Planet Comics #3 - pt. 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Planet Comics #2 - pt. 2

I'm picking up where I left off in this issue's Flint Baker adventure, as there's still a lot of interesting ground to cover here.

This page introduces a new alien, only referred to as "the creature" or the "tiny fiend." I'm tempted to call him a little green man, but I think he's being treated generically enough that he only needs to be statted as an alien. 

Last post I talked about this giant "white" ape, and now I found out that it's actually some sort of super-science golem, created from a combination of animate and inanimate parts. This transmogrification tube, or whatever you'd call it, is some huge mad science. It's essentially a mobster-maker.

Despite being so cartoony-looking and having no name or personality -- man, that's one tough adversary, unusually tough during a time in comic books when most adversaries go down after one hit or one shot. He's strong enough to do a lot of "pushing damage" to Parks. The ray unaffects him -- although, if it's a wrecking things ray, it wouldn't affect anyone anyway.

Our little unnamed alien even uses smart hostage-taking tactics.

Here, though, we have another example of how easy it is to disarm and grapple someone in comics. Even though we're told how fast and agile this alien is, the two unarmed women easily disarm him and knock him prone.

This caption is the only proof we have of the alien's agility, unless his twisting himself free is agility.

His ability to throw boulders (even small boulders) suggests the alien is statted as a superhero of at least 1st-level, with the Extend Missile Range I power activated.

Wrecking missile weapons before they can be used is actually a tactic that got used in my last Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign (and quite a lot, towards the end)!

Wait...what is Flint trying to do to the alien? I don't think he was trying to explode him into atoms, that was a random result of tinkering with the machine (I can just imagine the random mishap table to go along with the machine, with blowing up being the worst result)...but what result was he hoping for?

Time to finally move on to the next feature, which is Tiger Hart, the goofy Fletcher Hanks' one attempt at making a Prince Valiant-like strip. And there's certainly some goofiness here, like the name Tiger Hart, naming his horse Zip, the fact that Zip knows how to power dive, and that impossibly barrel-shaped chest on Tiger -- but I do like that trapped bridge. I'm not sure how the hanging rope triggers it, but the bridge folds up into a box, trapping anyone on it, which is a pretty cool trap.












Tiger is nice enough to give the men some privacy while they strip off their clothes, searches them (a very thorough tactic, by the way), and then lets them put their clothes back on -- before threatening to feed them to tigers. So Tiger isn't so much nice to his prisoners as he just didn't want to see them naked. And isn't he just like a Batman villain here, incorporating an animal in his name into his deathtrap?

But most bizarre of all -- how do you hide a glowing gem that big inside a horse's mane?? A saddle bag, maybe, but inside the mane? And how did it not just fall out?

Bending bars isn't that hard for comic book Heroes, but should maybe be slightly harder than doors - so, treat as machines.

Talon men would be a new mobster type. Its distinguishing features are, obviously, those over-sized claws that would let it do extra damage (maybe 2-8 with claw attack?).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Planet Comics #2 - pt. 1

If this issue looks familiar, it's because I reviewed Fox's Science Comics not too long ago, and both were farmed out to the Eisner/Iger shop -- and both done on the cheap. Although four-panel pages are not so rare nowadays, in 1940, this was purely a cost-saving measure to stretch out stories to fill more pages. You'll see much more of that on the pages to follow. Indeed, much of this post will be more of a rant than any constructive discussion of how to emulate golden age comic books with Hideouts & Hoodlums.

For instance, it's impossible to ignore the blatant plagiarism in these early comic books, particularly when it comes to swiping from successful comic strips. Here we have hawkmen, straight out of Flash Gordon. 

This feature is a new one, by the way, Planet Payson. Is Planet his first name, I wonder? I doubt we'll ever know.

Despite my rantings, there are interesting fantasy elements here -- the completely impossible castles in the clouds, and the mythological aspect of explaining how thunder and lightning happen.

The artist here is George Tuska, practically the Sal Buscema of 1940, given how prolific his work was. You can see he was fast by how much empty space he leaves, giant panels he uses, and sometimes appalling lack of detail. Like panel 2, with the nearly empty spaceship. Planet is standing behind the steering column, with no seat. There's a door, some...air vents over the door? ...and that weird row of rivets that runs down the wall and into the floor (and that was clearly a mistake left in, since there's no change in perspective for the rivets on the floor). And yet, George still found time to draw Planet's personal masseuse giving him a shoulder rub...

The proportions look all off on that one-man tank, like there is only a head inside it (maybe there is...?), but a one-man tank should be a good trophy item. Unfortunately, it's slow to turn at corners, so corners must be the best place to ambush them from.

It's never mentioned what race Buzzlark's people are. It's tempting to say the buzzard-men vs. the hawk-men, but the "buzzard-men" have no birdlike features.

Roland has never heard of honor in combat; although the guard is running up to him unarmed, Roland still shoots him in the face at point blank range with his rifle (it looks like the helmet is melting from it -- heat ray?). At least Planet turns his gun around to use as a clubbing weapon.

Four-to-one odds are too much for Planet, which makes sense, with him being a 1st-level fighter/beat cop.

At first it seems odd that the "buzzard-men" stripped Planet and Roland down to their underwear before putting them in the "electro tubes." But then, when I think about how often good guys have managed to escape with concealed gadgets, maybe this makes a lot of sense.

Electricity doesn't, technically, dissolve things. I wonder why they aren't just in acid tubes if they wanted to do that.

A sting ray gun is a curious thing. Does the ray somehow project poison into the target? 

This is from inside the next feature, Flint Baker. Flint is an Earth man on Mars, having to deal with problems like this four-armed giant. Although not white, the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs' white apes is unmistakable, and the size of this thing oddly presages the white apes in the 2012 John Carter movie more closely than the book versions do.

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White apes are 4 Hit Dice. If we applied the large/huge/giant structure to that, then giant white apes would be 16 HD, which is indeed pretty fearsome.

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10 miles per minute is 600 MPH. A car won't go this fast until 1970, and of course most cars still don't go this fast today.

I'm going to spare you the gruesome page of how they kill the giant "white" ape...but you may be able to guess it by the trajectory of the spaceship...

This page highlights some of Flint's equipment, including "rocket-propelled degravitation rods" that look suspiciously like pogo sticks. Or maybe they operate more like vertical witches' broomsticks?

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The rayguns seem to allow to wreck at range, which we've seen before. Being able to crumble the ground, even if the ground was thin at that point, should require being able to wreck as a 4th-level superhero, at least. Of course, this could be the Dig power instead (and might make more sense to be).

This page poses an interesting game mechanics problem. If you're trying to move a giant object -- like a dead hand -- what do you roll for that? It can't be grappling, because the dead hand can't grapple you back. It *could* be pushing, moving the hand 1' per point of damage, but that rule assumes your opponent is roughly your size or smaller. Although I'm not a big fan of ability score checks, I think a Strength check -- rolling your STR or less on 1d20 -- is the best way to go with this.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Planet Comics #1 - pt. 1

Fiction House debuted three new titles this month of January 1940, and Planet Comics was the third of them.  Here is Flint Baker, by Dick Briefer.  Flint is a scientist who has created a rocketship capable of reaching Mars, something that did not happen in real life until 1964, and never with a manned craft yet.

I include this page because, by counting the portholes, we may be able to estimate the length of this Mars rocket. If each porthole represents a 10' wide room, and the portholes cover just under half the length of the ship, then I'd guess that is 220' in total length, or if I initially misjudged the perspective and that is more like the top one-third of the ship, then we're looking at 300' in total length.

Eight miles per second may seem fast, but it is just 20% over escape velocity and that would take 136 days to reach Mars. Since the story tells us they reach Mars in just a few weeks, it seems the ship picked up considerable speed en route.

The ship swerves? Is it on autopilot?

Flint, product of his times that he is, is immediately placated by a little "accidental" chest rubbing. Oh, Flint!

Flint must be listening to these stories and thinking, "Okay, that sounds plausible...that sounds plausible...what the--?" Note the range on that hypnotism; while hypnotism is now treated as a skill anyone can try in second edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, it is meant for short range. Nothing short of a Charm Person spell works that well in H&H.

I just have to say here, the suspense might be thrown off by the frantic pace of this story, but this suspenseful plot development is genius. What a hook!

This is clearly a rocket car. I'm not sure how Flint knew Mars' terrain would be flat enough to warrant a rocket car instead of, oh, an all-terrain vehicle. Note how Martian rocket cars are even faster than Flint's rocket car.

Perspective makes the Martian city look gigantic, though counting windows, the tallest building may be no more than 19 stories tall.

Everyone who's read John Carter knows that a Martian dog is a calot, but this creature resembles more closely an Asian fu lion. It looks big, but it's hard to say how big it is. I'm guessing it would have at least 3 Hit Dice.

Speaking of John Carter, this goofy-looking dark side Martian looks like it could have came from one of Edgar Rice Burrough's later books. Dark side Martians possess advanced technology, which is pretty remarkable considering they have neither hands nor arms.

They do have prehensile tails, which I guess they use to grasp the controls in their planes. At first they look pretty puny, as if they would only have 1 Hit Dice. But they are also capable of fantastic leaps. If they are truly leaping over the buildings in the city, then they can leap 100-200'. That makes me think they are a lot tougher than they look, maybe 3-4 Hit Dice.

Here, Sarko has the upper hand after a grappling exchange with Flint (indeed, choke hold is one of the results on the grappling results table). On the following turn, Sarko's intention is to switch to shooting at point blank range, and if he won initiative he would have enjoyed a +2 bonus to hit because Flint was still prone. Instead, he loses initiative and gets shot in the back. Good thing Harry didn't miss Sarko, as he would have had to roll again to see if he hit Flint!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)