Top-Notch Comics #4 - pt. 2

We're back and, if you've been waiting on me to finish the Wizard's story, here it is -- the Wizard defeats the "Bundonian" sub by lifting it out of the water. That's right, he can lift at least 750 tons over his head, without even firm ground underneath him. As unlikely as that is, I have to wonder if he's not actually using some form of levitation -- contra-gravity discs attached to the hull -- and then is pretending to hold it up just for the showmanship of it? Or, hey, I'd even be willing to accept some combination of the two. 

This ending brings up the issue of what to do in your Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns when it's well before 1945, but your heroes have already forced Germany, or your German-analog country, to surrender. One possibility is to just keep replacing them with German-analog countries ("Bundonia surrenders...but the next day their neighbors Caledonia declares war on Europe!"). Or the country reneges on their surrender, finding some excuse to invalidate it and then continues the war effort. Or, you and your players agree to a campaign where nothing the Heroes do has an impact on continuity between sessions, as if the world resets each session (very much like many golden age comic books, though I don't recommend this so much for fun campaign play). 

But you didn't come back to hear more about the Wizard, you came back for Dick Storm. Because who can resist Dick Storm? 

Here we find an unimaginatively named Chile analog called Chilan, with an unusual history. It's not too surprising that, 22 years after the 1918 pandemic, people were still worried about plagues, but Chile had not had its own plague during the intervening years. 

I wonder what the president thinks Dick Storm is going to be able to do about a plague. Shouldn't he talking to a doctor instead?

Here is a great example of Hideouts & Hoodlums' abstract combat system, and at the same time an argument against specific hit locations. At point blank range, the assassin could probably hit Dick Storm anywhere, but panel 2 seems to make it appear the bullet is going to land in his right arm or stomach. In panel 3, the bullet lands in his left arm. 

That is the worst outfit for an assassin ever. Maybe not; I suppose pink pajamas would make him stand out even more.

Rana is surprised to see how quickly Dick Storm stands erect.

Pruvians is almost certainly an analogue for Peruvians. In reality, Chile and Peru had been at peace since 1883.

"I have a plan but you need to turn your army over to me for a few days."

"Sure, what could go wrong?"

"I'll also need access to all your bank accounts. And -- heeyyy...if you're Chileans, why is your daughter blonde?"

"Rana! Despite parading around in a cocktail dress, you've managed to sneak past my entire air force and reached that plane!"

Dick swings into action! Honestly, I can't even make fun of this stuff anymore because now I think the author is in on all the jokes.

To their credit, these soldiers have had about five minutes of uninterrupted stare-up-a-dress-time as the parachutists descend, but their thoughts are entirely on Dick Storm when they reach the ground. 

The fact that the general is still standing there unarmed in panel 7 as Dick Storm is attacking him seems to suggest Dick is enjoying a surprise round, but I don't think the circumstances here would have warranted a surprise roll. Rather, I think Dick won initiative and the Editor had made no statement yet of the general's intentions. It's also possible that the general is holding his gun in the shadows of his uniform; his whole right hand seems malformed, as if hastily drawn.

In a chase sequence, the desk in the way would be considered a complication to overcome, but in a combat sequence, this panel is correct; in H&H, you can ignore obstacles in your way during melee, unless you choose to incorporate them into your flavor text (or, obviously, if you plan to pick it up and use it as a weapon!).

I remember this scene from the first Indiana Jones movie. Plane propellers are nasty weapons; I'd put this at least in the range of 3-12 damage, so no wonder the soldiers are running. 

You might have guessed that Dick Storm's plan turns out perfectly and Chile surrenders after Dick arranges for a lot of them to die. So we're going to jump way ahead towards the end of the next story featuring Moore of the Mounted. Here we see an example of a trap as a wandering encounter. This page also shows us a good example of Lawful and Chaotic Alignments and how they differ in this scenario.

Technically Sgt. Moore is right; an Olympic skier can achieve downhill speeds of ten times someone running on foot, but the average speed of the average skier is more like 2 1/2 times faster (Movement rate 30 as opposed to 12).

And now we're going to make one last jump into the next story, Streak Chandler of Mars. I think from just this one page you can tell the backstory borrows heavily from Flash Gordon, with the wrinkle of the gangsters forcing them all to leave. Streak's problems are a frequent staple of the sports genre. The art isn't very good, but doesn't Streak look awful old to be a college football player?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)
 

 

 

Top-Notch Comics #4 - pt. 1

We're going to jump straight into the first feature of this issue, The Wizard, because there's some interesting issues here. The scenario here is that Germans (called Bundonians here) are planning to launch an invasion of Texas from Mexico. But the Wizard seems to have caught onto their plan late because he's arriving in Texas and the bad guys' base is already there. Further, it only takes him two hours to fly there. The Wizard is based out of Washington, D.C. and a non-stop flight to San Antonio, Texas normally takes 3 1/2 hours. So either the Wizard is not in Washington, D.C. at the start of this scenario or his plane travels almost twice as fast as a normal plane (certainly unusual given that it appears to only be a standard mono-prop plane). 

Also note how the subplot involving the fiancee with hurt feelings is resolved in one panel and a caption. Compare to a post-1961 comic book, where this soap opera material might stretch over pages.

This diagram reminds me of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Even with specs to admire, I still don't know what a VB-Ray does. Maybe it stands for Very Brutal? It can definitely melt/wreck through walls. 

Hypnotizing one-on-one is a skill any Hero can attempt, but hypnotizing a whole room full of people seems more like a power or spell. Although, from panel 4, it appears the general's staff is just this one soldier next to him. 

There are sound tactics here; hypnotism may only last so long, or the enemy might get wise to the deception, so he' right to make their arsenal his next target. 

I, admittedly, have no Air Force experience, but it seems to me that the bombers are dive bombing, not circling. I was skeptical of this until I looked it up, but dive bombing is a thing because angling down towards the target actually helps aim the bombs with greater accuracy. I would have thought dropping them straight down would be better, but this is why no one asks me to plan bombing missions.

  

Here we have another diagram that looks cool but doesn't really tell us how it works. Luckily this one is a very familiar one, the cliche of a ray that kills engines. 

A nice twist is that the bad guys have a ray gun too. A dissolving raygun? The caption said it sprayed corrosive liquid, but that seems unlikely that a squirt gun would be that accurate while traveling at airplane speeds.

This top row is all kinds of interesting to me. The acid has drained his strength, but has done no visible damage to him or even to his clothes. Is that possible? Only with H&H's abstract damage mechanic (and, to be fair, the mechanic of the game H&H is based on). When he's saying all his strength is gone, what the Wizard probably means is that he's down to his last few hit points already.

I'm not sure why we need to see the inside of a flask to get how it works. It's kinda neat that it shows us how the gasses get mixed inside it, but by pulling back to the curtain to show us the "science" it reveals two made-up gas names, riaton and oxothygen. I think we were better off with the ray guns that look technical but reveal nothing of how they work. 

I have never encountered this use of "I'm all in!" before, which seems here to mean "I'm completely spent!" rather than "Yeah, let's do this!"

It's nice that even the narrator in the caption of panel 6 realized how hard it is to believe that the plane just happens to come down at his fiancee's house. That should tell you there's something wrong with your story when even your own fictional narrator doesn't believe it. 

"Eggscape"? That's a German accent?

"Phial" is an unusual word you don't see every day. And invisible gas is equally rare in a comic book. 

Ho.Mg4? Holmium Magnesium? Seems like that would be extremely dangerous, even if that was a real isotope. 

Heroes always manage to pull out a last bit of strength when needed, as if their weaknesses were just flavor text.

Here's a rare cutaway view of a hideout. Although the map only shows three soldiers on the ground floor and one guard on the upper floor, it seems that there are four men on the ground floor after all. Or one of them withstood the Wizard's surprise attack. Or the guard from upstairs came down. Or maybe a guard from outside joined in. It's important that the players never learn exactly what they're up against no matter how well they prepare.

I have a pocket transmitter too these days, but my pockets sure aren't big enough to hold the transmitter we see in panel 3. Although the Wizard's main power is called his photographic mind, it seems more like omniscience how he senses everything. That's a power I'm not keen on being in Hideouts & Hoodlums, though I suppose I could bump it up to a 7th level power so I don't have to worry about it for awhile. 

I'm also uncomfortable with the near limitless range of the Wizard's Message power; this has to be a higher level version (Greater Messaging?) of how I envision the power working. 

I don't see how a contra-gravity flask would let him run super-fast through the air, but maybe he's buffed with both Fly and Race the Plane to get that speed?

Hey Wizard, are you seriously leaving your fiancee tied up? 

In case you weren't sure from the above that the Wizard was a superhero, we get a perfect example of him using wrecking things here -- superhero-level wrecking things (any Hero can snap rope on a good roll). 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #3 - pt. 1

Returning to MLJ after a long time away, we find the Wizard (currently guest-starring in my home campaign!) on a new adventure.

We learn that his supercharged speedster can go 200 MPH and stop on a dime.

It's unclear how the Wizard stores Secret Formula F22X on his person; it's clearly not in a metal container.

It is winter when this story takes place, so the blizzard kind of makes sense.

Sparks from the exhaust setting the plane on fire is another complication to add to a random table.

An H2-Vx-O Ray that makes rain is a pretty specific trophy item. The funny/not-funny thing about this is that a nerve gas called VX will be developed over 10 years later.

Here's another really specific trophy item -- the dynamagnosaw ray projector can be used for wrecking things at range -- but only wires.

The Wizard's photographic mind works like a Danger Sense, which needs to become a superhero power that keeps you from being surprised for the duration.

Balloon capes are a minor trophy item that allow someone a chance to fall safely, as if with the Feather Landing power, but also with a chance of the cape tearing and becoming useless.

That leap looks like the Leap I power, since the plane comes down so low. Of course, planes will always have to fly down low when Heroes are ground-based.

Ethyl Formula 2X-Y-BZ would be a consumable trophy only consumable by vehicles, and would allow them to act as if Hasted (by the spell) for a limited duration.

Now this tactic is ...let's say unusually described here. It seems clear to me that the Wizard is using Sean Connery's tactic from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he gets the birds flying in order to blind the pilot with dead birds. It's a gruesome tactic, and one the editor seems to have shied away from, explaining in the narration that the pilots are so stupid that they can mistake geese for planes.

Considering how violent some other MLJ titles will be in the near future, it seems odd that they shied away from violence here.

I don't have a lot to say about this page, except that I seemed to be particularly slow on the uptake with this story; it was not until this page that I realized "Borental" means Japanese. The artist even cleverly substituted the red circles on their wings for yellow triangles.

That the Wizard is unharmed by the explosion -- not only unharmed, but his cape isn't even torn! -- leads me to think he is defensively buffed with one of the higher level powers, like Imperviousness, here.

I do not recommend to my players that they try sitting on the broken off tail end of planes and trying to bring them in for safe landings by tugging on cords attached to the tail rudders; I'm pretty sure I'm going to be inflicting some falling damage regardless, unless he's using the Feather Landing power here.

Look at that, a Hero using quicksand to his advantage!  

Oops, the quicksand was dangerous to both sides! I guess there was a chance (2 in 6, or better?) of walking into quicksand anywhere in that area.

The high speed propulsion gun allows him to levitate, or is flavor text for the Levitate power.

The avalanche is caused by rocking things. Ha, honest typo -- I meant wrecking things!

That was it for the Wizard. Now I'm going to leave you with just a taste of Dick Storm, the Hero with the worst or the best name for a comic book character, depending on how seriously you take these things.

Dick here uses tactics, trying to turn his enemies against each other. H&H module RT1 Palace of the Vamp Queen is set up for that, with two warring factions of brigands controlling opposing sides of the building -- but I never did get players interested in pitting one side against the other.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #2 - pt. 1

Today we come back around to MLJ's Wizard, the Man with the Super Brain. You would think he would be strong evidence of the need for a Scientist class in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but up close he looks a lot like a superhero. In fact, many of his hi-tech gadgets could just be flavor text for prepared powers. But we'll get to that soon!

First, The Wizard has a closed-circuit TV set, as some other comic book characters do. There isn't really any power or spell that covers this, so I'm more inclined to believe this is an actual trophy item.

The super-charged speedster, or rocket car, is a trophy item, unless this is flavor text for the Race the Train power. Although, since it's only to get somewhere else that is not a dangerous place and without any time restrictions, I'd be inclined to hand-wave any method the player wanted his Hero to get to the airport.

The "strato-amphibian" is either a trophy item or flavor text for powers, depending on how it gets used...

It takes a commercial flight about 9 1/2 hours to go from Washington, D.C. (where I think The Wizard is based) to Anchorage, Alaska, but it only takes a "few" hours to make the trip.

The "Syberians" are obviously meant to be Siberians, though they look like yellow peril hoodlums in the pages that follow.

You would think a strato-amphibian would be what you would use to travel by water after arriving in Alaska, but instead he produces a separate rocket sled. It could be that the duration on his Race the Plane power expired and he needed fresh flavor text.

The "vibra-ray gun" somehow stops mechanical machines, similiar to how an electromagnetic pulse disrupts electronics. The 3rd level power Hold Plane might duplicate this if the snow tanks are light enough, or it might be a not-yet created 4th level version of Hold Plane (Hold Tank?).

Panel 5 is curious. Is he using the push mechanic on three people at once? I suppose that is possible by using Multi-Attack and then transferring all damage into distance pushed.

Reverso-ray neutralizer sounds like a double negative to me; if it reversed the neutralization, isn't it just a ray? I'm also perplexed if this is another setting on the same gun or an entirely separate raygun.

I can't decide if the design of those snow tanks is pure genius or pure nonsense. It seems like the helicopter configuration on top might help generate enough lift to keep the tanks from getting mired in the snow...? Regardless, this is for sure a trophy item.

It seems really odd that the enemy commanders are working in an unguarded shack.

Vacu-suction gloves -- or the Wall-Climbing power?

Isn't every gun a high velocity propulsion pistol? They propel bullets at high velocity...

I really like the visual of that panel 3.  Leaping between tanks looks like he's using the Leap I power and probably also Nigh-Invulnerable Skin to buff his backside's Armor Class.

I wasn't going to mention anything about snapping wires with his bare hands, but snapping chains is definitely wrecking things. Of course, even a non-superhero can wreck a chain with a really good roll.

Uprooting a ship's mast, though -- that is definitely superhero-level wrecking things.

Pinning those troops down looks an awful lot like the effect of the Hold Person power.

A machine gun, at short range, isn't even fazing The Wizard? He must be buffing himself with a higher-level defensive power now.

"Visualizing exact positions" seems an awful lot like the Locate Object spell, and maybe there needs to be an equivalent power.

As much as you may buff your superhero defensively, none of the buffing powers cover an area of effect. So, while your Hero might go unharmed, what he's standing on can easily still be destroyed.

"Secret chemicals" may be the flavor text by which The Wizard operates his wrecking things ability.

Capsizing boats...I'm hesitant to assign the wrecking things mechanic to this, as the boat is technically not being damaged. But, on the other hand, I can't assign a save vs. science to something that does not have a level or Hit Die total. I don't think it should be a skill and can't see Mysterymen automatically overturning boats.

And then there's this awkward part where it sure looks like The Wizard is dragging the soldiers underwater before tying them up so they'll drown...

Solidifying the fuel, unlike capsizing a boat, does sound like it is meant to wreck something and I would use that mechanic, wrecking vs. generators.

The timing of the start of the bombardment seems like it was always at the Editor's discretion to start in the scenario, rather than a randomly generated start time.

Now, put aside all the incredulity of this story so far and think about this fluttering paper. The Wizard was just underwater, so either he had this card concealed in a watertight container on his person this whole time, or he found colored markers on the boat and drew the flag while waiting for the bombs to hit.

I had to hold in a lot of jokes while writing this page. But I'm going to share one:

"Need any help?"

"Snow tanks!"

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #1 - pt. 1

We're now up to the third of the MLJ titles and still about two years away from their superhero zenith.

Here we get the first of their superheroes, The Wizard. He's not a magic-user wizard, but a hi-tech wizard. We'll observe him carefully and see what class he best fits shortly.

First a historical note -- there was no historical General Steven Whitney in the Revolutionary War. The actual Chief of the Naval Intelligence Service in late 1939 was Vice-Admiral John Godfrey, not Grover Whitney.

Telephone scrambling was already in development in 1939, but was not practical until 1943.

Somewhat famously, Pearl Harbor would be later attacked almost exactly as it's laid out in this issue.

The Wizard is one of the earliest characters we can pin down to an exact age, having been born in 1904. It was certainly not uncommon for comic book heroes to be grown men in their 30s.

The phone scrambling computer must be a trophy item, but we can't be as sure about this steel-burning chemical. Hi-tech potion -- or wrecking things power?

Woodrow Wilson is the first historically real character in this story, as well as this being the first time President Wilson had ever appeared in a comic book.

That's some mystery chemical -- even in 2017 we don't have a chemical that will burn 1,000 times hotter than acetylene.

In 1939, the land speed record was 369 MPH; it would not exceed 500 MPH until 1964.

The Wizard's invisible car, occurring in flashback, makes it chronologically older than the Ultra-Humanite's invisible car in Action Comics #13. An invisibility field generator that can fit in a car was a trophy item since first edition.

That The Wizard's prop plane can go from New York to Los Angeles in 2 hours and 45 minutes is suspicious -- even today the flight takes almost twice that long. Despite appearing to be a prop plane, it must be a jet.

Now here's where we start to get into guessing what class The Wizard is. First, he appears to be using magic -- maybe some powerful divination spell -- to figure out both what his objective is and where to find it. Then he dresses like a Mysteryman. Then he tears fish nets apart with his bare hands -- strong, but not quite wrecking things strong; a Mysteryman could accomplish this with a stunt.

"Jatsonian" must mean Japanese.

But, here, we see The Wizard using Leap, he leaps unharmed through gunfire as if buffed with Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, and it sure looks like he's using wrecking things on that submarine portal. Further, his high velocity propulsion pistol could be another hi-tech trophy item, or it could be flavor text for one of the Blast powers.

It's also curious just what a high velocity propulsion pistol is. Just about any gun works by propelling ammunition at high velocity. If there is no ammunition, it sounds like an air gun.

Here, again, is the Wizard wrecking his way through that door or using an actual vial of some sort of super-acid?

So, in just his first story, we've already seen what appears to be three different classes represented -- basically, all the core classes other than Fighter (unless the 3rd panel of that previous page counts as that too!).

I'm wondering if I should develop a sort of "bard" class for H&H...a jack of all trades class that can switch back and forth between classes, possibly from turn to turn...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)