Action Comics #22 - pt. 2

Clip Carson is on a steamship heading from Algiers to South America (two issues earlier, Clip was a guard on an ivory caravan in Africa, so this makes sense). When he sees a man clubbed and shoved overboard, Clip selflessly dives into the water instead of waiting for the ship's crew to point some searchlights into the water first. Searching in the dark would have been at a large penalty, perhaps dropping Clip's chance of finding the sinking man to 1 in 8.

The man, Clip later finds out, was marked for death by having bought an ivory statue crudely depicting an elephant. A cult allegedly worships this as an idol and anyone who touches it is marked for death. Clip is told this marks him too, even though he only reaches for the idol, he never actually touches it. The idol story would make more sense if it was bought in India instead of Africa, then this would be a statuette of Ganesha. A cultist makes an attempt on Clip's life, throwing a dagger through a porthole. Not only would this be a tricky shot, but Clip remarkably makes no effort to go after the dagger-thrower, despite the fact the would-be assassin must have been dangling precariously over the side of the ship.

The first suspect is an anthropologist onboard. The anthropologist correctly points out to Clip that the owner's story doesn't hold up; that there is no elephant god in Africa, but Clip doesn't believe him because the man gets so huffy with him. Remember, when running Hideouts & Hoodlums, to be in-character when giving out information; players need to know that info is coming from a character who may or may not be correct, or honest, and not straight from the Editor.

Clip goes to the radio room and asks the attendant to "burn up the ether with this message." It's a curious phrase and one I was surprised to see still gets used today! The earliest use of it I can find is a 1927 book called The Story of Radio. Apparently, there was once a serious concern that the atmosphere might be able to hold only so many radio waves at a time, and the proliferation of radio was actually a danger -- that it would literally set the ether on fire. Even though Einstein's theory of special relativity made the theory of ether obsolete in 1905, the idea stuck around, particularly in its association with radio waves.

The person Clip sent the radio message to is one of his supporting cast we've never met before, a newspaper editor.

"Tex" Thomson's adventure starts with a lengthy prologue in the Indian Ocean. An explorer is warned not to go to an unnamed island because of the demons there. On the island, he meets an old man who claims to have stolen his soul and begins to slowly transform into the explorer, Cary James. The demon's transformation takes two days to accomplish, at the end of which time Cary will be dead. During that time, Cary remembers he had been given a locket to protect him from the demons. Incredibly, for no reason other than to further the plot, Cary puts the locket in a bottle with a note for a friend instead of using the locket.

Later, in NYC, we learn that Cary's friend is also friends with Tex. The demon, impersonating Cary, is there in NYC too. The demon is looking for the locket, because the locket and the letter both made it to Dr. Drummond in NYC, who just happens to be the friend Tex is staying with. The letter explains that touching the locket to the demon's forehead will destroy it. Tex isn't even the one who does it; it's Dr. Drummond, the true hero of this story.

Although called a demon in this story, this monster sounds more like a doppelganger. Perhaps this is a more powerful version that we can call a demon doppelganger. The touch of the locket makes it revert momentarily to its previous form before turning to ash.

Zatara is at the "El Storko Club," dining alone. This is clearly a stand-in for the Stork Club, the famous Manhattan nightclub, one of the most prestigious in the world at that time. Zatara spies The Tigress before she spies him, (he has surprise) so he turns himself invisible to watch her. The Tigress slips something into a banker's drink. Interestingly, Zatara doesn't cast something like Purify Food & Drink or Neutralize Poison, but a spell that "glues" the man's glass to the table. I have no spell like that in H&H. It seems to be a spell of such limited utility that I hesitate to make one, unless it can make objects much larger than a glass immobile. In that case, Immobilize Object might be a 1st or even 2nd level spell, depending on the weight limit affected and its duration.

As the banker and Zatara leave together, Zatara spots a safe about to land on the man beside him. Zatara makes the safe blow away -- probably with Telekinesis rather than Gust of Wind. Safes are heavy though, but Zatara has a lot of brevet ranks, so maybe he's high enough in level to move 800 lbs.? That would make him...oh. 40th level. There either needs to be a Greater Telekinesis power, or Telekinesis -- already a 5th level power -- needs a lot of tweaking.

Zatara has no spell for analyzing poison; he takes the drink from the Stork Club to a chemist for analysis (luckily it's not contact poison because it's surely been sloshing around and spilling on his hand by now). Zatara casts a spell that is very much like Word of Recall, but it doesn't have to be Zatara's home, it can take him to anyone else's home who travels with him. Zatara casts a Wall of Glass spell around the man's home. I'll make that a 4th-level spell; it's still pretty effective, since the glass is about 5' thick. Then he casts Passwall to go through the Wall without just flying over it. After all these powerful spells, it's remarkable to see Zatara cast a 1st-level Disguise spell to make himself look like the banker. Then he casts the 8th-level Polymorph Any Object spell to turn an ordinary paper check into a living snake.

Zatara turns down a $100,000 reward for saving the banker. With as many brevet ranks as he has, Zatara's player has apparently given up on ever leveling his was past them.

The man who hired the Tigress to kill the banker is a bad guy called the Mask. Like the Tigress, he has no powers; he just pays a plastic surgeon to make him look like people. Zatara must be famous enough that the surgeon knows exactly what he looks like (or the Mask had a lot of photos taken between panels). Having failed to kill the banker, the Mask impersonates Zatara and asks for that reward money -- which is a pretty good Plan B, I have to say.

If using Telekinesis on a safe was too much, Zatara next uses it on a car that must weigh a ton. Telekinesis definitely needs improving in the rules. Zatara uses Polymorph Other on the Mask to make his face ugly (even taking away one of his eyes to be extra mean). Zatara even goes after the plastic surgeon, putting a curse on him so he can never perform surgery again. Again he lets the Tigress go free, since he has the hots for her.

So, to summarize, we know Zatara has somewhere between 18 and 100 levels in Magic-User.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Action Comics #21 - pt. 2

'Chuck' Dawson's adventure starts with an interesting variation on the "message in a bottle" -- as someone chucks a flask containing a written warning into the canyon Chuck is traveling through. Like any good plot hook, the warning only encourages him to investigate and he uncovers kidnappers. Unfortunately, the story includes the racist stereotype that "half-breeds" are evil.

"Clip" Carson takes place in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria. Rescuing a man from attackers serves as both good deed and plot hook for Clip, as he winds up working as a guard on a caravan for the man he rescued. In a plot twist, the man told Clip he was delivering food to a sheikh, but is secretly an arms dealer; further, he plans to have Clip killed after the delivery, so he can't tell anyone he delivered arms to the sheikh. The sheikh's people are called "touregs" by the narrator, but what was meant was Touareg or Tuareg -- a Berber ethnicity indigenous to the Sahara region.

Because disguise is such an easy skill in comic books, staining your skin to look dark with a cigarette and water should be a basic skill check (as improbable as it may seem...).

This story is the first time I've seen the term "tractor car;" I suspect what the author means is a four-wheel drive vehicle, which were around but uncommon circa 1940 (in the late '30s they were considered luxury cars and produced by BMW and Mercedes-Benz). Clip tells us his tractor car can go 40 MPH over sand.

The "Clip" Carson art is much improved this issue by Sheldon Moldoff.

Tex Thompson is back home from his Africa adventures, home probably being Texas, even though the narrator never tells us so. This one's a murder mystery, and it's intriguing at first that the retired colonel is murdered right in front of Tex. Unfortunately, the clues are easy (why send a wooden figure to the victim made out of a special wood only you own?) and the explanation for where the knife came from is far from convincing. Also, there's the whole uncomfortably racist, nonhuman look of Gargantuan.

The Three Aces adventure starts in Alaska at the building of a Koyokuk Dam. I don't believe there is such a facility, though the Koyokuk River is real. None of the action takes place there, but it establishes that one job for aviators in their downtime is aerial photography. The Three Aces leave and fly over an unnamed mountain range, but in Alaska there are only three to choose from, the Alaskan Range, the Aleutian Range, and the Brooks Range.

Uncharacteristic of most fighter-types in comics, when Gunner, Fog, and Whistler arrive in town and see a fight in progress, but don't know the story behind it, they use nonviolent attacks like tripping and disarming to end the fight without hurting anyone.

The Three Aces help an old prospector who tells of his friend's find in the Mummy Range. It sounds made up, but there is such a place as Mummy Range -- only it's in Colorado, not Alaska. There is a Bald Peak in Alaska, so the old man's story is soon back on track.

Fred Guardineer's Zatara teams up with "Lord Ralway" in this month's story, but the dialogue strongly implies that Ralway is actually Lord Baskerville, of Sherlock Holmes fame. Sherlock Holmes is name checked as a real person, making this the first time he is added to DC canon.

Zatara casts a Levitate/Telekinesis spell powerful enough to lift a car into the air. He projects his astral form from his jail cell after being detained in a murder investigation. His astral form is invisible, but he can speak and be heard. His astral form can also fly and move through walls. Bizarrely, Zatara's astral form is able to carry Tong on its back, though perhaps he is simply levitating Tong directly behind him.

Zatara turns the bars of his cell into people, which seems ridiculously overpowered for a spell, even if it only lasts 1 turn. He turns a man into a salt cellar (what we would call a shaker today). Another man he ages by about 20 years. He turns the murdered body into a statuette so he's easy to carry. Tong -- who is way too understandable about this -- gets turned into a blood hound so he can sniff out Ralway's trail.

With another spell he causes all gun barrels to twist in a specific area. With another spell he gazes into a room he hasn't entered yet (Wizard Eye?). With another spell he teleports two people to him. With yet another spell he causes three large buckets of molten lead to appear in the room. He casts Cure Light Wounds on Tong, but we've seen him do that before. Lastly, he casts a spell something like Bigby's Grasping Hand to catch the two fleeing bad guys.

In a real surprise, Zatara says his magic has little effect on birds, so he is worried about three trained condors. There's no way to make the game mechanics do this without setting arbitrary weaknesses to spells, but that's not entirely unreasonable, as I've already added them to some of the race options.

Lastly, I would not put much stock in condors as a palpable threat, assigning them maybe 1/2 HD.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

Action Comics #20 - pt. 1

And we're back to Superman! This is the first Superman story of 1940 and the last Superman story in DC's Action Comics Archives vol. 1.

Superman starts it off with the Raise Bridge power, then becomes Clark Kent for the main plot. As Clark, he lassos an assassin and pulls him off a high ledge (for 1-6 falling damage). This is the plot hook to get Superman to meet actress Dolores Winters. When he next meets Dolores and she does not recognize him, there is no game mechanic involved in that -- it is a purely role-played situation.

Then something very unusual happens for Superman -- he misses a plot hook. When he sees that Dolores is having a big party on a yacht, he decides not to go. Most players would see that as a plot hook. By passing it up, Superman misses an easy chance to stop the Ultra-Humanite early.

When Superman says Ultra's request for $5 million is the "greatest mass kidnapping ever attempted," I can't find any evidence to prove him wrong.

Superman does a minor leap, wall-climbs up to a high window, and "X-ray visions" a piece of paper inside (though I'm not sure how he would read using X-rays, maybe he is actually using his telescopic vision, which would fall under the Super-Senses power in 2nd edition).

It was never explained how Ultra made the paper materialize in the room. Or why an invention that could do that would not itself be worth $5 million.

Superman is able to stay underwater for over 2 hours. This is the Hold Breath power.

Ultra has a submarine that can fire magnetic ray beams. This invention is also, apparently, not worth $5 million. When assigning $ values to trophy items in 2nd edition, I did hesitate to set them too low, but comics bear out that mad science is never as valuable as crime.

Superman stops Ultra by using the Wreck at Range power to smash a generator at a distance. Then he uses Gust of Wind to blow out Ultra's torch.

Ultra manages to elude Superman by simply jumping into the water. You would think that this would not be much of a stumbling block for someone who can move at super-speed, use telescopic vision, and hold his breath for hours, but clearly Superman's power durations had ended already and he was all out of prepared powers that would help.

And that's the Superman installment.

In Pep Morgan, Pep not only saves the life of racing pilot Jimmy Dee but, recognizing him as a plot hook character, invites him to stay at his house. Jimmy uses some slang, such as the common "crate" for plane, and the uncommon "cop" to mean win (as in "cop that race"). Pep has to climb out onto a plane in flight, later, and climb up to the pilot's seat. In 1st edition, this would have been an aviator stunt called Wing Walking. Now, it's an expert skill check. We know Pep is not a mysteryman (or at best a low-level mysteryman) because he does not have a stunt to burn for an automatic skill check at the end, and he has to wake up Jimmy to get him to land the plane.

Speaking of slang, "Chuck" Dawson uses the phrase "fade out" to refer to his horse not wanting to approach something (so "fade out" must mean "back off" or "back away"). Another cowboy refers to Chuck's gun as his "hardware."

Next is "Clip" Carson, Soldier-of-Fortune. Summarizing his recent adventures, we see he has dealt with a wild lioness, hostile natives, and a "gigantic" serpent (though it does not look like a particularly large constrictor snake). The narrator claims Carson keeps his native porters loyal through "iron will," but actually he threatens to shoot them like a cold-blooded killer any time they talk about deserting him. Carson somehow escapes the stabbing he kinda deserves by "luckily" rolling over in his sleep just in time. It seems like a generous Editor to even require an attack roll in such a situation; I would personally rule it as an automatic hit for maximum damage. Carson gets away with the "last request" stalling tactic when about to be killed by making a successful encounter reaction roll. Carson's trip during the final battle is dramatic, but unsupported by the rules, since it looks like he fumbled (and Hideouts & Hoodlums uses no fumble charts for combat).

(Superman read in Action Comics Archive v. 1; the rest read at fullcomic.pro.)





 

Action Comics #19

In the Superman feature, Superman demonstrates a "super-resistance to disease", but could have just been a successful saving throw vs. the "purple plague."

Professor Henry Travers is so worried about the plague killing people in... is this still Cleveland? The headline of The Daily Star says "Purple Plague Grips Metropolis," but that was probably not a proper name yet at this point. Anyway, Travers is so flustered that he accidentally says the plague that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages was the purple plague, when of course it was the bubonic plague.

The "De Fauvier's study of the Purple Plague" sounded so specific that I wondered if De Fauvier was an actual scientist who had once studied diseases. It seems to be purely fictitious, though.

I don't think I ever made a trophy item out of this, but Ultra-Humanite fools Superman wearing a "false-face mask", despite the fact that rubber masks never would fool anyone in real life.

Superman does not always have the Quick Change power prepared. In this story, he knows Travers has been attacked after hearing it over a phone call, yet curiously takes the time to untie his shoes before removing them so he can go leap off to Travers' apartment.

Thugs are also called "muscle men" in this story, proving to me I was right to give thugs better than average Hit Dice.

Superman halting his fall by catching a ledge is cliche -- and can be supported by game mechanics in several different ways. The Editor could have conveniently put the ledge there and offered the chance to roll "to hit" the ledge (an attack roll). Or, Superman's player could have suggested there might be a ledge nearby to grab, and the Editor gave him a save vs. plot for there to be a ledge to grab. Or, the ledge is actually flavor text for the Feather Landing power being activated.

I'm curious about who Travers' "scientific society" was. The story is three years too early for it to be the Cleveland Technical Societies Council.

Superman is still not a Lawful hero at this point; he steals chemicals for Travers that Travers needs for his research into the plague cure. He does so by uprooting a massive skylight to break in and then walking through a wall to break out -- both examples of wrecking things.

For the second time, the Ultra-Humanite knocks Superman unconscious with electricity. It may be important that Superman is taken by surprise each time, so he is not able to activate any defensive powers first.

In addition to the electric raygun, Ultra uses a mind control helmet on Superman, but it comes with a saving throw vs. science that Superman easily makes. Ultra's "fantastic airship" is propeller-less, and almost surely an early jet plane.

The power 4th level power (in first edition Hideouts & Hoodlums) Turn Gun on Bad Guy comes from the final scene of this story, where Ultra shoots his electric gun at Superman, yet Superman is improbably able to pull Ultra in front of the blast first.

In the Pep Morgan feature, stopping to perform a good deed -- moving a loose rail off the railroad tracks -- leads to an encounter with gangster/robbers (perhaps a mixed group of both mobster types), and demonstrates how good deeds can become plot hooks or be tied to plot hooks.

Pep foils the efforts of the mobsters to jump off the train by reaching the engine and telling the crew to speed up too fast for them to risk jumping off. So how fast is too fast? If we assume 30 MPH = 1-6 points of falling sideways damage, and the train made it up to 90 MPH, that would equate to a brutal 3-18 points of damage -- more than most gangsters and robbers would be able to endure.

It also appears that Pep might have a brother in this story, though there is no text that corroborates this when he is seen with his family.

In the Chuck Dawson feature, Chuck is attacked by roughnecks.  I don't have a mobster type for "roughnecks", but outlaws are the evil version of cowboys and it sounds like these are just some of those, or maybe bandits. Chuck is defeated with lassos -- and in fact 2nd edition H&H now has entangling rules for just this situation. Luckily, he had trained his horse, Blacky, to untie knots, freeing Chuck, and showing just how complex the actions of animal Supporting Cast Members can be.

Later, catching up to the outlaw/bandits, Chuck jumps down off a ledge behind them to attack them. Now, there is little tactical advantage to taking falling damage, losing surprise, and then attacking your opponents. We have already seen lots of comic book characters fall on mobsters from a height, as an attack, which I suspect Chuck was trying to do here -- Chuck was just the first hero to miss!

In the Clip Carson feature, Clip is in "Kenye," which is surely an intentional misspelling of Kenya. In 1939, this would be the British colony of Kenya. The first thing Clip does is go to a bar and get in a fight with a drunken hoodlum...which reminds me of about half the D&D campaigns I've ever played in. The drunken hoodlum holds a grudge and hides a cobra in Clip's room. Later, Clip runs into cannibals -- which I've said before I plan to leave statted as "natives" and not stat them separately -- but chooses not to fight them and bribes them for safe passage instead.

In the Tex Thompson feature, Tex and his sidekick, Bob Daley, meet actor "John Barryless" -- har har -- obviously meant to be John Barrymore. Tex and his associates head to Egypt to find John's missing son, Bart (John Barrymore's son was also named John). One doesn't normally associate the savage native trope with Egypt, nor zombies, but Tex encounters both while there. We also learn that salt can counter the potion that turns living people into zombies.

Gargantua T. Potts, by the way, is a minstrel show-level racist caricature of a sidekick for Tex.

In the Three Aces feature, I learned (or maybe I knew this before and forgot) that the Three Aces ("Fog" Fortune, "Gunner" Bill, and "Whistler" Will) are members of the U.S. Naval Reserves -- which seems an odd choice, as I would have thought the Army had more fliers than the Navy at that time. They have to "solve" a murder mystery, and I use the term loosely because they overhear practically everything and then just have to prove who did it. It can be a useful reminder to Editors not to make mysteries too difficult to solve during game sessions.

In the Zatara feature, Zatara -- who usually throws around high level spells like they were nothing -- solves this scenario where a mad scientist in Mexico is creating an army of gorillas with transplanted human brains (and apparently is shipping the gorillas all the way into Mexico, since they are clearly not indigenous) using only two second-level spells, Invisibility and Hold Person. Of course, you could call the scenario only a partial success because Zatara only frees the scientist's prisoners who still have their brains, leaving all the transplant victims to be blown up along with the scientist after Zatara escapes.
 
(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives v. 1; select pages from the rest were read at the Babbling about DC ,o;Comics blog and the rest was read in summary at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #18

Before Superman even shows up in this month's story, we're treated to the a sleeping gas attack and the notion that holding a handkerchief over your nose and mouth is going to spare you from gas potent enough to fill an entire car and knock out its occupant/s. I would be inclined to give a bonus to save for taking a precaution like that -- +1 or +2 at most, but that still leaves a lot of room for a plan to go wrong.

From the blackmailed politician we learn that $10,000 is enough to corrupt a politician.

We see Superman's X-ray vision (the 3rd level power) in use for the first time.

Superman gets shot at with a bow and arrow for a change of pace this issue, and snatches the arrow out of mid-air. I don't have a power for that, because the important thing is that the arrow missed, and him catching it is really just flavor text.

Superman then decides to show off with the bow and arrow. Now, maybe Superman practiced with a bow and arrow in his youth, but it's pretty clear that he pulls off a spectacular hit on a small target. This was the impetus for the Bulls-Eye (2nd-level) power.

It's still unclear if Superman can fly at this point. He trails a car in the sky; one would presume that if he was jumping and landing behind the car, that someone might notice.

He also demonstrates Leap (at least Leap I), Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, Raise Elephant (because he raises trucks, heavier than cars), and wrecks a printing press (as if a generator).

A rival paper to the Daily Star is the Morning Herald. There actually was a Morning Cleveland Herald until 1868, though it's unclear if Jerry Siegel would have ever seen it.

Chuck Dawson, in his story, gives us a valuable lesson for players -- when a posse thinks you've killed the sheriff and is closing in on you, don't be afraid to run!

Clip Carson's story is an interesting lesson in hideout scale. Here, he finds himself in a cavernous hideout so large that, when reinforcements arrive, they show up riding elephants!

Tex Thompson's arch-nemesis, The Gorrah, returns, this time in Turkey, where Tex and friends are working for the Turkish Prime Minister (it was Refik Saydam in real life). The Gorrah has cyborg-like creatures working for him this time. It's difficult to imagine how to stat them; they look like they're half-robot, half-skeleton, probably with human brains controlling them, but lose all scariness because they're all wearing fezzes. The Gorrah tries hypnotism on Tex. It fails, but The Gorrah can't tell and Tex uses this to trick him. Hero magic-users will have the same problem when their victims make their saves. The Gorrah takes a poison pill, seemingly killing himself, at story's end.

The Three Aces may not be the bravest Heroes to ever headline a story in an anthology title. When threatened by hijackers, their solution is to stall for time until help arrives! Players may be interested in similar tactics, especially players who favor keeping their Heroes alive over having them do anything heroic. We learn some backstory about the Three Aces, that they had flown in the Spanish Civil War together back in 1937.

Zatara becomes the first Hero to visit Atlantis. He gains possession of a map to Atlantis when a former rival, Queen Setap of Ophir, shows up and wants his help with following it. We learn that the map starts them off in the Sargasso Sea (northern Atlantic) and that Atlantis is somewhere in the Atlantic, which does match up with where Marvel Comics would later put Atlantis in their comics (but is distinctly different from the Golden Age Sub-Mariner's Antarctic kingdom).

En route, Barnacle Will and some pirates attempt a mutiny, thinking the map leads to gold. Where it actually leads is a little confusing...from the page I've seen, it looks like Atlantis is at least partially un-sunken still, or perhaps they just land on a nearby island as a staging area. Whatever it is, the surface island is protected by "under-earth creatures" that look like goblins with tentacle arms. I'm unsure how to stat these creatures...but their use of nets as weapons reminds me of ratmen (a new mobster type from 2nd edition).

In the story, Zatara appears to use a spell called Create Bridge, but is perhaps just flavor text for the first level 2nd edition spell Poof!, which allows him to cross over short distances of water. He casts a spell on the under-earth creatures that ties their tentacles into knots...but I'm not clear what purpose that serves other than a distraction. If they really can't use their tentacles then, maybe this counts as Mass Paralysis (a 1st edition power, though, not a spell).

Lastly, Atlantis is guarded by Roor, a giant octopus. Here we meet our first mobster with magic resistance. Apparently, any mobster can have magic resistance, and this is very high resistance -- either 80% or more, or perhaps total immunity to damaging spells. The only spell that works is Phantasmal Image, tricking Roor into thinking sponges are people to eat.

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives v. 1, select other pages were read at the Babbling About DC Comics blog, and the rest was read in summary at DC Wikia and Mike's Amazing World)

Action Comics #17

I have a surprising lack of information about this issue.

In Superman's adventure, Superman's "commanding voice" could be some use of a power, or it could mean that he gets a bonus to encounter reaction rolls because of his high Charisma score. Since Charisma always does this, I don't see the need to duplicate it with a power.

Superman demonstrates Resist Fire and Push Ocean Liner as powers in this story. We also see he can leap while using the Raise Car power at the same time. At another point, though, he listens in to a phone conversation via an extension phone because, presumedly, he didn't prepare the Super-Senses power for that day. At another point the narrator claims that Superman is using "super-hearing", but he's only eavesdropping from outside a window, and I'd allow a skill check for that.

Superman, still dressed as Clark Kent, gets mad and lifts a man over his head in this story. More evidence that I was wrong to require superheroes to be in costume to use their powers.

Ultra-Humanite demands $5 million in extortion money in this story, possibly the highest monetary sum featured in a comic book to date. Ultra -- as he's referred to in this story -- uses an acid gun, a transparent metal wall, and an image projector against Superman.

In Pep Morgan's story, one of the reasons Pep is able to defeat Pedro is because Pedro's gun jams. There is now a chance of this happening in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he's on safari in India when he kills a tiger, rescues a plot hook character (one of those "old friends" you've never seen before, but ties into a character's backstory), and investigates a cult. Next installment we're likely to see cultists actually show up -- just like they are as a mobster type in 2nd edition H&H.

Tex Thompson is a high-Charisma Hero too, as evidenced by his growing number of supporting cast members. In addition to regular SCMs Bob Daley and Gargantua T. Potts, Tex picks up a temporary SCM, Ali-Baba, while adventuring in Turkey. We also see the return of The Gorrah, which appears to be a bogeyman (a new mobster that will be in the Mobster Manual when it's done). The Gorrah demonstrates his hypnosis ability. Tex displays a knack for disguises, but The Gorrah seems to easily see through it (even though it's better than most comic book disguises). The Gorrah's hideout is well-trapped: an electric eye at the entrance alerts The Gorrah in his main chamber, then The Gorrah has television cameras set up to show him the hallways, and he can raise inverted portcullises from the floor to trap intruders.

In Zatara's story, we learn that Zatara takes a yearly cruise to Europe. En route, he picks up two temporary SCMs, "old friends" John and Beth Jordan on the cruise ship. Also on board is someone out to get one of them, as they are "attacked" by a thrown net. For some reason, Zatara is worried enough about this that he burns a high-level spell to polymorph the net into gold coins (or maybe he thought the other passengers looked poor...or was looking to destabilize the gold market in Europe...).

Somehow, the three of them wind up in the Lost City of Ophir, where the ancient queen Setap is kept alive by Potions of Immortality (they keep her alive, but over time the leave her old and frail). Somehow, Beth has "purer" Ophir blood than all the people of Ophir around her, so she wants Beth's fresh blood for more potions. Then, as if we didn't already guess from this that Setap is evil, she shows them the poison gas she plans to use to kill every non-Ophir citizen in the world. She also gives away her connection to Atlantis, which will become relevant in the next story.

When Zatara tries to intervene, he is temporarily stopped when Setap throws a blinding fluid into Zatara's eyes. This is, coincidentally, very effective on Zatara because he needs to make eye contact for his spells. The deathtrap she placed him in is being slowly lowered by rope into a roaring firepit, but the heat causes him to sweat and the sweat clears his eyes of the blinding fluid in time (save vs. plot successful?).

Zatara uses Phantasmal Image to steal into the city past the guards (they are distracted), and he casts Dispel Magic to reverse the magical blood transfusion that turns Setap young and Beth old. As flavor text, Zatara summons the Flame of Life from the Temple of Atlantis and it reverts them to their true ages.

Setap and Ophir are clearly stolen from Tarzan's Queen La of the Lost City of Opar.

(Superman story read in Superman: Action Comics Archives v. 1, select pages also read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, and then summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia and Mike's Amazing World of Comics.)

Action Comics #16

Let's start with Superman.

Catching a falling man isn't really a big deal for Superman, and probably only needs a successful "attack" roll to scoop the man up.

The early Superman doesn't seem to care all that much if anyone figures out his secret identity. Not only does he wear no mask and conceals no fingerprints, but the windows on his apartment have sheer curtains. You'd think he'd at least use shades for more privacy!

This is the first story to call Superman's port of call "Metropolis", beginning the trend of fictional cities in the superhero genre.

The police commissioner in this story is a corrupt politician, despite the fact that most police are statted as fighters.

$5,000 was apparently a good night's haul for a casino-club.

The gamblers in this story don't seem to have any special abilities worth statting differently than slick hoodlums, other than to give them a better chance of rigging games.

Superman turns down the chance to collect XP for keeping the money in exchange for the good deed award for giving it all away to poor people.

Racketeers seem to have even less special abilities than gamblers.

Superman wrecks gambling establishments, both with a hammer and his bare hands. Since he's not wrecking the buildings themselves, I'd probably treat this as a wrecking doors roll (and at Superman's current level, he probably doesn't even need to roll for that anymore).

Superman picked up a fixed deck of cards to fool the gamblers, and then keeps it as a trophy.

Pep Morgan's adventure has an unusual angle -- Hero playing bodyguard. Can an Editor pull off a session where the Hero has to spend a week living with another character, waiting to see if any harm comes to him or her (her, in this case)? Only if the Editor creates an engaging character, and the player really likes to roleplay.  Otherwise, the scenario will quickly fast forward to the first whiff of danger. This is part 2 of a 4-part story arc where Pep is employed by a Mr. Smith, who keeps handing Pep plot hooks.

Pep, despite being just a college student, is already a pipe smoker and goes to bed early enough that he's asleep at 11:30 pm when mobsters try to abduct Mr. Smith's daughter, Mary. Something wakes Pep up in time, though (save vs. plot?) so he can come pummel the kidnappers with his fists until they surrender. One of the kidnappers falls over from being pummeled, which isn't supported by the game mechanics, although an Editor could rightly say the circumstances warranted it since the man was carrying Mary and would be unbalanced (maybe a save vs. science to avoid falling over).

Slings and arrows (of outrageous fortune!) are being hurled at Marco Polo in his adventure, but the more effective weapon seems to be the dropped rocks falling on the bandits in the ambush at the end. If the rocks are heavy enough that they have to be pushed over instead of thrown, it could be considered a trap and do more than normal missile weapon damage. Maybe 1-8 points?

Clip Carson deals with a fake mummy in an Egyptian tomb, but it's a trick -- the mummy is a "robot" (really, more like animatronics) and it's voice was from a concealed record player behind it. Clip is in the Pyramid of Cheops -- aka the Great Pyramid of Giza -- looking for a secret treasure room that was apparently missed by 9th century looters and 19th century archaeologists. Interestingly, a rival -- a corrupt sergeant from the occupying British Army -- found the treasure room before them and has convinced the natives to guard it by posing as Cheops in a rubber mask. Maybe those natives have been in the stale air of the pyramid too long...

For the Chuck Dawson summary I'm reading says Chuck is framed by thugs, which is an odd mobster type choice for a Western adventure. Maybe these are outlaws?

Tex Thompson's adventure has an interesting spin to it as well. Tex is asked by the French government to infiltrate a spy ring, to find out who their mole is in the French government. In eight more months, things would be getting a lot more exciting in France if Tex stuck around that long.

Zatara has his first encounter with aliens from another planet (he's already fought aliens from another dimension). He encounters them as if a random wandering encounter -- or at least he encounters the teleport beam that scoops up a random farmer while Zatara and Tong are out on an evening stroll together.

Zatara investigates at the local observatory, where the aliens somehow push him into a teleport beam and he winds up on Saturn. The Saturnians look an awful lot like the Martian Manhunter, 16 years before his debut! Despite having super technology that allows instantaneous interplanetary travel, the Saturnians fight with lassos. Zatara meets their warlord and convinces him to leave Earth alone by showing him a Phantasmal Image of the planet Earth attacking the planet Saturn. Saturnians are very impressionable.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: Action Comics Archive v. 1; select pages were read on the Babbling about DC Comics blog; the rest read in summary either at DC Wikia or Mike's Amazing World.)

Action Comics #15

And we come back around to Superman's home title, Action Comic, as we will periodically do, to see what new and exciting stuff Siegel and Shuster have cooked up for us. Here, we're treated to some delightful attention to continuity, as Superman reflects on having saved money earned months earlier in issue #11.

And raising money is the unusual scenario goal in this issue, as Superman has to raise $1 million to save "Kid-Town". For capturing bank robbers, he gets a $3,000 reward from the bank for returning their money, plus $2,000 from the police for capturing the robbers. He saves a rich man's life and gets $10,000 as his reward. Then he receives a plot hook that sends him after sunken treasure worth $1 million by itself.

All of these rewards can be dangled in front of Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes, though the Editor is discouraged from awarding XP for money that has to be raised for a scenario. Trophy money should be earned on the side while pursuing other goals.

In the course of this adventure, Superman performs the powers Nigh-Invulnerable Skin (but while out of costume!), Raise Car (to lift a massive tree), Hold Breath (said to last for hours!), Get Even Tougher (I presume, since he's able to fight off a dozen sharks!), Hold Train reversed (so he can push a submarine), Super-Tough Skin, and -- of course -- wrecking things.

For some amount under $15,000, Clark Kent is able to rent a steamer ship for two weeks, complete with diving bell. He has to hire his own crew, though.

Another wrinkle in this surprisingly complex Superman tale is rival gangs competing to stop him. One becomes his ship crew, while the other steals a submarine to come after his ship. And Superman has fun with it too, dressing up in a skeleton's conquistador armor to spook the submarine crew.

In Pep Morgan's installment, Pep is given a plot hook by someone he rescued in the previous story -- the start of a series of plot hooks the same character will give him over what is actually a long story arc. He has to catch a combination of gangsters and robbers who are disguising themselves as police officers. Pep disguises himself too, posing as a night watchman and then a policeman himself, to capture the robbers who are using a tricked farmer's farm as their hideout.

Marco Polo shows himself to have some anti-hero leanings in this installment. He knocks out a guard to steal a horse, and then steals a sword from two soldiers (who probably only want to arrest him for horse theft!). I'm not sure how easy it is to snatch a sword from someone else's scabbard, but I'm guessing it's pretty hard and must be a difficult (1 in 6) skill, like picking pockets.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he and his SCM (archaeologist Jim Blake) have been fighting bandits in the Sahara when both sides have to seek shelter from a sandstorm (wandering weather encounter? Editorial fiat?). Jim points out that sandstorms can rip skin to shreds, meaning at least 2-8 points of damage I reckon. Luckily, tents make you automatically immune to the damage. Clip and Jim decide to brave the storm instead; since they emerge unscathed, there must be a save vs. science that lets you avoid the whole damage.

They find a guarded pyramid -- and rightly so, being a national monument. Clip and Jim have a map that will show them where a secret treasure room is inside, but instead of showing it to the Arab guards and offering to share it with them, Clip beats them all up so they can enter and steal the treasure for themselves. The pyramid is the "Pyramid of Cheoks," which clearly means Cheops. While inside, a guard recovers and trains a gun on them from a trapdoor in the ceiling, generously giving them a chance to surrender. But, again, this guy's an Arab, so Clip feels no remorse as he murders the guard. They find the secret door indicated on the map, but run into a mummy at the cliffhanger!

Tex Thompson is taking a break from globe-trotting and is back home in Texas for a change. We see he's an expert dart thrower. He also has an Arab servant named Achmed who never joins him on any adventures and we probably never see again. Tex is asked to find a missing diamond in this story, during which he runs into and adds his second SCM, Gargantua T. Potts. "Gargantua" must be a nickname because Potts is tall, drawn taller than Tex. Other than that, Potts has no special abilities other than being a  horribly drawn racial slur.

Well, well -- Fred Guardineer anticipated global warming! In his Zatara installment this month, "an evil scientist, Berhener, creates a heat ray and uses it to melt a lot of polar ice, causing the oceans to rise, and flooding New York City and many other coastal cities. Zatara is called in, and he figures out where the melting is happening, then tracks the heat ray's creator, Berhener, who turns out to have a mad scheme about extorting the world's governments and banks for a lot of money. Zatara freezes him inside an iceberg, and sinks the heat ray into the ocean." That summary doesn't give me a lot to go on, but apparently Zatara is starting to cast more combat-related spells like Ice Storm or Cone of Cold.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #14

Superman uses the powers Outrun Train and Leap I before he even gets the plot hook for this issue's story.

I've been thinking off and on and about the alien race's leaping ability. It's so good right now that it makes the Leap power pretty useless for aliens, and every other race needs to fill one of their limited power slots with Leap just to be able to do what the alien race can do.  So...I'm seriously considering weakening the alien's leaping ability dramatically. Instead of doubling at each level, it would go up incrementally at x2, x3, x4, and so on.

Superman refers to the mobsters who attacked the inspector as thugs, though neither mobster seems as tough-looking as thugs are statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

A hoodlum punches Superman's super-tough hand and hurts himself. I'll have to consider whether this needs to be a side effect of the Super-Tough Skin power, or perhaps of Invulnerability.

Superman also demonstrates wrecking things, Feather Landing, and Raise Trolley Car.

Ultra-Humanite has several trophy items this issue -- an invisible car (it can turn invisible and visible at the driver's wishes) and an Electric Crystal-Encasing Tank. The second was featured, as-is, in Book II, while the first was represented by an Invisibility Field Generator.

In Marco Polo's story, he and his family manage to escape because of a drowsy guard. Guards were first statted in Steve Lopez's module FS1 Sons of the Feathered Serpent. I might keep them around, and give them a percent-chance of being encountered asleep.

Pep Morgan's ship is sinking in a storm! The scenario is to swim back to the ship from the lifeboat and look for an unconscious pilot aboard. Sadly, someone tells Pep to look in the cabin, removing all the suspense. This could have made a good timed scenario by making Pep swim around the ship, having to choose which rooms to search before the time runs out and the pilot is underwater.

Clip Carson is in Cairo, the "land of a primitive people." I think we can see where this new strip by Bob Kane is going. Clip rounds a corner and sees a blonde man attacking five Arabs with his fists, so naturally Clip joins in and helps beat up the Arabs too without even knowing what the fight was about. The blonde guy is a plot hook character, an archaeologist with a treasure map to a room hidden under a pyramid (I just ran a similar scenario in one of my Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns!). They go out into the desert to raid the pyramid. A bunch of Egyptians on horseback (nomads?) try to stop them since, hey, it's their nation's monument, but Clip isn't having any of that and mows them all down with his rifle.

Tex Thompson's player, not willing to wait for his Editor to toss him a plot hook, has Tex put an ad in the paper requesting adventure opportunities.

Tex is easily knocked out by a blow to the head, despite the fact that he's surely almost 5th level by now. This vulnerability to blows to the back of the head is very hard to reconcile with the game mechanic of hit points. And I'm not sure I want to reconcile it. Quick knock-outs may be good emulation of the comic books, but it isn't much fun and it doesn't feel much fair when it happens to your Heroes.

What follows makes for a good story, but a difficult one to get players to go along with; Tex wakes up in the same hotel room, in his pajamas, with a different woman in the room claiming she brought them there after he got drunk the night before. The first lady, who tried asking for Tex's help, has gone missing.

Chuck Dawson gets in a grappling match with an outlaw. First Chuck pins the guy, but the outlaw breaks the hold and then kicks him. Chuck restarts grappling, probably at the end of the second turn after being kicked, and establishes a choke hold. Good rolls, Chuck!

Zatara goes in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth, just because someone asked him to. He's with his good friends (who we never see again) Eleanor and Fred Hodges when the plot hook comes his way; Zatara certainly has a lot of married friends. Their old friend, Jeb Standish, knows a little-known legend of the Well of Quetzcoatl, and believes it is the Fountain of Youth. He promises to pay $1 million for 1 gallon of youth tonic -- a sweet deal most Heroes could retire happily on.

Zatara begins an expedition with native boatmen at Rio de Janeiro, but uses a Mass Fly spell (a 5th level spell?) to get their canoes over rapids (rapids in...Rio Guandu? There aren't a lot of major rivers that end near Rio de Janeiro).

Zatara comes across The Lost Red City (though, if he's following a river from a major city, how lost could it be?), built from red sandstone (nice detail). The lost city is manned by natives (so it's not really lost at all) and Zatara stops them by turning their spears into clouds (yeah...I'm not sure about that one. Mass Weapon Polymorph? Vaporize Weapons 15' Radius?).

In a throne room in a temple, Zatara discovers a throne with a preserved woman's corpse sitting on it. The corpse speaks a warning before snakes slither out from under the throne dais to attack, but the snakes aren't real -- they are a Phantasmal Image and the spoken threat was Ventriloquism, both accomplished by a small creature that seems to be a hieroglyph guardian (a new 2nd ed. mobster type), but one that is also at least a 2nd level magic-user. Zatara uses Detect Thoughts/ESP to find out where the Fountain of Youth is from the guardian.

All is not kosher about the fountain, though. Tong feels magically compelled to drink from it and Zatara, sensing something amiss here, uses Phantasmal Image and Telekinesis to keep Tong from drinking. There is always a wrinkle to fountains of youth; this time, the wrinkle is that the water keeps you alive, but you still get old and infirm (not unlike the theme of an upcoming Zatara story). By the time Zatara learns this, the old man had rallied 100 natives to stop Zatara, but Zatara turned them all to stone for an hour. And, yeah...I'm not allowing a spell like that. Fred Guardineer was one of the better artists of the early days of comic books, but his Zatara series reeks of power inflation and would throw game balance out the window.

(Superman story read from Action Comics Archives v. 1; select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)