More Fun Comics #53

This issue begins with the Spectre! The story picks up where it left off last issue, with Jim Corrigan (the Spectre, when he still looks like a person, but he's a ghost either way) uses the spell Passwall to appear in the mobsters' hideout. After one of the mobsters spots him, Jim turns invisible (shown visually by shading him out on the page). That first mobster is now dead -- Jim has used a new spell called Death Gaze that requires a save vs. spell or the victim dies in 1 turn (similar to Finger of Death, but not instantaneous). This needs to be a 5th level spell.

Jim ends his invisibility (confirming that magic-users can end spells before their duration ends at will) and one of the remaining two mobsters opens fire; the bullets pass right through Jim. This is in keeping with the ghost race presented in Supplement V: Big Bang Comics and its ability to go ethereal a few times per day.

Then Jim uses another new spell, Withering Touch. This happens to the next person who touches the magic-user. Unless a save vs. spell is made, over the next three turns, the person touching withers away until only a skeleton remains, remains alive and aware in that third turn as nothing but a skeleton, but then dies. Further, the victim has to save vs. spell for every item on his person or those items wither to nothingness too, with a +1 to +5 bonus for magic items, depending on how powerful they are. This probably needs to be a 7th level spell.

Jim toys with the remaining mobster, confounding him with a Mirror Images spell, but this leaves the mobster free to shoot his prisoner, the unconscious Clarice (from last issue). Jim thinks Clarice is going to die from a critical wound, but Jim casts Cure Critical Wounds just by touching her.

When police show up, Jim casts Raise Dead on the mobster he killed with his death gaze, but not the one that withered to a skeleton -- perhaps Jim has finally hit his first limit, that he can't raise someone without a complete body. We also clearly see that Jim can cast spells without anyone around him knowing he's doing it. This runs counter to how most magic-users operate in comics, so maybe this needs to be a new special ability of ghosts.

We see a disadvantage of being a ghost, that Jim doesn't breathe anymore and can't even appear to be breathing (no air exhales from his nose or mouth). Since he will be unable to hide his deathly state from Clarice for long, he breaks up with her.

Although his powers are supernatural, the Spectre's costume is sewn by hand. At this point it's unclear if his body is white and he's only wearing green shorts, or if he's wearing a white bodysuit under the shorts.

The rest of the issue is unavailable to me. From some vague descriptions on a Wiki, it seems that Biff Bronson, in his story, goes up against the "mechanical men" (man-sized robots) of a villain called the Wizard and Captain Desmo, in his story, runs afoul of the Society of Assassins in Bombay.

(Spectre story read in Golden Age Spectre Archives Vol. 1.)

More Fun Comics #52

After a long time away we return to DC's very first series, just in time for the debut of its first superhero, the Spectre!

Jim Corrigan is a still-living police detective when we first meet him. Single-handedly, with just his fists, he defeats three thieves and a guard (which seems like it must have been some pretty lucky rolling). He's also a bully, mistreating his best friend and fiancee (though maybe not so much by 1940 standards), so it's hard to feel sorry for him when the master criminal "Gat" Benson and two hoodlums stick him in a barrel full of concrete and drop him in the river. 

Jim dies, but his soul ascends to Heaven on a shaft of light. A voice speaks to him from the clouds -- it's all much less detailed than the versions of the Afterlife we've already seen from Will Eisner's Yarko the Great stories.

Returning as a ghost, Jim finds that he is now immune (or at least highly resistant?) to drowning, can fly, turn invisible (though he only knows he turned invisible because he had no shadow...?), and pass through walls.

===

Game mechanics: It's clear that Jim is now a Magic-User, as the four spells he just cast were Water Breathing, Fly, Invisibility, and Passwall. All of which are way beyond what a 1st-level Magic-User would be able to cast, but if there was ever a good candidate for brevet ranks, it's the Spectre.

Another possibility is that we just assign more special abilities to the ghost race that was introduced in Supplement V: Big Bang.

What remains unclear is, does Jim retain his level in the fighter class from when his campaign started? Or has the Editor allowed his player to start over with essentially a new character with the same name and supporting cast?

===

In a gag filler called Henrietta, we see a new bicycle selling for $25.

We pick up with Wing Brady where we left off, with him helping the colonists (the bad guys, from our modern perspective) against the natives/nomads (the good guys). Normally, it's the Westerners who are shown having air support in these adventures, but this time the tables are cleverly turned. While Wing and the British are holed up in a desert fort, the nomad besiegers call in an air strike by a light bomber.

The bomber is also a plot device, shaping the scenario by creating gaps in the walls where small-scale combats can take place, as the natives try to pour through.  

(Spectre story read in The Golden Age Spectre Archives vol. 1; started to read the rest at readcomiconline, but then the site started trying some suspicious activity...)