Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 3

Hello! We're back, still looking at the Lucky Lawton feature. We could talk about the oddly rectangular word balloons (the very next page goes back to rounded corners), or the terrible coloring job on this page, but I'm going to focus on the "no guns" law, which was actually quite common in the "Old West," and is something we badly need more of today. Personally, I would like to run a "no guns" H&H campaign, but I know that wouldn't emulate the comics well.

If you've followed this blog long enough, you've probably seen plenty of examples where the artist just seems to be guessing what an animal looks like without using a reference. The artist here is Hal Sharp, and I have a feeling Hal owned a dog; Pal is in real dog poses every time we see him.

Lucky does the smart thing, circling the perimeter instead of barging right into the bank. 

Also note how not going solo gives Lucky twice the chance to detect the activity in the bank that he would have had walking along alone.

There are two ways to achieve Lucky's noiselessness. One, he can make a skill check to move silently. The other is that he trust to his surprise roll and, if successful, means he must have been moving silently. Since chance of surprise is normally 2 in 6, it seems like that would be easier for most Heroes (unless Lucky is a mysteryman using a stunt, but I doubt it). 

Combat in the dark adds a greater level of challenge, what with the -4 penalties to hit. Just by not flipping the lights on, every unarmored combatant is now effectively at AC 5. Now, from the panel art it appears that there is plenty of light coming in through those front windows, making the scene only dimly lit, but this could just be artistic license so we can see more than five black panels with word balloons in them.

And yet, in this scene, the bandits are silhouetted in front of the windows, so it wasn't really that dark after all? And the remaining band sees Lucky in the darkness now? To emulate this scene, we need a new mechanic for eyes adjusting to darkness after a certain, or maybe random, number of combat turns. 

Although the rest of this story is seemingly set in the Old West, the remaining bandit's hat looks suspiciously modern.

The bad coloring job on the lower half of this page might be fooling me, but it appears that the rancher is wearing his bandana up over his mouth. I only mention it because I see so many people wearing their masks wrong like that these days...

There aren't game mechanics on display here, but I like how Lee is a scientist/explorer. Both were classes in Hideouts & Hoodlums 1st edition, and while both classes did get playtested in my campaigns, no one ever thought to combine those two.

My initial reaction was that having the slavers be Arabs was racist, but while there have been many white slavers through history, there was a strong tradition of slavery in the Middle East, with several countries not outlawing it until 1970. Also in the writer's favor, Ali and Hassan are real Arabic names, and not gibberish names meant to sound Arabic (I know, some golden age writers set the bar really low!).

Wow, we're in pure fantasy territory at this point. First, there's no way a plane explodes, and someone sitting in that plane falls from that wreckage completely unharmed. This should be a save for half damage situation at best. 

Then, there's no way someone's coat would be big enough to create enough wind drag necessary to cushion his fall, so there's more damage Lee should have taken by now. I think we're looking at the tune of 55d6 damage at this point - and that's assuming the plane was at a near dangerously low altitude for flying.

As unlikely it is that all the spear attacks Lee left himself open to while charging the pygmies missed, it is even more impossible for him, game mechanically, to push the leader onto a spear, unless the Editor was house ruling a fumble mechanic. More likely, this is just a freebie from the Editor.

Neutralizing poison is really easy in Lee's world. All you have to do is stick someone with a knife and the poison leaks right out of you! If I was willing to implement this as a new rule (and I'm not), for every point of damage you do to the wound, you would give the recipient a new saving throw. 

The pygmies are very patient in indulging Lee's rampant passive-aggressive racism. "Uh...ever heard of donkeys? The domestication of donkeys started in Africa. And we know what iron is, iron smelting and forging technologies were discovered in Nigeria as early as the 6th century BC. Bricks too, since about 7,000 BC. And just what are you whittling? A giant banjo?"

I am so torn on this page. On one hand, I think it's great that, for once, a lion shows up in a story and the Hero wants to capture it alive instead of stabbing it to death, or snapping its jaws, or shooting it. But that he wants it so he can perform experiments on its brain doesn't sit well with me, even though I get that the author is trying to offer a scientific explanation for how the jungle Hero is able to talk to animals. 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

More Fun Comics #52

After a long time away we return to DC's very first series, just in time for the debut of its first superhero, the Spectre!

Jim Corrigan is a still-living police detective when we first meet him. Single-handedly, with just his fists, he defeats three thieves and a guard (which seems like it must have been some pretty lucky rolling). He's also a bully, mistreating his best friend and fiancee (though maybe not so much by 1940 standards), so it's hard to feel sorry for him when the master criminal "Gat" Benson and two hoodlums stick him in a barrel full of concrete and drop him in the river. 

Jim dies, but his soul ascends to Heaven on a shaft of light. A voice speaks to him from the clouds -- it's all much less detailed than the versions of the Afterlife we've already seen from Will Eisner's Yarko the Great stories.

Returning as a ghost, Jim finds that he is now immune (or at least highly resistant?) to drowning, can fly, turn invisible (though he only knows he turned invisible because he had no shadow...?), and pass through walls.

===

Game mechanics: It's clear that Jim is now a Magic-User, as the four spells he just cast were Water Breathing, Fly, Invisibility, and Passwall. All of which are way beyond what a 1st-level Magic-User would be able to cast, but if there was ever a good candidate for brevet ranks, it's the Spectre.

Another possibility is that we just assign more special abilities to the ghost race that was introduced in Supplement V: Big Bang.

What remains unclear is, does Jim retain his level in the fighter class from when his campaign started? Or has the Editor allowed his player to start over with essentially a new character with the same name and supporting cast?

===

In a gag filler called Henrietta, we see a new bicycle selling for $25.

We pick up with Wing Brady where we left off, with him helping the colonists (the bad guys, from our modern perspective) against the natives/nomads (the good guys). Normally, it's the Westerners who are shown having air support in these adventures, but this time the tables are cleverly turned. While Wing and the British are holed up in a desert fort, the nomad besiegers call in an air strike by a light bomber.

The bomber is also a plot device, shaping the scenario by creating gaps in the walls where small-scale combats can take place, as the natives try to pour through.  

(Spectre story read in The Golden Age Spectre Archives vol. 1; started to read the rest at readcomiconline, but then the site started trying some suspicious activity...)

Amazing Mystery Funnies v. 2 #7 - pt. 1

Something I've struggled with for Hideouts & Hoodlums 2nd edition is whether or not the game needs both dual classed and multi-classed Heroes (the former gain xp in one class at a time, the latter divide their xp between multiple classes at once). Can there be a better case for including multi-classing than the Fantom? Look at that agility (often considered a facet of Dexterity, the prime requisite for the Mysterymen class), look at the flair of his stunt, and look at his style of intimidation -- all hallmarks of the Mysteryman class. But what's this? He can also easily snap a rifle in half? Wrecking things? Is he a Mysteryman/Superhero?

Here's more evidence of the Superhero class, as Fantom uses the power Feather Landing to drop 200 feet.

It's not clear how The Fantom passes through the ground. On this page, it appears he can become intangible. On the next page, it says he went through a trapdoor that we never saw him open. Maybe it's some sort of revolving trap door that you just have to land on a certain way to make rotate...

If it wasn't clear before this page, The Fantom of the Fair (he's at the World's Fair, get it?) is a modern version of The Phantom of the Opera. But what's this? Now he's casting a spell? A Forget spell? So he's a multi-classed Magic-User/Mysteryman/Superhero. And he can't be dual classed because he hasn't had other adventures to switch classes on -- this is his first adventure!

Okay, I've got to admit this is pretty cool. The Fantom punches through an exterior wall (which means he's wrecking at 2nd level, at least), puts the guy on the other side in a headlock (at -4 to hit, because he can't see through the wall), and pins the guy to the other side of the wall.

A player in my current online H&H campaign has a background like this -- mysterious group funds his adventures.I haven't made any real use of them yet, but I like how The Inner Circle is composed of talented supporting cast who could all be useful to the Hero.

In my campaign, the group is based out of Los Angeles instead of Glasgow, and is strictly limited to U.S. interests instead of global missions. I could see a campaign where Heroes hop from organization to organization like this, moving up to a bigger organization as they go up in level.

Hong Kong sounds like a pretty exciting locale to base a H&H campaign around. The war zone there and the bombing campaign are seldom touched on in Western accounts of WWII. And "fish pirates" -- what's not to love about that evocative term?

And this is really smart playing, scouting out the base (or hideout) at night, then making plans, and even agreeing not to harm a particular class of mobster (natives) they might encounter. If they make any mistake, it's leaving their fake fishing boat too close to the hideout (though maybe they were going for a "hide in plain sight" strategy).

Warning shots? Oh, I'm jealous. My players almost never try warning shots first! Look at this strategy -- the Heroes' goal isn't to kill the mobsters, but to destroy the buildings. So they're shooting warning shots to force morale saves, hoping just to get the mobsters out of the buildings first. When that fails, they sneak up to the buildings and plant their fires, then let the mobsters go with just a warning!

Now, meta-gaming wise, this is actually poor playing because they may not get any experience points for defeating the mobsters, and they'll loose any xp from claiming trophies from the hideout since they burned the buildings down before looting them. With this style of play, though, the Editor serves the players better by awarding one big xp award for an accomplished mission, rather than for the details of the mission.

I know this is just gag filler, but...how sad is this? We're just 23 years from 2039 now, and not only do we have no manned presence on any other planets, but we're nowhere near building a spaceship able to travel 50,000 MPH. The fastest ever is Voyager 1, which is currently going 38,000 MPH.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Popular Comics #9

A rare slow issue of Popular Comics, today I'll only point out this page of Don Winslow U.S.N. and the unusually multi-classed Explorer/Scientist villain, Doctor Q. How do I know he's two classes? Sometimes all we have to work with on statting a comic character is certain tells; certain tropes associated with character type. Here, just the way he's dressed tells me Dr. Q is an Explorer, while previous installments had amply demonstrated that he was a Mad Scientist-type.

Dr. Q here refers to a drug he calls Voodox, which is likely a Potion of Human Control.

(Scan courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)