Tip Top Comics #23, 24, 26

Jim Hardy is really taking over Tip Top Comics around this time, as other features like Peter Pat get wrapped up. Further down this page you'll see one page where Jim Hardy is intentionally dressed like Dick Tracy -- and suddenly the inspiration for this strip is crystal clear, even why he picks up a Junior-like sidekick in this storyline. And it turns out that Dick Moores was once Chester Gould's assistant on Dick Tracy, confirming my guess.

This is from vol. 2, no. 11 (Mar. 1938)...

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Game notes: There are three ways that someone can be killed by hitting them with a vehicle in Hideouts & Hoodlums.  One, the Editor can simply change the mood
level of the campaign to be more lethal (this was discussed

more in 1st edition). Two, the Editor can rule that non-Heroes, or at least unnamed non-Hero characters, can be killed instantly. Three, the Editor could rule that hitting the victim knocks him unconscious, and then running him over is a separate attack that does additional, killing damage.

It seems unlikely that The Kid (I don't think he has a name yet) is tactically inclined enough to transfer damage into pushing attacks to try and knock the hoodlums off the train. There may be environmental factors in play, like the pitching and swaying of the train, that make the Editor declare that any damage necessitates a save vs. science or be thrown from the train, making combat as challenging for Jim as it is for the hoodlums.

In Little Mary Mixup, we see rabbits can be bought for $1 each. I'm not sure what good rabbits will do for the average Hero, though maybe a magic-user would like one for pulling out of his hat?

There are some tips here for keeping the challenge level not too high for solo play and low-level Heroes: keep hit points low on bad guys, even if they have more than 1 Hit Die. Be prepared to give away modifiers you would not normally give out, like maybe an Armor Class bonus for swinging on a rope while being attacked with missile weapons.

If running a game for half-pint Heroes, you could cut them some slack on skill checks like balancing on a beam, since that should be easy for them given their small size and low center of balance. But still reward them for coming up with grownup ideas, like juryrigging grappling hooks out of rocks.

How It Began proves useful filler again. I don't know where it got this idea about a charming dragon with emerald eyes from, but now I want to stat an emerald dragon for H&H really bad!

We come back around to Jim Hardy again in v. 2, no. 12 (Apr. 1938). The issue here is, would a steel door stop an explosion that can blow up an entire wooden building? It's almost an academic question, because it's not necessary that the steel door works; all we know is that the hoodlums think it will work. I don't think it would...

Now we're in vol. 3, no. 2 (June 1938) already, and this is that page I mentioned with the Dick Tracy outfit on Jim. We also learn here that a bouquet of roses cost $3.50.

Checking in on The Captain and the Kids again, I'm struck by the unusual situation of the mount turning around and biting its rider. I doubt that happens often, but it's worth bearing in mind that when trying out a new mount, the Editor should always make an encounter reaction roll for it to see how it reacts.

Curiously, the circus man says Blackie is going to get a two-bit (25-cent) ticket, but later he's sitting in the reserved seating where the seats cost $2.50. That's a really big range of pricing, like if I could go to the movies today and choose between $5 seating and $50 seating.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Champion Comics #4 - pt. 3

This is from Blazing Scarab and...what's this? An immortal league of assassins? How can this not be where the idea for Batman nemesis Ra's al-Ghul came from?

The immortal city of Baracs, full of immortal assassins, is just begging for a Hideouts & Hoodlums adventure module. Who's going to volunteer to write it for me?

I'm also curious about this condition where, if they lose their heart or their brain, they live on, but lost their "identity" (all levels in their class/es lost?), and become only half-visible.

Here's an interesting description of how the magic portal to Baracs works, and why humans (and human-like races, I suppose) are the only ones who can cross through the portal.

This is Jungleman, who has a ridiculously large army of animals working for him, but what really gets me is that crazy spelling of orangutan. Orang-outang? Did someone not have a dictionary handy, or was the spelling that non-standardized by 1940?

A rare instance of a Hero using a blowgun as a weapon. The implication seems to be that the dart is poisoned, but we're never actually told that. Maybe he's just trying to distract the chief?

I'm amused that Louise immediately thanks Jungleman, but look how hard those monkeys have to work to take down the pygmies! And without knives, no less!

The death toll of animals in this feature is pretty staggering. Tigers, snakes -- they all bite it trying to protect Jungleman.

"Monkey-like people" seems to stink of racism a bit. I hope the gibbon men in H&H don't have the same odor...

This is Revenge of the Zombies. We're treated to a pretty standard pit trap (nice that there's a ladder at the bottom!), and an adventuring party that wisely puts their best fighters in the lead, the light source in the second rank, and keep to their marching order.

Giant death head moths are now definitely going into the AH&H Mobster Manual. I guess under D? They'll probably have only 1 hit point, and can only drain 1 hp, but when encountered by dozens or a hundred at a time, would be quite deadly.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Amazing Man Comics #9 - pt. 1

I don't know if 2019 is going to be an amazing year or not, but it's going to start amazing -- with Amazing Man!

It's been a while since we last checked in on Amazing Man (almost a whole year ago!), so you might need to pop back for a refresher course on how AM stole a German bomber and what fiendish plans he had for it. Geez, AM, even in wartime you're supposed to keep civilian casualties to a minimum!

As John Aman steers closer towards Chaotic Evil, two German pilots steer an intercept course. But only two? If John is as close to Berlin as he thinks, surely a whole squadron of ships would have scrambled to intercept him by now. Biplanes might seem antiquated, but Germany's air force did not see advancements in fighter plane design until 1941.

Now, John likely has no more than 30 hit points max, so there was little chance of him walking away from that crash. The fall itself, though, can't have done worse than knock him unconscious. The greater threat is the fire damage from the burning wreckage, as any additional harm once unconscious means death. Really, John would have been better off bailing out of the plane and landing separately (game mechanics-wise).

This may be the first and last time we read of John being Asian instead of Caucasian. He's certainly drawn as if Caucasian.

Surprise! John was only stunned and recovers, but with just 1-6 hp he is quickly brought back down again. Interestingly, it is not weight of numbers that takes him down, but the last one to hit him (the first two do not fare well in combat with John).

It's unclear if the Great Question can really will someone to recuperate faster over a distance of hundreds of miles, or if he's just making that up to get John out of bed. His TV does appear to have allowed him to watch John's fight, but this "crystal ball" mentality associated with television was so hard for people to break away from that we still saw it in the 1960s with Star Trek.

When I added weaknesses to Heroes in 2nd edition, I made them race-based because that worked, up until this point, in comic book history. We've previously seen Shock Gibson temporarily lose his powers in what seems like a freak accident (stepping on an electric eel, no less), but Amazing Man is the first human superhero (aside from Popeye) to sport a weakness that will consistently affect him.

It should come as no shock that hetrocoryn is not a real thing. Hence, Bill Everett could have AM encounter it virtually anywhere.

Also note that, instead of being cut off immediately to his powers, John only gradually weakens over a number of melee turns. What that means, game mechanics-wise, is less clear. Perhaps he loses access to one random prepared power per turn, and then wrecking things last once the others are gone.

AM is brought down this time with grappling.

Enough time has passed for his weakness to go away, but we don't know how much time.

Nazis are not normally shown to be conscientious about who they shoot, which is refreshingly nice.

Amazingly, this issue was on newstands around the same time as Germany and the Soviet Union entered into the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement, but Everett couldn't have known about that specifically, months earlier, when he was creating this story.

And we'll wrap up today with just one page from the second feature in this issue, The King of the South Seas. The story isn't clear how Doris lost consciousness just from being in a river with fast current. Perhaps she bumped her head on a rock, though you know how women were always portrayed as chronic fainters back then.

It's unlikely that saving people from drowning is what King feels like he was missing his whole life.

Only thousands, King? Not even tens of thousands? Doris could convince him to go straight right now if she just explained inflation to him.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Speed Comics #5 - pt. 2

The pay-off: first superhero vs. dinosaurs adventure!

Right away, we've got a duck-billed dinosaur, some kind of hadrosaur, and...although it looks more like a fat sloth, I think that's supposed to be an ankylosaurus? And, ooo, that pterodactyl drawing looks so terrifying, I think I'll have to use it in the Mobster Manual!

Hmm, saber-tooth tigers coexisting with dinosaurs? Well, okay, it is a lost world, not a time travel adventure, so we can overlook it.

The huge boulder, at that size, must weigh over 1,000 lbs., which makes what he does with it next difficult to describe...

How much damage should the huge boulder do? A rock that heavy cannot be thrown with even the Extend Missile Range III power alone. But if it was combined with Raise Car, could damage be increased? It must be possible, if it can crush a saber-tooth tiger in one hit. But how much? Extend Missile Range III does 3d6 damage and is a third level power. If we stacked it with a first-level Raise power, that could up damage to 4d6, while the power Raise Elephant would then stack it up to 5d6. The rules, as I wrote them, don't specify any of this, but it seems like a simple extrapolation.

I'm not happy with the tiger getting killed.

Pterodactyls are nowhere near this big; it is a pteranodon instead. I'll have to include a note in its stats that it can lift up man-sized prey it catches in its claw attack.

Shock, stop murdering endangered animals! I'm starting to think grappling attacks need to be able to do lethal damage; not that I think necks can really twist like that.

Piloting a dead pteranodon can't be easy, maybe a skill check to maneuver it in the right direction, and then an attack roll to reach the sauropod with it.

This page seems all kinds of unlikely, but maybe appropriate for a campaign as light in tone as Shock's adventures are (minus the racism and rampant animal murdering).

So how do you handle taming a bucking dinosaur? I think it would be, for each successful expert skill check, you get a chance at a friendly encounter reaction roll. If the result is hostile, or the skill check fails, you have to save vs. science or be bucked off for 2-8 points of damage. Once you get a friendly reaction result, the dinosaur lets you ride it.

Cavemen! It's interesting that the cavemen are not so primitive that they can't learn English or build ladders.

To fill you in from the small gap, Shock has challenged the caveman witch doctor to a contest of powers, in exchange for their hostage. But what is the witch doctor? Hypnotism, we have established, is an expert skill in 2nd edition, but it works against one target, not four at once. A Sleep spell would work, which means the witch doctor is an actual Magic-User.

Raise Car should be powerful enough to uproot a tree. A generous Editor might allow wrecking things to do this too.

H&H doesn't have any fire-starting powers yet for Superheroes, but fire-starting is an advanced skill and, once started, he could make it spread quickly with the Control Fire power.

Again, evidence of a Raise power being stacked with an Extend Missile Range power.

And we'll just skip ahead real quick into our next feature, Crash, Cork, and the Baron. They are marooned in the colony of Ceylon, nowadays known as Sri Lanka. In typically racist fashion, the natives run around in loin clothes and use primitive spears.

But that's not why I'm showing this to you. I'm showing it to you for that crazy panel of Cork (I think that's Cork) grappling two opponents at once while still kicking a third. This keeps coming up because, to truly emulate these comic books, combat can't be limited to one attack per turn, but for fair game balance, it really has to have one attack per turn be the norm (there are already exceptions, but we don't have to get into those).

Or does it? I've long resisted adding critical hits for natural 20's into H&H...but what if a natural 20 gave you an extra attack? And you could keep getting attacks for every natural 20 you rolled? In theory, a string of lucky rolls could then account for every panel where we see stuff like this happening. Something to think about.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Marvel Mystery Comics #3 - pt. 1

The Human Torch is on a train bound for Texas, discussing "Lawson Bell" -- apparently what Orson Welles' name is in the Timely Universe. The Torch befriends Mr. Carson -- and he really makes a good encounter reaction roll, apparently. Remember, in his first appearance The Torch killed his creator, and in his second appearance he accidentally sets fires everywhere he goes. Now he just introduces himself as the Human Torch and Carson calls him a "world-famous character" and wants to shake his hand (of course, Carson is in munitions, so maybe death and destruction just appeal to him!).

No sooner than they've exchanged pleasantries, then the train is attacked by spaceships with forward-mounted electric rayguns! Martians are on board the ships and they want Carson's formula for trinitroluol, or super-trinitroluol as Carson calls it on the next page. Think about that...they have technology that allows them to fly between worlds and shoot electricity as weapons...and they need to come here to steal explosives. Oh, and Martians look just like humans. They seem to need help breathing our atmosphere, since they wear sealed bodysuits, but it doesn't seem to bother them too badly when their face plates get smashed. Their leader's name is Captain Ott.

The Torch was temporarily stunned in the train crash and is pinned by bent steel when he comes to. He seems a little addled in the head too, because he thinks if he flames on, it will take him longer to get free than if he lies there struggling. If I was really mean, I would add an effect like the Confusion spell to those initially recovering from temporary unconsciousness.

Once the Torch recovers, he uses the power Wreck at Range (which, in 1st ed., was treated as a race ability) -- and he uses it on a knife. Think about that...the Martians have electric rayguns on their ships...and still kill with knives. Melting the blade makes the weapon harmless...though I would think melting steel would actually be more harmful than the blade was.

It's less clear what power The Torch is using when he kicks a fireball into a Martian's face, or if he's even using a power at all. Since the Martian is still in melee range, maybe this is just unarmed combat with some flavor text added.

In a sequence of panels that make it very hard for me to take The Human Torch seriously, the Torch decides that the best way to remove a huge steel bar that's crushing Mr. Carson is to melt the steel bar. Somehow, that much heat doesn't kill Carson outright, but both Carson and the Torch think it's curious afterwards when Carson gets dizzy and then passes out and dies. Oops!  This is why Hideouts & Hoodlums can't have too strict restrictions on Heroes killing people.

The Martians tail the Torch later in a car with a long, pointy hood on it; the hood can be shot as a weapon.

The Torch's flame is doused by water in this story, but not by being buried in sand. This is one reason I only make android players take one vulnerability (that, and just to make the race playable at all levels).

Characters usually don't get hurt by jumping from moving vehicles, but Ritton (the traitor working with the Martians) is knocked unconscious after jumping from a moving train.

The last new power displayed by the Torch is Message -- the ability to communicate through the use of a power or, in this case, to make giant sky-writing out of flame.

In The Angel's story, he is summoned on a new adventure by a random scream in the night. Three cultists (a new mobster type in 2nd edition) are abducting a girl, but manage to get away after they hit the Angel with their car and temporarily stun him (reduced to zero hit points and made his save vs. plot).

When The Angel recovers, he's either delusional or using the Super-Senses power -- because he claims he can hear voodoo drums from the north before driving out of town along a highway to a remote road to get to the source of the drumming. The source is said to be an old mansion, but it looks more like a castle with a curtain wall and courtyard. The entrance to the courtyard is trapped -- at the pull of a lever, the ground drops away to reveal a pit at least 10' deep. The cover can be raised back over the pit.

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)

Pep Comics #1 - pt. 2

Jack Cole's first superhero, the Comet, shows little of the promise that would come to fruition later with his masterpiece, Plastic Man.  We're already off to some really shaky science here, plus a lot of brevet ranking on our brand new Hero.

Hydrogen is just about as light as matter can get. The closest thing that's "50 times lighter" than hydrogen is an electron.  So, Dickering is shooting electricity into his veins to get his powers -- which actually does sound at least a little more science-y than getting them from injecting gas.

Although we'll soon see the Comet flying, he's demonstrated leaping here because, well, that's what superheroes did this soon after Superman's debut. I'm estimating that yellow building in the background is at least 21 stories below him, which means he is using Leap II, which means he has two brevet ranks and is operating as an extraordinary man (level 3 Superhero) already.

His disintegrator eyebeams are flavor text for wrecking things, combined with the Wreck at Range power.

Hmm...glass is a poor conductor of electricity, so this seems to support my Comet theory further.

I told you that you'd see the Comet flying soon.

This outbreak of typhoid fever recalls the cholera epidemic of Chicago, 1885-1891.

Just like he created his eyebeams by combining the wrecking things mechanic with the Wreck at Range power, the Comet can manage this speed in flight by stacking two other powers together -- Fly (any version) with Race the Plane.  However, if it is unimportant to the scenario how the Hero gets from point A to point B, I usually hand-wave the requirement of burning off a power slot.

The guy at the door is a thug, perhaps the most common mobstertype in early comics!

I think we're getting some wacky science again with the smokescreen...but the game needs a new power for Smokescreen/Fog Cloud (a note for later and the Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes Handbook).

I would treat a roof as the robot category for wrecking.

Since The Comet is in melee range, he does not need to use Wreck at Range to wreck the gangster's gun, even though he appears to still be using a missile attack.

The Comet finds the list of names immediately, suggesting he used the power Find Evidence.

Wrecking an entire house would be the same as wrecking a truck (the thought being that so much of the house is combustible, it will burn itself down even if your initial attack doesn't obliterate it).

It could be possible to wreck even more effectively by voluntarily choosing a more difficult wrecking rank.

"Will my eye blasts utterly destroy the whole house?"

"If you want to make it burn down, it wrecks as a truck."

"No, I want to really scare those gangsters; I want to obliterate the house."

"You can do that, but it leaves all the glass behind, if you can wreck at battleship level."

It seems like the Comet was just walking down the street in costume, hoping to run into wandering encounters.

There is no real Tri-State Building that I can tell.

It looks like The Comet is not opposed to murdering.

I'm not sure how you would go about lining the inside of the walls with glass. Wouldn't that require a massive and highly visible reconstruction process?

The Comet is only stunned instead of unconscious (a 2nd edition option). 

I'm not crazy about Heroes being able to wreck bullets in mid-flight...but that could be flavor text to go along with a successful save vs. missiles?

A Superhero can't kill this easily. A high-level Magic-User could with a Death spell. A Superhero could knock them all unconscious with a Blast II spell, then kill them with a second Blast II spell.

Falling damage also doesn't kill, except in a deathtrap. Lifting someone up in the air and dropping them doesn't seem like it's complex enough to count as a deathtrap, and I don't think Heroes should be able to set up deathtraps.

This is Sergeant Boyle. Here's an example of a mobster failing a morale save, really badly.

If Boyle's title here reflects his level title as a Fighter, then he is level 3.

I'm not immediately comfortable with the same bullet being able to shoot two people...but if a gun allows Sgt.  Boyle to have two or more attacks per turn, do bullets expended necessarily have to line up with that? I already have an optional rule where the Editor can secretly roll a die to determine when a gun runs out of ammo, so no 1:1 deal is necessary.

Boyle finds the TNT exactly like a trophy item.

So this page makes me think...the trench is no more than hard cover for the officers, and that's AC 7.  Boyle and the others are hiding out there for what seems like hours. How is it so hard to hit someone with an AC of 7?  I'm not sure if hard cover should be more effective, or if that could be combat imbalancing, or if something else is going on here. It requires more thought.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Fantastic Comics #2 - pt. 3

This is Richard of Warwick, possibly intended to be the real-life Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, but here is called The Golden Knight. It's telling that the Muslim knights are taking him prisoner, treating him well, and still all he wants to do is kill them all.

Ironically, one of the reasons I made Hideouts & Hoodlums is because I wanted to get away from RPGs where the main goal is always to kill your adversaries. Oh well...

If Richard was a Mysteryman this would be easy -- spend a stunt, instant arrow split!  But The Golden Knight is obviously a fighter archetype, which means we are bound by the attack roll mechanic fighters have to follow.

Now, for hitting a bulls-eye, we could probably assign Armor Class values to the target based on the average probable chance of hitting the bulls-eye. Unfortunately, it's not easy finding an absolute average for that -- just too many variables. I've seen numbers for the probability of hitting a bulls-eye range everywhere from 1% to 36%. So let's go with the average of that and say 18.5%, and maybe we'll even round up to an even 20%.  The AC that has an equivalent value for level 1 fighters is AC 2. Let's assume that is at short range.

How to account for splitting the arrow, as opposed to the second arrow just bouncing off? Let's assume the difficulty is just 5% worse for that, and drop the target's AC to 1. If someone then came along after Richard and wanted to split his arrow, they would have to hit AC 0.

Oh, and that feast? All I see is a bowl of fruit, so I don't think it's the "feast" that Richard finds so splendorous...

Despite a fair amount of historical bigotry, I can't help but like this feature. A major part of that is this girl, Lady Elissa. By coincidence, Ehlissa is a major character in my own webcomic, and I once ran a 10-year D&D campaign in the Land of Ahlissa (South Province).

This first panel is a little confusing. The "one blow" that "felled" that man did not knock him unconscious, because he's still talking. Was he knocked prone by the blow (which means we need a knock down rule for H&H?)? Was the "blow" a grappling attack?

Later, it looks like Richard killed the two guards. Is he making a cruel joke about them being "quiet for a long, long time"? Are they dead? Remember, at the normal mood setting for H&H campaigns, it is almost impossible for a Hero to accidentally kill someone, so these guards are unconscious -- unless the mood of the scenario is set to very dark.

This is Yank Wilson, Super Spy Q-4. The spy was an unpopular Hero class in 1st edition H&H and is unlikely to return in 2nd edition.

Besides the unusually distinctive artwork (comics.org says it's by Jack Parr, but I wonder if he was only inking Fine or Eisner?), I like this page for the unusually specific planning of the bad guys. We know they need 50 spies to work the plan. We know they need 100 tons of super-explosive -- which is scary, because this is what exploding 100 tons of TNT looks like. We know they plan to use "misleading and subversive propaganda to shatter public morale," 56 years before Fox News. And it's interesting how Count Lustig Von Blackgard either slips up, or mistakenly thinks the U.S. has a secret police as his own country does.

Now, despite all that elaborate planning, Count Von Blackgard went and spelled "sabotage" backwards as the name of his dummy company. Now, I am torn about this because, while it makes the villain seem like an idiot if the players figure it out too quickly, it also seems like the sort of puzzle that players will likely be able to solve on their own, and little is more frustrating for players than puzzles they cannot figure out.

I'm curious what "devious legal channels" it took to rent the office next to Egatobas', but I can imagine they had to use some sort of subterfuge to get the previous tenants to leave quickly and quietly.

Hmm, drugging bad guys with narcotics? A very rare, but not unprecedented move for a Hero in the Golden Age. At least it's just a sleeping drug; I would have to draw the line and forbid Heroes from using lethal drugs.

At this point in the scenario, Yank has little to do but coordinate. As players, it would be more fun for the players to control squads of the G-Men attacking the saboteurs at the docks. Given their love of bombs, I wonder if it would make more sense to stat the saboteurs as anarchists, rather than spies. To date, I have not seen anything distinctive about saboteurs to build their own mobster type/archetype around.

Fletcher Hanks' Space Smith faces Martian ogres, which I'm guessing are like normal fantasy ogres, except their number of appearing can be over 100, and they have their own spaceships.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)