Wonderworld Comics #9 - pt. 3

This is still Dr. Fung (and Dan Barrister, who never gets title billing). It seems the shrinking process of Karno takes two days, which is an unusually long onset time for comic books.

I had long toyed with the notion of allowing a stunning blow to the back of the head. It finally made it into the 2nd edition Basic book as the "head blow" rule (page 90).

Dr. Fung moves silently with an expert skill check to avoid detection.

Dr. Fung is still making skill checks.

It is difficult to say what that ray-gun does exactly. It can definitely strike two people side-by-side at the same time. Since Dr. Fung says it "blasts," maybe it shoots pure concussive force, allowing it to both do damage to opponents and wreck things.

It's worth noting that this is a distinctly different chamber than the throne room we saw Karno in earlier, and possibly also different from the lab Irene was imprisoned in. The rest of the hideout seems to be caves, other than these three chambers.

Tex Mason used a skill check to disguise himself as an Indian.

The bank robbers are consistently called bandits on this page, so they must be statted that way.

The last bandit should be shouting "It's over, Tex! I have the high ground!"

Willis Rensie is likely a pseudonym for Will Eisner (though the art is Bob Powell). Will seemed to have a great deal of apprehension about the War in Europe and here wrongly anticipates three Axis powers in Europe. He likely assumed that Spain would join the Axis. Unofficially they did aid Germany, but could do little because they were so wiped after their civil war.

Of Diableef, Riano, and Morga, it will be interesting to see which represents Germany, Italy, and Spain.

"Ahh, no, please -- the coat is rubbing on the fresh wounds from my lashings! Take it off!"

K-51's bizarre sentence seems to be something in Italian written out phonetically, but I can't guess what it is.

If I'm right, though, that makes Morga the Italian guy!

The uniforms look an awful lot like chauffeur uniforms...

"Guten abend" means that Diableef is the German guy (though, really, that one was not a hard guess).

It's a little bizarre that the plot of this scenario is to save Hitler.

Only this early in 1940 could someone think Hitler was just being manipulated by Mussolini and would be willing to sign a peace accord with Europe.

Stories like this were often ripped from the headlines (even if it was the headlines of a few years past). This is interesting because it is based on no real life sugar shortage that I can find. Sugar rationing did occur during the war years, but not until 1942 for the U.S.

"Daily Globe" is a fairly generic newspaper name used in a lot of cities, so it does not tell us where Mob Buster Robinson takes place.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Smash Comics #5 - pt. 1

Black X/Ace doesn't have a clue where the saboteurs are, but he gets a "hunch" that seems to come out of nowhere. I actually wrote a game mechanic for the never-played Detective class that allows him to get a clue from the Editor.

The fight here with the saboteur is a mix of grappling and punching, and I've talked about unarmed combat on this blog plenty (and Black X/Ace doesn't dodge in panel 6; the saboteur just misses). What's worth noting here is that circumstances -- not anything in particular that Black X/Ace does -- forces the morale save (and that saboteur either rolled well or has a fanatical morale).

It's unclear what Batu is doing here, though it seems an awful lot like the spell Locate Object. The casting time seems unusually long, but if Batu is a Supporting Cast Member and not a Hero then the Editor has a little more latitude for changing how magic works for him. Now, the Editor doesn't have a lot of wiggle room for changing things like casting times -- once or twice to heighten tension and the players might overlook it, but used too often it will have the players rightly calling foul.

The crushed forearm is an unusual complication from an injury and, of course, one incompatible with the abstract hit point mechanic. I have talked on the blog before about adding complications for injuries for SCMs, tacked on to hit point loss, but this rule is unlikely to make it into the 2nd ed. basic rulebook now, mainly for space considerations (I'm already past page 110!). I would treat this, then, as just a knockdown/trip attack (and I do need to make sure there's room for that in my combat section) with some pretty brutal flavor text.

Those are some awfully convenient papers Batu finds on Taneo's body. Black X/Ace would be wise to say they were too convenient and might have been intended to falsely implicate another country. That seems a more convincing argument, to me, not to make the papers known.

This is some interesting alternate history, a dream scenario where just the threat of U.S. intervention ends wars. Future history will clearly show otherwise, that the U.S. can't ever seem to end a war in just one year.

The Chief's curious joke about what league the Dodgers were in is, according to Wikipedia, likely a reference to this: "In 1934, Giants player/manager Bill Terry was asked about the Dodgers’ chances in the coming pennant race and cracked infamously, 'Is Brooklyn still in the league?'"  The Brooklyn Dodgers had actually been in the National League since 1890.

Chic Carter is in "Moravia" -- what seems like a clear reference to the then-Soviet-controlled state of Moldova. But the "Arlbourg Pass" must be a reference to the Arlberg Tunnel in Austria. And Brennburg is a barely disguised Brennberg, Bavaria. But, if Chic's train is stopped less than 10 miles from Brennberg, where does that put him? Regensburg is the next largest city, but I believe that would be more than 10 minutes away by train. So that leaves Chic in some little way-stop village along the tracks. No wonder he thinks the place is dead!

The abduction of a Bavarian princess kind of makes sense. The Bavarian royal family, the House of Wittelsbach, was anti-Nazi, and the family's arrest after fleeing to Hungary earlier in the 1930s might have inspired this story.

Bavaria had no king, but a crown prince.

It's a bit of a stretch that the crown prince would want an American journalist's help...but, hey, if that's what it takes to give out a plot hook!

Some Heroes would investigate the duke carefully. Maybe search his home for clues. But our man Chic, he just marches right up to the duke in public and asks him to his face. It's a risky move that angers the duke into attacking Chic with a sword and implicating himself, but an encounter reaction check could have gone a lot of different ways than that.

I'm not sure electric eyes can do what John Law, Scientective, is saying they can, but it's plausible enough for comic books, and thus for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Also, as a Hero, it pays to check under your hood every once in awhile to look for planted devices. You can never be too careful around villains!

Given how dangerous falling damage is in H&H, levitating someone 35' into the air is a pretty effective trap. Luckily the distance to the trees is shorter, though John's player must have rolled to hit to reach the trees.

(Read at Digital Comic Museum.)