Amazing Man Comics #11 - part 1

Now that I'm finally publishing Amazing Man (see Funny Picture Stories #7 - on sale now!), covering this story might not only seem biased, but posting pages seems like it might hurt future sales - but oh well!

There are some big changes this issue, starting with how Aman seems to have dropped his first name, John. Gone also is the interesting struggle in John Aman between hero and antihero; the Council of Seven has decided these stories need to be a lot more straightforward from now on. 

Aman is "purified" by fire, but what this would mean game mechanically isn't clear. Is it simply a magical effect of Alignment correction? Is Aman taking damage from the fire? Given that his initial tests involved stabbing him with knives, I'm guessing he's taking damage. Aman is a really good sport about this, as I'm guessing they would not allow him to buff himself with the Resist Fire power. 

We begin to get some explanation here about why Aman is being dressed up like John Carter of Mars. Having an indestructible costume would normally be some comfort, but maybe Aman is secretly wishing it covered up enough of him to offer more protection? For that matter, how much should an indesctruble costume protect him?  In the 2nd edition rulebook, I have indestructible costumes being statted as Armor Class 2 (and remember, lower is better). My description wisely does not describe how much of the body needs to be covered by the costume, so maybe these straps and sternum hield are enough? Is what a costume looks like really no more than flavor text?

Has the purification ritual protected Aman from the Great Question's influence, or did Aman make his saving throw vs. charm?

It's just as well that Everett doesn't give us an exact number of days it takes to get from Tibet to Louisiana by plane. Even Google Maps can't tell me this today! What I can't figure out, which is probably more important, is where Aman was heading before he wound up near Louisiana. It certainly isn't on the way to Chicago or New York City from Tibet. Maybe he was planning on vacationing in Florida before fighting evil?

As far as I can tell, the "lost" in the "lost bayous of Louisiana" means that they have disappeared due to landscaping the terrain, as opposed to unmapped "lost world"-type areas. Still, this first interpretation is definitely more interesting and lends itself to adventure fiction.

This page attempts to explain away Amazing Man's John Carter rip-off togs as a "Tibetan uniform." Could this be the Great Question's final laugh at Aman, convincing him that this was the latest in Tibetan fashion?

I appreciate that Amazing Man has the subtlety, that you don't see often in superheroes, to climb a wall and oberve the bad guys unnoticed. Because he's climbing vines, I would probably still make the player roll a skill check, but at a large bonus. 

I like this hideout set-up, where the prison cells are behind a cell with three panthers in it (we'll see there are three of them on the next page). How Aman circumvents the panthers to get to the prisoner is great too, showcasing the versatility of this power. 

I've probably talked about this before, but I haven't posted in a long time and I can't remember. The issue is, how would Amazing Man have this power in H&H? Because Green Mist is not a 1st-level superhero power, or even a low-level one. It does bear some resemblance to the 1st-level magic-user spell, Poof! Could that be all it is - just an exception of allowing a Superhero to prepare a Magic-User spell as a power, and everything about it that isn't movement is flavor text?  

Three panthers is actually a pretty tough encounter in H&H, so it's disappointing that Aman takes them each out in one punch. It is more likely than them being knocked out that they have each failed their morale saves after taking damage and they choose to stop fighting. 

These bayou pirates have a lot of personality to them. We even get help with statting them. One is a brute (a variant of thug) and another is a slick hoodlum. Garlock, their leader, doesn't seem the master criminal type, but might be a mid-level fighter, since he can subdue panthers.

The brute gets upgraded on this page to pseudo-giant, a mobstertype that appears in the recently released Mobster Manual.  The throw is a very effective grappling move in the 2nd edition grappling rules - probably not enough on its own to take out a pseudo-giant, but Amazing Man may be buffed with one of the Get Tough powers to boost his damage. We also learn there are thugs present in the room (I see two of them, not counting Slick and Garlock).

Aman can be casual about what happens to the treasure because his Editor awards xp for treasure just for taking it out of the hideout. What happens to it after that doesn't matter if you don't have personal expenses!

But Aman is clearly gaming the system; there was no reason for him to kill those three alligators (he calls them crocodiles, but it makes sense that he did; he hasn't been in the U.S. more than six months). He obviously did it for the experience points!

What I like here is that Everett gives us almost a whole page of chemistry-building between Aman and Zona. Unlike Lois' attraction to Superman's animal magnetism, it looks like Zona is going to be attracted to how thoughtful Aman is (offering her his jacket for modesty) as much as for his rippling muscles. 

This next bit of research I had done back in November for the Public Domain Heroes Facebook group, but I'll reshare it here. 

I had long assumed that Amazing Man's companion, Zona Henderson, had a made-up first name, or it was a nickname (short for Arizona?). According to SSA.gov's baby names by years list - https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi - Zona was a real name, though a rare one, ranking 712th-820th most common baby name in the span of years I think she was most likely born.

And, of course, we get the familiar trope of televisions being able to function like crystal balls. 

Chuck Hardy has moved up to second feature (which, I understand, was not generally considered the second best position in a comic book; it went first, last, and then alternated in towards the center). 

Frog men last appeared in Fantastic Comics #3. They turn up like bad pennies!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Speed Comics #7 - pt. 2

We're back to Shock Gibson out West and the hoodlums he hid amongst last time, who have upped their game from hustling ranchers to attacking oil fields. This story has been a lot about escalation of threat level, whether it's targets or transportation (they've now also gone from riding horses to having planes). An Editor needs to up his game like this on the fly if he begins a scenario that turns out to be too much of a cakewalk for the Heroes. 

Though Shock is probably buffed here with the power Fire Resistance, I like how nothing else on this page requires his powers, and lifting and twisting that valve is probably something any Hero could have done. 

It is strange, though, that Shock let them start the fire and waited until the hoodlums were gone to put it out, rather than stop them here in the act. I'm hoping an explanation for that is forthcoming and it's not just a plot hole. 

Okay, I think it's clear at this point that Shock is just toying with the bad guys. There's really no reason to trick the leader after getting him alone in the plane instead of just taking him prisoner now. 

This is, though, the kind of playing I expected to see more in H&H and never have -- good guys vastly outclassing the bad guys, but then taking it easy and trying to make it fun. Players always seem to want to end things as quickly and efficiently as possible. I have wondered before if H&H needed a game mechanic that would encourage this better, like bad guys being worth more XP if you spend longer defeating them than you need to.

Given Shock's powers, you'd think he could have just wrecked the hangars on their own, but there's a poetic justice in using their own bombs against them. Speaking of which...I love that second panel and the fun sense of overkill. I suppose I would give those hoodlums a penalty to their morale saves in that situation. 

The next page is the last page that wraps things up. There's no big reveal of the head hoodlum ("Gasp -- you were Joe the Ranch Hand all along!" or something like that) and it's only implied that the hoodlums knew about the gold and that's why they wanted the land...though the oil would have been just as valuable, so...

Lastly, Shock stops by and gives the old prospector a strange admonishment (and I won't bother showing you the whole page just for it), to "remember the unemployed" when he's rich. The unemployment rate was at 17% and dropping by the end of 

1939, better than its peak in 1933, but still high enough that wealth distribution should be a serious issue for superheroes. 

Now we're in the middle of the next story, Crash, Cork, and the Baron, as they deliver explosives to Argentina. Why, and who hired them? Eh, these guys are Neutral and don't really care about that. Oddly, they flew west to get to Argentina, so...the scenario started in Uruguay? But what I wanted to discuss here was gauchos. Gaucho was a lifestyle, not an ethnicity, but since gauchos were cowboys and not bandits, it's not hard to read some racism into this. Were they ever extinct? No, but their numbers did severely dwindle by the end of the 19th century. 

But this page also gives us more questions. Is Cork not dead after the bolo wraps around his neck (yes, game mechanics-wise, he's likely only unconscious at best, but realistically...)? Is Crash really such a bad pilot that he can't outmanuever an inexperienced pilot (very bad dice rolls, I suppose)? Who is

saying "The blitherin' idiot!"? Did the gauchos change Cork's jacket from a brown one to a green one?

It seems like Crash is using the Out of the Sun stunt from the old aviator's class here, and even though the old version of stunts is gone from 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, there's no reason why we couldn't keep the concept as a combat modifier, -2 to be hit from below, just like how Crash should be at +1 to hit for attacking from above.

I'm pretty sure this is what only doing 1 point of damage with a bolo looks like. 

We also get one of those rare examples of a hero's gun running out of bullets. While seemingly unlimited bullets is a common trope in fiction, I love it when the heroes can't rely on guns and have to think up another solution instead.  I'm sure they'll put their heads together and come up with some nonviolent solution and...

...oh. A couple o' loads o' dynamite. Well, that escalated quickly.

I have serious reservations about this. I would need the Mythbusters team back together to resolve if you could detonate an explosion big enough to create a colossal wave. I suspect the waves would just make the water choppy, but not enough to capsize the boat. And I have to wonder if it wouldn't have just been better to let the bad guy get away than to destroy an entire coastline.

In-game, I suppose you have to look at these ideas in terms of what will make the story more exciting for the players. Maybe your players like blowing up cliffs. My players probably would have just thrown the dynamite at the boat...

We'll just glance ahead at the third story in the book, this feature being Ted Parrish, the Man of 1,000 Faces. Here, we learn that if you have a steel-lined cap, it protects you from head blows. We also see a clever trick, disguising yourself as one of the bad guys and escaping with them to see where their lair is -- but then Ted goes the easy route and leaves a note on the door for the police. Boo, Ted! What kind of action hero does that (you'd think his player doesn't want XP or something!)?

Also note one of my pet peeves about golden age comics -- colorists who just don't care and get wrong obvious things, like the constantly changing suit jackets. 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

  
 

 

Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 1

This is my first time ever looking at this issue. I know none of these characters become hits, but I'm hoping for a gem in the rough...

This is Diamond Jack, the Green Lantern before there was Green Lantern. He's got an interesting amount of hubris to him for what should be a 1st-level Magic-User. Of course he's not; the Magic-Users never are. Here he casts Protection from Missiles and Polymorph Any Object, neither of which are 1st-level spells.

I was long ago asked why Hideouts & Hoodlums bothers emulating D&D's low-level Magic-Users at all, if you never find them in comic books; but this is precisely why comic book Magic-Users are always so boring, so unbeatably overpowerful. I choose not to emulate that.

A gangster chief is a master criminal, while thugs are their own mobstertype. 

Magic-Users never seem interested in keeping secret identities, or keeping their magic a secret. It's a wonder that the existence of magic stayed secret as long as it did. 

I think this is the third time we've seen Cure Light Wounds being cast. 

Here's where things start to get interesting for me. The mobsters just happen to know a witch? And what to make of this smoke dragon? Is it a spell, like an Aerial Servant? Or is it a conjured, living (or "living"/enchanted) creature?

That the smoking dragon disappears as if dispelled instead of killed makes me lean towards treating it as a new spell. Speaking of which, this Create Sword spell may be a new spell too. What he does to the spell is the all-too familiar Polymorph Any Object spell.

On this page the dragon is now consistently called a demon and is treated as if it is a mobster instead of a spell. You would think the witch would know which it was...but I'm thinking consistency isn't the priority in this story.

It's possible that Jack was able to use the Disguise spell here, but only if the smoke dragon-demon is in humanoid form here. Otherwise he had to conceal himself with a higher-level illusion, or even a Polymorph Self spell. 

The witch's spellbook is her "wand," just as Jack's ring is his "wand." 

This suggests that Polymorph Any Object is a permanent spell, or this is a higher-level permanent version.

It's interesting how Jack uses no magic to disguise himself as one of the thugs, but still can't help himself and uses a Knock spell on the door.

If jack opens the safe for them, has he really caught them in the act of doing anything...?

I wonder if magic-users should get extra XP for when they defeat opponents without spells, given how many times I've seen powerful heroes choose to settle things with normal fisticuffs instead.

Tom Sharp would itself be a pretty decent name for a strip. 

This is not the first time I've seen fighters given experience in the Spanish Civil War. I wonder if this is how you explain brevet ranks for fighters, circa 1940? 

The Lafayette Flying Corps was the name given to the American volunteer pilots who flew in the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) during World War I. I don't think its name was changed to the French Flying Corps during WWII.

Sermia sounds like Serbia. It's an unfortunate bit of naming, since Serbia was a victim during the war, invaded and occupied, with many deaths.

This is not the first radio-controlled plane we've seen, and it's far from the first ray gun that kills engines we've seen -- surprisingly, this is the first searchlight mounted on a plane we've ever seen. Apparently it's a rare feature, but then so is night flying...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #11 - pt. 4

This will be our last visit with this particular issue, and we'll kick it off with about page of "Spark" Stevens.

Although this looks like a tough fight, the gobs should be approaching 4th level by now, these spies are likely 1 or 2 HD, and the guy with the gun has as good a chance of hitting his allies as the gobs by firing into a melee.

And what does "gob" mean here? According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, "There are two theories on this one. This term first showed up in regard to sailors around 1909 and may have come from the word gobble. Reportedly, some people thought that sailors gobbled their food. The term also may come from the word gob, which means to spit, something sailors also reportedly do often."

As for "photostat files," The Photostat machine, or Photostat, was an early projection photocopier invented in 1907.

I was really expecting a better trap when that spy reaches out for the secret pedal than -- a bed coming down and smacking them in the head. Now, while I can't imagine this doing more than 1-6 points of damage (in fact, I would probably treat it as an improvised weapon that does 1-3 damage), it's possible that our gobs were just so low on hp after that fistfight that this was enough to knock them both out. Or, as a surprise attack, maybe this is considered a head blow, which comes with a chance of knockout in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums.

This is the first death-by-normal-sized-spiders deathtrap I've ever seen in a comic book -- and I have to say, it looks plenty unsettling and would surely spook a lot of players! Of course, one ordinary spider isn't going to have enough venom to cause much harm to anyone, but this is a thousand of them, so I would treat a spider swarm as a mobster with a collective Hit Die total and a save or die situation if the swarm starts all biting you at once.

Fire is probably the surest way to get rid of them; I also would have allowed the players to throw rocks at them or even pee on them to drive them off.

As the Editor, never forget about how fire causes smoke, and be liberal with assigning smoke inhalation damage if an encounter seems to be going too easy.

You're in for an unusually educational installment of K-51: Spies at War. It is, in fact, a little prescient -- the Nazis didn't manage to sink their third ship with U-boats until May 28, 1940. The world was shocked that Germany had managed to make new U-boats in secret after WWI, but they didn't have very many, not until capturing the French and Norwegian naval fleets. Now, what else this news ticker fails to get right is the number killed. 22 is purely wishful thinking; the actual death toll from the first two sank ships was over 1,200 deaths (they didn't bother going after small boats!).

Q-boats were real. Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. The British and the Germans used them in WWI, and then the U.S. started using them too in WWII.

Panic parties were a real thing, just as described here. I'm guessing depth bombs, or depth charges, really work like that too, though I've never actually seen a picture of one being launched before.

This is yet another example of a random complication from vehicular damage, this time the electrical systems shorting out.

The weirdest thing about this story is that K-51 does nothing at all the entire story, except swim away at the end so the captain doesn't get in serious trouble. Nice of him, yes, but he gets zero experience points for this "session."

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

All-American Comics #12 - pt. 2

In Popsicle Pete, the Typical American Boy, Pete and his pals go in search of a pot of gold and find, coincidentally, $10,000 in gold bullion hidden by mobsters in a hidden stewpot. That's good news for Pete, but an interesting challenge for Pete's Editor, who just gave away enough XP to level up four half-pint fighters between the ages of 3 and 10 (provided they are all classed, of course; Supporting Cast Members do not all have to have a class and are simply noncombatants if they don't).

In Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man, Gary and his sidekick Guppy are placed in a prison more villains should consider; a completely transparent one that his guards can constantly watch and hear him through. The weakness in this approach, of course, is the guards themselves, and Gary is able to convince one into switching sides with a lucky encounter reaction roll.

This feature has the unusual distinction of being the first time in comics history the term "bunghole" has been used in print. It's unclear if the term is being used in its original meaning, an aperture through which a cask can be filled or emptied, or its slang meaning. It does appears that Guppy is about to flip off his guards right afterwards, though.

A lot of downtime happens in the last few pages. During it, Tor's forces conquer one-quarter of the United States. Gary has been busy leading the effort to counterattack on two fronts: first, a wave of thousands of atomic-powered plastic stealth ships armed with anti-metal rays (they are not called plastic, but made of "synthetics") to take on Tor's air force directly, and then a series of intercontinental ballistic missiles filled with sleep-inducing foam to be aimed at Tor's home country. Next issue we'll find out if all that works. My question is, if they had the resources for all this, why was the initial defense of the country apparently limited to conventional anti-aircraft guns?

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Jungle Comics #3 - pt. 1

After my longest lull ever, I'm back! And so is Fiction House and the unrelenting racism of the jungle genre. Gird your loins, because we're wading deep into the racism today!

We'll jump right into the lead feature, Kaanga, in progress. I don't know why so many golden age comic book artists had trouble with drawing cats, but this black panther with a distinctly seal-like head tempts me to go back to work on the Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Mobster Manual so I can stat it! I guess it would be just a black panther that likes to swim a lot more, though.

Tree-based fighting is interesting because there's a chance each turn of falling out of the tree. Here, Kaanga and the seal-panther both miss their saves vs. science at the same time.

It's interesting how brutally murderous Kaanga was against black panthers, but how gentle and caring he is over leopards. Or maybe his player was just looking for a good deed XP award. Killing a defenseless leopard would have netted him no XP award.

An assegai is a real thing, a slender, iron-tipped, hardwood spear used chiefly by southern African peoples.

That's a big python! But is it a "huge" python -- in terms of needing additional Hit Dice -- or just a normal-sized python? The average length of a python is, I believe, about 9 feet. This one looks to be twice that long, making it a large python (remember our large/huge/giant categories from D&D!).   Pythons can reach 26' in length, though, meaning that even in the real world there are such things as large and huge pythons.

I'm preeetty sure that constrictor snakes do not bite and hold fast like that. Had it looped around him and squeezed, I do think Kaanga would be a goner now.

There's another issue, though, of how to handle striking something against a stationary object after grappling it. I wouldn't introduce a new mechanic for this, but just reverse how hitting something with a rock works -- simple attack roll and damage if you hit.

Kaanga ducking is just flavor text; The King's attack roll missed and Kaanga ducking is simply how the miss is explained by the player and/or Editor.

I'm not sure where Cheba came from. Is Cheba the leopard from earlier, or a third cat? Did the Editor decide that Cheba just happened to be walking by and tossed her into the encounter, to make it easier for Kaanga's player?

It's unclear what happens after panel 5. It seems the gun was knocked out of The King's hand when Cheba leaps on him -- and disarming guns is supposed to be a common occurrence in Hideouts & Hoodlums, to reflect pages like this. But how does he choose to pick up a rock instead of the gun? Was the gun damaged? Because there is no chance of that happening in the disarming mechanic as written. Does he accidentally pick up the rock instead? There is no game mechanic for random picking up stuff either.

Incidentally, in case you need the top hat explained to you, The King is able to take over a tribe of naive, superstitious natives because he comes from New York. So, that makes him smarter than an African.

The Red Panther feature is not any better. Okay, the artwork is better, I meant racism-wise. Here, we're supposed to side with the "innocent" miner wanting to take the land and its resources away from the natives living there because, you know, he's white (though having a hot blonde daughter probably helps his case too).

I don't have much to say about this page, except -- dig that elephant portrait on the wall. What is the backstory between the miner and that elephant that would make him put a photograph of the elephant on his wall, as if it was a beloved pet?

Did I mention I like the art? Comics.org's contributors think this is Arthur Peddy's work, and I really dig the layout of that first panel.

No, there was no African deity named Zagu. Most tribes, from what I've read, didn't worship deities so much as ancestors. Of course, this could be a cult, and an exception to that rule. Of course, maybe they are worshipping Tabu, so that this segues into the next feature...

Lastly, we're going to take a quick peek at the next story of Tabu , Wizard of the Jungle. Gee, I wonder why it's black panthers that are always the cats getting picked on (though at least this one is drawn well)? I'm also sparing you from the previous page where a black man is being tortured to death, supposedly not far away. Tagu doesn't hear those screams at all, but conveniently hears a white woman's screams.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Thrilling Comics #2 - pt. 3

Saving the Wayne Girl is worth 100 XP for the good deed. Capturing the Mask is worth $25,000 and almost guarantees a level up.

And yet...letting the villain slip away once he's underwater is a staple of the genre, so he would have had to make a save vs. plot to dive for the Mask.

Now we'll jump into Tom Niles, Undersea Raider. This strip is even harder to read, with smaller font and gray captions. I could read enough for this part to jump out at me, about Berlin being a seaport. That can't be right, can it? I thought. Apparently, Berlin is linked to the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the Rhine River by a network of rivers, lakes, and canals.

There are a lot of ways this encounter at the bottom could have gone without violence. I mean, don't be so jumpy, Tom! They probably just wanted to check your papers. But in fairness, the soldiers seem to jump the gun too for no reason. It's a good idea to always come up with an idea for your encounter and a motive for the mobsters to work for.

The ol' impersonate-an-officer trick backfires because the commanding officer makes his save vs. plot. The guards at the door fail their saves and fall for such an obvious bluff.

I'm not sure how you would use a bayonet to bend iron bars, but apparently it was easy enough for Tom that it happened off-panel.

I honestly don't know how difficult a zip line is to ride, and if it should be treated as a skill or not.

I wonder if there is really a single lever on a submarine that would let water in. That doesn't seem like good design to me.

I really wanted to share this page because the U-boat is the U-46, and that was the name of my school district!

Tom's strategy seems sound, but I'm not sure how those tactics would play out mechanically in Hideouts & Hoodlums. I'm not liking the idea of fast-moving opponents being able to move into range, attack, and move out without counter-attack, as it seems grossly unfair the way the combat system is set up now. I may have to come back to thinking about that, particularly later when we start looking at more speedster superheroes.

Mobsters can punch women without a save vs. plot!

Despite only being halfway ready for second level, Tom is already given a captaincy at the end, as a special reward for his mission. Special rewards and titles can be worth XP as well.














There's trouble at the hospital and the police are called in. Naturally, a policewoman is put on the case and...immediately dresses up like a vigilante? Does she not think being a policewoman would give her enough pull with the hospital to let her talk to the staff? Or is this some subtle social commentary, that as a woman she feels unsupported by the establishment and has to go outside the boundaries to do what needs doing?

She lucks onto that mobster way too easily in the hospital, like a really lucky wandering encounter roll, or maybe a set encounter.

The assassin is a good one, offing the mobster before he can get out any clue.

The Woman in Red also loses the fight quickly, as a 1st-level Hero most likely would.

Typical of the mysteryman convention, everyone who sees her thinks she's one of the bad guys. You'd think she would just give up and show them her badge...

There's no such thing as an automatic hit in H&H, even when you're firing with a gun and your target is standing less than 10' away from you.

Implied in panel 3 is that the Woman in Red killed those mobsters, or else she could have questioned them when they woke up.

The caption in panel 5 tells us that the assassin we saw earlier is also classed as a mysteryman. Probably at least 2nd level, since he worked over WiR so quickly.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)