Wonderworld Comics #11 - pt. 2

We're still looking at this month's Yarko the Great feature and those wacky Indian Mysterymen are up to their hijinks again. That panel 3 is really weird - if you plan on killing him in his sleep, why would you straddle him on his bed first?

The art in panel 4 reminds me so much of Vince Colletta.

It's not clear from this story if Yarko is just passing through, staying at this hotel temporarily, or if he normally lives in this hotel, which used to be more of a thing. Given the size of that balcony, it's a very nice suite he's staying in.

Initially I found panel 1 confusing. Is Yarko jumping into the pot? No, that's the mysteryman cultist he kicked off of him on the last page. Yarko has already teleported off the bed, as revealed in panel 2. I would be tempted to say he was using the simpler spell, Poof!, but there's no cloud of smoke accompanying the spell.

Panel 3 is either showing Telekinesis or Protection from Missiles.

The caption in panel 5 refers to the cultist as a Hindu, the man's words in panel 4 make him sound like a Muslim. More importantly, the earlier pages that show them having secret meetings on a mountaintop reveal him to be a cultist (a statted mobstertype in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums). Perhaps the nature of this cult is that they mix Hindu and Islamic beliefs.

The final spell cast is revealed by Yarko's words "That will hold you" -- it's a Hold Person spell!

A cursed jewel that makes anyone looking at it save or die is pretty serious stuff. Since Yarko openly wears his twin jewel all the time means they do not share this ability.

Kohat is a real city in modern-day Pakistan.The "Order of Aribah" is completely fictional.

The significance of being the seventh son of a seventh son stretches into antiquity, across multiple cultures.

Yarko is using the spell Project Image, which apparently has a super long range.

As goofy as it always looks, Iger's Shorty Shortcake is at heart a solid adventure story, and perhaps the first one ever set in Guatemala. I don't think there's any particular reason why this story would need to take place in Guatemala, though I suspect Iger simply thought it sounds funny.

Here we have a mad scientist who doesn't look that much more comical than some other mad scientists, and his water magnet is not that much goofier than a lot of comic book science.

Birds are a tricky thing to stat accurately because, even if you make them bigger, a hollow-boned animal still doesn't have much mass to assign hit dice to. However, if you go up to 40 x normal size, you can get a carrier pigeon that weighs (unless my math is way off) 1,300 lbs. That bird is 7+2 Hit Dice, and has a wingspan of 80'!

If the world's heaviest worm, the Megascolides australis, was subjected to 40 x growth, it would weigh 700 lbs. and have 4 Hit Dice. However, at some point we need to max out the Hit Die gain from enlargement, or a 100 lb. Shorty would grow to 80 tons and have 266 20-sided Hit Dice!

It seems odd that Shorty assumes the water shrunk him, not that the lightning changed him (as often happens in comics!), or that the duration just coincidentally ended.

A glider seems like a nice trophy reward. Good for getting Heroes from plot location to plot location, but can't do much else to spoil scenarios (unless outdoors, and Shorty simply rains dropped items down on mobsters).  

Loraine spies have to be from the Alsace-Lorraine territory that, at this time in 1940, was still part of France! The politics of these revolutionaries isn't clear, but it seems they would be a political group wanting either independence or want to be annexed by Germany, which would be a very bad call, but -- hindsight is 20/20, right?

Cab drivers are a good source for plot hooks. Even international ones, apparently!

"Pan-chromatic film" sounds fancy, but "a panchromatic emulsion produces a realistic reproduction of a scene as it appears to the human eye, although with no colors." Almost all modern photographic film (since 1906) is panchromatic. All this is from Wikipedia, of course.

It's a discouraging start to your scenario when your best fighter gets beat up and dropped down a well in your very first encounter.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Wonderworld Comics #10 - pt. 2

This is only Yarko the Great's eighth story, but already his second trip to the land of the dead -- and surprisingly his way there is entirely different this time. Instead of transitioning through a Dante-lite version of the afterlife, Yarko is able to transport himself (Plane Shift spell?) directly to the Valley of Shadows, or an area of it that is more desolate and uninhabited than when we last saw it. Interestingly, Yarko needs an item belonging to the Baron in order to track him across the planes; one could interpret from this that Yarko would wind up in some random space on the same plane without the sword to attract him to the Baron.

Shining Knight, no! (Just kidding; the old knight just has the same coloration as the Shining Knight will have a year or two from now).

Here we see Yarko fighting with a sword, and fighting well, invalidating the "magic-users can only fight with daggers" conceit.

We also get a good example of why we want to put powerful Heroes in environments where they can't use their full range of spells or powers. We know Yarko can still cast spells in the Afterlife, but there must be anti-magic zones throughout and Yarko had temporarily stepped into one.

Yarko's spell -- conjuring the ghosts of his past victims to attack him -- reminds me of the Phantasmal Killer spell.

This is Shorty Shortcake, and those are some really big germs flying out of that watch case! Rigging something to release tear gas -- or "crying germs", as it's called here -- is not a bad trap.

Hideouts & Hoodlums has rules for pushing opponents, but pulling them? That's trickier, I think. It would probably be a grappling attack and then, if successful, I would allow the grappler to make half-moves and pull the victim along, so long as the grappler had the higher Strength score.

While grappling your opponent, if you have a strong enough hold on them (that means at the Editor's discretion), you could roll to make another attack and put a hat on your opponent's head, if that was really something you wanted to do. I'm definitely not opposed to giving free attacks if they're used to do something in-character, but not actually harm anyone.

I'm glad I've never statted giant bats as having very many hit points, as these giant vampire bats (simply called vampire bats here, but the scale is always way off in a Shorty Shortcake adventure -- oh, I wonder if that is a feature I should talk about?) fall easily after just being hit with a rubber-band ball (an improvised weapon, doing no more than 1-3 points of damage, if ever there was one).

I'm kind of surprised that I've never seen a Hero track a bad guy by his cigar ash until this point.

This is also the first time I can recall seeing one trophy item specifically able to counteract another trophy item.

This is Patty O'Day, so naturally I'm going to focus on her partner Ham being awesome instead. Here it takes not one, but two head blows to knock him out, demonstrating that head blows are not automatic knockouts.

We also get a glimpse of a secret door concealed as a wall panel.

How long, in game time, should it take for eyes to become accustomed to the dimness? It probably doesn't matter for this scene, but if combat was about to begin it could be relevant. Or maybe not; I'd probably ignore the issue, unless Patty lost initiative, and then I could use the "eyes adjusting" thing as an excuse to explain why.

It's a smart tactic to keep the rope you were tied up in. Awesome Ham has figured out a use for it already!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Wonderworld Comics #9 - pt. 2

We rejoin Yarko the Great still messing with con men. He clearly casts Telekinesis, and maybe a Ventriloquism spell? Unless he's still just using ordinary ventriloquism skill there.

Now he casts Teleport and Speak with Dead.

I am going to spare you the first part of the Shorty Shortcake story, a racist tale about how Mexicans are lazy and sleep all the time, only waking up to watch cock fights. Here we see that thrown stones -- well, gold nuggets -- do damage. I would treat them as improvised weapons and do 1-3 points of damage.

I would be extremely cautious about allowing people to be tied up like pretzels in Hideouts & Hoodlums, as it might be too unrealistic for H&H combat. However...if you did enough grappling damage to break lots of bones, maybe it is possible...

So where is the fighting zone where Patty O'Day is? It's got to be Finland, unless this is an earlier story, and then maybe Poland. The officer arresting them speaks French; France has not yet been attacked, but French soldiers may have reached their allies in Finland or Poland. Plus, forces were already massing on both sides of the France-Germany border, so while no fighting had taken place yet, it was definitely a zone.

It's peculiar that this is "against regulations," as war correspondents were common in WWII and female ones were not rare. She must have just failed to gain permission.

I think Patty would be dead three times over by now if it wasn't for Ham. Here he displays successful skill checks at raft-building, sailing/navigation, fire-building, and hunting/tracking. I'm sure it's a product of the times that Patty can't be shown as being good at anything, but it leaves me puzzled why this feature isn't just called Ham.

Ham appears to get in two punches -- including a "two-in-one" punch -- before anyone can attack him back, but unless Ham is a buffed superhero, that seems unlikely. More likely, Ham has attacked over two turns (the "two-in-one" being flavor text for two hits in the same turn) without anyone being able to land a hit on him until the end of the second turn.

That Patty and Ham are locked in their cell with their camera stretches my suspension of disbelief. They must have made a save vs. plot to not have it confiscated, with something like a -3 or -4 penalty.

That is one stupid guard. She either scored a max roll on her encounter reaction check or he badly failed a save vs. plot to resist falling for that (an Editor could use either mechanic in that instance). The guard entry in the Mobster Manual is going to include a penalty on saves to resist whatever ploys the Heroes come up with to fool them and a chance for guards to stupidly turn their backs on Heroes.

The Moth seems like one of the earliest costumed supervillains in comics, or would be if he really wasn't just a bodyguard to the main villain. The Moth's costume is bulletproof, which only means it is at least as hard to hit as AC 7.

The gas gun looks to have a range of at least 15'.

The scientist/madman responsible for the Moths thinks they fly because they are "sensitized to a powerful energy wave," but it seems obvious to me the one in that first panel is wearing a jetpack.

This is one of the first evil scientists to use shrinking technology, and definitely the first for such a novel purpose.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #8 - pt. 2

It seems that Yarko the Great has cast two spells here; the first seems to be a Telepathy spell, allowing two people to contact each other over distances, and the second seems like a Read Curse spell, that allows him to identity the curse on the dead woman.

I am going to do some limb-climbing, though, and suggest that we don't really need either new spell. We can assign "curse identifying" to Detect Magic. And the telepathy used here could have been as easily accomplished using two telephones, so I suggest that this instance of telepathy could be flavor text, created at the Editor's discretion, to get the plot rolling. Now, does this set a precedent for Yarko being able to use telepathy in the future? Not necessarily, particularly in a game system where powers and spells are chosen from day to day and not set in stone. And comic books themselves were always being inconsistent.

I ran a scenario in my JSA campaign based on this story (the Atom was killed by a cursed item, but the Spectre got them permission to go to the Valley of Death and retrieve his soul), so I'm particularly excited to get to it on the blog finally.

Here we see Yarko laying down some powerful spells, starting with Teleport and ending with Planar Shift. In the middle, he seems to rely on Enlargement for the intimidation factor. It's unclear if Yarko is commanding her with just the force of his words, or with a Charm Person spell.

For the boatman, I planned to use the stats of a Charonadaemon from the old Monster Manual II (luckily the JSA didn't choose to fight him). The little flying creatures over the river I statted as spined devils and vargouilles from the same book. I had to do this appropriation because I had not created anything too close to these yet in Hideouts & Hoodlums and, since they don't actually do anything in the story, I would have had to make stuff up from scratch anyway.

Burning Pain is actually covered by the yaksha demon in Supplement III: Better Quality. Lucky coincidence?

The JSA managed to avoid Fear by slaying Burning Pain with missile weapons and not exploring the ledge where Pain was. Fear I had planned to stat at the time as an apparition from the Fiend Folio, but in 2nd ed. H&H, I plan to have a new undead mobster type called the spectral killer.

Horror was evaded the same way. Because of the wailing shriek, I planned to stat Horror as a banshee/groaning spirit.

I skipped this scene, replacing it with The Atom and some other souls being found on a beach, guarded by an angel/deva that had to be persuaded to let him go. I was fearful of the players choosing to run down the hall of time and all de-aging themselves into babies, or encountering Death, choosing to fight him, and wind up getting all killed.

Why isn't Yarko de-aged? I guess he made his saving throw.

Will Eisner's moral lesson about vanity makes this heavy stuff for a 1939 comic book.

And then, on the opposite side of heavy, we have Shorty Shortcake. The poisonous snake in the bed was already an old enough cliche by 1939 to poke fun at it here.

Shorty is right on the border, with Seaweed Sam and Archie O'Toole, between being too ridiculous to consider running a H&H game based on it, but having just enough interesting ideas in it to make it impossible to ignore. Should snakes have to make morale saves if they see two reflections? Nope. Should people be able to tie snakes into lassos? Probably not. Should sailors be able to make blinding spit attacks with chewing tobacco? That's just interesting and plausible enough to consider -- and would be a special attack that makes a sailor mobster type more interesting.

But Mr. Mizzen is no ordinary sailor-mobster; he must be of the superhero class. Here he demonstrates nigh-invulnerable skin and, if the fourth panel can be taken seriously, the high-level power Super Punch. Mizzen must be high enough in level that the 20 to 1 odds by the end of page must not be too great (and I would probably have a superhero be at least 4th level, a remarkable man, before taking on odds like that alone).

Okay, if you ignore the overpowered notion of being able to punch people forward through time, and the subtle racism suggesting all Latinos are lazy, panel 3 suggests that the superhero class should have some disadvantage to it (like powers only being able to work in the morning). Right now, in second edition, disadvantages are only tied to race -- the thinking being that classes already have a balancing mechanism tied to experience point progression, and the only real unbalancing danger is when you combine the alien race and the superhero class together.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #7 - pt. 2

Let's look at what spells Yarko the Great is casting today. Some sort of untying spell? Floating through the bars might just be a generous interpretation of the Knock spell, or maybe Yarko is really showing off and cast Passwall on the gate. And what has he done to to the rifle -- melted it? Bent it with Telekinesis?

And then we get some more great Eisner room layouts. Good enough to use as a player handout!

Here, Yarko uses some sort of Teleport spell. Like Telekinesis, Teleport is a high-level spell that needed a low-level alternative for Hideouts & Hoodlums, as these sorts of spells get cast all the time in comics. A lower-level Teleport would only have teleported the tortured person a short distance, like to the next room.

The next spell is very clearly Hold Person, and other uses of the spell have set a precedent for the magic-user being able to allow the held victim to still speak.

Here's a puzzle, though -- Projected Image should be visible to everyone; why is Yarko making his image only visible to Burke? Another lower-level version, like a Message spell that only reaches one person (but is still visual to that person)?

Burke's "much persuasion" must have been multiple encounter reaction rolls -- though if Burke is a supporting cast member, then the Editor could just choose to hand-wave the rolling for this scene, as no Hero is actually present.

There is also evidence here of spells having random duration that magic-users cannot always predict.

So it turns out that approaching the ruins normally is a suicide run without large numbers, great stealth, and maybe magic or powers as there's large open space with no cover around the ruins and multiple concealed machine gun nests inside. Heroes just trying to waltz up to the front door would face a frightening amount of potential damage if not bulletproof, making this a challenging scenario for even mid-level Heroes.

Shorty Shortcake walks an interesting line between being a humor strip and an adventure strip. Some of it isn't appropriate for H&H, like suggesting that a pin to the butt would do enough damage to distract a hardened fighter. But other things ring true, like trying to grapple with an opponent from behind and slap handcuffs on him. I've had the same technique tried in some past H&H sessions.

Similarly, there are both things appropriate and inappropriate for H&H here. A chair that misses your target should not break and bounce back in your face -- it would make sense if H&H had a fumble mechanic in combat. Fumbles are funny, and some players like them, but I don't think it's a good fit for H&H despite pages like this.

Using pepper to stun opponents is appropriate and has been talked about on this blog before. It would require a successful attack roll and a missed save vs. science.

The chandelier coming down seems a lucky coincidence. However, the Editor would be in his rights to consider the weight of the Hero and the quality of the chandelier and judge that a save vs. plot is in order. Or, the player could ask for a save vs. plot to see if the chandelier comes down or not.

The mayor falling through the ceiling feels more like a wandering encounter to me.

This is the original meaning of "thug" -- professional murderers with skills like hiding in shadows and climbing walls. These will be called assassins in H&H, to distinguish them from hoodlum-thugs.

One of the earliest appearances of slings in comic books. It can, surprisingly, do enough damage to take down Dan, who should be at least a 2nd-level fighter by now.

But what the heck is up with Dan's long, luscious eyelashes? Has he been dressing up as a woman lately?

How this is going to work from now on is that, after being knocked unconscious, if Dan makes his save vs. plot, he'll recover with 1-6 hit points back in 1-6 turns. Here, it seems only one turn has passed and the Editor has, generously, decided to still keep this in melee turns even though there's no fighting left.

The Editor's generosity has its limits, though, as he has five yellow peril hoodlums jump a Hero with no more than 6 hit points.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Wonderworld Comics #5 - pt. 1

So we rejoin The Flame -- getting into a brawl with hoodlums! Lou Fine's dynamic art is on full display here, showing The Flame like a real swashbuckler, leaping, kicking, and throwing. Interestingly, though The Flame is definitely a superhero, much of what he does here anyone of the fighter class could have done, with the possible exception of breaking through the door (though even that could be an open doors skill check now in 2nd edition).

Now, it's possible that The Flame is just toying with the hoodlums...or it's at least as likely that he's conserving his powers, and that I'm on the right track about Hideouts & Hoodlums needing to stay a limited resource management game.

Here we see the superhero power Quick Change -- used during the surprise turn of a fresh combat.

We also see the infamous "blow to the back of the head taking out a superhero" cliche. Oops, The Flame forgot to buff with defensive powers!

The Flame wakes up after what seems like exploration turns (10's of minutes) have passed.

Now The Flame is safe from harm, having activated ...Invulnerability? We know The Flame got to start the game with an awful lot of brevet ranks, as there's no way he should be using 4th level powers already in his third appearance -- right?

Here, The Flame uses a prop for wrecking things, even though it gives him no game mechanic bonus to do so. He uses wrecking things for two different effects as well -- the first to bring the place down around him, and the second to more carefully cut his way through the girders so he can get out without causing more damage. I'm not sure why that's important, except that the Flame hasn't showed off his flame-gun anywhere else on this adventure...

From Yarko the Great, we get some hideout dressing ideas, plus a trophy item -- the voodoo doll. Voodoo dolls were statted in Supplement III.

"Precipitous" seems to mean something different to the narrator here than it does to me, for the perspective in the second panel makes it look like maybe a 20 drop to me. Of course, the floor could be illusory, concealing a deeper pit...

Yarko casts a spell that not only turns him ethereal/gaseous form, but allows him to carry the mass of a full-grown woman with him while he does so. 5th level spell?

And then Yarko teleports. Or is that bright light concealing a Dimension Door?

Yarko casts Reduce Person on himself -- though, honestly, I don't know why he wouldn't just duck. Reduce Person is going to be a 1st level spell in 2nd edition.

Beast-Men appear to be just ordinary men to me, with fangs. I do have an entry for ape-men in 2nd edition's mobster section; maybe what I'll do is enlarge the category to include other beasts mixed with men.

I'm not sure what spell Yarko is casting here -- Relentless Stalker? Or, maybe he hasn't cast a spell at all and Vladim only thinks Yarko is right behind him.

Vladim is called a madman here, and elsewhere in the story. Madmen are statted as a mobster type in Supplement V...but Vladim seems a better match for a mad scientist than a madman, game mechanics-wise.

This is Shorty Shortcake.  If you ever doubted the vocabulary level of Golden Age comic books, here's the word "poniard" for a throwing dagger.

I would be very hesitant to accept how easily Shorty seems to manage breaking these poniards, but they could be lucky dice rolls. I'm torn on if breaking weapons needs its own mechanic, a non-wrecking things save table (like it had in 1st ed.), or maybe just treat this as a skill check.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)