Champion Comics #5 - pt. 2

I'm not as big a fan of any of these other features, so we're going to jump through a bunch of them rather quickly this time.

This is a page of Neptina, the evil queen sub-genre done underwater. Sure, the Krakan just looks like a giant octopus and, to be honest, I would probably just stat it that way. It would be much more terrifying, though, if the guards were right, and krakan's had some kind of death gaze -- save or die if in line of sight of it.











This page illustrates how much fun random encounter reaction rolls are. This scene with the suspicious police chief plays out much more interesting than if the Editor had rolled a friendly reaction and the chief just believed the whole crazy story.

I share this story for the example of how cloth covered in wet clay can serve as a concealed door.

Blood-sucking moths, alone, are not very scary. Find them in their lair, where there are hundreds of them, and...

This is Blazing Scarab, by the guy who goes on to create Green Arrow for DC next! It's pretty goofy fair, but this priestess is pretty powerful, having teleported into their presence on the previous page.

What I didn't know, until I looked it up, was that Ammon was a real place. According to Wikipedia, it "was an ancient Semitic-speaking nation occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Arnon and Jabbok, in present-day Jordan."










This is the last appearance of Penny Wright, second best feature in Champion Comics. This chase scene has several London-specific complications in it, including military patrol cars and hedge-placed anti-aircraft batteries. Details help establish a sense of place, even in a chase scene.

The Owl, just one of many comic book characters to have that name, is called that simply for having thick glasses. The wrinkle here is that the Owl is really a woman, dressed as a man, making this one of the first cross-dressing villains.

I have trouble taking Jungleman seriously, not least for being called Jungleman (should Superman be called Cityman for living in a city?). While most jungle heroes would snap the net with their great strength, Jungleman is as helpless as a fish.

Ape people have been in Hideouts & Hoodlums since the beginning, but now we have a new name for them, the Moo-Nang. In the jungle, ape people live in numbers great enough to be village-worthy. So, several hundred?

Further embarrassing Jungleman, two tigers show up to rescue him (actually, it's not clear if Jungleman summoned them or if they are just a wandering encounter), but the ape men are too much for the tigers too.

In the conclusion of Yaqui Gold, a character called the Black Panther is challenged to a duel that goes against him -- surprisingly similar to when Killmonger challenges the Black Panther in the movie Black Panther.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Champion Comics #4 - pt. 2

This is Penny Wright, girl reporter. We can see here how useful it is carrying glass compacts, especially if you get tired up a lot.

I still do not plan on statting henchmen as their own mobstertype. Hair-pulling? This henchman fights like a girl...

Although, according to Penny Wright, the way a girl fights is to put out a cigarette in your opponent's eye. Normally I wouldn't allow a called shot, but a lit cigarette to any other part of the body would barely qualify for a point of damage. An eye is going to be a small target -- AC 2? If it hits, I would let it do 1-6 points of normal damage.

The people in the sewers are not labeled, but they are "Apaches," also known as bloodthirsty hoodlums.

Waist-deep in raw sewage, Penny is going to have to save vs. poison or be diseased after this.

Doormen are good bad guys because they see everyone who's coming and going.

Until this page it wasn't clear what Nina's scheme was or that she was mesmerizing people. That would be simple skill-based hypnosis, rather than a magic spell.

The guy from the window is actually smart to put away his gun, since Penny can save vs. missiles to dodge getting shot...

But he's maybe not so smart to choose grappling, because grappling can always turn against you.

Typewriters, particularly 1940 typewriters, are heavy. I would let that do normal 1-6 damage.

The French police talk about being indebted to Penny, but it seems like the squad did all the hard work, except for the one guy she hit with the typewriter.

This filler page has an interesting image of what a Martian could look like. It's distinctly different from any other Martians we've seen. Do I need to stat another Martian??

This is Neptina, Queen of the Deep, though the cast is expanding so fast that Neptina only gets a cameo on this page. It is worth pointing out that the top two tiers of panels are told from point of views that no hero in the story is present to witness. This kind of "set-up" scene is common in modern comics with their infinite subplots, but is virtually unheard of this early in comic books.

That second tier of panels clearly illustrate what bothers me the most about so many underwater adventures -- how do merpeople or fish-men smelt ore to make things out of metal underwater? And these giant tools we see in the background, winches and cranes -- would they really be the best way to move things underwater?

Now, what interests me on this page are the fish-men "shadowers," which makes me think of allowing fish-men to be classed as mysterymen, or the obscure 1st edition class, the spy. But, on the other hand...they aren't very good secret agents, are they? They fail to blend in, inside a city of fish-men, and then easily fall prey to an ambush.

Note the merwomen's antiquated weapons. Brad's tuning fork, as we've seen previously in this serial, is a thought transmitter, which explains how the merpeople can talk to each other underwater (except for, again, how they smelt the ore to make the metal to make the tuning forks).

Sub-plane? Why would it need to be a plane underwater?

I'm half-convinced I should make some kind of a joke about revolting seamen here, but probably won't.

Remember how the merwomen "took care" of the shadowers on the previous page? So they've already been beaten or surrendered, but here's our murderous Brad, still going around stabbing them to death and getting to the battle at the palace late. Way to lead, Brad!

Lastly, note the hydraulic jet pack on Brad's back, which would be a handy way of getting around underwater.

These are the Liberty Lads, appearing three years before Johnny Tremain was published.

Liberty Lad Tom here demonstrates what not to do when trying to find the American Secret Service headquarters -- walk up to complete strangers on the street and openly ask them.

Sgt. Upjohn triggers a morale save with just a trip attack.

This is from the Adventures of Bill Handy. Here we get a rare look at a wild boar in comics. Curiously, guns are less effective than stabbing weapons against boars. Who knew?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Champion Comics #3 - pt. 1

We return to the adventures of The Champ. A wrinkle on the cliche of "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" is that the walking stick with the treasure hidden inside is missing (it turns up later in a secret compartment; a second compartment inside a secret compartment).

Here we see a shadow figure, which was a mobstertype introduced in Supplement V: Big Bang and will be returning in 2nd edition.

The Champ laid a trap for the missing assistant by pretending to already have the formula.

Pointing a gun and delaying still means that you have to roll for initiative to see who goes first, at least if your opponent is withing charging distance.

Chloroforming your opponent should be an automatic action if you already have an ally pinning him down. The Champ still gets a save vs. poison for each turn he is pinned, though. Looks like he rolled poorly on the first try.

This may be the first time a length of chain is used as a whip in comics.

I have serious reservations about this supporting post and how easily the champ broke it. Now, if it was not a supporting post, and just ornamental, then maybe I could see The Champ wrecking it as a door (or as a machine, as a penalty for being tied to it and lacking leverage). This has to be at least wrecked as a generator, which a fighter has no chance to do (even in 2nd edition) until at least 3rd level.

 

The Champ takes 1 point of damage from the fire, but it burns his bonds alright.

Again showing wrecking abilities, the Champ makes mincemeat out of that door, but that is something a 1st level fighter can do. By the end of this adventure, the Champ will likely be 2nd level.

He shows he is Lawful by going back in to save the bad guys.

At last, we have a clue that several of these orientals are thugs. In the past, I would have statted them as yellow peril hoodlums, but I'm thinking it's time to lose that mobstertype. I wanted them, initially, as a way to build something like the monk class into Hideouts & Hoodlums, but orientals in the Golden Age are rarely martial artists. Instead, they are usually wimpy hoodlums or bloodthirsty hoodlums.

You would think Katsu would have learned by now not to try firing a missile weapon while in melee range.

Katsu, incidentally, is an actual word, a word shouted out in Zen Buddhism. It's not an authentic Asian name, but it's closer to being one than the usual fare, like Fang Gow.

It's an interesting tactic to have reinforcements riding in the car behind you, in this case a "horde" of five "yellow men."

The Champ has been in a lot of fights so far in quick succession in this story, suggesting that he has an awful lot of hit points. At 1st level, he could have a maximum of 9.

In Neptina, we learn that the fish men have the ability to surgically remove human lungs and install gills. They must have high Intelligence (and be of Evil Alignment).

The fish men have a fog-making machine that they can use on the surface (it would, understandably, be pretty useless underwater).

It's not clear, but it seems to be implied that all fish men are male, and the mermaids are all the females, of the same species. Or did the fish men just capture human women and convert them into mermaids?

Fish men (and their merwomen) are telepathic, but they have the technology to block telepathy. Not only to block it, but apparently to make people forget they can read minds -- since Neptina doesn't seem the least but suspicious when she cannot read Brad's mind.

This is Penny Wright, Feature Writer. Penny wanted to find stories in South America to write about, but winds up getting kidnapped by an unnamed country's rebel leader. Santos is, curious, not a fighter but a robber -- a strange position for leadership.

Penny tries for a surprise attack but fails. She loses initiative and Santos delivers a grappling attack. Now Penny can't attack with her knife; she can only defend herself from the grappling attack and try to escape it or reverse it.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)