Popular Comics #46 - pt. 1

We rejoin Toby here, and Toby and Oomog are not having fun on a tropical aisle. The appearance of the natives is clearly being played for laughs, but the fact that they're willing to drug their visitors with fruit that makes you doze off to sleep (unless you make a save vs. poison) makes exploring this island a dangerous adventure.

This is all world-building for Martan the Marvel Man. The year is 5000 on the planet Antaclea -- but that's by their calendar, not ours. The people of Antaclea look like Earthlings, but it seems like that's just a coincidence, given the extreme distance between worlds. Antaclea is more advanced than Earth and looks down on Earth, but at least Earth isn't bad like Mars -- those nasty Martians were at war with Antaclea in 3900 AD and wiped out 90% of the Antacleans. Only now has Antaclea rebuilt and is a restored utopia. Antaclea isn't unprotected any longer; those electric guns can wreck like an 11th level superhero with a range of the 40,000 miles, and I presume the flame rayguns are for shorter range, in case some gets past the electrical barrage. The problem with a "utopia" founded on guns, though...guns have a nasty habit of going off accidentally, and I bet a lot of people have been incinerated by planetary defenses just for not displaying their IPASS badges fast enough.

If the Martians did that to Antaclea, in a completely different

solar system, I do wonder how Earth endured. Perhaps Earth was seen as too primitive to bother with?

I'm already having problems with this story philosophically, but now the science starts getting super-shaky too. Antaclea has no oceans? Antaclea is 45 times the size of Earth? Jupiter is only 11 times the size of Earth, which makes Antaclea impossibly large for a non-gaseous planet. And what are "light miles" If the author means miles traveled at the speed of light, then Antaclea is closer than the moon and travel to Earth is near-instantaneous. If he means light years, then Antaclea is almost as far as the Andromeda Galaxy.

Economics-wise, we see that technology seems available to everyone, with interplanetary spacecraft being as common as cars.

There comes a point where the flavor text is so beyond simply wrecking something that you must be dealing with disintegration (save or be destroyed). In 1st edition, item saving throws were still a thing. In 2nd edition, if I really wanted to avoid using the wrecking things mechanic, I might let the pilot roll.

But what's all this nonsense, Martan? Are you saying that Earth would have a stronger gravity, despite being 1/45th Antaclea's size? Are you pulling Vana's leg?

Ah, the ultra-rare jungle-dwelling lions....I'm starting to wonder if this is some alternate Earth...

I like how their rayguns can be set to specific points of damage, with "x003" apparently being the setting for 1 point of damage. The question is, how high do those settings go? And is x999 really 333 points of damage?

At a higher setting, the raygun can even create fire -- a Wall of Fire, to be exact.

Evidence that the "number of appearing" for natives needs to be set pretty high.

This might look like a continuation of the same story, since this is by the same art team, but this is the Hurricane Kids. Here, we see how adventurous going fishing is off a time-lost prehistoric island and that they have to shoot at sharks (they must think they have a lot of bullets to spare) to protect their lunch.

I like the detail of the mud flow from the river, and how the inland river is concealed; the kids have to use their skills (i.e., concealed door check) to spot the river ingress.

That last panel gives us an understandably poor sense of scale, since a 20-ton sauropod tended to be 50' long, tip to tail, and would be hard to squeeze in a panel with the kids' boat.

Like I found with statting other dinosaurs, animals weighing in the range of tons don't stat easily when size and mass figure into Hit Dice. I would have to give this mommy 9 20-sided Hit Dice, which means those kids had better get out of there fast!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Popular Comics #45 - pt. 2

So, this is the "father of all sharks" we saw yesterday, but a few shots with a repeating rifle and -- pfft! No more father of all sharks. Way to snuff out such a unique and amazing example of Nature's wonder, Hurricane Kids!

A repeating rifle would be treated as just a hunting rifle.

G-Men stay connected with current news thanks to teletype machines in their branch offices (at least according to this strip!).

A FBI teletype machine would be a pretty useful trophy item -- instant plot hooks!

"Battered but powerful" cars could be handy trophy items. Sure, it's more fun to drive a cool-looking car, but way more conspicuous.

Deserted farmhouses are natural hideouts -- this guy says so!

Tex Ritter discovers that creating a barbed wire barrier and herding opponents toward it is a sound tactic. Tex could take a turn cutting his way through the wire, but it would leave him vulnerable to a full turn of back attacks.

Compiling more things we know about spooks (weak ghosts), spooks can remain invisible after attacking and can fly at pretty fast speed.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Popular Comics #41

Pretty funny.

We return to Shark Egan to consider biting -- should a person biting do points of damage? Normally, an improvised weapon does 1-3 points of damage, but can a person's bite realistically do even that much? I think I would, charitably, allow a bite to do 0-1 points of damage.

Biting is a real theme in this story. Can a person's teeth realistically chew through rope? I'd probably give the rope a saving throw vs. wrecking things of a 2 or 3.

And look, conger eels again! I'm definitely keeping those in 2nd edition.

The Hurricane Kids (or at least one of them) has to deal with baby pteranodons. Given their small size and light weight, I'd probably give them 1-4 hit points. Considering Alan is a 1st-level fighter fighting with a club, the baby pteranodons are actually a pretty tough encounter. That he has to climb away from the nest with a 200' drop if he fails a climb check is really making the scenario challenging.

This page illustrates how Heroes can improvise working weapons (that would do normal 1-6 points of damage), but what I really want to talk about here are the strange berries that give him back his energy. Hit points? It is not that uncommon for adventure modules to feature something like this -- a quick pick-me-up that Heroes can find in the middle of the scenario. Video games have, of course, made this ubiquitous.

Maybe I should have kept track of how many "escaping from jail" jokes I've read in these comics so far. Probably not as many as the goat jokes.

At first I thought this "slow bomb" might be something cool, but it's just a stick of dynamite with a long fuse on it. An actual slow bomb -- that halves movement and number of attacks to everyone caught in the area of effect -- would have made a neat trophy item for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

We've talked about this ghost before. I'm pointing out the gorilla because, frankly, I'm surprised at how few gorillas we've seen in comics so far.

I'm sharing this page for two reasons. One, I'm amused that the time bomb appears to be hidden among some lacy lingerie. Two, it seems the Editor set a target Armor Class for that open porthole (remember that planes this long ago didn't need to be pressurized), the player rolled really close to that number, and the Editor used that to play up the suspense of whether the bomb would go through the porthole or not.  Had the roll been really high, like a 20, the Editor could have described how easily the shot was made (over the shoulder, or with one eye closed, or the like).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Popular Comics #40

The Hurricane Kids are lost on a hidden land/lost world island. You can tell that it is by the over-sized fauna and, of course, the presence of dinosaurs. But what kind of dinosaurs? Some variety of carnosaur, it seems. I wonder if I should keep dinosaurs equally generic in Hideouts & Hoodlums, so one carnosaur entry could represent a variety of species.

Although also unnamed, this is likely a pteranodon (or simply pterosaurs if I want to keep labels more generic). Pteranodons are strong fliers and need some special ability for snatching and flying away with people.

Toby might be a surprising source for a consideration of the undead -- but what exactly is that thing Oomog is fighting, and what can it do? It is called both a spook and a ghost in the text. If it is a ghost, then ghosts can be hit by normal attacks (or perhaps only by powerful opponents, of 4+ HD, using normal attacks). Or perhaps spooks are something else, a weaker version of a ghost. Spooks can fly, spook people, and turn invisible, but nothing else (no other special defenses in particular).

I think the mobsters are onto something here. Horned toads may not be dangerous, but I always thought they were creepy. If nothing else, they're good hideout dressing.

From Shark Egan, a rare appearance of a huge eel (not a giant eel, and not an electric eel either). I gave giant conger eels 3 Hit Dice in Supplement II, so a huge eel should have 1+1 Hit Dice.

The Masked Pilot must be using the Aviator stunt Wing Walking to climb out safely onto the tail assembly. He then offers a good suggestion for investigators with bombs -- or any hi-tech item -- to search for clues. Every component has a chance of containing the manufacturer's name or mark on it. Find out who bought the pieces, and you may find the maker.

Here's an early precedent for rubber masks being able to fool people in comic books.

From filler called George Clark's Carnival, I thought this was a pretty good joke.

(Scans from Comic Book Plus)

Popular Comics #31

Reckon I best mosey on back to Dell's Popular Comics and look at this page from another Western adventure.  The whips I've seen in comics so far have either been used for torture or, like this, disarming people. Still, I think I've seen more disarming shots from guns so far, so I don't think I'm going to give whips any special bonus.

A feature of Golden Age comics is that they often don't take themselves too seriously. El Voltago, the Vulture of Chihuahua, isn't going to terrify anyone. But he might give your players some laughs!

Don Dixon looks like he's at the end of the whole campaign in this installment. For a campaign with Lawful Heroes ignoring opportunities to take loot along the way, this is the moment when the big XP rush comes with the reward. The longer the Heroes have delayed collecting, the bigger the reward should be. Here, that requires dropping them down a secret elevator into a king's treasure chamber and hearing, "Take whatever you want!"  Of course, if the players don't want the campaign to end, the reward they ask for might be a new quest...

Right now, there are no complications, in Hideouts & Hoodlums, for recovering from zero hit points; you just let time pass.  I'm currently 50/50 on whether or not H&H needs complications -- like having a concussion and needing several days of bed rest -- at least for Heroes. For non-Heroes controlled by the Editor, the Editor can assign all the complications he wants/needs for the story.

If you're planning on having an adventure on a boat, like this Shark Egan adventure, then you should choose a type of ship and research it, working from a map if you're able. This scenario doesn't skimp on describing the layout, from Shark searching the aft master's cabin to the reinforcements coming from the fo'c'sle.

Toby seems to have picked up where Patsy left off (since the Adventures of Patsy are no longer in a magical fantasy land). Here we see a strange land inhabited by at least four giants, at least one of whom looks to have two pet lions. A dangerous place for exploring!

One way to make fantasy creatures -- ones you would expect to find in a swords & sorcery scenario -- "fit in" better is to dress them up in modern clothes.

One trick to allow low-level Heroes to survive encounters with powerful foes is to split the powerful foes into rival factions, so the Heroes only have to side with one and fight alongside them.

Note that Toby's magic couch predates the magic bed in The Magic Bed-Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons (the basis for the movie Bedknobs and Broom Sticks) by five years.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)