Target Comics #3 - pt. 2

The first page of this story (which I didn't share last time) reveals that Bull's-Eye Bill is "of the Target Range - Arizona." Here we get a reference to Florence, which seems like our first big clue as to where in Arizona we are...though, on second thought, just mentioning the jail there doesn't necessarily mean we're near it. There's also the slight chance he means Florence, Colorado or Florence, Texas, but Florence, Arizona is definitely the largest and most important of the three Florences.

Oh look, the "good guy gets his hat shot off" trope!

The outlaws fail their morale saves. Losing half their numbers triggers a morale save, as does being threatened with guns by a fighter.

We're going to jump ahead to the next story, Lucky Byrd, Flying Cadet. The glossary of cadet slang could be useful for an aviation-themed campaign, but I think it's more remarkable that the author felt that camouflage was a term young readers would not be familiar with. Of course, everyone knows camouflage today, but could that be because we had to endure the disastrous fashion sense of the 1980s and the rise of camouflage pants?

Here, Byrd makes a skill check and is able to recognize the type of motor he's hearing. Granted, that's of limited usefulness, unless it also tells him what kind of plane he's hearing.

"Kerwhooomm" is a strange noise for a plane to make.

A nice twist with the cowboy is that he comes in all belligerent, like there's going to be a fight, but then turns out to be quite reasonable. This could be the result of good role-playing from Byrd's player, or a random encounter reaction roll.

I think I know what this "Randolph" is Byrd mentions -- Randolph Air Force Base in Universal City, Texas. Which, you know, has a nice generic comic book city sound to it, like Metropolis. Uvalde is a small city in Texas, so that works out too.  

This is a Harry Campbell story; Harry either lived out west or was very well-informed about life out west, as I've noticed before reading his Dean Denton stories.

 

I'm not sure if powerful magnets would be the most efficient method of opening a hangar door or not; I'm in the future, 81 years later, and my garage door still doesn't open that way. But I give Harry credit for always trying to ground his stories in science.

I'm normally perfectly comfortable with accents being spelled out, but it's bothering me a little this time because that accent seems like it would sound French to me. I'm curious why Harry thought the French would be sabotaging the American airplane industry...?

Lucky Byrd is right! First, the guard falls for the feigning sickness routine (save vs. plot to make that happen). Second, he wins that fight while still on the ground (granted, he appears to get a surprise attack followed by winning initiative on the first normal turn of combat). Third, shooting the door controls just happens to make it go down, when it could have just as easily not moved at all. As an Editor, if I didn't already have a random table for those controls, I'd try to come up with at least four results for shooting the controls (door goes down, controls explode, another door opens, nothing happens) and roll randomly on it.

That scientific explanation for the invisible plane is pretty sound; invisibility is explained much the same way in modern science fiction. Kudos, Harry!
 

And before we go we'll just peak in on the next T-Men story. Although called "Return of the Octopus," this is first time we've seen him and this is the first villain (of many) to be called Octopus (or some variation on that).

(Scans are courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Target Comics #2 - pt. 2

Today we're still looking at Bulls-Eye Bill as he says some not-nice things about half-Hispanic people. We're going to grit our teeth and push past that and get to the solution of the code Bill found last time. Did you guess this? It seems like Dee is only taking some wild guesses, so it'll be interesting to see if she guessed right or not. Interestingly, Dee gives me every impression of being a supporting cast member, so when Bill's player couldn't solve the code, he handed it to a character controlled by the Editor, asking for a handout. Of course, the Editor doesn't have to then give them accurate information!

A lot of what would make a Wild West campaign different from a normal Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign is all in the flavor text. Every time the hero hits, you should shout "Bull's eye!" Every time an attack misses by 1, it should hit someone's hat. 

I think I've written about lassoing and pulling off a horse before. I can actually think of a couple of different mechanics for this. The simplest would be making a normal attack and applying the push/pull rules to it, subtracting footage from point of damage (I would say at least 50% less damage would get you a save vs. science to resist being yanked out of the saddle). The other is a bit more complex, involving a grappling attack for the lasso, as if in melee, with a successful hold pulling the rider out of the saddle, while if the target wins the grappling match, then he stays in the saddle, and maybe even pulls the lassoer off his feet, depending on by how high he won the grappling contest.

That glossary of cadet slang could really come in handy for an aviator-themed campaign!

When reading non-adventure strips, like the sports genre features, I often find it difficult to figure out how I would make an interesting scenario out of them in a game. The aviation genre is tricky in the same way; what do you have characters do while not flying in combat? One thing is to have non-violent contests, like this "capture the parachute" game. The mechanics seem simple: individual initiative rolls, and then everyone rolls to attack in order; first ones to "hit" a parachute gets one. Another way to handle this, which would be a first for H&H, would be to have contestants bid on which AC they're willing to try to hit, and have those ones go first. Hmm...I sense an alternate initiative system coming up for H&H...

It's not clear if Ramon thinks it's okay to force himself on Loris because he's an entitled movie star or if the author, Campbell, thinks this is culturally acceptable to Hispanics. We've seen lots of evidence of racism from Campbell before, but I'm going to give him the benefit of a doubt on this one.

I'm a little concerned when I see scenes like this and think...man, security is lax at airports back then! If my players just wait and time things so that they can run up to an aviator just before he gets in his plane, they can overpower him and take off in his stead! Some possible complications: the aviator is leveled -- a 2nd-3rd level aviator will probably knock out a 1st-level hero and make him think twice about stealing planes again; a 2 in 6 chance of some obstacle being moved in front of the plane as it taxis before takeoff; pursuit planes taking off behind him and trying to force him to land (skill check to avoid having to land if the forcing pilot makes a successful attack roll?).  
 

"Pan" is slang for face; I've known this one before, but it's worth a reminder, since we don't use it that way much today.

It's pretty disturbing that Lucky and Loris are both convinced that no one will believe her about being abducted for sex (which certainly seems implied to me), perhaps more so because even today people often don't believe the female accuser.

It is encouraging that Lucky faces consequences for stealing a plane. Consequences are virtually unheard of in golden age stories.

Well, consequences until this evidence proving Loris' story turns up. It's actually a nice story touch, as the damsel in distress dropping something is usually just a clue for the hero, but here it proves the hero is innocent.

I can't imagine what real life actor, if any, Ramon is modeled after, but Robert Baylor is surely Robert Taylor, one of MGM's main leading men in the 1930s.

And if you're thinking Loris sounds like a made-up name, it actually was a thing in the mid-1930s. According to SSA's baby names page, it peeked in popularity in 1935 as the 863rd most popular girl's name. Certainly not common, but not made-up either.

In the "there's nothing new under the sun" department, T-Men anticipates the end of The Naked Gun (or at least the part where Ludwig escapes from Lt. Drebin, but then gets hit by a car) by 48 years. It's funny in the movie; here it's a terrible ending to a cliffhanger. 

Despite the fact that Agent Turner wasn't responsible for stopping the bad guy, he's rewarded with a new mission immediately (or maybe I'm just assuming immediately; we don't know when "later" is)!

At least it's an easy mission. "Don't look for clues or try to solve anything, Turner. We want you to find a plane, so check all the planes."

My first thought on reading this page was that 45,000 tons seemed either awfully specific or awfully random, if it didn't match real battleship weights. It turns out, that weight is historically relevant and makes this strip extremely timely. The U.S. and the U.K. had a naval treaty with an "escalator clause" that limited them to building 45,000 ton-ships to maintain their neutrality. Iowa-class battleships were being built in 1940 at that exact weight in order to satisfy the letter, if not the spirit, of that treaty. 

More exciting, there actually was a U.S.S. Hawaii, but built in 1945, 5 years later, and while it was not built in Brooklyn, it was built nearby, in Camden, New Jersey!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Target Comics #1 - pt. 2

Now, let's jump ahead to the next feature, Lucky Byrd, Flying Cadet. Although it looks like someone different inked over him, this is our old friend Harry Francis Campbell, from Dean Denton and John Law. Like his predecessors, Lucky wins the day with his scientific know-how, and here he explains to us how he figured out how a bomb set off by altitude could work.

Next up in this all-star line-up of artists is Joe Simon (minus Jack Kirby), drawing T-Men. T-Men, as the first page (not seen here) explained to us, are like G-Men, but they work for the Treasury Department. 

Here, a disguised T-Man is captured and is put into a deathtrap -- or rather, a deathtrap is sat in his lap. A black soldier spider isn't a real thing -- thank goodness, because that thing is huge! Well, using large/huge/giant terminology, this could be our first example of a large spider. Its bite is implied to be quite lethal.

It's unclear if the hoodlum falls because he's dead or just because he's been shot. Under normal circumstances, you don't have to worry about falling down after taking damage in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but common sense can overrule that for situations like this, when you happen to be leaning over a trapdoor at the time.

A rare example of a bullet wrecking things. I've never been happy with how to handle this, but perhaps the bullet can just be treated as flavor text, now that non-superheroes can all wreck things.

And we get an example of a secret door and a hideout connected to sewers.

This true crime genre feature is called City Editor, with the hook being that journalists are investigating instead of the police. Though, really, this kid winds up doing most of the detective work. And just for a plate of beans and some coffee too! Half-pints are easily bribed. They also can have surprising skills, like photographic memories and the ability to draw photo-realistic.

This feature is really different. Calling 2R is a twisted boys town with super science weapons doled out to the kids.

This first weapon is a raygun that can make you blind and stunned for 24 hours (though I would allow saving throws for both effects and have the duration be a range of hours, like 3-24). 

A vest that projects force blasts, or the Blast I power, seems awfully potent to turn on another half-pint with 1-3 hit points.

Three of the bad guys here are gangsters, accompanied by the spy in the green coat.

The electrical force wall seems to act as more than a Wall of Force spell; it does some damage (1-3 or a full die?) against anyone touching it, but apparently does more damage if you're touching metal and not grounded, and stalls electronics that touch the wall.

The airbug is an interesting design. I doubt it would fly, yet it almost seems feasible.

The Captain tries to sneak up on the spy, but the surprise check the Editor rolled said he failed. He might still have gotten lucky and gone first by winning the initiative on turn 1 of combat, but was not so lucky and apparently only had 6 or less hit points.

Speck was only stunned on a previous page, and that's not applesauce on his head. This strip is really violent, by the way.

At the end of this page is a very rare indication in a comic book that skills have to be learned, as most of the time anyone seems to have a chance to try anything.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)