Planet Comics #3 - pt. 2

We're back and still looking at the debut of Amazona the Mighty Woman. Looking at this bottom panel, I was initially bothered by the fact that I couldn't tell which mobsters had been taken down by Amazona and which by Blake. Then I realized, it not only didn't matter, but this, in a nutshell, is the heart of what makes Hideouts & Hoodlums special. It's a game where fighters and superheroes can fight side by side and both feel important in the combat.

Interestingly, one power Amazona conspicuously doesn't display here is Outrun Train, needing to hop a ride to keep up with the fleeing car. Or maybe female superheroes suffer some sort of movement penalty while wearing heels?

We're going to jump ahead to the next feature, Red Comet. I don't particularly care for Red Comet, and this installment certainly didn't change my mind. The King of the Giants of Jupiter looks about as dangerous as your dad when company comes over but he doesn't feel like getting dressed. Red Comet himself isn't much better, remembering to put on his mask and cape, but forgetting the rest of his clothes other than his matching underwear. It's like a nightmare a superhero would have that ends in everybody laughing at him.

Perhaps most frustrating about this page is Red Comet's size-changing power. If he shrinks before climbing on the giant's knee, does that mean that the giant isn't really that big? Or did Red Comet just shrink down a little?

Whoa - things just took a super dark turn! Bear in mind, Golo hasn't done anything at this point other than threaten to invade other planets. Not a soul has actually been hurt yet; his threat has been less harmful than the average Trump tweet. Yet, Red Comet has slaughtered a whole squadron -- at least 15 giants, given my count from the top panel -- just to teach Golo a lesson.

Red Comet is using the Imperviousness power in this last panel, the only power that would protect him from all rayguns.

And lastly we're going to look at Spurt Hammond today. For once, I can say I'm glad to do so! There's some unexpected history with H&H here...

Way back before Comic Book Plus and the Digital Comic Museum were things, scanned comic books were still hard to come by. Some people, like Steve Rogers, made their own websites for them. Some people posted them to the files sections of various Yahoo!Clubs. And some people posted them on this new thing called blogs. I had chanced upon this story on somebody's blog around the time I was writing the second issue of The Trophy Case...wow, way back in 2010! So I wrote up the robots from this issue as vampiric robots from Mercury.

That third panel is swiped from a famous painting...but I can't remember what it is.

I'm actually not sure where I got the "vampiric" part from; it is described as "invincible" and "super" here.

This is not the only nudity you're going to see in this story...

The only thing more intimidating than a giant must be a nude giant. Anticipating Return of the Jedi, the giant is killed by the portcullis. The portcullis does a lot of damage, but then, it stabs him five times in addition to the crushing damage. It would likely have done less harm to a man-sized foe.

Let me see if I get this straight -- Spurt has the drop on them with a ray gun, then sits down his raygun so he can go in punching instead?

It "ought to," Spurt? So you're willing to experiment on bad guys with their own mad science machines, just to see what happens? I would make any Hero save vs. plot before doing this, as it reeks of being no better than the bad guys...

Although I was very generous with Hit Dice when statting this robot, a single shot from a raygun finishes it off. How super and invincible was it supposed to be again?

Ten years later, and I've still never used a vampiric robot from Mercury in one of my games...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Planet Comics #3 - pt. 1

We're still visiting with Fiction House today and now the third issue of Planet Comics. So -- get ready for some really bad science!

This is Flint Baker. Comics.org credits this art to Will Eisner, but I'm skeptical.

Well...maybe I won't knock the science yet. The ship has five different fuel tanks for redundancies, which seems really smart.

Here's some of that bad science I promised you. Flint and Mimi are heading from Mars to Earth, but because they're off-course, wind up by Pluto. Flint would have needed to go to sleep to not notice a detour like this sooner; even if it took just 10 minutes to get to Earth, the detour to Pluto at the same speed would still take 5 1/2 hours.

Whoa, Plutonians are pretty wild-looking! Okay, let's talk about statting these bad boys. They seem to have no uniformity when it comes to antennae; they can have 0-2 antennae. Their hands look like they can do clawing damage, but not a lot because they seem to equally rely on their fists. They have "heavy tails," so those probably do more damage to opponents behind them.

We skipped the page where Flint found Mimi; all you really missed was him activating his "magnetic belt" to get over a stream of boiling oil to reach her. The "magnetic belt" can be the same as a magic Belt of Flying for our purposes. Unless we stat Flint as a superhero, and there's increasingly more reason to do so as we work our way down this page.

It's interesting that Flint doesn't use rayguns. We can assume, because of his belt-augmented strength, he's doing more damage with rocks than the average raygun, suggesting he's buffed with a power like Extend Missile Range.

It's interesting how we're told they are coming in "ever increasing numbers," but we only see three of them.

I appreciate that they keep their raygun locked when not in use.

"Hundreds of Plutonians" are running towards the ship -- again, we only see three.

What does Mimi mean by "that last shot got them?" Did it shoot all the hundreds of them at once? Did it shoot enough of them that the rest failed a morale save? Did it just shoot two or more, so she is technically correct to say "them?" If only we had a panel of art showing us instead of "BOOM"...

Despite having weapons less effective than a welding torch, the Plutonians at least have tactics on their side. That big cloud of smoke came from lighting an oil pool on fire upwind of the crashed ship, so Flint can't see what direction they're coming from.

But what's this? That spaceship looks really heavy. Even the Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds. For 200 Plutonians to lift that, they would need to be able to each lift over 800 lbs. I'm thinking I'm going to have to give these boys some good Hit Dice, like maybe 4+1.

This is Amazona the Mighty Woman, brought to you from Alex Blum, who draws Samson for Fox. Tell me if this sounds familiar: Blake finds himself stranded in a strange land with super-people, but this one beautiful girl wants to go back with him to see America and becomes a superhero. No, it's not Wonder Woman; she's still over a year away.

I don't know how much a chunk of ice that big weighs, but Raise Car should cover it. I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a superhero here.

I really like this last panel. It doesn't further any plot, but it is a nice character moment that shows even a superhero can feel vulnerable. In game play, it reminds us that you can roleplay any weaknesses you want.

...And a roleplayed weakness can be ignored when the scene would be funnier without it.

Since she deliberately disables the car, this is an example of wrecking things, even though she mostly just tips it over. Only a 2nd-level superhero or higher has a chance to wreck a car, which means Amazona has one brevet rank.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)