Action Comics #22 - pt. 1

It blows my mind that, 5 1/2 years into this project, I still haven't finished the first 2 years of Superman stories yet!

In Cleveland, the Daily Star wants its star reporters, Lois and Clark, to cover the War in Europe. Only this war is between Toran (Germany) and Galonia (France?). Rather than sending them to either country, they are shipped (literally, by steamship) to Luxor (Luxembourg), one would assume for the protection of Luxor's neutrality. That won't last much longer, as Luxembourg will be invaded in May 1940 -- but gets bombed already in this story!

Superman's telescopic vision makes him extra-observant/more alert, allowing him to spot a shadowy figure and foil his surprise. Superman, still dressed as Clark Kent, foils the would-be assassin with a thrown belaying pin. Since the panels don't give us a sense of the distances involved, it's impossible to say if Superman is using his powers here, or if he is throwing the pin as far as an ordinary person would be able to throw one.

When the bombs start dropping on Luxor/Luxembourg, Superman leaps up to engage the bomber. He is clearly still leaping at this point, since he has to hold onto the plane to keep from falling. A low-level bomber was probably flying at 15,000 feet, meaning Superman is using Leap III, a 3rd-level power. He wrecks the propeller using his wrecking things mechanic, but choosing to wreck it in such a way that it would normally hurt him, and it doesn't, means he's also already activated his Invulnerability power (level 4). We know he's impervious because he then plunges to the ground from that height and is unharmed. His invulnerability lasts three turns, meaning that Superman is 9th level. At this time, Superman has been around long enough to have enough XP to be 6th level, which means at some point his Editor has given him three brevet ranks to accelerate his power inflation. That...or I need to make the Invulnerability power last longer...

Later, when Superman stops a torpedo and throws it back at the submarine that fired it, that could be the power Turn Gun on Bad Guy in play, but the sequence lasts a whole seven panels, suggesting that other game mechanics might be involved. This might be because the torpedo is slow enough to give him a turn of action first before it strikes, and he grapples it to in order to make it miss, then throws it as an "ordinary" missile weapon.

Next, Superman's X-ray vision picks up a new danger, just as his telescopic vision had before. In this regard, his vision is just a "super-sense" that warns him of danger.

When a ship captain wants Superman to answer some questions, Superman makes a topical reference to "Professor Quiz." Professor Quiz was radio's first true quiz program, broadcast with many different sponsors from 1936 to 1948 on CBS and ABC.

In the end, Siegel naively assumes that German attacks on neutral nations must be the work of insubordinate underlings, and they are punished after Superman confronts them.

In Pep Morgan, we find out that Pep is a volunteer fireman and likes to play pinochle. Firefighting is much more exciting than sports, so I wish they'd stuck with this! When someone is unconscious in a burning building, Pep finds her by methodically searching, no doubt making search rolls each turn. He never seems to be in danger from fire or smoke damage, though.

The next day, having no investment in the storyline other than personal curiosity, Pep returns to the scene and searches for clues. He now finds a match and the smell of gasoline in the grass. A generous Editor could give him both clues with one successful search roll, particularly since he finds them together. Had he thought to search the night before he might have noticed the gasoline smell, but the Editor would likely make a common sense call that the match could not be found in the dark. Naturally, no non-Heroes notice the gasoline smell, to give the Hero a chance to find the clue first.

This is the second suspicious arson in town and Pep finds out all he can about his suspects by pumping non-Hero characters, like a bartender, and his own supporting cast, like his dad, for information. That Pep is getting a drink from a bartender is very interesting, since Pep always seems to be around 18. In 1940, there were 14 states where an 18 year old could legally drink, including New York, where Pep's stories most likely take place.

Pep and his friend Ted stake out the next house Pep thinks will be burnt down for six days before they get lucky and catch the arsonist in the act. All this time, they don't tell the owner, for fear the man will tell his wife -- the implication being that you can't trust women with gossip. While chasing after the arsonist, Pep slips in "wet grass" - very convenient, but likely just flavor text for having failed a skill check to catch up in the chase sequence, and not an indication of any kind of fumble mechanic for chases.

Pep is able to borrow the owner of the house's car to continue the chase, meaning Pep either stole the keys from the house earlier or Jack (the owner) leaves his keys in the car at night. The car chase ends with Pep sideswiping the other car with Jack's car and wrecking the arsonist's car. A fighter has no chance of wrecking things vs. cars -- by himself, but I could see giving him an additional d6 back (normal wrecking things chance, up to 4th level), if using a vehicle to wreck with.

In a sort of a plot twist, the arsonist turns out to be just who you expected all along, instead of going for someone surprising.

"Chuck" Dawson is tracking a killer and finds a clue on the ground -- the silver honcha Chuck shot off his hat band as the killer was riding away. If you're wondering what a honcha is, so was I...it's what looks like a little buckle on some hat bands. You don't call it a buckle because, in most cases, the honcha is merely decorative and doesn't work like a buckle.

I don't normally like "Chuck" Dawson, but he gets in some good dialog in this installment that makes him more enjoyable; my favorite line is, "You're going to feel about as comfortable as a sage-hen in a coyote party..."

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives vol. 2, the rest read at readcomiconline.to)

Action Comics #21 - pt. 1

Superman is nearly a two-year old concept by this point. He still works for the Daily Star, so this is still taking place in Cleveland. Or is it? This is the first story in which the city is called Metropolis. Ultra-Humanite is still his main villain (now villainness). Clark Kent writes an article for the Daily Star about Terry Curtis and his atomic disintegrator, an article that Ultra reads, making Clark responsible for the danger Terry soon finds himself in. 

Although Clark gets a serious clue as to who Terry's new girlfriend is (she looks like the very actress Ultra's brain now inhabits? Hmm...), it takes him a surprising amount of time -- a week, in fact -- to guess at the truth (clearly he has not read much fiction and doesn't know how villains return from seemingly dying). Superman's player has to take the full blame for this, as there is no game mechanic for solving clues. It seems like the player was just tired of going after Ultra, feeling the Editor was forcing the same villain on him too often. Instead of being flexible, the Editor simply ups the ante, as Ultra is soon extorting $2 million from Metropolis over the threat of the disintegrator, forcing Superman to finally deal with this.

Ultra forces Terry's obedience with a "torture ray" that projects a blinding light into his eyes. It only takes several hours (1 rest turn) for the ray to break him. The new version of the disintegrator Terry makes is a raygun that can be mounted on the front of a plane. The narrator calls the plane a "fantastic air-vessel," but it clearly resembles a 1937 Boeing Flying Fortress. 

Ultra demonstrates the disintegrator on the Wentworth Tower. I can't find any evidence of anything like a Wentworth Tower in Cleveland, so that seems to be more evidence that we're in a fictional new city now.

Superman finally uses a power, Raise Building, to hold up the tower until all the bystanders are clear. It is very unclear if Superman is flying or leaping in this story. He manages to dodge the raygun in mid-air, but then has to descend to the ground. This is why I put into the power Leap III that the leaper can make a 45-degree turn in mid-air. 

That Superman is able to trigger an eruption in the volcano Ultra is using as his new hideout makes me suspect the location is Ecuadaor, since the last time a volcano erupted in the Americas was the Sangay Volcano there in 1934. Superman hitches a ride on an airplane -- on top of the airplane -- to get to Ecuador, so the only power we need concern ourselves with here is perhaps the use of Hold Breath when the plane rose too high in the atmosphere, or perhaps a Resist Cold/Endure Elements power to cope with the temperature at that altitude.

Ultra's hideout is a glass-sheathed "city" inside the volcano. It is the first, but not the last, time that Jerry Siegel would toy with the notion of hiding lost ruins of forgotten civilizations in Superman's world. 

Ultra sics "huge" robots on Superman, making it his first battle ever with robots. They appear to be man-sized, though.

Superman is stopped by a trap -- if he crosses a photoelectric beam in the room, a disintegrator raygun aimed at Metropolis will be turned on remotely. It's a diabolical trap, but it's got some issues. Could Ultra have really created an intercontinental remote control, or is he bluffing? And what if Superman just left the room, came around it, and broke through the opposite wall? Instead, Superman allows himself to be suckered into a false offer to trade Curtis' life for some "crown jewels" being stored in Metropolis. Perhaps Superman is just curious to see what Ultra's game is...

There is no explanation for why the crown jewels are in Metropolis, or what country they are from. It was long rumored, while war was raging in Europe, the UK shipped its crown jewels to the U.S. for safekeeping (and now it is rumored that they never left Windsor Castle). 

Superman returns to the U.S. by running up through the Americas. It is suggested by the narrator that he is only at outrunning train speeds, which means he might have taken days to get back. Race the Plane would have got him back home in 7 hours. 

Regardless, it is enough time for the National Guard and the city's police force to assemble to stop Superman (when Ultra phones ahead to tip them off).  They certainly don't come prepared; their one cannon is pre-WWI vintage. 

Superman makes a subtle use of wrecking things to wreck open a fire hydrant. A long time ago on this blog I talked about using the water pressure from a fire hose as a ranged push attack, but maybe it should be strong enough to do damage too?

Instead of just wrecking his way inside, Superman uses the power Wall-Climbing...I'm guessing because he expects to see the crown jewels through a window.

The National Guard get inventive with trying to stop Superman. They chop off the flagpoles so Superman can't use them to help climb (but he's using the power, so he doesn't need them). When that fails, they try to drop a safe on him from at least two stories higher up. The safe maybe weighs around 600 lbs (3 men can move it). So what damage would a 600 lb. safe cause falling two stories onto someone's head?  Someone weighing an average of 180 lbs. does 1-6 damage with a weapon. If we double that for each d6 of progression, we get 3-18 damage for the safe (rounded up). If the damage progresses at +1d6 per 180 lbs., we're still at 3-18 damage -- at this weight -- but that makes dinosaurs SUPER dangerous. It the safe falls 10' it takes/does 1-6 damage, +1d6 for each additional 10'. So we're up to a whopping 5-30 damage for the falling safe -- good call, National Guardsmen, this safe is about as dangerous as a cannon! Unfortunately, Superman comes up with an unusual use of the Raise Car power, negating damage when something is dropped on him (because he can lift it away). Indeed, Superman then buffs himself again with Extend Missile Range so he can toss the safe back up onto the roof (a harmless move, but one that might trigger morale saves at the Editor's discretion).

Superman takes the uncharacteristic action of holding the National Guard Commander over the side of the roof, to force the surrender of his men. It's unclear how he recognizes the man as the commander, since he's not wearing any special uniform. Presumedly, Superman was bluffing and did not really intend to drop the man to his death, but this early in his career no one knew that about him.

Superman is able to rip open a vault door as "tho' it were a toy," which is why all types of doors all wreck at the same category.

Superman is able to disregard tear gas because of the Different Physical Structure power and machine gun fire because of the Imperviousness power. 

The situation escalates when three Army fighter planes show up and bombard the floor Superman is on with gunfire -- presumedly killing all the National Guardsmen inside. Superman "outmaneuvers them" in a panel where he appears to be running on clouds. I'm not quite ready to introduce a Cloud Walking power yet, as I believe that was not the artist's intentions. Indeed, I believe Shuster intended that to be smoke from the gunfire around Superman, not clouds, but was changed by Siegel's narrative caption.

Superman returns to the volcano in Ecuador "shortly later," meaning that he definitely used a higher level Race the- power this time. Ultra immediately "double-crosses" Superman by trying to kill him in a death trap; it's unclear if Superman really planned to trade the crown jewels for Curtis until the double cross. The death trap is four panels that raise out of the floor around a 5' square and close in on a single target, each with two diamond-tipped drills set on the inside of the panel. One could presume this trap would do up to 8-48 damage, provided all eight drills hit. I would probably roll to hit for all eight (as 4 HD mobsters), accounting for the victim's ability to squirm in the available space and avoid them. Superman simply wrecks his way out of the trap. Not only does he wreck the drills, but he is shown to break the diamond bits in half with the force of his punch. It's difficult to assign a category to that, but I would go with battleships or dams. 

The atomic disintegrator also comes in rifle size, but this weapon is not a raygun; it shoots a thin beam (that looks like fire) that the attacker needs to roll to attack to use (spoiler: he misses Superman, so we don't find out if Superman is immune or not). 

Superman lets Ultra jump out of the room, assuming the volcano would kill him, feeling that wrecking the larger raygun is more important. Causing a volcano to erupt by wrecking things would be in the dam category.

Pep Morgan's feature follows; it's a standard vs. gamblers plot, but is marked by the meta-humor of Pep reading a copy of Action Comics.

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives vol. 2, the rest read at fullcomic.pro)

 

  

Action Comics #20 - pt. 1

And we're back to Superman! This is the first Superman story of 1940 and the last Superman story in DC's Action Comics Archives vol. 1.

Superman starts it off with the Raise Bridge power, then becomes Clark Kent for the main plot. As Clark, he lassos an assassin and pulls him off a high ledge (for 1-6 falling damage). This is the plot hook to get Superman to meet actress Dolores Winters. When he next meets Dolores and she does not recognize him, there is no game mechanic involved in that -- it is a purely role-played situation.

Then something very unusual happens for Superman -- he misses a plot hook. When he sees that Dolores is having a big party on a yacht, he decides not to go. Most players would see that as a plot hook. By passing it up, Superman misses an easy chance to stop the Ultra-Humanite early.

When Superman says Ultra's request for $5 million is the "greatest mass kidnapping ever attempted," I can't find any evidence to prove him wrong.

Superman does a minor leap, wall-climbs up to a high window, and "X-ray visions" a piece of paper inside (though I'm not sure how he would read using X-rays, maybe he is actually using his telescopic vision, which would fall under the Super-Senses power in 2nd edition).

It was never explained how Ultra made the paper materialize in the room. Or why an invention that could do that would not itself be worth $5 million.

Superman is able to stay underwater for over 2 hours. This is the Hold Breath power.

Ultra has a submarine that can fire magnetic ray beams. This invention is also, apparently, not worth $5 million. When assigning $ values to trophy items in 2nd edition, I did hesitate to set them too low, but comics bear out that mad science is never as valuable as crime.

Superman stops Ultra by using the Wreck at Range power to smash a generator at a distance. Then he uses Gust of Wind to blow out Ultra's torch.

Ultra manages to elude Superman by simply jumping into the water. You would think that this would not be much of a stumbling block for someone who can move at super-speed, use telescopic vision, and hold his breath for hours, but clearly Superman's power durations had ended already and he was all out of prepared powers that would help.

And that's the Superman installment.

In Pep Morgan, Pep not only saves the life of racing pilot Jimmy Dee but, recognizing him as a plot hook character, invites him to stay at his house. Jimmy uses some slang, such as the common "crate" for plane, and the uncommon "cop" to mean win (as in "cop that race"). Pep has to climb out onto a plane in flight, later, and climb up to the pilot's seat. In 1st edition, this would have been an aviator stunt called Wing Walking. Now, it's an expert skill check. We know Pep is not a mysteryman (or at best a low-level mysteryman) because he does not have a stunt to burn for an automatic skill check at the end, and he has to wake up Jimmy to get him to land the plane.

Speaking of slang, "Chuck" Dawson uses the phrase "fade out" to refer to his horse not wanting to approach something (so "fade out" must mean "back off" or "back away"). Another cowboy refers to Chuck's gun as his "hardware."

Next is "Clip" Carson, Soldier-of-Fortune. Summarizing his recent adventures, we see he has dealt with a wild lioness, hostile natives, and a "gigantic" serpent (though it does not look like a particularly large constrictor snake). The narrator claims Carson keeps his native porters loyal through "iron will," but actually he threatens to shoot them like a cold-blooded killer any time they talk about deserting him. Carson somehow escapes the stabbing he kinda deserves by "luckily" rolling over in his sleep just in time. It seems like a generous Editor to even require an attack roll in such a situation; I would personally rule it as an automatic hit for maximum damage. Carson gets away with the "last request" stalling tactic when about to be killed by making a successful encounter reaction roll. Carson's trip during the final battle is dramatic, but unsupported by the rules, since it looks like he fumbled (and Hideouts & Hoodlums uses no fumble charts for combat).

(Superman read in Action Comics Archive v. 1; the rest read at fullcomic.pro.)





 

Superman #3

The first story opens on a half-pint slipping out of a state orphanage, then later being overcome by "hunger, fatigue, and heat."  The 1st ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums rules covered fatigue, and this blog has talked before about how hot it needs to be to induce heat damage, but I've never talked about a mechanic for tracking how long someone can go in the game without food.

Since someone can go 21-40 days without food (but with water; let's assume the little tyke at least found some drinkable water), even 1 hit point loss per 4 days without food would incapacitate most normal people. So would someone who can go 40 days have more than 10 hit points? Or should saving throws be incorporated at some point to begin staving off starvation damage?  Another possibility would be to treat starvation as being poisoned instead of taking damage. In this instance, you would take no hit point loss, but might have to make a save vs. science each day after 11 or die.

Somehow, Clark Kent is walking to work when he sees the boy lying on the railroad tracks, unconscious; this is particularly odd because there seem to be very few buildings around. This is during the time Clark still worked in Cleveland, Ohio, for the Daily Star.  Could Clark have been a suburbanite, choosing to walk into the city each day?

Superman uses the Quick Change power -- to ensure he can appear as Superman and still beat the train to the boy -- and then the Outrun Train power. He then takes a "giant leap" to clear the train, but since a locomotive can't be taller than 20', this could be Leap I or even just the less capable leaping of the alien race.

Clark/Superman has earned 100 XP for saving the orphan. It is up to the Editor if feeding the orphan is worth additional XP; I would rule that it is not, as it is still the same encounter.

It is worth pointing out that the orphan, Frankie Dennis, had been walking for two days, meaning the orphanage was not in Cleveland.   No direct clue is given as to what direction Frankie came from, but he is heading to the right in the panels, which could be interpreted as east. And, in two days on foot, Frankie could have come from as far away as Toledo.

Superman's thought balloons at the Daily Star offices suggest that, at least at this time, he doesn't really feel genuine affection for Lois Lane, but is pretending as part of his act of being Clark Kent. Superman may have a strong sense of justice, but he is not a warm, affectionate person -- he sends Frankie back into the orphanage to "gather evidence," even though Frankie has warned him that he might get beaten.


While questioning the children in the orphanage, Lois is able to see through the children's attempts to deceive her. I would like to avoid using game mechanics for interactions like this; a good Editor can perform as the children (with as many tells as he wants) and allow the players to make their own interpretations.

Superman goes to great lengths to gather evidence of wrongdoing at the orphanage -- not of child neglect, but of mismanagement and graft. It seems another example of callousness on Superman's part, though perhaps he just has his own ideas of what will get the orphanage superintendent in more legal trouble. Lois is actually the one who shows up to rescue the children.

Returning to the orphanage, Superman displays Raise Car and Sleeping Nerve Pinch to stop the superintendent, then wrecks things to get through the bars into the attic.

Lois is unconscious from smoke inhalation, while Frankie is still fine. It seems unlikely that Frankie has more hit points, so it makes me think smoke inhalation should get a save vs. science to resist, and Frankie was just luckier. The fact that Lois was only momentarily stunned also suggests it was not hit point damage.

The second story in the issue is a reprint from Action Comics #5.  The third story is a reprint from Action Comics #6.

The last story features Lois slipping a note out of a thug's pocket without him noticing. It seems to prove that even non-Heroes have fairly good chances of performing "thiefly" skills -- though I would not be opposed to statting Lois with at least one level in Mysteryman.

Something the rules don't cover at present is a passive perception skill (like the current version of D&D has), which allows others to witness Lois' sleight of hand (as two of the thug's friends do). I might skip that and leave this to the saving throw mechanic; if there is a chance of Lois being observed, she has to make a save vs. plot to avoid being spotted while performing her skill.

Superman saves Lois with wrecking things (vs. door), Race the Bullet, and Super-Tough Skin. This means Superman is at least a fantastic man (level 5 Superhero) at this point.  He also carries a motorboat while leaping, demonstrating that two powers (Raise Car and Leap) could be active at the same time.

(Read in Superman Archives vol. 1)



 

Action Comics #19

In the Superman feature, Superman demonstrates a "super-resistance to disease", but could have just been a successful saving throw vs. the "purple plague."

Professor Henry Travers is so worried about the plague killing people in... is this still Cleveland? The headline of The Daily Star says "Purple Plague Grips Metropolis," but that was probably not a proper name yet at this point. Anyway, Travers is so flustered that he accidentally says the plague that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages was the purple plague, when of course it was the bubonic plague.

The "De Fauvier's study of the Purple Plague" sounded so specific that I wondered if De Fauvier was an actual scientist who had once studied diseases. It seems to be purely fictitious, though.

I don't think I ever made a trophy item out of this, but Ultra-Humanite fools Superman wearing a "false-face mask", despite the fact that rubber masks never would fool anyone in real life.

Superman does not always have the Quick Change power prepared. In this story, he knows Travers has been attacked after hearing it over a phone call, yet curiously takes the time to untie his shoes before removing them so he can go leap off to Travers' apartment.

Thugs are also called "muscle men" in this story, proving to me I was right to give thugs better than average Hit Dice.

Superman halting his fall by catching a ledge is cliche -- and can be supported by game mechanics in several different ways. The Editor could have conveniently put the ledge there and offered the chance to roll "to hit" the ledge (an attack roll). Or, Superman's player could have suggested there might be a ledge nearby to grab, and the Editor gave him a save vs. plot for there to be a ledge to grab. Or, the ledge is actually flavor text for the Feather Landing power being activated.

I'm curious about who Travers' "scientific society" was. The story is three years too early for it to be the Cleveland Technical Societies Council.

Superman is still not a Lawful hero at this point; he steals chemicals for Travers that Travers needs for his research into the plague cure. He does so by uprooting a massive skylight to break in and then walking through a wall to break out -- both examples of wrecking things.

For the second time, the Ultra-Humanite knocks Superman unconscious with electricity. It may be important that Superman is taken by surprise each time, so he is not able to activate any defensive powers first.

In addition to the electric raygun, Ultra uses a mind control helmet on Superman, but it comes with a saving throw vs. science that Superman easily makes. Ultra's "fantastic airship" is propeller-less, and almost surely an early jet plane.

The power 4th level power (in first edition Hideouts & Hoodlums) Turn Gun on Bad Guy comes from the final scene of this story, where Ultra shoots his electric gun at Superman, yet Superman is improbably able to pull Ultra in front of the blast first.

In the Pep Morgan feature, stopping to perform a good deed -- moving a loose rail off the railroad tracks -- leads to an encounter with gangster/robbers (perhaps a mixed group of both mobster types), and demonstrates how good deeds can become plot hooks or be tied to plot hooks.

Pep foils the efforts of the mobsters to jump off the train by reaching the engine and telling the crew to speed up too fast for them to risk jumping off. So how fast is too fast? If we assume 30 MPH = 1-6 points of falling sideways damage, and the train made it up to 90 MPH, that would equate to a brutal 3-18 points of damage -- more than most gangsters and robbers would be able to endure.

It also appears that Pep might have a brother in this story, though there is no text that corroborates this when he is seen with his family.

In the Chuck Dawson feature, Chuck is attacked by roughnecks.  I don't have a mobster type for "roughnecks", but outlaws are the evil version of cowboys and it sounds like these are just some of those, or maybe bandits. Chuck is defeated with lassos -- and in fact 2nd edition H&H now has entangling rules for just this situation. Luckily, he had trained his horse, Blacky, to untie knots, freeing Chuck, and showing just how complex the actions of animal Supporting Cast Members can be.

Later, catching up to the outlaw/bandits, Chuck jumps down off a ledge behind them to attack them. Now, there is little tactical advantage to taking falling damage, losing surprise, and then attacking your opponents. We have already seen lots of comic book characters fall on mobsters from a height, as an attack, which I suspect Chuck was trying to do here -- Chuck was just the first hero to miss!

In the Clip Carson feature, Clip is in "Kenye," which is surely an intentional misspelling of Kenya. In 1939, this would be the British colony of Kenya. The first thing Clip does is go to a bar and get in a fight with a drunken hoodlum...which reminds me of about half the D&D campaigns I've ever played in. The drunken hoodlum holds a grudge and hides a cobra in Clip's room. Later, Clip runs into cannibals -- which I've said before I plan to leave statted as "natives" and not stat them separately -- but chooses not to fight them and bribes them for safe passage instead.

In the Tex Thompson feature, Tex and his sidekick, Bob Daley, meet actor "John Barryless" -- har har -- obviously meant to be John Barrymore. Tex and his associates head to Egypt to find John's missing son, Bart (John Barrymore's son was also named John). One doesn't normally associate the savage native trope with Egypt, nor zombies, but Tex encounters both while there. We also learn that salt can counter the potion that turns living people into zombies.

Gargantua T. Potts, by the way, is a minstrel show-level racist caricature of a sidekick for Tex.

In the Three Aces feature, I learned (or maybe I knew this before and forgot) that the Three Aces ("Fog" Fortune, "Gunner" Bill, and "Whistler" Will) are members of the U.S. Naval Reserves -- which seems an odd choice, as I would have thought the Army had more fliers than the Navy at that time. They have to "solve" a murder mystery, and I use the term loosely because they overhear practically everything and then just have to prove who did it. It can be a useful reminder to Editors not to make mysteries too difficult to solve during game sessions.

In the Zatara feature, Zatara -- who usually throws around high level spells like they were nothing -- solves this scenario where a mad scientist in Mexico is creating an army of gorillas with transplanted human brains (and apparently is shipping the gorillas all the way into Mexico, since they are clearly not indigenous) using only two second-level spells, Invisibility and Hold Person. Of course, you could call the scenario only a partial success because Zatara only frees the scientist's prisoners who still have their brains, leaving all the transplant victims to be blown up along with the scientist after Zatara escapes.
 
(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives v. 1; select pages from the rest were read at the Babbling about DC ,o;Comics blog and the rest was read in summary at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #18

Before Superman even shows up in this month's story, we're treated to the a sleeping gas attack and the notion that holding a handkerchief over your nose and mouth is going to spare you from gas potent enough to fill an entire car and knock out its occupant/s. I would be inclined to give a bonus to save for taking a precaution like that -- +1 or +2 at most, but that still leaves a lot of room for a plan to go wrong.

From the blackmailed politician we learn that $10,000 is enough to corrupt a politician.

We see Superman's X-ray vision (the 3rd level power) in use for the first time.

Superman gets shot at with a bow and arrow for a change of pace this issue, and snatches the arrow out of mid-air. I don't have a power for that, because the important thing is that the arrow missed, and him catching it is really just flavor text.

Superman then decides to show off with the bow and arrow. Now, maybe Superman practiced with a bow and arrow in his youth, but it's pretty clear that he pulls off a spectacular hit on a small target. This was the impetus for the Bulls-Eye (2nd-level) power.

It's still unclear if Superman can fly at this point. He trails a car in the sky; one would presume that if he was jumping and landing behind the car, that someone might notice.

He also demonstrates Leap (at least Leap I), Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, Raise Elephant (because he raises trucks, heavier than cars), and wrecks a printing press (as if a generator).

A rival paper to the Daily Star is the Morning Herald. There actually was a Morning Cleveland Herald until 1868, though it's unclear if Jerry Siegel would have ever seen it.

Chuck Dawson, in his story, gives us a valuable lesson for players -- when a posse thinks you've killed the sheriff and is closing in on you, don't be afraid to run!

Clip Carson's story is an interesting lesson in hideout scale. Here, he finds himself in a cavernous hideout so large that, when reinforcements arrive, they show up riding elephants!

Tex Thompson's arch-nemesis, The Gorrah, returns, this time in Turkey, where Tex and friends are working for the Turkish Prime Minister (it was Refik Saydam in real life). The Gorrah has cyborg-like creatures working for him this time. It's difficult to imagine how to stat them; they look like they're half-robot, half-skeleton, probably with human brains controlling them, but lose all scariness because they're all wearing fezzes. The Gorrah tries hypnotism on Tex. It fails, but The Gorrah can't tell and Tex uses this to trick him. Hero magic-users will have the same problem when their victims make their saves. The Gorrah takes a poison pill, seemingly killing himself, at story's end.

The Three Aces may not be the bravest Heroes to ever headline a story in an anthology title. When threatened by hijackers, their solution is to stall for time until help arrives! Players may be interested in similar tactics, especially players who favor keeping their Heroes alive over having them do anything heroic. We learn some backstory about the Three Aces, that they had flown in the Spanish Civil War together back in 1937.

Zatara becomes the first Hero to visit Atlantis. He gains possession of a map to Atlantis when a former rival, Queen Setap of Ophir, shows up and wants his help with following it. We learn that the map starts them off in the Sargasso Sea (northern Atlantic) and that Atlantis is somewhere in the Atlantic, which does match up with where Marvel Comics would later put Atlantis in their comics (but is distinctly different from the Golden Age Sub-Mariner's Antarctic kingdom).

En route, Barnacle Will and some pirates attempt a mutiny, thinking the map leads to gold. Where it actually leads is a little confusing...from the page I've seen, it looks like Atlantis is at least partially un-sunken still, or perhaps they just land on a nearby island as a staging area. Whatever it is, the surface island is protected by "under-earth creatures" that look like goblins with tentacle arms. I'm unsure how to stat these creatures...but their use of nets as weapons reminds me of ratmen (a new mobster type from 2nd edition).

In the story, Zatara appears to use a spell called Create Bridge, but is perhaps just flavor text for the first level 2nd edition spell Poof!, which allows him to cross over short distances of water. He casts a spell on the under-earth creatures that ties their tentacles into knots...but I'm not clear what purpose that serves other than a distraction. If they really can't use their tentacles then, maybe this counts as Mass Paralysis (a 1st edition power, though, not a spell).

Lastly, Atlantis is guarded by Roor, a giant octopus. Here we meet our first mobster with magic resistance. Apparently, any mobster can have magic resistance, and this is very high resistance -- either 80% or more, or perhaps total immunity to damaging spells. The only spell that works is Phantasmal Image, tricking Roor into thinking sponges are people to eat.

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives v. 1, select other pages were read at the Babbling About DC Comics blog, and the rest was read in summary at DC Wikia and Mike's Amazing World)

Action Comics #17

I have a surprising lack of information about this issue.

In Superman's adventure, Superman's "commanding voice" could be some use of a power, or it could mean that he gets a bonus to encounter reaction rolls because of his high Charisma score. Since Charisma always does this, I don't see the need to duplicate it with a power.

Superman demonstrates Resist Fire and Push Ocean Liner as powers in this story. We also see he can leap while using the Raise Car power at the same time. At another point, though, he listens in to a phone conversation via an extension phone because, presumedly, he didn't prepare the Super-Senses power for that day. At another point the narrator claims that Superman is using "super-hearing", but he's only eavesdropping from outside a window, and I'd allow a skill check for that.

Superman, still dressed as Clark Kent, gets mad and lifts a man over his head in this story. More evidence that I was wrong to require superheroes to be in costume to use their powers.

Ultra-Humanite demands $5 million in extortion money in this story, possibly the highest monetary sum featured in a comic book to date. Ultra -- as he's referred to in this story -- uses an acid gun, a transparent metal wall, and an image projector against Superman.

In Pep Morgan's story, one of the reasons Pep is able to defeat Pedro is because Pedro's gun jams. There is now a chance of this happening in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he's on safari in India when he kills a tiger, rescues a plot hook character (one of those "old friends" you've never seen before, but ties into a character's backstory), and investigates a cult. Next installment we're likely to see cultists actually show up -- just like they are as a mobster type in 2nd edition H&H.

Tex Thompson is a high-Charisma Hero too, as evidenced by his growing number of supporting cast members. In addition to regular SCMs Bob Daley and Gargantua T. Potts, Tex picks up a temporary SCM, Ali-Baba, while adventuring in Turkey. We also see the return of The Gorrah, which appears to be a bogeyman (a new mobster that will be in the Mobster Manual when it's done). The Gorrah demonstrates his hypnosis ability. Tex displays a knack for disguises, but The Gorrah seems to easily see through it (even though it's better than most comic book disguises). The Gorrah's hideout is well-trapped: an electric eye at the entrance alerts The Gorrah in his main chamber, then The Gorrah has television cameras set up to show him the hallways, and he can raise inverted portcullises from the floor to trap intruders.

In Zatara's story, we learn that Zatara takes a yearly cruise to Europe. En route, he picks up two temporary SCMs, "old friends" John and Beth Jordan on the cruise ship. Also on board is someone out to get one of them, as they are "attacked" by a thrown net. For some reason, Zatara is worried enough about this that he burns a high-level spell to polymorph the net into gold coins (or maybe he thought the other passengers looked poor...or was looking to destabilize the gold market in Europe...).

Somehow, the three of them wind up in the Lost City of Ophir, where the ancient queen Setap is kept alive by Potions of Immortality (they keep her alive, but over time the leave her old and frail). Somehow, Beth has "purer" Ophir blood than all the people of Ophir around her, so she wants Beth's fresh blood for more potions. Then, as if we didn't already guess from this that Setap is evil, she shows them the poison gas she plans to use to kill every non-Ophir citizen in the world. She also gives away her connection to Atlantis, which will become relevant in the next story.

When Zatara tries to intervene, he is temporarily stopped when Setap throws a blinding fluid into Zatara's eyes. This is, coincidentally, very effective on Zatara because he needs to make eye contact for his spells. The deathtrap she placed him in is being slowly lowered by rope into a roaring firepit, but the heat causes him to sweat and the sweat clears his eyes of the blinding fluid in time (save vs. plot successful?).

Zatara uses Phantasmal Image to steal into the city past the guards (they are distracted), and he casts Dispel Magic to reverse the magical blood transfusion that turns Setap young and Beth old. As flavor text, Zatara summons the Flame of Life from the Temple of Atlantis and it reverts them to their true ages.

Setap and Ophir are clearly stolen from Tarzan's Queen La of the Lost City of Opar.

(Superman story read in Superman: Action Comics Archives v. 1, select pages also read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, and then summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia and Mike's Amazing World of Comics.)

Superman #2

Superman catches a man jumping off a bridge in mid-leap and "receives the brunt of the shock when they strike water." Which seems odd because falling in water is usually safe in comic books. If Heroes can take a hit for someone else, can they also take falling damage for someone else?

Superman fails to recognize ex-heavyweight champion of the world, Larry Trent, right away. Is recognizing others a skill that needs to be checked?

Superman uprooting a tree is a use of the Raise Car power. It's not clear if Superman is using make-up or a power to disguise himself. The narrator says he punches out 11 boxers at once (even though we only see 6 in the panel), which has to be the Flurry of Blows power. When another man he punches out mistakes Superman's fist for a sledge hammer, Superman might have been using the Get Tough power to buff his damage. He later uses Super-Senses to hear every word being said from a rooftop away.

I'm not sure what to make of Superman's ability to resist a hot foot. Resist Fire? Super-Tough Skin? Or can he ignore it because a lit match would do even less than a point of damage? He's definitely using Super-Tough Skin his second time in the ring.

He tells Larry that he plans to impersonate him for several months. That's really different, as most adventures only take days, if not just hours, to finish.

When Barnes accidentally punches himself out in the ring, there's no game mechanic justifying that happening; the Editor just throws that in because it's funny.

Demonstrating that Superman isn't yet a Lawful paragon of virtue, he takes a drugged drink from corrupt manager Tom Croy and forces Tom to drink it himself. Luckily, it wasn't lethal poison.

Superman is surprisingly wrecking-lite in the first story in this issue. He does "jam his hand over the" muzzle of a gun to make it explode, which would probably be treated as wrecking things.

In the second adventure, "Superman Champions Universal Peace", Superman shows no suspicion when Professor Runyan demonstrates how his new formula for poison gas can penetrate a gas mask and kill a monkey, but it can't penetrate the glass jar Runyan conducts the experiment in.

When mobsters show up at Runyan's office and threaten him, Superman does everything right -- giving the mobsters some figurative rope, following them from a distance to find out where they operate from, and goes off to perform his civilian duties as Clark Kent with no since of urgency, since the mobsters gave Runyan 24 hours. That the mobsters "cheated" and killed Runyan early could have felt unfair to Superman's player, and discouraged him from not hitting first and asking questions later in the future.

The mobsters are actually spies from "Boravia" -- probably meant to be Bolivia.  Curiously, Bolivia had never had a civil war, like what happens in this story, though it does seem to predict the 1949 Bolivian Civil War.

When the spy leader, Bartow wrecks the controls for his plane and it crashes, his two henchmen emerge practically unscathed, suggesting again that crashes are almost never lethal in comic books.

For one of the only times in comic book history, a bomb lands next to Superman and knocks him unconscious (he forgot those defensive buff powers!).

Is Superman using Invisibly Fast when he fools the firing squad in "Boravia"? He's definitely using Imperviousness when he does let them shoot him. When he starts fighting back, he wrecks a tank gun (treat as a truck). He collects aircraft bombs, temporarily, as trophy items, but then uses them right away.

Now, how high is Superman jumping when he leaps up to attack a blimp? He appears to be above the clouds, but WWII-era blimps didn't typically go that high; the Hindenburg's cruising altitude was only 650' up.  Leap I could reach that height, and what appear to be clouds might just be smoke from the munitions factory Superman destroyed. Lastly, I would say that blimps wreck as if generators.

Superman again shows he has a cruel, non-Lawful streak. When Lubane tries to use the deadly poison gas in a desperate attempt to kill both himself and Superman, Superman saves himself with the Different Physical Structure power, then just watches as Lubane dies by his own hand.

At the Bolivian (excuse me, "Boravian") capital, Superman wrecks the load-bearing pillars in the conference hall to force the sides to come together -- or else! I would treat load-bearing pillars as cars, for wrecking purposes.

In the third adventure, "Superman and the Skyscrapers", Superman is able to hide in shadows despite the bright colors of his costume/uniform (a skill check and/or a surprise roll -- considering how long Superman remains unseen, I would probably have required both).

Even though Superman is supposedly a well-known public figure by now, the skyscraper saboteur fails to identify Superman's distinctive appearance and mistakes him for a detective. Maybe recognizing others really is a difficult skill!

Superman's encounter with the skyscraper saboteur is harder to explain in H&H terms than one might think. Curiously, the saboteur gets off three shots with a revolver before Superman can close with him, despite already being at close range. Even with an automatic, the saboteur can't get off more than two shots per turn, meaning that Superman merely saunters up to the saboteur for one full turn, then loses or forfeits initiative in the next turn to take more shots (all he's protected from by his Imperviousness power) before getting his turn. But Superman doesn't get to attack because the saboteur moves after attacking and before Superman gets to go. Now, in 1st ed. H&H, that is actually how it works, with movement split into two phases before and after attacks. In 2nd ed., though, I planned to simplify things and keep movement all in one action at the beginning of the combat turn. Maybe I'm erring, though...?

Superman uses Extend Missile Weapon I to toss a living person -- which we've seen before, but not thrown straight up into the air. It's a clever way to break the power so that it does more damage, as Butch Grogan's bodyguard flies up at least 30' and would take 3-18 points of damage upon falling. Ultimately, Superman uses the 4th level power, Bounce Back Blows just to take out Butch's one bodyguard -- a pretty excessive act. Just having the power means Superman is at least an incredible man (6th level superhero).

Superman is interrogating Butch Grogan out in the street when a beat cop comes up to question them both. Both Superman and Butch feel the need to escape, and it's telling that Superman is the one who gets shot at.

When Superman finally tracks down Butch's boss, he encounters a trapped hallway where photo-electric cells trigger bombs along the hallway as soon as Superman passes by them. Since "only a swift sideward leap saves Superman from annihilation", he must have buffed only with Imperviousness and not Invulnerability.

(Issue read in Superman Archives v. 1.)

Action Comics #16

Let's start with Superman.

Catching a falling man isn't really a big deal for Superman, and probably only needs a successful "attack" roll to scoop the man up.

The early Superman doesn't seem to care all that much if anyone figures out his secret identity. Not only does he wear no mask and conceals no fingerprints, but the windows on his apartment have sheer curtains. You'd think he'd at least use shades for more privacy!

This is the first story to call Superman's port of call "Metropolis", beginning the trend of fictional cities in the superhero genre.

The police commissioner in this story is a corrupt politician, despite the fact that most police are statted as fighters.

$5,000 was apparently a good night's haul for a casino-club.

The gamblers in this story don't seem to have any special abilities worth statting differently than slick hoodlums, other than to give them a better chance of rigging games.

Superman turns down the chance to collect XP for keeping the money in exchange for the good deed award for giving it all away to poor people.

Racketeers seem to have even less special abilities than gamblers.

Superman wrecks gambling establishments, both with a hammer and his bare hands. Since he's not wrecking the buildings themselves, I'd probably treat this as a wrecking doors roll (and at Superman's current level, he probably doesn't even need to roll for that anymore).

Superman picked up a fixed deck of cards to fool the gamblers, and then keeps it as a trophy.

Pep Morgan's adventure has an unusual angle -- Hero playing bodyguard. Can an Editor pull off a session where the Hero has to spend a week living with another character, waiting to see if any harm comes to him or her (her, in this case)? Only if the Editor creates an engaging character, and the player really likes to roleplay.  Otherwise, the scenario will quickly fast forward to the first whiff of danger. This is part 2 of a 4-part story arc where Pep is employed by a Mr. Smith, who keeps handing Pep plot hooks.

Pep, despite being just a college student, is already a pipe smoker and goes to bed early enough that he's asleep at 11:30 pm when mobsters try to abduct Mr. Smith's daughter, Mary. Something wakes Pep up in time, though (save vs. plot?) so he can come pummel the kidnappers with his fists until they surrender. One of the kidnappers falls over from being pummeled, which isn't supported by the game mechanics, although an Editor could rightly say the circumstances warranted it since the man was carrying Mary and would be unbalanced (maybe a save vs. science to avoid falling over).

Slings and arrows (of outrageous fortune!) are being hurled at Marco Polo in his adventure, but the more effective weapon seems to be the dropped rocks falling on the bandits in the ambush at the end. If the rocks are heavy enough that they have to be pushed over instead of thrown, it could be considered a trap and do more than normal missile weapon damage. Maybe 1-8 points?

Clip Carson deals with a fake mummy in an Egyptian tomb, but it's a trick -- the mummy is a "robot" (really, more like animatronics) and it's voice was from a concealed record player behind it. Clip is in the Pyramid of Cheops -- aka the Great Pyramid of Giza -- looking for a secret treasure room that was apparently missed by 9th century looters and 19th century archaeologists. Interestingly, a rival -- a corrupt sergeant from the occupying British Army -- found the treasure room before them and has convinced the natives to guard it by posing as Cheops in a rubber mask. Maybe those natives have been in the stale air of the pyramid too long...

For the Chuck Dawson summary I'm reading says Chuck is framed by thugs, which is an odd mobster type choice for a Western adventure. Maybe these are outlaws?

Tex Thompson's adventure has an interesting spin to it as well. Tex is asked by the French government to infiltrate a spy ring, to find out who their mole is in the French government. In eight more months, things would be getting a lot more exciting in France if Tex stuck around that long.

Zatara has his first encounter with aliens from another planet (he's already fought aliens from another dimension). He encounters them as if a random wandering encounter -- or at least he encounters the teleport beam that scoops up a random farmer while Zatara and Tong are out on an evening stroll together.

Zatara investigates at the local observatory, where the aliens somehow push him into a teleport beam and he winds up on Saturn. The Saturnians look an awful lot like the Martian Manhunter, 16 years before his debut! Despite having super technology that allows instantaneous interplanetary travel, the Saturnians fight with lassos. Zatara meets their warlord and convinces him to leave Earth alone by showing him a Phantasmal Image of the planet Earth attacking the planet Saturn. Saturnians are very impressionable.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: Action Comics Archive v. 1; select pages were read on the Babbling about DC Comics blog; the rest read in summary either at DC Wikia or Mike's Amazing World.)

Action Comics #15

And we come back around to Superman's home title, Action Comic, as we will periodically do, to see what new and exciting stuff Siegel and Shuster have cooked up for us. Here, we're treated to some delightful attention to continuity, as Superman reflects on having saved money earned months earlier in issue #11.

And raising money is the unusual scenario goal in this issue, as Superman has to raise $1 million to save "Kid-Town". For capturing bank robbers, he gets a $3,000 reward from the bank for returning their money, plus $2,000 from the police for capturing the robbers. He saves a rich man's life and gets $10,000 as his reward. Then he receives a plot hook that sends him after sunken treasure worth $1 million by itself.

All of these rewards can be dangled in front of Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes, though the Editor is discouraged from awarding XP for money that has to be raised for a scenario. Trophy money should be earned on the side while pursuing other goals.

In the course of this adventure, Superman performs the powers Nigh-Invulnerable Skin (but while out of costume!), Raise Car (to lift a massive tree), Hold Breath (said to last for hours!), Get Even Tougher (I presume, since he's able to fight off a dozen sharks!), Hold Train reversed (so he can push a submarine), Super-Tough Skin, and -- of course -- wrecking things.

For some amount under $15,000, Clark Kent is able to rent a steamer ship for two weeks, complete with diving bell. He has to hire his own crew, though.

Another wrinkle in this surprisingly complex Superman tale is rival gangs competing to stop him. One becomes his ship crew, while the other steals a submarine to come after his ship. And Superman has fun with it too, dressing up in a skeleton's conquistador armor to spook the submarine crew.

In Pep Morgan's installment, Pep is given a plot hook by someone he rescued in the previous story -- the start of a series of plot hooks the same character will give him over what is actually a long story arc. He has to catch a combination of gangsters and robbers who are disguising themselves as police officers. Pep disguises himself too, posing as a night watchman and then a policeman himself, to capture the robbers who are using a tricked farmer's farm as their hideout.

Marco Polo shows himself to have some anti-hero leanings in this installment. He knocks out a guard to steal a horse, and then steals a sword from two soldiers (who probably only want to arrest him for horse theft!). I'm not sure how easy it is to snatch a sword from someone else's scabbard, but I'm guessing it's pretty hard and must be a difficult (1 in 6) skill, like picking pockets.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he and his SCM (archaeologist Jim Blake) have been fighting bandits in the Sahara when both sides have to seek shelter from a sandstorm (wandering weather encounter? Editorial fiat?). Jim points out that sandstorms can rip skin to shreds, meaning at least 2-8 points of damage I reckon. Luckily, tents make you automatically immune to the damage. Clip and Jim decide to brave the storm instead; since they emerge unscathed, there must be a save vs. science that lets you avoid the whole damage.

They find a guarded pyramid -- and rightly so, being a national monument. Clip and Jim have a map that will show them where a secret treasure room is inside, but instead of showing it to the Arab guards and offering to share it with them, Clip beats them all up so they can enter and steal the treasure for themselves. The pyramid is the "Pyramid of Cheoks," which clearly means Cheops. While inside, a guard recovers and trains a gun on them from a trapdoor in the ceiling, generously giving them a chance to surrender. But, again, this guy's an Arab, so Clip feels no remorse as he murders the guard. They find the secret door indicated on the map, but run into a mummy at the cliffhanger!

Tex Thompson is taking a break from globe-trotting and is back home in Texas for a change. We see he's an expert dart thrower. He also has an Arab servant named Achmed who never joins him on any adventures and we probably never see again. Tex is asked to find a missing diamond in this story, during which he runs into and adds his second SCM, Gargantua T. Potts. "Gargantua" must be a nickname because Potts is tall, drawn taller than Tex. Other than that, Potts has no special abilities other than being a  horribly drawn racial slur.

Well, well -- Fred Guardineer anticipated global warming! In his Zatara installment this month, "an evil scientist, Berhener, creates a heat ray and uses it to melt a lot of polar ice, causing the oceans to rise, and flooding New York City and many other coastal cities. Zatara is called in, and he figures out where the melting is happening, then tracks the heat ray's creator, Berhener, who turns out to have a mad scheme about extorting the world's governments and banks for a lot of money. Zatara freezes him inside an iceberg, and sinks the heat ray into the ocean." That summary doesn't give me a lot to go on, but apparently Zatara is starting to cast more combat-related spells like Ice Storm or Cone of Cold.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #14

Superman uses the powers Outrun Train and Leap I before he even gets the plot hook for this issue's story.

I've been thinking off and on and about the alien race's leaping ability. It's so good right now that it makes the Leap power pretty useless for aliens, and every other race needs to fill one of their limited power slots with Leap just to be able to do what the alien race can do.  So...I'm seriously considering weakening the alien's leaping ability dramatically. Instead of doubling at each level, it would go up incrementally at x2, x3, x4, and so on.

Superman refers to the mobsters who attacked the inspector as thugs, though neither mobster seems as tough-looking as thugs are statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

A hoodlum punches Superman's super-tough hand and hurts himself. I'll have to consider whether this needs to be a side effect of the Super-Tough Skin power, or perhaps of Invulnerability.

Superman also demonstrates wrecking things, Feather Landing, and Raise Trolley Car.

Ultra-Humanite has several trophy items this issue -- an invisible car (it can turn invisible and visible at the driver's wishes) and an Electric Crystal-Encasing Tank. The second was featured, as-is, in Book II, while the first was represented by an Invisibility Field Generator.

In Marco Polo's story, he and his family manage to escape because of a drowsy guard. Guards were first statted in Steve Lopez's module FS1 Sons of the Feathered Serpent. I might keep them around, and give them a percent-chance of being encountered asleep.

Pep Morgan's ship is sinking in a storm! The scenario is to swim back to the ship from the lifeboat and look for an unconscious pilot aboard. Sadly, someone tells Pep to look in the cabin, removing all the suspense. This could have made a good timed scenario by making Pep swim around the ship, having to choose which rooms to search before the time runs out and the pilot is underwater.

Clip Carson is in Cairo, the "land of a primitive people." I think we can see where this new strip by Bob Kane is going. Clip rounds a corner and sees a blonde man attacking five Arabs with his fists, so naturally Clip joins in and helps beat up the Arabs too without even knowing what the fight was about. The blonde guy is a plot hook character, an archaeologist with a treasure map to a room hidden under a pyramid (I just ran a similar scenario in one of my Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns!). They go out into the desert to raid the pyramid. A bunch of Egyptians on horseback (nomads?) try to stop them since, hey, it's their nation's monument, but Clip isn't having any of that and mows them all down with his rifle.

Tex Thompson's player, not willing to wait for his Editor to toss him a plot hook, has Tex put an ad in the paper requesting adventure opportunities.

Tex is easily knocked out by a blow to the head, despite the fact that he's surely almost 5th level by now. This vulnerability to blows to the back of the head is very hard to reconcile with the game mechanic of hit points. And I'm not sure I want to reconcile it. Quick knock-outs may be good emulation of the comic books, but it isn't much fun and it doesn't feel much fair when it happens to your Heroes.

What follows makes for a good story, but a difficult one to get players to go along with; Tex wakes up in the same hotel room, in his pajamas, with a different woman in the room claiming she brought them there after he got drunk the night before. The first lady, who tried asking for Tex's help, has gone missing.

Chuck Dawson gets in a grappling match with an outlaw. First Chuck pins the guy, but the outlaw breaks the hold and then kicks him. Chuck restarts grappling, probably at the end of the second turn after being kicked, and establishes a choke hold. Good rolls, Chuck!

Zatara goes in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth, just because someone asked him to. He's with his good friends (who we never see again) Eleanor and Fred Hodges when the plot hook comes his way; Zatara certainly has a lot of married friends. Their old friend, Jeb Standish, knows a little-known legend of the Well of Quetzcoatl, and believes it is the Fountain of Youth. He promises to pay $1 million for 1 gallon of youth tonic -- a sweet deal most Heroes could retire happily on.

Zatara begins an expedition with native boatmen at Rio de Janeiro, but uses a Mass Fly spell (a 5th level spell?) to get their canoes over rapids (rapids in...Rio Guandu? There aren't a lot of major rivers that end near Rio de Janeiro).

Zatara comes across The Lost Red City (though, if he's following a river from a major city, how lost could it be?), built from red sandstone (nice detail). The lost city is manned by natives (so it's not really lost at all) and Zatara stops them by turning their spears into clouds (yeah...I'm not sure about that one. Mass Weapon Polymorph? Vaporize Weapons 15' Radius?).

In a throne room in a temple, Zatara discovers a throne with a preserved woman's corpse sitting on it. The corpse speaks a warning before snakes slither out from under the throne dais to attack, but the snakes aren't real -- they are a Phantasmal Image and the spoken threat was Ventriloquism, both accomplished by a small creature that seems to be a hieroglyph guardian (a new 2nd ed. mobster type), but one that is also at least a 2nd level magic-user. Zatara uses Detect Thoughts/ESP to find out where the Fountain of Youth is from the guardian.

All is not kosher about the fountain, though. Tong feels magically compelled to drink from it and Zatara, sensing something amiss here, uses Phantasmal Image and Telekinesis to keep Tong from drinking. There is always a wrinkle to fountains of youth; this time, the wrinkle is that the water keeps you alive, but you still get old and infirm (not unlike the theme of an upcoming Zatara story). By the time Zatara learns this, the old man had rallied 100 natives to stop Zatara, but Zatara turned them all to stone for an hour. And, yeah...I'm not allowing a spell like that. Fred Guardineer was one of the better artists of the early days of comic books, but his Zatara series reeks of power inflation and would throw game balance out the window.

(Superman story read from Action Comics Archives v. 1; select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Superman #1

And now we reach this milestone at last -- the first time an ongoing comic book will feature only one main character, and the first time a comic book will be named after a superhero.

This is also the comic book that gives Superman his origin story. We see clearly for the first time that it is Superman's alien heritage that gives him his ability to leap higher, raise tremendous weights*, run faster, and have bulletproof skin.

*So, technically, the alien race should automatically let you have the power Raise Car as well, but as already broken as the alien race is (game balance-wise), I decided to eliminate that one since Superman did not lift heavy weights as often as he used the other powers. Alien superheroes can still buff themselves with the Raise Car power. Perhaps I could tweak this in second edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, to say that Raise Car has double the normal duration for alien superheroes...?

Of course, if I wanted to "fix" the alien race, maybe I could restrict those three abilities to bonus powers, usable no matter what class the alien is, but still force the hero to activate them and stick to a duration, rather than making them "use at will" abilities.

This issue also features the first time a superhero appears in a text story. All the early comic books included one text story (to qualify for the cheaper mailing rate), but you wouldn't know that from this blog because I've been ignoring them. H&H is based on the actual comic book stories, not all of the contents of the comic books.

(The content not reprinted from Action Comics was read in The Superman Chronicles v. 1)

New York World's Fair #1

It's June 1939 and the New York World's Fair is making the rounds in a lot of comic books, but none made especially for the fair like this issue was.

Superman visits the World's Fair. Being mid-1939, Clark Kent is still a Cleveland, Ohio reporter writing for the Daily Star, but he's a veteran correspondent on three continents already.

Superman demonstrates his leaping ability in this story, uses the powers Hold Train, Raise Building, Raise Car (to uproot a tree), Race the Bullet, and Outrun Train in that order.

"Chuck Warner Goes to the New York World's Fair" is interesting in where it focuses, not on famous landmarks from the fair, but the less known presence of track and field events at the fair. Unless I hear a lot more interest soon in the sports genre of early comic books, though, I don't plan on including any new game mechanics for racing or high jumping. These can all be lumped into a static skill roll, where you have a 1 or 2 in 6 chance of doing slightly better than the person you're competing against.

"Hanko Goes to the World's Fair" is a tall tale story that has Hanko's horse tightrope walking from the ground to the top of the Trylon and then he and his horse falling safely from the top of it. This reminds me of Dell's Pecos Bill strip, another tall tale hero I ignored when I went through those issues -- though maybe I shouldn't have? There's nothing in the description I just gave that couldn't be explained away by superhero powers. And a cowboy costume could be a distinctive superhero uniform in modern times. So maybe tall tale cowboys are actually early examples of the superhero class, if not the genre?

I've not been keeping track of how many times I've seen a hoodlum slip out of a hold by slipping out of his coat, like one does in the Scoop Scanlon adventure here. As common as it is, maybe it should be a special move for slick hoodlums?

Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan visit the World's Fair and get a poison dart thrown at them for their trouble. Heroes will not be allowed to use poison, but there needs to be clear rules for villains' use of poison. Poison will often be potentially lethal -- like the save or die variety -- though death does not need to occur right away. And there will be ways of countering poison (magic, antivenom, sucking out the poison,...).

Someone tries to pick Shorty's pocket too. Picking pockets is a static skill (those skills will not be totally static in 2nd edition, they will just improve slowly). If it fails, roll surprise normally. If the would-be thief failed but still has surprise, the attempt was not noticed. Otherwise, the attempt is noticed.

Slam finds a secret compartment in a fireplace. Even though he knows where to search, he doesn't know what he's looking for, so he has to roll to find the secret compartment (like searching for a secret door). Though, since the fireplace is such a small area, I would also be okay with giving him a +1 or even a +2 situational modifier on his roll.

The Sandman's debut adventure I wrote about previously here.  I'll add some notes here, though.

It doesn't really matter if you want to say your brand new hero is a millionaire or a billionaire -- you'll still have the same starting money and all the rest of your money will be tied up in investments, long-term bonds, or somewhere else where you can't touch it during game play.

The Sandman is said to be an inventor in this story, but his raygun is only a plot hook, not something he ever uses. I'm comfortable with skipping giving him levels in Scientist.

There's no game mechanic right now for Sandman's "queer intuition of danger". I would treat that as a failed surprise roll by the other side, had anyone been actually trying to attack him. Instead, he just seems to sense something amiss is about to happen.

Sandman uses his gas gun several times, but we never see it affect more than two at a time.

The Zatara adventure presents some interesting posers. When Zatara and Tong are falling and Zatara catches them with a "magic stair-case" -- what the heck is that? A Mass Fly spell? Or am I literally to take this as a Create Stairs spell? No, maybe it is Mass Fly, because he uses that spell for sure a few pages later.

Zatara uses some sort of illusion spell to make it appear that he drinks a punch bowl full of liquor. He casts a Mass Reduce Persons spell that shrinks three people at a time down to six inches tall.

Zatara casts a spell on himself that renders him heavier than lead so he can't be knocked off his feet. Instead of doing the same thing for Tong, he turns Tong to stone. I bet Tong said "Gee, thanks a lot, boss!" all sarcastic after that one.

Zatara appears to conjure a private train, but maybe that's just a coincidence that it shows up when it does.

Zatara casts a spell that makes a soldier go "up in smoke". Disintegrate? He also casts Bestow Curse, so that anything a man puts on becomes rags.

He uses his now-familiar spell that polymorphs weapons.

He casts a Mass Telekinesis spell to move two people into the air.

He casts Enlarge on himself, supposedly until he's a mile tall, but I'm not buying that, Zatana! I bet you're 25' tall and just exaggerating a whole lot.

(Read in DC Rarities Archives)

Action Comics #13

Superman does the stuff you expect from Superman here -- leaping, lifting heavy stuff. Interestingly, he does not rely on super-senses much, leaping up to windows so he can peer right in at the people he needs to eavesdrop on (which is why there aren't many senses-related powers).

Again we see Super-Tough Skin breaking a knife (like in AC #1). Superman is leaping along with a hoodlum under his arm when he's thrown off-balance by the knife attack and reaches out for a window with one hand to catch himself, while dropping the hoodlum from his other arm. The hoodlum then falls to his death. Now, we know Superman could have just fallen to the ground with the hoodlum, land safely, and keep the hoodlum alive, but instead Superman says he got "exactly what he deserved". Golden Age Heroes are okay with bad guys dying, just like most of my players.

In an interesting twist, Superman forces the racketeers he's captured to wreck their own cars with mallets instead of wrecking them himself. Now, there are non-Superhero wrecking rules in the game -- but would you actually use them in this case? There's not any suspense to whether or not the racketeers succeed. When the game mechanics do not add to the suspense of the scene, you can feel free to skip over them.

And that just leads up to Superman's first confrontation with the Ultra-Humanite. Ultra is, of course, the inspiration for the ultra-mad scientist mobster type in Book II.

Superman succumbs to an electrical trap, not because it's early in the development of his character and his limits, or lack thereof, have not yet been firmly established, but because he hasn't prepared any powers that protect him from this much damage. In the future he'll be more prepared with defensive buffs.

The Scoop Scanlon story from this issue, from the summary I read, sounds like a Scooby Doo scenario. People get scared that an Indian curse on some jewels is turning people to stone, and one victim really does appear to be turned to stone. Scoop sets a trap for the bad guy -- a really silly trap, where Scoop makes his own fake statue and talks from behind it, which actually scares the bad guy into confessing. I feel sorry for the guy running a Hideouts & Hoodlums game who has to make it that easy to trick his own bad guys.

Also, for a "five star reporter," Scoop doesn't do any investigating to get involved in this case -- he just drives by and happens to see what appears to be a dead body laying outside a house.

Now, what makes this stand out from your average Scooby Doo episode is that the victim turned to stone isn't a trick -- the guy is really dead and petrified. The killer isn't even a mad scientist; he's just some guy who's found a "rare formula" for turning a body to stone. So, my thought is -- what's a rare formula, in terms of game mechanics? Is it like a spell scroll, only anyone can use it?

Pep Morgan is leaving the South American country of "Latona" -- and this time, I can't even try figuring out which real country that represents. A few more quick comments about the Pep Morgan adventure: one, stopping a mutiny is easy when the Editor lets the mutineers throw a party and get drunk, and two, villainous Captain Sindra sneaks on board Pep's ship, pretending to be a sailor named Johnson. I would never be able to get my players to play seriously if they encountered a character named Seaman Johnson. Lastly, Sindra isn't even defeated by Pep; the boat's captain does it for him.

In the Marco Polo feature, Marco's pet cheetah is captured with "snares" -- these are really lassos. Then the cheetah is dragged into a cage.

Marco isn't just tossed into a dungeon, he gets kicked down a flight of stairs into the dungeon. Falling down stairs can be lethal. Should it do as much damage as falling vertically? Maybe half-damage, rounded up? Fall down a 30' flight of steps and you take 2-12 points of damage.

But later, Marco produces a bag of money off his person. It's not uncommon for Heroes to be able to sneak things into prison cells, like knives or broken glass, but prison guards missing a bag of money? Should I even bother with having guards search prisoners at all?

Okay, now to Zatara's back of tricks...

First he casts a spell that turns him and Tong into gusts of wind for fast travel -- what is that? Gaseous form doesn't usually go with faster movement, which makes it an even more powerful spell. Or is this flavor text for a teleport spell? He also turns him and Tong into shadows later for sneaking around -- or is that flavor text for Invisibility?

Zatara can cast a shrinking spell that reduces a target 75% in size. He casts a hypnosis spell, but the information he gets from the man under hypnosis isn't anything he couldn't get through a Charm Person spell. Some of his other spells look familiar, like turning a gun into a snake (which I've previously decided must be an illusion).

He does seem to cast a new spell when he makes a safe path for someone through the Swamp of Satan. Safe Path apparently lets someone walk without encountering natural hazards, like quicksand.  Or -- is this a Find Traps spell at work?

Another possibly new spell: Zatara casts a Melting Curse. The victim has to save vs. spells or melt away into nothingness. But -- is this really all that different from Disintegrate?

This one is definitely a new spell, though. A Sleeping Hex is a spell you cast on someone who is already asleep, and then they can't be woken up by any means (short of a Dispel Magic spell) for ...I don't know, some unknown length of time.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives Vol. 1; select pages were read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog; the rest read as summaries here.)

Action Comics #12

Superman is one year old! To celebrate, Superman declares war on reckless drivers. This is the kind of proactive playing most game referees just dream about, though it is admittedly hard to prepare for if the players just start a campaign like this off the cuff.

Superman does a lot of wrecking in this story -- wrecking his way through a brick wall, wrecking cars and trucks, and the machines in a factory. He uses his alien abilities of leaping, running super-fast, and naturally nigh-invulnerable skin, and the powers Raise Car and Dig. He probably uses Feather Landing too.

Remarkably, Superman is shown capable of being knocked over by a speeding car when he's not braced for it, or perhaps just because he doesn't have the right powers buffing him.

Scoop Scanlon was seriously injured in last month's segment. A month passes in story time while he convalesces. That's a long, slow rate of hit point recovery!

When Pep Morgan is stuck in a South American country ("Latara" -- I can't even guess what that is code for), he does the smart thing my Monday night group did when they were in Cairo -- seek out help from an American consultate. In this case, Pep can wire home for money and get a few pesos to tide him over (the latter as the result of a high encounter reaction roll?).

Pep escapes from being tied up by exerting "super-human strength." Umm...I don't think that's really Pep's thing. Maybe the rope wasn't very strong?

Zatara is in an explorer's club in San Francisco -- he really gets around looking for plot hooks!  A scientist friend approaches Zatara, for the man has invented a portal to the fourth dimension and wants Zatara to explore through it.

The fourth dimension is a gonzo sandbox setting, with prehistoric flora and fauna, including a saber-tooth tiger (these were statted in Book II). It is also inhabited by green humans who live in nations called Thrule and Arren. The humans of Thrule are masters of biology and have learned how to recreate species from various times in Earth history, like the tiger. They are not good with weapons, though, as the leader of Thrule has nothing but throwing daggers to defend himself with. The people of Arren have weapons that can vaporize people, so it seems a decidedly lopsided war between them. One wonders how Thrule is not yet conquered...

Soon, Zatara is flying a winged horse, but it isn't clear if he made that, summoned that, or was given it for his use by the leader of Thrule. Zatara does cast a spell that reflects missile weapons back on the thrower (Missile Reflection? Maybe a new 4th level spell?), Polymorph himself into a vulture, turns Invisible, uses ventriloquism (a spell, or a skill?), and then Polymorph again to turn a woman into an ugly hag (for a change, all but the first of Zatara's spells were in Book I!).

(Superman read in Superman Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages were read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia)