Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 3

Hello! We're back, still looking at the Lucky Lawton feature. We could talk about the oddly rectangular word balloons (the very next page goes back to rounded corners), or the terrible coloring job on this page, but I'm going to focus on the "no guns" law, which was actually quite common in the "Old West," and is something we badly need more of today. Personally, I would like to run a "no guns" H&H campaign, but I know that wouldn't emulate the comics well.

If you've followed this blog long enough, you've probably seen plenty of examples where the artist just seems to be guessing what an animal looks like without using a reference. The artist here is Hal Sharp, and I have a feeling Hal owned a dog; Pal is in real dog poses every time we see him.

Lucky does the smart thing, circling the perimeter instead of barging right into the bank. 

Also note how not going solo gives Lucky twice the chance to detect the activity in the bank that he would have had walking along alone.

There are two ways to achieve Lucky's noiselessness. One, he can make a skill check to move silently. The other is that he trust to his surprise roll and, if successful, means he must have been moving silently. Since chance of surprise is normally 2 in 6, it seems like that would be easier for most Heroes (unless Lucky is a mysteryman using a stunt, but I doubt it). 

Combat in the dark adds a greater level of challenge, what with the -4 penalties to hit. Just by not flipping the lights on, every unarmored combatant is now effectively at AC 5. Now, from the panel art it appears that there is plenty of light coming in through those front windows, making the scene only dimly lit, but this could just be artistic license so we can see more than five black panels with word balloons in them.

And yet, in this scene, the bandits are silhouetted in front of the windows, so it wasn't really that dark after all? And the remaining band sees Lucky in the darkness now? To emulate this scene, we need a new mechanic for eyes adjusting to darkness after a certain, or maybe random, number of combat turns. 

Although the rest of this story is seemingly set in the Old West, the remaining bandit's hat looks suspiciously modern.

The bad coloring job on the lower half of this page might be fooling me, but it appears that the rancher is wearing his bandana up over his mouth. I only mention it because I see so many people wearing their masks wrong like that these days...

There aren't game mechanics on display here, but I like how Lee is a scientist/explorer. Both were classes in Hideouts & Hoodlums 1st edition, and while both classes did get playtested in my campaigns, no one ever thought to combine those two.

My initial reaction was that having the slavers be Arabs was racist, but while there have been many white slavers through history, there was a strong tradition of slavery in the Middle East, with several countries not outlawing it until 1970. Also in the writer's favor, Ali and Hassan are real Arabic names, and not gibberish names meant to sound Arabic (I know, some golden age writers set the bar really low!).

Wow, we're in pure fantasy territory at this point. First, there's no way a plane explodes, and someone sitting in that plane falls from that wreckage completely unharmed. This should be a save for half damage situation at best. 

Then, there's no way someone's coat would be big enough to create enough wind drag necessary to cushion his fall, so there's more damage Lee should have taken by now. I think we're looking at the tune of 55d6 damage at this point - and that's assuming the plane was at a near dangerously low altitude for flying.

As unlikely it is that all the spear attacks Lee left himself open to while charging the pygmies missed, it is even more impossible for him, game mechanically, to push the leader onto a spear, unless the Editor was house ruling a fumble mechanic. More likely, this is just a freebie from the Editor.

Neutralizing poison is really easy in Lee's world. All you have to do is stick someone with a knife and the poison leaks right out of you! If I was willing to implement this as a new rule (and I'm not), for every point of damage you do to the wound, you would give the recipient a new saving throw. 

The pygmies are very patient in indulging Lee's rampant passive-aggressive racism. "Uh...ever heard of donkeys? The domestication of donkeys started in Africa. And we know what iron is, iron smelting and forging technologies were discovered in Nigeria as early as the 6th century BC. Bricks too, since about 7,000 BC. And just what are you whittling? A giant banjo?"

I am so torn on this page. On one hand, I think it's great that, for once, a lion shows up in a story and the Hero wants to capture it alive instead of stabbing it to death, or snapping its jaws, or shooting it. But that he wants it so he can perform experiments on its brain doesn't sit well with me, even though I get that the author is trying to offer a scientific explanation for how the jungle Hero is able to talk to animals. 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 2

Okay, the planes going dead are explained (as if we needed it, as cliched as the rays are), but what we never get explained is how the machine guns have no effect. Bulletproof armor on the planes?

Also, take a look at the jowls on War Bird. In the Golden Age, a Hero could debut in his late 40s. 

It's nice that Von Kruhl was kind enough to write his note in English for us, despite being Serbian and writing this for Frenchmen to read.

Where is the searchlight that was on the front of the plane before? Perhaps more odd, what was holding it in place on that smooth surface?

I do like that, as hi-tech as Von Kruhl's forces are, it's an ordinary pair of binoculars that foils him.

We don't see enough of this tactic, where the hero sneaks into the enemy's hideout and, instead of engaging the enemy, wrecks their stuff. This makes especially good sense in the aviator genre.

"Look! A Frenchman!" Is the thinking there that only a Frenchman would be sabotaging their planes?

"Hammer-like blows" would normally be flavor text, except that it seems pretty clear War Bird is hitting them with a wrench, which would be heavy enough to do normal club damage.

You can probably guess that War Bird gets away and wins the day, so we'll jump into Jim Dolan. Jim is in the reporter hero genre, but with the twist that he's an editor.

The list of his past accomplishments seems like a set-up for starting him out with a brevet rank. It's also a pretty good list of scenario ideas you could add to a longer list, and the final panel illustrates the advantages of making the police chief your supporting cast (something I saw being put to good use in my last H&H campaign).

I'm not going to address everything on this page; we've talked about trip attacks and improvised weapons plenty of times. We could talk about movement and if rushing out the door should really be faster than standing up (hint: in H&H it's determined entirely by initiative rolls). But I'm mainly sharing this page because the mobsters are not only using hot irons as torture devices, but somehow have flaming hot irons. Did they soak those things in kerosene first? They look pretty fearsome; I might let them do 2-7 damage as melee weapons.

I've talked before about smoke and heat damage from trying to rescue in an arson scenario, but what's interesting here is that Jim spots a clue in the fire, when he clearly wouldn't have had time to do a search. This has to be a freebie from the Editor, as every skill check should take at least one melee turn, and in most cases should take one exploration turn. 

Does Jim have to roll to hit to land in the net? To truly be fearless, one would think he does, but it makes equal sense for the firemen to roll to hit him with the net, and as long as two of them succeed their rolls, they catch him. 

It's interesting that Jim doesn't know his Bible well enough to know the psalm without researching. His Editor could have spared him the trouble and let him have an Intelligence check to remember.

The clue seems like a bit of a stretch to me, though...

I'm not personally cool with Heroes holding guns on people's faces while interrogating them, but it does happen in games.

Swimming from the patrol board to the yacht is a smart tactic, giving him a chance at surprise he would have lost had the patrol board pulled up alongside the yacht.

We'll jump ahead to Lucky Lawton, this anthology's western feature. I could mention that the law was tougher in the Old West than many give it credit for; even in self-defense these two still have to make their case in court. Or I could mention that Pal can act without being ordered to, making me suspect that Pal the dog is actually being played as a Hero character. But what really catches my eye are the hashmarks on the wall of the jail outside the cells. What would the sheriff have been keeping track of like that, and couldn't do on a calendar...?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)