Speed Comics #6 - pt. 4

One last visit to this issue, and we'll resume where we were with Lt. Jim Cannon of the British Navy. This page will give you a good sense for how hard it is for a low-Hit Die mobster/low-level villain to hit a target. Jim isn't far off when he mocks Devilfish for not being able to hit the broad side of a barn.

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While this author was spot-on last time with the British using 15-inch guns, the Germans had already switched to metrics by then. These German "6-inch guns" were really 15 cm naval guns, and yes, the Germans were using those (the scale being to the ammunition, of course, not the gun itself!).

However, there seems to be significant artistic license going on here with the "torpedo cruiser." I've seen no pictures of torpedo cruisers that looked like small motorboats, nor have I seen any that launch from the bow of the boat yet.

Moving on, we're going to look at a super-creepy installment of Landor, Maker of Monsters. Voldemort's Dad here has created a new mobster-type, the cat man, in the most disturbing way possible. He's apparently shrunken a woman's body down to the size of a large cat, say 3' tall, traded her head for a real cat's head, and made it so that it would act in very un-cat-like ways, like listening to you when you tell it to do something.

So they just happened to be within sight of Landor's castle. Maybe not the safest place to take your niece for a picnic? And if they know this is Landor's castle, why do they leave it unguarded? Or why not buy it and raze it to the ground? Or convince the nearest municipality to annex the land and rezone it?

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Cat-people are good for fighting half-pints and small dogs, but pretty useless against full-grown men. I would be generous giving this poor thing 1-1 Hit Dice.

The hammer toss is an unusual grappling maneuver, but I'm not sure if we need to add it, as this could be replicated with the throw result. In game play, I would say Torrence's player asked if he could throw Landor into the generator and make it explode. The Editor then said, let's break this down mechanically; you can roll to grapple Landor, then you can roll to hit the generator with Landor, then you can make a wrecking things roll vs. the generator. Torrence's player then got some pretty good dice rolls!

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"If only we could be sure! If only...we could wait for the fire to die out and then check the ruins for his remains. Or watch the entrance and see if anyone comes out..."

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Moving on to Smoke Carter, we find some unusual clues to find at an arson scene, including blood, a counter cut away with an automatic inserted in the opening (like finding a trap), and a letter addressed to himself from the arsonist (not generally a good thing to be carrying when you're committing crimes, but it makes things really easy for your players!).

Guard dogs makes a lot of sense from a mobster's perspective, though it makes things tricky during game play -- do you discourage your players from beating up on dogs and make them outsmart them, or let the players play out the encounter anyway they want (spoiler: odds are 50/50 they will beat up the dogs)?

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Hey...where did Smoke get those steaks from? Are you telling me he routinely carries steaks around in his car for emergencies just like this?

And lastly, we're just going to peek in on Spike Marlin, with a more whimsical than normal adventure courtesy of George Tuska (whose figure work is as stiff as ever here).

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Spike pulls off a coupe most players of H&H would be envious of: a two-man press gang fails to capture him, so he beats them up, disguises them, and sells them back to their own boss -- netting him XP and $!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Speed Comics #5 - pt. 3

And we're back with Crash, Cork, and the Baron in their Ceylon adventure. I was very pleased to look up arrack and find out that's a real thing, but it's only an Indian liquor. So, he wasn't actually "doped" so much as they just got him drunk.

Covering him with leeches was an unusual deathtrap.

I'm not sure how this would work, game mechanics-wise. Nooses are a simple entangling attack, but how to handle pulling them up into the trees? A second save vs. science to avoid (the first save would be vs. the ensnaring)? A skill check does not make much sense here; it's almost necessary to introduce ability score checks so the Heroes could make Strength checks for this.

This is Ted Parrish, the Man of 1,000 Faces. Thankfully, we don't have to discuss disguise again this time; I'm sharing this page because of the unusual entangling attack. It looks like he's attacking two people at once with the bed sheet, but in the next panel it is clear that the two men are tied up in separate bed sheets; Ted must have thrown one over one mobster's head and then a second sheet over the other on the following turn (since he has surprise for the first attack, the second could have occurred at the beginning of the first regular combat turn).

Since bed sheets are not made for ensnaring attacks, I might give the mobsters a +1 bonus to save vs. being ensnared.

Now we'll jump ahead into Biff Bannon of the U.S. Marines. Biff has an unique challenge to start this scenario, as I can't think of any comic book before or since where the Hero had to park a battleship. Looks like a failed expert skill check, but here the Editor allowed something good to come of the failed roll; Biff crashes into the underground lair of saboteurs (just feet away from hitting all their dynamite too -- lucky he only missed his roll by 1!).

All of Biff's mini-adventures in this installment are random/wandering events. Here, a subway driver has fallen unconscious behind the wheel and Biff has to jump onto a careening subway train. Jumping is a skill check when you have to jump higher or farther than normal, but to jump "on target" like that, you need to make an attack roll instead.

The following newspaper headlines make it clear these mini-adventures are taking place in New York City.

I'm just going to share this one page of Smoke Carter as we race through this issue, and for just two things. One, this long-winded confession is emulated by only one game mechanic, the unconditional surrender of mobsters who fail morale saves. And two, "Flames like the stamp that seals his doom" is so melodramatic that Stan Lee should have used it as the title in a Marvel Comics story.

Now we'll jump to Landor, Maker of Monsters, who creates a 20' giant mole in this story.

It makes no sense at all that a) Landor has his pet mole start digging from so far away instead of driving it closer, and b) that Landor left no guards behind to protect his castle, even though he knows Tony Terrence knows where the castle is. Further, I am skeptical of gunshots causing a cave-in so quickly, but maybe it could happen...plus it's a good way to make guns less of an option in an underground hideout.

Now this is Texas Tyler, and this page demonstrates how easy it is to get information out of drunken hoodlums (I'll have to add a note to their stat entry).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Speed Comics #4 - pt. 4

This is Smoke Carter, and here is some interesting evidence that helmets should count as armor for Armor Class.

Police were apparently already doing psychological profiling in 1940, so best to head to the police department and read up on those rogues galleries!

This story did a lot to inform my write-up of the arsonist for the Mobster Manual. The arsonist write-up first appeared in Supplement V: Big Bang, but I've since lowered his morale save ("I'll burn before I'll let you take me!") and added a passage about using 1-6 cigarettes to start a fire.

Poor New York City. Before getting famously razed by the Sub-Mariner, NYC was razed by ...a bunch of guys in asbestos suits using flamethrowers? Here, we see his killers have suits that are both fireproof and bulletproof (combining the function of two different trophy items). Those seem to be especially effective flamethrowers with increased range.

This looks a lot like the vampiric robots from Mercury that debuted in The Trophy Case v. 1 #2. Not sure why the brain needs a window.

When I add this robot variant to the Mobster Manual, I'll have to include a note about how fire can make the robot run amok. It needs the Raise Car power too.

Texas Tyler may think this town is unfriendly, but they sure are equal opportunity employers! I can't think of another example of an Hispanic female bartender in all of 20th century fiction.

I also don't think recognizing unfriendliness would be a skill check; things like this are best observed through roleplaying.

We haven't seen one of these filler pages in a while. They're handy for plane trivia that could affect statting them later.

This is Spike Marlin, as the mug tells us. Sometimes I see evidence for allowing critical successes in the game. In this instance, the mug not only identifies Spike Marlin, but know his secret profession too -- sounds like he rolled a 20 on his save vs. plot!

On the prior page, Spike had an automatic pistol in hand, but was disarmed by being grappled from behind. I include this page instead to illustrate that an entire brawl ensues afterwards, and not one person goes for the gun, which must still be laying there on the deck. There has to be a reason, like maybe it takes a full melee turn to pick up a dropped weapon and leaves the picker-upper effectively prone for that turn.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Speed Comics #3 - pt. 3

We return to Crash, Cork, and the Baron in time to see the Baron snag his rope ladder on a sapling -- which is an odd occurrence in Hideouts & Hoodlums, since there are no fumble mechanics here.  There seems to be no reason for the ladder to get snagged other than Editor's fiat, especially given how empty the terrain seems to be around it. Yet, if the terrain was covered in more features, the Editor would be fair in declaring that the Baron's player would have to save vs. plot to avoid his ladder getting snagged on something as he flew past.

*ahem* African "white ants" are actually termites. I think the writer meant "red" ants here.

Crash thinks it's easy to escape those bonds, but it's up to the Editor (in 2nd ed.) to decide if this is a basic or expert skill, and then assigns the die roll to you to determine success (based on race and level).

This is from Ted Parrish, the Man of 1000 Faces.  The mobster he's punching folds after one punch. It's reasonable to roll for morale every turn of combat, unless the bad guys have an obvious advantage.

It's also interesting that the mobsters at the hideout have a special warning knock they can signal each other with.

This is Biff Bannon of the U.S. Marines, looking particularly cartoony today.  I've written before about how a convenience leading to a trap escape (termites here) could be either Editor's discretion or the player requesting it and winning it with a save vs. plot.

No, what strikes me here is that a sea plane is just sitting there in the water, right next to some type of naval ship, unmanned and seemingly abandoned there. It's odd -- but it's exactly like the "summon aircraft" ability of the Aviator class, from The Trophy Case #6.

A submarine of this size seems awfully ..well, overkill for what appears to be a mob of six hoodlums. And yet, this raises a good point that trophy tables are random and you never know who or what will wind up with something really good!

This is Smoke Carter.  I like the scenario I see here -- Smoke simply has to get from point A to point B (point B being a boat that's on fire) without being stopped, and mobsters along the way want to stop him. So there's a falling bridge to overcome (beat it in initiative to go under it in time), and mobsters in boats you pass taking potshots at you.

I don't understand how the mobsters are fooled by a thrown coat, though...

This has got to be a first -- Smoke throws a grenade at someone, to save them, and it works.  What this writer would have you believe is that you can choose between damaging opponents or wrecking things with explosive weapons. I'm not comfortable with that distinction for H&H, as it makes them too easy to use.

Also worth noting, all story long, they've been called "bombs", but this reference to one being a "pineapple" leads me to believe "bomb" was being used for "grenade".

Well, I'll be!  When I introduced giant mosquitoes in Supplement I, I thought I was just giving the game its own version of stirges. Imagine my surprise when it turned out there actually was a giant mosquito in a comic book -- and the same size too!

Giant mosquitoes are good enough fliers to carry away a full-grown woman. They're also smart enough to follow orders like a dog. Who knew?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Speed Comics #2 - pt. 2

It seems like this page is full of story filler, but actually, Shock is just wandering around town, looking for random good deeds he can do for extra experience points.

Speed flies. Interesting, because earlier in this same story he was swimming and climbing everywhere. This is more evidence -- no, not of poor writing -- that superheroes can prepare a different group of powers each day. Today Speed prepared one of the Fly powers, and yesterday he didn't.

The story switches yet again, with Shock hastening to the rescue at this Aztec stronghold. However, the stronghold is only window dressing in some backgrounds, with the combat taking place at an outdoor ceremony.

The Aztecs would be statted as natives.

This is from the next installment of Crash, Cork, and the Baron (a Three Aces rip-off so obvious that it even used "The Three Aces" as a tag line). Here, they're trekking through Bolivia.

I'm interested by what "fighting insects and undergrowth" would be like, game-wise. A few wandering encounters with giant insects would be the literal interpretation, and could have been exciting. I suspect, though, that insects and undergrowth only created negative modifiers to their travel time -- which is also interesting, because I can't think of a game where bugs slowed overland movement before, as plausible to me as that sounds.

Also note the cliche of the rope bridge. Gotta have one of those at least once in a campaign!

That story was...really racist, so we're skipping ahead to Biff Bannon of the U.S. Marines. Here's another example of a surprise head blow being able to do more damage.

But what I really like about this page is how it shows the way to disarm a gunman. Years ago, I read a Johnny Quest comic book that showed this exact same method. Glad to see it again!

Similarly, this page is the best description I've ever seen of what keelhauling is like. It always gets talked about in pirate stories, but now I see how it works so I could use it in a story better.

I can imagine a lot of scenarios where a Hero might want to use a "friction brake" to avoid taking falling damage. I think I would rule that this only works with sails...and maybe really tall curtains or tapestries.

"Keel haul me will you?" I laughed out loud at this page. Biff Bannon doesn't take guff from anyone!

There's really no game-related lesson here, though; I just wanted to share I was really digging this story.

This is Smoke Carter racing out into the street to save the girl. I would roll for initiative between Smoke and the fire engine racing towards her. If Smoke won the initiative, he would get one attack roll to "hit" the girl and scoop her up. If she was, for some reason, unwilling to be scooped, she would get a save vs. science to resist.

There's really no game reason to have the fire engine swerve and crash; it seems like flavor text the Editor added to ratchet up the tension.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Speed Comics #1 - pt. 3

This is Spike Marlin. This is not the first time we've seen whalers in the comics. This is the first time, though, that the whaling has been background detail. The real scenario here is the mutinous attack on Spike while the rest of the crew is fighting the whale.

This is Smoke Carter. Note how the gangsters are car-based; the 2nd ed. write-up will also be car-based.

Am I going to have to stat brutes as something new? I was going to treat them as a sub-category of thug, but this looks more like a flesh golem...

Oh, and this is Landor, Maker of Monsters.

Three air speeds (though I can probably get that from Wikipedia too).

This is Biff Bannon of the United States Marines, but I share it for the yellow peril hoodlums, and demonstrating that they can be armed with handguns and rifles too, not just daggers and hatchets.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)