Science Comics #2 - pt. 1

Now we come back around to Fox Comics and what was surely their weakest anthology, Science Comics. One look at the Eagle and his comical get-up that makes his antecedent, Black Condor, look positively conservative in comparison should tell you all you need to know about what I think about Science Comics. That said, we can always glean something useful from even the worst of comic stories.

Like on this page, we have a television able to view distant images without any camera in that location. It seems like a lot of heroes and villains have invented these, as impossible as they are (at least until we have Star Trek-level technology), and yet...what if there was a mysterious seller of these items, targeting specific recipients? A time traveler, perhaps? What starts out as just bad science could wind up being an intriguing plot hook!

Don't forget to roll for wandering encounter checks, even if just traveling between points A and B. No need to get them to B too quickly (unless you really don't want that scenario to run more than one session).

It shouldn't be hard to spot what the pilot does wrong here. Had he simply left his cockpit shut, the Eagle would have been powerless to do anything but stand on his wing. The pilot could have gone into a roll, to smack the Eagle with the wing. Or tried to slow down and turn so that the propellers come back and tear him apart.

Sometimes a player is just going to do something really stupid, like dive-bomb the bad guys in clear daylight from a great distance. Then, as Editor of the game, it's up to you to decide -- do you let his hero suffer the consequences and have the mobsters be armed? Or do you let him off easy and say not one of them has a weapon?

Nice bold font on that title!

The unnamed fort where the gold is kept is almost surely Fort Knox.

Now we go from a hero who doesn't wear enough clothing to one who wears too much.

This is also the most elaborate "flavor text" to go along with searching for secret doors I've ever seen. I like behind that giant block is just a little recessed space with an exposed lock.

That's a really long tunnel; I believe the closest stone quarry to Fort Knox is 41 miles away (where Quarry Road is). This is why authors like to use fictitious sites in their stories, so guys like me can't look this stuff up and fact check them.

Traveling on a beam of light is some funky science, but something that is fast becoming a trope in the superhero genre (Steel Sterling rides electromagnetism as well through the air). The important thing is that your flavor text for explaining how your powers work doesn't have to make a lot of sense.

There seems to be a plot inconsistency between pages; in the last page we learned that the gold was being broken into nuggets to conceal in with the quarried stone, but on this page the gold is still in ingot form.

This strikes me as really weird, that a Hero would find out where the villains' hideout is, but then send the authorities to handle the villains instead. I could see, if the player was meta-gaming, and thought the hideout was going to be too tough for him alone to handle, that he would recruit some federal men to come with him. But to then not come with them...?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Adventure Comics #46 - pt. 2

Steve Carson of Federal Men has an awful easy time investigating this one. When a judge appears to have been kidnapped, Steve naturally suspects the most current criminal defendant and just happens to spot two well-known mobsters outside the man's office. He follows them to a well-known pool-parlor (apparently pool hall is not a common term yet) frequented by the underworld. Now, how does Steve recognize all this? Maybe the Editor gave all that information away as freebies. Maybe he made Steve make skill checks to know it. Or, if Steve's player requested information, and the Editor could not decide if Steve should know it or not, the situation should be resolved by saves vs. plot instead. At lower levels, a basic skill check is easier than most saving throws to make, but an expert skill check is harder than both, so players might do well to be inquisitive and risk that saving throw.

Steve is shown to use an automatic pistol in this story. The judge was actually not kidnapped but was hiding out on his own after thinking he'd run someone over and killed him. The fake accident was arranged by the man on trial. Interestingly, the judge does not recuse himself, but continues with sentencing.

Socko Strong has a strange working relationship with Jerry Indutch; in addition to being Socko's trainer, Jerry is a photographer for the Daily Bulletin. Jerry and Socko are both lured out of town before a match by fake telegrams, but they luckily run into each other on the road as Jerry is driving back. The odds of that seem low, but a basic skill check could be allowed for each of them to recognize the other's car en route. A lucky encounter reaction roll from a motorcycle cop gets them a police escort back to the match (going over 80 MPH, no less -- must have rolled double 6's!).

Captain Desmo's adventure takes place at "latitude 70 degrees, longitude 30 degrees," which is odd because that's nowhere, but if you flip latitude and longitude it would be in modern-day Pakistan, which makes perfect sense for the adventure. The villain in this piece is Vasili Gerke, the sort of Golden Age villain name that is almost impossible to take seriously. Vasili has yet another of those rayguns that can make planes stop flying, but also has a complex irrigation system that allows him to drain lagoons and make them look like suitable landing fields, then flood them again later to hide the evidence. I'm hard-pressed to think of any other adventures where a mastery of irrigation made a villain dangerous...

Skip Schuyler is referred to as a lieutenant in this story, but I had to go back nine issues to find a reminder that Skip works for the U.S. Intelligence Service. Skip is romancing a general's niece outside a party and goes back in to get punch when she is kidnapped and dragged off. Skip can see the evidence of where she was dragged away, but apparently blows his skill check and is unable to track them further. Skip covers for his failure later when talking to her uncle, saying it will be easier to find them in daylight...you know, hours later when they could have done anything to her. Her uncle doesn't seem remotely worried; when Skip tells him he just goes "Hmm..." like he'd just been told a good brain-teaser.

While flying around over the area in his plane, the only clue Skip gets is seeing the sun flash off of something metal among the trees. Skip's player meta-games and assumes this is too important to pass up. Sure enough, that was exactly where the girl, Linda, was taken. Though the story began in the real city of Shanghai, it moves now to the fictional island of Hanyow. The kidnappers try to move Linda again by boat, but Skip makes his skill check this time to spot her. The kidnappers have a repeating rifle (automatic rifle?). Skip flies too fast for the rifleman to aim, but Skip has no trouble hitting their boat at the same speed -- this could be easily explained by the luck of the dice, though.

Skip's shots disable to the boat, but the kidnappers bring up a good point -- Skip isn't flying a seaplane, so he can't get to them and it's a stalemate. The scenario is effectively over for Skip at that point, who has to radio in Army seaplanes to finish his rescue for him.

Rusty and His Pals are in England (still? I'm pretty sure this isn't where they started, but their parents must not be missing them). To get out of the rain, they have to go try to find shelter at a spooky old mansion.  I think I've written about this before, but in comic books, if it's raining, you have to save vs. plot to resist seeking shelter. The old man in the mansion seems paranoid, until his bodyguard (not much of a bodyguard) is dropped by a dart to the neck, and then the old man has a heart attack (Editor's fiat, no game mechanics apply to heart attacks).

(read at fullcomic.pro)