Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 5

We're back, and so is The Lone Eagle! Here we see the Lone Eagle being overcome by four-to-one odds, which I find refreshing, even if it will not be the norm in this adventure from here. Perhaps he levels up quickly! 

Note that LE isn't placed in a deathtrap, but just left behind and they assume he's dead. Who has time to check for a pulse or watch for breathing? 

Now panel 6 is a big mystery, though you might not have realized that it was Where is this "no-man's-land"? You might assume, like I did, this is France - but this was published in February 1940 and Germany did not invade France until May! In February, the world knew Hitler had his eyes on Norway, but most of the fighting in Europe was taking place between Finland and Russia. This panel is like someone wasn't paying attention to current events and just, by coincidence, predicted the future!

I'm amused how Lone Eagle, clearly an Air Force guy, is able to commandeer a tank just by pointing at it. "This isn't Hertz, Lone Eagle!" that officer should be saying (fun fact: Hertz rent-a-car goes back to 1918!). 

I'm calling shenanigans on being inside an exploding tank and emerging unharmed, unless Lone Eagle is secretly a superhero buffed by the Invulnerability power. I think 8-80 points of damage, for being caught inside when a tank explodes, seems more than reasonable.

How did Lone Eagle catch up with Brent? If Brent was there some time ago, asking for the fastest route to German Intelligence, why is he still wandering around the battlefield? Or, if the soldiers didn't believe him and took him into custody - again, how is he now wandering around the battlefield? I feel like we missed at least three pages of Brent's daring escape from confinement.

Lastly, I'm again amused, this time by how Lone Eagle has a secret pocket in that jumpsuit. Come on, LE, the "secret" compartment is one of those huge, obvious cargo pants pockets above your knees, right?  

Great, thanks to this page we need to address the unpleasant subject of torture. Comic book heroes get tortured more often than I enjoy seeing. The goal is never to beat the hero unconscious, but to break his spirit and make him act unheroic. But how to handle that as a game mechanic? It might make sense to consider the whip damage subdual damage -- the hero can no longer resist if he reaches zero hp -- but LE just got over 100 lashes and I'm guessing he doesn't have over 100 hit points. I think how I would handle this is, every time the hero is reduced to zero hp, he has to make a save vs. plot or be broken by the torture. If the hero makes the save, hit points are effectively restored to full and the process can start again. 

But even if the hero is broken, what does that look like? Is the player forced to roleplay blubbering? A player could simply spare himself the headache of the game mechanics and chose this, as it's not really a consequence. But what if the hero lost something crucial - like experience points - if broken? There is precedent for energy draining in the game and, while it's purely supernatural, torture is a draining experience too...

One can't help but wonder what the warden was doing, taking a late night stroll without guards through the prison...but before that is the mystery of how LE got out of his cell. Did he use wrecking things to bust the door down?

Nope, nope, nope - unless that plane was planning to drop a person onto the roof of the train, there is no way LE should be able to leap up to the plane. I can no longer ignore that LE is clearly statted as a superhero, despite his lack of a proper costume and other genre tropes. 

That a superhero could have so much trouble with a single pilot is very much in keeping with how I pictured the superhero class balancing out in H&H; being a relatively weak fighter when not buffed with combat-related powers. 

But he's not just a superhero; it seems pretty clear that he's going to win this 6:1 dogfight (spoiler from next page: he defeats three and then escapes), which suggests to me that he's at least a 3rd level aviator, in addition to at least a 1st level superhero.

I do like the smart tactics of the Germans - trying to stop this unstoppable killing machine indirectly rather than continuing to approach the train with that field gun on it.

There were a lot of comic books published around this time that proved to be prophetic, not that it was hard - during WWII, if you imagined the worst scenario possible, that usually happened sooner or later. This comic predicts a German invasion of the Netherlands three months before it actually happened. Apparently the Dutch failed to believe Lone Eagle's warning. 

Again, this story predicts the bombing of London seven months before it happened. It predicts the bombing of Berlin by four months, though clearly the author is wrong that bombing Berlin first stops the bombing of London.

"Gee, good thing you told us not to miss, Lone Eagle! We were aiming low for a 50-50 success rate!"

A 50-50 success rate is, of course, the norm for 1st-level characters in H&H.

Yes, the British RAF did use some American planes, but most of them were British-made. The implications of this story are, of course, that the English can't save themselves withou the U.S.'s help (again, largely true), and that Americans would seem like superheroes on the battlefield with Europeans (this is just propaganda).

Moving on, we return to what I have long dubbed the Mythic West, a "demi-plane," if you will, that allows for "Wild West" action in the modern day. 

Nueces, Arizona, is not a real place, but is likely named after Nueces County, Texas. 

Panel 3 has some rather disturbing implications.

I had to look up the use of punchers here. From the Internet: "In those early days of cattle drives the cattle were not particularly eager to enter loading chutes or box cars, so the cowboys poked or punched the cattle with long poles to get them in to the cars. The term was first recorded in 1880 and soon became a synonym for all those who worked cattle."  I don't think "Fork-D punchers" has any special meaning, other than they work for the Fork-D ranch...

I had to look twice to verify this, but the guy in the fight at the bottom isn't the Rio Kid; he's just some guy who's about to become Supporting Cast, and is probably at least a 2nd-level cowboy, given how well he's doing in this fight.

Boy, this is one violent comic book! This page is a nice reminder, though, that not everyone in a given organization is going to be the same Alignment. Here we have a Lawful jailer having a disagreement with the Chaotic sheriff. Turn this around when you're stocking your hideouts - make sure there are the occasional Lawful hoodlums who may turn on their bosses and help the Heroes!

Shooting a rope, while riding on horseback, would normally require a natural 20 on an attack roll (at least while I'm running the game) - but this is why the cowboy class, when it resurfaces in 2nd edition someday, will still need to have stunts. 

Tombstone is, of course, a real place. It is likely a portal site that exists in both the real world and the Mythic West, so one could leave Tombstone heading into either.

(Scans courtesty of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 4

We're back (after a LONG time away!), still with the Three Comrades, though you'll only see two of them on this page. 

Max should be statted as a guard, or maybe a beat cop. 

Note that our two Heroes intentionally surrender to Von Sneer, no doubt to learn what he's up to. If they'd wanted to, they could have rushed him, even from across the room, and still gone before him if they'd won initiative (which I see happen in comics a lot!).

It's worth noting that Heroes shouldn't have to worry about what languages they know, but you're encouraged to take this benefit away from non-Hero characters. This is a good way to give Heroes another advantage over normal people (and here, greatly assists the plot!).

This page brings up an interesting point, because a lot of the time Heroes are tied up for deathtraps, but are almost never gagged. And they almost never yell for help either. Now, we don't expect them to because it doesn't come off as very heroic, but it is certainly the most natural reaction to being tied up. 

I am skeptical about allowing a filing cabinet tipping over on someone to knock them out - though it will famously be super-effective against Iron Man years later - and would probably allow this to do no more than 1 point of damage. Of course, it's possible for mobsters to only have 1 hit point!

That's a really good guess as to what the oil drums are for. I probably would have guessed they were smugglers myself, but this makes for a better story with higher stakes.

It's weird how physics work in comic books to feed the narrative. A filing cabinet tipping over knocks out a guard, but Lucky bounces down a flight of stairs, caught halfway in a barrel, and seems virtually unharmed. Two thoughts: 1) this proves that damage ranges are a thing, and 2) it makes me wonder if objects should be able to soak damage. I have ruled before if you fall on a person, you can half your damage and transfer the other half to the person you're landing on. But if we applied that to inanimate objects...then armor has to work much differently game mechanics-wise. I think we'll skip this for now.

"Attaboy, Lucky, keep 'em busy killing you!" Seriously, how is Lucky not dead, as the mobsters shoot down at him at short range and he's only moving as fast as a motorboat attempting to match to their vessel? Luckily, in the hands of a 1 HD mobster, even sub-machine guns only get 1 attack per turn. 

I am as unconvinced by that wooden beam being able to do that as I was by the filing cabinet. This is a very generous Editor these boys' players have.

Using the oil seemed an ingenious move at first, but wouldn't starting a fire with it have been more effective?

We're done with those crazy kids and moving onto the next feature, The Woman in Red. The violence level is pretty extreme in this feature, with a man being shown (granted, in silhouette) hanging from the rope that you see on this page on the previous page, and on this page you get a knife thrown into someone's neck (again, granted, not the first time I've seen that in a golden age comic book; it even features into Amazing Man's origin story). 

I mainly include this page for two points. One, American mansions have a tendency to be castles or have many castle-like features in golden age comic books -- and that is a good thing, because you can freely borrow castle maps from That Other Game and use them here and they fit this game. And secondly, telling the handedness of someone from how they tied a knot sounds like a basic skill check to me.

Okay, one more observation - other than having very pronounced cheekbones, there doesn't seem to be anything too terrifying about The Terror.

 

Since The Woman in Red and The Terror are both unencumbered and, hence, moving at the same movement rate, it's only natural that WiR fails to catch up. 

 

Here, we learn that you can open a secret door and still get a surprise turn after. 

 

A 200' drop is a very tall castle, unless this also accounts for a dry moat at the base of the castle wall too? 

 

It's not clear where the mysteriously handy rope is hanging from. Depending on how far down she is when she passes it would help me determine how fast she's falling and, from that, the AC to reach out and "hit" the rope -- AC 9 in the first second, AC 7 in the second second, AC 4 in the third second - by then she's fallen more than halfway. I might also require a Strength or a Dexterity check (whichever is better on the 1st second; whichever is worse on the 3rd second) to determine if she can keep a hold on the rope after catching it, or if her downward momentum pulls her past it. 

 

I'm puzzled by what that shape is in front of the window, as I'm not aware of that being a castle feature. I mean, it makes sense, as it makes it harder for anyone to smash through the window and fit inside, but I just don't know what that pole would be called.  

 

I wish I had enough detail to map this castle, because we keep getting tantalizing glimpses of how elaborate it is. So far we have a rooftop access door from a tower, multiple staircases, rooms that are only accessible by secret doors and outside windows (or by digging your way into them), and a literal dungeon with cell doors (double-barred no less) on the same floor with a library.
 

 

More interesting points - the Woman in Red gives away her real name in order to gain someone's trust, a rare instance of a gun being used to disarm a knife, and in the Scooby Doo-esque climax we learn that the butler - that is, someone named Butler - did it.

 

 

 

 

Here's a quick look at the next feature, which gives us two novel twists - one, a new location to rescue a damsel in distress from, and two, a new "Macguffin" - a military code book (thank goodness it's not yet another new invention!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)
 

 

  

Mystic Comics #2 - pt. 2

Next up is Flexo the Rubber Man. This is like old home week for me, as both of these heroes (Mastermind Excello and Flexo) were played in my 1962 Marvel Super Heroes campaign I ran two years back. 

Flexo's inventors, Joel and Joshua, aren't ones to rest on their laurels; they're already hard at work reinventing those common comic book staples, the torpedo repeller and the new, more deadly explosive. And our enemies are up to the same tricks, because they have one of those dime-a-dozen rayguns that turn off electric motors. The 2nd edition basic book has no tables for specific trophies, but if it did, they would be weighted by frequency and these items would have some of the widest ranges on the table. 

Joel, captured by spies, is placed in a pretty lame deathtrap; he is tied to a tree with rope and left for wolves to eat. Wolves? Do these spies think they're in Siberia? The spies also don't think to check Joel's pockets, or they would have found the portable transmitter. Portable transmitters are also pretty common among comic book characters, but what makes Joel's different is that he taps on a button on his jacket, Morse code-style, and that transmits the message. 

When Josh gets the message, he takes the hi-tech approach of using Flexo to get him there and the low-tech approach of tying himself to Flexo's back with rope. I hope you're really good at knots, Josh! The comic book doesn't really explain how Flexo flies, but in the RPG campaign I ran that Flexo was played in, we came up with the idea that he shoots gas out his butt for propulsion. 

Josh reaches Joel just as 4 or 5 wolves arrive and, even though the wolves have shown nothing but curiosity about Joel so far, Flexo is made to viciously attack the wolves.

Flexo lifts their plane over his head (its head?). I think a 4-seat, single prop plane weighs about 1.5 tons, which is almost to the point where the power Raise Car tops out. Then they follow the repeller because it's magnetic and their compass in the plane points towards it because...you know, magnetism has no range to it.

As they charge into the spies' hideout, the marching order is unusual in that Josh and Joel go in first, with Flexo trailing behind. You'd think the human beings would want to use him for cover. Unless Flexo just moves really slowly on foot? 

The entrance is trapped with dynamite and all three of them are buried beneath "a mass of rock and heavy timbers" (without specifying how much a mass weighs). The entrance is trapped with dynamite and all three of them are buried beneath "a mass of rock and heavy timbers" (without specifying how much a mass weighs). The panel is pretty dramatic, with it looking like the timbers are exploding towards them instead of just falling. I would rate that as at least 3-18 points of damage. It makes sense that Flexo is not harmed by it if he buffed himself with a strong defensive power, but what's really surprising is that Josh and Joel only have scratches. I had considered them noncombatant supporting cast members - but are they actually mid-level scientists with a fair amount of hit points?

Although Josh and Joel normally control Flexo with a remote, it seems it can respond to voice commands too. The really interesting thing about Flexo is that bullets don't just bounce off of him like you'd expect from a rubber robot; instead, Flexo reseals after being punctured, like self-sealing tires. Only, as far as I can tell, self-sealing tires weren't a thing until 2006, so this seems to have anticipated the technology.

Flexo's "machine gun blows" must be the Flurry of Blows power. What's harder to describe with game mechanics is when the spies' car bounces off of Flexo, as there's not really a good power for that. Bounce Back Blows, maybe, if you let it work on vehicles and not just living attackers. Bounce Back Blows is powerful, so Flexo has a lot of brevet ranks. At this point, Flexo should still be just a first-level superhero. 

Moving on, the next adventure features Dynamic Man, and it starts with a curious mystery. Saboteurs are planning to blow up a bridge to crash a train. Dynamic Man is riding, in costume, on the top of the train. Is that because he knows the train is in danger, or is it just coincidence? Like Mastermind Excello, Dynamic Man has Clairvoyance and can see the bomb being placed, but Clairvoyance only has so much range, so he shouldn't have known about this until the train was close. 

Dynamic Man can fly fast enough to catch up to a speeding car, which is difficult to do with Fly II, and might require Fly III if the car had enough of a head start. He is buffed, possibly with Imperviousness, or relying on Nigh-Invulnerable Skin and a little luck, before going in so he doesn't have to worry about the bullets bouncing off of him. He picks up the men with ease, suggesting he has Raise Car activated, and appears to be beating the men against the ground like clubs, doing clubbing damage to them (which would be 1-6 points only -- unless he is also buffed with one of the Get Tough powers). The one surprise is that Dynamic Man seems to have a power that works just like rayguns that shut off engines, though you might be able to duplicate that effect with Wreck at Range, if the Editor allowed you to use it on just the engine and not the whole car. 

The bad guys' car has a special add-on; a radio transmitter in the back seat so their boss can listen in on everything...

(Read in Marvel Masterworks: Mystic Comics vol. 1.)

  

Top-Notch Comics #4 - pt. 3

We're still reading Streak Chandler of Mars here, but it's Professor Finlay speaking first. "I might as well tell you now, the landing gear on this ship is not finished! And...while things are getting real, I might as well fess up, there isn't enough air and food on this ship for five of us. Oops!"

The science is typically terrible for a comic book story here. Granted, we didn't know for sure Mars had no breathable atmosphere back in 1940, but we did know the distance to Mars, and there would be no way to fly there in what seems to take only a few hours -- and even if you could, there would be no way to brake hard enough to not be atomized on contact with the surface. 

Streak's player must have rolled pretty low for his Intelligence score. "Is that Mars?" "Gee, Einstein, how many other planets do you think are in this area?"

And things don't get better on the next page, when they are attacked by Martians that look like demonic Elmer Fudds wearing women's bathing suits. As comical as they look, they can shoot heat rays out of their fingertips and that seems impressive, even if they can only hit one out of three targets with them (they are not rays or cones so much as "Magic Missile" spells, from the earliest editions when you had to roll to hit for them). 

Oh Streak. Yep, your plan worked to perfection -- if your plan was to shoot all the oxygen you needed for a return trip out of the ship. 

More impressive are the strange, winged green men (you know, the blue ones) who fight with gas guns and can communicate telepathically.  

 

Oh boy...it looks like I have to add three new mobstertypes to the Mobster Manual, but these are not winners. The green men who are blue are the lokis. The Elmer Fudds are ferrugas. The octopus with a horse head is called a brontauris, which is a terribly unimaginative name. 

So far I haven't seen enough of what the lokis can do to stat them. I haven't seen the ferrugas do much either, other than shoot magic missiles. 

Now, normally, you'd think, of course you're not going to have much luck fighting with just a pocket knife against a horse-headed octopus. But this is a golden age comic book, and almost all animals get killed with a single stab. So these brontaurises must be really tough! I'm thinking at least 4, maybe up to 9 Hit Dice. It obviously attacks by constricting with its tentacles, but it isn't very strong and doesn't seem to do a lot of damage per turn.

Moving on to Wings Johnson of the Air Patrol, we see that wandering encounters can occur with unexpected frequency, Even in the middle of the English Channel you apparently need to roll once per turn. It's also possible to have a house rule that, after 1 wandering encounter, you immediately roll once in the next turn only.

 

Wings is one unlucky guy -- there's not even a game mechanic for accidental wind shear. I'm imagining a scenario playing out like this -- 

Editor: "Welcome to our first solo session of H&H!"

Player: "I want to play an aviator!"

Editor: "...You're sure? You don't want to be a mysteryman? Or superhero?"

Player: "Nope, I want an aviator campaign, and I'm naming him Wings Johnson?"

Editor: "Wings Johnson?"

Player: "Yeah, why?"

Editor: "Well, it's just that your last character was named Dick Storm. And the one before that was Spurt Hammond..."

Player: "I don't see where you're going with this."

Editor: "Fine. You know...fine! You want an aviator campaign? Wings Johnson is flying home over the English Channel in a German plane when...two British planes try to shoot him down!"

Player: "Don't I have some kind of pass code I can radio to them...?"

Editor: "There's no time! Because...As you fly low to evade them...a sub surfaces right in front of you!"

Player: "What die do I roll to--"

Editor: "And then your wing falls off!"

Player (excited): "Whoa!"

[After 3 hours of successful dice rolls]

Player: "Best session ever!"

Editor: *sighs*

Back to the comic (I think that was my longest digression ever)!

We pick up with Wings climbing his tangled parachute and we're told it's cutting up his hands really bad. Okay, I guess I can believe that would happen, but how do we handle that in-game? It seems too important to wave off as flavor text, as it could make him lose his grip and plunge to his death. I'm thinking the pain should cause a save vs. science to avoid losing his grip, but should the pain itself be flavor text, or 1 point of damage? It's got to be the Editor's call.

The bottom tier of panels does make me wish I had a Popularity or Reputation mechanic in H&H. I know I've talked about it and toyed with it before, but I don't think I have ever worked out anything concrete yet.

 

Not having any military experience, I had to look up to see if "officer of the day" was a real thing. According to Wikipedia, "a duty officer or officer of the day is a position that is assigned to a worker on a regularly rotational basis. While on duty, duty officers attend to administrative tasks and incidents that require attention regardless of the time of day, in addition to the officer's normal duties."

Which, I suppose, now makes it seem odd to me that the officer of the day who is responsible largely for administrative tasks is being put in charge of the arrest here.

Wings isn't wrong; the Spitfire was the fastest plane on the Allied side and would remain so for the next few years. The Germans would soon have a faster plane, the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet rocket plane, but that's a year from "now."

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Target Comics #3 - pt. 1

Welcome back to Target Comics! As you can see, Manowar, the White Streak, is in Chicago, planning to clean up the meat packing industry. Chicago's big three meat packers were Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Nelson Morris -- which one does Leighton represent, I wonder?

We also see Manowar activating his X-Ray Vision power.

As crazy as I think Manowar is for ignoring the fact that he's literally witnessed Leighton committing murder and going after more evidence from the inspector, I just saw this same thing happen in an episode of Superman & Lois last night, where Superman could stop Morgan Edge's scheme any time he wants by simply abducting Morgan and locking him away in a cave somewhere. But this is a trope of the genre, and so Manowar has to save vs. plot to go after Leighton directly. 

There is no game mechanic involved in a grappling match that would be a fumble, or other explanation for causing the car crash. This could be Editor's fiat. This could also be prompted by the player, who suggests, "You know, with all this tussling around in the car, does that make us crash?" And the Editor says, "Gee, I don't know, and either gives Manowar a save vs. plot, or perhaps a save vs. science for the driver to determine if his player was right or not.

Wha? No, I am not creating a new power called Create Ladder Out of Electrons. This is flavor text for the Levitate power, and I'm sticking to that story!

I've seen the need for a Messaging power before, as we see in panel 4. 

Manowar's earlier X-Ray Vision power is still active, even though this would seem to be a lot of turns later. 

Slipping on a greasy floor may seem silly by modern superhero standards, but it is just the sort of embarrassing thing that can happen in any RPG scenario where random dice rolls determine results.

A player would need to be a really good sport to put up with that headblow from a burning falling timber. 

It's a nice twist that Leighton shows no interest in monologing, or even putting Manowar in a deathtrap and then leaving the room. 

Unlike magic-users, superheroes don't need their hands free to activate their powers (normally; this could make a good weakness for alien superheroes) and here he uses Wreck at Range on that gun. 

Explaining how he electrocutes the door with an already established power is trickier. I'm thinking we might need a new power like Shocking Touch, that a hero can do hand-to-hand like Shocking Grasp or project it onto a nearby conductive surface. 1-6 points of damage +1 per level at a max range of 10' per level?

At first it seems like, to me, that Manowar is using Hold Person, but this is a more dangerous version of that where you can move, but take damage for doing so. But would that be a higher level or lower level version of Hold Person? On one hand it has an extra effect, but on the other hand you can simply choose to take the damage and escape the other effect. Aw, I'm going to split the difference and leave Minefield as a 2nd level power (and maybe set the damage at 2-8 points?). 

This is the second time in the same story Manowar is knocked out cold by a head blow. What terrible luck!

 

Hmm...I wanted to explain away that electricity ladder as flavor text for a power we already have, like Levitate. And it does look like levitation, until he goes sideways over the street. It doesn't look like Fly, but that is the only power that really fits, unless we accept this as a new power. Something like Create Normal Item? There is an AD&D spell like that, Minor Creation, but it's a surprisingly high-level one, 4th level. Even if we nudge it down to 3rd level, that's pretty high for Manowar, though a lot of our characters need to be explained with brevet ranks. 

One could argue that, if superheroes in their third issues can do these things, that maybe every superhero should be able to do these things, but it is important that some superheroes can't be able to do these things -- the "if everyone is special, then no one is" argument from The Incredibles.

 

We're going to jump into Bill Everett's Bull's-Eye Bill in progress. This page jumped out at me because of the "Bottles don't mean nothing" comment, and not just because it's a grammatically poor double negative. What it could mean, game mechanics-wise, is that the bottle hit, but didn't "hit" to the point where it did damage, or it could mean that it only did 1 point of damage, and Bill has so many hit points that he can confidently not worry about it. 

I also think it's interesting that Bill isn't the one who wins the quick draw contest, but the sheriff, who just conveniently appears in that moment. It's like the Editor saw where the dice were falling, was afraid Bill was going to get killed in this turn, and intervened on his behalf.

Here Bill, by virtue of being a played character, and possibly because of his level title, is able to tell the sheriff what to do. The sheriff, for his part, is perfectly fine with locking the bad guys up, not for disorderly conduct or anything like that, but for being strangers. In the Mythic West, it's important to know someone!

That "trip" into the ravine just reeks of plot convenience. I would normally never require a saving throw to stay on a trail unless it was extremely narrow.

Huh? Okay, it wasn't a plot convenience at all; the fall was just to fill panels. I seem to recall a recent Amazing Man story by Everett had a similar thing where a giant ball of ice was blocking his way for no other reason than to slow the pace of the story down. Of course, in a RPG, random setbacks occur all the time, but you're not as used to seeing them in stories, especially ones with such tight page counts as golden age stories. 

I can't decide if that is a caricature depiction of a black man or as realistic as Bill could draw him; his art can be quite stylized sometimes, and I want to give him the benefit of a doubt. Also, I'm quite familiar with the "girl pretends to be kidnapped to get the western hero's attention" story because I had re-published an old Centaur story very similar to this in Funny Picture Stories. Order your copy today!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Daring Mystery Comics #3 - pt. 2

The Phantom Reporter story, for Timely Comics, was a strong one, with an interesting character, and well-told, in the sense that there are no glaring plot holes I saw. I'm no longer surprised that David Liss, when given an opportunity to write a forgotten character for Marvel's 70th anniversary issues, chose the Phantom Reporter.

Trojak the Tiger Man is up next. I'm not a fan of these stories, being almost uniformly cheap Tarzan rip-offs and just overflowing with racism. In this story, we learn Trojak has trained himself to go days at a time without sleep, the special thing about this being that Trojak doesn't have access to coffee. I'm not sure how to handle this in game mechanics terms, but I think I need to because Trojak is staying up for days staking out a dangerous area and wandering encounters could kill him easily if he falls asleep. Constitution checks seem like they would work here, though there needs to be either diminishing returns from those successful checks (the first one lasts for 24 hours, the next lasts for 20 hours, and so on), or a penalty to each successive check, to reflect that it gets harder the longer he stays up.

Okay, a few pages in this story gets cool. How often have Tarzan or Sheena gone up against prehistoric animals? Well...we're told that it's a prehistoric animal, but it really just looks like a poorly drawn Indian rhinoceros. Still, a very tough fight for a low-level explorer and his tiger companion! The rhino has Super-Tough Skin that can break knives (as the power does), and while I don't normally plan on giving rhinos superpowers, I suppose it couldn't hurt in individual cases. And...I'm going to say the way Trojak and his underlings defeat the animal is legit, pulling a tree over on top of it. A tree that size could weigh a ton. Let's say that's...6d6 damage? 

Not content to stop there, the story then goes on to have Trojak fight Nazis who abducted Edith (his Jane analog). This is one of those early stories that doesn't shy away from calling Nazis Nazis, instead of some concealing pseudonym. We get treated to an interesting overhead shot of the Nazi camp, which is very neatly arranged with everything in perfect rows! There are 14 tanks (possibly of 2-3 distinct types), 8 canons, 1 anti-aircraft gun, 4 planes (presumedly fighter planes), 6 things I can only presume are meant to be cars, 39 small tents, 6 large tents, 2 buildings, and 3 trees! We even get a map showing us where this camp falls on the Belgian Congo River. 

Basically, there is no chance Trojak should be able to get with 1,000 feet of this place without being dead. So, naturally, Trojak manages to sneak into the camp after only defeating two sentries. We also get our first indication that Trojak is actually a superhero, or might be an explorer/superhero, as he is able to wreck a barred window with "the strength of ten men." Even after an alarm is raised, only four more guards show up right away to attack Trojak with bayonets. Amazingly, Trojak thinks he can take them and everyone else who shows up (admittedly, the way the Editor is rolling randomly for reinforcements, maybe he's not wrong), but stops because Edith begs him to surrender, emasculating our hero. Actually, once he's captured, he figures he can watch the Nazis work their guns until he understands how to do it himself. And he does, throttling a guard who comes to feed him (which is weird, because we already know he can just bust out the barred window) and then escaping into the camp. Before he leaves with Edith, he mans an anti air-craft gun and aims it over the river so it drops shells onto the submarines docked there. We're informed that Trojak can work a cannon that "requires many normal men to operate," presumedly because he's buffing himself with a power, maybe Raise Car to make himself stronger. Again, only four Nazi guards converge on them before they escape the camp because of their "dulled Nazi minds" -- so, they're basically Trump voters.

Next up is Marvex the Super-Robot. It's interesting how common the concept of robots was back then, but no one really understood how one would work. Marvex is able to think because of the "delicate mechanism" in his brain, without specifying that as a computer. Marvex is created by two fifth-dimensional men who do it because they're bored and they want it to capture some Earth humans. Marvex is "born" with a conscience and won't do it, so he mops up (by then) six fifth dimensional men around him - with a seventh 5D guy. Which is weird because comic books tell us that people from higher dimensions are more powerful than us, sometimes vastly more powerful. And yet, maybe in their own dimension, they are just normal people?

Blowing up their lab tears an interdimensional hole that blows Marvex to Earth, where he immediately...tows an old man's car. Raise Car power? The man must be pretty wealthy because he tips Marvex $20 for it, which in 1940 lets him buy an entire suit in town to help conceal his appearance. When he hears a woman nearby scream for help he leaps up at least five stories, which can just be the Leap I power. The Feather Landing power lets him drop from that window to the ground without harming him or the two people he carries with him out of the burning room.

When a car full of spies speeds past and shoot at them, Marvex uses Nigh-Invulnerable Skin to block the others from harm and then Race the Train to catch up to the car. After learning where the spies took the secret plans (that is what the woman was hollering about), Marvex flies up to a 13th floor instead of leaping (Fly I, most likely). There is also an instance of wrecking things where Marvex wrecks a car, though since it's just the top of the car, maybe we can downgrade that one rank to robots. From the evidence, it seems like Marvex has used five 1st-level powers, but higher level powers could have duplicated some of them. As an android, he always get a free power anyway. And since we've only seen him use one 2nd-level power for sure, it's possible he's only 4th level, with only three brevet ranks.    

Last up is Captain Strong of the Foreign Legion. In Algeria, Strong is up against ...pirates? That's weird because these guys would normally be called nomads or bandits in anyone else's stories. While trying to set up an outpost to guard against the "pirates," the legionnaires are attacked by a "horde" of them, but we don't see more than ten of them. I really don't like how these stories act like it's okay to mow down Arabs with machine guns, but after that the tactics are sound. Strong knocks out one Arab, dresses as him, and then rides his horse back with the others as soon as they flee, and in this way he finds out where they were heading. In the Arab camp, Strong uses a combatant as a body shield, something we haven't seen in a comic in awhile. 

After escaping back to the legion's fort, Strong sets a trap for the "pirates" straight out of The Fellowship of the Ring; when the "pirates" show up and find the legionnaires all asleep, it's actually just empty clothes (though there must be some stuffing in them), ala The Prancing Pony. 

(Read at readcomiconline.to)   

Keen Detective Funnies #19 (v. 3 #3) - pt. 2

Yes, Centaur still couldn't afford to color every page! This is still Dan Dennis, FBI, and he's been really slow to get suspicious of the little old lady selling flowers outside the tenement building with a female spy in it he's been watching -- even though it set off red flags for every reader immediately.

Here, at least, he shows good tactics, out-bribing the old lady to get information. 

Invisible ink written on flower petals? Hmm...it seems like petals are too easily destroyed for that to be effective, but it passes comic book logic, I guess. I leave this here for your consideration, when developing coded messages for your own games.

Apparently just holding a gun in the open is cause for a G-Man to belt you in the chops. Works for me! TNT Todd takes down a thug with one punch; the thug must have had very low hit points!

Gee, Todd is pretty brutal. Is he one of the good guys or a D&D murder-hobo? He's also just not very good at anything. He attacked that one guy just for being suspicious, he got himself captured (between pages, I didn't show you that one), instead of ingeniously escaping he has to use threat of force to escape, and then gets caught again right away.

Though, to be fair, that reminds me a lot of my very first Hideouts & Hoodlums playtest. Those poor 1st-level Heroes kept getting knocked down and recaptured left and right. I've tended to go easier on my 1st-level Heroes ever since then.

I have three things to point out about this crudely-drawn page (okay, four, counting that). One, this is not a KKK meeting; these hooded criminals have 1001 written on top of their sheets because they have 1,001 members (we learned this on the previous page I didn't bother sharing). So, every time they recruit or lose a member, they have to all have new monographed sheets made for themselves.

The tiny skull on the desk seems like odd random room dressing, but of course skull decor denotes a bad guy in comics. It would be funny if, based on its position on the desk, if it was just a skull-shaped stapler.

"Give him the gong" took me by surprise, as this is way before I grew up watching The Gong Show on TV. Somehow I'm having trouble finding out how old this saying is, but it seems to predate Chuck Barris.

It's been so long, I had forgotten that we've already seen The Eye several times on this blog already! Here, he's coming to the aid of this paperboy, taken prisoner by three anarchists (they aren't called that, but their cliched behavior indicates it). The Eye either uses Telekinesis or Wreck at Range to destroy the rope -- it really seems unlikely that he/it wastes a powerful Disintegrate just on some rope. 

It's unclear why the Eye is shining light on the boy in panel 5. Is it just a Light spell because the room is dark, or is he/it hypnotizing/charming the boy to make him follow his/its instructions?

Here, The Eye uses Hold Person, which can affect up to three targets, and we see the effect is limp instead of rigid paralysis -- the spell can cause either, as long as the use is consistent. 

We'll jump now into the next story, which stars an old friend of mine (and currently featuring in my Funny Picture Stories anthology!), Dean Denton. This story takes place some months after the most recent one I've republished and -- ah, Harry Francis Campbell, I see you still have a problem with drawing arms that are too short.

The captain is mostly right; the average person cannot dive safely to 500 feet deep underwater. The world record currently stands at 1,082 feet, but that is next to impossible without extensive training for deep sea diving. Indeed, it's dangerous for the average person to dive more than 60' deep. I would say, then, that water pressure can do up to 1 point of damage per 60' past 60' deep, so that at 180' deep a diver takes 1-2 points of damage per melee turn, 1-4 points at 360' deep, and so on.

Compagnie Belgique threw me at first; it looks like a proper name for a company and I looked to see if it was real, but all it means is that Dean went to a Belgian company. 

Harry's work is always full of racism, and Absalom's dialogue here is no exception, but I'm going to give Harry props for at least trying on panel 4. It seems like he put a lot of effort into trying to draw a black man's profile, realistically, perhaps even from a model, instead of the usual caricature. It still came out looking really weird, but that's partly because all the faces around it look rushed and cartoony. In fact, the art overall is just sub-par for Harry. He must have been really rushing towards the deadline on this one.

The end of the story is missing from the copy I have access to, so I never do find out what the helium was for...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 3

I did promise, so here's Dash Dixon's villain, The Eyes, in person. As you can see, having light-up fake eyes is a cool look, but...if that's why he's called The Eyes...then what are Fingers' fingers like...?

It seems weird that Dash is following directions from a blindfolded man, but what you don't know from the previous page is that the man had been abducted by The Eyes' men before and, though blindfolded then, from counting the number of stops and turns he thinks he knows where their hideout is. 

Now, players in a similar situation can try this tactic, but it seems to me that it would be really easy to guess wrong how long it was between stops, unless you count the seconds and have a fantastic memory for numbers. For this, I would have them make an Intelligence check, possibly even with a -2 penalty, since it seems like the route was pretty complex.

Lastly, Dash is using the Multi-Attack power to get two grappling attacks at once.

While I still think Dash himself is ludicrous, there is a lot to like about this story. I like the detail of the entrance to the hideout being a ladder concealed in a fake boiler. I like the trapped, electrified door. How much damage should 3,000 volts do? I just read that 30 volts can kill you, but it's not an even progression where every 30 volts should do a point of damage. Electricity is weird (that's my term for it, not the scientific term) and there are a lot of factors that affect how much damage electricity does to you, and a high voltage is not necessarily going to do more harm than a low voltage. Also, 3,000 volts is the strength of a strong Taser, so I'm going to set the damage range low for this -- 1-8 points.

Something else to consider here: should an electrified door be harder to wreck? Yes, I would say it would move the category up to machine level.  

I also like how all the mobsters have nicknames to distinguish them -- Finger, Trusty, and Switch. Nicknames can instantly give us a sense of character, and also help us keep track of which one is which.

Far from the first cross-dressing villain. Hey, wait...how does Dash know Eyes' eyes are cameras? Did he see a clue in the hideout we missed? Did he use a Microscopic Vision or Super-Senses power to see it? Is he just guessing?

 

Next up is The Scorpion and, sadly, this feature does not live up to the promise of that first panel.

Often, when you have a character who's supposed to be a celebrity in a story, you give him a name that's similar to a real world celebrity in that field, but I can't find any famous crooners with a name like Bill Phelps. 

Also, what is so suspicious about a millionaire cashing $10,000 checks daily? For all this guy knows, he's working with donations to charities.

I thought Zenda seemed like a made-up name, but Ancestry.com tells me that there were about 20 Zenda families in the U.S. in the 1920s, the majority of them living in Wisconsin! 

"Gosh, I'm so scared of Gus Zenda, my hair just turned white!"

Rex Gray, The Scorpion's superpower is his ability to make fantastic logical leaps that just happen to be true. Not only is there something suspicious about a millionaire making out checks, not only does he reach the conclusion that Phelps is actually an imposter based on two overheard sentences, but he figures he'll be able to prove it...by listening to Phelps' records?

And how do you get to be "number one kidnapper"? Kidnappers always try to stay anonymous until they're caught.

It gets zanier. Rex is so convinced he's right that he's willing to bash an innocent butler over the head so hard it changes the color of his jacket. Then, for the first and possibly last time in comics, a hero makes a villain sing at gunpoint.

The name of the song is, of course "Old Folks at Home," but even by 1940 it was already commonly known as "Swanee River," even leading to a movie with that name that came out in '39. The last crooner to release an album featuring this song was Bing Crosby in 1935, but Phelps clearly bears no physical resemblance to Crosby and I'm willing to discard that theory now.

What? Where did this oscillograph come from? Rex's back pocket? This violates the unwritten rule of every Old School RPG I know -- your character has no items on him other than what is recorded on your character sheet.

I also find it laughable that the casually dressed and boyish-looking Rex is immediately recognized as The Scorpion. This guy is the terror of the underworld? Really?

 

Oh my gosh...before I let you go, I just have to rant about the amateurish artwork here. Not only is every panel background-less, not only is Rex himself clearly the one shooting the imposter and shouting "Take that you squealer" in the first panel, not only does the real Phelps look nothing like the fake Phelps, but no one on this page is dressed like Zenda was on the previous page. Has Rex captured a Zenda impersonator while the real Zenda got away? 

Comics.org tells me the artist for this story is unknown. I wouldn't take credit for it either...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)