More Fun Comics #51 - pt. 2

Still on King Carter. There are at least 10 more natives on the island, with a pet watchdog who alerts them to King (and his kid sidekick, Red). The natives really don't like intruders and throw spears as King and Red flee. In a cliched ending, a volcano just happens to erupt and sink the island as they escape, which seems a waste of a good encounter area to me.

The Buccaneer's new story begins with an odd premise. A man adrift is rescued, but goes berserk and kills a crewman. Then the man gets amnesia from the head blow and wants to help everyone follow the treasure map hidden in his wooden leg. The problem is...did everyone get amnesia about the dead crewman, or are they really that greedy for the treasure?

Later, the Buccaneer uses a whip to disarm a knife from a man's hand. And this is the last we see of The Buccaneer (who strangely looks just like Tex Thompson), as he retires so we can get the Spectre's debut next month!

"Kit" Strong is a "manhunter" (Private detective? Plainclothes detective?) working a kidnapping case when he finds bits of coal on the floor where the abduction took place. He smartly asks the father if they use coal in the house, and they don't. Just as smartly of the mobsters, they have the maid working as their inside mole and she tips them off that Kit is on the case. It is only dumb luck, or a freebie from the Editor, that allows Kit to accidentally hear the maid calling them.

Kit is waylaid by the kidnappers on the road and they try to force his car off a cliff. Last month I talked about the game mechanics of cars pushing cars, but timing it so it happens right at the cliff seems like it would take more luck than skill. I would, as Editor, perhaps pick a number between 2 and 5, roll a die, and if it comes up as that number or 1 away from it, then the timing is just right to go over the bridge (like a modification of the initiative rules). It's a risky maneuver, as the Editor fails the die roll and the mobsters go over the cliff themselves.

The mine where the rest of the kidnappers are using as a hideout is located in the "Larksville Mountains." It turns out that there really is such a thing as Larksville Mountain, in Pennsylvania. We don't know where Kit is based, but he needs a plane to reach the mountain quickly.

Lieutenant Bob Neal of Sub 662 tangles with spies this issue. Despite the adventure still taking place around Honolulu, the spies are Germans. The main spy is a femme fatale (a new mobstertype in the Mobster Manual, distinct from vamps). She is skilled at disguises, but her main tactic fails her. Had she not had hired thugs try to rough up Bob and his men first, Bob would not have been suspicious later when she tricks Bob and Dr. McDonald (the scientist who invented all the trophy items from last issue) into leaving a party. Later, Bob has to resort to throwing ink in her face to stop her because he must need a save vs. plot to strike a femme fatale (I'll need to make sure that's in their description).

After digging up gold from the underwater volcano, Bob jokes that they have enough gold to pay off the national debt. At the beginning of 1940, the national debt was somewhere around $41.5 billion.

Ah, Flying Fox... DC, I get that you were trying to meld the mysteryman genre with the aviator genre, like Dell had with The Masked Pilot, but Flying Fox just never works for me. Here, someone sends Rex Darrell on a mission to investigate a missing aviator. What does Rex do for a living again? Rex/Flying Fox arrives at the man's house in time to see an assassination, but he can't stop the mobster from getting away because he has to land his plane first.

This is really the frustrating thing about the aviator genre, in terms of putting a new class together for them in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums - half the time they are on the ground, and have no special abilities when not in a plane.

At least there's an interesting angle to this scenario in that the stakes are unusually high; the killings are to gain control of the shares of an island where the missing aviator found an old pirate fortress and $5 million in buried treasure. There still seems to be a big plot hole here -- why is ownership of the property so important, when they could just steal the treasure and leave the island with it? 



(Read at fullcomic.pro)

More Fun Comics #50 - pt. 3 - More Fun Comics #51 - pt. 1

Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol tangles with arsonists. Since this is a rural adventure, the arsonists don't need any special skills; they just show up in the woods with lit torches. After they escape O'Malley in a scuffle, his faithful Indian companion Black Hawk finds evidence of blood at the scene and helps tracks them down (more of the "natives are excellent trackers" cliche).

Bulldog Martin and his racist caricature black friend Jonah are mountain climbing together in the Alps. To be fair, Jonah at least has a normal name and appears to be a friend instead of a servant. This is the first instance I can recall of climbers being shown tied together. Bulldog also claims that they cannot climb back down the mountain without their picks after they lose them; what he might mean is that climbing down will be an expert skill without tools instead of a basic skill, halving their chances, and he's not willing to risk it.

At the top of the mountain, they stumble across robbers planning to rob a hidden stronghold. Bulldog explains that "every foreign country has a hidden stronghold in which they store their gold." This was mostly true back when all countries relied on the gold standard, though I don't see how their locations would be secrets.

Unarmed against the robbers, Bulldog jury rigs bolos to attack them with. Normally, I consider improvised weaponry like that to do half-damage (1-3), but these bolos seem wicked effective.

Moving on to #51, which will catch us up!

Wing Brady has his first adventure in Paris, though it begins more like a sight-seeing tour (we are even treated to a surprising amount of untranslated dialog in French). He punches out a cutpurse and then socializes with two American tourists who have favorable encounter reaction rolls from him and could become supporting cast members for him later.

Biff Bronson deals with a Tong war in a caricatured version of Chinatown. I know I said recently I would do away with the yellow peril hoodlum...but maybe I need to keep them and revise them so they have a bonus to hit with hatchets? They sure use hatchets a lot in comic books.

Biff finds a vital clue hidden in a jade box that can only be opened after finding the concealed spring latch (find as a secret door). The murder list also serves as a directory for what 1940s whites thought of as typical Chinatown locations: curio shop, warehouse, silk shop, hotel, incense house, gaming place, restaurant, barber shop, laundry, joss house. "Joss house" is white slang for an Asian temple.

The "mayor" of Chinatown, a master criminal (as usual), wears a hollow signet ring containing poison powder for slipping into drinks. Biff foils him with a "spot check" (basic skill check) to notice that the signet ring is not sealed tight.

King Carter runs afoul of a shark while trying to reach an island, and a native on the island who (despite having as spear) hurls rocks down at him (maybe because weapon damage is essentially doubled when it's falling; see yesterday's post). King wisely dispatches both foes with his knife, rather than risk bringing more wandering encounters with the loud noise of his gun.

(read at fullcomic.pro)

More Fun Comics #50 - pt. 2

We left off with King Carter exploring Ali Ghazi's palace. There is a pit in the middle of a hallway that leads to an underground stream.Confronting Ali in a shrine, King arms himself with a sword and engages him in melee. Ali triggers a trap that makes four poisonous snakes drop from a trap door in the ceiling.

Not all guards are bad, as evidenced in The Buccaneer (and backed up by the Alignment of guards in The Mobster Manual). Dennis is leading the rightful king and a small band of loyal followers towards the castle (again, it's weird this takes place in the West Indies), but a guard gives them fair warning not to come any closer or they will be shot at. Politely warned, they all turn around and go away (but plot how to come back later).

In Radio Squad, we learn that Sandy and Larry are not only patrol partners, but they share an apartment together, and share a car. They fail to encounter any random mobsters all day while on patrol, but happen upon car thieves in their own garage! Head blows are easy enough to deliver that they can even be synchronized; Sandy and Larry are both knocked out that way at the same time. Later, after trailing a crooked businessman back to the thieves' hideout, they are captured by armed lookouts (crooked businessmen and lookouts are both statted in The Mobster Manual).

Lt. Bob Neal is going to be testing several science trophies on his submarine today, including advanced Scuba gear, a machine that turns water into breathable air (Machine of Water Breathing), and a drill "powered by the ocean" (?), that can "literally go through anything" (so, wrecks as a 9th level superhero?).  Bob is in constant danger during testing these inventions; the Machine of Water Breathing doesn't work and he has to be rescued before he suffocates, and while testing the drill a "monstrous ray fish" bumps his air hose and fouls it. Giant devil rays are in The Mobster Manual (maybe I should include a note about how they like to foul air hoses). Oh, and Bob finds gold in the volcanic ruins around Hawaii, as unlikely as that seems.

The Flying Fox story has some rather obvious flaws in it. There's supposedly a mystery to how transport planes are being forced to land and their pilots killed, but when FF puts himself in danger, it becomes apparent that the air bandits shoot at the planes. How was that not evident sooner -- did no one think to examine the planes for bullet holes? This is the first story where the term "Immelmann" is used, to refer to the Immelmann turn invented in WWI (and I first learned about from playing Dawn Patrol).  FF defeats a "giant guard" on his way into the air bandits' hideout, but we never actually see all of the guard and what we do see of him in the panel does not make him look very giant.

Detective Sergeant Casey is solving the case of who is murdering the jurists who convicted a dead man. His strategy is to have police openly guard every jurist but one, luring the killer to that one, and then disguising himself as the vulnerable jurist. To build suspense for the reader, Casey refuses to confide his plan to his captain, which I can't imagine a police captain actually allowing.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

More Fun Comics #49 - pt. 3 - More Fun Comics #50 - pt. 1

Sergeant O'Malley of the Red Coat Patrol demonstrates balance by walking on top of logs floating in the river -- a basic skill check. As O'Malley and Pierre grapple on the bridge, O'Malley flips Pierre over the side, but Pierre still has a hold on O'Malley and pulls him over with him. This sounds like an Editor's interpretation of the grappling results (O'Malley's success on the turn following Pierre's established hold), as opposed to needing to become a consideration when one opponent pushes another.

In the water, the story shows how swimming with logs is dangerous; the logs bob up and down in the water like swinging clubs, so anyone in that environment is subjected to 1-4 head blow attacks per turn, depending on how densely packed the logs are.

Bulldog Martin is in Egypt, where the Phantom of the Pyramids has been raiding tombs. The Phantom wears a metal helmet that serves as armor (precedent for helmets helping Armor Class?), and carries a gun with a silencer and a crowbar.

Moving on to #50...

Wing Brady is riding to the rescue of a French Foreign Legion regiment who have fallen victim to vicious tactics -- nomads have snuck into their camp and killed the sentries so no alarm can be raised when the main force rides in.

Biff Bronson and Dan Druff encounter perhaps the first mad wax sculptor in comics. This is a dark story; the sculptor not only kills people and coats them in wax, but they stumble across a bust that is a cut-off head. They sneak back into the museum by climbing a tree and finding an open skylight. During their scuffle, a can of ether falls into a hot vat of wax and fills the whole room with poisonous fumes. Only Biff and Dan make their saving throws and leave conscious.

King Carter follows up on a hit-and-run in India and the trail leads to an "evil" prince, Ali Ghazi (groan), who is plotting an uprising against the British.  Ali has a guard who is armed with a scimitar, but is easily defeated with a punch. Ali is tough; he can throw a dagger so hard that it can crash through a window and stab someone (windows don't count as cover?). Ali doesn't use jail cells for prisoners; he seals them up inside brick walls, Cask of Amontillado-style. Brick walls are easily broken if the cement is not dry yet, apparently, making for a pretty weak prison. The palace (consistently called a castle) has at least one tiger wandering its halls.

(Read in fullcomic.pro)

More Fun Comics #49 - pt. 1

I have a little catching up to do on on More Fun Comics!

I last left off on issue #48, so we pick up again in #49 with the first feature, Wing Brady. For one thing, if he thought he was on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, then he was wrong -- this is the fictional city of Majoca in the Middle East. Second, he quickly faces the indignity of being disarmed by a monkey. Wing is surprised that the bandit leader, Ali Pascha, takes more punches than his average foe and keeps fighting, since Ali is a higher-level fighter and has more hit points.

Wing is trying to escape when he runs into Ali's first lieutenant, and level titles tell us that lieutenants are 4th level fighters. Instead of punching him for damage, though, Wing converts his damage roll into feet pushed and sends the Lt. falling off a 15' tall wall.

Wing is not the vicious, murdering type of hero. He triggers a morale check for the bandits by shooting a machine gun over their heads instead of at them, then scoops up a grenade and uses it on the gates so his reinforcements can get in, rather than use it on the bandits. Grenade explosions can wreck things, just like Heroes.

Wing refers to himself as a lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, which may be the first time we've heard his rank. He has roughly 18,000 xp so far by my page count (I figure 100 xp per page), and that would actually make him a captain by Hideouts & Hoodlums levels.

Biff Bronson accidentally gets a sandwich and soda delivered to him, and the sandwich contains a cryptically written note about a rendezvous and password. More interestingly, we see that meal deliveries used to be in plain brown paper bags, with the soda arriving in a bottle. When they arrive they are told to put in white hoods -- no, not that kind of white hoods! It's a meeting of industrial spies, bent on stopping a new wonder fiber from upsetting the silk industry. Now that's a plot you don't see recycled often! 

This story is also my first confirmation from a comic book that there were "open all night" drug stores around in the 1940s. Biff disguises someone as a corpse by splashing him with mercurochrome (misspelled without the first 'r') to look like blood. Mercurochrome was a topical antiseptic, no longer in use because -- obviously -- it contains mercury. Biff further uses sleeping pills more like a Potion of Feign Death.

The head spy is called The Master-Mind repeatedly in this story and even escapes to come back, making him one of the earliest recurring villains in comic books.

King Carter is a new Hero, one of those features that takes the cowboy out of the West and puts him in exotic locales, in this case China. And the story begins with shades of North by Northwest, with a plane chasing King while he runs on foot! But it's not a villain chasing him, it's a plot hook character. Red Rogers is one of those "old friends" we've never seen before, who invites King on a special mission to photograph a secret Japanese air-base (it is not specified as a Japanese base, but it was pretty clear who most of our war allies were, even as early as late 1939).

King does some wing walking, a surprisingly aviator-specific stunt for a cowboy, before the plane is shot down. Neither King nor Red have parachutes; when the Aviator class debuted, one of its stunts was Find Parachute. Now (in 2nd edition) that would translate into a skill check, which they both must have missed. Somehow they survive the crash unharmed, despite landing between boulders and a tree.

King and Red are overwhelmed by Japanese soldiers. The art isn't very good, but there appears to be no more than six soldiers present. The Japanese are not depicted well, being given names like Ah-Choo and Yee-Poo, and they are made to be stupid, taking King and Red to their leader without tying them up first, or doing anything but put them in a car with a single gunman watching them. 

(Read at comiconline.me)