Colossus Comics #1 - pt. 2

This is still Lucky Lucifer (that's a good guy's name, in case you couldn't tell). Game mechanically, I wanted to point out a rare instance of an aviator not using the wing walk stunt and just holding on for dear life. Should the fact that he's injured lower his number of available stunts? 

Storywise, I just want to point out that Lucky takes a huge gamble ditching his plane to hop onto another plane because he believes -- correctly it seems -- that the anti-aircraft gunners would ignore the still active pilot and concentrate on the plane that was going to crash soon anyway.

"Lt Lucifer, your reconnaissance -- I'm sorry, I just have to ask, why am I calling you Lt. Lucifer? Lucifer is just your nickname, right? Your father's surname isn't really Lucifer. Your mother didn't really go, 'O, I love this man, I can't wait to change my last name to Lucifer"?

That said, I like both how complex and how simple this next scenario is. It's complex in that there's going to be a lot of moving parts moving around, but simple in that most of that is going to be background detail, as the focus of our Hero is going to be on this spy retrieval side-mission. 

Given the speeds involved, the target AC for "hitting" the spy's outreached arms must be pretty low, though she can also roll "to hit" Lucifer back. 

Now, I know I have no skin in this game, but if I was the one flying into enemy territory to pick up a spy, I wouldn't go in alone; I would want at least one more plane with me to run interference.

As I said, the scenario is simple because Lucifer's orders are basically to stay out of it. If he ignored orders (and you'd sort of expect that from someone named Lucifer), he could fly into the battle and then you'd have to play it out, but if it's just going on around him, you can treat it as flavor text and describe a pre-decided outcome. 

When one plane separates to attack Lucifer's plane, that isn't necessarily bringing him into the big battle and can be treated as a separate battle/one-on-one dog fight.

Ugh...I can tell this one's going to hurt to read. It looks like some 4th grader's attempt to draw a L'il Abner clone. Although it might be hard to imagine drawing inspiration from this...I wonder if hillbillies, as a mobstertype, should have a bonus to "rasslin'."

Normally I would not apply the wrecking things rules to missile weapons used against you, but sometimes it could be fun flavor text. It could also be of practice use, like if arrows were being fired at you, to find out if the arrows broke or are retrievable (because arrows are a lot more likely to break than boulders).

Aside from that, I think I'll just mention that it's pretty weak storytelling, that the only spooky thing these guys pretending to be ghosts do is talk through a bush. I can't even count them as fake undead!

Jumping in here to the next story, Mory Marine.  Thumbscrews are a real thing, and could be as small as what is sorta drawn here, but they are archaic by 1940, being more of a 17th-18th century device. 

It is more likely that Mory (what kind of name is Mory?) blew his escape artist skill check than the mobsters have past experience as sailors. Mobsters don't generally have individualized skills. 

Finding a blood trail could be a searching check, and following a trail could be a tracking skill check, but an Editor should not require both unless the blood trail is very faint.

The bottom keeps dropping out on this artwork! Ugh...it looks like someone is dropping crumpled up balls of paper at our Heroes, here in "The Gold of Gartok." 

But behind that atrocious art is a pretty good idea to explain superheroes. Tulpas are real things too, or I should say real world theory. "Tulpa" is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers. It was adapted by 20th-century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa which means "emanation" or "manifestation." It can do anything the person who wills the tulpa into being is able to believe the tulpa can do, but only while concentrating and, as we learn here, if that concentration is disrupted, it takes an hour to create a new one.

A ledge saved our "white hero," but he's quickly captured and dropped into this snake pit. Interestingly, the snake pit only has four snakes in it, as if to give Rob a really sporting chance. 

Chanti and Charmi are Indian names -- but girls' names -- Genghis is a Mongolian title and not a name (but maybe a nickname?), and Bhutra is an Indian surname. Maybe Chanti and Charmi are nicknames too, like calling someone a Nancy or a Karen. 

It's interesting that the tulpa's explanation for what happened to him is patently untrue. Does a tulpa have to believe in itself to exist? Or it simply doesn't want Rob to know it can disappear on him again if the lama smells something else good? 

I may be having a deja vu moment, but, amazingly, I don't think this is the first time we've seen someone picking up snakes and throwing them as missile weapons in a comic book story.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Wonderworld Comics #9 - pt. 4

Years ago, I was running a superhero campaign online set in 1955 and was corrected by a player who pointed out that banks did not have security cameras in 1955. I learned a lot about historical accuracy in role-playing games since then. However -- this single page of Mob Buster Robinson shows me how 1940-era technology could replicate a security camera, at least by comic book logic (comically, because of some weird coloring, it looks like the camera is wearing a French beret).

This is "Spark" Stevens of the Navy (and his friend, Chuck). This might be the first adventure to take place on the Virgin Islands. The girl is a tour guide, giving boat tours for $1. It unlikely the madman is a descendant of Lafitte, Lafitte's only son having died about nine years after Jean Lafitte's death.

The situation here could have been an interesting roleplaying opportunity. One stranger offers the Heroes a drink, another stranger tells them it is poisoned. Who do they believe? Having the first one be a pirate and then having him crack his sword while killing the second stranger seems to make the answer too obvious.

Weapon breakage is something I would rather Hideouts & Hoodlums not adjudicate through game mechanics. Depending on where the weapon came from and what condition it was in, I might allow it to break under unusual circumstances, but tied to flavor text rather than dice rolls (it seems too much like a fumble mechanic, otherwise).

More evidence of even ordinary fighters being able to use wrecking things and climbing skill. Without multi-classing everyone, the solution was to make those mechanics open to everyone (as they became in 2nd edition).

Being soaking wet does not seem to inhibit their climbing ability at all.

Chuck sexually harasses the tour guide girl upon rescuing her. I like how she looks shocked, rather than happy, at the ambush kiss.

This is the first we see of the five "returning" thugs. Maybe they realized they forgot their rifles in the arsenal and were coming back for them.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #5 - pt. 1

So we rejoin The Flame -- getting into a brawl with hoodlums! Lou Fine's dynamic art is on full display here, showing The Flame like a real swashbuckler, leaping, kicking, and throwing. Interestingly, though The Flame is definitely a superhero, much of what he does here anyone of the fighter class could have done, with the possible exception of breaking through the door (though even that could be an open doors skill check now in 2nd edition).

Now, it's possible that The Flame is just toying with the hoodlums...or it's at least as likely that he's conserving his powers, and that I'm on the right track about Hideouts & Hoodlums needing to stay a limited resource management game.

Here we see the superhero power Quick Change -- used during the surprise turn of a fresh combat.

We also see the infamous "blow to the back of the head taking out a superhero" cliche. Oops, The Flame forgot to buff with defensive powers!

The Flame wakes up after what seems like exploration turns (10's of minutes) have passed.

Now The Flame is safe from harm, having activated ...Invulnerability? We know The Flame got to start the game with an awful lot of brevet ranks, as there's no way he should be using 4th level powers already in his third appearance -- right?

Here, The Flame uses a prop for wrecking things, even though it gives him no game mechanic bonus to do so. He uses wrecking things for two different effects as well -- the first to bring the place down around him, and the second to more carefully cut his way through the girders so he can get out without causing more damage. I'm not sure why that's important, except that the Flame hasn't showed off his flame-gun anywhere else on this adventure...

From Yarko the Great, we get some hideout dressing ideas, plus a trophy item -- the voodoo doll. Voodoo dolls were statted in Supplement III.

"Precipitous" seems to mean something different to the narrator here than it does to me, for the perspective in the second panel makes it look like maybe a 20 drop to me. Of course, the floor could be illusory, concealing a deeper pit...

Yarko casts a spell that not only turns him ethereal/gaseous form, but allows him to carry the mass of a full-grown woman with him while he does so. 5th level spell?

And then Yarko teleports. Or is that bright light concealing a Dimension Door?

Yarko casts Reduce Person on himself -- though, honestly, I don't know why he wouldn't just duck. Reduce Person is going to be a 1st level spell in 2nd edition.

Beast-Men appear to be just ordinary men to me, with fangs. I do have an entry for ape-men in 2nd edition's mobster section; maybe what I'll do is enlarge the category to include other beasts mixed with men.

I'm not sure what spell Yarko is casting here -- Relentless Stalker? Or, maybe he hasn't cast a spell at all and Vladim only thinks Yarko is right behind him.

Vladim is called a madman here, and elsewhere in the story. Madmen are statted as a mobster type in Supplement V...but Vladim seems a better match for a mad scientist than a madman, game mechanics-wise.

This is Shorty Shortcake.  If you ever doubted the vocabulary level of Golden Age comic books, here's the word "poniard" for a throwing dagger.

I would be very hesitant to accept how easily Shorty seems to manage breaking these poniards, but they could be lucky dice rolls. I'm torn on if breaking weapons needs its own mechanic, a non-wrecking things save table (like it had in 1st ed.), or maybe just treat this as a skill check.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)