Prize Comics #2 - pt. 3

One last page of Jupiter to look at. It should surprise no one that microzoric isn't a real thing. The effect of the ray is impossibly fast, but consistent with how illogical comic book science works. 

Ganging up on the mad scientists, though, that seems like pretty sound psychology. I can also understand the mad scientist, overpowered by all that magic, committing suicide to regain some control.

We get a Mass Teleport spell again, suggesting Jupiter is actually 16th level. The spell he hints at in the end is a much simpler spell-version of Sense Friend in Need. 

That looks like it might actually be a map of the Congo, showing the lost city of Tsul in the southeast corner, in the Mitumba Mountains, which actually makes sense for hiding a city. 

But the real reason I took a close look at this page was the notion of a collapsible canoe. I wasn't sure that was a thing, but apparently it is, and that would be a handy thing to put on an expanded starting equipment list at some time.    

This is interesting to me, as it seems there was a good chance Laura would have drowned had Jaxon not saved her, as if Jaxon made a save vs. science to avoid drowning and Laura didn't, but him helping her convinced the Editor to give her another save?

"Who are those strange creatures?" "Whoa, Laura, that is uncalled for and horribly racist! Those are just black men, not strange creatures! Geez!" Laura might be racist, but the artist treats them pretty decently, with un-typically realistic depictions.

A jaguar is pretty cool for a boss monster's pet.

The start of this story was pretty solid, but it got downright weird by now. The story here is that she's leading them to the secret exit only she knows about to get of Laura, so her husband can't replace her with Laura...but killing Laura would do the same thing, and sending her to walk into fire would sure accomplish that. And yet, amazingly, there really is an exit behind the ever-burning cave mouth. There should be no save for this one, running through fire automatically does damage in Hideouts & Hoodlums.

It gets weirder to find the lost city's treasure is sitting in a cave halfway to the exit instead of, you know, somewhere in the lost city. 

And then there's the matter of how they're even seeing the treasure and the snakes...in a cave, in complete darkness. I think I count nine vipers in that last panel.

It keeps coming. The twist ending of the disguised professor comes out of nowhere and throws everyone off so much that they forget all about the fact that there is still another way into the city of Tsul, so dumping the dynamite into the hole and caving in the exit caves doesn't really hide anything. And that's not even bringing up the racist depiction marring the last panel, after blacks were treated fairly normal the rest of the story.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

  

 

 

 

Mystery Men Comics #7 - pt. 3

We're back with Chen Chang and here Richard Kendall teaches us what a replacer is. Or at least he would be if my father wasn't an expert on trains. One look and he explained to me those are called derailers. But, yes...other than the name mistake, those are real things.

This is Lt. Drake of the Naval Intelligence, with examples of the dangers of shooting into a melee (uh-oh, shot your friend in the back!) and surprise rolls coming up in the Hero's favor (vs. guards, a mobstertype that is easily caught off-guard or easily overpowered in almost all instances).

Keeping someone submerged, as Drake does to the poor guard, is handled as a grappling roll; whoever has advantage forces the other one under. Three turns under in a row and it's save vs. science or drown each turn.

This is likely the first and last instance of a dead fish being used as a throwing weapon in a comic book.

This is Denny Scott of the Bengal Lancers. Torture never works on Heroes because they don't have to save vs. plot to resist giving out information like non-Hero characters would have to.

Putting your slaves to work along a river doesn't seem to be a good idea, especially in a comic book universe where water always acts as hard cover.

Moving on quickly, this page is from D-13, Secret Agent. Being dizzy and weak seem like complications from being low in hit points, but when it comes time to aim a gun steady enough to shoot through the heart, these "complications" don't seem to have any game mechanic effect on him and turn out to be merely flavor test.

This is from Captain Savage, Sea Rover and is an extremely rare example of a Hero succeeding by simply giving up and doing exactly what the bad guys tell him to do.

Nope, I'm calling you wrong on this one, comics.org. I know the art is credited to George Tuska, but there's no way that was inked by Tuska. A better artist, likely Bob Powell, inked over him on this one.

Anyway, Conjure Sand Storm seems like a pretty narrowly useful spell -- unless you plan on running a desert-based campaign. More likely this is Control Weather on display. You really do get a sense for how deadly Control Weather would be in the desert, though, as you can suffocate almost an entire caravan with it.

Melosh's next spell is Insatiable Thirst, a spell that wouldn't find its way into D&D until the 2nd edition book, Tome of Magic.

Melosh also has Polymorph Other and Protection from Normal Missiles in his spell arsenal. Pretty powerful for a guy who doesn't even own pants!

How Zanzibar casts Dispel Magic in his leopard form is unclear. Or the water has magical properties?

Having burnt through his higher level spells, Melosh is left with only Charm Person.

Zanzibar claims to have just won a "duel of wits", but it seems like what he did was cast Insatiable Thirst back on Melosh, then maybe used an Phantasmal Image spell to conceal the water hole. Then Z uses Dispel Magic on Audrey.

And in the end he gets to claim Melosh's Flying Carpet as a trophy! (Say...was Melosh wearing the carpet as a robe the whole time??)

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Detective Comics #14

200th post!

There's no Bruce Nelson on this page of Bruce Nelson, but there are some interesting items here. Skeleton keys always seem to work in comic books, so they must make for great trophy items.

Hollow brushes also make for useful items. Note that our burglar wasn't intentionally searching the brush, but just got lucky on her "notice things" roll.

Bart Regan and Sally are up against spies who have stolen a molecular friction raygun -- which sounds a lot like a fancy name for a heat ray to me. On the bright side, it seems to take a full turn for the friction to build up enough to wreck things or harm anyone, plenty of time for people to, oh, hop out of a car that's been struck. A good threat for 1st level Heroes, maybe.

There's not a lot of Hideouts & Hoodlums content on this page of Cosmo, but I'm really amused that these guys are poultry racketeers. "You're gonna buy your chickens from us, see?" "You buy our poultry at our price, or you'll get your head cracked open like an egg." I can't see statting them anyway special, unless I made a new entry called laughable hoodlum.



There's also a nice Slam Bradley story I'm not going to share here, that starts with a plane crash, includes surviving a blizzard in an igloo, and lots of punching people. Worth noting is that Slam beats up a drunken hoodlum, and that his plane cost $13,000 (Heroes have really been enjoying revealing how much their planes cost/are worth lately).

There's also a short, but pivotal fight where Slam and the unnamed master criminal grapple underwater, trying to drown each other. This would be difficult to play out in H&H, with its 1-minute combat turns. Likely, the combat would be resolved by a single pair of attack rolls before it would be over -- which is actually pretty close to how quickly the fight is resolved in the comic book.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)