Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 5

I just can't seem to let Mark Swift go. There are only three pages left that I didn't get to in the last post that I want to get to today.  

Being thrown into a cage with an animal you have to kill is an okay trap. Being sporting enough to send you in with a sword is just offering you XP. 

Eagles is a really unusual choice; I can't say I've ever heard of eagles being called "vicious" before and think wild turkeys might have made a better choice. It's also unclear if these are meant to be huge eagles, or the narrator is saying eagles are huge birds. Huge eagles might be worth up to 1+1 HD...

If you didn't think this story was gonzo-crazy enough -- now the Indians have a pet dragon. It's big, it's fearsome-looking, and more importantly it should have some impressive Hit Dice given its size and mass -- but one of the most annoying tropes of golden age comics for me is the "dead in one hit" I keep seeing in so many stories. 

Hey Indians, if this guy can kill a dragon in one thrust, you really think you can take him with spears...?

The next time I run Hideouts & Hoodlums, if/when my players try something just off-the-wall crazy, before I say "that could never work," I need to recall this page and how a Viking rode a dragon like a bronco.

It's actually consistent with how dragons are pretty much uniformly treated in the early comics as unintelligent animals. Be cautious, Editors, about giving your players the opportunity to domesticate some of these and start a dragon breeding farm.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)