Fantastic Comics #5 - pt. 3

Welcome back to our blog, where we discuss the game Dungeons & Babes. Oops, that's not a thing?  Well, you'd think it was from this page of Golden Knight. Because, obviously, medieval maidens went around stabbing men while dressed in modern swimsuits. I'm familiar with the phrase, "never trust a dame," but who knew dames could backstab for double damage? Is Alice a femme fatale? A D&D thief? Or just a highly effective, perhaps mid-level fighter?

Does wrecking things get easier during confusion? I don't think so, but it allowed him to act undetected. 

Then there's the concept of "saving your strength." It actually is a Hideouts & Hoodlums rule that you get +1 to hit if you take a turn to aim. What if you took an extra turn to rest for each +1 you wanted to your wrecking things roll? 

"Stay away from this fight, Alice!"

"What, are you kidding me? I just killed two guys on my way here, while you were being tortured so long your hair grew out!

"Alice! Alice! Are you hurt?"

"Well of course I'm hurt, you moron! You took my sword and left me with this little knife, and now you're not even using the shield I laid down for you!"

It turns out to be a very awkward family reunion, that Alice mortally wounded the man who turned out to be her dad.

Isn't a flying torpedo a missile? 

I like those guard uniforms. Those will be very handy for any heroes looking to knock out a guard and disguise himself as a guard!

There are real Edgewood's in Florida and Washington, but a Meadowlark Village? A real counterpart for that is proving hard to find.

Waaiiit -- the torpedo has to be controlled by a two-man crew inside it? Willingly sitting inside an armed torpedo? I may have to lower the morale save number for guards -- these guys are fearless!

"Hurry - we'll tell the Professor!"

"You know, Ted...not only couldn't the Professor figure out a way to remote control the torpedo, but he didn't even give us a portable radio to contact him with. Do you suppose we weren't meant to come out of this alive...?"

Waaaiiiiit (again). The torpedo made no noise and there was no sign of a plane -- then how does Yank follow any trajectory back to that forest? Is he just flying randomly over hundreds of square miles until he spots something that looks like a hideout? 

And really, Professor? You're planning to blow up the country, but you can't even remember to lock the front door?

A sliding panel in the floor that catches your foot sounds like the most "1st-level" trap I've ever heard of. Would that even do a point of damage? At best, if you miss your save, you can't move during combat until a turn when you do make your save.

Waaiiiit (third time) -- what's with this strange plane that just happens to look like the torpedoes that just happens to land outside in panel 1? Did the artist put panels in the wrong order somehow? It seems like even the author couldn't make sense of what was going on there.

Gee, Yank, if punching them in their helmets doesn't work, maybe you should aim somewhere else? In game, Yank's player is either rolling terrible, or those uniforms are giving a much better Armor Class bonus than I would have thought.

They didn't check to see if Yank was still alive? Classic villain blunder there. Maybe a villain should have to save vs. plot before he can check.

If the "heart of the country" is the continental geographic center of the country, then we're in Kansas, near Lebanon (or Lebanon has been renamed Edgewood). If "heart of the country" means its governmental heart, than Edgewood means Washington, D.C. -- though that doesn't make much sense (but what in this story does?).

Waiiiiittt (gah!). Yank is hitting the percussion caps on the nose of the torpedoes with a length of chain? This means the crews aren't arming the torpedoes just before bailing out, but well in advance for some reason and -- what really bugs me -- Yank's plane is somehow always able to zoom out of range just before the torpedo blows. Why is there that long a delay? Whhyyyy?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Amazing Man Comics #10 - pt. 4

We're back with Martin Filchok's Mighty Man, the first and possibly only 12' tall superhero. Here we see how he's transported around, in a gutted out trailer.

The scream of the damsel in distress is the most common plot hook of all.

Remember that now; Mighty Man is 12' tall...

How tall are the ceilings in this house? MM can often stand upright without crouching at all.

If you have a group of Heroes, and you're about to barge into a house to see if a distressed damsel is alright, it might not be a good idea to send the 12' tall one in first. She might have had a heart attack!

That is one cool-looking monster, like a 12' tall bugbear! Too bad it's (spoiler!) fake.

I really like this idea of guys coming into the rooms behind the Heroes and changing all the furniture around to throw them off; it's a nice, low-tech puzzle to confound them with.

MM also spotted some good clues to look for around the car outside.

MM seems like he's using the Race the Train power to keep up with the car, but it's interesting how he doesn't come out at a fast sprint, but seems to have to pick up speed at the same rate as the car.

Panel 4 is confusing. Gas Gun of Gangsters? The wording seems so D&D-ish, but that couldn't have been intentional. Does he mean gangsters gave them this gas gun? And if so, does that mean they don't self-identify as gangsters, despite being self-confessed counterfeiters? And is the gas gun the explosive thing that blows up when they hit the trailer?

Maybe the best part of this scenario is the inversion; Agent Yakik would normally be the plot hook character at the beginning of the story, but they have everything already solved before them meet him!

The Shark has always been an odd character, but this one is really weird. This certainly won't be the first time a comic book hero has battled a giant octopus, but it's the first time one has been portrayed as at least as smart as the hero!  Now, science now says octopi are a lot smarter than we ever used to give them credit for, but this author seems to have anticipated a lot of that.

Whirlpools are good traps for underwater lairs. Always a good idea not to get caught in your own traps, though! What's really odd about this trap, though, is that it leads to the whole rest of the adventure. Had the Shark dodged around it, or made a saving throw to resist, this would be a much shorter scenario. To keep the Shark from making that saving throw, without fudging dice rolls, the Editor can assign him a -4 penalty to hsi roll because the whirlpool is just that strong.

The center of the Earth has a lot more open space and giant mushrooms than I would have figured! This is sort of a compromise between hollow world stories and legitimate science. If the pressure is too much for the Shark, then how strong is that monster that it can resist? Or did it just make its saving throw while Shark failed his? It doesn't seem like pressure would be a save to negate situation, but more of a save for half-damage-type thing.

We've got a curious mad scientist here, and not because he wants to trade bodies with the Shark -- that's a pretty common mad science trope already -- but because he can also read minds. ESP is an unusual power to associate with a mad scientist, and I wonder if some device in the room is letting him do that.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Rocket Comics #1 - pt. 1

We made it to March 1940! At the same time, we're going into the future with Rocket Riley. I think I'm gonna get whiplash!

There's not going to be much Hideouts & Hoodlums content here today, more just frolicking in pure goofiness.

"How naive, Dad! Don't you know that the secret of exploding the atom will be made into a terrible weapon, not a tool for peace?"

Ah, how blissfully ignorant the next five years will be.

"I'm going to build a spaceship -- and mount it on my roof! I'm sure that won't harm the building at all!"

It seems crazy how gold is going to destabilize a nuclear reactor, but ignoring real world science, there is perhaps some logic to this. We know that mass can't travel at light speed, only energy. Three pages from here, we'll hear Rocket claim they are approaching the speed of light. What if the nuclear reactor isn't just powering the engines, but is transmuting the ship and its interior into energy? And the one element it can't transmute into energy is gold.

There's actually good science concealed on this page. Even the void of space isn't completely empty, and one of the biggest dangers of interstellar travel would be collisions with objects.

...Although, if they were being transmuted into energy for the trip, they would probably just bounce off the object. Not immediately fatal, but being thrown randomly off-course could be deadly in the long run.

There's a lot of aviation talk here that's surprisingly accurate; let's break it down. An aileron is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's pitch, and therefore the angle of attack and the lift of the wing. A heliometer is a refracting telescope with a split objective lens, used for finding the angular distance between two stars. An inclinometer, or clinometer, is an instrument used for measuring angles of slope (or tilt), elevation, or depression of an object with respect to gravity's direction. Laterals -- on a plane -- would be flaps on the wing that control lateral movement; lateral control on a spaceship would be something very different, like maybe mini-jets on the port and starboard sides. Ceiling, here, does not refer to maximum altitude, but to ceiling functions in mathematical formulae. 

Here we see the importance of commas; note that Prof. Sterling is not saying, "I must start the vacuum, retards, or we will crash!"

This is also where Rocket says they are approaching light speed, as I mentioned earlier.

That there are four moons means, if they are still in this solar system, they must have entered orbit around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. The surface clearly doesn't look like a gas giant -- though the dialog only says they entered orbit of a planet, not that they were landing on the planet; they could well be landing on a fifth moon.

Traveling to even Pluto at light speed would take less than five hours. They have clearly not left our solar system, because that would take over 4 years to reach the next closest star, Proxima Centauri, at that speed.

Now here's where things get really weird, as whatever world this is, is home to octopus men. They are encountered in groups of over 100 at a time.

Octopus men are fast on land, with a slightly faster move than normal humans (13-14?).

I'm not sure that's a sound tactic Rocket tried. By dodging, he makes two of the aliens crash into each. What is the other 100 doing, standing and watching behind them? I think Rocket really did fall, and the narrator is just covering for him.

Nope. Uh-uh. The wind resistance as they approach escape velocity would mean saving throws vs. science with a -11 penalty to keep from being blown off. Rocket should be taking 20d6 falling damage by the end of this page!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Famous Funnies #67 - pt. 1

We rejoin Roy Powers, Eagle Scout today after a long time separated. Here, we see how easy traps are in the modern age of Hideouts & Hoodlums. A simple oil flask hanging from a string in D&D would be of little threat to anyone, but substitute it with nitroglycerine and suddenly you've got a trap that can be deadly for even mid-level Heroes.

We also see some nice tactics from Roy, using role-playing to his advantage against the mad scientist.

Just a couple pages later, Roy is already jumping into his next scenario.

Editors may be tempted to roll randomly for mobsters to see which target they choose; I've done this many times, and it does present an element of fairness that keeps players from feeling picked on. And yet, if there are common sense reasons to attack one target over another, the Editor should follow his common sense.

I'll be honest; Skyroads is such a generic aviator feature that I have no idea who this guy is!

Whoever he is, he comes up with a good rationale for getting a +1 modifier to his wrecking things roll. He probably asked if there was a hoisting tackle lying around and the Editor, unprepared for that tactic, had him make a save vs. plot to determine if there was or not.

Hairbreadth Harry leaps back and forth between being a credible source for H&H inspiration and outlandishness too zany to emulate with any seriousness game mechanics. Here, Harry swings towards the latter, as he claims to have used the pushing mechanic to push his melee combat with Rudolph 3,000 miles, or the equivalent of 15,840,000 points of damage, by H&H's current rules.

When I see panels of villains trying to bribe heroes, and I remember that taking money is a huge motivation in H&H, I wonder if we need to have different mechanics, even if only optional. Or would a saving throw vs. plot cover this? Yes, I think it might, at least for Lawful Heroes to take a bribe. But would that just deter players from playing Lawful Heroes...?

Sergeant Stoney Craig, even without his U.S. Marines, really (ahem) mops up with an improvised weapon in this combat. The spears are uncommonly short, and are maybe harpoons instead of spears. A harpoon would not count as an improvised weapon.

The knife is thrown by an assassin. There's a considerable amount of racism here, with the half-Asian man being called a "breed," but this actually plays well in the story, with the locals' racism explaining how quickly they accept this scapegoating.

Near Island is a real place, in Alaska. It seems strange that anyone in Alaska would hear "They had Jeremy Blade at near" and not think of Near Island...but this would make sense at a game session; players never get clues.

Dickie Dare is relegated to cheerleader in this month's installment, as these pages focus on the gorilla-lion battle. I'll have to add a note to the lion entry that, even when grappling, lions still get raking attacks.

I'm not even sure what's going on here, so it's even harder to figure out how this might apply to game mechanics. I guess...hearing Miss Karson's voice reminds Tiny that someone loves him, and gives him the will to keep fighting, even as his body tells him to quit...?

Yeah, that's really hard to quantify into crunchy rules. I suppose you could include a rule that supporting cast can rally you once per day to give you a +1 bonus to something -- and that would give players more impetus to bring supporting cast along besides the meager XP award.

Or, this is all flavor text and Miss Karson's rallying cries didn't influence Tiny's dice rolls at all.



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Zip Comics #1 - pt. 3

This is still Kalthar, and we've rejoined him just in time to find out where he hides his magic potions. Is invisible panther hair whiskers? I wonder why the grains even need to be tied to his ears, as weaving them into his hair (if it was longer) would have been much more sensible.

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Being normal size means Kalthar isn't buffed by any powers. In such a state, five guards are easily enough to take him down.

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Unlike many other strips, it is clear that not everyone is speaking English; Kalthar just happens to know all their languages. I honestly don't see much difference between that and having them all speak the same language, although we'll talk about this more on the next page...

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It's interesting that throwing spears at a Hero when he can move around is combat, but if he's tied up, it becomes a deathtrap, with the separate rules that apply to deathtraps (zero hit points means death instead of unconsciousness).

It seems like Kalthar is using some kind of power to summon apes, but if the apes are considered his SCMs, and he's just shouting for them, and they're near enough to hear it, isn't there a good chance they would just come anyway...?

Here's where requiring Heroes to know different languages might actually be useful in the game -- because knowing the language can form a connection with someone, and give you a bonus (+1?) to your encounter reaction roll.

Kalthar can clearly speak with animals as well. I do not want to give this ability all Heroes, and in fact brought up on this blog a long time ago that the Explorer class should get the speak with animals ability. Maybe Kalthar is multi-classed?

And last on this page is a rare example of an elephant being able to wreck through a stone wall. Elephants sure are strong!

Here, for the first time, we learn that Kalthar grows 15' tall when he's activating his powers, which seems to include Nigh-Invulnerable Skin and Multi-Attack.

This feature is War Eagles. Six am seems awful early to start playing Dawn Patrol (TSR joke there).

One of the nice things about this strip is that it includes the name of each plane at the bottom. I don't have to compare the drawings to photos and guess anymore!

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If I ever manage to write my own aerial combat rules, trying to gain control of the facing of your opponents will be a critical function in combat.

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Always make sure there is some downtime in your campaign for role-playing. Friendly rivalries are a good role-playing opportunity. Romances are a little more challenging for most roleplayers.

It seems almost too good to be coincidence that the twins like a Helen Carter, like Captain America would later like a Sharon Carter.

Again, we get the name of a plane to help with research, though that is awfully hard to read...

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A lot of the H&H rules still can apply to aerial combat, including using skills to move silently and gaining surprise before combat -- just occurring at much faster movement rates.

...and yet there still seems to be a need for specific aerial stunts that work more like they used to for the 1st edition Aviator class. Here we see the stunt Power Dive in use.

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This is also a prime example of the amount of carnage that can go on in a war-themed campaign. The goal seems to be accruing the highest possible death toll -- which is perfect for racking up XP in a campaign where finding treasure and trophies is not the goal.

Here we have a villain turn up. You can identify villains by their ability to make return appearances; so, basically, anyone who survives going up against the Heroes could be a villain. The problem here is, the twins haven't actually met or interacted with Anton Schultz, so there's no fun in making him a villain.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Zip Comics #1 - pt. 1

At last we get to Steel Sterling, my favorite MLJ character and, with Crimebuster, one of my two favorite Charles Biro heroes.

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This is the moment of John Sterling's transformation and Steel Sterling's origin. Normally, this would just be backstory and assumed successful...but what if this worked like Traveller and origins were generated by random rolls, with a chance of failure? What if John had died during character generation?

It is not where I plan to take Hideouts & Hoodlums, but it is still thought-provoking.

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Could this be Beeville, Texas? Beeville is a real place, but a village of less than 7,000 people in 1940.

"Running his fingers through his hair" is a trigger that is never mentioned again. There is no game mechanic for superheroes to have to trigger their powers, not the way magic-users need components/requirements, but they could need requirements, at the player's choice.

The power he activates is Race the Train, though with an elaborately "scientific" explanation -- flavor text -- for how he catches up to the car. He then wrecks the car, a difficult feat for good men, but I already expect I'll be granting him a few brevet ranks, since so many early superheroes are "played" that way.

Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, combined with using himself as a living shield for the hoodlum. But is there another mechanic at work here? Since it's a trope of the genre that the bad guy gets iced before he can be spill on his boss, Steel might have had to save vs. plot in order to save him.

Steel is now using Race the Plane, explained with the flavor text of magnetic attraction. Next he uses Electrical Resistance, a 3rd-level power that made it into the 2nd edition basic book from 1st ed's Supplement III.

I would not require a wrecking things roll for a superhero to get through a barbed wire fence. Maybe a non-superhero, as a door, or a door at a +1.

Heroes have the same protections from both arrows and bullets, but panel 5 makes it clear that Steel is buffed with Imperviousness. 

Steel made his save vs. plot to shoot bad guys -- a very rare sight for a superhero!

While most other superheroes were fighting generic bad guys, Steel starts out with a real supervillain. Not games mechanics-wise, perhaps, since he doesn't exhibit any powers or wrecks things, but he has the costume, the trappings -- including relying on traps! -- and the habit of always coming back that mark a supervillain.

A 100' pit trap is a very dangerous trap, inflicting 10-60 damage, and the slimy walls ensure that no basic skill check will allow climbing out.

The rats are large rats -- not even giant rats -- so they probably have no more than 1 hit point each.

While door thickness doesn't matter for wrecking things, wall thickness certainly matters, with a -1 penalty per extra foot of thickness.

A clever use of wrecking things! Biro was already thinking of things to do with superpowers that Siegel hadn't thought of yet.

Steel uses Extend Missile Range I to let the Black Knight have it!

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Making the villain fall into his own trap. Classic.

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Steel does not use his magnetic power to follow the car this time. Is that because he's expended all his powers for the day already?

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Another clever use of wrecking things -- yes, you can wreck part of a thing -- and doesn't count against his powers for the day. It looks like he was saving one last power -- Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, and uses it for his bold getaway.

Police motorcycles get "borrowed" so much in comic books, they might belong on the starting equipment list!

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As you can tell, I really enjoy these early Steel Sterling stories. I hope it's not too long before I get to the next one!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)