All-American Comics #7

Still catching up on All-American Comics. In #7...

Red, White, and Blue takes place at the New York's World Fair, as so many other stories do around the same time period. In fact, this might be the strongest case against shared universe campaigns, as otherwise Heroes would have been meeting up all the time at the World Fair.  Once again it's saboteurs at work, though slightly less menacingly this time, they are arms manufacturers agitating for war instead of foreign spies.  At first, these saboteurs seem content to sow chaos by doing things like tossing "stench bombs" into restaurants. Unless this is somehow weapons-grade stench, I would think this would be distracting, but not affect game mechanics.

There's a perplexing phrase in the story, where Red says "But if I catch you tanked up on circus water..." to Blooey, and I've had to research what that means.  I can't Google the phrase as a whole, but "tanked up" means to get drunk. "Circus water" probably refers to the fact that, before Walt Disney convinced the world there was money in family friendly entertainment, places like circuses and amusement parks actually catered to adults instead. So if you went to the circus, you were likely there buying beer to drink, or maybe even something harder.

Red also says "rushing a squaw around" to mean chasing women, which would certainly be considered racist today.  When the saboteurs turn to murder, Whitey grapples with one of them, but the man is able to evade him, straight out of melee (he becomes "lost in the confusion").   

Ben Webster and his friend Pat search the roof for signs of the saboteurs in their story, only to find a cryptic clue -- a card that says only "Success or death, 251."

A salesman in Reg'lar Fellers gives some suggestions for what the children can buy with 25 cents for a gift -- a toothbrush, writing paper, two cigars, a metal pencil, and a safety razor. I'm wondering if "metal pencil" means a mechanical pencil.

In Mystery Men of Mars, Ted and Alan lose their robot trophy -- when immersed in salt water, it rusts its "brain." Before it goes, we see it leap once, like an alien Hero.

In Hop Harrigan, we see that SCMs can have their own Supporting Cast too, as Gerry has two German shepherds she wants to fly with her. Hop proves to be a terrible flight instructor; when Gerry freezes up at the stick, Hop clobbers her over the head with a fire extinguisher instead of just grabbing the stick from her. That the dogs then attack him is a sweet bit of justice. A reference to a "Kenosha Dam" makes me doubt my proclamation in the last post that Hop's adventures took place in the Northeast, as this makes me think maybe he's in Wisconsin. In the craziest moment of Hop Harrigan yet, Gerry -- who's supposed to be much younger than Hop, who himself seems to only be 18, rescues him and her father, then makes out with Hop in front of her father.

Speaking of dated humor, both Reg'lar Fellers and Toonerville Folks have jokes about parents beating their children.

(Read at fullcomic.pro.)


  

Fantastic Comics #2 - pt. 1

I like the early, pre-Davey Samson stories, and this one is no exception. Here we see Samson dealing with Hitler, here called Dragor. I'm not a fan of concealing real places and people with fictional counterparts, but Dragor is a pretty good villain name.

It's possible that I like this story just for the giant flame tanks. Sure, flame tanks would be impractical as all get-out, but there's no way an army could face those and not be terrified. The range seems pretty good on those things for flame throwers, but it's hard to judge just how far by that panel.

This last panel anticipates the attack on London by six months, the attack on Paris by four months, and the attack on Copenhagen by three months.

What? Those flame tanks looked gigantic just a page ago. Now, as soon as Sampson gets up close, they are barely bigger than he is. It must be some perspective trick to how they are designed?

Since the flame gun's flame seems to be an area of effect, it should not just miss Sampson like that (if he saves vs. science, he would take half damage). He must be buffing himself defensively with a power like Imperviousness.

Lifting a small tank is possible with the Raise Trolley Car power, which buffs his encumbrance limit.  Mopping up the soldiers by hand could be an example of Multi-Attack but, really, if he's operating as a 6th level superhero (which would take 5 brevet ranks this early in his publication history), then handling some 1st level fighters should not be a problem for him, even un-buffed offensively.

The colorist got plenty creative here; personally, I think such an important tank would have been more likely camouflaged.

Making 10-12' leaps just while covering horizontal distance does not seem to warrant using a power and could easily just be flavor text.

It is very unclear how the gas gets from this central tank out to the field, especially since there are no hoses or pipes leading from it. I guess this was more of a refueling station?

Unless the gas inside that tank is helium, it likely far exceeds the 720 lb. limit of the power Extend Missile Range III. This feat could be duplicated by combining any of the Raise buffing powers with the power Wreck at Range.

How does Sampson get to the roof without revealing himself to the people inside? Here is where leaping as a game mechanic comes into play instead of just flavor text. Since he's only leaping 30', this could be Leap I or even just the leaping ability of aliens. Since this version of Samson (see my Samson entry in Supplement IV, where I explain there were actually three different Samsons in the same series) has no origin story, he might as well be statted as an alien.

Since a bridge is a structural feature, it gets wrecked like a car.

This turbine was on my mind when I made generators a category for wrecking.

This page is a little odd; Dragor raced out of the room not that long ago, but Samson has no idea where he went? Evasion must be pretty easy, or tracking must be hard. Here, Sampson forces morale saves until someone tells him where Dragor is.

No players like mazes and they are awful hard to navigate while in-character. Wrecking things is an easy way to circumnavigate that problem.





(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Daring Mystery Comics #1 - pt. 3

Picking up where I left off with Monako.  Monako falls through a pit trap (and apparently not a deep one) while following the trail of footsteps, though it does raise the question of how no one before him triggered the pit trap. Traps should, out of fairness, apply equally to everyone.

Monako casts Mirror Image to fool the mobsters waiting at the bottom of the pit trap, then attacks them with what appeared to be a new spell that I think I would call Flying Fists. It would make a pair of fists appear in the air and both attack for the caster, per turn, allowing the caster to continue to do other activities. I would probably make this a 4th level spell.

Despite how powerful Monako is (he must be at least 8th level?), when a steel cage drops over him, he appears to be powerless.

Monako and Josie's brother are put in a deathtrap where they are strapped to a table and a razor-shape axe swings lower towards them.  Monako, who has apparently been biding his time all this time -- despite the fact he just watched Josie's brother getting whipped -- now casts another new spell to get them out of the deathtrap.  The spell appears to be Speak with Weapons -- the caster can talk to the weapon and convince it to serve him, and empowers the weapon to float through the air and attack or cut things on its own. This has got to be a 5th level spell.

I've seen stories before where the villain has a back-up hideout, but this is the first story where the a hideout is on a tugboat. I guess it's more of a "hide in plain sight" plan rather than a "get away at top speed" plan.

Muro sets up a very unusual deathtrap for Josie. She's tied to a chair with a keg of gasoline next to her and a lit fuse on the keg. Okay, that part makes sense...but it's a two-hour fuse. Is Muro that unsure about going through with this? And the fuse doesn't even look that long -- how on Earth does it take a whole two hours to burn?

At her brother's lab, Monako casts a series of protective spells on the canister holding the secret explosive powder. One is a Magic Mouth spell that makes the canister appear to speak. Two is an odd one -- it seems to be Heat Metal, making the canister too hot to hold, but that seems like an awfully dangerous thing to do to a canister holding an explosive powder in it. So...the heat must be illusory heat? A low-level illusion spell like Phantasmal Image can't do that...maybe a higher level one, though.  And then the third spell is a Phantasmal Image of Monako himself.

I don't have a lot to say about Phantom of the Underworld...except what a jerk he is. He takes the place of a doctor in order to infiltrate a mob looking to recruit the doctor -- all well and good -- but then he allows himself to get captured and lets the newspapers report that the doctor turned criminal, ruining the man's reputation.

The "Phantom" -- though he's actually called "Doc" Denton all through the story -- has a solution he can give people that makes them temporarily blind. Then, after blinding the mobsters, he simply pretends to have a gun and gets them all to fail their morale saves.

Lastly, Barney Mullen, Sea Rover, has an unusual sea journey, starting in Lisbon and ending in Rotterdam to deliver some gold. At this time, The Netherlands were still neutral in the war. Barney has to deal with German cruisers that try and stop his steamship, French officials who try to con him out of his gold, and a mutinous crew (though, c'mon, guys; this is a "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it" situation...).

One of the cruisers is evaded thanks to thick fog, which should add a high modifier to evasion rolls.

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)

Jumbo Comics #11 - pt. 2

Well, that was a two week, unscheduled vacation from blogging!  Let's see where we left off...

Oh, that's right, in Jumbo Comics!  This is a page from Spencer Steel and, here, we see a car chase going on. I'm still in the early stages of formulating some car chase mechanics in my head which may or may not make it into the 2nd edition basic book, so it's worth saving this example of evasion during a chase. How do the hoodlums turn the corner so fast that Nora misses it? Is evasion a skill, or a chase-based mechanic that would have to be rolled for each turn?

It's also worth pointing out that Spencer and Nora marry before this story, making them the second married couple in comic books after Bart and Sally in Spy.

The driver has hard cover from the car. Because the car has not had time to get up to speed since turning around, there would be no penalty to hit for moving too fast. In a chase, there should always be a chance of a complication, like a crash. Though this is not a chase, as soon as the driver of a vehicle is incapacitated, the vehicle should move straight to crash complication.

The episodic nature of this installment leads me to think it was originally a UK comic strip, or was planned to be released that way.

The idea of placing a deadly gas inside glass vials, and then concealing the vials were they would be easily broken by accident, is a good trap.

Is Nora still a Supporting Cast Member? With her upgrade to married partner, I wonder if a player took over the SCM rather than roll up a new Hero. If Nora is still a SCM, then the Editor should not be using her to give away vital clues; that should fall to the players to find them.

For those not keeping track, Stuart Taylor was just the SCM in The Diary of Dr. Hayward, before being cast back in time and becoming a sort of "Yankee in King Arthur's Court"-type character, only in a generic fantasy version of medieval Europe. That's all the explanation you need to understand how Stuart has mini-grenades, or why he's the only character with a modern name.

Stuart doesn't feel so bold when it comes to five-to-one odds, but he also is Lawful enough not to murder them with a grenade just for doing their job.

The pit trap has the additional wrinkle of a stone slab sliding shut over the opening. Though it might be worse, depending on how thick the cover is, I would have that wreck as if a generator for superheroes trapped beneath it.

The pit trap is further complicated by apparently dropping them into an arena where a lion can be released to attack them. More portcullises block other exits from the arena, including one portcullis blocking a curiously small door.

100 xp for whoever can figure out the real life geographical analogues to this map. Chesterland sounds decidedly English, which would make the Island of Dono a substitute for Ireland. But none of that explains how Mongolia is right next to them.

That's actually not bad strategy -- enter the villains' hideout in disguise, slip them a fake map and plans, and watch them follow it into a trap.  Not bad, ZX-5!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Four Color #2: Don Winslow of the Navy

This special issue includes just about every page of the Don Winslow comic strip Dell had reprinted up to this point. Here's some things I missed discussing the first time round.

There needs to be limits to trophy items. A good rule of thumb would be to set a weight limit. For the basic book, nothing weighing more than 3 tons will be available. At 10,000 tons, a tramp steamer is going to be way out of bounds, not to mention the naval carrier.

Here we see what the international code flags are for distress. We also see how much easier you make it for your players when your villains aren't smart enough to board ships under fake names.

Centaur's paralyzing machine is different from a raygun in that it effects all targets with a radius instead of in a straight path. That would make this a mad science invention instead, categorically.

Sound-muffling hoods that can protect against sound-based machines could also be a trophy item.

I'm having some serious deja vu here, having shared this page way back when.

The reference to the "Cyclops" is explained here.

Not sure why Dr. Centaur keeps a handkerchief soaked in cobalt salts, but apparently cobalt salt is a good ingredient for invisible ink.

When a villain endangers innocents in order to escape, the Heroes have to save vs. plot to pursue the villain instead of saving the innocents.

I'm skeptical that you could turn a ship at just the right angle to make a smokescreen, but smokescreens are another classic villain strategy. When I get to the evasion rules, I'll have to make mention of smokescreens.

Centaur's lair is this ring-shaped island, but like every island it has a door. This is a big one, though, a concealed drawbridge made to look like part of the wall. It could be a clue to the scale of the hideout on the other side, or just a trick to make it look more impressive than it is inside.

The entrance to the hideout is trapped, there's a dynamite charge here that will create a landslide. On the next page it sends tons of rock crashing down. That's a lot of potential damage.

A school of sharks is the proper term. This school seems to have five sharks, which isn't a lot, but it's probably the most sharks I've seen in one panel yet.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Amazing Mystery Funnies v. 2 #11 - pt. 1

Well, this story jumps right into the action, doesn't it?  The "electro-robot" (introduced months before Timely's robot Electro) looks to be about 10' tall, making it a huge robot. The narrator claims it has electrified hands, but that makes it odd that it needs the dynamo to attack The Fantom with, then.

That the spear crumbles on contact suggests that the robot is so electrified that ordinary (non-trophy) weapons touching it will shatter.

That the "million volts of electricity crackle above The Fantom" suggests that it missed. Normally, an attack like a lightning bolt would get a saving throw for half damage, not a save to be missed.

When The Fantom says he "won't be able to hold this robot back forever," he means that he's grappling the robot and the robot may, with a lucky dice roll, the robot might eventually escape or even reverse the hold.

Which brings up the question, why doesn't The Fantom just wreck it? He's surely strong enough to. But, in this scenario, this robot doesn't belong to hoodlums; it's someone's legal property and he's trying to stop it without harming it. It certainly makes the scenario more challenging.

Now, why there's a chandelier in a science exhibit hall, is even more questionable...

This is how big the remote control device for a huge robot is.

Narrative voices can often be forgiven for exaggeration, but I wonder if there's more to this one about The Fantom striking with the force of a meteor. It's not likely because he fell 20' or so before hitting the robot, though that would have added to his damage, as indicated in previous posts. Now, he could also have buffed himself with Get Even Tougher, or a similar power, and that would be cumulative with his falling damage bonus. That would be enough to put some serious hurt in a robot!

The robot is using a bear hug, a maneuver possible in 2nd edition's grappling system.

Finally, when all else fails, The Fantom wrecks the robot --- though he seems to have a hard time of it! Unlucky dice rolls? Maybe this robot was hardier than usual?

This is Daredevil Barry Finn, and this is a very combustible car!  Usually, when a crash happens, the Heroes inside only have a small chance of being killed. If there's a chance of complications after a crash, full immolation must be a small percentage chance.

The boys of The Inner Circle have a sound tactic here -- arrange a meeting with the enemy, then have someone else follow the enemy back to their hideout to find out where it is. Just be wary of successful evasion checks!

Here's more good tactics. If you can't find a secret or concealed door, but you know there must be one about -- keep searching! Even come back the next day.

If you don't want to go through the trapdoor at the end of an underground passage to find out where it goes, mark how long it is and then go try to find on a map where that passage would come out at. Warning: in higher level hideouts, expect magical teleport traps and the like!

The giant snake with the whale tail is not the bogvetch in this picture, which is a shame because that seems like an appropriately cool name for this creature. It likes to coil around trees and can use its tail smack to paralyze foes.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Wonderworld Comics #5 - pt. 2

This is Patty O'Day. You missed the page before this, because I didn't share it, but mobsters shot at Patty and Ham's boat with a machine gun, and our Heroes were lucky enough to escape with only damage to their boat.

I've been thinking about what to do about damage to vehicles. My first thought was to give vehicles hit points, but now I'm not so sure about that. More so than with Heroes, vehicles are often stopped by complications -- like leaking, in this case -- long before they are destroyed.

What about...competing saves vs. plot? In a chase, the chasee could make a save vs. plot to try to trigger a complication, which the chaser would be able to fix or compensate for with a save vs. plot of his own.

We've already seen that Ham is no ordinary supporting cast; here he takes on a shark single-handed with a knife and seems to easily win. Though, we don't actually know that he killed the shark; maybe he it missed a morale save as soon as it was lightly injured.

I skipped a page again, but the missing information you don't have is that Patty and Ham were captured and thrown into the "lower dungeon". They have more than one?  The lower dungeon floods when the tide comes in. We've seen that trap before, but this one has a trapdoor above the dungeon they can reach pretty easily.

Since Ham and his opponents are all unarmed, they each get two attacks per turn -- which is one explanation for how Ham could punch both of them. He also gets two shots with the gun, but if it's an automatic he would get those as early as first level.

Patty, rather cleverly, turns the rickety pier into a trap. Under some circumstances, I would treat this as a skill check, but there's little other than physics at work here and all Patty did was leave a rope attached. I would probably make this automatically succeed, especially as a reward for smart playing.

A personal letter of thanks from the President is its own rewards -- but this one might come with some bonus XP too, as if it was a trophy item.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fung Master Sleuth of the Orient, and his companion Dan Barrister, are getting into trouble in Africa. Here they encounter ape-men, making this the third time I've seen ape-men in comic books so far this project. They don't seem to be particularly strong, but they can manage the "blow to the back of the head" cliche.

Note that Dr. Fung appears not to have put up a fight at all. I wonder if he's even a Hero, or just Dan's supporting cast, despite the title of this feature.

I have no intention of having cold water revive unconscious Heroes. Rather, Dan was just stunned for a number of turns that coincidentally ended when they hit the water.

Ape-Men, or at least their leaders, speak excellent English.

A lot of grappling goes on here. Grappling does damage -- sometimes considerable damage in 2nd edition -- so it's possible that the ape-man chief is just down to his last few hit points when that knockout punch comes. Or, there needs to be a percent chance of a stun per fist blow, which is something I've toyed with.

Losing a leader is definitely good cause for a morale save.

I can't tell what that animal next to the Sheena-like character is supposed to be. Some kind of dog...?

This is K-51 Spies at War.The King is named King "Arnold" in this story, but I can't help but wonder if he is meant to represent King George VI of Great Britain.

K-51 senses danger because the mobsters missed their surprise roll.

The terms "thug" and "assassin" seem to be used interchangeably here, unless one of them is a thug and the other the assassin.

K-51 seems content to let his supporting cast mow the mobsters down with sub-machine guns. No XP for you, K-51!

Mob Buster Robinson is the man running around in the swimsuit, and I call shenanigans here. One panel, mobsters are shooting at him from maybe ...20' behind him? After that, Robinson seems to somehow lose them and has time to search this yacht for hidden loot. This seems to suggest an awfully generous evasion mechanic, that the mobsters can't keep up with him and lose him so easily. I mean, how big a yacht can it be?

I'm amused by the TNT box that says "use no hooks". Maybe that's a real thing, but what I picture is fishermen, trying to keep their hooks away from TNT boxes...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Adventure Comics #34

Fang Gow purchases a mind control drug in this installment of Barry O'Neill. The drug has to be injected (at least in this form). Worth discussing here is the nature of mind control and what it can and cannot force someone to do. Characters in stories with their minds controlled, even supporting cast, often shake off the effects at the last moment for maximum dramatic effect. In this case, it is notable that Inspector Le Grand is not able to shake off the effect. Evidence of saving throws?

In Tom Brent, the First Mate gets shot when Tom dodges a bullet -- proof both of the save vs. missiles rule, and the dangers of shooting into a melee. The story also involves a shipboard mutiny...Hideouts & Hoodlums briefly touches on Loyalty as a game mechanic, but it is basically just treated as Morale under another name. Loyalty might need to be expanded on in 2nd edition, particularly in terms of how it could cause mutinies among supporting cast members.

Steve Carson of Federal Men goes on a car chase. I've talked before about using hit points and combat for ending car chases, but there needs to be a competing mechanic of evasion at work too. Can Steve make an evasion roll before his opponents shoot up his car? I don't want evasion to just be a single roll, though, because that's boring. Maybe evasion should work in degrees, so the first successful roll moves you from short range to medium, the next roll could move you from medium to long range - or back to short range if you bungle the roll. It needs more thought.

Dale Daring and her boyfriend encounter a trap that consists of a pit/crevice. The unusual thing here is that the pit is not covered or concealed in any way, but the Heroes may fall into the pit because the uneven floor around it is not safe to walk on.

Tod Hunter faces cannibals. I had once considered treating cannibals as its own mobster type, but decided to lump them under Natives instead. There is also an 8' gorilla in this story. In the normal/large/huge/giant categories for animal-mobsters, would an 8' gorilla be large or huge? I would think it would fall somewhere in between, but would probably side conservatively with making it a "large ape", so that "giant ape" could still be something more King Kong-sized.  Also, we know from this story that apes should get a crushing hug attack and a bite attack.

In The Gold Dragon -- we finally see the gold dragon. It's been a long set-up for this (this is the 29th episode), so much so that this is not our first dragon in comics at this point, or even our second. It is the first dragon to fit the dragon types found in H&H, though the gold dragon has, luckily, always been found in the game since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Anchors Aweigh reminded me of several issues this month. One is keeping track of ammo -- because being on your last bullet should be a suspenseful moment for every Fighter relying on guns. Two is fatigue from running. H&H has a fatigue rule that is more combat-oriented; it needs to apply to running as well. Three is when Marshall's last shot fails to frighten off the natives because of their large numbers -- morale needs to be modified so that number encountered affects morale saves.

(Summaries from DC Wikia)

Funny Picture Stories #7

This page illustrates a) Centaur's horrible racism, b) the importance of evasion when encounters prove too dangerous (see "Avoiding Mobsters" in Book III: the Underworld & Metropolis Adventures), and c) the danger of encountering more than one wandering encounter at a time if an encounter runs long enough.

Also illustrating Centaur's lack of originality at this time, the guy running away was dressed just like Goofy on the first page of this story.

Space adventures are good for fantastic settings, like cloud cities.

Also remember to rename everything with "space" in it, so telescopes become "space-o-scopes".

The valkyrmen are the inhabitants from that floating city. They seem a pretty barbaric lot (so it seems odd that they have a floating city) and fight with spears, but they can fly, they're fast (Mv 120?), and probably 1+1 HD.

Plot hooks don't have to be complicated. They can be as simple as waiting on your sloop for a guy to stroll up and ask you to sail him to an island with an old pirate fortress on it.

When your plot hook comes from some guy named Brute Bransom, though, you've got to be a little more cautious.

Rocky may be willing to fight using biting and gouging, but I don't recommend it for Hideouts & Hoodlums. Let's try to keep things a bit more above the board there, Rocky!

Grappling and pinning an opponent, so you can wail on them with your fists and get the bonus for attacking prone targets is also awfully un-heroic. I might ask a player to save vs. plot before allowing that kind of attack, unless it was a really dangerous situation or the stakes were really high.

It makes sense that mobsters would take advantage of the layout of the hideout and could lure Heroes into position over trapdoors. If I was the player, though, I would balk about how the scene started with my Hero outside the castle, so why is there a trigger for a pit trap outside the castle?

A good cutaway shot of a pit trap, with one wall extending only partway underwater, separating the pit from a natural cavern. The natural columns are a nice touch.

The placement of the treasure seems a bit of a giveaway, though.

Mighty suspicious wall protrusion at that dead end. Show it to your players and see if they trust to touch it!

And lastly I include this page because Lance Darrow is so concerned about U.S. neutrality in the Spanish Civil War. Isolationism was a big deal for the U.S. in the 1930s, but it's a starkly different tact than I took for Superman in my fanfiction.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)