Amazing Mystery Funnies #19 - pt. 2

We're back, looking at Basil Wolverton's Space Patrol. Or is that pronounced Spaaaaace Patrol!? Last time, I was talking about Mercurians and lamenting that there was nothing unique enough about them to warrant statting them, but here we learn that Mercurians have thick rubbery hides - enough to warrant an AC of 6, 2 Hit Dice, and maybe even a -1 to blunt damage attacks against them, I'm thinking.

Last time I speculated about how I'd stat the Mercurian Mole-Men, and suggested they should be faster than normal. But if they can't catch two men in heavy armor, then I'm going to actually downgrade them to a Move of 9, while keeping their sleight of hand skill. And maybe they need some kind of burrowing skill - not that we see them use it, but because they are mole men?

Dryaks are going into the Mobster Manual first chance I get. They're enormous; I'd guess that critter must be at least 7' in diameter and 50' long (including the tail)? And if an atomic needle pistol can't pierce its hide, we may be talking an AC of 1 or lower! It attacks by bite, which probably does significant damage (maybe 3-18 points?), and I'd be willing to assign it at least 10 Hit Dice based on its slight resemblance to a D&D remorhaz. 

Interestingly, the dryak is not immune to fire, which you'd think would be a prerequisite for living on Mercury, but that's not the worst plot hole here, as our two heroic law enforcement agents, instead of trying to bring the criminals to justice, decide to roast them in a volcanic eruption. Hey, less paperwork, right? 

I think the obvious explanation here is that this story is too big for its page count and corners had to be cut sharply at the end. A lot of golden age stories suffer this. For a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign to emulate that, scenarios need to have strict time limits, instead of continuing on to the next session, with the Editor wrapping it up by the most expedient method possible before the session ends. With no consequences (other than maybe missing out on collecting more treasure and trophies...)! 

sigh. After Basil Wolverton art it's a little hard to look at The Inner Circle again. At least I get to show off my high school-level French skills. The clerk is saying "You have your permit now." The native boy says "with me!"

Angcok Island is a fictitious name, which is just as well since it sounds ridiculous, and this is when there are real islands off Madagascar with names like Big, Crab, Klang, Pisang, Pom Pom, and Wan Man. This is one of those situations where you can't win; if you used a real name, people would probably assume you're making it up anyway.

On this page we learn a trick for how to make a compass screw up. There's also an interesting twist with the woman in the party, as we learn here she is an unwilling accomplice. It also seems to give our bad guy no allies, making this a pretty easy scenario.

 

I like how the native, instead of shooting gibberish like "Ooga booga," speaks perfectly fluent French. "Go!" he shouts. 

I'm sure it was difficult to find photo references for the natives of the islands off of Madagascar back in 1940. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I found one in a minute-

-and as you can see the artist did get the details about half right, according to the natives of Borneo. 

I'm not going to bother with the rest of the story -- it takes a racist turn as the good guys side with the bad guy to kill a bunch of black people because, you know, it would have been too easy to just turn the bad guy over to them and solve everything without further violence.

So instead we'll just into the next feature, Fantasy Isle (formerly called Tippy Taylor after its star). Tippy is exploring a natural cave complex that may or may not be the entrance to Hades. 

Witches are shown to be pretty dumb and easily fooled here. Demonstrating no special abilities, I think we're going to just ignore this story in any future write-up of witches as a mobstertype. 

Nor should we be very impressed with that grim reaper character who is easily pushed off a bridge. I think I just found another example of fake undead! 

The fairy tale giant seems a genuine threat. I think I need to include a percentage chance of them being encountered a sleep, like D&D dragons.

There are times, I'll confess, when I just want to throw up my hands and quit. To truly emulate some of these comic book stories, every bad guy -- even if it's a giant -- needs to have no more than 3 hit points. Because just about everything goes down in one hit! 

Buck up, Scott. Look! A Potion of Invisibility that doesn't turn your clothes invisible. That's a trophy item we haven't seen before (but looks very familiar from the first live action Fantastic Four movie...).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

 

Fight Comics #1 - pt. 3

I somehow skipped this page of Kayo Kirby last time, even though there's something rather interesting here. In the consummables subsection of the trophy section, there should be an entry for adrenalin, with the benefit being that it gives you 1-6 bonus hit points temporarily.

This is the unfortunately named Kinks Mason. Kinks is a test diver, wearing a new kind of diving helmet, when he gets caught in an apparently supernatural undertow that pulls him deep underwater (supernatural because, just panels earlier, he announced he was only two fathoms, or 12', deep).

Here we find it's pulled him into a lost world setting that's a bit unusual, being in an enormous air-filled grotto deep underwater. The barrier of sunken ships blocking the entrance serve as a nice transition between worlds.

A carnivoplant looks a lot like the creeper vines I introduced in first edition.  This is a large, maybe even a huge creeper vine and with 5 vines I would give it 1-3 attacks per turn.

The phosphomites are tougher to stat. They look like giant sea urchins, so they probably do sea urchin-y type stuff in battle. They appear to be helping Kinks, but maybe they are just a wandering encounter that turned up in the middle of combat and attacked a random party.

The goor are definitely non-humans, though I don't see any particular way to stat them except maybe as orc substitutes. It's interesting that the first of the Gor novels, Tarnsman of Gor, is 26 years away at this point.

By virtue of having rescued a princess (I guess) of the Procono people, Kinks is suddenly an admiral leading their navy. The navy rid on the back of giant "tauserus", which look vaguely like large Plesiosaurs, and are big enough to have tank turret-like structures mounted on their backs (though it's not clear how they keep from falling off...unless the tanks are somehow grafted to their skin...?). Anyway, that's a pretty powerful navy for a 1st-level fighter to be leading!

Note the map showing, roughly, the layout of this hidden realm.

Granted, Kinks did put himself at considerable risk in that scenario, so giving him the chance to leave with all the gold he can carry may seem like an okay reward. Gold was worth $34 per ounce in 1940, so if he left with 50 lbs, that would be over $27,000 -- way more than he needs to level up. So, it's really up to the Editor if he wants Kinks' player to have that much this soon...

This is Big Red McLane, and I love how all he has to do to get a job in 1940 is to put up his dukes. I think that's how we know Mr. Farlow is a plot hook character instead of a random character who would have rolled on the encounter reaction chart for this job interview. "Oh, no experience? (*rolls*) Don't call us, Mr. McLane, we'll call you."

Here I'm stuck wondering a couple of things. Is cutting down a tree so that it falls on someone an attack, or a trap? Does the lumberjack roll to hit (attack), or does Big Red roll a saving throw (trap)? And either way, how much damage should a tree falling on you do? If falling does 1-6 damage per 10', is it safe to assume that a 60' tall tree should do 6-36 points of damage?

Big Red is certainly a capable fighter. He appears to be making two attacks simultaneously each time, which is odd. In the first battle, when everyone is fighting unarmed, then Big Red is entitled to two attacks, but I don't think my rules let him split them between targets like that. And in the second battle, when people are using improvised weapons, that should slow the combat down to 1 attack per turn (oh...unless improvised weapons should not count against that -- I like this idea, because it allows barroom brawls with the occasional chairs and bottles to proceed at the same pace).

Note that Big Red can hit hard enough to knock his opponents prone. The punching rules don't account for that yet (unless these gangsters just happened to have 3 hit points or less), and it's something I'll have to work on (maybe for a future supplement, unless I accumulate enough material to need an Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Editor's Guide someday).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)