Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 4

I probably shouldn't be as impressed as I am with the adventures of Buzzard Barnes, and maybe I'm reading too much into things here, but as Barnes and Andy argue over who has the most kills, it reminds me of Legolas and Gimli. In addition, we get to see some of the things you can do during aerial combat, including setting each other's planes on fire, and shooting copilots.

Now this also intrigues me, probably being the first instance of a record being played backwards in a comic book.

I could tell Jack Cole's The Defender is a blatant ripoff of the pulp novel hero, The Avenger, but an even more knowledgeable fan on Comic Book Plus tells us that this story specifically plagiarizes the third Avenger pulp novel, "The Sky Walker." 

Pittsburgh is an unusual setting for a comic book story and might actually be its first appearance in one. 

Drinking carbolic acid is more of a save or die situation rather than doing points of damage - though I could see it still doing damage even if the saving throw vs. poison is made.

The first invisible plane in comics? I'm not sure about that...might have to go back through the blog to check.

It seems like the Defender is kinda' reaching here...wouldn't it be more likely that Peerless Steel just makes inferior product, than the conspiracy theory that Supex Steel is using a stolen ray from an invisible plane to damage any steel that's not theirs? Well, this is comic books, so...

Here's another mad science invention for your Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns: a sound detector that can follow specific vibrations over a distance of miles, hours later (as unlikely as that seems). 

You'd think inventing a bulletproof airplane might have been a better use of his time...

I get why it was done this way, for story, so it would look like the villains were getting away, but I hope not too many H&H players will plant time bombs in enemy planes, rather than capturing the villains and turning them over to the police with evidence. Although, on second thought, this strategy keeps me from having to give out trophy planes to my players...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

 

Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 3

We're still reading Steel Shark. It's a curious feature; I can't tell from this story if this is supposed to be some time in the future or if it's a more hi-tech version of 1940, so I had to go back and read the first issue's story and this is actually meant to be 1960. The widespread use of television is pretty accurate. But Flux-Ray guns that melt ships in minutes? That's a wrecking ray that didn't exist in 1960. 

Wrecking is so often instantaneous in the comics that it's interesting to read about a ray that takes over 1 exploration turn to wreck. 

"Gyro-pilot control" must mean autopilot, which is odd because autopilot had already been a thing since 1914.

Batteries seem to work different in this 1960; I can't guess how a lurch would foul the batteries. Batteries only "foul" like that when they've been overcharged, and even then the risk is more about an explosion than suffocation, because not that much hydrogen should be leaking.  

We know we're not in the kids adventure genre when Tommy is sent below deck. If this was Dickie Dare, that boy would be all up in the action! 

"Aqua-vapo"? You're trying awfully hard to sound scientific when you have to come up with a new word for water vapor. Water vapor - also known as fog -- doesn't seem like it would make for concealment as well as smoke would. I might treat fog as light cover.   

There are some puzzling aspects of this page and the next.

1. What is the area of effect of a depth charge? How much in danger was Jones' sub? 

2. Again, we are told the subs are very close together, so close that the Flux-ray-guns backfire and jolt Steel Shark just for holding the controls. How do they feedback only to the controls and not the whole sub? And why would flux rays bounce back? I suppose we need to understand what flux rays are first, and I doubt we're ever going to get that information.

Again, the science here is pretty sketchy, but we really can't say for sure that dry ice wouldn't counter a flux ray, since we still don't know what a flux ray is.  

More interesting is the fact that Steel Shark is able to observe Jones telling his crew how to counter the flux ray. Did Jones forget to turn off their closed circuit television connection? It reminds me of the beginning of this sketch, which I just happened to watch earlier today - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp_Fw5oDMao

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this story is the last page, which says "Harry 'A' Chesler Syndicate" at the bottom, proving this comic was produced by the Chesler Shop for Hillman (really, from its pedestrian-ness alone I would have suspected that from this title). Since there's nothing else on that page worth seeing, you're just gonna' have to take my word on this....   

We're going to jump into the next story now, which is Buzzard Barnes. There's little to see here, including the amount of cover necessary to hide behind for a successful hiding skill check. 

Past that...it's looking like this was a false lead. If Maynard was really up to something suspicious, he probably wouldn't get drunk right away, and he would try to flee rather than pick a fight. Let's see if I'm right...

Nope, I was wrong! So what was the point of the drunkenness? Was he feigning drunkenness to appear innocent, or is he just an alcoholic spy? Or is he a drunken hoodlum? That would be interesting - we haven't see one of those on the blog in a long time!  

You know, I'm also thinking how easy this scenario was: figure out who the spy is, from a list of one suspect.

We've seen prisoners hurt themselves before in order to wreck bonds. Now, every hero has a chance of being able to just flex their muscles and break bonds -- but not much of a chance unless a superhero. If I haven't made this ruling before, I would consider allowing a +1 bonus for every point of damage you inflicted on yourself in the process.

Now, how did Andy just happen to stumble across Barnes, inside the enemy hideout? Barnes should immediately be suspicious that Andy is also working with the bad guys.

Nope, Barnes still isn't suspicious! I think we're going to have to chalk this one up as a plot hole.

A supercharged pursuit plane sounds like a trophy item. I would say that it moves at normal speed (whatever that is for that type of plane) except when in pursuit mode (in a chase scene), and then it is always x amount of Movement rate faster. 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.) 

  

Comics on Parade #24

Happy February! We're back and revisiting Comics on Parade and, for the first time in a long time, Tailspin Tommy.  Boy, it feels like Tommy and company have been stuck in that valley forever! 

Here we have a remarkably rare occurrence of an animal not being dropped by a single bullet. Cougars need to be really tough in Hideouts & Hoodlums; I'll have to review the stats and see if I should raise them.

It appears our Hero plans to act as a living shield for the damsel in distress, but since he is the only threat present it makes sense that all attacks would go towards him anyway.

We have an unusual use of "cookie" as slang here, but the real reason I shared this page is the tip about following tracks back to the lair. I have mixed feelings about this. There have been times when I had a lair all prepared and was frustrated that the players didn't want to follow the tracks back to it, and other times when it was a completely random encounter, and I was frustrated when they did follow the tracks!

The concern about an animal having a mate nearby is a sound one too. When rolling for number encountered, bear in mind that the total number doesn't have to be encountered all at the same time.

Detailed plane information for your next transportation trophy.

Oops, don't have a lot to say about this page. Keep scrolling down...

Hi again! So Abbie an' Slats is obviously not an adventure strip, but there is a strong moral dilemma here that I think would be delicious to explore in a game session at some point. A rich girl will save the town for you if you're willing to get rid of your most important supporting cast member. Is that 100 XP for a good deed worth it to you?

There are three things that stand out from this page for me. One is the uncommon term "soup strainer" for mustache. Two is the amount of money would could expect to find on someone of, let's assume middle class. Three, and perhaps the most unusual thing here is the exact height of her husband. Cartoony men are often drawn short, but in this case it is not exaggeration for comic effect. Yeah, and there's some racist depictions here too.

Yes, I'm obsessed enough on little details that I checked to see if the Bowery Lifter Upper Society was a real thing. This is almost surely a reference to the Salvation Army. 

A $150 purse seems really good for a boxing match in the 1930s, or even the 1920s (this story was first published in 1936, and the scene within it is a flashback to some years earlier). 

I'm not sure what the crime was here. Prizefighting without a license? Or was it illegal to be a female boxer? I can't figure this one out. I know it was legal for women to box in the 1950s, but I can't find anything about the earlier half of the century.

I had to look up "demi-tasse;" it's a small coffee cup, so this is an insult about his short height.

Lochinvar is a very obscure reference today, and I can't help but wonder how often this went over the readers' heads in the 1930s. Lochinvar was the fictional, romantic hero of the ballad "Marmion" by Sir Walter Scott (1808).

 

Even Fish Cake Fannie maybe isn't a throwaway line - "Fish Cake Fanny" was a 1923 play. 

This feature continues to educate! "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" was one of the most popular songs of 1900, reportedly selling more than 2 million copies in sheet music at the time.

Drinking champagne from a lady's slipper became a symbol of decadence in the early 20th century, possibly before 1910. 

"Skiddoo" meant "go quickly," later shorted to "shoo!"

And I'm tossing this gag filler in because I thought it was funny!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Target Comics #2 - pt. 3

Welcome to the new year. First post of 2021! Whew...this will be Year 7 for the blog...

We're still looking at T-Men, which on the surface seems a pretty generic government agent adventure strip, yet when I look at the details it can be surprisingly well-informed. Like here, the U.S.S. Lexington isn't a random made-up name; there was a U.S.S. Lexington aircraft carrier, the second one, sailing in 1940, and would be until it was lost in 1942 in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Then there's this weird, two-panel dogfight where it's really hard to tell what is going on. Which plane is the bad guy plane? Well, it's the one on fire. Why is it on fire? It's unlikely the Navy has a plane with a flamethrower on it, so I think this was an engine hit from bullets, even though the artist skipped showing us the plane being shot at. "The chief must have..." what? Rigged the plane so the pilot couldn't get out? How exactly did he do that...remote control locks? That actually seems an idea ahead of its time.

Southport is a curious name. For a strip that doesn't shy away from naming actual naval ships, you'd think it would name Bridgeport, Connecticut -- right across Long Island Sound from Long Island -- and a likely candidate for being where the plane took off from. There is a Southport, New York, but it's actually upstate, about halfway between Scranton, Penn. and Rochester, NY.

I am amused by how much the Treasury Department values Agent Turner. "There might be a lead there. Go on...take a year. Longer if you need it! Don't hurry back..."

Moving on to the next page, I'm equally amused by the hungry spy chief who forgot to eat today and "I want the lunch box, too!" But seriously, these saboteurs are unusually smart, using proxies whenever possible -- like the guy they hired to fly that rigged plane, or this guy, who is going to be impersonated with the aid of plastic surgery, and the man's own lunch box for added realism.

Man, you should never cross that spy chief! Shortchange him and he'll gun you down in cold blood. I mention it because, for the only villain unnamed in this story (and the other two have cool names like Gazor and Count Karna), this chief really shows up most every comic book villain up to this point, short of the Ultra-Humanite, for cunning, intelligence, and ruthlessness. The chief is captured and we're told on the last page that he'll likely go to the electric chair, but I kind of hope he escapes so I can re-use him in a campaign someday...

 

 

This is from a pretty engaging ensemble feature called City Editor. The City Editor isn't the hero of the piece; he's more like Professor X, leading from behind, back at HQ, while a male and female journalist and the kid who, I'm guessing, sells the papers on street corners, go out and complete missions for him. Because these two heroes aren't combat-types (maybe the Detective sub-class from a past Trophy Case?), a single woman with a blackjack is a serious challenge for them. This is -- for a weapon so common in Hideouts & Hoodlums -- the very first time we've seen a blackjack, or at least this clearly.   

Funny, I never would have thought of that as a "coal hole," it just looks like a manhole cover to me. It turns out coal holes were a real thing (accessing underground coal bunkers), though you were more likely to find them in 19th century Great Britain than 1940 New York City. 

Only in a story where the reporter is a main character would the reporter be allowed to barge into the building in front of the police officers on the scene.

I'm pretty sure the police officers are just supporting cast in this scene, so it's kind of surprising that one of them is the one who knocks the automatic out of her hands and saves the day, instead of Phil -- but this can easily happen in a game system ruled by random dice results. 

Golf bags are a good place to search for hidden clues and loot!

Lastly...is Pinky a boy? He's looking pretty effeminate in those last few panels, particularly with those girlish legs and shoes in the final panel. Hmm...

This is from Calling 2-R, a marvelously inventive and ambitious feature, just one with a terrible name. This is utopian fiction, something we don't see often enough in comic books, so I'm certainly willing to forgive it for its lack of suspense when an ineffectual villain shows up here. Note how the force wall does damage when touched (maybe 1-3 points, certainly not much), but also repels him back 1-6'. It otherwise functions as a Wall of Force spell.

I suspect a lot of tracing went into these panels, but they're still quite impressive! 

Free healing in the barracks? If my future players see this strip they'll want to go here between adventures. They'll probably want a speed plane too; this super-metal would make it resistant to wrecking, and the speed it flies at would seem futuristic until 1956.

The trick with utopian fiction, of course, is that one man's idea of utopia is not necessarily another's, and I'm having a hard time with the privacy issues surrounding an all-seeing television eye, and the misuses that mind picture machine could be put to. Still, vehicles run on cosmic force? That's better than electric cars! And I've had plenty of players who would want those force guns and body protectors. The gravity diminishers that let them walk on air would make a great trophy item too!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)
 

 

Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 2

Okay, the planes going dead are explained (as if we needed it, as cliched as the rays are), but what we never get explained is how the machine guns have no effect. Bulletproof armor on the planes?

Also, take a look at the jowls on War Bird. In the Golden Age, a Hero could debut in his late 40s. 

It's nice that Von Kruhl was kind enough to write his note in English for us, despite being Serbian and writing this for Frenchmen to read.

Where is the searchlight that was on the front of the plane before? Perhaps more odd, what was holding it in place on that smooth surface?

I do like that, as hi-tech as Von Kruhl's forces are, it's an ordinary pair of binoculars that foils him.

We don't see enough of this tactic, where the hero sneaks into the enemy's hideout and, instead of engaging the enemy, wrecks their stuff. This makes especially good sense in the aviator genre.

"Look! A Frenchman!" Is the thinking there that only a Frenchman would be sabotaging their planes?

"Hammer-like blows" would normally be flavor text, except that it seems pretty clear War Bird is hitting them with a wrench, which would be heavy enough to do normal club damage.

You can probably guess that War Bird gets away and wins the day, so we'll jump into Jim Dolan. Jim is in the reporter hero genre, but with the twist that he's an editor.

The list of his past accomplishments seems like a set-up for starting him out with a brevet rank. It's also a pretty good list of scenario ideas you could add to a longer list, and the final panel illustrates the advantages of making the police chief your supporting cast (something I saw being put to good use in my last H&H campaign).

I'm not going to address everything on this page; we've talked about trip attacks and improvised weapons plenty of times. We could talk about movement and if rushing out the door should really be faster than standing up (hint: in H&H it's determined entirely by initiative rolls). But I'm mainly sharing this page because the mobsters are not only using hot irons as torture devices, but somehow have flaming hot irons. Did they soak those things in kerosene first? They look pretty fearsome; I might let them do 2-7 damage as melee weapons.

I've talked before about smoke and heat damage from trying to rescue in an arson scenario, but what's interesting here is that Jim spots a clue in the fire, when he clearly wouldn't have had time to do a search. This has to be a freebie from the Editor, as every skill check should take at least one melee turn, and in most cases should take one exploration turn. 

Does Jim have to roll to hit to land in the net? To truly be fearless, one would think he does, but it makes equal sense for the firemen to roll to hit him with the net, and as long as two of them succeed their rolls, they catch him. 

It's interesting that Jim doesn't know his Bible well enough to know the psalm without researching. His Editor could have spared him the trouble and let him have an Intelligence check to remember.

The clue seems like a bit of a stretch to me, though...

I'm not personally cool with Heroes holding guns on people's faces while interrogating them, but it does happen in games.

Swimming from the patrol board to the yacht is a smart tactic, giving him a chance at surprise he would have lost had the patrol board pulled up alongside the yacht.

We'll jump ahead to Lucky Lawton, this anthology's western feature. I could mention that the law was tougher in the Old West than many give it credit for; even in self-defense these two still have to make their case in court. Or I could mention that Pal can act without being ordered to, making me suspect that Pal the dog is actually being played as a Hero character. But what really catches my eye are the hashmarks on the wall of the jail outside the cells. What would the sheriff have been keeping track of like that, and couldn't do on a calendar...?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Slam-Bang Comics #1 - pt. 1

This is my first time ever looking at this issue. I know none of these characters become hits, but I'm hoping for a gem in the rough...

This is Diamond Jack, the Green Lantern before there was Green Lantern. He's got an interesting amount of hubris to him for what should be a 1st-level Magic-User. Of course he's not; the Magic-Users never are. Here he casts Protection from Missiles and Polymorph Any Object, neither of which are 1st-level spells.

I was long ago asked why Hideouts & Hoodlums bothers emulating D&D's low-level Magic-Users at all, if you never find them in comic books; but this is precisely why comic book Magic-Users are always so boring, so unbeatably overpowerful. I choose not to emulate that.

A gangster chief is a master criminal, while thugs are their own mobstertype. 

Magic-Users never seem interested in keeping secret identities, or keeping their magic a secret. It's a wonder that the existence of magic stayed secret as long as it did. 

I think this is the third time we've seen Cure Light Wounds being cast. 

Here's where things start to get interesting for me. The mobsters just happen to know a witch? And what to make of this smoke dragon? Is it a spell, like an Aerial Servant? Or is it a conjured, living (or "living"/enchanted) creature?

That the smoking dragon disappears as if dispelled instead of killed makes me lean towards treating it as a new spell. Speaking of which, this Create Sword spell may be a new spell too. What he does to the spell is the all-too familiar Polymorph Any Object spell.

On this page the dragon is now consistently called a demon and is treated as if it is a mobster instead of a spell. You would think the witch would know which it was...but I'm thinking consistency isn't the priority in this story.

It's possible that Jack was able to use the Disguise spell here, but only if the smoke dragon-demon is in humanoid form here. Otherwise he had to conceal himself with a higher-level illusion, or even a Polymorph Self spell. 

The witch's spellbook is her "wand," just as Jack's ring is his "wand." 

This suggests that Polymorph Any Object is a permanent spell, or this is a higher-level permanent version.

It's interesting how Jack uses no magic to disguise himself as one of the thugs, but still can't help himself and uses a Knock spell on the door.

If jack opens the safe for them, has he really caught them in the act of doing anything...?

I wonder if magic-users should get extra XP for when they defeat opponents without spells, given how many times I've seen powerful heroes choose to settle things with normal fisticuffs instead.

Tom Sharp would itself be a pretty decent name for a strip. 

This is not the first time I've seen fighters given experience in the Spanish Civil War. I wonder if this is how you explain brevet ranks for fighters, circa 1940? 

The Lafayette Flying Corps was the name given to the American volunteer pilots who flew in the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) during World War I. I don't think its name was changed to the French Flying Corps during WWII.

Sermia sounds like Serbia. It's an unfortunate bit of naming, since Serbia was a victim during the war, invaded and occupied, with many deaths.

This is not the first radio-controlled plane we've seen, and it's far from the first ray gun that kills engines we've seen -- surprisingly, this is the first searchlight mounted on a plane we've ever seen. Apparently it's a rare feature, but then so is night flying...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)