Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 4

Whew, I've got just a few scraps left from the bottom of this issue I'm going to make you look at, and I'm not exaggerating when I say scraps.

This is Blanda, Queen of the Jungle. I could make a bunch of "bland" jokes here, but I only wish this feature was blande. It's actually racy (Blanda is bathing nude on one page, and only her long hair conceals her nudity) and incredibly racist. I'm going to make you suffer just this one page as an example. The only thing I can recommend from this page is the tactic of pushing sacred animals in front of your enemies to keep them from attacking.

This is Dusty Doyle, the Circus Cyclone. It's almost a given that an animal is going to escape eventually in any circus story, and this time it's a gorilla. Based on this page, I think I'll remember to give gorillas an excellent skill check towards climbing.

Hmm...I would be inclined not to allow this bolo trick to work, but I actually have a similar trophy weapon in a H&H scenario I'm writing right now, so I'd better not be too quick to dismiss it. In a sense, it doesn't really matter if the bolo hits both the gorilla and the pole; as long as it hits the gorilla and entangles him, it's done its job. If there was some reason why the gorilla had to be entangled and attached to the pole, I would allow this if Dusty rolled to hit both targets and struck them with the bolo.

Did I remember to include bolos on the starting equipment list? *checks* Phew! Sure did!

The art just gets worse! I'm only making you look at this page because we haven't seen a lookout in a while, and this page suggests lookouts might be better than normal at sneak attacks. 

But what is the lookout hitting him over the head with? A chalkboard eraser??

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Prize Comics #1 - pt. 2

We rejoin Power Nelson in the "future" of 1982. Here he faces a rhino in the arena and defeats it in one blow -- because pacing is really tight in these early stories and nobody spent a lot of time on depicting combats. The Hideouts & Hoodlums do not emulate this, because playing out combats is too integral to the nature of a RPG -- even if it is not the sole focus of H&H as it is so many other games.

There are three ways we can explain this, in-game. One, we could say this rhino simply had low hit points, perhaps due to age or illness, or random rolling without any rationalizing. Two, we could reduce the Hit Dice of big animal mobstertypes, if we wanted to, to make combats against them go quicker like we see here. Three, Power might be using Super Punch, though that is a high level power, and means that Power is not a 1st-level superhero, but one with at least five brevet ranks.

To sum up the tiger fight, Nelson uses Raise Car to lift the rhino, combined with Extend Missile Range to turn the rhino into a missile weapon.

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Platoons must be smaller in the future; this platoon appears to consist of just seven men.

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It's bizarre that the Mongols were so sporting as to give Nelson a net so large that it could ensnare seven men at once, a net at least 30' x 30'. If explained by powers instead, Nelson has expended three Hold Person powers, which seems almost as unlikely.

Now we're in the middle of the second feature, Ted O'Neil the Barnstormer. There is some crazy aerial acrobatics in this feature, most of which I have trouble believing would be possible

One, there's holding on to the edge of a plane's wing by your knees. I would make the aviator burn a stunt for doing this at normal altitude, and then two more to hold on during the dive! I wouldn't even allow skill checks for something this crazy.

And that handkerchief snatch? I'd make Ted roll to hit AC 0, or maybe even lower, to hit the handkerchief wile passing at that speed, plus a save vs. science to avoid taking ramming damage if he connects with the ground.

Climbing a shaking rope to climb up to a plane might be an expert skill, or could be another stunt. Holding onto Ogden in mid-air is a grappling attack, so no stunts can be used on that.

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Aviator's helmets and bags of silver are more clues to add to murder scenes, and the next time I put together a random table of clues (I did one in The Trophy Case years ago).

Who keeps bags of silver around their home?

A plane's cowling is the removable hood over its engine.

Ogden may be the first villain in comics so cheap that he has to hitchhike to get around.

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Normally I say that stunts cannot be used in combat, but here the gripping the wing of the plane is mostly independent of the grappling attack, and I might begrudgingly allow it.

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Mobs in 1940 are awfully trusting of confessions that are beaten out of someone. Doesn't it occur to them that Ogden might be lying now to make the beating stop?



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Speed Comics #5 - pt. 3

And we're back with Crash, Cork, and the Baron in their Ceylon adventure. I was very pleased to look up arrack and find out that's a real thing, but it's only an Indian liquor. So, he wasn't actually "doped" so much as they just got him drunk.

Covering him with leeches was an unusual deathtrap.

I'm not sure how this would work, game mechanics-wise. Nooses are a simple entangling attack, but how to handle pulling them up into the trees? A second save vs. science to avoid (the first save would be vs. the ensnaring)? A skill check does not make much sense here; it's almost necessary to introduce ability score checks so the Heroes could make Strength checks for this.

This is Ted Parrish, the Man of 1,000 Faces. Thankfully, we don't have to discuss disguise again this time; I'm sharing this page because of the unusual entangling attack. It looks like he's attacking two people at once with the bed sheet, but in the next panel it is clear that the two men are tied up in separate bed sheets; Ted must have thrown one over one mobster's head and then a second sheet over the other on the following turn (since he has surprise for the first attack, the second could have occurred at the beginning of the first regular combat turn).

Since bed sheets are not made for ensnaring attacks, I might give the mobsters a +1 bonus to save vs. being ensnared.

Now we'll jump ahead into Biff Bannon of the U.S. Marines. Biff has an unique challenge to start this scenario, as I can't think of any comic book before or since where the Hero had to park a battleship. Looks like a failed expert skill check, but here the Editor allowed something good to come of the failed roll; Biff crashes into the underground lair of saboteurs (just feet away from hitting all their dynamite too -- lucky he only missed his roll by 1!).

All of Biff's mini-adventures in this installment are random/wandering events. Here, a subway driver has fallen unconscious behind the wheel and Biff has to jump onto a careening subway train. Jumping is a skill check when you have to jump higher or farther than normal, but to jump "on target" like that, you need to make an attack roll instead.

The following newspaper headlines make it clear these mini-adventures are taking place in New York City.

I'm just going to share this one page of Smoke Carter as we race through this issue, and for just two things. One, this long-winded confession is emulated by only one game mechanic, the unconditional surrender of mobsters who fail morale saves. And two, "Flames like the stamp that seals his doom" is so melodramatic that Stan Lee should have used it as the title in a Marvel Comics story.

Now we'll jump to Landor, Maker of Monsters, who creates a 20' giant mole in this story.

It makes no sense at all that a) Landor has his pet mole start digging from so far away instead of driving it closer, and b) that Landor left no guards behind to protect his castle, even though he knows Tony Terrence knows where the castle is. Further, I am skeptical of gunshots causing a cave-in so quickly, but maybe it could happen...plus it's a good way to make guns less of an option in an underground hideout.

Now this is Texas Tyler, and this page demonstrates how easy it is to get information out of drunken hoodlums (I'll have to add a note to their stat entry).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Silver Streak Comics #2 - pt. 5

There's not much to learn from this page of Mister Midnite, but I'll spoil for you that Midnite escapes his bonds on the very next page, which means he was biding his time so he could hear more women screaming. This guy is definitely of Chaotic Alignment.

The horde of little men sure looks like six of them to me. The convenient strange gas disintegrates only the little men and leaves everyone else unharmed. I might put a Strange Gas of Slaying on a future trophy item list.

This is Joe Simon's Solar Patrol, and these are the Tree Men of Uranius -- the extra i keeps me from making all kinds of off-color jokes here.

The thought transmitter is a near useless trophy item in a game system where everyone speaks English.

There's a lot of threatening with the disintegrator raygun in this story, but it never gets used so I can't say if it does damage, or requires a save vs. science to avoid disintegration.

 I've written before about hiding weapons from captors (save vs. plot to conceal) and picking locks (expert skill check), but am sharing this because it's another example of alien Amazons.

We see the heat ray in use, but only hear about the ice ray. The heat ray does not seem to have much of a range on it, on this model. Editors, of course, have the discretion to add or subtract to the range of trophy items as much as they like.

In John Carter fashion, Ken Kurage becomes an alien on certain other planets, with all the special abilities that come with that race.

This is The Wasp, and that is one exceptionally wide cape to cover three people sideways!  It's almost like a magical Cape of Entanglement -- which would actually be a pretty handy magic item. If we don't treat it as a magic item, then we have to treat it as a net and an entangling attack that can affect multiple targets.

The Wasp's move looks like a Sleeping Nerve Pinch, but he's more of a mysteryman than a superhero, so this is a choke hold result during grappling.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #4 - pt. 3

Fire works kind of goofy in comic books. What was in that lamp to explode like that? Napalm? What was that castle made out of to burn down so fast? Balsa wood? Gems melt in fire?  How hot was that fire? Hmm...

This is Tex Mason.

Maybe cowardly hoodlums should just have a faster movement rate when fleeing?

I really just shared this because I like the dynamic artwork of Munson Paddock here.

This is K-51 Spies at War, though you might not know it by how he's being upstaged by his new fiancee, K-19. It's interesting how K-51 has picked up the relationship dynamic from Siegel & Shuster's Spy, not long after Siegel unwisely abandoned it.

But I really just shared this for the radium gun. This panel gives you a great example of the size of the rayguns described in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies. It's good that the raygun is so stationary too, because it's ability to wreck like a 7th level Superhero at long range is intimidatingly powerful.

Maybe Heroes' guns jam more often in comic books than I gave them credit for. Definitely including a gun jam rule in 2nd edition.

And here is another example of K-19 completely taking over this feature.

This is "Spark" Stevens. I'm working on the combat section of 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums right now and the next mechanic I need to work on is something elegant for entangling weapons, like whips and nets. There has to be a chance of holding your opponent fast, but also a trade-off, like your opponent being able to disarm you, like this.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)