Wonderworld Comics #11 - pt. 4

This will be our last visit with this particular issue, and we'll kick it off with about page of "Spark" Stevens.

Although this looks like a tough fight, the gobs should be approaching 4th level by now, these spies are likely 1 or 2 HD, and the guy with the gun has as good a chance of hitting his allies as the gobs by firing into a melee.

And what does "gob" mean here? According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, "There are two theories on this one. This term first showed up in regard to sailors around 1909 and may have come from the word gobble. Reportedly, some people thought that sailors gobbled their food. The term also may come from the word gob, which means to spit, something sailors also reportedly do often."

As for "photostat files," The Photostat machine, or Photostat, was an early projection photocopier invented in 1907.

I was really expecting a better trap when that spy reaches out for the secret pedal than -- a bed coming down and smacking them in the head. Now, while I can't imagine this doing more than 1-6 points of damage (in fact, I would probably treat it as an improvised weapon that does 1-3 damage), it's possible that our gobs were just so low on hp after that fistfight that this was enough to knock them both out. Or, as a surprise attack, maybe this is considered a head blow, which comes with a chance of knockout in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums.

This is the first death-by-normal-sized-spiders deathtrap I've ever seen in a comic book -- and I have to say, it looks plenty unsettling and would surely spook a lot of players! Of course, one ordinary spider isn't going to have enough venom to cause much harm to anyone, but this is a thousand of them, so I would treat a spider swarm as a mobster with a collective Hit Die total and a save or die situation if the swarm starts all biting you at once.

Fire is probably the surest way to get rid of them; I also would have allowed the players to throw rocks at them or even pee on them to drive them off.

As the Editor, never forget about how fire causes smoke, and be liberal with assigning smoke inhalation damage if an encounter seems to be going too easy.

You're in for an unusually educational installment of K-51: Spies at War. It is, in fact, a little prescient -- the Nazis didn't manage to sink their third ship with U-boats until May 28, 1940. The world was shocked that Germany had managed to make new U-boats in secret after WWI, but they didn't have very many, not until capturing the French and Norwegian naval fleets. Now, what else this news ticker fails to get right is the number killed. 22 is purely wishful thinking; the actual death toll from the first two sank ships was over 1,200 deaths (they didn't bother going after small boats!).

Q-boats were real. Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. The British and the Germans used them in WWI, and then the U.S. started using them too in WWII.

Panic parties were a real thing, just as described here. I'm guessing depth bombs, or depth charges, really work like that too, though I've never actually seen a picture of one being launched before.

This is yet another example of a random complication from vehicular damage, this time the electrical systems shorting out.

The weirdest thing about this story is that K-51 does nothing at all the entire story, except swim away at the end so the captain doesn't get in serious trouble. Nice of him, yes, but he gets zero experience points for this "session."

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Wonderworld Comics #10 - pt. 4

Hey, welcome back! There's just a few pages leftover in this issue I wanted to address, this first one being from the Spark Stevens story. Spark always has the weakest artwork in the early Wonderworld issues, but you can see how rushed this three-panel page was. Still, it is a good example of when you can bluff your way into a morale check for the bad guys.

This is a pretty important milestone issue, as it takes the War in Europe, that until now has been largely couched in terms of analogies and fictitious stand-ins, is finally being accurately represented as a German invasion of Poland -- which had happened just a few months earlier. Ripped from the headlines!  

This is the first time -- possibly the last time, as far as I know -- that Polish is ever spoken in an American comic book. "Dzien dobre" means "Good day."

Despite the fact that I generally favor realism in my Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns, I still subscribe to the comic book convention of having everyone you encounter able to speak English. I do know of one H&H Editor (hi Darren!) who is more of a stickler, wants more realism, and tracks what languages the Heroes know, based on their backstories more than their Intelligence scores.

While everyone else had to rush their jobs for this issue, K-51 has more than one 12-panel page! Here we see one of the deadliest of complications during an aerial dogfight, the shooting of the gas tank, which makes the plane explode in ...well, I'm not sure how many turns to make it take. Maybe just require a save vs. science to get out of the plane before it goes kablooey.

(Although comics.org suggests that Bob Powell may have wrote this story, the timeliness and anti-Nazi stance seems very Will Eisner to me.)

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Wonderworld Comics #9 - pt. 3

This is still Dr. Fung (and Dan Barrister, who never gets title billing). It seems the shrinking process of Karno takes two days, which is an unusually long onset time for comic books.

I had long toyed with the notion of allowing a stunning blow to the back of the head. It finally made it into the 2nd edition Basic book as the "head blow" rule (page 90).

Dr. Fung moves silently with an expert skill check to avoid detection.

Dr. Fung is still making skill checks.

It is difficult to say what that ray-gun does exactly. It can definitely strike two people side-by-side at the same time. Since Dr. Fung says it "blasts," maybe it shoots pure concussive force, allowing it to both do damage to opponents and wreck things.

It's worth noting that this is a distinctly different chamber than the throne room we saw Karno in earlier, and possibly also different from the lab Irene was imprisoned in. The rest of the hideout seems to be caves, other than these three chambers.

Tex Mason used a skill check to disguise himself as an Indian.

The bank robbers are consistently called bandits on this page, so they must be statted that way.

The last bandit should be shouting "It's over, Tex! I have the high ground!"

Willis Rensie is likely a pseudonym for Will Eisner (though the art is Bob Powell). Will seemed to have a great deal of apprehension about the War in Europe and here wrongly anticipates three Axis powers in Europe. He likely assumed that Spain would join the Axis. Unofficially they did aid Germany, but could do little because they were so wiped after their civil war.

Of Diableef, Riano, and Morga, it will be interesting to see which represents Germany, Italy, and Spain.

"Ahh, no, please -- the coat is rubbing on the fresh wounds from my lashings! Take it off!"

K-51's bizarre sentence seems to be something in Italian written out phonetically, but I can't guess what it is.

If I'm right, though, that makes Morga the Italian guy!

The uniforms look an awful lot like chauffeur uniforms...

"Guten abend" means that Diableef is the German guy (though, really, that one was not a hard guess).

It's a little bizarre that the plot of this scenario is to save Hitler.

Only this early in 1940 could someone think Hitler was just being manipulated by Mussolini and would be willing to sign a peace accord with Europe.

Stories like this were often ripped from the headlines (even if it was the headlines of a few years past). This is interesting because it is based on no real life sugar shortage that I can find. Sugar rationing did occur during the war years, but not until 1942 for the U.S.

"Daily Globe" is a fairly generic newspaper name used in a lot of cities, so it does not tell us where Mob Buster Robinson takes place.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #8 - pt. 3

Dr. Fung finds it extra hard to find the trickster Scorpio (the trickster class, designed for mediums and psychics, debuted in The Trophy Case v. 1 #4) in his weirdly-shaped mansion. The first room is concealed behind curtains, but behind the room is a secret door keeping the blackmail files safe. The Editor can double up on tricks and traps as well if it keeps the hideouts challenging.

Weapons concealed in canes are so cliche that they'll never fool your players, but a spring-loaded arrow-launcher concealed in a magician's wand? That's a trophy item that will surprise them (though I question the penetrating power of such a weapon -- maybe it would only do 1-4 points of damage?).

Tex Maxon is good in a fight, but not as good as Timmons!  Check out how he kicks a rock with the back of his foot and manages to get enough lift to strike Tex in the head. I'm not sure even professional soccer players could pull off that stunt. It certainly makes me question if Hideouts & Hoodlums needs any facing rules.

It is not unfeasible for someone to fall 150' and survive, as there have been lots of examples of people falling even further and living. The H&H rules are unforgiving , with a fall from that height doing 15-90 points of damage. Now, it's possible that Jon Pulski had 16 hit points and got really lucky, or the Editor set a lower minimum damage (which he could always do, at his discretion).

Fake skulls seems like it could be interesting hideout dressing.

This is K-51, though the influence of Will Eisner makes it seem an awful lot like a Black X story. This takes place in the Philippines, which was an U.S. territory at the time. The rabble-rouser Mussoni is obviously based on Mussolini, though what he'd be doing in the Philippines isn't clear.

Notice how, in fiction, no one ever gets stabbed during a grappling fight. This is borne out in the 2nd edition grappling rules, where if you grapple someone, that opponent can't make any attack back at you that turn except for grappling.

The typhoon is either a wandering event or something the Editor just tossed in, at his discretion, to shake up the plot (it had been a standoff before this). The typhoon is strong and wrecks as if a high-level superhero. X-51 and his fellow agent Claire (she does have a codename, but it's not used past the first page) both make their saving throws vs. science (or maybe plot, or whichever was worse?) to survive the storm, with the Editor rolling for the major antagonists on the ship, while likely hand-waving the rest of the rolls and just saying the crew all died.

The bad guy here is called both a bandit and a robber, but by the way he gets from the side door of the train to the ropes hanging above the train, he must be a mysteryman.

The "chief" is a master criminal; you can tell he is by the bald head. A thug (another mobster type) robs the train this time, using less acrobatics.

The car is full of a mixture of gangsters and thugs. One of the thugs recovers quickly, having made his save vs. plot to recover quickly from unconsciousness (a new 2nd ed. rule). This indicates that even small-fry mobsters are eligible for the recovery rule...though, if there was no such rule, this could perhaps be explained away as a special ability of the thug mobster-type.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #7 - pt. 3

There are a couple of incredulous factors here, from kicking the ball of yarn just right so that it would make the cat leap right at the syringe, to Dan's seemingly superhuman strength.

I have talked before about allowing players to request for something to happen and the Editor can choose whether or not to give them a save vs. plot for that to happen. This time, let's talk about negative modifiers to that. There's an awful lot of coincidence necessary in Wong's "daring plan" -- that the ball will roll over to him, that he can kick it just right, that the cat will chase it, that the ball will fly in the right direction, that the timing will be just right to prevent the syringe injection -- and each additional coincidence past the first should add a -1 modifier to the roll. Further, in addition to the save vs. plot at -4, it would not be unreasonable to require an attack roll from Wong's player, and maybe even an initiative roll to see if he can pull it off before the injection.

As for Dan's strength...Dan has clearly been a fighter in the past and I hesitate to switch him to superhero just because of this. Maybe Heroes should be able to break weak bonds as a skill check.

K-51 Spies at War, whether Will Eisner or Bob Powell was drawing it, always seemed to be their least important rush job. Here, K-51 has to thwart a Japanese attack on Hawaii!  There's some interesting differences from real history here, like the blimp launched to detect the approaching planes and the Japanese relying on a huge bomber instead of more little fighter planes. Unable to stop the bomber with artillery, K-51 parachutes onto it. Now, at this point, the bomber could have become a small hideout for K-51 to explore, but instead he stays put in the gun turret and just keeps attacking the bomber until he gets lucky.

$500,000 in diamonds is an awful lot of treasure to put out there for Heroes to find!

Mob Buster Robinson pumps a police captain for information. Here, either a) the police captain is one of Robinson's supporting cast members, so he freely shares information, b) the captain is a plot hook character put there by the Editor to get Robinson into the adventure, c) the captain is simply encountered, asked, and Robinson gets a good encounter reaction roll, or d) because Robinson is a D.A., and it makes sense that he would have contacts on the police force, the Editor simply lets the player have this encounter as a freebie.

For the bar scene, the bartender misses a save vs. plot to see through the disguise, then Robinson gets a favorable encounter reaction roll -- a very good roll, to get hired on the spot like that!

The diamond fencers have their own hideout. The entrance is in an unassuming shack on a pier, but inside is a trapdoor leading to a concealed walkway under the pier that leads to a concealed building. I'm sure I've seen this same layout in a comic book already. To it, this time, is added a large office and, connected to it somehow, a large workroom. It's possible to enter and exit the hideout and go to either of these rooms, but without needing to pass through both, so they may be side by side. There would, presumedly, be other rooms down here, like barracks, but we never see them.

Speaking of hastily-done rush jobs, here's a crudely drawn and ridiculous installment of "Spark" Stevens of the Navy. This is probably the only time you're ever going to see a hideout with an electrical outlet inside a prison cell. It's like the Editor was distracted, made a hasty call, and the players unfairly held him to it. Naturally, it's going to be awful easy to arrange an escape from here. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't try the simpler approach of just lighting a fire at the wall socket instead of this elaborate plan of electrifying the fence below the cell...

It would be an interesting complication for gunfights to account for ricochets. A cruel Editor could roll a random compass direction for the direction of ricochets, possibly exposing Heroes to a barrage of their own missed shots!

The armory here is generously loaded with hand grenades and machine guns that the spies have forgotten to use. More interesting is the jai-alai glove. Not only does it lend some authentic local flavor to the room dressing -- as jai-alai is apparently a popular Latin American sport and this is supposed to be Cuba -- but it appears using one also adds maybe 10-20' to thrown missile ranges.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)



  

Wonderworld Comics #6 - pt. 2

We rejoin Yarko today in the lair of vampires!  It's never clear how many vampires are in this lair, but this page shows there are at least four.

That clever Yarko cast Resist Fire and Protection from Missiles on himself before entering the room.

The clearest evidence yet of the "contest of wills" game mechanic. At first I was leery of including this in the official rules, but even considered putting it in an optional appendix to the 2nd edition basic book. But, as of now, it's right in the combat section.

I'm not sure what spell is being cast here. Stone Shape? Earthquake?

It's also worth noting that the true appearance of vampires is that of a gruesome monster, and they can only make themselves appear to be handsome men or beautiful women.

This is Dr. Fung and Dan, the full-grown sidekick who doesn't get title billing.  Here, Dan is in unarmed combat with a Genghis Khan-type. Genghis Khans were a mobster type in 1st ed., though I'm really not seeing anything too special about these characters, upon closer reading. Dan is really kicking this guy's butt, or just literally kicking him (the first kick is actually a trip attack and is treated as grappling).

I've posted many times about fighters using combat machine for multiple attacks, even when it doesn't appear that they are.

I think I've already covered the tactic of using stairs to one's advantage in a past post. For a heavy weight like this barrel, I might allow it to roll over the first opponent and possibly knock down others; it's not multiple attacks so much as setting up a trap on the stairs. The first target would get to save vs. science to resist, with each subsequent target getting a +2 bonus, and whoever makes the save stops the barrel.

You can't recognize K-51 in that diving suit, but that's him getting his butt kicked by an octopus, and apparently not even of the giant variety. I'll have to remember to add a note to the giant octopus entry about what Hit Dice ordinary ones would have.

This is also a rare instance of a hammer being used as a weapon, without the wielder being named Thor.

This is Mob Buster Robinson, also getting his butt kicked -- though we've already established that head blows should do more damage in a surprise attack.

Robinson observes the man in the mirror because of an unlucky set of surprise rolls for the hoodlum.

This is lousy hideout design. Who puts trapdoors in prison cells? Especially trap doors that lead to underground streams that lead out of the hideout?

This is the first time we've ever seen a gun not work because it was wet.

Rocking the boat caused the thug to save vs. science or fall out.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Wonderworld Comics #5 - pt. 2

This is Patty O'Day. You missed the page before this, because I didn't share it, but mobsters shot at Patty and Ham's boat with a machine gun, and our Heroes were lucky enough to escape with only damage to their boat.

I've been thinking about what to do about damage to vehicles. My first thought was to give vehicles hit points, but now I'm not so sure about that. More so than with Heroes, vehicles are often stopped by complications -- like leaking, in this case -- long before they are destroyed.

What about...competing saves vs. plot? In a chase, the chasee could make a save vs. plot to try to trigger a complication, which the chaser would be able to fix or compensate for with a save vs. plot of his own.

We've already seen that Ham is no ordinary supporting cast; here he takes on a shark single-handed with a knife and seems to easily win. Though, we don't actually know that he killed the shark; maybe he it missed a morale save as soon as it was lightly injured.

I skipped a page again, but the missing information you don't have is that Patty and Ham were captured and thrown into the "lower dungeon". They have more than one?  The lower dungeon floods when the tide comes in. We've seen that trap before, but this one has a trapdoor above the dungeon they can reach pretty easily.

Since Ham and his opponents are all unarmed, they each get two attacks per turn -- which is one explanation for how Ham could punch both of them. He also gets two shots with the gun, but if it's an automatic he would get those as early as first level.

Patty, rather cleverly, turns the rickety pier into a trap. Under some circumstances, I would treat this as a skill check, but there's little other than physics at work here and all Patty did was leave a rope attached. I would probably make this automatically succeed, especially as a reward for smart playing.

A personal letter of thanks from the President is its own rewards -- but this one might come with some bonus XP too, as if it was a trophy item.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fung Master Sleuth of the Orient, and his companion Dan Barrister, are getting into trouble in Africa. Here they encounter ape-men, making this the third time I've seen ape-men in comic books so far this project. They don't seem to be particularly strong, but they can manage the "blow to the back of the head" cliche.

Note that Dr. Fung appears not to have put up a fight at all. I wonder if he's even a Hero, or just Dan's supporting cast, despite the title of this feature.

I have no intention of having cold water revive unconscious Heroes. Rather, Dan was just stunned for a number of turns that coincidentally ended when they hit the water.

Ape-Men, or at least their leaders, speak excellent English.

A lot of grappling goes on here. Grappling does damage -- sometimes considerable damage in 2nd edition -- so it's possible that the ape-man chief is just down to his last few hit points when that knockout punch comes. Or, there needs to be a percent chance of a stun per fist blow, which is something I've toyed with.

Losing a leader is definitely good cause for a morale save.

I can't tell what that animal next to the Sheena-like character is supposed to be. Some kind of dog...?

This is K-51 Spies at War.The King is named King "Arnold" in this story, but I can't help but wonder if he is meant to represent King George VI of Great Britain.

K-51 senses danger because the mobsters missed their surprise roll.

The terms "thug" and "assassin" seem to be used interchangeably here, unless one of them is a thug and the other the assassin.

K-51 seems content to let his supporting cast mow the mobsters down with sub-machine guns. No XP for you, K-51!

Mob Buster Robinson is the man running around in the swimsuit, and I call shenanigans here. One panel, mobsters are shooting at him from maybe ...20' behind him? After that, Robinson seems to somehow lose them and has time to search this yacht for hidden loot. This seems to suggest an awfully generous evasion mechanic, that the mobsters can't keep up with him and lose him so easily. I mean, how big a yacht can it be?

I'm amused by the TNT box that says "use no hooks". Maybe that's a real thing, but what I picture is fishermen, trying to keep their hooks away from TNT boxes...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)