Zip Comics #2 - pt. 4

We're still on the War Eagles feature of this issue. This is the first guy named Kermit to ever appear in comics and, curiously, we never see him again past panel 4.

Tom's big plan is to gamble on a good encounter reaction roll from General Worth. He gets a great roll too, since Worth gives them a promotion and carte blanche freedom to act without supervision. It's a sweet deal, but perhaps a necessary one -- I've never had players interested in a military-themed campaign where they have to take orders all the time.









The Supermarine Spitfire, or Vickers Spitfire, was a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after WWII, and was produced in greater numbers than any other British aircraft. Beside them are the Hawker Hurricane, a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–'40s. It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire's role during the Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane inflicted 60% of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the engagement, and fought in all the major theatres of the Second World War, all according to Wikipedia.

I love the composition and art on this page and wonder what Ed Smalle had for photo references.

There are two "stunts" in play on this page. One is luring a plane into an ambush. Normally, your allies have no chance to surprise an opponent if they've already seen one of you, but that's assuming normal on-the-ground conditions where someone can turn and look in any direction. Visibility in aerial combat is really restricted to your facing, so I would roll for surprise for each individual plane.

The other stunt is forcing one plane to crash into another. This could conceivably happen on the ground too, as ramming damage with a vehicle should automatically force a morale save. If you keep getting "run away" results, and box the person in so he has nowhere else to go, he's going to run into someone from his own side. Although, on the ground, you might get a surrender result too -- something someone in a plane can't easily do.

Panel 1 reminds us Editors of something important: if the bad guys see you use smart tactics, they will try to use those same tactics too.

"Prop shattered" is an aerial combat complication.

My final observation from this page is that Tom's chances don't look too good...

Mort Meskin's Captain Valor returns this month and, while Mort still isn't up to his full artistic powers, there is still a lot to like about this Terry and the Pirates clone. You just have to get past some really bright yellow skin to get to it.

Hop-Lung's party on top of the ledge looks even in number to Valor's down below, but still has three advantages: height advantage gives them a +1 bonus to hit, the rocks along the top of the ledge give them hard cover, -2 to be hit, and the loose boulders give them potent missile weapons. The advantage Valor's party has is they are armed with rifles, with a longer short range, while it looks like Hop-Lung's party is only armed with pistols.

Anyway, what I like about this is that Occupied China is a dangerous place for low-level Heroes, where any act of defiance (like stealing an officer's car) has dangerous consequences. It also inverts how Alignment works; under these circumstances, a Lawful Hero can work with a pirate, because the pirate is an outlaw for defending his homeland. The Lawful Hero can steal an officer's car, because is strikes a blow against the invaders. The Chaotic guys aren't the only ones who get to have fun and go crazy in this setting.

I also like how Valor gets a fresh plot hook immediately upon finishing his first one, in panel 5. That's efficient storytelling/game play!

Are the sentries good shots? Based on what, exactly? Two of them are shooting at the car at short range, before it's had a chance to accelerate very fast, and are still missing.

In a bit of meta-gaming, Valor's player has already won over Angie and Ronny as loyal supporting cast members thanks to good recruitment dice rolls, but in-game is still pretending Valor wants to drop them off at the consulate.

Wait..where was all that dynamite and hand grenades? Sitting in the trunk of the officer's car?? No wonder the sentries didn't want to hit the car while it was still too close!

Valor throws that smoke bomb awfully close to himself. Good thing he's really sure it's a smoke bomb and not an incendiary bomb (skill check to identify, or is it written on the bomb?)!

If you're confused by the sides in this conflict, the bandits are still bad guys because they're attacking white people. The pirates are considered neutral because they only attack other Chinese people. The Japanese are the main bad guys, and every Chinaman is either a bandit, pirate, or working for the Japanese.

It really looks like Ronny's not going to survive that second tier of panels, but it must be a longer fuse on it than it appeared.

It's pretty dramatic, having to surrender the outer walls and retreat into a wooden cabin. If reinforcements had not arrived, I don't think they would have held out long in there. Once the invading bandits get up to the windows, the people inside lose all their cover bonuses (unless there's enough furniture inside to hide behind too).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Planet Comics #3 - pt. 3

We're going to look at two more features from this issue of Planet Comics today. First is Buzz Crandall, who lives in a future where the Moon is like the Wild West, with isolated outposts surrounded by danger. This is far from the last time I'll be making a space-cowboy parallel observation on this blog.

The autoped reminds me just enough of the real moon lander to intrigue me. Use your imagination; if you redesigned the moon lander to be mobile, wouldn't it look something like this?

But more interesting are moon bats which, to a D&D player, loo exactly like giant stirges! Look at how that one in the last panel is the same size as the autoped and can damage it just by diving into it! I'm thinking 4+1 Hit Dice, and those  probiscises can suck 1-8 hit points' worth of blood out of you per turn, or it can crash into you in a dive for 1-10 points of damage.

Now how did our astronauts manage to avoid the lunar land squids? Look at the size of that baby -- I'm thinking 16 Hit Dice for this one, and maybe using d10 for those HD. It's big enough that it has a chance of swallowing even a large opponent whole (maybe on a 20), and a medium-sized foe on a...18-20? Anyone not swallowed takes 4-32 points of damage from those giant teeth.

Like Noah and the Whale, Buzz winds up alive in its belly -- but that situation seems like it could change because the missing people from the outpost are all skeletons in his belly (in the next page I'm not bothering to show you). Being in the autoped seems to buy him some time, as the digestive enzymes need some turns to wreck it down (1-4 turns?).

Now we're going to look at the next story with Nelson Cole. Those pirate ships remind me of Zaxxon! But the real reason I'm showing you this page is "We'll keep in constant touch with you by radio." Now, radio waves travel at the speed of light, which is plenty fast, but it's not instantaneous in space-sized distances, so Cole is essentially on his own.















Where the heck in space is this? Are they flying through a nebula? This is a really busy nebula, with a lot of planetoids of varying size inside it.

The concept of "attractor-beams," or tractor beams as they are more commonly known today, comes from SF novelist E.E. Smith, but had not come into common comic book parlance yet by 1940, where we still see things like "magno-rays" doing the same affect.

I appreciate the cutaway map of the inside of a spaceship in panel 2. Those ships sure don't provide you much protection out in space, do they?

Now this is remarkable because I think it's the first page of a comic book story to show how different styles of planes (or spaceships in this case) have different degrees of maneuverability that give one an advantage over another.

A previous page I didn't show you told us that Cole had a raygun hidden in his belt buckle, but I assumed it was a tiny gun he would pull out when he needed it, not that he would be shooting it from inside his belt buckle. I wonder what the triggering mechanism is -- voice command? "Pew pew"?

Yet another story that assumes spaceships would land on the ground like conventional planes.

I guess Cole was shot by an electric raygun and the conductive lever saved him? More likely he just made his saving throw vs. science -- but it's always nice when you can come up with an explanation using science (or something that passes for science!).

Didn't I say Cole was on his own? I'm not sure how the Solar Force just happens to show up here, since Cole never called for them. Cole is able to use radio to talk to them without breaking science because the battle is taking place in low orbit.

Only a charitable Editor would give the Solar Force bonuses to hit thanks to Cole calling out plays on the sidelines.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Thrilling Comics #1 - pt. 3

And we're back with more of Dr. Strange! If this feature seems unusually long, it's because it is! It runs on for a record-breaking 37 pages and was probably intended for the first three issues, but I'm guessing the new publisher, Better Publications, didn't have enough other material to get a full anthology out.

We get an example of wrecking things in panel 2, unarmed combat (2 attacks vs. unarmed foes) in panel 3, but now we have to decide what to do about panel 4. Is the Faceless Phantom using Invisibility (as I first thought, but now seems increasingly unlikely), the spell Poof! (disappearing in a swirling purple mist is very Poof!-like), or is this a new power of Intangibility? Or, is intangibility just flavor text for Imperviousness?

What's more important is that, without Super-Senses, a superhero is practically powerless in the dark. Had the lights stayed on, there was no way anyone would have been able to spirit Victoria away from him again.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting kind of annoyed with these early superheroes killing every animal they encounter. What is with that?

The hidden aeroplane is dropped trophy loot, meant for the Hero to find.

It would be nice if I could tell from this blurry picture how many natives it takes to "hopelessly outnumber" Strange. Very likely, they just keep coming at him in waves until the durations end on all his buffing powers.

What doesn't emulate well in Hideouts & Hoodlums is not being able to wreck things, and getting back his defensive powers. I have considered putting a cap on how often per day a superhero can wreck things, and maybe he wasted them all on wrecking spears and shields in the big fight.

As for getting his powers back, maybe he was a prisoner for 8 hours, giving him time to get his power slots refilled, but it doesn't make sense to waste 1 turn of a high-level power protecting himself from the fire when he could just bust the ropes by flexing his muscles instead. Even ignoring game mechanics and looking at this from a story perspective, it doesn't make much sense.

Poisonous snakes can be encountered in groups up to 7, when found in their dens, which are apparently sometimes at the bottom of 20' deep pits.

Pushing attacks must always work on superheroes, no matter how defensively they are buffed up.

Wha?? The delta ray gun is only a rifle? That's the weapon that had a range of about a mile?

Amazingly, after killing a tiger in one hit, Strange is unable to save himself from seven poisonous snakes without help. Perhaps he burnt through all his powers fighting the natives.

The Faceless Phantom had a pen and paper on him in the jungle, and took the time to write Strange a note? Or was he so cocky he wrote the note in advance?

Again, Strange failed a save vs. poison and was kept asleep.

Watch this plot hole about the stolen Alosun. Despite not having his Alosun, he will be displaying superpowers repeatedly for the rest of the story (and don't forget how he recovered his powers while tied to a stake without taking more Alosun). The Alosun is clearly flavor text and does not affect him game mechanics-wise in any way.

Tropical hurricanes need to be on outdoor wandering encounter lists when out at sea. As must giant octopi (naturally).

Almost as bad as all this animal killing is how they never even stand a chance against the Hero. If anything killed the superhero genre, it's probably the lack of suspense that engendered.

Without any fatigue rules tied to movement, there is no game mechanic stopping Strange from swimming a few miles without even needing to buff with a power.

If I was Strange's player, I would call shenanigans on my Editor for this agent of the Faceless Phantom, who just happens to be near the beach where Strange just happens to wash up on shore. How the Faceless Phantom could possibly anticipate that Strange's plane was downed by a hurricane and had to swim to Florida, instead of arriving at an airport, is beyond suspicious.

And speaking of that hurricane, what happened to the hurricane that was just miles away from mainland Florida a little while ago? Now there's not even a tropical storm on the coast.

I skipped a page where the Phantom's men tried to off Strange by crashing another train into his (they were two well-drawn trains at that). The crash gave him amnesia - a comic book staple so common that I finally included it in 2nd edition (p. 90) of the Basic book, but only under head blows.

The amnesia was only temporary and the hobos all got beat up on the pages I skipped over.

By now, you've probably figured out that I'm not a fan of this story, over all. One of the things I do like about it occurs here -- Strange's failure to stop the Faceless Phantom earlier has campaign-changing consequences. Now, weeks later, New York City is in a state of terror, besieged by FP's mobster henchmen.

Oh, and Strange picks up a kid sidekick. This is kind of a big deal because this is two months before Robin debuts in Detective Comics, making Jerry one of the first kid sidekicks, and the first one for a superhero.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Mystery Men Comics #6 - pt. 1

I'm pretty sure this information was all made-up in this poor man's Believe It Or Not -- but I'll be darned if these wouldn't make good plot hooks anyway...

This is The Green Mask, and it shows that even cultists tended to be handled with a racist/bigoted air in comics; the cultists are called both cultists and Hindus. And then there's that obvious anagram of Taj Mahal -- ugh...

We do see The Green Mask using a fence as one-time Supporting Cast.

Mind you, the idea of a "skull crown which gives its holder control of a vast robber tribe" seems like a potent trophy item.

Are they cultists, Hindus, robbers, or thieves? Make up your mind, story!  The cult leader is a trickster. The current entry for cultist in the Mobster Manual states that cult leaders are high priests, but that might need updating.

One of the earliest assassins in comics, or is a thug?  Now we have the original meaning of the word thug being conflated with all these other words. The assassin is overcome quickly, so don't really see what he can do -- though surprise attacks seem to be an important part of it.

I wonder, if this was a RP scenario, if the chase scene back to Carmella's home would have to be acted out...

And, speaking of badly obvious anagrams, we have El Rakif, for the word fakir.

That looks more like a spike than a knife to me, but I suppose it hurts a lot either way, and is just as terrifying. Game mechanically, I suppose the victim would get a save vs. science each turn to take half-damage from falling on the knife/spike, and the torturers don't have to worry about rolling to attack.

It's unclear if the paralyzer gun works like the Hold Person spell and affects multiple targets at once, or if he's firing multiple times and burning five charges. I like to think it's a weapon with charges, which explains why he uses it so sparingly.

Um, no...for one thing, a meteorite could not strike the Earth at such an oblique angle that it would shave the planet smooth like that; it would always produce a messy impact crater. And, really, if that map is even remotely accurate about the size of the impact site, we're talking extinction-level event here. Rex Dexter of Mars must be taking place in a post-Gamma World campaign setting.

Wow. I haven't seen anything that racist in a comic book in a while. Thank goodness it came out of a character's mouth and not the narrator!

Statting these creatures shouldn't be too hard; we have lots of slimes, oozes, jellies, and puddings to base them off of.

50 million miles from Earth means that Rex and Cinde were almost to Mars, but had to turn around and come back.

It seems odd that spaceports would be on Earth instead of in orbit. I wonder when the first off-Earth spaceport was dreamed up; I was not able to research this one.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Top-Notch Comics #1 - pt. 2

As I move deeper into this issue past The Wizard's feature, it becomes clear that this issue was prepared by the same packager (Chesler?) that produced a lot of the early Centaur books...and has that same level of quality. Still, I found some things worth commenting on.

This feature is Scott Rand in the World of Time and, as a campaign idea, the focus would be on traveling through time and trying to pick up the most unusual supporting cast throughout history you can get. Here, we see Scott and his boss picking up a high-level Viking Fighter. On the following pages, they also recruit a very un-Egyptian-looking Egyptian princess.

In Hideouts & Hoodlums, language is not an issue -- except when the Editor chooses to make it one. In 2nd edition, there's a note about how the Editor can require a Hero to spend one month's time learning a new language, but these Heroes have a work around for that thanks to the timeless limbo their time ship can reach. This limbo also opens up all kinds of other possibilities for breaking the downplay parts of the game, like unlimited time for inventing things.

I think it's interesting to point out that the time ship has to move forward in physical space before it can time jump; it isn't a one or the other deal.

The Doctor Who parallels should also be pretty obvious and need no elaboration.

From Air Patrol, we see the Aviator stunt Find Blind Spot. Also the stunt Find Origin Story?

Interesting, that the dog fight takes almost an hour of game time to resolve. In second edition H&H, an hour is 120 combat turns!  Maybe aerial combat needs to be run at a different speed?

A rare example of "splash" damage from a comic book (I mean the fire "splashing", not the splashing from hitting the water).

This is from The Mystic.  I find it interesting because, despite the trappings of a magic-user, The Mystic appears to only have skills like escape artistry, which makes him more of a Mysteryman. Never be fooled by the trappings.

This is from Manhunters, showing the true crime genre being a poor fit for Jack Cole.

So how hard should it be to vault a 6-foot fence?  The world record for pole vaulting was almost 15' circa 1939, and that's the closest comparison I can think of. If we rounded down to something divisible by 6 and split the feet between pips on a 6-sided die, that would give us: a 1 in 6 chance to vault 11-12', a 2 in 6 chance to vault 9-10', a 3 in 6 chance to vault 7-8', a 4 in 6 chance to vault 5-6', a 5 in 6 chance to vault 3-4', and vaulting 1-2' would be automatic successes.

And that's all assuming the Editor has time to break things down like that. On the fly, I probably would have ruled a 2 in 6 chance, but might have compromised with a 3 or even a 4 in 6 chance depending on how good a case the players made I was wrong.

Okay, there's no way a belt buckle counts as armor, so using it to explain the miss is just flavor text. I think I've used this example, or something like it, from a comic book story before, though. The real reason I like this page is because Sukup is such a comically ridiculous name, as is the line "Alright, Sukup, come along!"

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Amazing Man Comics #7 - pt. 2

Dinosaur Forest puts forward an intriguing premise -- what if dinosaurs were common enough still that you didn't need to find a lost world setting to find dinosaurs? Here, Jay and Ronald are already following dinosaur tracks in South America as if that was the most natural thing in the world.

The cliche of the whirpool is to see them big enough to swallow a ship, but this is a small whirpool only large enough to unsettle a raft.

The crocodile is pretty unsettling too, but like all opponents in comic books it seems easily dispatched. And with just a knife, no less.

This page makes the knife fight even more extraordinary, as the crocodile is now a "great crocodile" -- which I'm guessing means larger than normal.

This is the second allosaurus in comics.

Or is it an allosaurus? Because that's clearly a triceratops, and the two species didn't live at the same time. But then, we're also imagining that it's normal for them to still be around in 1939, so...

This is from a story called "The King of the South Seas." It posits that a pearl diving company could make $25,000 a month collecting pearls.

The manservant is a pretty awful stereotype, but the lookout is a strong ethnic character. Lookouts will turn up as a mobster-type in H&H later, though it's cut from the 2nd edition basic book for now.  Maybe it needs to have some skill or ability about signalling others over long distances.

That looks like an autocannon/anti-aircraft gun/heavy machine gun on the deck of the pirate ship -- and, by my research, there seems to have been little difference between those three circa 1939. I mention it because anti-aircraft gun is getting an entry in the H&H 2nd ed. basic book.

Three stories in, we not only get an origin story for Iron Skull, but we finally find out when his stories take place. This is a pretty bleak alternate future, where WWII dragged on at least until 1950, and it is now the "future" of 1960.

The Iron Skull sounds like a cyborg, but "android" works just as well and is the race he'd be in H&H. Other than him, color TV is the only other advanced technology so far...

In the future, you don't need to pick up a source from multiple directions to triangulate its source -- you just use a radio direction finder. They must be hard to come by, though, since Iron Skull has one but the police force doesn't.

Iron Skull is a superhero, but he doesn't wreck his way in, even though he easily could. Going for stealth, he uses a window like a mysteryman.

I need to give at least one of the robot types in H&H a self-destruct option.

It only takes Iron Skull minutes to recover, though it isn't clear if he was unconscious or just stunned somehow.

Giants being create-able through mad science needs to be reflected in their mobster stat entry.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)