Speed Comics #7 - pt. 1

This is the first issue of Speed Comics to trade owners from Brentwood to Harvey Comics, and while the cover reflects the future look of Shock Gibson, the interior art (luckily) is inventory from the old look. 

Shock is reading The Daily Blade, a newspaper we haven't seen him read before, which is good; you shouldn't get all your news from just one source.

More importantly, this is a prime example of the Mythic West. As detailed in Hideouts & Hoodlums Supplement III: Better Quality, the Mythic West is a place, like a D&D demi-plane, where the "Wild West" still exists in the present day. There's really no other explanation for why the Hooded Riders, KKK-like extortionists, would travel as inefficiently as on horseback for getaways.  

In the Mythic West, there's always a job waiting for you at a Lawful-aligned ranch. 

$1,000 doesn't seem that bad. I wonder if any Heroes would just offer to pay it rather than bother to go after them.

It's surprisingly rare that we see bad guys actually being called hoodlums. I'm thinking these guys are bloodthirsty hoodlums. 

I can't really think of much to say about this panel, except that I like it. The bad guys are so obviously bad guys. Shock is wearing his costume underneath a cowboy costume. The humor and light tone of it. 

Of course, the axe doesn't hurt Shock, and it shatters on the next page. Take my word for it. I gave that a bit of thought just now and realized that, if the player has a good in-game rationale for it, like an electric forcefield, then the Editor should let him use his wrecking things ability even when not physically touching something he could be touching (the flavor text rule of Hideouts & Hoodlums I keep referring to so often: if you can explain it, and it doesn't violate the game mechanics, it happens). 

A couple of things: one, as much as I'm enjoying the story, I'm hating how Shock's hair color is inconsistent from panel to panel. I'm having a hard time explaining to myself how his superpower could be causing that, which just leaves a lazy colorist.

Two, it's great storytelling to drop this ethical challenge into the scenario, something that requires a choice and not just an application of superpowers. It tells us a lot about Shock's character.

It also tells us how long he was chasing them -- 20 miles. That he wasn't able to overtake them means he didn't have Race the Train prepared as one of his powers today.
 

Here we can see that making the right moral choice earns Shock valuable information for solving the scenario...though, admittedly, the same information he would have discovered by following the hoodlums and leaving the old man. 

This is likely coincidental, but Dead Horse State Park is in Utah, and it's full of canyons!

I'm willing to bet that bullet doesn't hurt him on the next page...

Well, look at that, I was right! Note that Shock was automatically protected without needing to see the bullet coming, which fits with powers having continuous duration.

The more interesting thing is the grizzly bear in the cage. I'm thinking of an adventure now where all the wandering encounters were really animals in cages, released "offstage," that exploring Heroes might come across later. 

See, as primitive as the art sometimes looks and as simplistic as the story may seem, this is actually better than many other golden age stories I've reviewed for this blog. Here, Shock refreshingly doesn't kill the bear -- another moral choice for our hero -- and the reward for taking this action (or inaction) is that the bear flees (missed morale save) and turns on the hoodlums. 

Moreover, while the villains are nameless, hooded antagonists, they are resourceful and are able to quickly escalate their threat level to match (well, nearly match) Shock, with unexpected variety. 

Of course, this water impediment facility is also unexpected because there aren't any in the real Dead Horse State Park. 

All that said, I think it's rather silly to base all your powers on electricity, and have no weakness to water. And he doesn't even to necessarily have a weakness here, but it should follow that activating any of his powers should shock him rather viciously here. 

Instead, Shock demonstrates some sort of Swim Against Current Power -- or simply Race the Train, to give him enough forward momentum to overcome the wave? There's no explanation for why he didn't use it earlier when he was trailing the horsemen for 20 miles -- unless, as in Hideouts & Hoodlums, you can only use the power once and he was simply holding onto it for later.
  

I'm amused by the fact that the hoodlum, stripped to his union suit, is not dressed all that differently from Shock Gibson in his. The similarities highlight the true contrast in their faces and posture. 

Having a uniform that always fits a hero is a characteristic I associated with the guard mobstertype, but maybe this guy was a rearguard...?

I was amused at first that the hoodlum was cold, in a desert, but then it's probably getting to be nighttime, even if the color in the sky doesn't reflect that.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)