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.)