Detective Comics #37 - pt. 2

*sigh* "Spy" used to be so good when it was Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster working on it. Ever since Maurice Kashuba started drawing it it's been so boring, I wonder if Siegel's name is only contractually on it and he's not actually writing it anymore.  

The plot here is that a bomb blows up a "conference of government officials," with no specifics as to the nature of the conference or the level of the officials present. Forensic evidence points to a suspect, which our hero Bart Regan collects from the scene, which seems odd because you would think a forensic specialist instead of a spy would be collecting evidence. 

An assassin tries to shoot Bart in the back, but facing doesn't matter in Hideouts & Hoodlums; if you win the initiative roll, you can turn around and deck someone behind you, just like Bart does. 

Undercover, Bart tries to join Ligoni's mob, what we would call a terrorist organization today. Ligoni is a skilled knife thrower and tests his new recruits by throwing knives at them until they flinch. Bart stands still for 16 knives before Ligoni gives up. I would use two mechanics for this: one is rolling to attack Bart with each throw. Since he's trying to miss, a successful "hit" becomes a miss. The other is requiring a save vs. plot from Bart to see if he flinches. If I was really mean, I'd make him make 16 different saves, but the odds would really be against him then. I would have him roll once and, if he missed, the number he rolled is the number of knives he can withstand without flinching. Then, to be fair, I would roll randomly (on a 20-sided die) to see how many knives Ligoni throws.

During the initiation, a mobster walks in who knows Bart and recognizes him immediately. Bart was "disguised" only with a change of clothes to look like a criminal, which is not enough to warrant a mobster having to make a saving throw to see through it.

Whimsically, the newspaper headline saying the bombers were captured is from The Daily Star, the newspaper Superman then worked for. This could be seen as the first cross-title continuity between Action Comics and Detective Comics.

In Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, Cosmo's friend is a ship captain tasked with delivering unspecified "chemicals" to England. I immediately thought this was suspicious and did some digging and saw that we did send chemicals to England -- illegal mustard gas -- in 1943. We never do learn if it's that type of chemical being delivered.

It normally took a steamship 15 days to reach England from New York then, but the captain seems to suggest it will take 1 whole month with the circuitous route they planned around the "war-infested areas," which actually does sound like quite a reasonable precaution.

Cosmo, in disguise, hears talk of mutiny on board the ship (after a skill check for listening?). In a clever bit, Cosmo pretends to shoot the captain with a blank cartridge, then dumps a dummy overboard, so the mutineers will trust him and the captain can still move about the ship. Less clear is how Cosmo further distracts the mutineers with an explosion timed to when he drops the dummy in the water. Are the explosives inside the dummy? And if so, wouldn't dumping them in the ocean stop them from detonating? The story should have ended with the captain rallying the loyal crew for a big fight, but the story is running out of pages, so the mutineers all flee to the life boats, but Cosmo punches out the ringleaders before they can board the boats (why the ring leaders wait so long, until all the other mutineers are at sea, before leaving the ship is not clear).

The Crimson Avenger returns! A rich man's daughter has been kidnapped, so the Crimson Avenger goes to work -- as reporter, Lee Travis. He apparently finds no useful clues, so he comes back that night as the Crimson Avenger and, at gunpoint, forces the dad to tell him where the drop point for the ransom money is. His only plan now is to follow the kidnappers' car from the drop point (are police not doing the same?). 

The twist is that the kidnappers' hideout is a mansion in the suburbs. The Avenger even gives us the address for the mansion, 704 West Highway, "Scarchester." That sounds like Dorchester, Massachusetts to me. When he gets there, though, all the Avenger does is point a gun at the five kidnappers and wait for the police to arrive. Boring, and the art is terrible. What a bad comeback!

Fantastic Comics #4 - pt. 3

I know, I left you with a real cliffhanger last time. Would the Golden Knight really climb down the well? Well, he does, and it's a way loonier adventure than you ever would have expected at the start of this story!

The well has become an entrance to the underworld, and a deep entrance it is! The drop to that ledge looks like it would have been at least 40', so it's a good thing he was most of the way there when the rope snapped. That the cave mouth is at the level of the ledge suggests that this is level 1, with at least one more level further down.

The first set encounter on level 1 is a giant scorpion! And not just a realistic giant scorpion, but one with tentacle-like legs, no apparent stinger, and spins webs like a spider! Look out, there's two of them!

"Horde?" I only saw two. I wonder how many were watching from a distance and then failed their morale save...

That the constrictor snake encounter comes so fast on the heels of the scorpion battle suggests to me that it was a wandering encounter, attracted by the noise of the first combat.

And then we get more violence against animals. Oh joy...

Lava boils at a temperature of 1,292-2,192 degrees F. If Golden Knight failed that extremely risky leap, he would be taking about 6-24 points of damage from the heat alone, plus should probably be bumped up higher for the toxic fumes and suffocation damage -- so let's say he's risking 8-32 points of damage.

The Editor has a choice of game mechanics for the actual leaping. There is a skill check (I would call that an expert skill check, for leaping that far in heavy mail), or a save vs. science, or even something unofficial like a Strength check.

Things get even crazier on this page, as our hero encounters winged people who, from a medieval perspective, must look an awful lot like angels, yet GK has no compunctions against trying to kill them as soon as they come towards him. On the next page, which I didn't bother sharing, GK acts like the winged men attacked him first, but it sure doesn't look like it on this page.

Moving on, this is Yank Wilson, Super Spy Q-4. Comics.org's experts put question marks by who did this one, and it does look like a quick fill-in job by someone in the Eisner shop, but I'm not sure who either.

We've got a really unusual hideout design here, with a castle built into the side of a cliff (you can see the front of it on the next page), a standalone spiral staircase around a tall column in a really tall laboratory, a skylight-covered hangar above the castle, and a back door exit from the hangar in the cliff behind the castle.








Super-explosives are a dime-a-dozen in comic books already, but what's new is that we know how much this one is worth.

Now, there's a few really weird things about this page, and not just the ridiculously high entrance to the castle. One is that Terro has the audacity to test out the explosive on the village that is basically outside the front door to his castle. I mean, he is taking zero steps to conceal his involvement here, particularly since he just flew a plane from the castle over the village in broad daylight.

But more strangely, Yank leaves Washington, D.C. for Terro's castle before the wounded have all been taken away and, as you can see on the next page, before Terro's guests have even had time to leave. How close is that castle to Washington, D.C.? Does Yank have access to Samson's transporter?

"What?! That's absurd! How could you follow the painfully obvious clues leading here?"

Yank folds like a house of cards. Critical hit? Chance of stun from head blow? It doesn't have to be a surprise attack because he swings at Yank from right in front of him.

Terro's aviator look is pretty cool, and unusual for a mad scientist.

"Pell mell" is a rare term meaning "in a confused, rushed, or disorderly manner."

Yank was only stunned, hence his quick recovery.

The 2nd edition rules for grenades includes a note about catching them before they go off.

It's a little convenient that Terro just had to gas up his plane before takeoff, but what really doesn't make sense is using it on Von Garoff. Isn't it more useful for spies to follow other spies than to kill them?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Detective Comics #36 - pt. 2

Back in time for the tail end of the Batman's first encounter with Hugo Strange! Having escaped Strange's deathtrap/S&M session, the two of them grapple. Remember that Strange is about 6' tall and physically imposing, so it's not an unequal match-up (if Strange is an ultra-mad scientist, then they even have equal Hit Dice!). Strange has an early advantage, establishing a choke hold, but the Batman reverses it; both are perfectly emulated in Hideouts & Hoodlums' grappling rules.

After defeating Strange, the Batman does something that most players don't do in any RPG -- after defeating the main bad guy, he still methodically searches the hideout. In this way he finds a prisoner (that he claims to have always known about, though this is the readers' first time hearing about it), and learns how Strange was inducing fog around the robberies -- with a stolen lightning gun! Now, why he used the lightning gun to make fog and not turn it into a weapon...

No mention is made of what happens to the lightning gun (which looks like a planetarium projector, by the way). It doesn't seem to make it into the Batman's trophy room, and certainly doesn't become part of its arsenal. The Editor of that game session, perhaps just not feeling generous, made it a mad science trophy with very limited charges/uses.

Next up is Bart Regan, Spy. When Jerry Siegel was still drawing this it was my favorite feature, but now....Bart is up against more spies, now from the fictional nation of Tortania. I haven't a clue what country "Tortania" is meant to represent; it could just be a truly generic foreign power. Bart's big clue as to who the spy is, is overhearing him curse in Tortanian, which might be the first time cursing is demonstrated as a series of symbols in a DC comic.

The hunchbacked spy gets the drop on Bart, from behind, but Bart is somehow able to spin around and shoot first. H&H's simple initiative system allows for a lot of leeway like this, though circumstances almost cry out for a common sense adjudication and hand-waving the dice rolls. Perhaps the spy missed on his surprise roll so badly that the Editor said he hadn't even managed to get his shot off yet.

The hunchbacked spy turns out to be a pretty nifty threat; he's wearing a vest lined with dynamite under his coat, making him the first suicide bomber in comicbook history. It's a challenging threat, normally, but this adventure takes place on a boat, so Bart simply pushes the man into the water in time (though, if Bart had lost initiative...). The spy also has a poison pill on him that is confiscated.

Bart administers truth serum to the spy to learn where his hideout is. The hideout appears to be empty, but a secret door opens like a shutter sliding down.

Steve Malone, District Attorney, is hunting down a mobster on the lam, and figures out who the disguised mobster is by the clue of the hairs in his comb. In the ensuing fight, Steve uses a table for a club and the mobster's vamp girlfriend uses this really big candle holder, so vamps are sometimes armed with clubs. Steve doesn't start out the encounter with a gun, but he lifts one off a mobster. In a rare instance, both gunman run out of bullets in the same firefight.

I normally like Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator more than this installment. Speed is on the trail of a jewel thief who calls himself The Spider and leaves toy spiders behind as a calling card. There's even a nice spin where The Spider doesn't break into homes, he convinces rich people to rent from him, unaware of the secret doors he's built into his properties. But the story has some serious flaws. One, The Spider tries a drive-by shooting against Speed, but from his own car licensed in his own name. Two, Speed slaps the man's wife around while The Spider isn't home, and then she still obediently obeys him. Now, there's a nice twist on that, where the wife turns out to be The Spider, dressed as a man, the whole time, and there never was a husband...but I'm not sure Speed knew that when he slapped her...

(Batman story read in The Batman Archives vol. 1; the rest read at readcomiconline)

Detective Comics #35 - pt. 1

This installment of The Batman infamously opens on Batman standing in a doorway with a smoking gun in his hands -- it has nothing to do with the story, but must have impressed Kane as being a really cool opening panel.

This is, I think, the only story that makes out Bruce to be an amateur writer.

The story is a confusing jumble of racism, as the Batman tangles with Indian natives, working for a Chinese Fu Manchu-like character, who is actually a white man in disguise.

The Batman pauses to announce his presence before springing on two robbers, making me think his initial signature move was making sure bad guys got a good look at his costume before attacking them (and it makes me wonder if I should have rules on changing signature moves over time).

The "Batmobile" (not yet called that) is still only a high-powered roadster the Batman happens to drive.

Sin Fang's henchmen use khopeshes (swords; at least they aren't hatchets). Sin lures the Batman into a trapped room where the door slams shut and it slowly fills with mustard gas. Anticipating the 1960's Batman, the Batman just happens to have an anti-mustard gas pellet in his utility belt (marking the first time something weirdly random is drawn from the utility belt). Utility belts have been a trophy item since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Despite the fact that Sin has lured the Batman into a mobster encounter and a trap already, the Batman still falls into another trap -- this time, a pit trap that is filled with water at the bottom, but there's a pipe in the wall partway down that he can grab at.

The Batman seems unconcerned when he knocks "Sin Fang" out a window to plunge to his death.

Fictional names for foreign countries often change from issue to issue, but this is the second issue in a series of Spy stories where Germany is "Luxor."  Being a spy is easy when you see the ambassador walking down the street and then just have to look through a door transom and you spot him colluding with a submarine commander in person.

Bart Regan uses a "sensitive microphone" to listen to a conversation through a brick wall. He wears a bulletproof vest in his installment.

Tangling with the commander, Bart is grappled, thrown prone, shot at, and knocked out with a blow to his head. The shot narrowly missed his ear -- though combat in Hideouts & Hoodlums is abstract enough that it could have been a "hit" and still caused hit point loss, without causing any physical wound.

Commanders are 7th-level fighters, so Bart is hard-pressed every time they fight. Bart is twice saved by convenient encounters -- the first time by a passing beat cop, and the second time by a rival spy who takes Bart out of the scenario and finishes it himself (poor refereeing!).

Buck Marshall, Range Detective starts off with an unusual premise, making it the best start to a Buck Marshall story yet -- Buck robs a stagecoach! It turns out, Buck is robbing it because he knows robbers are on their way that are too numerous for him to stop (6 to 1 odds), so he appears to rob the coach and tricks the robbers into chasing off after him. Finding their lair, Buck puts aniline powder in all the gloves he finds, so the dye will make their hands and they can be found later. Aniline powder is a real thing.

One of the robbers calls Buck a "gink" -- this is old slang that only means "guy." 

Next up is Steve Malone, District Attorney. This story establishes that Steve is based out of New York, and that his secretary's name is Nancy. Steve has three assistants who serve as supporting cast in this story, but none of them are named.

Ethnic restaurants are not treated with much respect circa 1940; an Italian restaurant is called a "spagetti house" (not my misspelling).

The hideout of the kidnappers Steve is after is only accessible by a bridge. The kidnappers watch the bridge and plan to shoot anyone crossing it, but Steve foils them by swinging hand-or-hand underneath the bridge (basic skill check?)

(Batman story read in The Batman Archives v. 1; the rest read at fullcomic.pro.)

Detective Comics #34

And we're back to The Batman! I've read elsewhere some people guessing that is the Crimson Avenger featured more prominently on the cover, but it doesn't really look like something he'd wear and I think that's meant to be just a random mysteryman.

This issue is a flashback to when The Batman was still in Paris (from 2-3 issues ago). Bruce runs into a faceless man and, because he didn't read Dick Tracy when he fought The Blank, is really shocked. I wonder if I should stat a mobster type called Faceless Men who have a Scare Good Guy power...?

To a modern reader, "Duc D'Orterre, Master of the Apaches" might need translation. The first half is French for "Duke of Orterre," while the second half is (obviously) English, and is referring to (according to Wikipedia) "a Parisian Belle Époque violent criminal underworld subculture of early 20th-century hooligans, night muggers, street gangs and other criminals," and not American Indians. Orterre is a fictional duchy in France and is closest to Orléans of real French duchy names.

Throwing a missile weapon, like a throwing dagger, through the open window of a taxi car can't be easy, so it's no wonder the Apache tossing at Karel misses. Karel would normally just have soft cover from the car door, but given the odd angle the dagger seems to have come from into the vehicle (almost from in front of the taxi!), I might give a steeper bonus of 2 or 3 points. Sometimes, facing really does matter in combat, but it has to be the Editor's call when circumstances would call for this.

Le Duc D'Orterre has a face-burning ray that can erase the features of your face, while still allowing you to see, breathe, and talk.  It doesn't make much sense -- unless the ray only affects the ability of others to perceive your face.

Bruce Wayne steps out of a room and then The Batman steps back in to talk to Charles and Karel Maire. Because this is a comic book, there's still a chance that Charles and Karel don't immediately make the connection that Bruce Wayne is The Batman, but I would give them a save vs. plot at a +2 bonus to figure it out.

The Batman's plan for finding the Duke is to wander the Parisian sewers until he runs into a wandering encounter of two Apaches -- who I guess I would stat as bloodthirsty hoodlums, since I don't have stats for hooligans or muggers yet, and my version of the gangster is decidedly different from these knife-wielding cutthroats. Before the battle is over, a second wandering encounter check brings back up -- a third hoodlum and the Duke himself.

The Duke is armed with a light-emitting cane which somehow stuns The Batman.

The Duke's death trap for The Batman is a mechanical wheel that spins anyone strapped to its outer edge, with a chance each minute of slamming him into the stone wall of the cell for...let's say 1-8 damage? Enough slams and it could definitely kill someone.

The Batman simply snaps his bonds, as if he was a superhero, in this story. This happens often enough in stories that I allow heroes to escape bonds as a skill check, but I would only give them one check, without changing the circumstances somehow.

A trap door in the ceiling of the wheel-trap room leads to what appears to be a garden where flowers grow with human faces. The Batman sees them and uncharacteristically sits down with his face buried in his hands. It's a disturbing scene -- possibly the result of some hallucinogenic gas in the room that effectively stuns The Batman. If taken literally, though, then the Duke has somehow grafted human heads to flowers in a way that keeps them alive, and seeing them is a trap that causes temporary insanity.

Despite having entered the garden room from underneath it, The Batman is lead by a talking flower to a "glass door" (which doesn't look like glass at all) that leads back into the room he'd just left. The garden room must be a split-level room.

Charles, captured separately, tells The Batman that the Duke has fled to Champagne. Champagne is a province, the west side of which might have overlapped the historic duchy of Orleans, so that bit works out -- though with such a large geography to search, it's rather remarkable how quickly The Batman spots the Duke's fleeing automobile.

Gardner Fox's word of the day is tonneau. A tonneau is the cover used to protect the passenger seats in a convertible.

The next story is Spy. Bart Regan's stories always seem to presuppose that there was some intelligence agency in the US besides the FBI -- which made sense in that Steve Carson worked for the FBI, and Steve and Bart never crossed paths. In this story, we see Bart heading into to work and it clearly looks like the entrance to the Capital Building, not the Department of Justice building the FBI worked out of in Washington, DC.

Bart is walking up the front steps with another man when they are shot at in a drive-by shooting. Bart immediately assumes the other man was the target even though Bart surely has a great many enemies by now. It seems an odd sort of hunch, and I suspect it would either be a wild guess on the player's part, or the Editor was feeding extra information to the player to lead to that assumption.

The ambassador is from "Bolaria," which sounds like it should be Bolivia, but it's not; Bolaria and Luxor are two warring European nations. Luxor is Germany, so Bolaria is...France?

Bart takes the ambassador's place, thanks to an on-staff make-up artist (a SCM who would be even better than the heroes at disguises, so maybe a save vs. plot to see through it at a penalty?). He heads to Europe via a trans-Atlantic clipper plane. The plane is shot down by two fighter planes from Luxor, but are either disguised to look like pirate planes or Luxor's flag looks exactly like a pirate flag.

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1, Spy story read at readcomiconline.to.)

Detective Comics #33 - pt. 1

This is the issue that gave us Batman's famous, two-page origin story. This story is also the origin of both the "cowardly" and "superstitious" hoodlums, from Bruce's famous speech about "criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot."

When the real adventure begins, Bruce Wayne observes scarlet rays. These rays have multiple effects -- they can blind people and wreck buildings (probably at least as well as a 6th level superhero). Since thousands are killed in a single attack, we can assume they have a large range and a wide area of effect.

Prof. Carl Kruger is at least our 2nd Napoleon mobster in comics -- though I'm still not seeing a lot of justification for statting it differently like I did before in 1st edition. Maybe Napoleons are just master criminals or master criminal/scientists.

Batman hurls his Baterang as a missile weapon for the first time here, but Kruger is protected by a glass wall he keeps in his office between his desk and the window (perhaps wary of snipers?). Batman is overcome with a surprise head blow from behind (already going in 2nd edition).

Kruger's death trap is to leave Batman tied up with rope on the floor with a bomb set to go off in five minutes. Why Kruger wants to blow up his own house isn't clear, other than that he's obviously crazy. Batman cuts his bonds with a blade concealed in his boot and escapes in time. Luckily, Kruger never checked his boots -- or even peeked under his mask! (Save vs. plot to make sure villains don't do anything that obvious to you when you're captured.)

Batman doesn't escape entirely, though. His bleeding lip seems to indicate he took some of the blast, just not enough to kill him. An explosion would normally require a save vs. science for half damage, but with a deathtrap maybe it should be a save vs. plot for half damage, with a failed save meaning death instead of twice the damage.

Batman's not a great fighter yet in these early stories, but he's smart. He doesn't know where Kruger fled to, but Kruger unwisely told him the names of his lieutenants and one, apparently, has a publicly known address. Batman confronts him, tells him to take a message to Kruger, and then follows him in his Batplane (still the auto-gyro).  Of course, Batman would have been sunk had the lieutenant simply called Kruger on the phone...

Batman has a glass vial that, when it breaks, surrounds the Batplane in a thick smokescreen that clings to the plane. How this doesn't blind Batman isn't clear.

Guards can be really stupid. They see a smokescreen hovering in the sky and mistake it for a raincloud. I think even Winnie-the-Pooh would have seen through this.

Smaller (I presume weaker) versions of the scarlet death-rayguns can be mounted on trucks. They're delicate though -- one shot and they all blow up. Kruger explains soon thereafter that the death ray is a combination of ozone and gamma rays.

This is the first story in which Batman's life is saved by a bulletproof vest. This time, the bullets still knock him out and make him bleed (superficially).  On later occasions, bullets will just bounce off him because of the vest (maybe he has a Vest +1 by then).

Then Bruce Wayne whips up -- and I'm not making this up -- an anti-death-ray chemical spray to coat his Batplane with. This was the story that made me decide Batman had to be dual-statted as a mysteryman/scientist for Supplement IV.

The first Batplane is destroyed when Batman crashes it into Kruger's blimp, from which the scarlet death-rays are being fired.

Kruger apparently had an army of 2,000 mercenaries, though we never saw more than him, his three lieutenants, and two guards. After Kruger dies, Batman seems to sit back and let the authorities round up the army.

The next installment of Spy has to do with the country of "Luxen" -- a very poorly disguised Luxembourg suffering a bloodless annexation from "Thoria" (Germany). The story is interestingly prophetic, as this was 1939 and Luxembourg wasn't invaded until the following year -- and it was largely bloodless! The government did flee the country, but to the UK, not the US.  Past that, details seem strangely altered; Luxen has a male president instead of a female duchess. Also, in real life, the duchess fled with her family, which makes more sense than what the president does -- leaving his family behind so they can be threatened as hostages.

Bart Regan seems more observant than normal; he spots a wire hanging down behind a painting and immediately recognizes that it's a dictaphone wire.

The Luxen president's speech is interrupted by what appear to be mountebanks -- or so I call them in a new stat block for 2nd edition. Mountebanks, or rabble rousers, are able to get a growing number of innocent bystanders to start fighting.

And I learned a vocabulary word in this story -- plebiscite. Though it is consistently misspelled "plebecite."

Buck Marshall, Range Detective plays for high stakes when he has a defend a played out mine suddenly valued at $500,000. I learned the term "salting a mine", a con where you add extra gold to the random samples to make the mine seem more valuable.

Buck slips into a shack through a window because the front door is padlocked. It's important to keep in mind that, in modern times, we have multiple ways of locking doors. A padlock is relatively easy for Heroes to foil -- they might be able to wreck it with bolt cutters (though at a -4 penalty, if a non-superhero), or it can be shot off with a bullet if the bullet hits AC 7. Buck didn't want to make that much noise...

Buck didn't bring his own light source, though, so the Editor was gracious and left a lamp sitting out in the dark interior.

(Batman stories read in Batman Archives vol. 1; the rest read at Readcomics.net

Detective Comics #32 - pt. 1

Batman returns in part 2 of his adventure vs. The Monk. He's in Hungary, or the Latin Hungaria, as it's called here. Batman uses another sleeping gas pellet, thinking that he's using it on The Monk. It's unclear if Batman suspected The Monk was a werewolf yet, though the reader certainly had plenty of clues.

It was actually a woman named Dala that Batman gassed and, not being at all suspicious that Dala was in The Monk's carriage, he brings her to his hotel and lets her bunk with Julie Madison, who is safe now and under Batman's protection. But no one is safe from Dala; she bonks Batman on the head with a statuette and stuns him "momentarily." This would be 2nd ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums' new rule about head blows doing more damage in a surprise attack, Batman being brought down to zero hit points (he is still a low-level Mysteryman at this point), but making his save vs. plot to avoid a longer spell of being unconscious.

It turns out that Dala is a vampire, from which Batman (correctly) infers that The Monk is one too. Dala tells Batman where to find The Monk -- Gardner Fox plays fast-and-loose with geography here, saying that The Monk's castle is by the Dess River, which isn't an actual thing in Hungary.

Batman's autogyro is referred to as a "Batplane" in this story, making it the first Batplane.

The Monk uses a magic silver net that can stretch into the sky, snag the Batplane, and pull it to the ground. Now, the autogyro is just over the tree tops, so maybe the net can only stretch 100-120'. And it stretches pretty fast, because it was probably going at least 30 MPH. And it's plenty strong too; if it can pull a plane out of the air, then non-superhero Heroes will likely be pulled down without so much as a saving throw.

Vampires (or at least The Monk) are shown to be able to hypnotize others and control their charm victims over many miles, but the vampire's control is measured in a broad range of turns (he can control Julie for days, but Batman only for hours). He can also change into a wolf (which is why The Monk still calls himself a werewolf, even though the cat's out of the bag now that he's also a vampire -- vampiric werewolf?). In wolf form, a vampire can summon at least 1-4 wolves. Like vampires, vampiric werewolves have to sleep in coffins during the daytime. Like werewolves, they can be killed by silver weapons.

Batman's gas pellets can affect up to four targets in a 10' radius. He can toss his silk rope upwards about 15' alone, or more like 30' with a Batarang attached to it (though it took him about 12 hours to figure that out).

In Spy, Bart Regan is trapped in the back seat of a car that can fill with sleeping gas (likely stolen from the Raymond Chandler story "Nevada Gas"). Then his death trap is being placed in a giant bell jar that can have the air vacuumed out of it. The spy who trapped him is stupid and let's Bart out when he promises to talk. Bart, in turn, uses the same trap but keeps the spy inside until after he's talked.

Later, when Bart is being shot at, he ducks behind a desk. Somehow, he is able to sneak around the desk without being seen, come up behind the two spies shooting at him, and get surprise on them. Without being able to turn invisible, I don't see that as being possible in H&H.

I don't have much to say about this month's Buck Marshall story, except that Buck makes a disparaging comment about some outlaws, calling them "mail-order bad men."  Which is actually a better story idea than the counterfeiting scheme he really stumbles into.  But the real mystery in this installment of Buck Marshall is the curious use of the word "jigger" to refer to someone Buck knocks out. I am having trouble finding any cowboy-related use of the term. It could refer to a certain type of fisherman, but that's not relevant to the story. It was also once a variation on a certain offensive term for blacks, but the man in the story is colored white, so...

Larry Steele, Private Detective, rescues a damsel in distress on the road and takes her to an old man's house in the country. When Larry goes to call the police, the man says he'll be lucky to catch the operator awake. Back in the days before switchboard automation, this could have been a legitimate concern. Maybe Heroes who need to connect a call quickly should have to make a save vs. plot to succeed when away from the major cities.

Once again, the villain does something stupid to make it easier for the Hero -- this time, a killer implicates himself by accidentally driving to the scene of the murder when he was asked to, without being told where to go.

Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator, starts on a mystery with a great hook -- young women are being found dead on seashores, always with an ivory skull lying somewhere near the body.  And Speed gets a pretty cool villain to battle too -- Skull-Face, who even has a caveman right-hand man. Skull-Face is a mad scientist with a potion that makes women prettier, but it also compels them to immerse themselves in water. The more of the potion they buy from him, the more they are compelled until they eventually drown themselves.

(Batman story read in The Batman Archives v. 1, the rest read at readcomics.net.)

Detective Comics #31

This month's Batman story starts with something remarkable. No, I don't mean that it's now "Batman" and not "Bat-Man" any longer. And I don't mean that Bruce Wayne now has a fiancee we've never met before. No, I mean we first see Batman at the top of a utility pole -- from which he hops down and lands safely. That's got to be a 20-25' jump? That's not something you can currently do, by the rules, in Hideouts & Hoodlums. Heck, I'm not sure I'd allow that as a stunt!

Batman still doesn't have a Batcave, but he does have a secret hangar located somewhere, containing a bat-themed autogyro. We also get the Batarang in this story. Luckily, I've already added boomerangs to the weapons list in 2nd edition.

We learn that Hungary is well known for its werewolves. I'll have to put that in the werewolf entry!

The Batgyro makes a transatlantic crossing, which is conceivably possible. The 1942 Sikorsky R-4 autogyro could go 9,000 miles, which is far more than the ocean voyage between New York and France.

When Batman encounters the Monk, Batman makes his save vs. spells to avoid being hypnotized, but is aware of what was being attempted on him.

The plot requires Batman to make some pretty bizarre decisions to get him all the way to France. He allows Julie to go to France in the first place, even though he's suspicious of the doctor who tells her to go. He leaves Julie alone on the cruise ship to France with the Monk. He follows the ship to the docks, but then somehow loses sight of Julie and has to search the city to find her again. There's a lot of room here for Batman's player to make a different decision and throw off the entire scenario. It would make more sense for most of this to be backstory and for the scenario to begin in Paris.

In Julie's room is a huge gorilla. No idea how Batman doesn't see it from the window, other than a good surprise roll by the Editor.

The Monk's deathtrap for Batman is a net that closes up around him, that the Monk can drop into a pit of snakes at his leisure.

In a separate trap, Batman encounters a "gigantic" gorilla, far larger than the huge gorilla we saw earlier. 15' tall? Easily escaping the gorilla with some leaping and climbing, Batman only has a single guard left to overcome before escaping.

Batman saves Julie from her abductors (more normal guys like the guard) with a sleeping gas pellet, like we've seen him use before.

Following the Batman feature, an educational filler page called "Crime Never Pays" talks about bloodhounds being able to follow a trail 135 miles. It would be nice to know if that was true.

Humor filler is drawn by Paul Gustavson -- of Centaur Comics fame -- in this issue.

Buck Marshall sneaks up on a cabin with some outlaws in it by deliberately missing some shots at game fowl to fool the outlaws into think he's no threat. I want to turn this idea around on my players some time -- have the bad guys pretend to be incompetent to fool the Heroes, then turn out to be really dangerous!

Bart Regan fights "cowardly thugs" in Spy. Now that could be an interesting combination of two stat types. Tough as a thug, but with a cowardly hoodlum's low morale?

The cowardly thugs have a bulletproof car. Trophy item!

Larry Steele solves a murder mystery with an unusual clue -- the murderer slips up and describes a man by the color of his clothes, then Larry learns that suspect is color blind.

Speed Saunders, now relegated to the middle of the magazine, has a murder with an unusual murder weapon -- a mammoth tusk! Speed mounts a methodical investigation at a circus, questioning the witnesses, searching their tents, and corroborating evidence off-site via telegram. I'm not sure about the stolen tusk though...would trying a stolen tusk to a real elephant's tusk really impale a man before it broke loose from its bonds? Path of least resistance seems like it would be the latter. And then, doing it to avoid blood on the elephant doesn't make much sense. If an elephant's real tusk is right next to the fake tusk doing the actual goring, I would still think it would get some blood on it. And how would the killer know the elephant would use that specific tusk and not the opposing tusk?

Speed gets whipped in the face with a real whip and has temporary scarring from it -- a rare complication for a Hero.

Bruce Nelson's scenario is a pretty interesting one too. The plot hooks he receives are all intentional bait to lure him away from home. The scenario is faked so a robber can get into Bruce's home while he's busy elsewhere and rob him of valuable evidence from another case. I could see myself using this in my current online H&H campaign, where there are major events going on in two locations -- but I would need to lay out clues in advance that there's something not kosher about one of the two sets of plot hooks.

Cosmo, Phantom of Disguise, is dealing with two trophy item/potions. One is a paralyzing drug. The other is "essence of intelligence" -- someone else's stolen intelligence, distilled into a potion you can drink, and then increases your own intelligence (+1-2 to INT for 1-4 weeks?).

Slam Bradley tries to rescue a photographer at the zoo who falls into a bear cage. Slam pushes the bear away, then grabs the photographer and runs. Shorty is menaced by a bear cub (1+1 HD?), judging from the size of it. Then they find a constrictor snake in their room and Slam has to shoot it. And lastly they have to fight a tiger in the zoo.

All of that is pretty cut and dry, as far as game mechanics go. But there's this weird scene where Slam is clubbed from behind, and he's not knocked out or even stunned senseless, but he's groggy enough that he can attack, seemingly at a penalty.

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1, the rest read at readcomics.net)

Detective Comics #30

The Batman comes back again this issue, and so does Dr. Death, for a rematch. The Batman still doesn't have a Batmobile per se, but drives a "high-powered auto". He is shown easily going over a "high" fence, but at 8', I think anyone more athletic than me could get over that and I wouldn't even ask a player to use up a stunt for that.

Batman uses a silk line for climbing, but without a grappling hook; he lassos a projection from the wall before scaling it. Using a rope to climb would be a situational modifier to a skill check (probably a +1).

The Batman carries a flashlight. He also has potions of sleep that, when their vials are shattered, release sleep gas in at least a 5' diameter. It doesn't last very long, though, as the Mikhail the Cossack wakes up after what seems like only 1 exploration turn.

He hears a "muffled footfall" and keeps from being surprised. I'll have to check to see if I gave mysterymen both a better chance to surprise and a lower chance to be surprised. He also hides in shadows as if using a skill (though thinking to use heavy drapes for cover should probably be a big situational modifier -- maybe +2?).

A flying tackle is really just a trip attack combined with movement, and isn't treated different mechanically (though Batman gets a +4 bonus for attacking with surprise from behind!).  The Batman then trades damage inflicted for distance to push Dr. Death's cossack out the window.

The Batman's kick to the neck that kills Mikhail isn't supported by the H&H game mechanics.

In Spy, Bart Regan jumps out of a car on a bridge and dives into the water. It looks like a suicidal plunge, but Bart lands safely, because it's water and this is a comic book. But bad guys wouldn't know about game mechanics, so they natural assume he died and drive off. Editors, always remember to be impartial when playing the bad guys and not to use knowledge they wouldn't have.

The mad scientist in this issue has built a mind control device he can use on politicians and secret service members. The device is small -- a box that can sit on a tabletop, with a delicate light bulb-like attachment on top -- but it must have a range of miles.

In a rare example of a Hero having a specific injury, Larry Steele is shot and needs his arm in a sling for the rest of his story.

There's a strange escalation of weaponry in Speed Saunder's mystery. The first murder is done with a 13th century antique crossbow, the second is done with an automatic, but then the killer produces a sub-machine gun when she attacks Speed.

Bruce Nelson's adventure starts with a subtler start than normal; a yellow peril hoodlum simply puts a gun in his back and warns him to scram (or "sclam") and there's no fight. Bruce knows this guy is probably in league with some criminals in the area (combining two cliches, this adventure takes place in both Chinatown and a waterfront). But Bruce isn't interested in going after small fish, so he leaves and pursues the lead he was already on. This is so refreshingly different from the play style I usually see in H&H.

It's also worth pointing out that only the Chinese bad guy talks in broken English; the Chinese good guys in the story (and there are two, not just a token one!) talk perfectly normal. Also, kudos to the author (Tom Hickey?) for being the first comic book writer ever to point out that tear gas isn't "very potent in the open air". I've already read so many stories where gas weapons work equally effective no matter where they're used.

The smugglers use speed boats to reach the waterfront from a freighter in this story.

Cosmo's adventure is the opposite of Speed's, in a way, as the threat level deescalates.  A man who looks like Cosmo is shot and killed by the bad guys, who early in the investigation are ready to murder him. But later on, when Cosmo actually knows who the main villain is, Cosmo is simply knocked out and left behind, an easy chance to kill him, or at least put him in a deathtrap, completely missed. It's a sign of an Editor going too easy on his player(s).

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1; most of the rest of this issue read at www.readcomics.net.)

Detective Comics #29

Bruce Wayne begins this month's adventure doing what every good Hero should do at the start of each day -- read the newspaper for plot hooks. You just never know when your next arch-nemesis is going to leave you a message in the classified section, inviting you to ask for a letter at the post office, that will defy you to stop him from murdering someone, which will actually be a trap.

Before going, Bruce checks over some of his gear. He's equipped himself well with trophy items already, including "gas pellets of choking gas" and suction gloves and knee pads to aid climbing.

And even on arriving at the scene of the trap, The Bat-Man takes further good precautions, leaving a hanging rope outside the penthouse for a quick getaway in case the encounter goes sour.

When The Batman is attacked, he hits two hoodlums at once with a pedestal. Now, that can't be the Fighter class' "combat machine" ability, unless we give The Batman some levels in Fighter. And it can't be the Multi-Attack power unless we give him some levels in Superhero. Right now, the Mysteryman class has no avenue for making multiple attacks in the same turn. So...bit of a mystery there right now.

We do know that The Batman isn't too high in level yet because when he's shot by Jabah, he's apparently low enough on hit points that he decides to retreat (maybe the Editor rolled a 6 for damage)! Or is this no ordinary wound? The Batman is still bleeding from his gun shot wound about two turns later. Now, so far, we have no game mechanic in place for bleeding wounds causing additional damage over turns. Do we need one for gunshot wounds? Or could Jabah have a special trophy item, a Gun of Wounding?

The next day, Bruce Wayne just plain gets lucky, spotting Jabbah on the street as he drives by. You would think that would be a one in a million chance, but it's not really that bad. More likely, the Editor added Jabah to a wandering encounter table with no more than 20 entries on it, giving Bruce a 1 in 20 chance of encountering Jabah there.

Bruce saves Jabbah's intended victim from poison gas by putting a handkerchief over both their faces (good thing Bruce carries two!). Any sensible precaution like that should give a situational modifier of +1 to a saving throw.

The Batman is shown to have more equipment: a glass-cutter for breaking and entering. He uses a lasso in his next fight with Jabah.

Dr. Death's lab is equipped with a pit trap with a mat underneath it, for Dr. Death's quick escape.

What is in the vial Dr. Death accidentally smashes on the floor? He seems to refer to it as "the fiery death", but he may be referring to what he has planned for The Batman. Whatever it is, it seems to work a lot like Greek fire, combusting on impact, spreading quickly, and burning hot.

And that's all just from the Batman story!

In Spy, Bart Regan seems to still be separated from his wife and partner Sally and is saddled with boring partner Jack Steele. Jack is still a 1st-level Fighter, wet behind the ears, and easily captured when he follows the bad guys solo. Now, the bad guys know Jack knows too much; there's really no good reason for them not to kill him. But a good Editor knows to keep the story going as long as possible, and give the Heroes every possible break. So a previously unknown even bigger boss calls in and asks to see Jack.

At least the spies Bart and Jack have to deal with are pretty smart. They have a back-up plan; if their robot plane full of bombs is stopped, they have another pilot in the air who will swoop down and machine gun all the government officials the spies want to murder. Bad guys should always have a back-up plan, because Heroes tend to wreck plans so often.

Interestingly, Bart doesn't seem remotely interested in capturing the spy leader, but mows him down with bullets at long range. I hate it when my players are like that...

The Crimson Avenger, in his story, is hunting down kidnappers, based on the testimony of the kidnap victim they freed. These kinds of clues -- "we were on a farm about fifty miles from here....the front gate was locked with a chain, the second porch step was loose, and a water pump out in back squeaked" -- would be a different kind of investigation than an urban adventure.

The Crimson is not opposed to doing his hero work while out of costume. When he finds the kidnappers, he immediately launches into attacking them, even though he has none of his crime-fighting gear with him. Luckily, his sidekick Wing saves him and brings his gear to him.

During a car chase, The Crimson jumps from car to car. I don't have that on my skill list, but it seems like it would be a hard skill, so there should only be a 1 in 6 chance of that working. Maybe if the cars were going slower it would be easier, but this seems to be a high-speed car chase.

Okay -- what the heck? Speed Saunders is investigating a murder scene, sees a tobacco stain on the ceiling, and correctly deduces from that the tobacco was used to blind the murder victim before he died? That's got to be a case of an Editor feeding clues to the players when they can't solve the scenario on their own.

In Bruce Nelson's adventure, he's chasing a hoodlum (he's literally in a hood -- I wonder if hoodlums should get bonuses if they're wearing hoods) and shoots into the air to try and force a morale save (one of my players just recently tried that).  When that fails, it becomes a chase. Editor and player each make skill checks for their characters. On a 2, they run slightly faster than normal. On a 1, they run much faster than normal. On a 3-6, they just run normal. That's basically how skills will work in 2nd edition.

Cosmo, in his adventure, is on the trail of a mad scientist. He's following a car that he thinks the mad scientist is in -- but rather than trail him back to his lair, Cosmo detours to the local license bureau and inquires who the car belongs to. Interesting technique there, Cosmo -- lucky you the car wasn't stolen!

But Cosmo's luck doesn't end there. He bluffs his way into the mad scientist's home posing as an electric meter inspector. Then the mad scientist simply invites him in and begins showing off his disintegrater raygun. It has a range of six miles and wrecks things as at least a 6th level superhero. When the mad scientist succeeds at disarming Cosmo, it looks like it's all over for that character. But the Editor allows the dropped gun to go off and shoot the raygun, blowing it up somehow. Really...lazy storytelling at its worst here. I can scarcely recommend anything from this as game tips.

And while Cosmo's audacity just seems lazy, Slam Bradley's is perfectly in-character for him. When he receives a threatening letter warning him to stay away from Hawaii, he not only goes there at once, but puts an ad in the newspaper right away saying "I'm here! So what?" (I laughed out loud at that).

But Slam is being suckered -- every note he receives warning him to stay away from somewhere is being used to lure him around (I wonder how many of my players that would work on...?).

Slam is stopped from catching the bad guys in a car chase by the simplest method -- a fork in the road. Unsure of which route to take, Slam gives up and tries something else.

And Slam's next plan is really interesting. Hoping to endear himself to his next suspect, Slam and Shorty endanger the man's life so Slam can rescue him.

The villains' hideout is a house on a leper colony island -- which, you've got to admit, is a pretty good way of keeping intruders away.

Sadly, the story is marred by horrible racism towards native Hawaiians, who are shown to be human-sacrificing primitives, easily tricked by Slam's ventriloquism into thinking Slam and Shorty are gods. Also, there's some bizarre politics, where the Japanese and Chinese seem to be working together to foment revolution in Hawaii.

(The Batman story was read in Batman Archives v. 1, the rest was read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #28

We're back around to Detective Comics again already, with this being the second appearance of The Bat-Man.

The Bat-Man demonstrates voice mimicry in this story. That's not currently a skill in Hideouts & Hoodlums. I'll...consider how important/useful it would be.

When The Bat-Man kicks a thief off a roof (to the man's death, no less), he's using a throw attack. A flip/throw can make your opponent prone or move him 5', if you hit and he fails his save vs. science.

In the world of comic books, confessions signed under duress caused by vigilantes seem to be fully admissible in court. I wonder if H&H needs a short article on the law in a comic book world.

While most Buck Marshall, Range Detective (moved to here from Action Comics) stories followed the same pattern of following tracks to the killer, this one starts with the unusual premise of Buck being arrested, and then told he was arrested so he could talk to the prisoner in the cell next to him and try to get some kind of confession out of him. It's an interesting set-up for an adventure, though I could see players holding a grudge for the sheriff not telling them his plan first.

In the most ridiculous example of disarming a gunman to date, Buck does so by swinging a hat.

Someone else besides Joe Shuster is drawing Spy in this issue, and the story hurts for it. Bart's partner Sally is still missing from the strip, which also saps much of the uniqueness out of it.

I'm not sure what country "Baralia" is supposed to be, but unless it's Mexico or Canada I really don't see how they plan to get their tanks and infantry to the United States.

Bart demonstrates picking a lock (could be a spy class feature, but I plan to give it to everyone anyway).

Lee Travis, The Crimson Avenger, falls off the running board of a fast-moving car, fast enough that the damage makes him need to see a doctor afterwards. Maybe we need to fashion a game mechanic for horizontal falling? If speed was the only factor, then falling while going 20 MPH would do 1-6 points of damage, 40 MPH would do 2-12 damage, 80 MPH would do 3-18 points of damage, and so on.

The Crimson trades in his gas gun for itching powder in this story, though the itching powder is encountered off-panel and we never see how effective it's supposed to be. Speaking of effectiveness, The Crimson gets kidnapped, not once, but twice in this story by hoodlums.

Bruce Nelson is shown being able to read Spanish. The H&H rules talk about not bothering with making Heroes keep track of what languages they can speak; at least the common written languages need to be covered in that too.

A mastiff runs loose in Doctor Fu Manchu. Dogs were the pit bulls of their time, in terms of reputation for violence (and probably equally undeserved). While I had previously statted dogs as 1+1 Hit Dice, 2 Hit Dice might not be unreasonable for mastiffs.

(Batman story read from Batman Archives vol. 1. I managed to read most of the rest of the story at readcomics.net until malware on the site overcame my malware blockers. May have to stop using that site...)

Detective Comics #25

This one is woefully out of order. I had skipped over it because the summary I'd read seemed so uninteresting. Now that I've read it myself, though, I found plenty worthy of comment.

Nailing down where the early Heroes are from isn't easy most of the time, but here Speed Saunders tells us he's from New York. He also tells us some useful tips for checking corpses: check the wrists to see if they had show signs of having been tied up, and -- of course -- check the ground to see if there's enough blood, or if the body was moved. And, of course, play every hunch. Even though the body seems to have been killed by a hammer blow to the head, Speed still asks for the stomach to be pumped -- just for, you know, whatev's -- and then by amazing coincidence finds the true source of death. It makes me curious about how a skill in Hideouts & Hoodlums shouldn't be "get sudden hunch" -- which would let the Editor feed clues to his players...

In Spy, Bart and Sally are the first Heroes to be given a plot hook by FDR himself! Speaking of amazing coincidences, Sally reaches into a spy's desk drawer, pulls out random papers, and they just happen to be detailed invasion plans. Now, maybe the Editor assigned something like a 1 in 6 (or even a 1 in 8!) chance of stumbling on just the right papers and Sally's player got lucky, or the Editor fudged events to ratchet up the stakes in the scenario.

In The Mysterious Doctor Fu Manchu, slime-covered walls prevent climbing from a trap. It's your standard flooding room trap with one extra twist -- there are beams just high enough for the Heroes to grab and try to pull themselves up, but concealed on the top of the beams are sword-blades. Although the characters believe they could sever fingers, we deal with more abstract injury in H&H; they probably do only 1-6 damage.

The Crimson Avenger carries two trophy items: a lineman's phone that he can plug into someone's else's phone jack and use, and the first gas gun used by a Hero in comics!

Bruce Nelson is said to have a curious ability: he can shoot "accurately while on the dead run".  Now, normally, one can make two moves in combat in H&H, or one move and an attack. This seems to be implying that Bruce can make a full move and still get an attack. So what's going on there? Should this be a skill everyone has, like a 1 in 6 chance to shoot while on a dead run? But skills don't affect combat, class and level (and to a limited extent, ability scores) affect combat. For running combats consistently, I'm inclined to ignore what Bruce just did, but I'll watch for more evidence...

Crooks often do dumb things in comic books that make them easy to find. Bruce homes in on a gang of robbers because all of their robberies are roughly equidistant from the same town the bad guys use as their base. Heroes should always remember to check maps and look for patterns -- though it should not fall to the Editor to spell out what the patterns are.

Slam Bradley & Shorty Morgan (really, Shorty) are attacked by a rattlesnake when they try attending college to better themselves. That Slam can't spell, but in another issue is revealed to be a self-taught magic-user, either shows that the strip had no sense of continuity, or that an education-related stat would be unnecessary in H&H.

Slam is good at division of labor; when a rock is thrown through their dorm window with a note tied to it, Slam leaves Shorty to read the notes, while Slam crashes through the window to chase the thrower. Smart players will make quick decisions like this, so that all the Heroes aren't trying to accomplish the same thing.

(Read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #27 - pt. 2

There was a time when Speed Saunders was top billing in Detective Comics, but now he just gets to come second after The Bat-Man. A beat cop who must know Speed summons him to the scene of a corpse found on the riverfront, tied up and strangled. Speed sees an unusual design on the man's collar that he takes to be a clue. Smartly, he heads to the public library to research it. Weirdly, the library is open to him, even though it appears to be nighttime. Did Speed just break into the library, because he couldn't wait until morning to look for clues? That sounds exactly like some players I've had...

Speed finds a weird trap in a man's house; behind a secret wall panel is a mannequin arm holding a gun, so that one only has to pull a string at the back of the arm to make the gun shoot. It seems overly elaborate at first, but it would allow someone to murder within the house without getting any powder burns on the killer's own hand.

Buck Marshall, Range Detective, does a first class job of searching for clues -- checking for how much blood leaked from each wound, checking the local soil against the soil on the dead man's clothes, checking the nearby horseshoe prints, considering the effects of the weather on dating the tracks, considering the direction of the shots, checking for loose hair, and considering the length of the stride to estimate a man's height -- all things a Hideouts & Hoodlums player can look for while investigating.

In Spy, the Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee dies -- which is actually kind of a funny pun, because in 1939, the Chairman of the Commitee's name was Martin Dies.  Or is it the same Committee? Bart Regan says there were five members on the Committee, but there were actually seven members in 1939, a fact that should have been easily verifiable, and none of the actual member names are even close to the fake ones used in the story.

Here's another wrinkle -- though Bart Regan is often referred to as a spy, his actual credentials here show he works for the Secret Service. Or are those fake credentials? That could be a good trophy item...

Bart has an interesting encounter with a wandering encounter; when a gunman climbs through his hotel window, Bart is immediately incredulous. "How in heck could you have known so soon that I'm on your trail?" Bart wails at the unfairness of it. But the gunman turns out to be a hungry thief, unrelated to the case. I can just imagine an out-of-character exchange going on, between player and Editor, with the player complaining that the Editor was using knowledge of the player's actions unfairly, and the Editor backpedaling and changing the encounter.

Bart encounters an unusual murder weapon -- miniature "bombs" wrapped in cellulose and concealed in food. The cellulose dissolves and the bomb goes off on the inside, apparently for lethal damage (though it's hard to imagine a bomb that small doing much damage...). It's also hard to believe the enemy spymaster falls for the old "switch the bananas when you're not looking" trick - but I guess he missed his save vs. plot.

I learned a history lesson from The Crimson Avenger when he refers to a miniature camera as a "candid camera". And here I thought that phrase was invented for the TV show!

Again, The Crimson shows unusual abilities -- leaping a 6' fence, climbing the drainpipe of a building, and snapping rope bonds when tied up -- all too weak to be superpowers, but possibly Mysteryman stunts.

Bruce Nelson is investigating a Voodoo-related murder in New Orleans, and the author seems to have actually done some reading on the subject; the crosses and snakes at the murder scene seem like appropriate motifs. I wonder if the Creole words are authentic or just gibberish. Anyway, I always try to put some research into my scenarios like that.

Bruce encounters a harmless snake -- obviously not there to challenge him, but it did frighten him enough that he whipped out his gun and started shooting. He also finds the murder weapon -- devil smoke, a "green, gummy substance" that, if burned, produces a lethal cloud of smoke. Good for a deathtrap!

You don't have to learn languages in H&H, normally, but if the Editor did insist that your Hero had to learn a language, Cosmo the Phantom of Disguise learns Chinese in just 30 days. Cosmo, in disguise, gets a job in a Chinese shipping business. In the back of the shipping room, concealed behind boxes, is a secret door that opens onto a passage that leads below the wharf behind the building. Then a second secret door opens into the back of a fake coal barge.

And, lastly, Slam Bradley takes a trans-Atlantic clipper to Switzerland, which might have necessitated a save vs. plot to arrange. As I understand it, there were a lot of travel restrictions on traveling from the U.S. to Europe during the War.

(Issue read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #24

In Spy, preserving the U.S. neutrality is crucial to the mission.   Bart and Sally get caught and wind up treading water in the middle of the ocean. How long they can tread water is not clear by the Hideouts & Hoodlums rules. Luckily it didn't come up, because a U.S. submarine just happens by and picks them up. But how? Is the submarine just a wandering encounter, a planned encounter, or did the Editor fudge and make it happen to save them?

Crime Never Pays is filler material. It talks about how dental work is nearly as reliable at identifying bodies as fingerprints by 1939.  There's a good tip about how hoodlums often keep the same nicknames even when they're using aliases. There's also a claim that the FBI convicts 98% of everyone they bring to trial.

In The Mysterious Doctor Fu Manchu, I learn that Fu Manchu-types have a paralyzing gaze!

Bruce Nelson gets in a shootout with a thug.

The only installment I plan to talk about from this issue is Slam Bradley, which still takes place in 2 billion AD. Jerry Siegel makes some remarkable predictions here. One is uplifted animals that can walk and talk like humans, a common science fiction staple today, and two is communicators sewn into shirts that you just press to activate, such as seen decades later in Star Trek: the Next Generation. Jerry also wisely predicts that our modern languages would be unintelligible that far into the future, but luckily people wear thought translators (I guess so they don't have to wear out their lips with talking?).

Another curious feature in the future, which could be a good trick to feature in a mad scientist's hideout, is a room that has to be entered from above. If you fall through the room, you fall slowly, as if through a "jelly-like substance". It isn't clear if there's really a column of jelly there, or if the anti-gravity effect just feels like moving through jelly, but it's an interesting detail regardless.

Slam fights a monster that seems to be ogre-sized, with metal claws. His opponent also seems to have the Super-Tough Skin power activated!

In the far distant future, death is reversible and Shorty is brought back to life as a routine matter. Heroes with access to a time machine could essentially be immortal, going into the far future whenever they need to be resurrected.

One of Siegel's misfires on future tech is motorized propeller shoes that let people walk on air. But - ow! -- what if one of your legs brushed against the other? Sounds like 1-6 points of damage to me, followed by falling damage.

(Issue read here)

Detective Comics #23

Speed Saunders investigates a murder committed with a sharpened ski-stick that can be thrown like a javelin. Speed reveals that it has a range of 50', so a javelin would too.

Larry Steele, Private Detective, is hit with a blackjack and knocked out for 20 minutes, after which he wakes up.

The Crimson Avenger runs afoul of zombies in this issue; zombies made by science instead of magic. The science zombies are called "mechanical men" and "zombis", and are driven around by two hoodlums who work for a mad scientist. The scientist has a "giant" king cobra that the zombis are worship (though why they would worship the snake if they were mindless eludes me), but it's not really that giant -- large, maybe. It's also worth noting that they can be fooled by disguises, as The Crimson disguises himself as a zombie and successfully moves among them (definitely calls for a save vs. plot, that trick).

The Crimson also hides in shadows and the zombis are unable to spot him.

Bruce Nelson goes back to his alma mater of Princely University, clearly a stand-in for Princeton. He stops a murder from happening with a blowgun.

Speaking of stand-ins, Jerry Siegel likes to kill off stand-ins for famous people. In Spy, a senator is murdered (no indication as to which, but there's only 100 of them), and then a famous aviator who sure seems to be Charles Lindbergh is killed. The murderer is a mad scientist who has his hunchbacked assistant swap out buttons on the victims' clothes with buttons containing a radio receiver. The receiver buttons trigger heart attacks in the victims, apparently over long distances. the whole set-up is a pretty dangerous trophy item to put into the Heroes' hands.

The assistant, Rutsky, is quite capable. He climbs a tree with cat-like grace, sneaks up on a trained spy like Bart Regan, and almost throttles Bart to death with his bare hands. Maybe assistant should be a mobster type!

To find out where Dr. LaForge is, Bart just has to call the local newspaper office and talk to someone in the research department. The paper has on file what country Dr. LaForge is visiting from and where he's staying. Newspapers sure used to have generous budgets for research departments!

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, has to shoot the head off a cobra to save someone. I'm as yet unsure if I need to distinguish between varieties of poisonous snakes, stat-wise, in 2nd edition, other than perhaps the large/huge/giant distinctions.

Slam Bradley and Shorty explore the distant future of 2 billion AD with the help of a scientist with a time machine (specifically a "time-flier" -- it looks like a plane, but it moves through time instead of space).  The time machine seems to work an awful lot like Wells' The Time Machine, down to history playing out at super-fast speed through a view screen.  Something else to point out is that time machines must be remarkably easy to make; in comic books, a single professor working alone is often responsible for creating them.

It's perhaps easier to send your time-traveling Heroes to the ridiculously distant future so it doesn't have to even resemble the present world anymore. But there's a danger of too powerful hi-tech trophies winding up in the Heroes' hands in any future scenario, as well as the temptation to find out knowledge of the future the Heroes can exploit to their advantage.

The future is sure different in some ways, with a metal sun in the sky shedding green light, and a mysterious body orbiting the artificial sun. Cities surrounded by a screen of death rays. There's still jungles in the future, and wild leopards in them, but if the time-flier hasn't moved through space, then the jungle is at the same latitude as New York City. Anticipating global warming...?

Shades of Gamma World, the future is ruled by humans, living with uplifted/mutant bird-men and uplifted/mutant plant-men!  They live on a monarchical society once again, answering to a prince. The weapons of the future consist of odder fare than Laser guns. They use pipes that can paralyze others with sound, or living missiles -- plants that can dodge in mid-air and spray poison gas.

(Issue read at Read Comics)

Detective Comics #21

Speed Saunders can walk onto a crime scene, observe the body, and tell from the visual symptoms alone what poisons might have been administered to kill the person. He also just happens to know where to find a mobster's hideout, even though there were no clues in the story about where to find it. Detect Poison and/or Detect Hideout might need to be an abilities added to the Detective class -- if the Detective class ever makes it officially into Hideouts & Hoodlums (it's currently an optional class from The Trophy Case).

Cigarettes tainted with prussic acid is both a murder weapon and a death trap in this story.

The Crime Never Pays filler page talks about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. "Today, motor cars, fast patrol boats, airplanes, and motorcycles are used by the Mounties to aid the apprehending of criminals. There are more mounted police in automobiles than on horses." Funny, then, that whenever Mounties appear in the comic books, they usually are not using cars to get around...

Buck Marshall spends two days unconscious from going down to zero hit points.

In Spy, spies are shown to be better than average at picking locks.

In Crimson Avenger, grave robbing only warrants a $100 reward for information.

The Crimson's gas gun is shown affecting three beat cops at once.

In this story, Slam and Shorty burn quickly through $10,000 and find themselves needing to find fresh work. But that begs the question -- what did they spend it on? A dollar went a lot further in 1938, and 10,000 of them could buy quite a lot. If Slam was being played by a sensible player, he would be stocking up on healing pills with that money, but Slam seldom seems like he's being played by a smart player.

It reminds me of this one section of Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign, "Special Interests".  It broke expenditures into seven categories: wine, women, song, wealth, fame, religion, and hobbies. In this system, experience points for treasure were only awarded after being spent on one or more of these categories.  Hideouts & Hoodlums doesn't have that rule, and maybe doesn't need that rule, but the categories themselves are worth thinking about.

Wine:  Likely only the recourse of hard-knuckle Fighters, making your Hero a raging alcoholic not only gives him some pathos, but an excuse to do nothing useful during downtime.

Women: This doesn't have to be anything sordid. It could be a Hero bribing people to keep tabs on a femme fatale adversary, or a Superhero who has to hire people to serve as his alibis to fool his girlfriend, who doesn't know about his dual identities yet.

Song: Or partying, is the best way to rub shoulders with other members of your social class. It can be a great way to bring plot hooks to you, instead of going out and pursuing plot hooks.

Wealth: Or the generation of wealth, by investing. If players were interested in tracking this, it could be an annual rate of return equal to the Hero's Wisdom score.

Fame: Heroes generally don't, but could pursue licensing deals, court the press, or even stage events to increase their popularity. Maybe for every $1,000 spent, the Hero gets one +1 bonus to use on a future encounter reaction roll?

Religion: I'm not sure how to put a game mechanic bonus to donating to one's own church, or if that would even be appropriate. Most comic book Heroes are a pretty irreligious bunch.

Hobbies: Again, maybe not so useful for game mechanics purposes, but could be handy for role-playing purposes.

I'm not sure which, if any of these ideas, merit adding into 2nd edition.

Also, there's a trap, where Slam is supposed to fall into a pit lined with spikes. I'd like to keep additional damage for falling simple. If there are not too many spikes, maybe an additional d6 of damage. For a moderate amount of spikes, it could be an additional 2d6, and for a large amount of spikes, it could be 3d6.

(Read at Read Comics)

Detective Comics #20

Speed Saunders is a prisoner of the Chinese Tong, has no weapons, and no resources other than the suit he's wearing and his wits, and he still escapes from his cell. How? By trying everything. The Editor should always have an "out" planned; in this case, it was a loose grill in the window.

Mandarin Hapsu has a rather devilish trap for Speed too. It requires Speed having a prisoner with him who takes him back to the scene of the crime to show him how the murder happened. The prisoner points out a hole in the wall and asks Speed to look through it. Behind the hole is a gun, set to go off when a concealed button is pressed on the wall nearby. If the Hero is foolish enough to look, I would have the gun shot as if by a 3 HD opponent, but ignoring any DEX bonuses to Armor Class.

In Larry Steele, Private Detective, Delores kills a man by hitting him over the back of the head with a wooden club, with one hit. This is impossible under normal Hideouts & Hoodlums rules, though Book III: Underworld & Metropolis Adventures does talk about campaign moods, and the ability to run a very dark campaign where everyone dies when they reach zero hit points.

Buck Marshall, Range Detective, takes advantage of the terrain around him. Rather than approach a cabin where a killer might lurk on foot, he climbs a tree and uses the branches to clear the distance from above. Smart players ask lots of questions about the terrain, and figure out ways to exploit it.

Buck encounters a similar version of the same trap used on Speed -- a shotgun rigged to go off when a door is opened. I have yet to see a Hero actually reset a trap, but Buck here makes it look like he's reset the trap, in order to catch the killer (the man unwilling to go back through the door).

In Spy, Bart and Sally are given an unusual challenge -- they have to protect a senator without letting him know he's being protected, since he refused security. When Bart and Sally find two gunmen waiting to ambush the senator, even Sally gets engaged in the ensuing fistfight (first female in physical combat in a comic book?).

When Bart is going 60 MPH in a car chase, that's about as fast as his car can go.

Drunk drivers need to be on every urban wandering encounter list. Jerry Siegel in particular seemed to consider this a huge problem.

In Doctor Fu Manchu, Wayland Smith is said to have a "pocket-lamp." I don't know if I've ever seen such a thing before, since flashlights are so much easier to hold. A pocket-lamp is similar, but boxier.

Fu Manchu's weapon, the Zayat Kiss, is revealed to be a giant centipede! First one in comics!

This issue marks the debut of The Crimson Avenger, though its main character is only called The Crimson in this first installment. One of the earliest Mysterymen in comics, the Crimson Avenger can climb walls (a skill the Mysteryman was given in Supplement I: National), and wields a gas gun (a trophy item from Book II: Mobsters & Trophies).

Definitely a Chaotic Hero, when the Crimson can't prove a lawyer's guilt, the Crimson tries to murder the District Attorney and then frames the lawyer for the attempted murder!

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, has to take a running leap off the end of a pier to try and reach the speedboat being stolen. Because the boat is pretty far away, his Editor tells him he has a 1 in 6 chance to make the jump. He rolls a 2. Because he was close, the Editor decides to go easy on him and gives him an additional chance to reach out and grab the rail by making an attack roll.

The Slam Bradley story in this issue is crazy. Out of the blue, Slam is somehow an extremely powerful Magic-User, just from having practiced since last month. And he throws spells around like they were nothing. He casts some sort of Teleportation spell on Shorty, then a Telekinesis-like spell to pack his bags. At a meeting of Magic-Users, he casts two Phantasmal Force spells in a row. He uses Detect Thoughts to find out what the hoodlum at his door wants. He casts some kind of grappling spell that holds a man and moves him -- maybe that's just another Telekinesis spell.  Then he uses a spell that somehow allows himself to be at two places at the same time -- Project Image? He casts Invisibility, Charm Person, more Phantasmal Forces, some sort of Push spell (Telekinesis again?) -- and possibly all in the same day!

The only explanation I can think of is that Doctor Occult is pretending to be Slam for some reason.

Slam's rival, Professor Mysto, casts Dispel Magic, but can only cast it once. To then dispel Invisibility, he has to resort to making a brew from a container of spirit-powders. Potion of Dispel Magic? Slam interrupts the preparation of the potion, so we never get to see how it works.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)