Popular Comics #49 - pt. 1

The radio drama allegedly always used true cold cases from the FBI files, and the Gang Busters comic strip at least started out the same, but how true is that by 1940? I can't find any evidence of an actual FBI agent John Winston, though Winston being the middle name of John Lennon is, admittedly, clogging my search results, and there's no reason why the name couldn't have been changed to protect a still-active agent's identity.

Richmond, Virginia is of course a real place. I can't find a Calvert Bank in Richmond, but there is a Calvert Drive in Richmond, and perhaps there was once a bank there? 

The Tri-State Gang was real. According to the Sword and Scale website, their crime spree ran "through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia during the early to mid-1930’s."

By this page, the scene has shifted to Baltimore, Maryland. The names of the streets seem to have been changed to ...protect the innocent streets. Although there is a Harvey Street in Baltimore, it is commercial instead of residential, and doesn't intersect with an Elm Street. 

The map hardly seems necessary, since the maneuver of blocking the intersection with cars is really not elaborate. 

The story of the Tri-State Gang is actually pretty interesting, but you wouldn't know it by this rushed retelling. Indeed, the Gang Busters comic strip often has a bland sameness to its stories.

So we'll skip ahead into Martan the Marvel Man. I'm pleased with what this installment is trying to do, showing us Martan and Vana getting to know Earth, but I'm skeptical that they would immediately understand our comedy as quickly as they do here. Even more interesting is that this is an alien invasion story, but with the twist that Martan and Vana are on the ground with regular people and get to see how they react and deal with it.

The locations are worth mentioning here. It's unusual that the aliens land somewhere in New Jersey and San Francisco and not more obvious targets, like Chicago, New York City, or Washington, D.C. Likewise in Germany, the aliens skip Berlin and are landing in less important areas of northern Germany.  

On a page I'm not bothering to share we also learn that the invaders are Martians, but the story ends with us still not even having seen the invaders yet. Maybe next time!
 

I am leery of this page because of the gruesomeness of that final panel, but two points here: one -- and we've seen this elsewhere before (and done better) -- is the idea of mistaking dinosaurs for dragons, or having dinosaurs and dragons be one and the same thing. It's a fanciful idea today, but much less was known of dinosaurs in 1940, so it would be easier to equate them with fantasy creatures. 

Second, and going along with how less was known about dinosaurs, pterodactyls are here displayed acting like carrion-eating vultures, when they were actually fish eaters, more like seagulls and albatrosses.  

Again, pretty gruesome, but I appreciate that the author knew the poisonous fumes are at least as dangerous as coming into contact with the lava (oops, Jurassic World 2 seemed to have forgotten that!). I would say anyone within 10' would need to save vs. poison or take ...let's say 2-8 points of damage from it, per combat turn within that distance.

Rekra is a weird name, but it actually is a name! I'm not entirely sure from where, but Google searching seems to be pointing to it being Slovakian. So this Slovakian spy has a gas gun and gas mask. Well-outfitted! This is a variant gas gun too, one that sprays paralyzing gas instead of sleep gas (both are chemically fanciful so, why not?). 

Oil line to motor broken is a good random complication in aerial combat (though this time it's being faked by plane thieves!). 

Out of the Sun was an aviator stunt in 1st edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, and here is used to give the Masked Pilot a surprise bonus while tailing the hijackers. 

This could be the earliest mention of Nicaragua in comic books. It's interesting that Nicaragua, being a neutral county in this story, gets to keep its name, but the villainous country is called "Vulcania." It's pretty easy to figure out which country that is, as El Salvador is known as the Land of Volcanoes. Although ruled by a dictator, Nicaragua was at least officially on the side of the allies during WWII. Although Nicaragua's dictator, Somoza, was corrupt, he wasn't as bad as El Salvador's dictator at this time, Matanza, who had more than 30,000 of his people killed.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

Popular Comics #48 - pt. 2

We're back with Martan today. He's flying around, judging Earth pilots as they shoot at him, and -- what? Isn't he flying a spaceship? How does he lean his arm out the window?? Did he actually roll down the window, like in a car?

I like the dialogue on that one pilot. I don't think he's using "smack" as a noun, but I can't wait to use that line in a game someday -- "I'm ready to pour 'six rounds of heavy caliber smack into him'!"

Interesting -- Martan is obviously attacking them with a raygun, but it's so rare for a ray to be invisible in comic books. The effect of the ray is specifically to lock up all mechanisms -- but this is effectively the same as temporarily wrecking things.

What we don't get a good idea of is what the area of effect is for this ray; we can tell it's wide, but it does have its limits (as Martan discusses shortly after this page).

Another feature of Martan's ship is that it can broadcast his voice through any electronic device, like these loudspeakers, with a range as great as the raygun.

The story takes as a dark turn, as the commander is so shocked that he has a stroke and dies on the spot. That is one failed morale save (on my chart, the worst result is fainting!)!

"Fata Morgana" is the Italian name for Megan le Fay. Martan's power seems to be the first instance of postcognition in comics (new super power!). Martan is able to create an image of what the building used to look like that both he and Vana can see (but not for long). It's unclear how long ago the church was ruined; perhaps postcognition can only reach back a few days in time.

Martan has no compulsion against killing humans (humans are still beneath him; an easy position for an alien to take).

Weird that the shadowy figures are armed with only swords and daggers. I actually did stat shadowy figures as a mobstertype back in Supplement V (and will likely include them in the Mobster Manual).

Radios being broken seems a not uncommon complication of airplane crash landings.

Being marooned on a deserted island is a great H&H scenario, as it tests the Heroes' ability to problem solve without the use of most of their special abilities.

The Masked Pilot should be very suspicious of the captain's lack of suspicion, particularly in regards to the Masked Pilot's mask.

Treasure placement can include weapon placement and always needs lots of thought, as two fully loaded automatics is not what I would expect to have found in a radio room.

It's interesting how the Masked Pilot is not worried until the sub-machine gun turns up. Now, that's interesting because, in H&H 2nd ed., a sub-machine gun isn't all that dangerous in the hands of a low HD mobster. Could it do more damage vs. a vehicle, though?

Things continue to escalate once the grenades come out! This kind of escalation of threat level happens all the time in game play, with the same risk of weapons falling into the Heroes' hands.

In Gang Busters, we see how a skill check for even driving can be critical in a scenario, as a failed check would send them over the cliff, or stopped before the parked car.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Popular Comics #48 - pt. 1

We come back around to Dell as it celebrates the fourth anniversary of its very first title. With no sign of its original licensed comic strip features, like Moon Mullins, Dick Tracy, or Little Orphan Annie, we begin instead with the now-completely forgotten Captain Tornado. Although Tornado, Professor Bordani, and Jane are all stranded on an alien world, they might as well be just shrunken to insect size on Earth, because this whole feature is just an excuse to teach kids about bugs. Well, "teach" might be too strong a word for a feature that shows spiders as having only two eyes.

Normally people don't shoot into crowded melees in comic books, but Prof. Bordani does take time to aim first, which (at least in 1st ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums) always got you a +1 bonus to hit.

Everyone seems fine with the Professor's math, and not curious at all how the entire planet is not a barren desert, with three suns beating down on it, all at those sizes in the sky. In fact, I'm pretty sure they should be taking heat damage every turn.

Look out, Jane! In its belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years! Oh wait, it's only a giant ant lion. I might have to include giant ant lions in the Mobster Manual now (if I ever get it done!), probably as a 4-5 HD giant animal mobstertype. It is tough, taking a bullet or two from Tornado, and then still being able to chow down on a giant bug on the following page (not shown here).

Finally giving us something besides insects, our auteur here introduces an alien bug man. Professor hypothesizes that the man has a broken wing, failing to consider that his weight might just be too much for that type of wings to support (vestigial wings, perhaps?). As a nocturnal race, unaccustomed to daylight, they would likely be -2 to hit in broad daylight.

Here we get evidence that our "wingman" (for want of a better name) comes from a civilization with at least 20th century elevator technology.

I don't have much to say about Shark Egan this month, but this page seems like a great example of grappling working the way I imagined it in the 2nd ed. H&H rules, with the attack and counterattack taking place in the same turn.

Shark seems to have no idea what Buddhists believe in and is just wildly guessing. It's okay to say you don't know, Shark!

Finally, Martan the Marvel Man is still flying around Earth, talking smack about Earthlings, which I guess is only fair as we keep shooting at him and the ...invisible armor on his ship? I can't help but wonder what the point of making armor invisible is. Does Martan mean that the armor is blended seamlessly into the structure of the ship (he's now bragging about his aesthetic superiority?)? Does he mean that his ship is surrounded by an invisible forcefield? Regardless, I'm guessing his ship has a very low Armor Class and those bullets are just going to bounce off it on the next page...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Popular Comics #47 - pt. 1

Thinking this was their answer to Superman, Martan the Marvel Man is now the lead feature in Popular Comics.  Here we find them still joyriding around Earth before their first big scenario, and we see their ship has a cruising speed of 12,000 MPH, or Mach 15.

There is interesting moral philosophizing going on here, reminiscent of a future Silver Surfer.

Given how powerful Martan and Vana's tech is, let's not kid ourselves -- this protective forcefield is probably as powerful as the Wall of Force 5th level spell.

There is something here at the beginning about Martan's commands making the soldiers stop, and this is because non-Hero characters can recognize the level of a Hero and respect that authority.

Or maybe they're just surprised at how well Martan wears a skirt.

How a superhero wrecks things has always been flavor text for the player to decide. In this case, instead of wrecking with his bare hands, Martan can shoot a ray that melts things into the ground.

That Martan can melt/wreck tanks means that he functions as at least a 4th level superhero, and probably several levels higher because of how easily he wrecks the tank.

Also it's worth noting that the soldiers are obviously drawn to be Japanese, meaning the unnamed war Martan is stopping is the Japanese invasion of China.

This is from Shark Egan. I had to look this up, as I didn't think acetylene torches would work underwater, but sure enough they do!

This is Captain Tornado, still dealing with giant ants. There are at least a dozen giant ants here.

There are at least 21 giant white ants here, but there's no reason yet to assign white ants different game mechanics from red ants, or even different Alignments.

Jane has every reason to be smarting after that landslide. Wearing shorts, I can't imagine how she's not bruised all over her legs. But that's realism; in comic book terms, sliding does no damage like falling does.

The giant ants are shown to be intelligent. At this point, there is no reason not to stat them as ant men.

This is Between Two Fires, and it's an unusual scenario because the boys are actively resisting getting involved in the combat going on around them. They are able to for almost three whole pages, when the Editor has to chuck a grenade at them and leave them no alternative but to act. In that way the scenario is already a failure, if their goal was really to avoid fighting for the whole session.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Popular Comics #46 - pt. 1

We rejoin Toby here, and Toby and Oomog are not having fun on a tropical aisle. The appearance of the natives is clearly being played for laughs, but the fact that they're willing to drug their visitors with fruit that makes you doze off to sleep (unless you make a save vs. poison) makes exploring this island a dangerous adventure.

This is all world-building for Martan the Marvel Man. The year is 5000 on the planet Antaclea -- but that's by their calendar, not ours. The people of Antaclea look like Earthlings, but it seems like that's just a coincidence, given the extreme distance between worlds. Antaclea is more advanced than Earth and looks down on Earth, but at least Earth isn't bad like Mars -- those nasty Martians were at war with Antaclea in 3900 AD and wiped out 90% of the Antacleans. Only now has Antaclea rebuilt and is a restored utopia. Antaclea isn't unprotected any longer; those electric guns can wreck like an 11th level superhero with a range of the 40,000 miles, and I presume the flame rayguns are for shorter range, in case some gets past the electrical barrage. The problem with a "utopia" founded on guns, though...guns have a nasty habit of going off accidentally, and I bet a lot of people have been incinerated by planetary defenses just for not displaying their IPASS badges fast enough.

If the Martians did that to Antaclea, in a completely different

solar system, I do wonder how Earth endured. Perhaps Earth was seen as too primitive to bother with?

I'm already having problems with this story philosophically, but now the science starts getting super-shaky too. Antaclea has no oceans? Antaclea is 45 times the size of Earth? Jupiter is only 11 times the size of Earth, which makes Antaclea impossibly large for a non-gaseous planet. And what are "light miles" If the author means miles traveled at the speed of light, then Antaclea is closer than the moon and travel to Earth is near-instantaneous. If he means light years, then Antaclea is almost as far as the Andromeda Galaxy.

Economics-wise, we see that technology seems available to everyone, with interplanetary spacecraft being as common as cars.

There comes a point where the flavor text is so beyond simply wrecking something that you must be dealing with disintegration (save or be destroyed). In 1st edition, item saving throws were still a thing. In 2nd edition, if I really wanted to avoid using the wrecking things mechanic, I might let the pilot roll.

But what's all this nonsense, Martan? Are you saying that Earth would have a stronger gravity, despite being 1/45th Antaclea's size? Are you pulling Vana's leg?

Ah, the ultra-rare jungle-dwelling lions....I'm starting to wonder if this is some alternate Earth...

I like how their rayguns can be set to specific points of damage, with "x003" apparently being the setting for 1 point of damage. The question is, how high do those settings go? And is x999 really 333 points of damage?

At a higher setting, the raygun can even create fire -- a Wall of Fire, to be exact.

Evidence that the "number of appearing" for natives needs to be set pretty high.

This might look like a continuation of the same story, since this is by the same art team, but this is the Hurricane Kids. Here, we see how adventurous going fishing is off a time-lost prehistoric island and that they have to shoot at sharks (they must think they have a lot of bullets to spare) to protect their lunch.

I like the detail of the mud flow from the river, and how the inland river is concealed; the kids have to use their skills (i.e., concealed door check) to spot the river ingress.

That last panel gives us an understandably poor sense of scale, since a 20-ton sauropod tended to be 50' long, tip to tail, and would be hard to squeeze in a panel with the kids' boat.

Like I found with statting other dinosaurs, animals weighing in the range of tons don't stat easily when size and mass figure into Hit Dice. I would have to give this mommy 9 20-sided Hit Dice, which means those kids had better get out of there fast!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)