of various Yahoo!Clubs. And some people posted them on this new thing called blogs. I had chanced upon this story on somebody's blog around the time I was writing the second issue of The Trophy Case...wow, way back in 2010! So I wrote up the robots from this issue as vampiric robots from Mercury.

That third panel is swiped from a famous painting...but I can't remember what it is.

I'm actually not sure where I got the "vampiric" part from; it is described as "invincible" and "super" here.

This is not the only nudity you're going to see in this story...

The only thing more intimidating than a giant must be a nude giant. Anticipating Return of the Jedi, the giant is killed by the portcullis. The portcullis does a lot of damage, but then, it stabs him five times in addition to the crushing damage. It would likely have done less harm to a man-sized foe.

Let me see if I get this straight -- Spurt has the drop on them with a ray gun, then sits down his raygun so he can go in punching instead?

It "ought to," Spurt? So you're willing to experiment on bad guys with their own mad science machines, just to see what happens? I would make any Hero save vs. plot before doing this, as it reeks of being no better than the bad guys...

Although I was very generous with Hit Dice when statting this robot, a single shot from a raygun finishes it off. How super and invincible was it supposed to be again?

Ten years later, and I've still never used a vampiric robot from Mercury in one of my games...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Planet Comics #3 - pt. 1

We're still visiting with Fiction House today and now the third issue of Planet Comics. So -- get ready for some really bad science!

This is Flint Baker. Comics.org credits this art to Will Eisner, but I'm skeptical.

Well...maybe I won't knock the science yet. The ship has five different fuel tanks for redundancies, which seems really smart.

Here's some of that bad science I promised you. Flint and Mimi are heading from Mars to Earth, but because they're off-course, wind up by Pluto. Flint would have needed to go to sleep to not notice a detour like this sooner; even if it took just 10 minutes to get to Earth, the detour to Pluto at the same speed would still take 5 1/2 hours.

Whoa, Plutonians are pretty wild-looking! Okay, let's talk about statting these bad boys. They seem to have no uniformity when it comes to antennae; they can have 0-2 antennae. Their hands look like they can do clawing damage, but not a lot because they seem to equally rely on their fists. They have "heavy tails," so those probably do more damage to opponents behind them.

We skipped the page where Flint found Mimi; all you really missed was him activating his "magnetic belt" to get over a stream of boiling oil to reach her. The "magnetic belt" can be the same as a magic Belt of Flying for our purposes. Unless we stat Flint as a superhero, and there's increasingly more reason to do so as we work our way down this page.

It's interesting that Flint doesn't use rayguns. We can assume, because of his belt-augmented strength, he's doing more damage with rocks than the average raygun, suggesting he's buffed with a power like Extend Missile Range.

It's interesting how we're told they are coming in "ever increasing numbers," but we only see three of them.

I appreciate that they keep their raygun locked when not in use.

"Hundreds of Plutonians" are running towards the ship -- again, we only see three.

What does Mimi mean by "that last shot got them?" Did it shoot all the hundreds of them at once? Did it shoot enough of them that the rest failed a morale save? Did it just shoot two or more, so she is technically correct to say "them?" If only we had a panel of art showing us instead of "BOOM"...

Despite having weapons less effective than a welding torch, the Plutonians at least have tactics on their side. That big cloud of smoke came from lighting an oil pool on fire upwind of the crashed ship, so Flint can't see what direction they're coming from.

But what's this? That spaceship looks really heavy. Even the Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds. For 200 Plutonians to lift that, they would need to be able to each lift over 800 lbs. I'm thinking I'm going to have to give these boys some good Hit Dice, like maybe 4+1.

This is Amazona the Mighty Woman, brought to you from Alex Blum, who draws Samson for Fox. Tell me if this sounds familiar: Blake finds himself stranded in a strange land with super-people, but this one beautiful girl wants to go back with him to see America and becomes a superhero. No, it's not Wonder Woman; she's still over a year away.

I don't know how much a chunk of ice that big weighs, but Raise Car should cover it. I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a superhero here.

I really like this last panel. It doesn't further any plot, but it is a nice character moment that shows even a superhero can feel vulnerable. In game play, it reminds us that you can roleplay any weaknesses you want.

...And a roleplayed weakness can be ignored when the scene would be funnier without it.

Since she deliberately disables the car, this is an example of wrecking things, even though she mostly just tips it over. Only a 2nd-level superhero or higher has a chance to wreck a car, which means Amazona has one brevet rank.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Fight Comics #3 - pt. 3

Oran of the Jungle is strong! He doesn't just break the ropes binding him to the wooden stake, he breaks the wooden stake. Oran is still a 1st-level fighter at this point, unless we're assigning him brevet ranks (maybe we do need to give him at least one, as he seemed so sure he had the "combat machine" ability of fighters over 1st level -- see the previous post). Let's assume he has 1 brevet rank and is actually 2nd level. Breaking the ropes would be a wrecking things roll vs. doors. Going for the stake is going to make it harder; let's say the machines category. Being a fighter, he only gets two dice for wrecking things, so he has to roll a 10 or higher to wreck the stake. Like I mentioned last time, Oran is very lucky with the dice!

Last thing I want to say about Oran of the Jungle - as much as I have problems with the story, I really like the art. Comics.org's experts think the artist might be August Froehlich, but they're not sure.

Now we're going to jump into the debut of a new feature, Rip Regan the Power-Man. This is very much an origin story, with Rip just being a class-less nobody at this point. For reasons we don't know -- we'll just have to trust his judgement -- Dr. Austin has chosen Rip out of all the people he knows to wear this power suit he invented. Unless...say, could Dr. Austin have invented more than one and doled them out to other do-gooders, without telling each of them about the others? Sort of hedging his bets?

Dr. Austin just might be prankster enough to do something like that. I am not convinced that it was more discrete to tell them through a loudspeaker to lay on a trapdoor than it would have been to just send them a note that tells them where the door to the stairs was. It's unclear who is laughing in panel 3, but my guess is that it's Austin laughing at them.

As for the suit itself, we're dealing with comic book science

 here, so we have to accept that chemically treated metal can make someone weightless. Or maybe Austin is pranking him again, because we don't see him weightless once in this feature once he's wearing it. Maybe what Austin means is that the suit is weightless; adds nothing to his encumbrance.

As hard as it is to take the power suit seriously, the explanation for how the electric eye sounds an alarm is quite reasonable. The prank chute appeals to my sense of hideout design too.

I'm less interested in the scenario that follows than in Rip's unusual motive for fighting crime -- essentially, the anti-crime fund is paying Rip to work for them the moment he accepts the power suit they funded.

The suit gives Rip the Super-Tough Skin power. That gives us two choices for statting Rip; he is either a fighter wearing a trophy item that gives him the Super-Tough Skin power once per day, or he is a superhero with two brevet ranks, making him high enough to take the Super-Tough Skin power on his own.

Moving on, this is Strut Warren. I thought the slang being thrown around might need some explanation. A leatherneck is a military slang term for a member of the United States Marine Corps, or of the Corps of Royal Marines. A rubberneck is a tourist. "Sloppysocks" is a little trickier. I asked the Golden Age Facebook group about this yesterday and the consensus was this either refers to their loose-fitting trousers, or the actions a lonely sailor might take alone in his hammock.

I really had this guy pegged as one of those brain transplant-type mad scientists, so that he wants to bleed Strut dry to make explosives from his blood is both novel and creepy, if not good science.

It's rare for a Hero to get robbed, but Strut's money here goes to the mobsters who attacked him (even if he was just holding it for someone else).

That's a really awkward third panel. Leglock may need to be added to an extended grappling results table, especially if you can get in extra kick attacks while leglocked.

Flasks in mad science labs make great grenade-like missiles!

Whoa, whoa, whoa -- yes, both the Germans and the Japanese made overtures to the Tibetans from 1938-'39, but that doesn't mean the Tibetans actually planned to help them. This feature is unusual because, while Mongolians were usually treated as savages and the Chinese as fools, Tibetans were always treated like wise mystics in the comics. These warlike Tibetans are still racist, but at least it goes against the cliches.

Just when I think I'm sure aerial combat should be determined by complications, here is more evidence it needs to be settled by hit points. Having your wing riddled shouldn't force a landing, unless hits are just abstractions and hp loss is the real indicator of when you need to land.

"Their hospitality enhanced by rifles" is a good, sarcastic turn of phrase.

We also see a rare instance of a Hero hung by his thumbs. I wonder how many points of damage that would do over time...?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Fight Comics #3 - pt. 2

We're going to skip the introduction and jump right into this issue's Kinks Mason story. These mermen are too strange to stat as ordinary mermen. They are called nothing but amphibians all through the story, so I'll keep that name. They don't seem all that tough; I wouldn't give them more than 1+1 Hit Dice (Kinks kicks their butts bare-handed), plus a -1 to hit because of their monocular vision. As true amphibians, they suffer no penalties for fighting out of water. Maybe they get a +1 to grappling rolls too, since it seems to be the only thing they're good at? It looks like they can be encountered in groups up to 8.

I don't have much to say here, but I like the layout of this factory. There's enough detail that one could start to fashion a map based on it.

"Huge fish?" Is Kinks not aware that looks like a dolphin or porpoise?

Kinks is immune to the bends, or just making all of his saving throws?

It's unclear if Kinks has more than one crew member on his boat. It doesn't seem to be that big, so it's possible there is just this one guy.

Wait, didn't they want to test that ray on Kinks first? I guess Plan B was to invade the surface world without running any tests on the ray yet.

Kinks' strategy might work over time in a chase scene; if not everyone makes their skill checks to increase speed, then some pilots will fall behind and create these gaps between ships.

This is also an interesting example of rayguns having limited charges. 

Spoiler - Kinks wins. So let's jump ahead to Fletcher Hawks' favorite lumberjack, Big Red McLane. We've talked before about pacing golden age scenarios and sometimes they can require a lot of patience (this is baked into Hideouts & Hoodlums in various ways, from the low chance of wandering encounters to the slow rate of healing from hit point loss). Here, we see that Big Red has to wait out in the woods for two whole days before this encounter finally happens.

The six bad guy lumberjacks -- what do I stat them as? Brigands, maybe? -- they don't fare well against Big Red despite two of them having weapons vs an unarmed attacker, and using the tactic of surrounding him to make sure at least some of them are getting an attack-from-behind bonus to hit.

This is an unusual reward for a scenario, both the flapjacks and the percentage stake in the company rescued. The latter is actually a great idea, giving the Hero(es) incentive to keep protecting the company against future threats.

The lumberjacks were careful to use facing to their advantage in the above encounter, so I share this page of Oran of the Jungle to show how Oran deliberately tosses away any benefit he would have from it by jumping down into the middle of the group of natives. It seems like the smart thing to do would have been to jump down before they reached him, so he can block them from getting to the village, or jumping down after them, so he can attack them from behind. The only benefit I can see here is if he is expecting to get the "combat machine" advantage of fighters and multiple attacks against low Hit Die mobsters, so he places himself within reach of the maximum number of opponents.

Oran tracks them all night. Just think about how dark that second panel would really be, then, compared to how clearly we see the tracks in the dirt, and try to imagine what kind of penalty you would assign to Oran's tracking skill check. Then he successfully tracks them for hours. How many skill checks should that be? I would count this time in exploration turns, which means he has to succeed at six skill checks per hour. That is a lot of lucky rolls!

Oran is overwhelmed because the natives use "heavy weapons." H&H doesn't distinguish between normal weapons and heavy weapons. I would take this simply to mean that the weapons feel heavy as they are bludgeoning him for so many points of damage.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Fight Comics #3 - pt. 1

This could be the last comic book I read at the age of 48. Will Fiction House do right by me?

George Tuska's Shark Brodie is on the island of Tahilla, a fictional South Seas island.

Taverns are a great place to sit and listen for rumors, no matter what milieu your campaign takes place in.

Urban Dictionary has some pretty disgusting suggestions for what "angel cake" is slang for. In this case, I think Brodie just means they don't look like angels.

It takes five-to-one odds to take Shark down, which is pretty good considering Shark should only be a 2nd-level fighter by this point.

Deathtraps involving tides are surprisingly rare to this point, but sharks are a dime-a-dozen. Now, defending yourself from a shark by kicking it, I don't think I've ever seen that before or since...

 ...so it's disappointing that the shark is ultimately dispatched with a cliched knife.

Non-superheroes being able to wreck rope bindings is possible in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, but conditions are far from ideal for it by the time Brodie succeeds. I would give him increasing penalties each turn as the tide rises, until he finally got a lucky roll.

Does Shark not own dry clothes to change into?

 Moving on to Saber, the future hero of 1998! Here, America is attacked by an air force. And what an air force! Can you imagine how tough a plane would have to be to fly straight through a skyscraper without being damaged, or even knocked off its flight path?

So, when did Saber start investigating the ranks of the Army and Intelligence Department? Just this morning? They must not be very large departments in 1998.

 Okay, I've got some problems with this scene. If this traitor knew the planes were coming, why is he hanging around to watch? Is Saber only lucky to be standing that close to the traitor while using his Detect Thoughts power?

The coordinates given here don't point to anywhere specific.

Saber has invented a Helm of Thought Casting.

Complications in aerial combat usually occurs only between planes, but anti-aircraft guns can cause complications too. Losing a tail fin can force you to land.

Where was this American air force when the enemy air force was attacking? There seems to be no fighter planes present in either air force, only bombers. So whichever air force has the higher ground automatically wins.















I think that's enough of Saber for today. Let's peek in on the Kayo Kirby story. Lead-filled gloves cause more serious damage than normal boxing gloves, though really, punch someone enough with even normal boxing gloves on and you can do serious harm. I think we can say that lead-filled gloves do normal weapon damage instead of punching damage.

The thing that tickles me about this page, though, is that the would-be killer's name is Slam deMan. If I was ever to become a wrestler, I would go by the name Slam deMan.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)