Prize Comics #2 - pt. 4

Things don't get better in the following Secret Agent M-11 story. The Secret Service want to know who this spy works for so they let him escape, but they do so in a really obvious way, letting him bolt past three people for the exit and having no one block the exits. The spy should be suspicious, but instead goes straight to his bosses working for the "Hugonian" -- Hungarian? -- government. The question is, why wasn't the spy followed? Or did they try and he eluded them?

The bad guys have a familiar tactic here, but M-11 uses an unusual one, so unusual that I'm not entirely sure what I'm seeing. Does M-11 carry a pouch of sugar with him to use as a blinding weapon? And why sugar? There are so many more irritating irritants he could be carrying. 

M-11's sugar fixation just gets weirder. Sugar is way too soluble

to be left on the road and expect anyone to be able to see it later. 

Then there's the carrier pigeon. If M-11 just followed them inside, when did the ambassador have time to attach the papers to a pigeon?

I'm just going to jump into the Black Owl story that follows and, nope, it doesn't get better. This is the Black Owl's debut story and it's not off to a good start. Beyond the silly mask and the horrible racism here, we have the Black Owl beating a suspect to get information instead of using his brains to find where the woman he was following went, and then when two yellow peril hoodlums start attacking him, instead of fighting back right away, he knocks over a shelf first. Why this would distract them from fighting him escapes me, unless the Black Owl figured something on the shelf was sacred to them and would upset them? But that seems unlikely, since not that much thought is being put to anything else in this story.

I include it mainly for the appearance of a copper. Coppers debuted in an early issue of The Trophy Case in order to explain how police officers sometimes make things worse for the heroes in comic books, and this is a perfect example. Black Owl was about to have everything wrapped up, but the copper comes 

along and, to escape his bad luck, Black Owl has to flee.

Observing from outside is a tactic you would think Black Owl would have tried first, and yet the secret gambling den doesn't seem to be on high alert despite the fact that there had just been a vigilante break-in and a police raid 30 minutes earlier. One guard at the door, with one more for back-up, isn't very secure for all those rich guests to gamble in secret. 

I have problems with this page too. I know, when have you liked any page in this issue, Scott? Good point, reader.

First of all, I disapprove of the use of torture by heroes. At least it's clear that all the information is questionable, as the hoodlum seems to be rambling intentionally until Black Owl is standing right over that pit trap.

About that pit trap, it seems odd to me that Black Owl and the hoodlum were standing so far apart that only Black Owl is now close to it. I suppose there should be a random chance of falling into a trap and the hoodlum was just luckier at his roll.

It gets really confusing past that. How did Black Owl avoid getting hurt in the fall (or was it just a really lucky die roll for damage)? How is no one else aware of the trap door opening and just go on about their torturing business? I know, I know, it

could just be lucky dice rolls again (this time for surprise), but there have got to be times when common sense should overrule dice rolls.

I tried to look up if "wire vest torture" was a real thing, but kept getting nothing but BDSM hits...

Next up is Buck Brady of the FBI. It's a pretty standard "hunt down the escaped convicts" scenario. Danford Prison seems as made-up as "The Daily Blurb" for a newspaper (though not that generic, at least). Which is odd because the action then swings to real-life Wichita, Kansas instead of, you know, Cityville, Kansas, or something like that.

Gosh, no investigation skills required for this mission. They're just walking down the street and a plot hook jumps out at them!

The art on this strip is terribly amateurish, but the layout work is sometimes inspired, particularly panels 2 and 4 on this page. 

Unless the law was really different back in 1940, I would think Buck would have to show a badge or something before commandeering that car. 

Apparently the chase goes on for so long that they are in Oklahoma by now, as this area looks way too mountainous to be around Wichita. Next page makes this geography even more suspicious, when the mobsters' hideout is in a box canyon. 

Buck's plan of parachuting into the canyon either depended on the mobsters sleeping during the daytime, having their radio up so loud that they couldn't hear a plane overhead, or getting a lucky surprise roll.

The mobsters blame the wind for all their missed bullets, but I think this is an excellent example of the "save vs. missiles" mechanic from Hideouts & Hoodlums in action.

This is also an excellent example of grappling attempted by multiple combatants, which is explained in the 2nd edition grapping rules (though it's been awhile, so I had to re-read it to make sure just now!). 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Prize Comics #1 - pt. 4

We're back with Jaxon of the Jungle, just in time to see Jaxon go up against wild pigs! These boars look small enough to be juvenile boars, which makes it even more unseemly when he starts gutting one. There's got to be better ways to earn experience points, Jaxon!

Note how Tarpe doesn't, to her credit, draw blacks as caricatures, though we see plenty of stereotypical behavior, like being superstitious, cowardly, and on a later page, prone to alcoholism.

The constrictor snake is obviously a random encounter. But is the village? Editors who are not working from detailed maps sometimes randomly generate details as significant as village placement, or even just make it all up as they go. However, since this particular village figures into the plot, it seems more likely to have been premeditated.

This page, combined with the last, suggests that fatigue can be relieved by a short nap, or rest.

That poor native guard only wanted to come in and discuss the poems of Lewis Carroll with them, and look how they treat him!

I'm generally opposed to guns in both comic books and RPGs, even though I had to include them in Hideouts & Hoodlums to emulate their consistent usage, and the fact that my players love using them. Something I am okay with guns being used for in-game is holding your enemies at bay, by creating a line of fire that is dangerous for them to cross.

Any attack on a plane can cause a complication, even if it's a flaming spear.

"Scattering" isn't a game mechanic that guns can do, directly. Rather, they failed a morale save because they were being shot at by someone they could not attack back (not a situation covered in the rules, but a common sense reason to give a morale save).

Moving on, we'll join the debut of M-11. This page interests me for several reasons. One, "Empress of Auckland" feels like such a realistic name, I wondered if there really was a ship called this. Not that I found, but I did find a plane called The Empress of Auckland, a Douglas DC-6B, that would later fly, starting in 1961!

And that $200 million in gold is not that unrealistic either, as over 140 tons of gold were transported to the U.S. in the early days of WWII. The unlikely part is it all coming on just one ship.

A villain with no fingernails on one hand is a creepy detail to use in your games!

How do you pull off someone's glove, using game mechanics? I think it would be sleight of hand, practiced as a skill. If you're just forcefully yanking it off without any attempt to go unnoticed, I might call that a basic skill check with a -1 bonus modifier, but if you were trying to pull the glove off so that the wearer doesn't notice, that would be an expert skill check.

I've talked about extenuating circumstances to add saving throws for additional penalties in addition to taking damage (like if you're leaning over a railing), as well as rolling to hit to grab something, before, and won't go into detail about them again this time.

The H&H rules do talk about using fire to create boundaries that are damaging to cross, but this is a different scenario where the fire is being used to create a boundary a vehicle won't cross. And it does make sense, if crossing the line of fire triggers a complication check, which is the way I'm still leaning towards handling damage vs. vehicles.

And the last story we're going to look at today is K the Unknown, a mysteryman in uncommonly orange long underwear.

I share this page because a good tactic for the Editor is to have mobsters doing more than just attack the Heroes; it gives the players more to react to and make decisions about during encounters. Here, K has to stay and fight or head after Terry.

K uses a smart tactic to lure a mobster outside and question him alone, rather than beard them all in their lair and then try and get answers.

Judging by what's on the table on the last panel, we might be dealing with drunken hoodlums here.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)