Fantastic Comics #5 - pt. 4

Oh boy - more Fletcher Hanks! Let's see how the science holds up here, he says knowingly...

Space Smith's record-setting moon run is 12,600 MPH, considerably slower than the Space Shuttle in the 1990s, that could orbit the Earth at 17,500 MPH. 

Is that supposed to be a nebula...?

I'm already not sure what's going on. Is it a living nebula, and a monster, or does it just seem to be alive and something else is going on? It seems more like a trap than a monster attack. Perhaps -- and I'm just spitballing with comic book science here -- but the nebula has been ...chemically treated to be drawn magnetically to what powers ship engines?

Uh-oh, it looks like I found another mobster that goes in Volume 1 of the Mobster Manual. So I'm still not done! Hoppers have superhero-like leaping ability, and their speed and agility lower their AC to at least 4 and maybe gives them a +2 bonus to saves vs. dodgeable attacks?

Hoppers are encountered in groups of 5-10.

Space seems to be punching out four hoppers at once. Does this mean hoppers are just 1 Hit Die? It's so difficult to accurately stat Hit Dice from how long they last in combat, because of the "done-in-one-punch" approach of golden age stories. I think, because Fletcher's heroes are always super-powerful, we can assume the hoppers are powerful too. I'm thinking 4 HD for them.

That looks more like a cloud than a net before it comes down. 

Meteor gas rayguns are curious trophy weapons. The gas seems to be able to pass through walls, unless the cockpit of the ship is open the hold? That seems...a bit too overpowered to me. I may keep the meteor gas raygun, but limit the range to 150', blanket a 15' radius (affecting up to 5 targets), with a -2 penalty to save.

This is the next story, Captain Kidd. There's a nice set-up here of Kidd coming to the jungle because of the rumors of a man-eating tree. It's not; the "tree" is the trapped entrance to a hideout. The tree's bark is studded with gems (cheap, ornamental stones, most likely), but if you try to pry one loose, a trap door opens in the side of the "tree" and drops you down a pit, which is the entrance to the hideout. It looks like maybe a 20' drop? 

 

Should guards come in large, huge, and giant guards?

At first it appears the food is drugged with sleeping poison, but if the melon contains acid, does that mean Freddy has actually passed out from taking damage? Ingesting acid should do at least 2-8 points of damage, depending on how strong the acid was.

The large guard is called here both a giant and a brute. A brute is going to be a variant of thug, while "giant" here means pseudo-giant. Since he goes down pretty quickly, I'm inclined to go with the brute for statting purposes.

We surely aren't meant to take Professor Fiend too seriously, but how off is the history lesson here? The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. 2.5 billion years ago was the start of the Proterozoic Era. It really was mostly water back then, as shown here, but it was scalding hot water, about 150 degrees. That might be hot enough to do 0-1 points of damage per minute of immersion.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.) 

Science Comics #2 - pt. 3

For this post, we're going to jump right into the middle of the Perisphere Payne story. All you've missed so far is that Payne and his men are helping to stop raids on the Moon. After successfully repulsing an attack, Payne flies around trying to figure out where the invaders came from -- you know, instead of just questioning prisoners or searching the wreckage of downed ships for clues. No, the twist here is that the attackers were coming from underground instead of in space.

That's just to catch you up. Here, we see how extremely maneuverable spaceships are while flying between mountains. We also see, almost as incredibly, the bad guys only leave a single guard at the entrance to their secret tunnel from which someone can foil their entire "invade from below" plan.

The "huge craft" seems to be more like a trolley car than a spaceship, and it's hard to see how it would launch off those rails and fly around.

If that seems confusing, panels 3-5 and are even more confusing Panels 3 and 5, it seems like Carson just walks in, is assumed to be an underling, is told to bring a fresh uniform, and just shrugs and puts on one. But panels 4 and 5 seem to be tell a different story, where Carson captures a guard and makes him take his uniform off (and his boots too!). Regardless, like almost all guard uniforms, this one fits the Hero exactly!

It is very strange to find a city at the core of the Moon, since at the center is a dense core of iron with a temperature of about 1600–1700 K (1,320-1,420 degrees Celsius). That city is going to need REALLY powerful air conditioning. 

I would love to overhear that villain monologing longer and find out how the Moon controls "the fueling system of the universe." Seeing as how the Moon is close to nothing but Earth, that works out how...?

It's also worth pointing out, I think, how even in a future sci-fi setting, big things still have to be moved by cranes and chains. The amount of thought that went into technology with this future world-building is usually minimal.

Marga is like Tarzan, only raised by black panthers instead of gorillas. This is the first comic book character to be named Ted Grant, to be followed by DC's Wildcat in two years.

Here's another wrinkle on the ray that freezes motors, this one freezes people too. 

Check out the scale on that fortress. That is either a mistake, or that is one huge anti-aircraft gun. It's at least as tall as the towers! The airplane hangar looks small, but it's difficult to say how far away from the fortress it is.

Leopards are unusual guards. Unusual guards, of course, often make for better encounters.

Is the Ethiopian strange because he's an albino? I'm surprised they don't mention that. Maybe he's strange because Uchunko isn't a real Ethiopian name. The closest is probably Urgessa.

 
The curious wording of that first panel caption could mean that the guards are savages, or just savage fighters. If the first, I would stat them as natives. If the latter, I could maybe stat them as bloodthirsty hoodlums.

I wonder what the poisonous fumes in the poison pit are. Sulfur? Whatever it is, it isn't very fast-acting.

Someone spent more time on that cheesecake shot in panel 2 than any other panel in this feature.

That tigers and leopards roam freely through the fortress is interesting. There must be a lot of open doorways and not many closed doors in the place.

I don't know how "heavy" that heavy cover is; it looks only slightly larger than the average manhole cover and I doubt I would make anyone roll anything to lift it. 

More curious is how exactly she's aiding Ted to reach the top of he pit. Is she pulling him up as she goes? That could require an expert skill check at climbing, or maybe even a stiffer penalty.

That Ted is "almost unconscious" suggests he's been slowly losing hit points to the poison instead of being in a save or die situation.

Now we're going to jump to the next feature, Dr. Doom! No, still not the Marvel Comics' Dr. Doom, and not the international spy Dr. Doom who really came first. This is middle Dr. Doom, the ugly old mad scientist guy who shrinks people down and puts them under glass with giant mosquitoes that look suspiciously more like hornets. The nice thing about shrinking heroes is that you can use the stats for giant animals for ordinary animals, and giant mosquitoes were statted as far back as Supplement I: National.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Mystery Men Comics #8 - pt. 2

Today we're looking at Cynde's behind in a bathing suit -- I mean, Rex Dexter of Mars!

Okay, I get why Rex is stripped down to his skivvies, because that's what you do to your prisoners to make sure they don't have hidden weapons or utility belts full of lockpicks on them, but Cynde is feeling unusually confident, or just hoping to catch some rays while saving Rex.

Actually, I further get that Dick Briefer could have been inspired by Burroughs' John Carter novels, wherein everyone on Mars feels more comfortable naked.

All that said, a deathtrap where you are just hung out in the sun and the bad guys wait for you to dry up and die - well, those are real patient bad guys! That's at least three days for Rex to have come up with an escape plan.

So, Reyni gave her a freeze-ray gun...that worked? Does that mean Reyni gave Rex one that didn't work, like as a prank? Or does Cynde (as a typical 1940-era woman, even in the future) think it's surprising anyone would give her a working gun?

Really unsure how that lever reverses the ozone layer depletion back on Earth so quickly, but it's good to know buildings aren't blowing up from the heat anymore.

"Surprised, Rex darling?"

"I'll say -- how did he install this shattering-ray on my ship without my knowing it, or noticing it on the way here? And why are you just telling me about it now? We could have blown up their lab before I went in there, got captured, and stripped down to my civvies!"

Shattering-rays, obviously use the wrecking things mechanic.

Anyway, we're going to jump into the Green Mask story in progress. Now, don't cry over spilled milk. I'm not; I'm wondering instead if milk operators protective associations were real things. Well, there was a Wisconsin Dairy Protective Association at least as late as the 1920s, so as much as this sounds like a shake-down racket, it seems to have been a legitimate thing.

I'm also wondering what Green Mask was doing in the district attorney's closet, and how long he was hiding in there.

Is part of that picture missing? Because that doesn't look like a hand to me. I suspect "Black Hand" might be a stand-in for "Brownshirts," particularly since it is said to be a foreign organization.

Even though Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson," it was already a catchphrase before 1940 and possibly even before its first known instance in print, back in 1909.

Putin's government still uses this same scheme today.

That cop is all bluster; Green Mask just stands there, daring him to arrest him, and the cop does nothing but stand there and watch him climb out the window.

What would be on the ledge for GM to hook his wire to? Does he visit the district attorney's closet so often that he's had time to screw a hook into the ledge?

Is a convertible really a good idea for being out for a drive when you're wearing a mask?

That said, I like how the hideout requires passes, and the skull is an interesting decoration for the business table. I wonder if it has any function, like a microphone connected to a dictaphone hidden inside. 

J.J. Ratfield was the head of the protective association -- so it was a shake-down racket after all!

Look at that panel 6 -- how is GM even keeping his foot on the gas while leaning out the far side of the car, let alone control the wheel? How embarrassing it would have been had he crashed into an oncoming car or ramped over the sidewalk while trying to do his cool move.

The note, I'll grant, is pretty clever. By offering himself as bait, it gives the police more incentive to come to this midnight rendezvous. He just has to hope they are more interested in catching him than they seemed at the window.

The Green Mask gets a surprise attack, though it looks like two surprise attacks here. I'm not comfortable with allowing a grappling attack and a punch on a separate opponent in the same turn in Hideouts & Hoodlums. I don't know what advantage the leap gives him either.

Having the drivers help out in the fight was a lucky break to make it go faster. Their cooperativeness could have been determined by an encounter reaction roll, even though GM didn't ask them to help him.

That's a really good ruse, so long as Ratfield falls for it. I would give him a save vs. plot to see if he's suspicious, unless GM uses a skill check for voice mimicry to sound like one of the hoodlums out on the road.

I'm not showing you the next page, but all you're missing is that GM puts the receiver to a dictaphone to record the confession.

We have just enough time left to peek in on the next story of Chen Chang. It seems pretty bold to kill the watchman outside the theatre, even if it is nighttime. But what I have a problem with is two men at the same time falling for the fake door over the 75' drop. One man, maybe, but...were they both going through the door at the same time? Is there more to the trap, like someone comes up behind them and pushes?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Flash Comics #3 - pt. 2

Continuing where I left off...

Hawkman's (or Hawk-Man's) friend is "killed" by Una Cathay, a female mad scientist/magic-user, a very unusual combination in the Golden Age, when most women aren't shown as being scientific-minded. The story is (get ready for spoilers later): she has come up with an interesting spin on raising the dead; her chemical potions can resurrect dead people, but to stay alive they have to remain mostly immersed in the chemical bath. She has a collection of revivified men floating in water tanks, a spin on the "brains in jars" trope. Oh, and she can work "Voodoo" spells. If she ties her hair to someone, she can make him take burning damage even at long range (not sure what to call this spell...Voodoo Fire?).

Hawk-Man does not yet have much of a reputation as a good guy; he is able to easily fool the scientist and a Russian spy working with her (actually identified as Russian and not given a fake country) into thinking he wants to throw in with them. But she decides to kill him anyway, with the aforementioned voodoo spell. Typical of the genre, the spy is an aristocrat (or at least calls himself a count).

Somehow, when Hawk-Man goes home to pick up some throwing daggers, Shiera is there, immediately spots a long woman's hair wrapped around his wrist from across the room, and instead of jumping to the conclusion that Carter is seeing another woman, she jumps to the weirder conclusion that someone cast Voodoo Fire on him. Could that be an expert skill check in arcane lore?

The twist to the story -- as too often happens -- is that there's less supernatural or super-sciency going on than it appeared; Una was poisoning people with something that put them into comas and pretended they were dead.

Hawk-Man confronts the villains after freeing the prisoners and pins the spy's hand to the wall with a dagger, but the dagger really just disarms the spy (it was his gun hand) and the pinning is quickly forgotten flavor text.

Una escapes from Hawk-Man by using a secret door that he appears to be unable to bust through. Does that suggest that secret doors should be harder to wreck than normal doors, or is Hawk-Man only concerned that wrecking the door will take too long and Una will get away?

When the spy falls out a window, Hawk-Man makes no effort to save him.

For the first time in any medium, I've now seen a thrown dagger puncture a tire and make a car crash. Also unusual for the car crash trope, the villain actually dies in the crash, Una suffering a broken neck (and Hawk-Man even checks the body to make sure she's really dead!).

Next up is Johnny Thunderbolt, or Johnny Thunder as we know him! Training to be a boxer, Johnny has gotten ripped since last issue.

"Pile of jack" is slang for "lot of money" in this story. Johnny also uses the term "slop up" to mean "go out for a drink" (though this is Johnny, so he means a chocolate malt, not booze). There is a topical reference to Glenn Cunningham. According to Wikipedia, Glenn Vernice Cunningham was an American middle-distance runner, who was considered as the greatest American miler of all time. He received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States in 1933.

When Johnny tells bullets to go back where they came from, he activates what appears to be the Turn Gun on Bad Guy power. Since Johnny is a magic-user, that means we need a Missile Reflection spell too.

Johnny is, at least briefly, heavyweight champion of the world. We still haven't seen a physical manifestation of his thunderbolt-genie yet.

Next we're treated to a reprint of Rod Rian of the Sky Police. The Mephisians use a giant raygun (one of those that looks a lot like the dome of a planetarium) to pull Rod out of the sky using a combination of magnetism and gravity, or what we now call in science fiction a tractor beam. In a convenient moment of charity, the Mephisian leader (who's name also happens to be Mephistos) not only spares Rod from being shot and decides to strand him and the other prisoners on The Island of the Living Dead, but also is sporting enough to arm them first. I guess Mephistos isn't such a bad guy after all! On the island we haven't seen the living dead yet, but we get to see the chasm beast! We haven't seen this guy since Dell's The Comics #10!

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Planet Comics #2 - pt. 1

If this issue looks familiar, it's because I reviewed Fox's Science Comics not too long ago, and both were farmed out to the Eisner/Iger shop -- and both done on the cheap. Although four-panel pages are not so rare nowadays, in 1940, this was purely a cost-saving measure to stretch out stories to fill more pages. You'll see much more of that on the pages to follow. Indeed, much of this post will be more of a rant than any constructive discussion of how to emulate golden age comic books with Hideouts & Hoodlums.

For instance, it's impossible to ignore the blatant plagiarism in these early comic books, particularly when it comes to swiping from successful comic strips. Here we have hawkmen, straight out of Flash Gordon. 

This feature is a new one, by the way, Planet Payson. Is Planet his first name, I wonder? I doubt we'll ever know.

Despite my rantings, there are interesting fantasy elements here -- the completely impossible castles in the clouds, and the mythological aspect of explaining how thunder and lightning happen.

The artist here is George Tuska, practically the Sal Buscema of 1940, given how prolific his work was. You can see he was fast by how much empty space he leaves, giant panels he uses, and sometimes appalling lack of detail. Like panel 2, with the nearly empty spaceship. Planet is standing behind the steering column, with no seat. There's a door, some...air vents over the door? ...and that weird row of rivets that runs down the wall and into the floor (and that was clearly a mistake left in, since there's no change in perspective for the rivets on the floor). And yet, George still found time to draw Planet's personal masseuse giving him a shoulder rub...

The proportions look all off on that one-man tank, like there is only a head inside it (maybe there is...?), but a one-man tank should be a good trophy item. Unfortunately, it's slow to turn at corners, so corners must be the best place to ambush them from.

It's never mentioned what race Buzzlark's people are. It's tempting to say the buzzard-men vs. the hawk-men, but the "buzzard-men" have no birdlike features.

Roland has never heard of honor in combat; although the guard is running up to him unarmed, Roland still shoots him in the face at point blank range with his rifle (it looks like the helmet is melting from it -- heat ray?). At least Planet turns his gun around to use as a clubbing weapon.

Four-to-one odds are too much for Planet, which makes sense, with him being a 1st-level fighter/beat cop.

At first it seems odd that the "buzzard-men" stripped Planet and Roland down to their underwear before putting them in the "electro tubes." But then, when I think about how often good guys have managed to escape with concealed gadgets, maybe this makes a lot of sense.

Electricity doesn't, technically, dissolve things. I wonder why they aren't just in acid tubes if they wanted to do that.

A sting ray gun is a curious thing. Does the ray somehow project poison into the target? 

This is from inside the next feature, Flint Baker. Flint is an Earth man on Mars, having to deal with problems like this four-armed giant. Although not white, the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs' white apes is unmistakable, and the size of this thing oddly presages the white apes in the 2012 John Carter movie more closely than the book versions do.

===

White apes are 4 Hit Dice. If we applied the large/huge/giant structure to that, then giant white apes would be 16 HD, which is indeed pretty fearsome.

===

10 miles per minute is 600 MPH. A car won't go this fast until 1970, and of course most cars still don't go this fast today.

I'm going to spare you the gruesome page of how they kill the giant "white" ape...but you may be able to guess it by the trajectory of the spaceship...

This page highlights some of Flint's equipment, including "rocket-propelled degravitation rods" that look suspiciously like pogo sticks. Or maybe they operate more like vertical witches' broomsticks?

===

The rayguns seem to allow to wreck at range, which we've seen before. Being able to crumble the ground, even if the ground was thin at that point, should require being able to wreck as a 4th-level superhero, at least. Of course, this could be the Dig power instead (and might make more sense to be).

This page poses an interesting game mechanics problem. If you're trying to move a giant object -- like a dead hand -- what do you roll for that? It can't be grappling, because the dead hand can't grapple you back. It *could* be pushing, moving the hand 1' per point of damage, but that rule assumes your opponent is roughly your size or smaller. Although I'm not a big fan of ability score checks, I think a Strength check -- rolling your STR or less on 1d20 -- is the best way to go with this.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Popular Comics #48 - pt. 2

We're back with Martan today. He's flying around, judging Earth pilots as they shoot at him, and -- what? Isn't he flying a spaceship? How does he lean his arm out the window?? Did he actually roll down the window, like in a car?

I like the dialogue on that one pilot. I don't think he's using "smack" as a noun, but I can't wait to use that line in a game someday -- "I'm ready to pour 'six rounds of heavy caliber smack into him'!"

Interesting -- Martan is obviously attacking them with a raygun, but it's so rare for a ray to be invisible in comic books. The effect of the ray is specifically to lock up all mechanisms -- but this is effectively the same as temporarily wrecking things.

What we don't get a good idea of is what the area of effect is for this ray; we can tell it's wide, but it does have its limits (as Martan discusses shortly after this page).

Another feature of Martan's ship is that it can broadcast his voice through any electronic device, like these loudspeakers, with a range as great as the raygun.

The story takes as a dark turn, as the commander is so shocked that he has a stroke and dies on the spot. That is one failed morale save (on my chart, the worst result is fainting!)!

"Fata Morgana" is the Italian name for Megan le Fay. Martan's power seems to be the first instance of postcognition in comics (new super power!). Martan is able to create an image of what the building used to look like that both he and Vana can see (but not for long). It's unclear how long ago the church was ruined; perhaps postcognition can only reach back a few days in time.

Martan has no compulsion against killing humans (humans are still beneath him; an easy position for an alien to take).

Weird that the shadowy figures are armed with only swords and daggers. I actually did stat shadowy figures as a mobstertype back in Supplement V (and will likely include them in the Mobster Manual).

Radios being broken seems a not uncommon complication of airplane crash landings.

Being marooned on a deserted island is a great H&H scenario, as it tests the Heroes' ability to problem solve without the use of most of their special abilities.

The Masked Pilot should be very suspicious of the captain's lack of suspicion, particularly in regards to the Masked Pilot's mask.

Treasure placement can include weapon placement and always needs lots of thought, as two fully loaded automatics is not what I would expect to have found in a radio room.

It's interesting how the Masked Pilot is not worried until the sub-machine gun turns up. Now, that's interesting because, in H&H 2nd ed., a sub-machine gun isn't all that dangerous in the hands of a low HD mobster. Could it do more damage vs. a vehicle, though?

Things continue to escalate once the grenades come out! This kind of escalation of threat level happens all the time in game play, with the same risk of weapons falling into the Heroes' hands.

In Gang Busters, we see how a skill check for even driving can be critical in a scenario, as a failed check would send them over the cliff, or stopped before the parked car.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Flash Comics #2 - pt. 2

Hawkman shows up third in this issue. New York City (I presume) is struck by a major earthquake (no other DC characters notice because there is no shared continuity yet). The cause is unusual; a mad scientist calling himself Alexander the Great has created a machine that increases an object's weight 1,000 times, and that is what caused the earthquake. It takes an hour to warm up the weight-increasing raygun before it can be fired.

In this story we learn that Carter and Shiera are engaged, and Carter has promised to give up adventuring when they marry (so, of course, they never do marry).

In a rare sign of heroes drinking, Carter is mixing a drink in a shaker. These are clearly adult heroes; not only does Carter end the adventure by offering Shiera a cocktail, but it's clear from Shiera's dialog that she just spend the night over at his place.

Dinner is served at 10, way later than any dinner I've ever eaten.

Shiera calls Carter's costume "robes."

Shiera gets them invited to dinner with Alexander by revealing Carter is Hawkman to him. Alexander, more like a Bond villain than a comic book villain, offers Hawkman $1 million to not interfere in his plans, and genially tells him he can visit anytime. Indeed, security is so light at Alex's mansion that Carter is able to sneak back in and test if the machine will work on ninth metal (Carter carries around a small sample).

We learn that ninth metal is not composed of atoms (but are not told what it is composed of. Solid energy?)

Hawkman arms himself with a trident and net, even though Shiera recommends a sword. The trident and net are also both made of ninth metal (not all his weapons are, apparently).

Showing off how well-read he is, Carter makes a reference to "fling the gage," a way to say "give an ultimatum" that comes from the poem "In the Vanguard" by Scottish poet Alexander Anderson.

Hawkman is still low level; he gets beat by a single mad scientist armed with only a pistol, and has to be saved by Shiera.

In one of the earliest examples of superheroes keeping trophy items, Hawkman keeps one of two weight-increasing machines left in Alex's mansion (after wrecking the other with an axe so no one else can have one).  

Next up is Johnny Thunderbolt, which has not yet been shortened to Johnny Thunder. Johnny "accidentally" casts Charm Person four times, on two police officers, a complete stranger, and a boxer, to get them to do what he says. When he finds a bully harassing a lady and makes him bounce across town into a hospital. It's more difficult to say what spell that would be. Telekinesis, possibly, or a new spell called ...Compel Movement? It would be a 2nd level spell that makes 1 target move in a certain direction for the duration. He also casts Fear, which makes four people run away from him.

The woman Johnny rescued immediately becomes his temporary supporting cast member, since she thinks he's cute.

The newspaper headlines make it clear that Johnny is in New York City.

Previously reprinted by Dell, Rod Rian of the Sky Police is in these early Flash Comics. This installment sets the time of the strip at 2500 AD. We also learn that telurium is a metal only found on the Moon, and that Earth has a world government that uses earthons instead of dollars as its currency. 10,000 MPH is a very fast speed to be approaching the Moon; most Moon landings arrive at around 5,000 MPH. The remainder of the pages are the same ones reprinted in Dell's The Comics #7, and feature the Mephisians.

The Demon Dummy continues the melodrama of Harry Dunstan, a ventriloquist whose sanity crumbles after losing the love of his life last installment.Talking to himself through his dummy, Harry convinces himself to become a destitute drunk and get himself arrested, so he can exact revenge while in jail. We also find out that "hooker" used to also mean a "good, stiff drink." 

In The Whip, Rod Gaynor buys the old villa that the original Whip was said to have owned 100 years ago. The place has a reputation for being haunted, supported by doors that swing open on their own (as the building shifts, perhaps). There is also a wandering encounter in the house, as Rod and his servant Wing meet the sheriff inside.

The Whip is opposed by The Association, a group of rural mobsters. They spend $10,000 to hire five assassins, who apparently work for $2,000 each.

Fighting the assassins, the Whip is able to entangle one of them with his whip and hurl the man against the wall hard enough to hurt him. That's tricky to emulate with game mechanics because the entangling attack and the hurling attack should be two separate attacks, giving his opponents twice as long to shoot him. As the Editor, I would consider how much damage the attack would likely do in total and, seeing how it would not be much, would condense it into a single punch attack (with the rest just flavor text).

The Whip entangles a second assassin with his whip, jumps out the window, and that pulls the assassin out the window with him. I would treat this as an opposed grappling attack, but with circumstances giving the Whip a +2 situational bonus.


(read at fullcomic.pro)

Fantastic Comics #3 - pt. 1

We're back to Fox's Samson, and in this installment the raygun in that little plane can cancel the gravity on something weighing up to 160 tons. Compared to that, Samson breaking the lock off a door with his bare hand doesn't seem quite so impressive (a 1st level superhero could do that!).

Any of the defensive buffing powers could be in play here in panel 1.

I've written before about how darkness seems to be the best protection against superheroes, and for now I have no intention of introducing a power that would allow superheroes to see in the dark.

There is no game mechanic for superheroes accidentally wrecking things. More likely, though, the player chose to wreck the door, and then pretended it was an accident for his Hero.

Samson either uses a Leap power or he's an alien with natural leaping skills. How Jean gets on the ship if Samson doesn't leap with her is unclear.

Samson's booming voice has a peculiar effect, either producing a slew of positive encounter reactions all at once, or perhaps he's activated a power which does that (Commanding Voice? Mighty Shout?).   

Panel 4 gives the power Hold Breath a fairly specific duration. If time is measured in exploration turns, then this works out with the duration I gave the power already.

As for what he's using once he's underwater...it's clearly a reversed application of Raise Ocean Liner (or Push Ocean Liner, as it was called in 1st edition, but should be changed so all the Raise powers start the same).

Now, this is why I described the ray as gravity canceling instead of magnetic. And, apparently, it can only lock onto one object at a time, so as soon as it locks onto Jean, it can't affect the ship anymore (had Samson realized this, he could have floated up there in her stead and wrecked the plane, instead of holding the ship down.

In evidence is the power Race the Plane.

It's hard to imagine how that secret hangar remains secret...

Samson uses the power Wall Climbing, and then wrecking things to pry open the giant secret door. Steel walls are wrecked as if tanks, while doors are wrecked as the simplest category; I would compromise halfway and treat this as the robot category.

Samson seems to be using Imperviousness against the bullets, though catching bullets is usually a sign of using the Race the Bullet power.

I don't have much to point out about this page, except that Samson looks somewhat hilariously like a surfer in panel 2.

Having supporting cast around can be handy when you need someone to call the police for you.

Samson is clearly making his saving throw vs. science to counter the raygun's effects on him.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)