Colossus Comics #1 - pt. 3

We're back and this is still "The Gold of Gartok," an incredibly poorly drawn comic book feature, but one with some interesting concepts in it, as we discussed last time.

Here, we see another example of early superheroes having no problems with killing, as the Tulpa picks up a guard and casually chucks him down a well to die. 

Why would grey eyes be forbidden? 

Lama Tsang has some variant of the Message spell that can reach someone in their dreams -- though, since this was cast between two non-Hero characters, this sort of detail can be hand-waved as flavor text.

Note the use of hourglasses to synchronize, when watches are not available.

I don't have anything game mechanic-related to say here, but -- what a master negotiator Shia is. He's staring down the barrel of a sub-machine gun pointed at him, and he still manages to convince the good guy to bribe him to surrender! And not just with loose coinage, but an entire bag of gold. It makes me think about if I ever wanted to play a campaign where all money transactions were handled by trading bags of gold, ala the Talisman board game. It would certainly take the place of nuanced price lists for equipment; it would be more like 1 bag of gold = all your starting equipment.

Huh. I guess I thought of something game mechanic-y to talk about after all...

I love how comic book villains think. "Our bullets are bouncing right off him -- let's try our fists instead!" Though, to be fair, it's possible that the mobsters are trying to overbear and pin the Tulpa -- we really can't tell anything for sure from this terrible art -- and maybe they think he is invulnerable, but not super-strong. 

I would call Wolfgang's bluff, Bart. If being buried under an avalanche of bags of gold didn't set off that vial, it's probably not nitroglycerine he's holding. 

Now we're jumping right into the next feature, Blond Garth... you know, to distinguish him from all the other Garths in the South Seas. It's your typical white savior racist fare, but transported from Africa to the South Seas. I share this page to illustrate that you can expect your enemies to have concealed weapons hidden anywhere -- even in their loincloths. "Is that a dagger you've got in your pocket, Blond Garth...? Oh...I guess it was a dagger..."

In case you're wondering, he's going to shove the shell into the shark's mouth and make it choke; a pretty risky gamble and one I'm having trouble coping with game mechanically. I guess...he has to roll to hit, then make a save vs. plot to make the opportunity for the choking to happen, which forces a save vs. science for the shark to resist choking. Game mechanically, you'd think he would have been better off just punching the shark, but I agree this makes for a more suspenseful page than that.

This is a ...honestly, I can't tell with this issue when I'm looking at filler or if I'm looking at a feature. This is called Ruggey and it is, mercifully, the last feature in this book. It seems to be someone's riff on Will Eisner's Archie O'Toole, about a simple man who becomes a king. I share this page because, well, it's still early in 1940, and making fun of Hitler is not a full-time occupation in the funny pages yet. This one is pretty subtle, but promising you peace while stealing your sandwich seems like a "ha ha, that's Hitler for you" kind of joke that would sit well with me if I didn't have future knowledge that he was also committing genocide on the side.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Amazing Mystery Funnies #18 - pt. 1

Speed Centaur? Really? You're going to make me read Speed Centaur, first thing? Sigh..

Now, to be fair, this scenario seems as preposterous on the face of it as a centaur superhero. What would the Axis Forces possibly want with U.S. horses circa 1940? It turns out there actually is a real story like this.

"Hop on my back and ride me, trusty sidekick!" How did  Fredric Wertham miss this?

What the waaah? Since when can centaurs fly? I guess I'm modifying the centaur record in the Mobster Manual again!

I've never heard of such a killer horse -- but killer horse seems almost like a worthy mobstertype for Hideouts & Hoodlums! It also appears here that killer horses can attack with both 1 bite and 1 kick in the same turn. Speed beats the killer horse with grappling.

I'm interested in this page for the first panel. Reel is able to gamely perform a move worthy of a movie stuntman; but keep in mind Reel's training is as a cameraman. So when did he become such a capable acrobat and marksman?

On an earlier post, I speculated about Supporting Cast and at what point they can become classed and I may have missed the obvious; as soon as they become Supporting Cast to a Hero, they become important enough to gain a class, even if they only had a mundane profession before. 

Killer horses will chase after you if you run!

...It's been as hard as ever taking Speed Centaur seriously, but perhaps this could illustrate, instead, that Supporting Cast animals can be given very specific and out-of-their-character tasks, like running down and trampling someone.

Phew! Moving on to The Inner Circle now. There's not a lot of game-relevant material here, although I'm curious to see if any of those newspapers really exist...

Long before The New York Bulletin became a fake newspaper in the Marvel Netflix Universe, it was a real New York newspaper, running from 1840 to 1850! There was a London daily called The Courier, but I can't find that there was a London Daily Courier. The Montreal Post-Telegram is completely bogus.

Next, I'm noticing how widely different the value of the gold stolen is between countries. How close are those exchange rates?

No, there was $4 to the pound, so the London Daily Courier should be reporting 200,000, not 250,000 pounds. The Canadian numbers are even worse; the Canadian dollar was only worth 10% more than a U.S. dollar in 1940, so the Montreal Post Telegram should say 55,000, not what looks an awful lot like 500,000!

I tried to also do a little research on why damage to the conning tower, specifically, would keep a sub from being able to submerge. I don't think it's because the hit was on the tower, per se, but any hole in the sub is going to take on water.

Leaving those Circle Boys behind on their boats, let's jump ahead to Jon Linton, the thinking man's Buck Rogers (well, sorta...).

I suppose there's something comforting in knowing that notes handwritten in cursive are still going to be a thing in the future.

Jon's trick here seems a bit too obvious to me, but I suppose when you're dealing with a narcissist like Trump -- er, I mean Satan -- it's easy to play on his vanity and get him to think you're on his side.

In game play, this can be difficult, particularly if the player and Editor don't see the character's motivations the same way.

If the Editor felt, Jon's player is misinterpreting what I'm going for, he could prompt his player with a skill check or Wisdom check (we've talked about unofficially using ability score checks in H&H before) and correct him if he succeeds - or, simply change the way the villain's character to match player expectations, if that makes things easier.

I love how Harry Campbell, even if he doesn't always get the science right, certainly makes a game try of it. Here he fairly accurately predicts safe atomic energy plants, with 2 million volts being possible if the plant has up to six transformers. He also accurately understands reboot time.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Silver Streak Comics #1 - pt. 2

This is Mister Midnite and he's a strange duck. He looks like a Mysteryman, acts like a Mysteryman, but has a ridiculously powerful magic spell -- every night, during the final strokes of midnight, he can choose to stop time. In That Other Game, this would be the 9th level spell Time Stop, but with a very specific limitation. I, frankly, don't know how you would build this Hero with Hideouts & Hoodlums.  You would need a very flexible and accommodating Editor to let your Hero have such a potentially campaign-breaking ability, especially right away in the campaign.

Also note that, despite telling us through the story to this point that Chief Birey has it in for Mister Midnite, he's easily persuaded to cooperate with Mister Midnite on this case. Past encounter reaction failures do not weigh against you in present encounter reaction rolls.

Speaking of Heroes with campaign-unbalancing powers when just at first level -- Red Reeves is just a half-pint, an ordinary boy, until he finds a magic marble that releases a genie, or djinni, to serve him. That's a potent magic item -- unless the marble and the genie are all just flavor text, to explain Red's magic-user abilities.

As if having a genie serving you wasn't enough, the genie gives Red a "wand of power."  There's no wand of power in That Other Game, but there's a Staff of Power, and that's yet another potent magic item. Or, the wand is Red's normal magic wand for casting spells with, as a magic-user, and the genie is then more of a supporting cast member.

Red's first spell is Create Food & Water.

It seems that Red is casting Wish spells, but they can be explained other ways. He casts Enlarge on his dog and then Fly.

This is an odd one -- no spell really matches this one, but it does match the power Raise Building.

Plant Growth.

Teleport.  And then Fly again (unless the duration hadn't ended from the first casting).

Red has to be at least a 9th level magic-user, if he is the one casting all these spells.

A sloop is present in the transportation section of the 2nd ed. H&H rules. It's an expensive item, at $8,000, well beyond what most Heroes have for starting money. So, what is it? The exploding dice option for rolling starting money that I'm introducing makes it hypothetically possible for even a 1st level Hero to start with that much. Or, it could be a house rule where every Hero gets to start with a trophy item of some sort.

Captain Fearless has three sharks advancing on him when a seaplane comes down to save him. Is Lieutenant Dugan a Hero or a Supporting Cast Member? Is this a wandering encounter? And did Dugan roll to hit the shark with his plane? How much damage does hitting a shark with a plane do? I can come up with an easy mechanic for basing damage on speed, but it would get complex if it had to take the mass of the vehicle into account too.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

New York World's Fair #1

It's June 1939 and the New York World's Fair is making the rounds in a lot of comic books, but none made especially for the fair like this issue was.

Superman visits the World's Fair. Being mid-1939, Clark Kent is still a Cleveland, Ohio reporter writing for the Daily Star, but he's a veteran correspondent on three continents already.

Superman demonstrates his leaping ability in this story, uses the powers Hold Train, Raise Building, Raise Car (to uproot a tree), Race the Bullet, and Outrun Train in that order.

"Chuck Warner Goes to the New York World's Fair" is interesting in where it focuses, not on famous landmarks from the fair, but the less known presence of track and field events at the fair. Unless I hear a lot more interest soon in the sports genre of early comic books, though, I don't plan on including any new game mechanics for racing or high jumping. These can all be lumped into a static skill roll, where you have a 1 or 2 in 6 chance of doing slightly better than the person you're competing against.

"Hanko Goes to the World's Fair" is a tall tale story that has Hanko's horse tightrope walking from the ground to the top of the Trylon and then he and his horse falling safely from the top of it. This reminds me of Dell's Pecos Bill strip, another tall tale hero I ignored when I went through those issues -- though maybe I shouldn't have? There's nothing in the description I just gave that couldn't be explained away by superhero powers. And a cowboy costume could be a distinctive superhero uniform in modern times. So maybe tall tale cowboys are actually early examples of the superhero class, if not the genre?

I've not been keeping track of how many times I've seen a hoodlum slip out of a hold by slipping out of his coat, like one does in the Scoop Scanlon adventure here. As common as it is, maybe it should be a special move for slick hoodlums?

Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan visit the World's Fair and get a poison dart thrown at them for their trouble. Heroes will not be allowed to use poison, but there needs to be clear rules for villains' use of poison. Poison will often be potentially lethal -- like the save or die variety -- though death does not need to occur right away. And there will be ways of countering poison (magic, antivenom, sucking out the poison,...).

Someone tries to pick Shorty's pocket too. Picking pockets is a static skill (those skills will not be totally static in 2nd edition, they will just improve slowly). If it fails, roll surprise normally. If the would-be thief failed but still has surprise, the attempt was not noticed. Otherwise, the attempt is noticed.

Slam finds a secret compartment in a fireplace. Even though he knows where to search, he doesn't know what he's looking for, so he has to roll to find the secret compartment (like searching for a secret door). Though, since the fireplace is such a small area, I would also be okay with giving him a +1 or even a +2 situational modifier on his roll.

The Sandman's debut adventure I wrote about previously here.  I'll add some notes here, though.

It doesn't really matter if you want to say your brand new hero is a millionaire or a billionaire -- you'll still have the same starting money and all the rest of your money will be tied up in investments, long-term bonds, or somewhere else where you can't touch it during game play.

The Sandman is said to be an inventor in this story, but his raygun is only a plot hook, not something he ever uses. I'm comfortable with skipping giving him levels in Scientist.

There's no game mechanic right now for Sandman's "queer intuition of danger". I would treat that as a failed surprise roll by the other side, had anyone been actually trying to attack him. Instead, he just seems to sense something amiss is about to happen.

Sandman uses his gas gun several times, but we never see it affect more than two at a time.

The Zatara adventure presents some interesting posers. When Zatara and Tong are falling and Zatara catches them with a "magic stair-case" -- what the heck is that? A Mass Fly spell? Or am I literally to take this as a Create Stairs spell? No, maybe it is Mass Fly, because he uses that spell for sure a few pages later.

Zatara uses some sort of illusion spell to make it appear that he drinks a punch bowl full of liquor. He casts a Mass Reduce Persons spell that shrinks three people at a time down to six inches tall.

Zatara casts a spell on himself that renders him heavier than lead so he can't be knocked off his feet. Instead of doing the same thing for Tong, he turns Tong to stone. I bet Tong said "Gee, thanks a lot, boss!" all sarcastic after that one.

Zatara appears to conjure a private train, but maybe that's just a coincidence that it shows up when it does.

Zatara casts a spell that makes a soldier go "up in smoke". Disintegrate? He also casts Bestow Curse, so that anything a man puts on becomes rags.

He uses his now-familiar spell that polymorphs weapons.

He casts a Mass Telekinesis spell to move two people into the air.

He casts Enlarge on himself, supposedly until he's a mile tall, but I'm not buying that, Zatana! I bet you're 25' tall and just exaggerating a whole lot.

(Read in DC Rarities Archives)

Famous Funnies #45

Dickie Dare was fast becoming one of my favorite pre-Superman comic strips, though the storyline seems to be floundering a little here. That's not to say it's devoid of ideas -- here, we see a plane that lowers pontoons to transform into a seaplane.

Much has already been said about unarmed combat on this blog and I have already addressed the issue of needing a flip/throw attack for rendering an opponent prone. But do we need a special attack for pinning an opponent immobile as well? And should open hand jabs do anything special besides damage? I'd be inclined to say not; Tubby just ran out of hit points there.

An amnesiac Homer Hoopee has engaged in that most venerable of heroic traditions -- beating up bad guys and taking all their stuff. The $1,000 that Homer pools off their persons is a surprisingly large amount. Hideouts & Hoodlums has only loose guidelines for assigning money to mobsters, but a tighter rule of thumb would be keep the amount, per mobster, to between his hit points and his experience point value -- so, for a cowardly hoodlum, this would be between $5-20 carried.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Book Museum)

New Adventure Comics #12

Nomads are an obscure mobster-type in Hideouts & Hoodlums Book II: Mobsters and Trophies and one I always debated over including; there just didn't seem to be much I had that set them apart from brigands. Now I can see that nomads should, instead, stand out as the only mobster type that specializes in horseback combat.


 
As the Gold Dragon serial shows, "gold pieces" can still turn up as a form of treasure in a modern-day adventure -- at least ones taking place outside the U.S.

Sometimes I just ignore silly creatures in the funny strips, but the tree cobra seems like an interesting idea, so -- why not? -- I'll talk about the elephog as well.  The elephog, an evolutionary dead-end that includes characteristics of elephants and giant hogs, would be a 9 HD monster.  A tree cobra, on the other hand, would likely be no more than 2 HD, with its poisonous bite being more dangerous than its combat abilities.

The Spy character class debuted in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 5 and remains unplaytested, to my knowledge.  Spies, as Sandor demonstrates, make useful allies, even if just Supporting Cast Members.  Spies should also have a higher than normal chance to hear noises, as demonstrated here.

I normally ignore imaginary tales/dream sequences...but it seems this imaginary glimpse into the year 3000 was meant to be taken seriously.  Some standard equipment items we can expect our police to have by then include "thought vibrators" (not as dirty as it sounds) that detect evil thoughts over a long range, one-man space flyers, and ingestible transmitters that allow their superiors to hear everything around them (not unlike dashboard cams).

Also standard issue are invisibility bills and a hypodermic needle that injects some sort of sleeping poison.  Invisibility pills are the one thing already found in H&H (Book II, of course!).



(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)