Master Comics #1 - pt. 4

I was too quick in my review of El Carim last time and missed pointing out its most unique feature -- the conceit that El Carim is using science that looks like magic and not actually magic. We are meant to believe that his toaster and monocle combination, the spectrograph, actually gives him the ability of clairvoyance. We are meant to believe that his magnet is actually paralyzing people. Given this, it doesn't seem so unusual at the end when he relies on a rifle when his "spells" run out. 

Now, we all know that magic-users can't use rifles, but he never actually uses it except to threaten with it and no one ever calls his bluff.

It appears El Carim is only using escape artist skills to get out of that chair, not any kind of "spell." 

One possible plot hole in this story: a previous page called that a "phantom castle." Why? Had it appeared out of nowhere,

 or was it just spooky looking? I was expecting more from that.

As we speed towards the end of this issue, we're going to jump into the last feature in progress, Rick O'Shay (ricochet, get it? Har har...). There's a lot of typical colonial racism here, with the French ("Fraconian") occupiers being presented as the "good" victims and the native Arabs are the "evil" bandits and saboteurs. Oh, and there's the master/servant relationship between Rick and Mekki to disturb you -- although at least Mekki is a real ethnic name! 

The scale also seems to be a little off in this adventure. Rick has to fly 1,000 miles to find the saboteurs? If we were to assume that the French colony was, oh, let's say Lebanon, that puts the bandit lair in ...the middle of Iran? What a strange launching point for attacks on Lebanon! The encounter with a leopard, likely a Persian leopard, seems to only support my theory that these are the mountains of Iran. 

From that last page, I don't get why there would be a tripwire to trigger a landmine, when it would be much more effective if buried - except to make it easier for the players to spot, of course.

It appears that Rick and Mekki are outnumbered four-to-one.

I'll say this, appearing to be able to shrink your prisoners down and store them in crystal balls has got to be pretty intimidating to your new prisoners. In Hideouts & Hoodlums, effects like shrinking always have a duration, so eventually they would return to normal size unless they Reduce spells are recast on them, or some scientific equivalent is reapplied. It seems like a lot of hassle to go to when a normal prison cell would do just as effectively -- unless he plans on taking so many prisoners that space is at a premium, of course.

Snoopy friends? Aw, they're bonding over a mutual love for The Peanuts! Oops, it's 15 years too early for that; he must mean they were snooping around.

I like how panel 3 says they were subjected to "minor tortures" after showing us the rack and the iron maiden in panel 2. Would being hung by your wrists over a fire pit actually be more painful? They weren't even hung by their thumbs. 

I do not get where two things are going on this page. Why is that guy chopping down a cabin and what does that have to do with anything? And what's the point in bringing growth serum in for the cat? Is confusing the prisoners part of the torture?

I think this whole scene gets only more confusing. So...the prisoners are kept in a remote cabin to be tortured -- and that part makes sense; who wants to hear all those screams in the palace? But what was all the torture for if you only plan to kill them? Why destroy your cabin to kill them rather than shoot them? Why bring your shrunken prisoners there and the antidote and your cat there?

And how exactly did Rick escape? If his "strong muscles" broke only the rope on one of his wrists, did he swing on the other rope until he wasn't over the fire pit anymore? How did that help him get Mekki down? 

A "horde" of bandits is apparently eight or more.

 

Now this page I like because a lot of players would not bother switching from a rifle butt to a sword because, in terms of game mechanics, they are identical. Picking up the sword is probably just for the flavor text -- unless Rick's player is hoping to find a magic sword this way!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)