Amazing Man Comics #11 - pt. 2

Welcome back! Let's pick up where we left off last time with Chuck Hardy. Chuck has met a new species in his Hollow World setting and, no, it's not lobstermen, it's pygmy lobstermen. That implies that there are "normal"-sized lobstermen out there somewhere too. We don't learn anything about the pygmy lobstermen other than they use a monarchical system of government, are matriarchal, extremely friendly, and technologically primitive. We never once see them fight, so they could have 12 HD for all we know, but I think it's a safer bet that they have a 1/2 HD, or 1-1 HD at best.

I wish we had a sense of scale for that curious lizard, as it looks more fearsome than pygmy lobstermen and frogmen. 

I'm going to spare you the next page and the results of Chuck's trap. Here's a hint: had it been drawn realistically, there would be blood flying everywhere. So how do I stat this trap? A catapult-launched spear is going to be pretty powerful - I'd even be willing to say 3-18 points of damage worth - but it's also going to be an impractical, poorly-aimed weapon. Despite the number of spears, they would each have a chance to hit equal to just a 1 HD mobster. 

Incidentally, missing from this story is any explanation for how people with pincers for hands were able to make rope ladders.

If panel 3 makes you think of the Ewok Dance...then we think alike.

The only real reason I shared this page is the peculiar wording of "knock him kicking!" Google that phrase and the only thing that comes up is a sports article from a 1965 newspaper, and it's behind a paywall so I can't tell what the context is. I can only imagine that Chuck's dialogue is being written intentionally silly.

Moving on to Iron Skull...

I was confused at first by the term "pet suspects," never having heard it before. Apparently it's a real term meaning the same thing as "most likely" suspects, though my first thought was that the Chief had a pet that suspected them.

It's incredible that the Chief is unable to see the two dead men both belonging to the same cult as a clue. Or perhaps I should say it's suspicious... coincidentally, Drago hears that the Skull is after him right after the Skull leaves the police station. 

This episode of Pinky & Jim, Slave Cultists is interrupted by Iron Skull, climbing up the bricks instead of the easier drainpipe right next to him. To be fair, the Editor could rule that a drainpipe isn't strong enough to support an android's weight (there is no game mechanic behind that; it would just be a common sense ruling by the Editor). It's also possible that Iron Skull is so strong that he's pinching fingerholds into the bricks (which would be handled by a wrecking things roll). 

Here we have a new type of robot - grotesque robots. What's special about these is that Iron Skull's annod comptod machine doesn't work on them. Now, no one knows what "annod comptod" means, but we know from past issues that this machine is what Iron Skull uses to Wreck at Range (the power). It seems that grotesque robots are immune, or greatly resistant, to being wrecked. The Skull has to defeat them the old-fashioned way with punches. 

In the future (or maybe because this is a comic book?), you don't have to smother someone for 10 minutes with a chloroform-soaked rag to knock him unconscious, you just toss the rag on his face and if it lands he is knocked out. 

Both the art and the caption in panel 3 are confusing. The rod must run through the center of the sphere and spins it. The "pyramids" would more properly be called spikes. Being scraped against the spikes wile being rotated past them seems like it would do at least 4-24 points of damage to me. Good thing that the Skull is being held with nothing but rope - easily wrecked as if a door. 

Now this is interesting - Yagani is a Hindu name. In Iron Skull's future, he has to watch out for spies from India! (Unless Burgos just mistakenly assumes this is a Japanese name, since otherwise his WWIII is awfully similar to WWII). 

The bald guy is an assassin, as detailed in the Mobster Manual.  

I think this is the first time I've ever seen a comic book character actually swallow a key; this is usually a cartoon thing.

"Dragon has a time bomb hidden here!"

"We have no time to look for it! In a 10' x 10' cell with almost no furnishings!"

We can see it makes no difference whether Iron Skull wrecks with his head or his fists, so that's all flavor text.

I've never been impressed with Burgos' artwork, but that last panel is particularly rushed. That "BOOM!" going off a few feet away looks like it was set off by a firecracker instead of a bomb.

Note that we never did find out who Drago's informant was - my money is still on the Chief!

Before we go, let's peek in on just one page of Minimidget. All I have to say about this page is that Boma is a real city, in the Congo - and also that ordinary people seem to be really cool about tiny shrunken people in this strip.

(Scans courtesy of Comicbookplus.)

 

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.)
 

 

  

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 3

Well I'll be...I called this issue #2 in my last two posts, but it's been issue 3 I've been reviewing all this time! Sorry if I confused anyone.

It's been a long while since we last visited The Ghost, but you might recall he was tossing around Wish-level spells all over before the scenario even got started. Now that he has mobsters to fight, we get - Knock, Mirror Images, and throwing a dagger instead of casting a spell. Wow, this is what a mid-level magic-user looks like!

In my current Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign, we just had a long scene of the Heroes mixing it up with police in a precinct house, so it's interesting to see how quickly The Ghost is able to muscle his way in to see the ...Captain? Commissioner? - after just levitating a beat cop out of his way.

That is a strange spell that gets cast mid-page. It's not a Phantasmal Image because The Ghost doesn't know what the spell will reveal. It seems closer to Object Reading, the psionic power. It's also unusual to have a golden age Hero's initial hunch turn out to be wrong.

Now this is interesting! Only some magic-users have ever shown Achilles Heels - like needing to be holding their wand, or needing the use of their hands - The Ghost has to be facing you.

Wall of Force stops the car. 

It's interesting how The Ghost only sometimes bothers to use his "ghost" look and other times just walks around like a normal guy. I wonder how he decides...?

I also wonder -- is that chair a Chair of Scrying, like a comfy Crystal Ball?

The Ghost uses Levitate to save himself from bullets. I find it so refreshing to see so many 2nd-level spells getting used!

Hypnotism, or Charm Person spell? 

We don't know exactly how many hit points The Ghost has, but a surprise head blow can take him out.

The Ghost casts Wizard Eye through the door.

I like the details of that trap; it's a trap that, if you play it just right, helps the Heroes free themselves from it. Of course, you need to have Heroes weak enough not to be able to break rope...

Normally, in a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign, exploring an entire hideout from cellar to roof could take multiple play sessions; here, we see it come to pass in a single caption. It's rather remarkable, I think, that the only clue he finds in the whole building are the pigeons on the roof. I wonder how many "secret door" rolls he failed on his way though the house...

I'm not sure what to make out of a spell that makes pigeons leave flaming trails. Some sort of Feed Jalapenos to Birds spell? Or perhaps this is just a generous interpretation of the Find the Path spell?

I believe I already have a Detect Lie spell in my game (or should if I don't). Is there any difference between Detect Lie and Speak Only Truth?

Out of all the spells in The Ghost's repertoire, what impresses this guy is the Change Self spell. 

I've never heard of a trick gun like that, but now I think it should be a minor trophy item. 

When did The Ghost cast that spell, turning the bullets to vapor? While writing the suicide note? After grabbing the gun away? As the bullets are being shot? Possibly the first two options, if the spell was cast off-panel, but it's hard to believe Tanko didn't notice. I think he could realistically have cast it at the beginning of the melee turn before being grappled by Tanko.  

Also...Tanko? That's an African name. Is it a nickname here? 

Ignoring the panel where the lights go out, but we can see everything...there are some strange reactions to magic in this story. Like, the phantasmal faces trick the chief into confessing...instead of just running away?

Was the matchbox ever admissible evidence? I bet it's not now, since a roomful of witnesses saw this appear out of nowhere. How do you prove it's the same matchbox? 

Moving on...I'm more amused than anything else by this page of the next story. For one, the "Three Comrades" are hanging out in what appears to be a middle class German restaurant, and the two German spies dressed up for a fancy nightclub aren't attracting any attention to themselves. What amuses me even more is how much Books looks like Peter Parker.

At least Cal thought the spies were suspicious. You can always count on Non-Heroes controlled by the Editor to fail to notice anything suspicious about a name like Baron Von Sneer, even though that just screams "comic book villain!" to the rest of us. 

Wow...you can also always count on European villains to have castle hideouts, even when just visiting the U.S. The caption calls it a mansion, but I know a castle when I see one...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 2

Here we have Dr. Strange using wrecking things, only to find his great strength "sapped." This actually happens just like that in Hideouts & Hoodlums, when activated powers run out and you're out of powers to activate. By waiting until the next day for his deathtrap, the villains have actually given him time to regain all his powers from the previous day.

I'm tempted to stat wild hill warriors as berserkers. I could also make them 2nd level fighters, using the level title of warrior from That Other Game.  I could also just use natives, since that's the broad stereotype being used here. 

I've never seen elephants in an arena before! Too bad Doc has Raise Elephant prepared. And a Leap power (looks like II or better) that makes escaping from an arena super-easy. 

As unstoppable as Dr. Strange seems to be, you have to wonder why he doesn't stay at the arena and take out Kong then, and sneaks back in disguise later. Maybe because there's more pages to fill...?

"You're fighting for freedom, men! Don't waste your shots! Keep dropping like flies - even though I could have wrecked my way through that wall for you at any time!"

Or could he? Dr. Strange has to be at least level 3, the bare minimum for wrecking stone walls, but he could also just be rolling poorly and failing to wreck the walls the whole fight so far. 

Or..maybe he really did not try wrecking through the wall until now. This is an early precedent for a trope of the superhero genre to come, that says superheroes try to stay neutral in the course of events until something occurs that ordinary people can't deal with on their own, like a deathray. Of course, not every superhero respects this trope - like Superman himself, who almost exclusively dealt with mundane crime despite being able to do so much more. 

Is this our first evidence that Doc is Neutral in Alignment? Hmm...

Interestingly, the deathray can only affect a single target at a time. So, even though it is killing them like a deathray, it is also, game mechanics-wise, perhaps no different than a Magic Missile spell (with cool flavor text). 

And here we've got a line-up of standard cliches - the big cat (a panther, this time) in the cage, the damsel in distress...and somehow Doc gets to the panther before it gets to the damsel? Now, I've covered many times before in this blog that random initiative needs to trump common sense when it comes to who goes first in a comic book story, but, Doc is wrecking things in the same turn that the panther is first attacking. So, we can only assume, then, that the panther missed with every attack on Virginia, even though it didn't even need to roll very high (reminds me of my rolls when I'm playing!). 

So, we also get the cliches of a big cat being killed (SIGH), and the villain threatening to blow himself up to take out the Hero. I bet it doesn't work...

Hmm...now, if I was running this scenario, I would have let Kong drop the potion as a free action; that is too easily done, and not a direct attack, for it to be trumped by initiative. 

Also, why not use Kong's raygun to revive the men, instead of experimenting with Alosun in a totally untested way (though, I suppose, Doc could argue that they're already dead, what worse could happen to them?)?

Here's a new character and an interesting twist on Tarzan and the Jungle Book. Instead of the infant being raised by animals, he's raised by yogis in India. They teach him potent spells like Rope Trick and ...Wall of Force, to stop mad dogs with? That seems a bit like overkill.

*SIGH* ...what I wouldn't give to read a magic-user story that doesn't throw around ridiculously overpowered spells all the time. Causing a submarine to rise into space ...well, that's got to be a Wish spell. So we've already given The Ghost 17 brevet ranks! Just to get him through a wandering encounter!

Here we get a dose of more insanely powerful magic being tossed about haphazardly -- a Telekinesis spell as powerful as the Raise Trolley Car power, and a Teleport Sandwich spell able to reach around the world. 

Chance's only interest in fighting crime is when the man who just hired him to entertain at parties was murdered. Had the man not been murdered, would Chance have been content to be a party magician instead?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 2

We're still on the Phantom Ranger and so are all the bad guys. We have a Lion King-like deathtrap here, where the hero is put in the path of a stampede. Will Demon reach him in time and get him out?

What a shock, he made it! There's an interesting thing about panel 2, where dragging him across the ground loosened the ropes. Did he take damage, and the damage wrecked the ropes? How much damage should it take to wreck something? I can't imagine being dragged doing more than 3 points of damage, so 3 points of damage = chance of wrecking at the doors category?

Now we're jumping into Red Roberts, the Electro Man, where a random traffic accident leads to a startling discovery. But, in between, Red uses what appears to be the spell Poof! to emerge from his car, and takes down the two sailors with what appear to be four Magic Missiles. It is unclear, from both this page and the next, if Red's electricity rendered them unconscious or killed them, or if Red even cared either way. 

Anyway, it's interesting to think of a hi-tech superhero being statted as a magic-user, but I think it fits because so many of the standard superhero tropes are missing, as well as his abilities being better statted with known spells than powers.

Now this one is curious. Red appears to be using Teleport through Focus, the power that heroes like the Flame use to move quickly. For the Flame, it's to anywhere there's fire, where as here it's to anywhere there's electricity (which is basically everywhere). 

But there seems to be something else going on here too. There is no reason for Red to have intentionally chosen this particular room in this particular building; he just seems to show up at random right where a plot hook character is waiting for him. 

So, if you're not actively trying to get to a Point B, but just anywhere from Point A, should that even count as a use of your power, or is that just flavor text? Because if he just kept randomly walking in any direction, eventually he could have wound up somewhere else the Editor could have placed this encounter.

I'm going to take this first panel as more evidence of Magic Missile spells being cast. Normally it is dangerous to cast missiles into a melee situation, but if he is using the auto-hit method of the MM spell, he doesn't have to worry about hitting this girl. 

Wrecking the guns seems like a superhero mechanic again, but I've already included a wrecking spell into the game for situations just like this, when a character who otherwise appears to be a magic-user is able to wreck things.

I like it when bad guys have names that make it obvious they are bad guys. This guy in the brown suit is Stumpy Jake, which isn't particularly nefarious-sounding, but his colleagues that you don't see pictured here are Blackie Skull and Bones Wilson. This naming convention also extends to boats, so if you ever come across the S.S. Ghost, you just know it's going to have bad guys on it. 

I'm not sure, but I think we once read a story with opium stuffed in fish before. I can't verify this, but it's likely from a pulp fiction story that both comic book authors stole from.

To keep from embarrassing Red, I spared him from showing you the page where he's knocked unconscious by a net-full of fish landing on his head. 

That alone isn't actually all that unusual for a comic book hero -- but what is really unusual is being drugged with opium afterwards. In a Hideouts & Hoodlums scenario, this could solve the problem of superheroes being able to wreck themselves out of deathtraps too quickly, but here Red seems to instantly recover from the opium as soon as he regains consciousness. 

The story also tosses away all sympathy we had for the Chinese prisoners when they willingly agree to torture Red for the bad guys. 

I kind of like how this story completely skips over the hitting that happens between panels 1 and 2. 

I'm less inclined to accept this use of teleport as flavor text, since it is not only an intentional destination, but bypasses the rest of the hideout around Scarface's ...living room, I'm guessing. My question is, how does Red navigate the wires? Does he have some kind of instinctive telelocation power - and does that need to be its own power? - or is he somehow able to eavesdrop on phone operators and navigate the system that way...?

When your master criminal jumps out a window to his death - that's a really botched morale check.

 

And what is up with those last panels, where the dialogue takes place in captions? That's just weird and confusing to read.

Lastly, we're going to take a peek at the next story, about the villainous Steel Shark (it's one of those features named after the recurring villain). 

I don't know what it was about television at the time, but it seems like most every comic book writer wanted to come up with their own name for it. Televisions already were a thing by 1940, though they had not caught on to widespread use yet. Did these writers think the word "television" wasn't going to catch on either?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

Fantastic Comics #5 - pt. 5

Oh boy, it's Stardust...

These guys are called "crime wizards," but as cool as that name sounds for a mobstertype, their ambition of either controlling or destroying all the wealth in America makes them sound more like Republicans. 

We get two mad science devices on this page. One is a tornado generator that looks kind of like a tree for some reason, and the other is invisible vacuum tubes that descend out of the sky and suck people up, but that makes it look like they're just flying off into the sky.

I think that last panel is to be interpreted as a collage of events occurring at different times, rather than the tubes being able to stretch that far apart at the same time.

The top of the Empire State Building seems like an odd place to ask them to drop off the ransom. Were they going to use the invisible vacuum to suck up the money? 

Stardust uses the 4th level power Turn Gun on Bad Guy to reflect the death rays back. Or does it have to be a higher level version to account for the range and the multiple rays reflected? Yeah, probably 7th level. I'll call it Turn Death Rays.

Here Stardust uses a Control Weather spell (he would be statted as a Magic-User/Superhero, since his abilities are all over the place). Or...could it be Dispel Science? That would be an interesting power to develop. Whichever it is, it stuns a crowd of traced faces.

An interesting wrinkle here is that at least one of the criminal wizards actually is a magic-user! Since he only uses Enlarge Person on himself, he may only be 3rd level - which seems like a really light challenge for our 18+ level Stardust. Stardust counters with Reduce Person, and it makes sense that Stardust, being higher in level, would be able to reduce Wolf-Eye further than he could enlarge himself.

More interesting, I think, is the throwaway reference to a "magic gland" -- which seems like perfect comic book logic for how certain people are able to learn magic and others can't.

Lastly, Stardust is probably just using Teleport spells to get everyone back home.

Now here's Sub Saunders and we have two unusual rays here. The first is a Water Breathing ray, which could well be our first non-combat, non-disrupting electronics ray. The second is some kind of suction ray, which could be handled like high-level Telekinesis, but to pull down a full-sized submarine might mean it is equivalent to a Telekinesis spell cast by a 100th level caster. We can just keep the mechanics very specific - the ray only works on subs, or some other type of ship, and pulls them down x number of feet. It's okay to tie an item to a specific type of plot.

Now this is unusual - we have a new variant of mermen who are called amphibious men, but they appear to just be perfectly ordinary men except for their ability to breathe underwater (and their predilection for helmets -- ooo, could those be magical Helms of Underwater Action...?).

Hmm...so, on all those ships he sucked down to his ocean kingdom, not one had a map already on board? That seems mighty suspicious, and I wonder if Kelpa isn't just giving him an absurd story to see if he can get Sub to go along with it. 

I like the idea of a swordfish pit, as it's a welcome switch from the shark cliche.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)