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. 3

This is from Blazing Scarab and...what's this? An immortal league of assassins? How can this not be where the idea for Batman nemesis Ra's al-Ghul came from?

The immortal city of Baracs, full of immortal assassins, is just begging for a Hideouts & Hoodlums adventure module. Who's going to volunteer to write it for me?

I'm also curious about this condition where, if they lose their heart or their brain, they live on, but lost their "identity" (all levels in their class/es lost?), and become only half-visible.

Here's an interesting description of how the magic portal to Baracs works, and why humans (and human-like races, I suppose) are the only ones who can cross through the portal.

This is Jungleman, who has a ridiculously large army of animals working for him, but what really gets me is that crazy spelling of orangutan. Orang-outang? Did someone not have a dictionary handy, or was the spelling that non-standardized by 1940?

A rare instance of a Hero using a blowgun as a weapon. The implication seems to be that the dart is poisoned, but we're never actually told that. Maybe he's just trying to distract the chief?

I'm amused that Louise immediately thanks Jungleman, but look how hard those monkeys have to work to take down the pygmies! And without knives, no less!

The death toll of animals in this feature is pretty staggering. Tigers, snakes -- they all bite it trying to protect Jungleman.

"Monkey-like people" seems to stink of racism a bit. I hope the gibbon men in H&H don't have the same odor...

This is Revenge of the Zombies. We're treated to a pretty standard pit trap (nice that there's a ladder at the bottom!), and an adventuring party that wisely puts their best fighters in the lead, the light source in the second rank, and keep to their marching order.

Giant death head moths are now definitely going into the AH&H Mobster Manual. I guess under D? They'll probably have only 1 hit point, and can only drain 1 hp, but when encountered by dozens or a hundred at a time, would be quite deadly.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Champion Comics #3 - pt. 3

This is still Blazing Scarab. The Curtain of Ammon is a magic item that functions like a...well, it's a television set with color and sound. Karnak is a real place.

 Memthet seems to be a fictional location.

Revenge of the Zombies is a serial probably based on the 1932 classic White Zombie.  Here, for the first time, we see undead zombies instead of space zombies or green hairy zombies. We also see Voodoo Charms, which act like a Charm Person spell on anyone wearing them.

The story is surprisingly dark, what with the dead goat left on the doorstep here, and later a dead pig is thrown as a distraction.

This serial is called Yacqui Gold. Yacqui is an Indian people indigenous to the southern Sonora state, on the west coast of Mexico. The art is by an obscure artist, Roland (or Romana?) Patenaude. Most of the art looks rushed, but the inking on that fifth panel is gorgeous.

Here is an encounter with a cougar (puma), and another example of a mobstertype being killed in one hit. 

Weakness from loss of blood is not a game mechanic in Hideouts & Hoodlums, though needing to sleep is an implied mechanic and perhaps he was also just really tired.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)