I just can't seem to let go of
Calling 2R, being such a bold, ambitious utopian story -- the sort of thing I wish I could write, if I were to get really confessional. And that attention to detail in the background work! I don't think I would have the patience to draw that first panel alone.
I'm hoping the old man's not literally talking about fining those two for wrong thinking, as that sounds too 1984 for my taste. Owing a debt to society for wrong doing is nothing new, of course.
This page is full of glorious period detail, from the realistically drawn slums, to the sign for a "ice and coal" store, to slang you don't see in most stories, like "nerts" (= an exclamation like "nuts," and a fairly new exclamation, according to Mirriam-Webster online first used in 1929), "bulls" (= city police? But that's an unusual use of it, as Wikipedia tells me this was used for railroad police specifically), and the even more unusual term "white lights." This one's so obscure it almost has me baffled, except...if the punk likes to ride the rails like a hobo and has run afoul of the bulls before, then maybe "white lights" refers to the head lamps of trains?
Here's the protective vests of the rangers in action, and it looks like they work just like the force screen around the city, in terms of hurting and knocking back anyone who tries to melee with them, while also stopping bullets as if the wearer had the Imperviousness power. That's a pretty powerful vest; I'd try to balance that out by saying it can only operate for 3 turns in a row before needing 4 turns to recharge.
It's unclear if the force gun actually harms/does damage to the opponent to render him unconscious or if it stuns (with a save to resist?).
And this last page I'll share is from the last story in this issue; a stand-alone story about a pilot who befriends an ugly hermit. The hermit is so grateful that he shares a secret; he's guarding a cave full of dust (magic dust?) that disintegrates all metal it touches. A nice touch is that the dust is so fine that you can't see that it's in the air all around you while you're walking through the cave tunnels (as seen on a previous page). I'm sharing this page to show how incredibly potent this Dust of Disintegration is, effectively wrecking as if a 7th level superhero (I'm guessing, by how easily it destroys that tank). It's used here to stop the War in Europe, but it's a good challenging trap for high-level Heroes too.
And my increasingly Sisyphean Read-Along...continues!
ReplyDelete1) I agree that the art in the "Calling 2R" story is pretty impressive. It's a shame to see so much of it crowded out by all those enormous word balloons!
2) I also agree that the whole "Boy State" thing gets less sinister-seeming as the story moves along. Other than the (nearly unavoidable given the era) gender-separation attitude, this Utopian experiment seems to be on the up and up!
2) Straight up punching a little kid in the face, no matter how rotten the kid may be, is certainly a clear way to establish oneself as the bad guy!
3) And, even as bad as that kid is, even after he tried to assault one of their own multiple times, the Boy State folks are STILL determined to take him in!
4) That final scene where the Boy State officials are watching the two main villains drive away happily is really cool; I like how they apparently have remote surveillance, but they still watch it on a projector!
5) Fantastic Feature Films has one of the most surprisingly cool intro pages I've ever seen! At first, I thought it was a full-page ad for a movie studio or something!
6) Ah...another "let's end the silly war in Europe so we don't have to get involved" wish-fulfillment type of stories. Sorry, but whenever I see this sentiment, I just always assume that the writer was a "What's so bad about Hitler anyway" person. Ugh.
7) The art and storytelling for this final tale are pretty great, though, and I was drawn in by "Hugo the Hideous" guarding his cavern or metal-destroying "Devil's Dust."
Overall: this was a very fun issue for a Read-Along! Now I need to get crackin' on the next one!