Zip Comics #3 - pt. 1

Yay, it's Charles Biro's Steel Sterling! Panel 2 is packed with detail. Steel looks so cool in that suit. The way Steel amuses himself when he's bored is a trait we seldom see from action heroes, and the third identity was super-original at the time (we can call this the "Mike Murdock" mistake now, in hindsight).

"Notorious" is an odd term to use here. Steel isn't wanted by the law that I recall from issues 1 and 2, so I think what she means here is "famous" or "most talked about."  

Brazonia is Brazil, that's an easy one. Orio is a little trickier, since Brasília is the capital of Brazil. It's certainly unusual, from a RPG campaign perspective, to send your Heroes to another continent already on their third adventure, but there's certainly strong precedent for it, going back to Superman's trip to South America in his second story. Biro's Steel Sterling is very much intended to be his answer to Superman, with the invention of the twin used to solve the question of how the maskless superhero goes without being discovered, and Steel conquering South America around the same time in his career. 
 

I can't figure out what city "Colosso" might represent; it doesn't match any of the big city names in Brazil I know. 

Winged tanks should not be a thing, but golden age comic book writers really seemed to love them.

That is a long range for that magnetism power. It's impossible to say how far exactly, but those planes could be anywhere from 100-1,000 feet away already.

Foreign nations always seem to be turning their defense over to Americans; at least Steel used some powers to impress them first. 

Okay, sometimes Biro is moving too fast for his own good. Steel has been given 12 hours to stop Dr. Yar, so instead of looking for Yar, or questioning that pilot he captured (unless the plane crashed and the pilot died...?), he decides to keep up his second secret identity on a long boat trip. So long that it takes him 12 hours to get back to Orio? Or did Yar break his word and attack early (that does seem very villainous)?  

Here's a surprisingly tough call -- if Steel is wrecking the hatch on a tank, is he wrecking a door or a tank? When it's too tough to make a call, go in the middle; Steel is wrecking the hatch as if it was a robot.

Taking over the winged tank instead of wrecking it seems sound strategy. And you get a trophy out of it afterwards!

I'm not sure what tactical advantage the protective circle would have...but tank pilots can make mistakes and this was clearly a mistake, grouping up like that.

Steel survives the explosion thanks to the Invulnerability power. The fact that he's now worried about being hurt by fire proves that powers have limited durations, especially since Steel got his powers in the first place by diving into molten steel (we even saw a replay of it on page 1!).

Steel is going to regret wrapping himself in asbestos someday -- but nobody knew that in 1940. At the time, fashioning himself an asbestos suit out of the lining was quite ingenious. 

I'm a little apprehensive about allowing Heroes to catch missile weapons in mid-air, unless they are superheroes buffed with one of the Race the- powers, or perhaps some other related power -- I could see maybe Improvise Missile Weapon being rationalized, if Steel were catching it to then use as a missile weapon.

The range seems really impressive on those oil ball canons, but if Steel has seen the trajectory of enough of them, I could see letting him find the source with a successful Intelligence check.

Although the narration in the final panel says Steel is breaking into a building, it appears he is breaking through a fence outside the building. Steel walls wreck as tanks, but a steel fence, I might treat that as a truck instead.

Okay, I've had my fair share of quibbles with this story so far, but this page is gold. Henchmen with lightning guns! Steel showing a vulnerability to electricity (or at least thinking he is). Steel's smart tactics -- bringing down the roof to get at the villains out of range, and smashing through a wall to help surprise the main villain. Alligator men (anticipating the Monster Society of Evil?)! Although, between "Oogle gop!" and that suspicious looking seam between shirt and pants in panel 7, I have a sneaky suspicion these are just human hoodlums in costumes. 

Biro also anticipates something that at this time isn't yet true about Superman's stories: here the Black Knight is behind every plot, even in disguise, much like Luthor will later be in Superman stories.

Little details like how Steel recharges his powers from the static electric charge he gets from running his fingers through his hair help me really appreciate this feature. In H&H, you don't need to have a visual gimmick to activate your powers, but if you as a player decide to have one, it is up to you to play it consistent.

It looks like I was wrong about the alligator men being guys in costumes, unless those are amazingly good costumes. I would probably treat them as lizard men instead of statting alligator men separately. And yeah, I can definitely see 6 lizard men being able to take down one superhero with grappling attacks, particularly if the superhero has no good combat-related buffing powers left.

That the sound carrier looks like a giant megaphone is one of those comic touches that tells me Biro isn't taking this story too seriously, and neither should I.

The deathtrap is a good one, particularly for superheroes who can so easily wreck open doors...

 

But I'm skeptical about this solution. Does pushing a drill through a wall really not apply unusual pressure to the wall? In an instance like this, where I'm unsure if I should have a trap go off or not, I might allow the hero a save vs. science to answer the question for me.

Sterling's aim being perfect is worth noting because unbuffed superheroes don't get the bonuses to hit that fighters do. A lucky roll, or was he holding onto the Bulls-Eye power? 

I'm amused by how the colorist often doesn't know what to do with Biro's sometimes sketchy art style. When he doesn't draw lines on the sides of Steel's head in panel 1, suddenly he has no hair there anymore! And the colorist has no idea what to make of that guard. 

Things get really dark in panel 8 -- the Black Knight/Dr. Yar has apparently convinced Dora's father to concoct a chemical weapon, even after telling her father that he plans to use it on Dora. BK is either extremely convinced that he's broken the man's will, or isn't all that worried about whether whatever's in that cocktail will work or not. Perhaps it's just one last attempt to torture the old man before escaping.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)