Amazing Man Comics #11 - pt. 2

Welcome back! Let's pick up where we left off last time with Chuck Hardy. Chuck has met a new species in his Hollow World setting and, no, it's not lobstermen, it's pygmy lobstermen. That implies that there are "normal"-sized lobstermen out there somewhere too. We don't learn anything about the pygmy lobstermen other than they use a monarchical system of government, are matriarchal, extremely friendly, and technologically primitive. We never once see them fight, so they could have 12 HD for all we know, but I think it's a safer bet that they have a 1/2 HD, or 1-1 HD at best.

I wish we had a sense of scale for that curious lizard, as it looks more fearsome than pygmy lobstermen and frogmen. 

I'm going to spare you the next page and the results of Chuck's trap. Here's a hint: had it been drawn realistically, there would be blood flying everywhere. So how do I stat this trap? A catapult-launched spear is going to be pretty powerful - I'd even be willing to say 3-18 points of damage worth - but it's also going to be an impractical, poorly-aimed weapon. Despite the number of spears, they would each have a chance to hit equal to just a 1 HD mobster. 

Incidentally, missing from this story is any explanation for how people with pincers for hands were able to make rope ladders.

If panel 3 makes you think of the Ewok Dance...then we think alike.

The only real reason I shared this page is the peculiar wording of "knock him kicking!" Google that phrase and the only thing that comes up is a sports article from a 1965 newspaper, and it's behind a paywall so I can't tell what the context is. I can only imagine that Chuck's dialogue is being written intentionally silly.

Moving on to Iron Skull...

I was confused at first by the term "pet suspects," never having heard it before. Apparently it's a real term meaning the same thing as "most likely" suspects, though my first thought was that the Chief had a pet that suspected them.

It's incredible that the Chief is unable to see the two dead men both belonging to the same cult as a clue. Or perhaps I should say it's suspicious... coincidentally, Drago hears that the Skull is after him right after the Skull leaves the police station. 

This episode of Pinky & Jim, Slave Cultists is interrupted by Iron Skull, climbing up the bricks instead of the easier drainpipe right next to him. To be fair, the Editor could rule that a drainpipe isn't strong enough to support an android's weight (there is no game mechanic behind that; it would just be a common sense ruling by the Editor). It's also possible that Iron Skull is so strong that he's pinching fingerholds into the bricks (which would be handled by a wrecking things roll). 

Here we have a new type of robot - grotesque robots. What's special about these is that Iron Skull's annod comptod machine doesn't work on them. Now, no one knows what "annod comptod" means, but we know from past issues that this machine is what Iron Skull uses to Wreck at Range (the power). It seems that grotesque robots are immune, or greatly resistant, to being wrecked. The Skull has to defeat them the old-fashioned way with punches. 

In the future (or maybe because this is a comic book?), you don't have to smother someone for 10 minutes with a chloroform-soaked rag to knock him unconscious, you just toss the rag on his face and if it lands he is knocked out. 

Both the art and the caption in panel 3 are confusing. The rod must run through the center of the sphere and spins it. The "pyramids" would more properly be called spikes. Being scraped against the spikes wile being rotated past them seems like it would do at least 4-24 points of damage to me. Good thing that the Skull is being held with nothing but rope - easily wrecked as if a door. 

Now this is interesting - Yagani is a Hindu name. In Iron Skull's future, he has to watch out for spies from India! (Unless Burgos just mistakenly assumes this is a Japanese name, since otherwise his WWIII is awfully similar to WWII). 

The bald guy is an assassin, as detailed in the Mobster Manual.  

I think this is the first time I've ever seen a comic book character actually swallow a key; this is usually a cartoon thing.

"Dragon has a time bomb hidden here!"

"We have no time to look for it! In a 10' x 10' cell with almost no furnishings!"

We can see it makes no difference whether Iron Skull wrecks with his head or his fists, so that's all flavor text.

I've never been impressed with Burgos' artwork, but that last panel is particularly rushed. That "BOOM!" going off a few feet away looks like it was set off by a firecracker instead of a bomb.

Note that we never did find out who Drago's informant was - my money is still on the Chief!

Before we go, let's peek in on just one page of Minimidget. All I have to say about this page is that Boma is a real city, in the Congo - and also that ordinary people seem to be really cool about tiny shrunken people in this strip.

(Scans courtesy of Comicbookplus.)

 

Amazing Man Comics #11 - part 1

Now that I'm finally publishing Amazing Man (see Funny Picture Stories #7 - on sale now!), covering this story might not only seem biased, but posting pages seems like it might hurt future sales - but oh well!

There are some big changes this issue, starting with how Aman seems to have dropped his first name, John. Gone also is the interesting struggle in John Aman between hero and antihero; the Council of Seven has decided these stories need to be a lot more straightforward from now on. 

Aman is "purified" by fire, but what this would mean game mechanically isn't clear. Is it simply a magical effect of Alignment correction? Is Aman taking damage from the fire? Given that his initial tests involved stabbing him with knives, I'm guessing he's taking damage. Aman is a really good sport about this, as I'm guessing they would not allow him to buff himself with the Resist Fire power. 

We begin to get some explanation here about why Aman is being dressed up like John Carter of Mars. Having an indestructible costume would normally be some comfort, but maybe Aman is secretly wishing it covered up enough of him to offer more protection? For that matter, how much should an indesctruble costume protect him?  In the 2nd edition rulebook, I have indestructible costumes being statted as Armor Class 2 (and remember, lower is better). My description wisely does not describe how much of the body needs to be covered by the costume, so maybe these straps and sternum hield are enough? Is what a costume looks like really no more than flavor text?

Has the purification ritual protected Aman from the Great Question's influence, or did Aman make his saving throw vs. charm?

It's just as well that Everett doesn't give us an exact number of days it takes to get from Tibet to Louisiana by plane. Even Google Maps can't tell me this today! What I can't figure out, which is probably more important, is where Aman was heading before he wound up near Louisiana. It certainly isn't on the way to Chicago or New York City from Tibet. Maybe he was planning on vacationing in Florida before fighting evil?

As far as I can tell, the "lost" in the "lost bayous of Louisiana" means that they have disappeared due to landscaping the terrain, as opposed to unmapped "lost world"-type areas. Still, this first interpretation is definitely more interesting and lends itself to adventure fiction.

This page attempts to explain away Amazing Man's John Carter rip-off togs as a "Tibetan uniform." Could this be the Great Question's final laugh at Aman, convincing him that this was the latest in Tibetan fashion?

I appreciate that Amazing Man has the subtlety, that you don't see often in superheroes, to climb a wall and oberve the bad guys unnoticed. Because he's climbing vines, I would probably still make the player roll a skill check, but at a large bonus. 

I like this hideout set-up, where the prison cells are behind a cell with three panthers in it (we'll see there are three of them on the next page). How Aman circumvents the panthers to get to the prisoner is great too, showcasing the versatility of this power. 

I've probably talked about this before, but I haven't posted in a long time and I can't remember. The issue is, how would Amazing Man have this power in H&H? Because Green Mist is not a 1st-level superhero power, or even a low-level one. It does bear some resemblance to the 1st-level magic-user spell, Poof! Could that be all it is - just an exception of allowing a Superhero to prepare a Magic-User spell as a power, and everything about it that isn't movement is flavor text?  

Three panthers is actually a pretty tough encounter in H&H, so it's disappointing that Aman takes them each out in one punch. It is more likely than them being knocked out that they have each failed their morale saves after taking damage and they choose to stop fighting. 

These bayou pirates have a lot of personality to them. We even get help with statting them. One is a brute (a variant of thug) and another is a slick hoodlum. Garlock, their leader, doesn't seem the master criminal type, but might be a mid-level fighter, since he can subdue panthers.

The brute gets upgraded on this page to pseudo-giant, a mobstertype that appears in the recently released Mobster Manual.  The throw is a very effective grappling move in the 2nd edition grappling rules - probably not enough on its own to take out a pseudo-giant, but Amazing Man may be buffed with one of the Get Tough powers to boost his damage. We also learn there are thugs present in the room (I see two of them, not counting Slick and Garlock).

Aman can be casual about what happens to the treasure because his Editor awards xp for treasure just for taking it out of the hideout. What happens to it after that doesn't matter if you don't have personal expenses!

But Aman is clearly gaming the system; there was no reason for him to kill those three alligators (he calls them crocodiles, but it makes sense that he did; he hasn't been in the U.S. more than six months). He obviously did it for the experience points!

What I like here is that Everett gives us almost a whole page of chemistry-building between Aman and Zona. Unlike Lois' attraction to Superman's animal magnetism, it looks like Zona is going to be attracted to how thoughtful Aman is (offering her his jacket for modesty) as much as for his rippling muscles. 

This next bit of research I had done back in November for the Public Domain Heroes Facebook group, but I'll reshare it here. 

I had long assumed that Amazing Man's companion, Zona Henderson, had a made-up first name, or it was a nickname (short for Arizona?). According to SSA.gov's baby names by years list - https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi - Zona was a real name, though a rare one, ranking 712th-820th most common baby name in the span of years I think she was most likely born.

And, of course, we get the familiar trope of televisions being able to function like crystal balls. 

Chuck Hardy has moved up to second feature (which, I understand, was not generally considered the second best position in a comic book; it went first, last, and then alternated in towards the center). 

Frog men last appeared in Fantastic Comics #3. They turn up like bad pennies!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Amazing Man Comics #10 - pt. 3

Iron Skull is back and so is Igor Raston (I don't recall him, but we're supposed to believe this is a grudge match between the two).

The fisticuff is fairly pedestrian, but I wanted to share this page to point out that it's not too late after a fight starts to have traps in the area activated. Indeed, traps going off can liven up a fight!

It's hard to say how much that platform weighs or how fast it's moving, but a good rule of thumb might be 1 die of damage for 180 lbs, +1 die each time that weight is doubled.

We've seen the annod-comptod machine before (I even statted it for H&H already). It normally allows anyone to use the Wreck at Range power freely, but here is an unusual use of wrecking, simply short-circuiting electronics.

Here we also get another trap, a simple one with a tripwire and four spear-holes, with the only unusual wrinkle here being that the four spears are somehow all aimed at the same spot.

It's possible that I.S. is using a defensive buffing power to protect himself from the spears, but it's also possible that they "missed," or he made his saves vs. missiles, and them crashing against his skull is merely flavor text.

Your powers of deduction are amazing, Iron Skull!

Here we see wrecking things being used more traditionally, but I point this out because I.S. is concerned enough about melee vs. what looks like five unarmed hoodlums that he takes that drastic an action. Or perhaps he really doesn't want Igor to get away. Shut up, Rensen, I've got to go catch up with Igor!

Iron Skull has to make a conditional threat in that last panel because of the save vs. plot he needs to roll before he can punch a lady.

We're going to all assume I.S. won and jump into the next story, featuring Minimidget (and Ritty, who has the same power but no billing). Ignoring their shrunken state, this is some of the best science I've read in a comic book in awhile. If they were in a rocket going 400 MPH and were thrown to the floor of the ship, I would expect them to take at least 1-4 points of damage and could conceivably be knocked unconscious.

It would take the rocket about 10 hours to get to Africa. I bet they're really hungry for lunch!

Does it make sense for the rocket to go slower? Actually, I think that's pretty good science too. If the rocket had leveled off and all its inertia was horizontal, then when it loses that inertia it will fall into gravity. Gravity wouldn't pull it any faster than 120 MPH (terminal velocity). That all gets scrapped if there was any downward momentum, which would have added to that speed.

I'm going to spare you this part where the superstitious natives see two tiny people and immediately assume they are gods. A LOT of these comic books make the racist assumption that blacks would worship anything they couldn't understand.

No culture ever had a god named Ramu, though there is a river in Papua New Guinea with that name.

Jumping into Chuck Hardy's adventure, we see how a flood can turn any environment into a nautical adventure. I'm not a big fan of this feature, but I definitely want to use natives riding huge turtles someday.

Lots of comic book Heroes have their own Supporting Cast, but you rarely see them fail their loyalty checks. You see that with the princess right here, which is nice.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.) 

Amazing Man Comics #9 - pt. 3

This is still Magician from Mars, and she's here in battle with the (fear) elemental (which I already statted and added to the Mobster Manual last night!). Almost too subtle to notice in panel 2, Jane seems to be tossing tiny lightning bolts at the elemental -- or are those Magic Missiles?

I'll have to add a note that fear elementals can assume gaseous form once per day.

The "Aug. 10" note, superimposed on the newspaper clipping, tells us that this story can't be taking place in the present; it has to have been the recent past (Aug. 10, 1939), or some time in the future.

Sleep gas is a standard trope of the genre, as is the tactic of pretending to be unconscious to get captured.

This time, Jane tries a much different tactic, hitting just the right musical notes to send the elemental back (likely flavor text for a Dispel Evil spell, though).

How is it that the elemental appears taller than the ceiling in panel 5? Could it be that its size is illusory...?

Just to remind you that Jane is a magic-user/superhero, here she wrecks the staircase.

This is Chuck Hardy in the Land beneath the Sea (you know, where the pressure should be crushing him to death, but...). Jerry has just been captured by something we'll soon learn is called a Quadropel Man.

Chuck, Oxan, and Jerry were outfitted like D&D adventurers, with backpacks and lanterns.

Before Chuck can find Jerry he has a random encounter with a giant pterodactyl (comic book writers never seemed to be aware how small pterodactyls were).

This might be the first time a sword has been specifically a shortsword in comics.

The Quadropel Men look a lot like green Martians.

In a nice twist on the "knock the statue over on the cultists" cliche, Chuck tips the statue over into a pool of scalding water, the scalding water floods the room, and that kils the Quadropel Men/Green Martians (or at least damages enough of them that they fail a morale save en masse). I would have scalding water do 1-4 points of damage to everyone in the room (more if they were submerged in it, but the water level doesn't rise that high in the temple).

REALLY unusual for a comic book story -- not only does Oxan decapitate a foe so he can bring its head home as a trophy, but Chuck is willing to accept this as a cultural difference. In Golden Age comics, cultural differences are usually an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later.

Now we're going to move on to Mighty Man, the 12' giant. I'm not really interested in anything Mighty Man does on this page, but I'm remarkably amused by panels 3 and 4 and what I'm tempted to stat as a "jack-in-the-trunk." When hitchhiking with strangers, be extra wary if they start humming "Pop Goes the Weasel" to themselves.

It is remarkable to me, raised on comic books of the '70s and '80s with their issue-long fight scenes, how many fights are done in one hit in the '40s. Here, an ordinary person sucker punches a 12' giant in the face and takes him down in one hit.

"Little cage" has got to be a joke, since it has a 12' giant in it. Still, you've got to ask yourself, if your assistant is that dangerous that you need to keep 10' square cages set up around your fortress, maybe you should think about firing your assistant?

I'm not much interested in statting half-wolves separately from normal wolves, but the assistant (our jack-in-the-trunk from earlier) will be handy for me. I had statted assistants for the Mobster Manual what seems like ages ago, but did not have a good illustration of one to use until now.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Amazing Man Comics #7 - pt. 4

In an unprecedented move for this blog, I'm going to spend a fourth day looking at this issue, because there's so many pages I think we should look at from it.

Up to this point, I was thinking the Magician from Mars would be, you know, a magic-user. And she is -- but, there's growing evidence here that she has two classes and is also a superhero. At first I was overlooking the jumping through a wall as creative flavor text for the spell Passwall, but jumping through walls and taking super-leaps? This has "superhero"written all over her now.

Also note how easily they just happen to encounter a meteor, just one day out from Mars. Despite the vastness of space, wandering encounters can come just as frequently in space as they would anywhere else (I would roll once per rest turn,1 in 6 chance).

Jane uses the spell Phantasmal Image, or maybe the power Change Self, here, but the guard makes his morale save and stays put.

It's a little odd that the Martians use dollars as currency, but maybe our narrator is just translating their term for us.

Make no mistake; our "hero" Jane is robbing the ship of its gold. She wrecks her way into the vault to take it.

Remember that Mending spell she used on the vase? Apparently it's much more powerful than that. Has to be at least a 2nd level, if not a 3rd level spell. In fact, it may be almost as powerful as the 4th level power Raise Building.

Because Jane has stolen $3 million in gold, but donates half to a worthy cause, maybe in That Other Game we could call that Chaotic Neutral with Good tendencies.

Infantile paralysis, of course, refers to polio. It's useful for dating this adventure that polio is still around, since it was wiped out in the U.S. by vaccines from 1955-1979.

This is Minimidget -- and Ritty, who doesn't get billing. Here, armed with a mini-spear, MM demonstrates how it can be set to receive a charge, just like you can do with spears in the Advanced version of That Other Game.

Surprisingly, this is the first weasel we see in comics. Against normal sized foes, a weasel isn't going to be anymore of a threat than an owl, though giant-sized versions of each are tempting.

I include this page, not because I enjoy seeing weasel's murdered in grisly fashion, but because this is the first indication that there might be super strength in Minimidget's "super-midget body."  There is no discussion of anything science-y, like density, and in fact his strength might wind up being nothing that adrenaline can't explain.

Chuck Hardy visits the royal palace of the Aquatanians (but not true mermen) in this issue, and we get some sense of its layout here. From the previous page, we know the outside entrance is one long staircase flanked with green dragon statues. Inside we have this brightly-colored checkered hallway flanked by columned arcades. It seems that the hall empties into a surprisingly small audience chamber, dominated by a long table worthy of the Justice Society of America. The next page actually shows how large the audience chamber is, with the table on a large checkerboard dais. Overlooking the throne room is an observation gallery where commoners can sit and watch their rulers, but a heavy curtain can be drawn over the balcony in case they need privacy.

The king probably rules by virtue of being the only person who can sit comfortably in a throne with upright seashells for armrests. There are multiple wings to the palace, including this one where the king's advisers have their private rooms.

This page explains the geography of the hollow world of Aquatania.  Roara must be a constantly active volcano to light their world, which seems a pretty dangerous situation to live in. That the frog men live in the cold side of Aquatania seems to defy biology, but they are only frog-like in appearance, I guess.

This page establishes that Mighty Man is only 12' tall -- when he seemed to be more like 18' tall in his first appearance -- and reveals that the Valley of the Giants is in Nevada.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Amazing Man Comics #6 - pt. 3

Returning to The Congo War-Drum serial, we see a special ability for natives that we've never seen before -- apparently they can hypnotize themselves so they will continue to fight without needing to roll for morale. It's an interesting premise, perhaps better for berserkers than natives, and I'm not sure if I'll add it to natives or not.

This is Chuck Hardy in the Land beneath the Sea. While finishing the mobster section for Hideouts & Hoodlums 2nd edition, I was routinely reminded of the lack of dangerous plant life in the earliest comics. But now we have, at last, the carnivorous strangle-plant. It actually looks a lot like the D&D monster, the roper, but without an eye. I would make this at least a 5-6 Hit Die mobster.

Chuck is in a particularly challenging campaign setting; not only is he encountering 5-6 Hit Die mobsters already at 1st level, but all he's got to arm himself with are loose stones he can throw. And finding fresh drinking water that won't kill him is even a challenge.

The Aquatanians are really just ordinary humans, with antennae on their foreheads for flavor text. They have an unusual steam-based technology. There's no indication yet that their rifles are particularly advanced (probably air rifles, given the theme), but the pneumatic tube subway is rather remarkable, unless Chuck is exaggerating its speed.

From the one-shot story, The Ivy Menace, I now have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to deadly plant life. These strangling vines are almost identical to the "creeper vines" in Book II.  Glad I called it!

The difference is, strangling vines keep growing at a crazy fast rate, as if it can regenerate lost hit points (even from fire), and grows through the cycle of large, huge, and giant. The only way to stop it is to destroy the plant at the roots.

Giants have keener than human hearing (3 in 6 chance to hear noise?).

I either need to upgrade the Movement rate for giants, or Mighty Man is using the Outrun Train power here.

Wrecking through the outside wall is like wrecking cars on the wrecking things table. Hoisting up the water tower is one of the Raise powers, though, and given how heavy all that water is it might be one of the big ones like Raise Bridge.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)