All-American Comics #12 - pt. 1

Our lead feature is again Red, White, and Blue, a feature I quite enjoy so far. This story takes place in the city of Montville, of which there are at least four, for real, in the Northwest. It takes Red, White, and Blue less than 15 minutes to get there by plane from Washington, D.C., making Montville, New Jersey, our safest bet, though at 220 miles that is one fast plane.

Our villain is an unusual one, a single saboteur working with a longbow to shoot thermite-filled arrows with blasting caps as arrow heads into munitions plants. He also carries a pistol as back-up, but the longbow is his main weapon, making him the first villainous archer in a modern comic book story. Some light detective work traces the archer to a Mr. Rausch, who works at the embassy of a "belligerent nation" Red refuses to identify. In a delightful twist, Mr. Rausch is innocent and being framed by an agent from another nation, who plants all kinds of evidence against him, but Red's girl Doris sees through it all by simply talking to Rausch and finds out he's in love with an American girl and looking to naturalize, removing any motive he might have had. Red, normally the hero of these stories, comes across as a real jerk by not trusting Doris. He does display a gift for tracking in this story, though.

Hop Harrigan sets out on a long plane trip just to blow off some steam, but he finds when he's way out to sea that his radio isn't connected and his compass is off. Maybe I haven't used enough radios, but I don't get what he didn't do to connect his radio. Unreliable compasses is another complication I wouldn't have thought of when planning a scenario. Somehow he crosses the entire Pacific -- 7,000 miles, we're told -- and winds up on the coast of China, where refugees are looking to escape from Japanese aggression. This is a fairly timely story, though by 1940 the Japanese were actually very far inland in China and it's unlikely refugees would be coming to the east coast; it would have made more sense for them to be fleeing to Burma or Cambodia by then. For flying across the Pacific alone and rescuing Chinese refugees, Hop becomes a national hero and gets a ticker tape parade. It's odd that this would create such instant fame for him, as two Australians had already crossed the Pacific by plane as early as 1928.

Adventures in the Unknown continues with Alan and Ted having to tangle with prehistoric ape-men. Producing fire triggers a morale save for them. Alan and Ted want to get into a cave the ape-men are guarding, but the entrance is only accessible by climbing vines and the ape-men can stand above them and drop rocks on them. Their supporting cast member, the ape-man Ikki, is still working for them and carries their guns; they talk about "rewarding" him by taking him back to the present and putting him in a zoo or a sideshow. Alan is captured and taken to a pit where a saber-toothed tiger is being kept prisoner by the ape-men; they throw their enemies inside for the tiger to eat. Ikki helps rescue Alan, but later at the cave housing their time machine, Ted "accidentally" shoots Ikki in the back of the head while aiming for a different ape-man in melee with Ikki, killing their ally that they were planning to put in a zoo anyway.

In Ben Webster, while traversing a desert, Taffy Tate says "water's as rare out here as a 'demmycrat' in Vermont!" That seems an odd saying to still be spouting in 1940, when the Presidential election results from Vermont were only 54% to 44% leaning Republican. In fact, you have to go back to 1928 to find a time when the Republicans had a strong 66% to 32% majority.

Ben seems to pick up a new supporting cast on every adventure. This time, he's looking for a missing prospector with old man Tate, the prospector's friend, Tate's pet monkey, Ben's pet dog, and they pick up a crazy guide in the desert. The guide takes them to a mountain trail hidden behind a waterfall (players should always check behind waterfalls!). The trail is treacherous; their burros slip and almost fall a few times, with it being implied that their chances of slipping and falling would have gone up on foot. The end of the trail is guarded by two bandits using a boulder for cover.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)



 

All-American Comics #11

The lead feature is still Red, White, and Blue, written by Superman's creator, Jerry Siegel. Like Bart Regan, Spy, the highlight of this feature is the fun romance between the lead characters, Red and Doris. Their interplay keeps the story light even when the subject is the murder-disguised-as-suicide of a U.S. Senator. The Senator's name is Clifton A. Carter, which is interesting because Lyndon Johnson would later have an aide named Clifton C. Carter.

The villain is a Mr. I.M. Glib, a refreshingly friendly mad scientist with an invisible car -- the same gimmick Siegel had recently used with the Ultra-Humanite against Superman. Glib has clothes that make him invisible too, and we even get an explanation for how that works; electrical impulses received by silver wire sewn through the suit cause it to become invisible. Unusual in a story, the Heroes decide to share this secret with the government and ask them to make more invisibility suits. It's unclear how this makes everyone wearing invisibility suits able to see each other.

Glib is foolishly killing senators because they won't agree to give him $1 billion for his invisibility invention; if he'd just taken out a patent and a bank loan, he might have made a billion dollars legitimately.

Hop Harrigan starts with a pretty exciting take-off; Hop's plane is parked on a frozen river, and has to take off just as the ice starts cracking underneath the plane. Mechanically, the Editor could decide this with a skill check for Hop, or maybe even an initiative roll to see if Hop can act before the ice does.

Adventures in the Unknown still has Ted and Alan 1 million years in the past, where they encounter ape men. One million years ago there were several real-life contenders for these "ape men," including neanderthals, homo erectus, and homo antecessor. The ape men use cunning tactics, having some of them roll around on the ground as a distraction while others jump down from the trees from behind. The ape men are also advanced enough to make cages and thatched roof huts.

The Scribbly installment clearly is taking place on New Year's Eve, 1939/New Year's Day, 1940.

In the reprinted newspaper feature Ben Webster, Ben goes on a trip in the first RV (recreational vehicle) in comic books.

In Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man, Gary is captured by Stella Tor, the wicked (and wickedly hot) dictatrix who has stormed Gary's lab with her men and found Gary (and his sidekick, Guppy) seemingly dead, but actually being revived from poison gas while in a comatose state. Recovering, Gary locks a door between them and Stella's guards' futuristic weapons are not able to get them through a steel door.

When Stella escapes, Gary's vibra-detector is able to hear the hum of her rocketship in the distance, and can tell it is hers and not anyone else's rocketship, apparently. Gary's helio-shaft is a rocket that is fired out of a giant cannon, making it faster than Stella's rocket. There's a catch to using it, though -- it can't be steered but will crash when it eventually lands. Rather than take her alive, Gary fires a giant bolo at her rocket; the bolo is made from "elasteel" with "destroynamite" on either end.

Luckily, the helio-shaft lands in water. Unluckily, it lands inside the territory controlled by Stella's father. Gary is captured, and observes first hand the flying guns and destroynamite torpedoes that the Tor Army is amassing. Gary's cell is protected by "ray-eyes" (electric eye beams?), electrified bars, and armored guards. In fact, one poorly drawn guard in the background might be wearing some kind of powered armor.

(Read at fullcomic.pro) 

All-American Comics #10

Wrapping up this month's Red, White, and Blue...

Doris distracts the Master with a flash of light reflected off of her compact mirror so Red can paste him one. I don't think we need any game mechanics for that other than a simple initiative roll. If the players won, then Doris' distraction worked.

A lot of the Mutt & Jeff's featured in All-American Comics are reprints of comics already licensed to earlier comic books, but this one in particular I don't remember. It features a goat -- that very important animal featured in so many gag strips -- but maybe takes the cake for most exaggerated abilities for a goat. This time, the goat can not only push a car with its headbutts, but it eats half the car.  As crazy-powerful as goats are in joke strips, I'm thinking of pushing them up to 1+2 Hit Dice, and let them do 2-8 points of damage with a headbutt, limited to when they are combining pushing with damage (and 1-6 otherwise).

In Popsicle Pete (they wisely removed the The Adventures of part, since there's never any adventure), we learn that a plate of spaghetti could sell for a quarter at a restaurant, but for 45 cents if there is live music.

In Adventures in the Unknown, Ted and Allan continue to encounter anachronisms, as an early man is attacked by a triceratops that went extinct 67 million years earlier. Further, even though "tri" is right there in the name, the triceratops is consistently drawn with four horns. And, of course, they kill it, not caring if it is the last of its species. They also produce a medical kit/first aid kit, which they never listed having with them before. I wonder if I should be more lax on equipment lists and let players save vs. plot to have any common tool they need when they need it.

We learn that Ted's full name is Theodore Magroodle Dolliver. That doesn't make me like him any better.

With nothing but time on their hands, Ted and Alan begin a three-day trip of rafting upstream just to see where the river begins. While rafting, they are attacked by a huge river python -- and this might actually bear out, paleontology-wise, as pythons would likely have evolved by then. Now, aquatic pythons...that was probably an evolutionary dead end. Comically, when Ted is constricted, Alan keeps trying to shoot it with his pistol, regardless of how good a chance he has of hitting Ted by mistake! When Alan fishes Ted out of the water and pumps water from his lungs, we're reminded that -- back then -- people though you should lay someone on their stomach in that situation.

When Scribbly takes a week's vacation up north in the country, his mother gets fed up with his younger brother and mails the tyke to Scribbly. That might seem like child endangerment today, but apparently this was an actual thing that used to happen until 1913!

Lastly, in Gary Concord the Ultra-Man, we learn that they have "ray eye recorders" in the 23rd century, or what we would call security cameras today. "Televisors" are what they call television. An "electron racer" is a fast personal plane, but maybe that is a make and model (the 2236 Electron Racer)? Electron Racers are faster than cosmic ray craft (another type of personal plane, but a two-seater). Both look like jets. After being shot out of the sky, Gary and his sidekick Guppy encounter a land-tank (suggesting there are also sea-tanks or air-tanks) equipped with a raygun in its 180-degree top turret. When Stella Tor divebombs them after they take control of the tank, she drops poison bombs from the Electron Racer (probably not standard issue and something she loaded in herself).

(read at fullcomic.pro)

All-American Comics #9-10

Continuing #9...

In Hop Harrigan...we have to talk about Gerry. Because either a retcon has made her older, or there was a lot less stigma on relationships with underaged girls back in 1940. We've already seen Gerry making out with Hop, but Hop seems to be 17 and Gerry seems to be 14, so that's not quite so bad. But in this installment, an older poet starts hitting on Gerry.  Hop doesn't like it -- but only because Hop doesn't like poets, not because the man is clearly over 18.

Gerry also gives a sick patient iodoform to drink. Today, you only give a patient iodoform for minor skin diseases, and this man is bandaged like he was hurt in accident -- but circa 1940, iodoform would have been used for more forms of treatment.

And, really, who doesn't like poets?

A page of Believe It or Not about Rob Roy McGregor claims that the term blackmail was coined because of the black armor McGregor's clan wore -- which sounds pretty cool, but isn't true; "mail" in this sense means "payment agreed on," with "black" being used a negative connotation.

Adventures in the Unknown has an interesting take on time travel; as it feels like physical motion to those experiencing it, and going back in time feels like falling downwards (of course, actual time travel over the span of 1 million years would also have to involve space travel, because the Earth has moved a considerable distance during that time). And it is not instantaneous or near-instantaneous travel; it is a process that moves them through 1,000 years a minute, so traveling 1 million will take them approximately "36 hours" (though I think Ted's math is off; by my count it would be 16 hours).

Once in the past, the strip falls into the fallacies of many time travel adventures, mixing dinosaurs (from the late Jurassic no less, which was a whole 144 million years earlier) with humans. The first things they spot are a pterodactyl and a brontosaur, though to be fair they also hear a non-anachronistic saber-tooth tiger. In a scene that makes little sense, they shoot and kill the brontosaur for getting too close to Ted. Lastly, they meet a group of nine early humans with spears. Knowing these guys, these early humans are toast.

The strip takes pains to detail what equipment they brought on their expedition -- rifles, automatic pistols, field glasses, matches, axes, knives, cans of food (revealed later) and a movie camera -- but no mention of drinkable water. They also bring a large square of white canvas which they wisely use to mark where they left the time machine.

And, finally, catching us up to the "present" of January 1940. Issue #10...

Red, White, and Blue finally confront their first mad scientist in an adventure that takes place a few months earlier, in the Fall of 1939. It even takes us away from exotic locations to New York City, which will shortly become the hub of all superhero activities, and features the Empire State Building. The Master has created an electrical forcefield around the entire city of Manhattan. Cars are destroyed when they try to leave and the Master threatens to destroy the city if anyone tries to come in.

We also learn that, although "Blooey" and "Whitey" are nicknames, Red is not a nickname; his real name is Red Dugan and his nickname is actually "Smarty."  We learn that Doris West has the hots for Red and cries when she manipulates him into what seems to be a suicide mission to save New York.

Doris claims New York City has 7 million citizens; it actually had 7.5 million, but the 1940 Census would not have come out yet so Doris would not know that. It is also possible that the electrical field failed to extend around all five boroughs.

Red beats the forcefield by flying through on a parachute with no metal parts, but he's not done yet. The Master has an army of over a thousand Nazis and Nazi sympathizers working for him to control the populace. Further, the Master's electric fields can roast an entire city block -- and he has, killing men, women, and children to prove his power. Doris, Blooey, and Whitey join him by using a rowboat with no metal parts.

Red is SO Lawful that, when a clerk tells him he can't see the mayor, he just leaves.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

All-American Comics #8 - pt. 2

Continuing #8...

For comedic effect, Mutt of Mutt & Jeff is able to ignore below freezing temperatures through force of will, as soon as it allows him to ogle women. It makes sense to allow a saving throw vs. science to avoid some environmental factors, though once the temperature becomes extreme enough to start doing points of damage, I would stop relying on this practice.

I have previously written about how strangely common goats are in early comic book humor. In this issue's Daisybelle, three men are unable to push one goat against its will and it has to be moved by a tow truck. Now, it may be that the Editor was treating this as combat and making them all roll to hit before rolling for damage and then converting that into feet pushed, but they just keep missing their target number vs. the goat's Armor Class. But all this makes me think that maybe even 1+1 Hit Dice is conservative for how tough comic book goats should be treated.

Mystery Men of Mars becomes the more generic Adventures in the Unknown in this issue. Ted and Alan travel to Spottiscourt, Virginia, which sounds like a real place, but if it is, I can't find it. We learn that not only did their robot trophy's brain rust, but the entire body corroded and turned to ash -- much like drow magic items do in D&D when exposed to sunlight. Their second adventure follows the pattern of the first, but this time a scientist offers to take them to the prehistoric past in a time machine rather than to Mars in a spaceship. Appropriate for a time travel adventure, we know the date on which they leave for the past, October 24, 1939.

In The Adventures of Popsicle Pete, Pete and his friends are able to fix up a broken radio, suggesting to me that electronics is a basic-level skill in 1939. We also learn that the license to open a radio station cost $100.

Scribbly's humor tends to be hit and miss, but maybe the best joke yet is this exchange, after Scribbly is sent to the principal's office for drawing an unflattering picture of his teacher.

Principal: That's awful! It doesn't look like you at all! It looks like a pig!

Teacher: Well? Aren't you going to say something about it?

Principal: Oh, my!  I certainly will!  Young man...this is terrible!  The next time you draw a pig, remember to make it look more like your teacher!

In Ben Webster, Professor Mattix returns and smashes the last thought recorder, having decided that it is an "agency for trouble" after spies tried to get it. Using shaky science the author doesn't even try to explain, it is claimed that only one thought recorder can ever be built following the same design. But that doesn't insult our intelligence nearly as bad as Ben Webster creator Edwin Alger's bizarrely racist depiction of black servants, drawing them to look more like bears than humans.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)