Silver Streak Comics #2 - pt. 4

We're still in Duke Kelly, Ace Inspector.  The narrator calls these thugs, but they sure seem like superstitious hoodlums, a mobstertype that was introduced in Supplement I: National.  Haunted houses are, of course, a wonderful set of tropes to exploit for hideout-building.

There is absolutely no game mechanic that would explain how Duke just happens to be on the same road as the kidnappers at this particular moment; it's just a handout from the Editor.

Shooting people inside a moving vehicle is possible during a chase scene in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but negative modifiers for cover and speed are need to be taken into account. Duke's player must have rolled really high.

Throwing your gun after you run out of bullets is what happens when the Editor just keeps rolling really high for morale saves.

Duke makes an unusual choice, letting the hoodlum/thugs get away so he can go after Hix. But...how does Duke know that neither of these guys is Hix?  Did he ever see a picture of the man, between panels? And he's so confident neither of them is Hix in disguise? I suspect Duke's player is meta-gaming here, and figures this isn't a likely place for a boss battle to take place.

The 6' hedge leading straight up to the house is convenient cover!

The falling beam, poised to fall and hit anyone coming in the entrance, was a trap.

It turns out Hix is a supervillain! Here he uses the power Extend Missile Range I, turning Duke into a missile.  It's possible he also used Spook Bad Guys on the thugs earlier, meaning Hix is at least 2nd level (shameful man).

There is a serious design flaw in this hideout -- if you're going to install steel doors to keep people out, it's not a good idea to leave open transoms above them.

It's an interesting tactic here; most villains rig their hideouts to explode, but Hix went with slowly burning it down and then making it explode. It definitely gives him more time to escape that way!

I'm calling shenanigans on those porch roof physics, though. If their weight was really too much for the roof, they would go right through, not make it "gradually sag" to the ground.

Mister Midnite is a curious feature. These bad guys are called "The Little Men." Some of them look really weird, and the one with the mohawk definitely has fangs, but it's still unclear if these are just ugly midgets with woman issues or if this is supposed to be some non-human race.

The brute they use called "Noman" (long before THUNDER Agents!) appears to be undead, but let's wait and see if that turns out to be true.

Noman is given several colorful descriptors, but brute is perhaps the most telling for H&H. My entry on thugs may say something about how brutes are thugs who specialize in unarmed combat.

Now, bear in mind that Carruthers here is a superhero, so his embarrassingly fast smackdown is telling. In first edition, this would be proof that superheroes cannot use their powers when out of costume. But in second edition I removed that restriction because there were so many exceptions to it. I still think we can explain this, though, as an example of how low level Mister Midnite is, and being low level means Heroes are vulnerable.  Particularly if he rolled poorly for starting hit points, it is not inconceivable for a first-level Hero to go down in one hit.

It's almost impossible to follow what is happening in the first half of this page. What is the nature of this trail that is so easy for Mister Midnite to follow, but the police haven't bothered to yet? Mister Midnite stops time...and then just appears at the hideout entrance?

It's possible that Mister Midnite has used the power Find Evidence -- as-written, it does not find trails, but I have had players ask for a more lax interpretation of the power so it can be used like this. 

And as for the time stop...perhaps the Editor has agreed to ignore how much time it would take to follow the trail, in keeping with the flavor of Midnite's power. There is no hard and fast mechanic to timekeeping when out of combat; mostly it is just the Editor making common sense decisions over how long something should take.

I'm amused by the narrator pretending that he meant to get captured. I think it's pretty clear that Mister Midnite is a bit of a wuss and did not wind up in chains on purpose...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Silver Streak Comics #2 - pt. 3

We're back with Red Reeves, Boy Magician.  We might need a mass fly spell, or a flying carpet spell, that explains how magic-users are able to transport others with them like this.

But then we get to the house and, well, this was a mighty complicated wish Tom made. The genie has allegedly created a house, teleported the wife and child there, and stocked it with "everything."  That's got to be a wish spell.  Although...perhaps the genie simply gave them someone else's abandoned house, or even removed the original occupants!

And then there's this curious exchange (or how it should have happened):

"Dad, can you find a place for Jordan?"

"I don't know...he did try to rob us; I'm not sure if I can trust him....Wait, why are you looking at me like that? Don't use your magic on me!  I'll do whatever you say!"

The elements of Spanish reveal that this jungle must be the Amazon Jungle in South America, for a change!

I haven't actually been running grappling rules as-written for some time. Instead of having the attacker and the defender make different kinds of rolls, I've been making them both make attack rolls. This way, no one is a defender in combat; both sides wind up being grappling attackers.

The other change I'm tempted to try is have multiple attackers add their attack scores together for comparison, but that's going to make it almost impossible for a single target to avoid being overwhelmed, which may be the best reason of all to treat one side as the defender. With different game mechanics, the defender saves to resist each attacker, eliminating much of the advantage that stacking combat scores would give one side.

I finally solved the problem of non-superheroes snapping all these bonds by giving everyone the wrecking things mechanic, but at one die less.

I don't think I've ever had a player who would fall for this "I had to kidnap you first to get you to accept this plot hook" story...

There may be something to this...I can't find evidence of anyone lifting more than 500 lbs. until 1970 (Vasily Alekseyev).

"I'm going to take you on a fantastic adventure...but first you have to step alone into this cave with me and strip down to your underwear..."  Yeah, I don't think I've had any players who would go along with this either!

The implication seems to be that the needle is inserting some sort of drug into the over-stressed muscles, making Lance the first weightlifter to get ahead via doping.

As for uprooting the tree, I could see a case for both wrecking things and the power Raise Car being used here.

This "done in one punch" approach to early comic book fights is something I normally ignore for Hideouts & Hoodlums...yet, here, I wonder if one could make a case for the Super Punch power being activated.

Leopards are statted as cougars in H&H and are found already in both editions.

I have never considered super-brachiation a necessary superpower...and still don't.  But I see where this feature is going now, turning Lance into Super-Tarzan!

Here's some an astronomy lesson for us. Our still-unnamed scientist has charted his way to a planet that he thinks won't be visible until they pass Saturn. Then how has he charted something he can't see? The answer is math! Indeed, Neptune was discovered the same way, before telescopes could spot it.

So what planet are they thinking they'll find? It can't be Pluto, because everyone knew about Pluto by 1930. But it was unknown that Pluto had moons until 1978. He may have miscalculated the mass of Pluto's five moons and thought it was enough mass to be a tenth planet.

The scientist is also injected with the super drug so he can withstand the pressure of escape velocity. Of course, astronauts will easily withstand that pressure in the future; maybe he was just looking for an excuse to shoot up...

Here we see thugs -- a very common mobster -- in action. 

NRC, very likely, intentionally looks like NBC, which had been on the radio since 1926. What throws me is the term "society deb singer." I can't find any evidence that this was a term used in radio, or would have any special meaning to the reader in 1940, other than to tell you that Doris Dare is young and well-bred. The name seems intentionally close to Doris Day, which is surprising because Doris Day had only begun her career in 1939 and would not become widely famous until 1945. This could be coincidental.

I'm not sure which of these facts speaks more poorly for sanitariums circa 1940 -- the fact that the attendant carries a big wooden club, or the fact that he seems fine with his patient going five days without eating. I don't know how much of this is true, but even half of it is true I sure am glad I'm not in 1940 and a sanitarium!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)