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.)
 

 

  

Colossus Comics #1 - pt. 2

This is still Lucky Lucifer (that's a good guy's name, in case you couldn't tell). Game mechanically, I wanted to point out a rare instance of an aviator not using the wing walk stunt and just holding on for dear life. Should the fact that he's injured lower his number of available stunts? 

Storywise, I just want to point out that Lucky takes a huge gamble ditching his plane to hop onto another plane because he believes -- correctly it seems -- that the anti-aircraft gunners would ignore the still active pilot and concentrate on the plane that was going to crash soon anyway.

"Lt Lucifer, your reconnaissance -- I'm sorry, I just have to ask, why am I calling you Lt. Lucifer? Lucifer is just your nickname, right? Your father's surname isn't really Lucifer. Your mother didn't really go, 'O, I love this man, I can't wait to change my last name to Lucifer"?

That said, I like both how complex and how simple this next scenario is. It's complex in that there's going to be a lot of moving parts moving around, but simple in that most of that is going to be background detail, as the focus of our Hero is going to be on this spy retrieval side-mission. 

Given the speeds involved, the target AC for "hitting" the spy's outreached arms must be pretty low, though she can also roll "to hit" Lucifer back. 

Now, I know I have no skin in this game, but if I was the one flying into enemy territory to pick up a spy, I wouldn't go in alone; I would want at least one more plane with me to run interference.

As I said, the scenario is simple because Lucifer's orders are basically to stay out of it. If he ignored orders (and you'd sort of expect that from someone named Lucifer), he could fly into the battle and then you'd have to play it out, but if it's just going on around him, you can treat it as flavor text and describe a pre-decided outcome. 

When one plane separates to attack Lucifer's plane, that isn't necessarily bringing him into the big battle and can be treated as a separate battle/one-on-one dog fight.

Ugh...I can tell this one's going to hurt to read. It looks like some 4th grader's attempt to draw a L'il Abner clone. Although it might be hard to imagine drawing inspiration from this...I wonder if hillbillies, as a mobstertype, should have a bonus to "rasslin'."

Normally I would not apply the wrecking things rules to missile weapons used against you, but sometimes it could be fun flavor text. It could also be of practice use, like if arrows were being fired at you, to find out if the arrows broke or are retrievable (because arrows are a lot more likely to break than boulders).

Aside from that, I think I'll just mention that it's pretty weak storytelling, that the only spooky thing these guys pretending to be ghosts do is talk through a bush. I can't even count them as fake undead!

Jumping in here to the next story, Mory Marine.  Thumbscrews are a real thing, and could be as small as what is sorta drawn here, but they are archaic by 1940, being more of a 17th-18th century device. 

It is more likely that Mory (what kind of name is Mory?) blew his escape artist skill check than the mobsters have past experience as sailors. Mobsters don't generally have individualized skills. 

Finding a blood trail could be a searching check, and following a trail could be a tracking skill check, but an Editor should not require both unless the blood trail is very faint.

The bottom keeps dropping out on this artwork! Ugh...it looks like someone is dropping crumpled up balls of paper at our Heroes, here in "The Gold of Gartok." 

But behind that atrocious art is a pretty good idea to explain superheroes. Tulpas are real things too, or I should say real world theory. "Tulpa" is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers. It was adapted by 20th-century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa which means "emanation" or "manifestation." It can do anything the person who wills the tulpa into being is able to believe the tulpa can do, but only while concentrating and, as we learn here, if that concentration is disrupted, it takes an hour to create a new one.

A ledge saved our "white hero," but he's quickly captured and dropped into this snake pit. Interestingly, the snake pit only has four snakes in it, as if to give Rob a really sporting chance. 

Chanti and Charmi are Indian names -- but girls' names -- Genghis is a Mongolian title and not a name (but maybe a nickname?), and Bhutra is an Indian surname. Maybe Chanti and Charmi are nicknames too, like calling someone a Nancy or a Karen. 

It's interesting that the tulpa's explanation for what happened to him is patently untrue. Does a tulpa have to believe in itself to exist? Or it simply doesn't want Rob to know it can disappear on him again if the lama smells something else good? 

I may be having a deja vu moment, but, amazingly, I don't think this is the first time we've seen someone picking up snakes and throwing them as missile weapons in a comic book story.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Detective Comics #37 - pt. 3

Speed Saunders starts out in odd territory; Speed has been busted down to a beat cop in the suburbs since we last saw him, after being framed as a drunk. This is extra odd because Speed was never a police officer before! He also has a new friend, Patsy Ross. Speed has sunk so low that he doesn't see a way out of this without Patsy's encouragement, becoming his partner as he takes down enough mobsters to get his old job back. It's a really big departure for the feature, practically a reboot. 

You can do that with your Hideouts & Hoodlums heroes too, if everyone agrees. You also have to agree if you want to restart from zero experience points or from some point higher. 

Steve Malone, District Attorney gets involved when a woman is kidnapped for $50,000 ransom. The kidnappers aren't very experienced at this; they write out the random letter by hand. One of the kidnappers uses the phrase "No dope" to mean, "no kidding." 

There is a huge plot hole in the story where Steve plans to find the kidnappers by searching the woods he thinks they might be hiding by plane at night, and parachutes down by the first light he sees in that area. It turns out to be the kidnappers' hideout on the first try, but there is no reason why that should be the case; there could be any number of people with cabins in the woods, and they would naturally have their lights on if it's night.

This story turns really dark; not only do the kidnappers plan to kill the woman once they get the money, but it seems like one of them plans to rape her first before Steve shows up. I've never seen that in a golden age story before, and I don't like it.

Steve conveniently lost his gun when he landed (Oh, I haven't even brought up how low his chances of landing safely in the woods at night should have been!), but that's okay because these are low-hit die hoodlums and guns aren't that effective in their hands. Oops, Steve almost loses anyway, and the kidnapped young lady has to save him by setting the building on fire (it distracts the hoodlums, naturally!). 

Cliff Crosby is a reporter who gets a scoop over the phone - a moll/vamp wants to rat out her partner for the kidnapping of a judge (lots of these anthologies would have theme issues where the stories are all similar). The moll jabs paper into the phone to keep the connection open -- because phones used to work like that. Cliff, instead of being worried for her safety when he hears her partner confront her, brags about what a scoop this is going to be for him. Smooth, Cliff...

Cliff hears the mobsters threaten his moll on the phone, and he's still just threatening her when he shows up after...driving across town? Finding a parking space in the city? 

The mobsters are slavers! Cliff tricks them by saying he needs to call his friend at the office and tell him there was no story here (makes sense), but then they don't notice him tapping out Morse code (harder to believe). 

We know the slave ship is off the Florida coast, but never get a clue where the story started. On board the slave ship, a slaver tries to whip Cliff, and he grabs the whip. I would allow that with a successful attack roll, but the weapon automatically does damage to the grabber. After escaping Cliff throws a knife at a slaver hard enough that his hand is pinned to a metal wall. Had it been a wooden wall, I could see this happening after rolling to attack both the slaver and the wall, or rolling a certain number over what he needs to hit the slaver, but to pierce a metal wall is going to require a wrecking things roll as well.

Amongst the slavers are thugs. The thugs are better armed, with handguns and rifles. One man on the ship has a machine gun, but it's not clear if he's a slaver or a thug.

This issue continues to be really dark. When the Coast Guard shows up, most of the slaves on the ship are dumped overboard, while still chained, and apparently drown. The gangster heading the slavers captured the Coast Guard when he recovers the machine gun, Cliff is taken prisoner, and thrown overboard to a waiting "giant" octopus (maybe a large octopus?). Because Cliff still has a knife on him, he's able to kill the octopus. In a really weird moment, Cliff puts the dead octopus on his head as a disguise so he can sneak on board the ship (warning: this is a racist moment; he scares the "colored lad" with his disguise). 

In the Slam Bradley story, Slam inherits a racehorse, and every cliche about horse racing stories ensues. I'm not going to take the time to cataloging them. The Slam stories have been so lame since Joe Shuster left that I can barely stand to read them.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)