Amazing Man Comics #10 - pt. 3

Iron Skull is back and so is Igor Raston (I don't recall him, but we're supposed to believe this is a grudge match between the two).

The fisticuff is fairly pedestrian, but I wanted to share this page to point out that it's not too late after a fight starts to have traps in the area activated. Indeed, traps going off can liven up a fight!

It's hard to say how much that platform weighs or how fast it's moving, but a good rule of thumb might be 1 die of damage for 180 lbs, +1 die each time that weight is doubled.

We've seen the annod-comptod machine before (I even statted it for H&H already). It normally allows anyone to use the Wreck at Range power freely, but here is an unusual use of wrecking, simply short-circuiting electronics.

Here we also get another trap, a simple one with a tripwire and four spear-holes, with the only unusual wrinkle here being that the four spears are somehow all aimed at the same spot.

It's possible that I.S. is using a defensive buffing power to protect himself from the spears, but it's also possible that they "missed," or he made his saves vs. missiles, and them crashing against his skull is merely flavor text.

Your powers of deduction are amazing, Iron Skull!

Here we see wrecking things being used more traditionally, but I point this out because I.S. is concerned enough about melee vs. what looks like five unarmed hoodlums that he takes that drastic an action. Or perhaps he really doesn't want Igor to get away. Shut up, Rensen, I've got to go catch up with Igor!

Iron Skull has to make a conditional threat in that last panel because of the save vs. plot he needs to roll before he can punch a lady.

We're going to all assume I.S. won and jump into the next story, featuring Minimidget (and Ritty, who has the same power but no billing). Ignoring their shrunken state, this is some of the best science I've read in a comic book in awhile. If they were in a rocket going 400 MPH and were thrown to the floor of the ship, I would expect them to take at least 1-4 points of damage and could conceivably be knocked unconscious.

It would take the rocket about 10 hours to get to Africa. I bet they're really hungry for lunch!

Does it make sense for the rocket to go slower? Actually, I think that's pretty good science too. If the rocket had leveled off and all its inertia was horizontal, then when it loses that inertia it will fall into gravity. Gravity wouldn't pull it any faster than 120 MPH (terminal velocity). That all gets scrapped if there was any downward momentum, which would have added to that speed.

I'm going to spare you this part where the superstitious natives see two tiny people and immediately assume they are gods. A LOT of these comic books make the racist assumption that blacks would worship anything they couldn't understand.

No culture ever had a god named Ramu, though there is a river in Papua New Guinea with that name.

Jumping into Chuck Hardy's adventure, we see how a flood can turn any environment into a nautical adventure. I'm not a big fan of this feature, but I definitely want to use natives riding huge turtles someday.

Lots of comic book Heroes have their own Supporting Cast, but you rarely see them fail their loyalty checks. You see that with the princess right here, which is nice.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.) 

Miracle Comics #1 - pt. 2

Your scream will be the signal? If I was K-7's supporting cast, that would not inspire confidence in me! (-1 penalty to loyalty checks?)

The question here is, is the villainous Czermin such a gentleman that he rushes to a lady's aid, or does he come rushing to see how high up Yvonne's hose goes? It's chancy, expecting your bad guy to do the right thing; I would ask for a save vs. plot to make sure that ruse worked.

Good thing Yvonne rolled to "hit" that hay cart, or her falling damage would have been 4-24 points and surely knocked her out cold.

This is a curious kind of scenario that you don't see often in comics, where the bad guys defeat themselves and it doesn't really matter if any good guys were there at all. I would not recommend using this often in a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign.

This is Dash Dixon who, in return for helping a scientist, gets shot up full of drugs and then -- "Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you what I was doing to your body, Dash!" "Don't worry about it, Doc. As long as I don't get cancer from it, it's all good, right?"

Luckily, what happens is that Dash gets to become a superhero. And then he jumps up and hits the ceiling...which is weird because his strength has only tripled. Was he trying to leap 3' in the air for some reason, and then went 9?

A super man? That's a convenient choice of words. No, a super man is the level title for a high-level superhero; Dash is only a 1st level good man right now.

I also can't shake the feeling that Dash is dressed as a bellhop with a diaper over his uniform...

Panel 2 puzzles me, as I can't find any references online to air taxis before the 2000's. How common, then, was this term in 1940?

How high is that plane Dash jumps to? The lowest safe altitude for a plane is generally 500' (higher in heavily populated areas, or if the terrain is higher). Unless that plane is about to land -- and it does appear by its speed lines that it is descending -- then Dash jumps 62.5 times the current world high jump record, which is pretty high for someone who had their strength tripled. This is easily within the range of the Leap I power, though.

What game mechanic would a Hero use to keep from being crushed to death by the tremendous pressure of a plane wheel retracting? I would say hit points would be the main mechanic -- the wheel does crushing damage like being caught in a trap -- maybe 2-12 points of damage (or higher, for a larger plane). You can save vs. science to slip through and dodge the wheel, or activate a Raise power and negate the damage (because you can "lift" the wheel away from you automatically).

I'm having trouble even guessing which real life country the Republic of Scalene is based on. It kind of rhymes with Spain.

I like the secret exit from the basement, hidden inside a large cask -- though the steps in front of it might serve as a giveaway.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Jumbo Comics #12 - pt. 1

Small village? Riyadha is the capital city of Saudi Arabia and had a population of 40,000 circa 1940.

So, the plot is that this rich guy wants slaves, but there are none left to find in the Middle East, so his head slaver offers to get him some nice ones from the "heart of Africa." The problem here is that Sheena is well over 1,000 miles away. Greece and India are about as far away as Sheena is.

This page is all about the evidence that grappling rules apply to human vs. animal combat as well. It's definitely not about the fact that Sheena's just been bathing.

I've struggled with what to do with slavers, as a mobstertype. Apparently, slavers can make anyone compliant once they're in chains. Even Heroes? Anyone, even Heroes, captured by slavers must save vs. plot or do as they're told until freed. Shades of Gor!

The point of this page is to show how easy it is to get into a hideout, and how few guards a main bad guy needs when a Hero is going in solo.

It's always good tactics to have reinforcements show up when the battle is already engaged, in case the Heroes burnt all their their best attacks at the beginning.

When you draw out your hideout maps on graph paper with 10' to a square, you wind up with large dimensions like that last panel.

Is "scattering the guards" an attack form? Are they being scattered by the trample damage the horses are inflicting? Or are they failing their morale saves when they see the horses coming at them?

Map! It seems that Sheena's original village was in the very west edge of Kenya, or maybe Uganda. Not that it maters now that the village has been razed. You can see how choked up Sheena is over it.

This is Hawks of the Seas, getting ready to defend a castle. He doesn't have much of a defending force -- heck, he doesn't even have a very good map of the island to plan with either! If he has enough time, he should probably send someone to scout around and get a better sense of the terrain.

Loyalty isn't just important for Heroes' supporting cast; the employees of non-Hero characters will need to be checked during stressful times too. You never know when those barracks may turn empty.

We never get a good sense for just how many pirates are swarming around the castle, but if it's 25+ then I can see why Hawk and his pals are having trouble holding their own. The tactics of forming a living shield wall around the less capable fighters, and switching to melee weapons when they run out of ammo, are sound, though throwing rocks instead of switching to melee weapons, maybe not so good (unless he has a DEX bonus to hit, but not from STR!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Fantastic Comics #3 - pt. 4

It looks like I'm easily going to finish discussing Fantastic Comics #3 before the year ends, as I have only the Sub Saunders installment left to discuss.

Yesterday I had misinterpreted what was hanging from the mermen's faces because of the quality of these scans. Yeah, it would have been interesting if they were tentacles, but they just have beards of boring ol' hair, as you can clearly see in panel 4.

Speaking of clearly seeing, Poseida can be forgiven for getting a little excited when he sees Peg, as that is one skin-tight diving suit! Interestingly, only Saunders is wearing a skirt for modesty.

Poseida is wearing a chainmail gorget around his neck. It would offer no Armor Class improvement, but must be a fashion statement.

Sub is offered (ahem) a subload of treasure in exchange for just one member of his supporting cast. Now, a metagamer might look at this and think how Peg is "only" worth 100 XP per session she tags along on, while the treasure is worth enough XP to level up immediately. But Sub's player isn't a metagamer and he says no.

Now, working under the assumption that Peg is a SCM and Sub is being played solo...how does the Editor decide Peg's reaction? A reaction roll vs. Poseida, with a substantial penalty for him offering Sub half the fortune instead of her? A loyalty check for Sub? A 50-50 coin flip? (All of which would be legitimate choices for the Editor)

"Release the spider!" has got to be an unnerving thing to hear when you're about to fight something in an arena...

For a spider, that looks awful crab-like. Giant crab spider? It might also be the largest giant spider we've seen so far in a comic book.

I can't imagine what all that glassware has to do with the radio equipment. Likely this is just visual shorthand for looking hi-tech.

The frog men already have an entry in the Mobster Manual (now, obviously, pushed back to 2019), but I may have to up the number encountered. They also seem to be really Lawful or really coordinated, with their ability to form up into ranks underwater so neatly.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Whiz Comics #2 - pt. 4

This is still Lance O'Casey's strip, though there's no sign of him on this page. I share it here, not because being dangled over a tiger cage is so original a trap, but for the unusual addition of having the prisoners placed on swings over the cage. There would be a chance, then, that they could swing themselves out far enough that they could drop outside the cage, though there would be a danger of falling wrong (with a failed save vs. science) and still landing inside the cage, plus there's still falling damage and the chance of being shot even if they do land right.

Somehow the tigers managed to break out of their cage, which you'd think has always held them successfully before. It is worth noting that an unintelligent animal, entering a melee, will not automatically attack the Hero, but would pick a random target.

That is one fantastically capable monkey. I have an entry for monkeys in the Mobster Manual already; I should add that supporting cast monkeys can do anything a person can do.

The last feature to debut here is Dan Dare, of the detective genre. It's hard to take "Seals of Doom" seriously as a story title when you find out, a page later, that it refers to the animal seals.

That said, it's interesting to see a story set in Florida, indeed the first I can recall. Sea Castle is not a real town, that I can tell, though it seems to be a common name for businesses in Florida.

$5,000 seems to be a very generous sum for detective work in 1940. That Dan so cavalierly promises to return it if he fails suggests that he's pretty well set for money already (or just highly confident!).

Note how easy this investigation is for Dan. The chief of police not only coaches this man, a complete stranger, on every detail of the case, but then simply hands him the murder weapon to examine. When actual (ahem) legwork is required, he simply calls up his friend Carol and asks her to do it all, not even bothering to find out where Pete is for her first. The first case could be explained by a great encounter reaction roll, while the second case might warrant a loyalty check from Carol in the near future.

Speaking of legs...that panel 6 had to have been pretty scandalous for a kid's book in 1940.

Player tip: when someone suspicious tells you not to go swimming somewhere, you should bring nothing but a little red bathing suit and go swimming there.

This is not the first time we've seen an underwater entrance to a hideout.

Whoa, what's going on here? Bending bars, swimming three miles, and then climbing a sheer wall while soaking wet is starting to make Dan look like he's a superhero instead of a fighter. One or even two instances could be explained away by really good rolls, but all three of these on the same page really make it looks like he's activating powers.

Superhero or not, Carol has got to be questioning her loyalty to Dan right about now.

This is the first time I've ever seen the term "community chest" used outside of the board game Monopoly.

It's also worth considering, for home campaigns, if you want to send them instructions to pursue scenarios via telegram, rather than wait for them to pick up on plot threads on their own.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Famous Funnies #62

Opening with a joke...

Jack Kirby's Lightning and the Lone Rider reminds us that silencers existed for guns in the 1930s, though here it is called a "muffler". I would think everyone in a hideout would want a silencer, because gun shots echo so loud.

$2 for an airplane ride.

Dickie Dare's Editor needs to stop having his supporting cast do all the hard work for him, or he's going to get over-reliant on them. If Joe had missed a loyalty check, they would have been done for.

And here's a good lesson about smoking. If you smoke, you'll eventually discard a match in a pile of wood shavings and almost burn down the boat you need to get off a deserted island.

I have a write-up for nobles ready for 2nd edition, because evil counts show up so often in comics...but I can't help but wonder if this guy isn't an evil mysteryman, or even just a really capable slick hoodlum...

Oaky Doaks is a great example of Lawful Alignment. I admire his convictions.

From Babe Bunting -- a map!

From Connie -- a good size comparison of a yacht, a sloop, and a rowboat.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Feature Comics #22

I think the closest thing we've ever had to an adventure story in Lena Pry is this extended sequence about rednecks pretending to be ghosts. There's not much to the story and I've only shared it with you once before. This time, I only bring it up because of the pumpkin masks they wear. Traditionally, bugbears had pumpkin heads (before they were redesigned as evil Wookies for Dungeons & Dragons). This is, sadly, as close as we're likely to get to seeing bugbears in a Golden Age comic book.

This is Rance Keane, cowboy and...trapmaker? You don't see Heroes rigging traps often (outside of Scooby Doo) so I hadn't included it as a skill. Still, this is a pretty simple tripwire and anyone who can tie a knot should be able to set this up. I would hand wave any game mechanic to determine if this works or not.

The tactic of trying to trick the bad guy into confessing by pretending he's haunted does need some game mechanics applied to it. It's a complicated trick so I'd use two saves -- a morale save first and, if that fails, a save vs. plot to fall for the thinking he's haunted part.

If Batu is supporting cast and not being played by a player, then this scene gains extra suspense. Batu has a loyalty score that serves as his morale save target number in situations like this. Lucky for Black X, the Editor is consistently rolling high on those loyalty checks!

Again, we're faced with the conundrum of what do about spell ranges. In comic books, they seem to stretch for miles. In practical game terms, it's best to keep them restricted to line of sight or less. My options seem to be compromise -- expand ranges, but keep them in the realm of playability, or maybe a new mechanic, like exploding dice for spell range? (i.e., 3d6 x 10 in feet, with each 6 meaning an additional roll?)

Another use for reading the old comic books that I may not have mentioned before is learning the lingo of how people spoke back then. "Pipe the dude" is a way of saying "Check out that fancy guy" that I never would have thought to use, while talking in-character.

Black X uses smart tactics, bottle-necking his opponents in a doorway so they have to come at him one at a time.

Incidentally, I see little evidence of Will Eisner's hand on this one. Must have been a rush job he had to farm out to his studio.

We return to the Clock, the most verbose hero in comics. But notice how he has "little trouble opening the safe."  Does that mean that, at the Clock's level in Mysteryman, he should have a very high chance of opening locks? Or does it mean he just rolled particularly well?

This is from Ned Brant. The return of the goat jokes (this is #24 now, I think...).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)