Detective Comics #36 - pt. 3

It's a little hard to believe that, three years into Detective Comics, Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise still has a berth here. This month, Cosmo, who undoubtedly got that nickname because he's so cosmopolitan, has to visit a cowboy ranch. Interestingly, Cosmo admits that acting like a cowboy is outside his wheelhouse and has to visit under other pretense. This is more realistic, but actually contradicts the Hideouts & Hoodlums skill system, where everyone has the same chance of performing any skill, based just on class and level (and possibly modified by race).

The ranch has mortgage payments of $7,000 (monthly? Annually?) and someone makes an offer of $60,000 for the entire ranch, which is apparently low but not entirely unreasonable.

A neat trick Cosmo uses (though I'm not sure this would actually work) to fool some rustlers into thinking he's still hiding behind a boulder is to tie strips of his shirt around bullet cartridges and lit them like fuses. The bullets go off, convincing them that he's still shooting from behind there.

Do I need to stat rustlers? I think I'll just treat them as outlaws.

The disappearing cattle are being herded through a secret door made of stone (or made to look like stone).

Bruce Nelson is skiing in the White Mountains. I was sure this was a generic fictional name, but there really is a White Mountains in New Hampshire and Maine. Bruce is staying at a ski lodge with a bunch of "famous celebrities," but they don't seem to be based on real ones in either name or appearance.

Bruce shows expert-level tracking skills when he looks at all the tracks in the snow outside the lodge -- by moonlight! -- and manages to spot finger-tracks, where someone's hand was dragged through the snow. I'd say that would normally be a 1 in 10 chance of success at best.

Slam Bradley and Shorty are surprised when an intruder enters their bedroom and leaves a small box with $10,000 in it -- though I was more surprised to see Slam and Shorty sleep in the same bed. The money is a retainer from someone who wishes to hire them anonymous, which wouldn't have lasted long had they caught the intruder. To collect, they have to go to Shanghai, which takes them out of the country on a very long sea voyage (the only thing we know about the trip is that Shorty learns how Chop Suey is not a traditional Chinese dish).

The scenario is fairly interesting; Slam has been hired because of his reputation. He's supposed to procure something, but they refuse to tell him upfront. Instead, a female guide is to be sent with him who will reveal what it is at the "proper time." I think this would scream "trap" to my players and they would never touch this plot hook.

Slam was always a tough scrapper, but in this adventure he needs to be rescued from five yellow peril hoodlums, and then gets knocked out by a head blow later. Slam is tortured for information (that he doesn't have) on a strange rack that pulls sideways instead of up and down. Shorty is hung off the floor by his wrists (at least it wasn't his thumbs).

There's a curious plot hole in the story where Slam and Shorty's caravan through China is attacked, the men who tortured them save them (because they are following Slam to the Macguffin) by mowing down the new attackers (and I'm not sure who they are, other than a random encounter) with machine guns. Slam acts like he didn't even notice and is surprised later that they're being followed, even though there's no way he didn't witness the machine gun fire.

The Macguffin is an idol that will give whoever owns it the ability to command people (not a magical ability, I don't think). It is poorly guarded by a single sword-wielding guard and a pit, though the real protection, I suppose, is the trap on the idol -- mess with it and a dagger springs out of the base of it and stabs you (killing the main villain, Chong, incidentally. Poisoned, perhaps?).

Although Slam gets paid in the end, he didn't actually do much, except he scares off Chong's men with a machine gun he steals from them in the end.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Detective Comics #35 - pt. 2

Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator is next. Speed calls himself a detective in this story, but by now he should have enough accumulated XP to be a 5th-level captain. He goes against a villain called the Snake Master in this Cuban-/voodoo-themed story. According to this story, Cuba is inhabited by natives who attack with darts. Speed is able to identify hemp rope as coming from Haiti just by looking at it (expert skill check?). Despite darts not having a great range, Speed has darts thrown at him three times before he is finally able to spot the thrower. By using a guide, Speed is able to avoid concealed snake pits on his way to the Snake Master. Not one of the Snake Master's followers has better than darts for weapons, so Speed just waltzes in with a gun and takes out the cult leader.

This month Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise seems to be all over the place. He starts out looking into the case of a man who escapes jail by appearing to be dead, then he's investigating the murder of a police captain who was looking into the case (weird, that a captain wouldn't have delegated that responsibility), then he's following a Hindu because the captain had mentioned a dragon before he died (even though India isn't known for its dragons), then he's in disguise as a bum, trying to get invited into the home the Hindu went into (why he thought a bum would be invited in, I don't get, but somehow it worked). The best part of the adventure is that the bad guys trap him in a room and talk to him through a bronze dragon statue, as the room slowly fills with poison gas. Cosmo survives by making his saving throw (with some likely modifiers for laying on the floor and covering his mouth with a wet handkerchief  -- wetting the handkerchief in a fish tank was particularly ingenious).

There's a second trap that's not as good -- he drops through a pit trap into a room the floods with water -- but the plot twist is rather clever that Cosmo is saved by city water works employees, investigating that the house was leaking water into the street. It turns out that the owner of the house is the man who escaped jail by using the "Oriental trick" of suspended animation. That doesn't sound like an Oriental trick -- that sounds like a psionic discipline.

Bruce Nelson is continuing an adventure in ...Africa? I forget. He and his native guide Mambu are canoeing along rapids, dodging whirlpools, probably requiring expert skill checks to avoid being in situations where they have to save vs. science to avoid drowning (I would be okay with affording them that double layer of protection because the penalty for failure is so steep). The "white goddess" they rescued last time wakes up after being splashed in the face, something I don't recommend for H&H play, so maybe it just coincidentally coincided with a duration ending.

Bruce learns the name of the "white goddess" and immediately recognizes who her father is. Should recognition be a skill check? The girl, Toni Hutton, was drugged by the natives with something that would knock her out for two days at a time (long duration!).

In Slam Bradley, Slam and Shorty are paid to bodyguard a group of swells on a "slumming tour" of dangerous dives. This should be an example of a situational modifier that increases chance of wandering encounters. Someone is murdered and Slam beats people up until a barkeep gives up the name of the murderers. Slam and Shorty deliver the suspects' names to the police and Shorty is ready to end the scenario, but Slam wants to pursue it further. This is one of the ways that traditional RPGs are so flexible, that the players can decide -- not just the referee -- when the scenario has been successfully completed. Luckily, Slam must have some supporting cast in the FBI, because he is able to just waltz into their HQ and request to see the files on the suspects.

On a crazy whim, Slam decides to sign them both up for the French Foreign Legion just because the suspects used to be Legionnaires (apparently it was for strictly enforced five-year stints too). Now, I'm not a very flexible Editor. When I'm running games, I have a story in mind and when Heroes go too far off the rails, I'm comfortable with just saying there are no leads in that direction. But Slam and Shorty have a very flexible Editor, because he rules that the killers are exactly where they get shipped off to, and even tosses in the wrinkle that one of the suspects is their sergeant!

To get rid of Slam, Sergeant Jensen sends them out into the desert and they are attacked by nomads. Slam, who can usually handle any fight, is overwhelmed by six-to-one odds. In fact, the scenario gets way out of hand and Slam is about to be executed by firing squad, so the Commandant of the Foreign Legion has to ride in at the last moment and save the day for him.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)  

Detective Comics #32 - pt. 2

Skull-Face is also the first mad scientist to wear a bulletproof vest.

Speed Saunders is placed in a locked cell with a fairly ingenious way to escape -- the floor is clay instead of stone and a resourceful Hero can dig through it to water.

Speed comes back with just two supporting cast -- unnamed police officers -- for back-up. They swim into the lair, and Speed thinks to bring waterproof bags for their guns. The hideout entrance tunnel has water up to their knees. There are at least three levels to the place and on the second level is a dry office with a balcony overlooking the water.

It's Speed's best story yet -- marred only by the fact that Speed stumbles across everything by accident and doesn't actually learn anything through investigation.

In Cosmo, Phantom of Disguise, a state governor is murdered. But which one? It seemed like Cosmo's adventures took place in New York before, but this guy doesn't look like Herbert Lehman, A prominent newspaper in the story is the "Evening Record." New Jersey had a prominent newspaper called the Evening Record. Hmm...

Cosmo disguises himself as a judge targeted for death to lure out the killer. The killer plans to use the cliche of the gun-in-a-camera, with the extra twist that it fires ice bullets -- though the story isn't clear about how Cosmo recognizes the weapon as a fake camera.

Interestingly, Cosmo uses the phrase "tag after that wagon!" instead of the more familiar "follow that car!"

In Cosmo's fistfight, he takes advantage of the "semidarkness and confusion." Could this be evidence that I was right to give humans a penalty to be hit in dim light -- or maybe a morale modifier for fighting in the dark?

Bruce Nelson describes purse snatchers as "never dangerous. They're the sniveling rat type. Weak kneed and lame brained." Sounds like cowardly hoodlums!

To find a woman Bruce Nelson is looking for he simply looks in the phone book -- one of the first times a Hero takes such a simple action in the comics.

To find out about a murder, Bruce goes straight to the police captain, who promptly tells Bruce everything he knows. Bruce is either exploiting a supporting cast member we haven't seen before, or he's benefiting from a really good encounter reaction roll.

Slam Bradley starts his story with an interesting conundrum. He finds two men in an alley; one is accosting the other.  But which is the bad guy? Slam takes a guess and gets it wrong. How could he have gotten it right? I have toyed with the notion of allowing Heroes to identify mobsters with a skill check, but that could invalidate the Detect Evil power or spell. I guess he could have asked questions first and punched later.

Slam makes it up to the guy he punched by coming to work in his haunted hotel (he was a disguised plot hook character!). The hotel is sprinkled liberally with secret doors that "ghosts" use to pull pranks like stealing suitcases (when they have surprise, they can open the secret door, grab something nearby, and exit without being seen). Of course, it's not really the supernatural (even though Slam did have that one adventure when he could cast spells!). The creepy voice in the elevator is coming from a concealed speaker.

The "ghosts" appear to be a mad scientist and his lovely assistant (definitely not an Igor-like assistant!). Shorty is overcome by the assistant when she chloroforms him. Slam is gassed by the scientist, using a gas gun, that first blinds him, then knocks him unconscious. But then, in another twist, the mad scientist and his assistant turn out to be something else and -- ah, ah -- spoilers!

(Read at Readcomics.net.)

Detective Comics #31

This month's Batman story starts with something remarkable. No, I don't mean that it's now "Batman" and not "Bat-Man" any longer. And I don't mean that Bruce Wayne now has a fiancee we've never met before. No, I mean we first see Batman at the top of a utility pole -- from which he hops down and lands safely. That's got to be a 20-25' jump? That's not something you can currently do, by the rules, in Hideouts & Hoodlums. Heck, I'm not sure I'd allow that as a stunt!

Batman still doesn't have a Batcave, but he does have a secret hangar located somewhere, containing a bat-themed autogyro. We also get the Batarang in this story. Luckily, I've already added boomerangs to the weapons list in 2nd edition.

We learn that Hungary is well known for its werewolves. I'll have to put that in the werewolf entry!

The Batgyro makes a transatlantic crossing, which is conceivably possible. The 1942 Sikorsky R-4 autogyro could go 9,000 miles, which is far more than the ocean voyage between New York and France.

When Batman encounters the Monk, Batman makes his save vs. spells to avoid being hypnotized, but is aware of what was being attempted on him.

The plot requires Batman to make some pretty bizarre decisions to get him all the way to France. He allows Julie to go to France in the first place, even though he's suspicious of the doctor who tells her to go. He leaves Julie alone on the cruise ship to France with the Monk. He follows the ship to the docks, but then somehow loses sight of Julie and has to search the city to find her again. There's a lot of room here for Batman's player to make a different decision and throw off the entire scenario. It would make more sense for most of this to be backstory and for the scenario to begin in Paris.

In Julie's room is a huge gorilla. No idea how Batman doesn't see it from the window, other than a good surprise roll by the Editor.

The Monk's deathtrap for Batman is a net that closes up around him, that the Monk can drop into a pit of snakes at his leisure.

In a separate trap, Batman encounters a "gigantic" gorilla, far larger than the huge gorilla we saw earlier. 15' tall? Easily escaping the gorilla with some leaping and climbing, Batman only has a single guard left to overcome before escaping.

Batman saves Julie from her abductors (more normal guys like the guard) with a sleeping gas pellet, like we've seen him use before.

Following the Batman feature, an educational filler page called "Crime Never Pays" talks about bloodhounds being able to follow a trail 135 miles. It would be nice to know if that was true.

Humor filler is drawn by Paul Gustavson -- of Centaur Comics fame -- in this issue.

Buck Marshall sneaks up on a cabin with some outlaws in it by deliberately missing some shots at game fowl to fool the outlaws into think he's no threat. I want to turn this idea around on my players some time -- have the bad guys pretend to be incompetent to fool the Heroes, then turn out to be really dangerous!

Bart Regan fights "cowardly thugs" in Spy. Now that could be an interesting combination of two stat types. Tough as a thug, but with a cowardly hoodlum's low morale?

The cowardly thugs have a bulletproof car. Trophy item!

Larry Steele solves a murder mystery with an unusual clue -- the murderer slips up and describes a man by the color of his clothes, then Larry learns that suspect is color blind.

Speed Saunders, now relegated to the middle of the magazine, has a murder with an unusual murder weapon -- a mammoth tusk! Speed mounts a methodical investigation at a circus, questioning the witnesses, searching their tents, and corroborating evidence off-site via telegram. I'm not sure about the stolen tusk though...would trying a stolen tusk to a real elephant's tusk really impale a man before it broke loose from its bonds? Path of least resistance seems like it would be the latter. And then, doing it to avoid blood on the elephant doesn't make much sense. If an elephant's real tusk is right next to the fake tusk doing the actual goring, I would still think it would get some blood on it. And how would the killer know the elephant would use that specific tusk and not the opposing tusk?

Speed gets whipped in the face with a real whip and has temporary scarring from it -- a rare complication for a Hero.

Bruce Nelson's scenario is a pretty interesting one too. The plot hooks he receives are all intentional bait to lure him away from home. The scenario is faked so a robber can get into Bruce's home while he's busy elsewhere and rob him of valuable evidence from another case. I could see myself using this in my current online H&H campaign, where there are major events going on in two locations -- but I would need to lay out clues in advance that there's something not kosher about one of the two sets of plot hooks.

Cosmo, Phantom of Disguise, is dealing with two trophy item/potions. One is a paralyzing drug. The other is "essence of intelligence" -- someone else's stolen intelligence, distilled into a potion you can drink, and then increases your own intelligence (+1-2 to INT for 1-4 weeks?).

Slam Bradley tries to rescue a photographer at the zoo who falls into a bear cage. Slam pushes the bear away, then grabs the photographer and runs. Shorty is menaced by a bear cub (1+1 HD?), judging from the size of it. Then they find a constrictor snake in their room and Slam has to shoot it. And lastly they have to fight a tiger in the zoo.

All of that is pretty cut and dry, as far as game mechanics go. But there's this weird scene where Slam is clubbed from behind, and he's not knocked out or even stunned senseless, but he's groggy enough that he can attack, seemingly at a penalty.

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1, the rest read at readcomics.net)

Detective Comics #30

The Batman comes back again this issue, and so does Dr. Death, for a rematch. The Batman still doesn't have a Batmobile per se, but drives a "high-powered auto". He is shown easily going over a "high" fence, but at 8', I think anyone more athletic than me could get over that and I wouldn't even ask a player to use up a stunt for that.

Batman uses a silk line for climbing, but without a grappling hook; he lassos a projection from the wall before scaling it. Using a rope to climb would be a situational modifier to a skill check (probably a +1).

The Batman carries a flashlight. He also has potions of sleep that, when their vials are shattered, release sleep gas in at least a 5' diameter. It doesn't last very long, though, as the Mikhail the Cossack wakes up after what seems like only 1 exploration turn.

He hears a "muffled footfall" and keeps from being surprised. I'll have to check to see if I gave mysterymen both a better chance to surprise and a lower chance to be surprised. He also hides in shadows as if using a skill (though thinking to use heavy drapes for cover should probably be a big situational modifier -- maybe +2?).

A flying tackle is really just a trip attack combined with movement, and isn't treated different mechanically (though Batman gets a +4 bonus for attacking with surprise from behind!).  The Batman then trades damage inflicted for distance to push Dr. Death's cossack out the window.

The Batman's kick to the neck that kills Mikhail isn't supported by the H&H game mechanics.

In Spy, Bart Regan jumps out of a car on a bridge and dives into the water. It looks like a suicidal plunge, but Bart lands safely, because it's water and this is a comic book. But bad guys wouldn't know about game mechanics, so they natural assume he died and drive off. Editors, always remember to be impartial when playing the bad guys and not to use knowledge they wouldn't have.

The mad scientist in this issue has built a mind control device he can use on politicians and secret service members. The device is small -- a box that can sit on a tabletop, with a delicate light bulb-like attachment on top -- but it must have a range of miles.

In a rare example of a Hero having a specific injury, Larry Steele is shot and needs his arm in a sling for the rest of his story.

There's a strange escalation of weaponry in Speed Saunder's mystery. The first murder is done with a 13th century antique crossbow, the second is done with an automatic, but then the killer produces a sub-machine gun when she attacks Speed.

Bruce Nelson's adventure starts with a subtler start than normal; a yellow peril hoodlum simply puts a gun in his back and warns him to scram (or "sclam") and there's no fight. Bruce knows this guy is probably in league with some criminals in the area (combining two cliches, this adventure takes place in both Chinatown and a waterfront). But Bruce isn't interested in going after small fish, so he leaves and pursues the lead he was already on. This is so refreshingly different from the play style I usually see in H&H.

It's also worth pointing out that only the Chinese bad guy talks in broken English; the Chinese good guys in the story (and there are two, not just a token one!) talk perfectly normal. Also, kudos to the author (Tom Hickey?) for being the first comic book writer ever to point out that tear gas isn't "very potent in the open air". I've already read so many stories where gas weapons work equally effective no matter where they're used.

The smugglers use speed boats to reach the waterfront from a freighter in this story.

Cosmo's adventure is the opposite of Speed's, in a way, as the threat level deescalates.  A man who looks like Cosmo is shot and killed by the bad guys, who early in the investigation are ready to murder him. But later on, when Cosmo actually knows who the main villain is, Cosmo is simply knocked out and left behind, an easy chance to kill him, or at least put him in a deathtrap, completely missed. It's a sign of an Editor going too easy on his player(s).

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1; most of the rest of this issue read at www.readcomics.net.)

Detective Comics #29

Bruce Wayne begins this month's adventure doing what every good Hero should do at the start of each day -- read the newspaper for plot hooks. You just never know when your next arch-nemesis is going to leave you a message in the classified section, inviting you to ask for a letter at the post office, that will defy you to stop him from murdering someone, which will actually be a trap.

Before going, Bruce checks over some of his gear. He's equipped himself well with trophy items already, including "gas pellets of choking gas" and suction gloves and knee pads to aid climbing.

And even on arriving at the scene of the trap, The Bat-Man takes further good precautions, leaving a hanging rope outside the penthouse for a quick getaway in case the encounter goes sour.

When The Batman is attacked, he hits two hoodlums at once with a pedestal. Now, that can't be the Fighter class' "combat machine" ability, unless we give The Batman some levels in Fighter. And it can't be the Multi-Attack power unless we give him some levels in Superhero. Right now, the Mysteryman class has no avenue for making multiple attacks in the same turn. So...bit of a mystery there right now.

We do know that The Batman isn't too high in level yet because when he's shot by Jabah, he's apparently low enough on hit points that he decides to retreat (maybe the Editor rolled a 6 for damage)! Or is this no ordinary wound? The Batman is still bleeding from his gun shot wound about two turns later. Now, so far, we have no game mechanic in place for bleeding wounds causing additional damage over turns. Do we need one for gunshot wounds? Or could Jabah have a special trophy item, a Gun of Wounding?

The next day, Bruce Wayne just plain gets lucky, spotting Jabbah on the street as he drives by. You would think that would be a one in a million chance, but it's not really that bad. More likely, the Editor added Jabah to a wandering encounter table with no more than 20 entries on it, giving Bruce a 1 in 20 chance of encountering Jabah there.

Bruce saves Jabbah's intended victim from poison gas by putting a handkerchief over both their faces (good thing Bruce carries two!). Any sensible precaution like that should give a situational modifier of +1 to a saving throw.

The Batman is shown to have more equipment: a glass-cutter for breaking and entering. He uses a lasso in his next fight with Jabah.

Dr. Death's lab is equipped with a pit trap with a mat underneath it, for Dr. Death's quick escape.

What is in the vial Dr. Death accidentally smashes on the floor? He seems to refer to it as "the fiery death", but he may be referring to what he has planned for The Batman. Whatever it is, it seems to work a lot like Greek fire, combusting on impact, spreading quickly, and burning hot.

And that's all just from the Batman story!

In Spy, Bart Regan seems to still be separated from his wife and partner Sally and is saddled with boring partner Jack Steele. Jack is still a 1st-level Fighter, wet behind the ears, and easily captured when he follows the bad guys solo. Now, the bad guys know Jack knows too much; there's really no good reason for them not to kill him. But a good Editor knows to keep the story going as long as possible, and give the Heroes every possible break. So a previously unknown even bigger boss calls in and asks to see Jack.

At least the spies Bart and Jack have to deal with are pretty smart. They have a back-up plan; if their robot plane full of bombs is stopped, they have another pilot in the air who will swoop down and machine gun all the government officials the spies want to murder. Bad guys should always have a back-up plan, because Heroes tend to wreck plans so often.

Interestingly, Bart doesn't seem remotely interested in capturing the spy leader, but mows him down with bullets at long range. I hate it when my players are like that...

The Crimson Avenger, in his story, is hunting down kidnappers, based on the testimony of the kidnap victim they freed. These kinds of clues -- "we were on a farm about fifty miles from here....the front gate was locked with a chain, the second porch step was loose, and a water pump out in back squeaked" -- would be a different kind of investigation than an urban adventure.

The Crimson is not opposed to doing his hero work while out of costume. When he finds the kidnappers, he immediately launches into attacking them, even though he has none of his crime-fighting gear with him. Luckily, his sidekick Wing saves him and brings his gear to him.

During a car chase, The Crimson jumps from car to car. I don't have that on my skill list, but it seems like it would be a hard skill, so there should only be a 1 in 6 chance of that working. Maybe if the cars were going slower it would be easier, but this seems to be a high-speed car chase.

Okay -- what the heck? Speed Saunders is investigating a murder scene, sees a tobacco stain on the ceiling, and correctly deduces from that the tobacco was used to blind the murder victim before he died? That's got to be a case of an Editor feeding clues to the players when they can't solve the scenario on their own.

In Bruce Nelson's adventure, he's chasing a hoodlum (he's literally in a hood -- I wonder if hoodlums should get bonuses if they're wearing hoods) and shoots into the air to try and force a morale save (one of my players just recently tried that).  When that fails, it becomes a chase. Editor and player each make skill checks for their characters. On a 2, they run slightly faster than normal. On a 1, they run much faster than normal. On a 3-6, they just run normal. That's basically how skills will work in 2nd edition.

Cosmo, in his adventure, is on the trail of a mad scientist. He's following a car that he thinks the mad scientist is in -- but rather than trail him back to his lair, Cosmo detours to the local license bureau and inquires who the car belongs to. Interesting technique there, Cosmo -- lucky you the car wasn't stolen!

But Cosmo's luck doesn't end there. He bluffs his way into the mad scientist's home posing as an electric meter inspector. Then the mad scientist simply invites him in and begins showing off his disintegrater raygun. It has a range of six miles and wrecks things as at least a 6th level superhero. When the mad scientist succeeds at disarming Cosmo, it looks like it's all over for that character. But the Editor allows the dropped gun to go off and shoot the raygun, blowing it up somehow. Really...lazy storytelling at its worst here. I can scarcely recommend anything from this as game tips.

And while Cosmo's audacity just seems lazy, Slam Bradley's is perfectly in-character for him. When he receives a threatening letter warning him to stay away from Hawaii, he not only goes there at once, but puts an ad in the newspaper right away saying "I'm here! So what?" (I laughed out loud at that).

But Slam is being suckered -- every note he receives warning him to stay away from somewhere is being used to lure him around (I wonder how many of my players that would work on...?).

Slam is stopped from catching the bad guys in a car chase by the simplest method -- a fork in the road. Unsure of which route to take, Slam gives up and tries something else.

And Slam's next plan is really interesting. Hoping to endear himself to his next suspect, Slam and Shorty endanger the man's life so Slam can rescue him.

The villains' hideout is a house on a leper colony island -- which, you've got to admit, is a pretty good way of keeping intruders away.

Sadly, the story is marred by horrible racism towards native Hawaiians, who are shown to be human-sacrificing primitives, easily tricked by Slam's ventriloquism into thinking Slam and Shorty are gods. Also, there's some bizarre politics, where the Japanese and Chinese seem to be working together to foment revolution in Hawaii.

(The Batman story was read in Batman Archives v. 1, the rest was read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #28

We're back around to Detective Comics again already, with this being the second appearance of The Bat-Man.

The Bat-Man demonstrates voice mimicry in this story. That's not currently a skill in Hideouts & Hoodlums. I'll...consider how important/useful it would be.

When The Bat-Man kicks a thief off a roof (to the man's death, no less), he's using a throw attack. A flip/throw can make your opponent prone or move him 5', if you hit and he fails his save vs. science.

In the world of comic books, confessions signed under duress caused by vigilantes seem to be fully admissible in court. I wonder if H&H needs a short article on the law in a comic book world.

While most Buck Marshall, Range Detective (moved to here from Action Comics) stories followed the same pattern of following tracks to the killer, this one starts with the unusual premise of Buck being arrested, and then told he was arrested so he could talk to the prisoner in the cell next to him and try to get some kind of confession out of him. It's an interesting set-up for an adventure, though I could see players holding a grudge for the sheriff not telling them his plan first.

In the most ridiculous example of disarming a gunman to date, Buck does so by swinging a hat.

Someone else besides Joe Shuster is drawing Spy in this issue, and the story hurts for it. Bart's partner Sally is still missing from the strip, which also saps much of the uniqueness out of it.

I'm not sure what country "Baralia" is supposed to be, but unless it's Mexico or Canada I really don't see how they plan to get their tanks and infantry to the United States.

Bart demonstrates picking a lock (could be a spy class feature, but I plan to give it to everyone anyway).

Lee Travis, The Crimson Avenger, falls off the running board of a fast-moving car, fast enough that the damage makes him need to see a doctor afterwards. Maybe we need to fashion a game mechanic for horizontal falling? If speed was the only factor, then falling while going 20 MPH would do 1-6 points of damage, 40 MPH would do 2-12 damage, 80 MPH would do 3-18 points of damage, and so on.

The Crimson trades in his gas gun for itching powder in this story, though the itching powder is encountered off-panel and we never see how effective it's supposed to be. Speaking of effectiveness, The Crimson gets kidnapped, not once, but twice in this story by hoodlums.

Bruce Nelson is shown being able to read Spanish. The H&H rules talk about not bothering with making Heroes keep track of what languages they can speak; at least the common written languages need to be covered in that too.

A mastiff runs loose in Doctor Fu Manchu. Dogs were the pit bulls of their time, in terms of reputation for violence (and probably equally undeserved). While I had previously statted dogs as 1+1 Hit Dice, 2 Hit Dice might not be unreasonable for mastiffs.

(Batman story read from Batman Archives vol. 1. I managed to read most of the rest of the story at readcomics.net until malware on the site overcame my malware blockers. May have to stop using that site...)

Detective Comics #25

This one is woefully out of order. I had skipped over it because the summary I'd read seemed so uninteresting. Now that I've read it myself, though, I found plenty worthy of comment.

Nailing down where the early Heroes are from isn't easy most of the time, but here Speed Saunders tells us he's from New York. He also tells us some useful tips for checking corpses: check the wrists to see if they had show signs of having been tied up, and -- of course -- check the ground to see if there's enough blood, or if the body was moved. And, of course, play every hunch. Even though the body seems to have been killed by a hammer blow to the head, Speed still asks for the stomach to be pumped -- just for, you know, whatev's -- and then by amazing coincidence finds the true source of death. It makes me curious about how a skill in Hideouts & Hoodlums shouldn't be "get sudden hunch" -- which would let the Editor feed clues to his players...

In Spy, Bart and Sally are the first Heroes to be given a plot hook by FDR himself! Speaking of amazing coincidences, Sally reaches into a spy's desk drawer, pulls out random papers, and they just happen to be detailed invasion plans. Now, maybe the Editor assigned something like a 1 in 6 (or even a 1 in 8!) chance of stumbling on just the right papers and Sally's player got lucky, or the Editor fudged events to ratchet up the stakes in the scenario.

In The Mysterious Doctor Fu Manchu, slime-covered walls prevent climbing from a trap. It's your standard flooding room trap with one extra twist -- there are beams just high enough for the Heroes to grab and try to pull themselves up, but concealed on the top of the beams are sword-blades. Although the characters believe they could sever fingers, we deal with more abstract injury in H&H; they probably do only 1-6 damage.

The Crimson Avenger carries two trophy items: a lineman's phone that he can plug into someone's else's phone jack and use, and the first gas gun used by a Hero in comics!

Bruce Nelson is said to have a curious ability: he can shoot "accurately while on the dead run".  Now, normally, one can make two moves in combat in H&H, or one move and an attack. This seems to be implying that Bruce can make a full move and still get an attack. So what's going on there? Should this be a skill everyone has, like a 1 in 6 chance to shoot while on a dead run? But skills don't affect combat, class and level (and to a limited extent, ability scores) affect combat. For running combats consistently, I'm inclined to ignore what Bruce just did, but I'll watch for more evidence...

Crooks often do dumb things in comic books that make them easy to find. Bruce homes in on a gang of robbers because all of their robberies are roughly equidistant from the same town the bad guys use as their base. Heroes should always remember to check maps and look for patterns -- though it should not fall to the Editor to spell out what the patterns are.

Slam Bradley & Shorty Morgan (really, Shorty) are attacked by a rattlesnake when they try attending college to better themselves. That Slam can't spell, but in another issue is revealed to be a self-taught magic-user, either shows that the strip had no sense of continuity, or that an education-related stat would be unnecessary in H&H.

Slam is good at division of labor; when a rock is thrown through their dorm window with a note tied to it, Slam leaves Shorty to read the notes, while Slam crashes through the window to chase the thrower. Smart players will make quick decisions like this, so that all the Heroes aren't trying to accomplish the same thing.

(Read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #27 - pt. 2

There was a time when Speed Saunders was top billing in Detective Comics, but now he just gets to come second after The Bat-Man. A beat cop who must know Speed summons him to the scene of a corpse found on the riverfront, tied up and strangled. Speed sees an unusual design on the man's collar that he takes to be a clue. Smartly, he heads to the public library to research it. Weirdly, the library is open to him, even though it appears to be nighttime. Did Speed just break into the library, because he couldn't wait until morning to look for clues? That sounds exactly like some players I've had...

Speed finds a weird trap in a man's house; behind a secret wall panel is a mannequin arm holding a gun, so that one only has to pull a string at the back of the arm to make the gun shoot. It seems overly elaborate at first, but it would allow someone to murder within the house without getting any powder burns on the killer's own hand.

Buck Marshall, Range Detective, does a first class job of searching for clues -- checking for how much blood leaked from each wound, checking the local soil against the soil on the dead man's clothes, checking the nearby horseshoe prints, considering the effects of the weather on dating the tracks, considering the direction of the shots, checking for loose hair, and considering the length of the stride to estimate a man's height -- all things a Hideouts & Hoodlums player can look for while investigating.

In Spy, the Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee dies -- which is actually kind of a funny pun, because in 1939, the Chairman of the Commitee's name was Martin Dies.  Or is it the same Committee? Bart Regan says there were five members on the Committee, but there were actually seven members in 1939, a fact that should have been easily verifiable, and none of the actual member names are even close to the fake ones used in the story.

Here's another wrinkle -- though Bart Regan is often referred to as a spy, his actual credentials here show he works for the Secret Service. Or are those fake credentials? That could be a good trophy item...

Bart has an interesting encounter with a wandering encounter; when a gunman climbs through his hotel window, Bart is immediately incredulous. "How in heck could you have known so soon that I'm on your trail?" Bart wails at the unfairness of it. But the gunman turns out to be a hungry thief, unrelated to the case. I can just imagine an out-of-character exchange going on, between player and Editor, with the player complaining that the Editor was using knowledge of the player's actions unfairly, and the Editor backpedaling and changing the encounter.

Bart encounters an unusual murder weapon -- miniature "bombs" wrapped in cellulose and concealed in food. The cellulose dissolves and the bomb goes off on the inside, apparently for lethal damage (though it's hard to imagine a bomb that small doing much damage...). It's also hard to believe the enemy spymaster falls for the old "switch the bananas when you're not looking" trick - but I guess he missed his save vs. plot.

I learned a history lesson from The Crimson Avenger when he refers to a miniature camera as a "candid camera". And here I thought that phrase was invented for the TV show!

Again, The Crimson shows unusual abilities -- leaping a 6' fence, climbing the drainpipe of a building, and snapping rope bonds when tied up -- all too weak to be superpowers, but possibly Mysteryman stunts.

Bruce Nelson is investigating a Voodoo-related murder in New Orleans, and the author seems to have actually done some reading on the subject; the crosses and snakes at the murder scene seem like appropriate motifs. I wonder if the Creole words are authentic or just gibberish. Anyway, I always try to put some research into my scenarios like that.

Bruce encounters a harmless snake -- obviously not there to challenge him, but it did frighten him enough that he whipped out his gun and started shooting. He also finds the murder weapon -- devil smoke, a "green, gummy substance" that, if burned, produces a lethal cloud of smoke. Good for a deathtrap!

You don't have to learn languages in H&H, normally, but if the Editor did insist that your Hero had to learn a language, Cosmo the Phantom of Disguise learns Chinese in just 30 days. Cosmo, in disguise, gets a job in a Chinese shipping business. In the back of the shipping room, concealed behind boxes, is a secret door that opens onto a passage that leads below the wharf behind the building. Then a second secret door opens into the back of a fake coal barge.

And, lastly, Slam Bradley takes a trans-Atlantic clipper to Switzerland, which might have necessitated a save vs. plot to arrange. As I understand it, there were a lot of travel restrictions on traveling from the U.S. to Europe during the War.

(Issue read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #26

Slam Bradley and Shorty are lured into a scenario by lack of dough. It's hard to believe that any (by now) mid-level heroes could be poor, but I suppose it depends on how decadent a lifestyle Slam and Shorty live (or they give a lot to charity, to keep the good deed XP rolling in?).

They are captured by Pierre D'Orsay and his macabre group of death cult artists -- they paint pictures of you dying and let you pick the one you like best, then try to make it happen. If that one doesn't work, they go through all the rest (a nifty idea for a scenario!). First they try to hit Slam and Short with a car (save vs. science to dodge?), then bring them back to the studio at gunpoint and force them through a trapdoor. Next the room they are in is partially flooded (the solution is to ruin their paintings with silly poses). The room is then heated with powerful heat lamps to cook the heroes (the solution is to break the bulbs). The room is then refrigerated to freeze the heroes, filled with gas to choke them, the air is sucked out of the room to suffocate them, the walls move closer to squeeze them, and then they are finally allowed through a secret door -- into a room with a leopard!

That's a lot of traps. Now, what those traps are doing to the boys, game mechanics-wise, isn't as clear. Each trap might be doing 1-6 points of damage to the boys (with the cold trap doing the most damage), or maybe they are saving vs. science each time to avoid damage.

Bruce Nelson has a great idea for getting into someone's house, pretending to be from the electric company and needing to read the meter (which used to be indoors). Bruce is locked in a closet, but manages to break out after shouldering the door twice. To end a stalemate, Bruce shoots into the air to bring a police car so he can borrow the tear gas bombs out of their car (was/is it really standard issue for every police car to carry them?).

The Crimson Avenger is starting to slowly take a turn in a different direction. While never displaying unusual abilities before, The Crimson can now take a "superhuman leap" through a glass window -- even though it's not that uncommon for any Heroes to be able to leap through glass windows -- and the police don't bother to chase him because of how fast he is. Should it be a skill, or a stunt, for people to run faster?  Then, out of costume, Lee Travis is knocked out and tied up, but as soon as he comes too he just heaves and snaps his bonds. How strong is this guy supposed to be? Does he need a level in Superhero so he can wreck things?

Bart Regan, Spy, is menaced by a mad scientist with radio-controlled rockets. It sounds like it might have been cutting edge hi-tech in 1939, but it wasn't -- radio-controlled rockets had been around since WWI.  That's one of the nice things about tech in the Golden Age; a lot of military grade stuff never made it into civilian use after the Great War (except for planes; it seems everyone figured out uses for the planes), so a lot could be re-purposed and made to seem new.

And when I say Bart Regan was menaced, technically, what I mean is that landmark buildings in Washington, D.C. were menaced and Bart just had to deal with it. In my home campaign, set in 1941, I ran a scenario not too long ago based on a 1941 comic book story that had the Capitol Building bombed by a mad scientist, but Siegel and Shuster did it here first. This stuff has great shock value in a one-off story, but in actual campaign play -- how often do you really want landmark buildings getting destroyed? Will there be strong consequences (capital punishment for the saboteur)? Repercussions (government registration of all mad scientists)? These are things for the Editor to consider.

Bart and Sally try the windows to see if they find one unlocked (I think I've already talked about how I use a save vs. plot in my home campaigns when Heroes do this; if they save, they find an unlocked window).

Professor Barton is a sneaky guy. He slips Bart and Sally a note, pretending to be held prisoner, but he's really the bad guy and just wants to lure them into a trap (though it's unfortunately not an elaborate trap; they just get a gun pulled on them).

(Read at ReadComics.net.)

Detective Comics #24

In Spy, preserving the U.S. neutrality is crucial to the mission.   Bart and Sally get caught and wind up treading water in the middle of the ocean. How long they can tread water is not clear by the Hideouts & Hoodlums rules. Luckily it didn't come up, because a U.S. submarine just happens by and picks them up. But how? Is the submarine just a wandering encounter, a planned encounter, or did the Editor fudge and make it happen to save them?

Crime Never Pays is filler material. It talks about how dental work is nearly as reliable at identifying bodies as fingerprints by 1939.  There's a good tip about how hoodlums often keep the same nicknames even when they're using aliases. There's also a claim that the FBI convicts 98% of everyone they bring to trial.

In The Mysterious Doctor Fu Manchu, I learn that Fu Manchu-types have a paralyzing gaze!

Bruce Nelson gets in a shootout with a thug.

The only installment I plan to talk about from this issue is Slam Bradley, which still takes place in 2 billion AD. Jerry Siegel makes some remarkable predictions here. One is uplifted animals that can walk and talk like humans, a common science fiction staple today, and two is communicators sewn into shirts that you just press to activate, such as seen decades later in Star Trek: the Next Generation. Jerry also wisely predicts that our modern languages would be unintelligible that far into the future, but luckily people wear thought translators (I guess so they don't have to wear out their lips with talking?).

Another curious feature in the future, which could be a good trick to feature in a mad scientist's hideout, is a room that has to be entered from above. If you fall through the room, you fall slowly, as if through a "jelly-like substance". It isn't clear if there's really a column of jelly there, or if the anti-gravity effect just feels like moving through jelly, but it's an interesting detail regardless.

Slam fights a monster that seems to be ogre-sized, with metal claws. His opponent also seems to have the Super-Tough Skin power activated!

In the far distant future, death is reversible and Shorty is brought back to life as a routine matter. Heroes with access to a time machine could essentially be immortal, going into the far future whenever they need to be resurrected.

One of Siegel's misfires on future tech is motorized propeller shoes that let people walk on air. But - ow! -- what if one of your legs brushed against the other? Sounds like 1-6 points of damage to me, followed by falling damage.

(Issue read here)

Detective Comics #23

Speed Saunders investigates a murder committed with a sharpened ski-stick that can be thrown like a javelin. Speed reveals that it has a range of 50', so a javelin would too.

Larry Steele, Private Detective, is hit with a blackjack and knocked out for 20 minutes, after which he wakes up.

The Crimson Avenger runs afoul of zombies in this issue; zombies made by science instead of magic. The science zombies are called "mechanical men" and "zombis", and are driven around by two hoodlums who work for a mad scientist. The scientist has a "giant" king cobra that the zombis are worship (though why they would worship the snake if they were mindless eludes me), but it's not really that giant -- large, maybe. It's also worth noting that they can be fooled by disguises, as The Crimson disguises himself as a zombie and successfully moves among them (definitely calls for a save vs. plot, that trick).

The Crimson also hides in shadows and the zombis are unable to spot him.

Bruce Nelson goes back to his alma mater of Princely University, clearly a stand-in for Princeton. He stops a murder from happening with a blowgun.

Speaking of stand-ins, Jerry Siegel likes to kill off stand-ins for famous people. In Spy, a senator is murdered (no indication as to which, but there's only 100 of them), and then a famous aviator who sure seems to be Charles Lindbergh is killed. The murderer is a mad scientist who has his hunchbacked assistant swap out buttons on the victims' clothes with buttons containing a radio receiver. The receiver buttons trigger heart attacks in the victims, apparently over long distances. the whole set-up is a pretty dangerous trophy item to put into the Heroes' hands.

The assistant, Rutsky, is quite capable. He climbs a tree with cat-like grace, sneaks up on a trained spy like Bart Regan, and almost throttles Bart to death with his bare hands. Maybe assistant should be a mobster type!

To find out where Dr. LaForge is, Bart just has to call the local newspaper office and talk to someone in the research department. The paper has on file what country Dr. LaForge is visiting from and where he's staying. Newspapers sure used to have generous budgets for research departments!

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, has to shoot the head off a cobra to save someone. I'm as yet unsure if I need to distinguish between varieties of poisonous snakes, stat-wise, in 2nd edition, other than perhaps the large/huge/giant distinctions.

Slam Bradley and Shorty explore the distant future of 2 billion AD with the help of a scientist with a time machine (specifically a "time-flier" -- it looks like a plane, but it moves through time instead of space).  The time machine seems to work an awful lot like Wells' The Time Machine, down to history playing out at super-fast speed through a view screen.  Something else to point out is that time machines must be remarkably easy to make; in comic books, a single professor working alone is often responsible for creating them.

It's perhaps easier to send your time-traveling Heroes to the ridiculously distant future so it doesn't have to even resemble the present world anymore. But there's a danger of too powerful hi-tech trophies winding up in the Heroes' hands in any future scenario, as well as the temptation to find out knowledge of the future the Heroes can exploit to their advantage.

The future is sure different in some ways, with a metal sun in the sky shedding green light, and a mysterious body orbiting the artificial sun. Cities surrounded by a screen of death rays. There's still jungles in the future, and wild leopards in them, but if the time-flier hasn't moved through space, then the jungle is at the same latitude as New York City. Anticipating global warming...?

Shades of Gamma World, the future is ruled by humans, living with uplifted/mutant bird-men and uplifted/mutant plant-men!  They live on a monarchical society once again, answering to a prince. The weapons of the future consist of odder fare than Laser guns. They use pipes that can paralyze others with sound, or living missiles -- plants that can dodge in mid-air and spray poison gas.

(Issue read at Read Comics)

Detective Comics #22

The Crimson Avenger makes a very rare cover appearance here.

So far, in my experience running Hideouts & Hoodlums, not too many players put any effort into concealing their other identities. And while it's true that maintaining a secret identity can be a liability during an adventure, it at least seems like it could be a fun thing to roleplay about during downtime.

Since Slam Bradley's adventure is "The Return of Fui Onyui", this might be a good time to talk about racism in Golden Age comic books again. I like to think that I'm pretty good at understanding historical racism in context and not be offended by it -- but even I can't stand the insult names many Chinese characters got. Maybe if you think of them as codenames, intentionally chosen by Chinese agents out of a sense of irony, it could be palatable.

The other way to combat the racist elements, while not leaving them entirely out of your game, is to make sure there is equal representation of good guys to bad from each minority group. This Slam Bradley story does that, teaming Slam up with good guy Yat Sin to battle Fui Onyui.

One more point to consider here is that Fui Onyui is a returning villain -- the first ever in a non-serialized comic book adventure. When Jerry Siegel referenced a story from 21 issues earlier, it was a huge leap of faith that his readership extended back that far -- but in doing so he invented comic book continuity.

I have almost never used returning villains, so far, in H&H (and my one exception only occurred in a sub-plot). For one thing, H&H players I've gamed with tend to be brutal dispensers of justice and leave little room for returning villains. But further than that... while familiar characters are fun to see in comic books, I fear there is a lessening of dramatic impact every time you see a villain return, when the Heroes already know they can beat him because they have before. I'll be testing this theory in my Justice Society campaign later, when they start running into recurring villains, like Brain Wave...

Slam buys a three-cent newspaper and drives a red convertible 100 MPH to try to find out if Shorty is okay. He has a make-up kit in his apartment, which is in an eight-story building.

Slam busts a locked door in with just his shoulder. Do fighters need a chance to wreck things, limited to doors only?

Slam is attacked by assassins, which may become a mobster type. Assassins seem to prefer attacking from the rear and have a chance to sneak up on people stealthily from behind.

Fui Onyui uses a chemical that induces suspended animation ("the living death") in Shorty.

Incidentally, the dentist office behind Slam at the beginning of this story is a Dr. Siegel.

Larry Steele is on one of those adventures where he has to seek shelter in a spooky old house from a storm -- but with the further incentive that the road ahead of him is washed out, so he can't reach his destination. The house has no electricity and the owner sees by candlelight. There are bats living upstairs and this one dark staircase ends at a pit trap. There is a laboratory with two entrances and volatile chemicals inside that can blow up the whole room (but not the whole house). A mad scientist and three madmen (new mobster type?) lurk in the house, though after an hour the madmen turn on the scientist and kill him. In the cellar is a locked cell with the scientist's pretty niece locked in it.

In The Crimson Avenger, Lee Travis deals with the issue of protecting secret identities and hits on what seems like a pretty good idea: offer a $5,000 reward for information on your own secret identity so that, if anyone is getting close to learning who you are, they might come forward. Of course, you're also incentivizing people to try to figure it out, so there's trade-offs there. When everyone thinks the D.A. has information on The Crimson, the mob shows up to lay claim to it.

Bruce Nelson solves a murder mystery where the murder weapon is poisoned throat spray. Instead of a random onset time, this poison always takes effect during the same time during a play.

(Read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #19 - part 1

This issue starts with another Speed Saunders investigation, and this investigation starts off well with Speed getting a good lead to follow. Speed finds the guy who's been passing around the counterfeit money, but when he needs to find the guy printing the money Speed does what many a player of mine in the past would have done -- just wander around aimlessly and wait for me to throw them bigger clues. Here, Speed just happens to walk past a random building where he hears a printing press inside.

Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard is after a missing invisibility formula -- my first thought was that this would be a potion, but the formula seems to be instructions for working an invisibility machine that works for just 30 minutes. This deviates from the Invisibility spell, but that's okay for mad science devices.

Kent notices that a car is trailing him (keen senses/notice things check?).  He is rescued by a mysterious woman who seems suspiciously eager to help Kent.  Supporting cast members are meant to be actively recruited by the player, but Kent just shrugs and says stuff like "Sure, why not?" when she wants to go everywhere with him. This type of freebie character should not be considered supporting cast for purposes of awarding xp (which Heroes get when their players actively involve their SCMs in the scenario).

Larry Steele's new adventure starts at on an uncharted island "2000 miles due East off the coast of Brazil", which is odd because by the time you're 2,000 miles East of Brazil you're practically to Africa.

Another peculiarity -- Larry sprains his ankle in a plane crash! I'm not being facetious; specific injuries, or complications after being unconscious, are fairly rare in comic book stories. I really wanted a table of complications linked to being reduced to zero hit points in 2nd ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums, but now I'm not so sure.

There's also a really creepy backstory here about the mobsters on the island who kill a 14-year old girl's parents and keep per prisoner for the next 4 years, hoping Stockholm syndrome kicks in so she'll marry the boss mobster. More proof that you can go really dark and still be Golden Age-like.

Bart Regan and Sally of Spy are about to have the first wedding in comic book history when the service is interrupted by a new mission, and this one is...pretty silly. The all-important mission is that a woman is in town who is suspected of being a spy and Bart and Sally are the only ones who can prove she is. But...where is the time crunch here? Is the Chief secretly jealous and doesn't want Bart to have Sally?

Anyway, the lady spy has a mirrored compact she uses to powder her nose that can project invisible beams of wrecking things force, capable of smashing a brick wall (or equal to a Superhero able to wreck up to cars). This is the kind of compact super-science I expect to see Iron Man carrying in 2016 and seems oddly out of place in a Golden Age story. Of course, the item does have a drawback -- if you accidentally aim it towards your face, your face explodes (so, at least 3-18 damage as a weapon).

The Bruce Nelson story starts with a combat turn that does not go the way I normally handle combat. If one side has the drop on the other -- like the bad guy with a gun at Bruce's back -- or some other distinct advantage, I may ignore rolling for initiative. Here, Bruce somehow wins initiative despite his opponent having every advantage.

Bruce would have been killed if that coconut had not fallen on his attacker's head and knocked him out. Now, the skeptical reader might interpret this as an overly lenient Editor, but perhaps not. Perhaps the Editor had merely planned the environment in advance, considered there might be, oh, a 1 in 10 chance of a coconut falling and hitting someone on the head for, oh, 1-3 points of damage if anyone stood underneath those trees -- a sort of natural trap. Bruce's player was lucky enough that his opponent wound up under the trees first.

Once Bruce is in his plane again, we see the stunts Evasive Maneuvers, Increase Speed, and Wing Walking, and possibly a new stunt. Bruce draws attacks to himself to keep his friend descending by parachute from being attacked. Maybe it would be called Draw Fire?

We also see another complication from an injury, as Bruce loses the use of his arm that he was shot in.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #18 - part 2

This installment of Bruce Nelson continues his adventure in aviation. His attackers use the stunt Find Blind Spot.

When Bruce's plane crashes, "his ankle was badly sprained and one arm wrenched painfully", but this is all just flavor text -- in reality, Bruce would only took x amount of hit points of damage from the crash.

Bruce utters the racist statement about his black companion, "There's plenty of white man in that big black."  To be fair, Bruce is burning up with fever at the time and likely delirious. Disease is not flavor text.  It can be resisted with a saving throw vs. poison, but if one succumbs, disease should have game mechanic penalties (in the case of jungle fever, Bruce is apparently incapacitated to the point where he can barely move (but is still able to attack on the next page).

A large python attacks Bruce and Ungi. Curiously, in addition to constricting, the python is able to headbutt anyone it is constricting for additional damage. I've never heard of a python doing that, though I suppose it's possible.  Ungi is only stunned for one turn by the headbutt -- further proving to me that H&H needs a rule where any melee attack has a chance to stun for 1 turn.

We meet Steve Malone, District Attorney, in this issue. His adventures are clearly set in New York City (with his first scenario taking him specifically to Brooklyn).  Steve's starting equipment includes a book of matches, a revolver, a flashlight, and a car with a short wave radio.

At his first hideout, Steve runs into seven hoodlums at once. Since Steve is probably a level 1 Fighter, his Editor clearly never meant for him to win that fight. Luckily, his Editor planned a deathtrap for him to be placed in, instead of killed outright. The deathtrap is: Steve is tied to a chair and a bomb with a lit fuse is sitting next to him. This isn't too hard to get out of. Steve could a) tip over the chair and see if it loosens his bonds, b) tip over his chair and headbutt the round bomb so it rolls away from him, c) try to snuff out the fuse between his shoes, d) try to tiptoe away from the bomb while balancing the chair on his butt. But Steve has a rookie player and his Editor, seeing that he's presented too much of a challenge, gives him a break and has two beat cops show up in time to save him.

Seeing that Steve's player is going to need more help, the Editor has those beat cops tag along and go into the killer's hideout first.

Really, the smartest person in this scenario is the dead diplomat's wife, who hid her husband's treaty by sewing it into her dress.

By now, stratosphere planes were becoming almost a common trophy item in the comic strips. Even though jet aircraft would not be reliably tested, for real, until 1940, two years from now, the idea or using rockets to make planes fly had been around since 1928. In this installment of Slam Bradly, Slam helps the inventor of a stratosphere plane. In this story at least, stratosphere planes look like futuristic jets and not ordinary planes. Furthermore, the stratosphere plane is said to be able to reach Europe in a "few hours", making it as fast as the supersonic jets of the 21st century.

Unlike the average comic book plot, this one has unexpected switch after unexpected switch, The person we believe to be the scientist's daughter turns out to be working for the crooks who want the plane, and the scientist, who believes Slam and Shorty are working with the crooks, becomes their adversary for part of the scenario. He captures them in his lab with trick chairs that extend straps around wrists and torsos, and then tries to torture them with a heat ray. When the crooks show up to steal the ship, the scientists frees Slam to fight them. But when the girl helps Slam, and the scientist escapes, we find out we'd been misinformed again -- this scientist was actually a thief who stole the ship previously. The girl really is a scientist's daughter, but of a previously unseen and captured scientist (in the story's one disappointing note, the missing scientist is found, uncreatively, locked in a closet).

At the end, Shorty asks for a reward by handing over a blank check and saying "figure it out".  While not the most Lawful solution possible, this could be a helpful reminder for an Editor who doesn't always remember to offer a big reward at the end of his adventures.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #17 - part 2

Bruce Nelson seems to be an aviator in this month's installment. In fact, he seems to be demonstrating the Increase Speed stunt while flying (a more colorful name for this stunt would have been "Yank the Throttle Wide Open").  He also demonstrates Wing Walking.  I now wonder if my aviator rules shouldn't be a separate class, but stunts anyone can use, based on their level, when they hop in a plane...

The smuggler's plane is trapped, literally -- there's a trapdoor underneath the passenger seats.

From the telephone style in Buck Marshall, Range Detective, it appears this strip is meant to take place in the early 1900s.

Slam Bradley is revealed to have a great singing voice in this story; not surprising, since Golden Age Heroes often happen to have whatever skill they need for the scenario. Maybe this should be handled by a save vs. plot each time. Any inconsistency in skill is only more appropriate for the continuity-lite Golden Age.

For some reason, the radio station that hires Slam buys a $1,500 clock. It's unclear why the clock costs so much. A valuable antique? Slam and Shorty are also hired for a $5,000 reward, so this radio station really likes to toss its money around. The scenario is ridiculously easy to solve too. If microphones are exploding and killing performers, all they have to do is have an engineer take each microphone apart and check it before each program.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #16

We're just six months away from the debut of the Bat-Man at this point, so instead of him -- let's talk about Larry Steele, Private Detective!

This installment of Larry's adventures features a pretty exciting gunfight in a burning warehouse. Caught on a four-story roof ledge with fire behind him, Larry jumps and catches a fire escape on another section of the building to save himself. This is a big warehouse -- four stories tall, with what appears to be an alley running up the middle of it, nearly dividing the warehouse in two (and hence providing the gap that Larry has to jump over). Heroes could spend a whole game session just exploring this warehouse!

It does bring up the question, though -- how far can a Hero leap (without being an alien, or buffed by powers)? The world record for a running broad jump (and we'll assume in this case that the fire was not so close behind Larry that he couldn't back up and get a running start) is over 29 feet -- but I'm not suggesting that every Hero should be able to jump that distance. Indeed, I would say that any Hero trying to clear over 15 feet should have to save vs. science to clear the rest -- up to 29 feet maximum.

There's even an idea here for a nifty trap, when the floor gives way under the bad guy called "Snow", and then the ceiling collapses on top of him and pins him to the floor. Now, in an ordinary building, with 8-foot high ceilings, falling damage between floors would be negligible, because it's less than 10 feet. In a high-ceilinged warehouse, though, falls might be 1d6 or even 2d6 damage (per 10' fallen, of course), with the weight falling on top of them doing an extra 1d6 of damage, and necessitating a save vs. science to avoid being pinned and immobile.

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, investigates a case of jewel theft from a museum perpetrated by (spoilers!) fake undead. Night watchmen are being temporarily driven mad or dying from fright when they see a mummy costume, painted in phosphorous, hanging from a pole so it appears to be floating. I'm interested, now, in introducing a new mobster type called undead imposter, who can Scare Good Guys (like the power, reversed) -- but Editors have to be careful with using this. If fake undead can do this, then what would happen in your game if people saw real undead?

Bruce Nelson encounters the world's worst secret door -- it's opened by turning the light switch in the room.

Bart Regan, Spy, demonstrates how easy it is to unlock a door with a hairpin. Very likely, picking locks will become a basic skill for all Heroes -- with the prerequisite of asking a woman for a hairpin.

Buck Marshall overhears the slang term ranny, which I've found out means "cowboy" or "ranch hand".

This month's Slam Bradley confirms that Slam is from Cleveland, same as Superman. Slam not only takes tap dancing lessons for $3 a lesson, but learns to tap dance in only five hours.  Hideouts & Hoodlums has no skill system, nor any game mechanic you could tie directly to tap dancing. You could use a save vs. plot to decide if the Hero tap dances well enough, offering a +1 bonus for every four hours (length of a downtime turn) spent practicing beforehand.

Despite taking place in New York, Chief Gage from Cleveland, Slam's nonviolent foil, returns. This police chief turns up just to laugh at Slam and Shorty and impede their investigation. These characters should not be treated as Supporting Cast, since they have no loyalty to the Hero. Likewise is a new rival character, PI Joan Carter. A rival is looking to complete the same scenario faster (though by the end of the story it appears that Slam has recruited Joan into his SCM roster).

(Available to read online via Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #14

200th post!

There's no Bruce Nelson on this page of Bruce Nelson, but there are some interesting items here. Skeleton keys always seem to work in comic books, so they must make for great trophy items.

Hollow brushes also make for useful items. Note that our burglar wasn't intentionally searching the brush, but just got lucky on her "notice things" roll.

Bart Regan and Sally are up against spies who have stolen a molecular friction raygun -- which sounds a lot like a fancy name for a heat ray to me. On the bright side, it seems to take a full turn for the friction to build up enough to wreck things or harm anyone, plenty of time for people to, oh, hop out of a car that's been struck. A good threat for 1st level Heroes, maybe.

There's not a lot of Hideouts & Hoodlums content on this page of Cosmo, but I'm really amused that these guys are poultry racketeers. "You're gonna buy your chickens from us, see?" "You buy our poultry at our price, or you'll get your head cracked open like an egg." I can't see statting them anyway special, unless I made a new entry called laughable hoodlum.



There's also a nice Slam Bradley story I'm not going to share here, that starts with a plane crash, includes surviving a blizzard in an igloo, and lots of punching people. Worth noting is that Slam beats up a drunken hoodlum, and that his plane cost $13,000 (Heroes have really been enjoying revealing how much their planes cost/are worth lately).

There's also a short, but pivotal fight where Slam and the unnamed master criminal grapple underwater, trying to drown each other. This would be difficult to play out in H&H, with its 1-minute combat turns. Likely, the combat would be resolved by a single pair of attack rolls before it would be over -- which is actually pretty close to how quickly the fight is resolved in the comic book.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #11

Okay, now back to 1938!

Who knew Speed Saunders was so science fictional? Here, Speed has an oxygen evaporator on his diving suit that keeps him from needing an air hose. I'm pretty sure this was never a thing.

Speed's plan is even more unbelievable. He's jumping out of a biplane, after a power dive, in a diving suit, to get quickly to the bottom of the ocean right outside of New York Harbor.  So Speed wants to add the momentum of diving at maybe 300 MPH to his falling speed before hitting the water, bearing in mind that the water here may not be all that deep (New York Harbor was only about 20' deep, though I don't know how deep it falls off outside that).

An Editor would be within his rights to assign Speed's reckless player 30 points of damage...or an Editor could award him 25 XP for a creative way to keep the scenario exciting...

Here, Speed has a portable submarine detector, also known as a remarkably convenient plot device. This is something else that didn't exist; RADAR was around in the 1930s, but you couldn't work it from a device that tiny.

Well...no. Being a kindly Editor is one thing, but "area of effect" or "blast radius" are still things that need to be considered. If you jump overboard from a submarine full of TNT with seconds to spare before it explodes -- and you're a human swimming in a diving suit -- there is no way you swam out of range of taking some damage.

This is from Larry Steele, and I include this as a maybe history lesson. I was not aware they had underground parking garages in the 1930s -- and maybe they did, or maybe this is as fanciful as Speed's portable submarine detector...

Cosmo is a tough character to pin down to a class. My first thought was Fighter, last issue he acted like an Explorer, this issue he starts out like a Detective, and here he is, slinking into the shadows like a Mysteryman.

Speaking of classes, this is the third time in two issues I've seen a disarming shot by someone who's not a Cowboy. I am seriously thinking we need an easier mechanic for disarming shot. Maybe it could be automatic on a successful hit, in lieu of damage?

This is Bruce Nelson using a penknife to pick a lock. Bruce Nelson is clearly a Fighter. Should lock-picking be a skill available to everyone, or a special stunt?

It's also worth remembering, for those of us not in big cities, that street level is not always uniformly level, creating instances like here where basement windows might be accessible in an area behind and below the sidewalk.

No one intentionally kicks a bucket while sneaking; this is what happens when the Editor fails your surprise check.

Like a Jackie Chan fight scene, make sure you've stocked encounter areas with stuff the Heroes can interact with and use to their advantage. Here, Bruce has one bullet left and two "bandits" (they are called bandits, but are not like typical comic book bandits) to defeat, so he shatters a jar of acid and splashes both of them with it. 

I would have handled this by assigning the jar a simple AC of 9 (it is stationery, after all), with a hit causing a 5' radius splash for 1d3 damage.



And, lastly, in this issue's Slam Bradley adventure, Slam demonstrates the Aviator stunt, Wing Walking. I'm more convinced than ever that all of the genre-specific stunts I had previously assigned to the Cowboy and Aviator sub-classes need to become available to all Fighters.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)