Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 4

I probably shouldn't be as impressed as I am with the adventures of Buzzard Barnes, and maybe I'm reading too much into things here, but as Barnes and Andy argue over who has the most kills, it reminds me of Legolas and Gimli. In addition, we get to see some of the things you can do during aerial combat, including setting each other's planes on fire, and shooting copilots.

Now this also intrigues me, probably being the first instance of a record being played backwards in a comic book.

I could tell Jack Cole's The Defender is a blatant ripoff of the pulp novel hero, The Avenger, but an even more knowledgeable fan on Comic Book Plus tells us that this story specifically plagiarizes the third Avenger pulp novel, "The Sky Walker." 

Pittsburgh is an unusual setting for a comic book story and might actually be its first appearance in one. 

Drinking carbolic acid is more of a save or die situation rather than doing points of damage - though I could see it still doing damage even if the saving throw vs. poison is made.

The first invisible plane in comics? I'm not sure about that...might have to go back through the blog to check.

It seems like the Defender is kinda' reaching here...wouldn't it be more likely that Peerless Steel just makes inferior product, than the conspiracy theory that Supex Steel is using a stolen ray from an invisible plane to damage any steel that's not theirs? Well, this is comic books, so...

Here's another mad science invention for your Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns: a sound detector that can follow specific vibrations over a distance of miles, hours later (as unlikely as that seems). 

You'd think inventing a bulletproof airplane might have been a better use of his time...

I get why it was done this way, for story, so it would look like the villains were getting away, but I hope not too many H&H players will plant time bombs in enemy planes, rather than capturing the villains and turning them over to the police with evidence. Although, on second thought, this strategy keeps me from having to give out trophy planes to my players...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

 

Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 3

We're still reading Steel Shark. It's a curious feature; I can't tell from this story if this is supposed to be some time in the future or if it's a more hi-tech version of 1940, so I had to go back and read the first issue's story and this is actually meant to be 1960. The widespread use of television is pretty accurate. But Flux-Ray guns that melt ships in minutes? That's a wrecking ray that didn't exist in 1960. 

Wrecking is so often instantaneous in the comics that it's interesting to read about a ray that takes over 1 exploration turn to wreck. 

"Gyro-pilot control" must mean autopilot, which is odd because autopilot had already been a thing since 1914.

Batteries seem to work different in this 1960; I can't guess how a lurch would foul the batteries. Batteries only "foul" like that when they've been overcharged, and even then the risk is more about an explosion than suffocation, because not that much hydrogen should be leaking.  

We know we're not in the kids adventure genre when Tommy is sent below deck. If this was Dickie Dare, that boy would be all up in the action! 

"Aqua-vapo"? You're trying awfully hard to sound scientific when you have to come up with a new word for water vapor. Water vapor - also known as fog -- doesn't seem like it would make for concealment as well as smoke would. I might treat fog as light cover.   

There are some puzzling aspects of this page and the next.

1. What is the area of effect of a depth charge? How much in danger was Jones' sub? 

2. Again, we are told the subs are very close together, so close that the Flux-ray-guns backfire and jolt Steel Shark just for holding the controls. How do they feedback only to the controls and not the whole sub? And why would flux rays bounce back? I suppose we need to understand what flux rays are first, and I doubt we're ever going to get that information.

Again, the science here is pretty sketchy, but we really can't say for sure that dry ice wouldn't counter a flux ray, since we still don't know what a flux ray is.  

More interesting is the fact that Steel Shark is able to observe Jones telling his crew how to counter the flux ray. Did Jones forget to turn off their closed circuit television connection? It reminds me of the beginning of this sketch, which I just happened to watch earlier today - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp_Fw5oDMao

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is the last page, which says "Harry 'A' Chesler Syndicate" at the bottom, proving this comic was produced by the Chesler Shop for Hillman (really, from its pedestrian-ness alone I would have suspected that from this title). Since there's nothing else on that page worth seeing, you're just gonna' have to take my word on this....   

We're going to jump into the next story now, which is Buzzard Barnes. There's little to see here, including the amount of cover necessary to hide behind for a successful hiding skill check. 

Past that...it's looking like this was a false lead. If Maynard was really up to something suspicious, he probably wouldn't get drunk right away, and he would try to flee rather than pick a fight. Let's see if I'm right...

Nope, I was wrong! So what was the point of the drunkenness? Was he feigning drunkenness to appear innocent, or is he just an alcoholic spy? Or is he a drunken hoodlum? That would be interesting - we haven't see one of those on the blog in a long time!  

You know, I'm also thinking how easy this scenario was: figure out who the spy is, from a list of one suspect.

We've seen prisoners hurt themselves before in order to wreck bonds. Now, every hero has a chance of being able to just flex their muscles and break bonds -- but not much of a chance unless a superhero. If I haven't made this ruling before, I would consider allowing a +1 bonus for every point of damage you inflicted on yourself in the process.

Now, how did Andy just happen to stumble across Barnes, inside the enemy hideout? Barnes should immediately be suspicious that Andy is also working with the bad guys.

Nope, Barnes still isn't suspicious! I think we're going to have to chalk this one up as a plot hole.

A supercharged pursuit plane sounds like a trophy item. I would say that it moves at normal speed (whatever that is for that type of plane) except when in pursuit mode (in a chase scene), and then it is always x amount of Movement rate faster. 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.) 

  

Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 2

We're still on the Phantom Ranger and so are all the bad guys. We have a Lion King-like deathtrap here, where the hero is put in the path of a stampede. Will Demon reach him in time and get him out?

What a shock, he made it! There's an interesting thing about panel 2, where dragging him across the ground loosened the ropes. Did he take damage, and the damage wrecked the ropes? How much damage should it take to wreck something? I can't imagine being dragged doing more than 3 points of damage, so 3 points of damage = chance of wrecking at the doors category?

Now we're jumping into Red Roberts, the Electro Man, where a random traffic accident leads to a startling discovery. But, in between, Red uses what appears to be the spell Poof! to emerge from his car, and takes down the two sailors with what appear to be four Magic Missiles. It is unclear, from both this page and the next, if Red's electricity rendered them unconscious or killed them, or if Red even cared either way. 

Anyway, it's interesting to think of a hi-tech superhero being statted as a magic-user, but I think it fits because so many of the standard superhero tropes are missing, as well as his abilities being better statted with known spells than powers.

Now this one is curious. Red appears to be using Teleport through Focus, the power that heroes like the Flame use to move quickly. For the Flame, it's to anywhere there's fire, where as here it's to anywhere there's electricity (which is basically everywhere). 

But there seems to be something else going on here too. There is no reason for Red to have intentionally chosen this particular room in this particular building; he just seems to show up at random right where a plot hook character is waiting for him. 

So, if you're not actively trying to get to a Point B, but just anywhere from Point A, should that even count as a use of your power, or is that just flavor text? Because if he just kept randomly walking in any direction, eventually he could have wound up somewhere else the Editor could have placed this encounter.

I'm going to take this first panel as more evidence of Magic Missile spells being cast. Normally it is dangerous to cast missiles into a melee situation, but if he is using the auto-hit method of the MM spell, he doesn't have to worry about hitting this girl. 

Wrecking the guns seems like a superhero mechanic again, but I've already included a wrecking spell into the game for situations just like this, when a character who otherwise appears to be a magic-user is able to wreck things.

I like it when bad guys have names that make it obvious they are bad guys. This guy in the brown suit is Stumpy Jake, which isn't particularly nefarious-sounding, but his colleagues that you don't see pictured here are Blackie Skull and Bones Wilson. This naming convention also extends to boats, so if you ever come across the S.S. Ghost, you just know it's going to have bad guys on it. 

I'm not sure, but I think we once read a story with opium stuffed in fish before. I can't verify this, but it's likely from a pulp fiction story that both comic book authors stole from.

To keep from embarrassing Red, I spared him from showing you the page where he's knocked unconscious by a net-full of fish landing on his head. 

That alone isn't actually all that unusual for a comic book hero -- but what is really unusual is being drugged with opium afterwards. In a Hideouts & Hoodlums scenario, this could solve the problem of superheroes being able to wreck themselves out of deathtraps too quickly, but here Red seems to instantly recover from the opium as soon as he regains consciousness. 

The story also tosses away all sympathy we had for the Chinese prisoners when they willingly agree to torture Red for the bad guys. 

I kind of like how this story completely skips over the hitting that happens between panels 1 and 2. 

I'm less inclined to accept this use of teleport as flavor text, since it is not only an intentional destination, but bypasses the rest of the hideout around Scarface's ...living room, I'm guessing. My question is, how does Red navigate the wires? Does he have some kind of instinctive telelocation power - and does that need to be its own power? - or is he somehow able to eavesdrop on phone operators and navigate the system that way...?

When your master criminal jumps out a window to his death - that's a really botched morale check.

 

And what is up with those last panels, where the dialogue takes place in captions? That's just weird and confusing to read.

Lastly, we're going to take a peek at the next story, about the villainous Steel Shark (it's one of those features named after the recurring villain). 

I don't know what it was about television at the time, but it seems like most every comic book writer wanted to come up with their own name for it. Televisions already were a thing by 1940, though they had not caught on to widespread use yet. Did these writers think the word "television" wasn't going to catch on either?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 1

I don't recall a thing about reviewing #1 of this series, which doesn't bode well as we begin issue #2...

We start with Rocket Riley and pals crash landing on a surprisingly solid and foliage-covered Saturn. We can't necessarily call this bad comic book science, though; the term "gas giant" didn't even exist until the 1950s. 

YES! Oh, sorry, I got excited because this new alien starts with a Z, so I don't have to quickly add it to the Mobster Manual Vol. 1, which is just a few pages away from being completed now.

We don't know anything about Zarno yet except that they must fly very quickly, or have a higher chance of surprise, for it to pounce on Griselda before Rocket can shoot at it.

Sadly, the Zarno is shot dead on the first try on the next page and we learn nothing else about it.

Now this is nice; the big globe with chairs in it is a sort of floating elevator that doesn't need a shaft. It's the kind of trapping that would be perfect for an ultra hi-tech hideout.

Not every villain is so considerate to tell you what you'll encounter in his dungeon before you go there. Oh, interesting, giant leeches and - WHOA! HARPY-VAMPIRES?? I've gotta see this...

+

Huh, those do look like harpies. So they're harpies, and they have all the powers of a vampire? I've gotta put these in the Mobster Manual now. Sigh. More to do...

Oh come on! They're dead already? From an ice gun? Harpy-vampires must have some kind of special vulnerability to ice. 

Speaking of ice guns...it's powered by a detonator? Was the writer thinking of batteries, but couldn't remember the word?

Well, we lost the harpy-vampires already. Let's check in on the giant leeches and see if they're -- OH MY GOSH, the giant leeches are dead already too! How is he even killing them by hand? Are these some rare form of vertebrate leech and he's snapping their spines? Or is he squeezing them too hard, like a roll of Charmin's toilet paper?

In our next story, here's a pearl that's worth a fortune, when the average pearl is going to be worth $100. Statistically, the chance of its worth doubling that many times is highly unlikely.

Shadowy figures are a mobstertype since Supplement V. 

Lastly, this is a page from The Phantom Ranger. I'd previously added killer stallions to the Mobster Manual. I'll have to add a note about how lack of water and being driven crazy by heat can turn a horse into a killer stallion.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

Fantastic Comics #5 - pt. 5

Oh boy, it's Stardust...

These guys are called "crime wizards," but as cool as that name sounds for a mobstertype, their ambition of either controlling or destroying all the wealth in America makes them sound more like Republicans. 

We get two mad science devices on this page. One is a tornado generator that looks kind of like a tree for some reason, and the other is invisible vacuum tubes that descend out of the sky and suck people up, but that makes it look like they're just flying off into the sky.

I think that last panel is to be interpreted as a collage of events occurring at different times, rather than the tubes being able to stretch that far apart at the same time.

The top of the Empire State Building seems like an odd place to ask them to drop off the ransom. Were they going to use the invisible vacuum to suck up the money? 

Stardust uses the 4th level power Turn Gun on Bad Guy to reflect the death rays back. Or does it have to be a higher level version to account for the range and the multiple rays reflected? Yeah, probably 7th level. I'll call it Turn Death Rays.

Here Stardust uses a Control Weather spell (he would be statted as a Magic-User/Superhero, since his abilities are all over the place). Or...could it be Dispel Science? That would be an interesting power to develop. Whichever it is, it stuns a crowd of traced faces.

An interesting wrinkle here is that at least one of the criminal wizards actually is a magic-user! Since he only uses Enlarge Person on himself, he may only be 3rd level - which seems like a really light challenge for our 18+ level Stardust. Stardust counters with Reduce Person, and it makes sense that Stardust, being higher in level, would be able to reduce Wolf-Eye further than he could enlarge himself.

More interesting, I think, is the throwaway reference to a "magic gland" -- which seems like perfect comic book logic for how certain people are able to learn magic and others can't.

Lastly, Stardust is probably just using Teleport spells to get everyone back home.

Now here's Sub Saunders and we have two unusual rays here. The first is a Water Breathing ray, which could well be our first non-combat, non-disrupting electronics ray. The second is some kind of suction ray, which could be handled like high-level Telekinesis, but to pull down a full-sized submarine might mean it is equivalent to a Telekinesis spell cast by a 100th level caster. We can just keep the mechanics very specific - the ray only works on subs, or some other type of ship, and pulls them down x number of feet. It's okay to tie an item to a specific type of plot.

Now this is unusual - we have a new variant of mermen who are called amphibious men, but they appear to just be perfectly ordinary men except for their ability to breathe underwater (and their predilection for helmets -- ooo, could those be magical Helms of Underwater Action...?).

Hmm...so, on all those ships he sucked down to his ocean kingdom, not one had a map already on board? That seems mighty suspicious, and I wonder if Kelpa isn't just giving him an absurd story to see if he can get Sub to go along with it. 

I like the idea of a swordfish pit, as it's a welcome switch from the shark cliche.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)