This is still
Lucky Lucifer (that's a good guy's name, in case you couldn't tell). Game mechanically, I wanted to point out a rare instance of an aviator not using the wing walk stunt and just holding on for dear life. Should the fact that he's injured lower his number of available stunts?
Storywise, I just want to point out that Lucky takes a huge gamble ditching his plane to hop onto another plane because he believes -- correctly it seems -- that the anti-aircraft gunners would ignore the still active pilot and concentrate on the plane that was going to crash soon anyway.
"Lt Lucifer, your reconnaissance -- I'm sorry, I just have to ask, why am I calling you Lt. Lucifer? Lucifer is just your nickname, right? Your father's surname isn't really Lucifer. Your mother didn't really go, 'O, I love this man, I can't wait to change my last name to Lucifer"?
That said, I like both how complex and how simple this next scenario is. It's complex in that there's going to be a lot of moving parts moving around, but simple in that most of that is going to be background detail, as the focus of our Hero is going to be on this spy retrieval side-mission.
Given the speeds involved, the target AC for "hitting" the spy's outreached arms must be pretty low, though she can also roll "to hit" Lucifer back.
Now, I know I have no skin in this game, but if I was the one flying into enemy territory to pick up a spy, I wouldn't go in alone; I would want at least one more plane with me to run interference.
As I said, the scenario is simple because Lucifer's orders are basically to stay out of it. If he ignored orders (and you'd sort of expect that from someone named Lucifer), he could fly into the battle and then you'd have to play it out, but if it's just going on around him, you can treat it as flavor text and describe a pre-decided outcome.
When one plane separates to attack Lucifer's plane, that isn't necessarily bringing him into the big battle and can be treated as a separate battle/one-on-one dog fight.
Ugh...I can tell this one's going to hurt to read. It looks like some 4th grader's attempt to draw a
L'il Abner clone. Although it might be hard to imagine drawing inspiration from this...I wonder if hillbillies, as a mobstertype, should have a bonus to "rasslin'."
Normally I would not apply the wrecking things rules to missile weapons used against you, but sometimes it could be fun flavor text. It could also be of practice use, like if arrows were being fired at you, to find out if the arrows broke or are retrievable (because arrows are a lot more likely to break than boulders).
Aside from that, I think I'll just mention that it's pretty weak storytelling, that the only spooky thing these guys pretending to be ghosts do is talk through a bush. I can't even count them as fake undead!
Jumping in here to the next story,
Mory Marine. Thumbscrews are a real thing, and could be as small as what is sorta drawn here, but they are archaic by 1940, being more of a 17th-18th century device.
It is more likely that Mory (what kind of name is Mory?) blew his escape artist skill check than the mobsters have past experience as sailors. Mobsters don't generally have individualized skills.
Finding a blood trail could be a searching check, and following a trail could be a tracking skill check, but an Editor should not require both unless the blood trail is very faint.
The bottom keeps dropping out on this artwork! Ugh...it looks like someone is dropping crumpled up balls of paper at our Heroes, here in "The Gold of Gartok."
But behind that atrocious art is a pretty good idea to explain superheroes. Tulpas are real things too, or I should say real world theory. "Tulpa" is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers. It was adapted by 20th-century theosophists from Tibetan
sprul-pa which means "emanation" or "manifestation." It can do anything the person who wills the tulpa into being is able to believe the tulpa can do, but only while concentrating and, as we learn here, if that concentration is disrupted, it takes an hour to create a new one.
A ledge saved our "white hero," but he's quickly captured and dropped into this snake pit. Interestingly, the snake pit only has four snakes in it, as if to give Rob a really sporting chance.
Chanti and Charmi are Indian names -- but girls' names -- Genghis is a Mongolian title and not a name (but maybe a nickname?), and Bhutra is an Indian surname. Maybe Chanti and Charmi are nicknames too, like calling someone a Nancy or a Karen.
It's interesting that the tulpa's explanation for what happened to him is patently untrue. Does a tulpa have to believe in itself to exist? Or it simply doesn't want Rob to know it can disappear on him again if the lama smells something else good?
I may be having a deja vu moment, but, amazingly, I don't think this is the first time we've seen someone picking up snakes and throwing them as missile weapons in a comic book story.
