Top-Notch Comics #3 - pt. 2

We'll continue today with  Dick Storm - and, yes, I still think that's funny.

Speaking of names...considering how important Kang the Conqueror is going to be for Marvel Comics in 24 years, it's interesting to see the first use of "K'ang" in a comic book.

Dick tries to trick/bluff K'ang, but K'ang isn't buying it; K'ang may have made a save vs. plot here, which I think is a more appropriate mechanic than a skill check to persuade someone. Of course, the Editor can always disregard mechanics and rule on persuasion based on role-playing skill.

Six-to-one odds is too great for Dick.

It's an unusual variant on the "get the guard to rush into your cell strategy," choking the woman in the cell with you, and there's a certain amount of extra danger here if the guard doesn't fall for it soon enough.

Dick is also really trusting of this woman who just happened to be in the same cell with him. If it was me, I would worry that she was a plant, put in there to pump me for information.

Moving on, this is Bob Phantom (another character who's name I often make fun of).

There's an unusual quality to this story where Bob doesn't seem to be an actual character in it, but is just turning up, Phantom Stranger-like, and warning the bad guys about the decisions they are making.

And he's clearly using the spell Poof! to do it.

It really looks like Bob is catching the bullet in his mouth, but the caption tells me he is blowing the bullet back. That seems too powerful for Gust of Wind. It's more likely the power Turn Gun on Bad Guy, but that's a 4th level spell, and we only need to use that if there was really a good chance of the mobster being hit by it. Or, this could just be flavor text explaining how the bullet missed Bob at such short range.

Walls of fire are very hard to get through. Just passing through fire is going to do damage, which should vary based on the size and intensity of the fire. At the low end is jumping through a campfire, which would do maybe 1 point of damage. At the high end is the magic-user spell Wall of Fire which does...well, I don't have my books handy, but I believe it's a lot of damage. Walking through a line of burning kerosene would likely do 1-8 points of damage. Walking through the inferno of a burning oil field, that seems like it would be more like the spell.

Bikini cut, Bob? Really?

Speaking of intensity, starting a cyclone is pretty intense. The weight of a shack is way beyond the lift capacity of a Telekinesis spell, so that's not what Bob is using. Maybe

Control Weather? Or we need a new power or spell for Create Cyclone.

Now we're moving on to our next feature, Stacey Knight, M. D. Here we see the benefit of keeping a sedative and syringe with you.

It seems a lot less risky a tactic than jumping out a third story window to grapple someone below you. For one thing, I wouldn't even allow the jumping and the grappling on the same turn; you can jump and try to land on the mobster to half your falling damage (and give him full damage) and then on the following turn begin grappling.

I would also not combine attacks with wrecking; you can hit the mobster with the gun or you can try to break the gun, but not both at the same time.

Now, the main reason I would not allow these things is that, in a group setting, you need to leave things for the other players to do. If this was solo play, I might be more lenient on combining effects.

I'm including this page of Wings Johnson of the Air Patrol because I want to remind players to always know where the exits are, and be prepared to use non-traditional exits. And, a note to Editors, include more things like laundry chutes in your game. Vertical transportation keeps your players thinking in three dimensions.

The 2nd edition basic book has suggestions for ramming damage with different vehicle types, and both editions of Hideouts & Hoodlums have rules for wrecking things. But what about when you want to ram a conning tower with your plane to wreck it? A good rule of thumb is that, for every 10 points of damage the vehicle ramming can do (not necessarily what you roll for damage), assign 1 level in superhero for wrecking.

It seems really implausible that your nemesis just happens to be on the first submarine you crash into in that entire theater of war, but if you want to get your story moving along sometimes...

I'm not going to bother talking about the "knock out the guard and steal his uniform" tactic again, but returning to the same building you just escaped from to hide is certainly an interesting tactic.

I have a feeling that, despite how poor Wings thinks his German is, that he would understand whatever the commandant tells him to do.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #2 - pt. 3

This is Stacey Knight M.D. still, even though it looks like a more nautical-themed hero's adventure. Here, we see hoodlums in 1940 are still torn between traditional sailboats and modern patrol boats.

Brass knuckles are a popular weapon for heroes in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but there is little evidence of them being used in comics. Here is a rare instance of a mobster using them.

Stacey must have surprisingly narrow hips to squeeze through a porthole. I'd give him a save vs. science or he'd do 1 point of damage to himself and get stuck.

Splash pages were rare things in 1940. The feature is Air Patrol and the narration makes it clear that this was a random encounter with at least 3 aviators. It's also clear that these are Nazi planes by the swastikas, an image most comics shied away from still this early in 1940.

I'm struck, on this page, by how hard it is for people to hit their targets with missiles. The anti-aircraft gun is a powerful weapon, but fired by 1st level fighters, only has a 50/50 chance of hitting (less, if the modifiers for hitting moving targets at great speed, found in 1st edition, are used). The depth charges, against a stationary submarine, should have been an easy hit, but then the same modifiers could apply to dropping from above. Area of effect damage does not seem to impact vehicles, only direct hits.

I offer this page as evidence that skills, like identifying counterfeit money, need to get better as heroes gain experience, like Experience Points.

Not a bad strategy, pretending to be a delivery boy so Swift can listen outside the door of the hideout. Bad guys often happen to be saying something important just when Heroes might be listening.

Joe's not very smart. Tony just told him that there's a cop in the pit, but Tony doesn't seem at all suspicious when he sees Don Carlos below. We've long seen that disguises work really well in comic books, but even here I might give the thug a +1, or even a +2, as a common sense modifier to his save vs. plot to see through this deception.

Here's a nice dystopian future for those who like such things: a New York in the year 2000 where rocket cars race along really high overpasses without guardrails. I think they've solved overcrowding in this future!

Hmm. Now, they just left 1940 because taxis were too dangerous, but they are happy to fight to the death against overwhelming numbers of Martian invaders.

And the Earth forces are so desperate for fighters that they're willing to take in a man dressed like a Viking. This actually reminds me of so many RPG campaigns where the DM/GM/Referee/Editor had a fixed story line and tried to shoehorn all the player characters into it, even though some of the players insisted on making gonzo characters that don't fit into that story line.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #2 - pt. 2

The second feature in this issue is Dick Storm.  Yeah.  Despite the awful name, this is one of the earliest features drawn by golden age great Mort Meskin.

It also illustrates the value of level titles. When the officers go down, Dick is able to take command because his level title in the fighter class is equivalent to an officer (sergeants are 3rd level fighters and captains are 5th level fighters).

Note to self: still need a tripping mechanic. I've talked about it before here on the blog. I thought it was something I could skip in the basic rulebook, but here it is again already.

I'm normally skeptical of allowing attacks that hit multiple targets, but I would allow someone with a held grappling victim to use that victim as a thrown club.

More doubtful is how Storm is able to throw a heavy keg of explosives as far as he does, unless that hallway is a lot shorter than perspective makes it look. Although a thrown weapon can be hurled 30', for extra-heavy weights I would probably shave some distance off of that.

You'll have to read this page and the next page together before understanding my discussion of them. Indeed, the first page threw me at first because it says The Mystic is "unseen," but the woman next to him is not surprised to hear him speak. It turns out, on the next page, that the two of them came together and she is his supporting cast.

Although the Invisibility spell, as written, ends only when the Magic-User attacks, there must be a way to willingly "switch it off" and become visible again. The spell section in Hideouts & Hoodlums is unclear about if spells can be willed to end by the caster or if he needs to wait for the duration to end, and that is because I wanted to leave that up to the discretion of the individual Editors.

It is unclear how a movie projector could be projecting onto thin air. This reminds me of the 4th level power I came up with for Supplement I: National, called Simpler Explanation. Maybe these tricksters (see the Trickster class from The Trophy Case v. 1 #4) were actually using magic, but the Simpler Explanation power allowed the player to change the scenario.

Of course, a Magic-User would not be using Superhero powers, but we've seen scant evidence of The Mystic being a Mystic so far. He does not, for example, use any real magic to escape at the end of this page, but uses a flash bomb to cover ducking out (flash bombs have been trophy items since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies).  A Superhero cannot turn invisible unless we introduce a new power, or if The Mystic was a psionic superhero (psionics are from Supplement III: Better Quality).

The wording in panel 3 is curious; The Mystic is "surprised" by the thugs (thugs has been a mobster type since Book II), but seems to still get in the first attack. They either all missed in their surprise attacks, or they only "surprised" him by being in his home, and he still won initiative in combat.

The Mystic's disappearing trick resembles the 2nd edition spell (from the basic book) Poof! Diving into the box first could have concealed the smoke cloud that comes with the spell. Or, this could be a magical effect from the box, and the box is itself a magic item (Box of Poofing?).

It's hard to know what's going on here -- is The Mystic using real magic or stage magic? Nadir was a hero like this. If it is real magic, could the mirror and the dummy be flavor text for a Mirror Images spell?  If it isn't real magic, is The Mystic a Mysteryman, throwing his voice at mirrors and dummies and making the thugs save vs. plot or they attack the wrong target?

Objects thrown into a melee, that miss, may hit another random target, so that vase checks out.

I've talked before on here about the ol' pull-the-rug-out trick, which can be a simple save vs. science to resist. But to get tripped so that you fall into your own trap chair? That makes it seem like we should have fumbles for saves in H&H, except that we learn on the new page that he meant to do that so he could overhear them talking after he was "captured".

One has to wonder about The Mystic's house. Maybe it makes sense for a stage magician to build a trapdoor in his own home (for practice?), but did the thugs not notice and wonder about the giant slide hooked up to the outside of the house?

I like the idea of the trick telephone that only calls police headquarters.

This is Stacey Knight M.D., and this is a good example of when level titles don't work.  Because a police chief, by level titles, is the equivalent of a 6th level fighter, it is absurd that this doctor can talk him out of doing his job, unless Knight is also at least 6th level. Or maybe he rolled a max score on his encounter reaction check and the Editor decided to go really generous.

1940 is probably the closest to modern day you can get in a story where a doctor can say "there's not much money in this business" and not be obviously lying.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)