Adventure Comics #48 - pt. 2

And we're back with what I promised, a look at this issue's installment of Federal Men. In it, the FBI gets a hot tip that counterfeiters are working in Northville, and in an unusual way -- a fake $1,000 bill is mailed to them anonymously, but came from Northville. Of course, we're given no indication as to where Northville is but, since so many comic book stories have a New York City orientation by now, it stands to reason that "Northville" means somewhere North of NYC, so...maybe it's actually Albany? Or even Poughkeepsie? Ah well, it's all speculation...

The plot is one we've seen before and will see again -- the hero stumbles across a crime school where a professor (or professors) teach classes on forgery, safe cracking, and killing in exchange for a cut of future profits. This one is pretty expensive -- a complete course costs $5,000, plus 25% of your take for the first year. I would be really leery of allowing a real game mechanic benefit to this.

Steve Carson (our hero) disguises himself as a "tough" by smoking a cigarette, going without shaving, and possibly darkening his eyebrows. He's caught -- not because he looks just like Steve Carson, but because he gets fingerprinted and the Professor somehow has all federal men's fingerprints on file.

Fitting in with the dark themes at DC Comics this month, the deathtrap is a suicide machine -- you're strapped in, with a gun in your hand, and the machine makes you squeeze the trigger and shoot yourself in the head. Without wrecking things, it's a pretty foolproof deathtrap -- so the only way out for Steve is to have one of the hoodlums turn on the Professor and free him. The twist is that the hoodlum did it -- and sent the fake $1,000 bill to tip off the feds -- not out of any altruism, but revenge because he was about to be expelled.

By now, the Sandman has been downgraded from billionaire Wesley Dodds to millionaire Wesley Dodds. Wesley is shown smoking a pipe, and the Sandman carries binoculars for the first, if not only time, in this issue.

Dian Belmont is in love with Wesley already, if her letter to him is written honestly. Her father, the D.A., learns Wesley is the Sandman in this story and seems cool with it, even though the Sandman was wanted by the police in the past.

The Sandman is shown jumping safely from a second floor window. Should stunts be able to lessen falling damage? Maybe. Maybe...half damage per 10', per stunt?

The Belmonts own a Chris-Craft -- Chris-Craft Boats was an American manufacturer of boats that was founded by Christopher Columbus Smith. This page is a good commercial for them -- it's fleet, and can easily catch up to a yacht. 

When Sandman searches Judge Quick he finds a letter in a secret pocket. I'm not sure how you conceal a "secret pocket" on your person. A pocket inside your jacket certainly wouldn't qualify as "secret." Maybe it's sewn to the inside of his pant leg...? The letter is a major clue without even reading it, because it smells of one of the suspects' perfume. 

Sandman climbs a wine-covered trellis (it's called a ladder, but it's pretty clearly a trellis) to an upstairs window, which should be a basic skill check, maybe even with a bonus if the trellis is sturdy. Dian, the Woman in Evening Clothes (and that's including high heels, no doubt) climbs it right after him, and that's got to be an expert skill check.

In one panel, the gas from his gas gun is referred to as "deadly."   

In Socko Strong, Socko is trapped in a deathtrap underwater, but he finds a trapdoor that serves as the drain for this pool. It feeds to an underground stream and Socko is swept into it. He emerges, "finally," on the bank of a river. But how long was he underwater? Were there pockets of air for him, or did he hold his breath the whole time? We're not told, but those details can mean life or death in a realistic campaign. 

The next day, while shooting a film, the guide wire snaps on a heavy arc lamp, and the lamp is about to fall on a small girl. "The entire group all stands motionless in frozen horror -- except for Socko..." Now, there's two possible explanations for that. One is that, as the only Hero present on the scene, the Editor is making sure none of the other characters on the scene can upstage him. Or, the Editor used surprise rolls to determine if anyone was surprised by the falling arc lamp, or perhaps Socko surprises the falling arc lamp, giving him even more time to act.

In an interesting twist, the father of the girl was paid to kill off Socko by sabotaging his parachute for the next scene to film. Doing the good deed pays off and saves Socko.  

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

 

 

All-American Comics #12 - pt. 1

Our lead feature is again Red, White, and Blue, a feature I quite enjoy so far. This story takes place in the city of Montville, of which there are at least four, for real, in the Northwest. It takes Red, White, and Blue less than 15 minutes to get there by plane from Washington, D.C., making Montville, New Jersey, our safest bet, though at 220 miles that is one fast plane.

Our villain is an unusual one, a single saboteur working with a longbow to shoot thermite-filled arrows with blasting caps as arrow heads into munitions plants. He also carries a pistol as back-up, but the longbow is his main weapon, making him the first villainous archer in a modern comic book story. Some light detective work traces the archer to a Mr. Rausch, who works at the embassy of a "belligerent nation" Red refuses to identify. In a delightful twist, Mr. Rausch is innocent and being framed by an agent from another nation, who plants all kinds of evidence against him, but Red's girl Doris sees through it all by simply talking to Rausch and finds out he's in love with an American girl and looking to naturalize, removing any motive he might have had. Red, normally the hero of these stories, comes across as a real jerk by not trusting Doris. He does display a gift for tracking in this story, though.

Hop Harrigan sets out on a long plane trip just to blow off some steam, but he finds when he's way out to sea that his radio isn't connected and his compass is off. Maybe I haven't used enough radios, but I don't get what he didn't do to connect his radio. Unreliable compasses is another complication I wouldn't have thought of when planning a scenario. Somehow he crosses the entire Pacific -- 7,000 miles, we're told -- and winds up on the coast of China, where refugees are looking to escape from Japanese aggression. This is a fairly timely story, though by 1940 the Japanese were actually very far inland in China and it's unlikely refugees would be coming to the east coast; it would have made more sense for them to be fleeing to Burma or Cambodia by then. For flying across the Pacific alone and rescuing Chinese refugees, Hop becomes a national hero and gets a ticker tape parade. It's odd that this would create such instant fame for him, as two Australians had already crossed the Pacific by plane as early as 1928.

Adventures in the Unknown continues with Alan and Ted having to tangle with prehistoric ape-men. Producing fire triggers a morale save for them. Alan and Ted want to get into a cave the ape-men are guarding, but the entrance is only accessible by climbing vines and the ape-men can stand above them and drop rocks on them. Their supporting cast member, the ape-man Ikki, is still working for them and carries their guns; they talk about "rewarding" him by taking him back to the present and putting him in a zoo or a sideshow. Alan is captured and taken to a pit where a saber-toothed tiger is being kept prisoner by the ape-men; they throw their enemies inside for the tiger to eat. Ikki helps rescue Alan, but later at the cave housing their time machine, Ted "accidentally" shoots Ikki in the back of the head while aiming for a different ape-man in melee with Ikki, killing their ally that they were planning to put in a zoo anyway.

In Ben Webster, while traversing a desert, Taffy Tate says "water's as rare out here as a 'demmycrat' in Vermont!" That seems an odd saying to still be spouting in 1940, when the Presidential election results from Vermont were only 54% to 44% leaning Republican. In fact, you have to go back to 1928 to find a time when the Republicans had a strong 66% to 32% majority.

Ben seems to pick up a new supporting cast on every adventure. This time, he's looking for a missing prospector with old man Tate, the prospector's friend, Tate's pet monkey, Ben's pet dog, and they pick up a crazy guide in the desert. The guide takes them to a mountain trail hidden behind a waterfall (players should always check behind waterfalls!). The trail is treacherous; their burros slip and almost fall a few times, with it being implied that their chances of slipping and falling would have gone up on foot. The end of the trail is guarded by two bandits using a boulder for cover.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)



 

Shadow Comics #1 - pt. 1

I have access to an incomplete copy of this issue, so I'll review what I can.

The first Shadow story takes place somewhere near the U.S.'s largest munitions works, which is interesting, because that would not likely be by New York City. I haven't been able to find out exactly what was the U.S.'s largest munitions works in 1940, but I know the Navy's biggest munitions works was out on Nebraska because, you know, putting that much explosives next to a major metropolis probably isn't a great idea...

Is the Shadow a fighter or mysteryman? Other than walking the ledge of a building, he does little that would count as stunts. He's also really ruthless, slaughtering all the enemy agents, including a woman.

The next story is Iron Munro, another future hero, this one set in 2093. It starts with Iron, being one of the last five survivors of a Ganymede colony, finally escaping Jupiter's gravity to get help from Earth. The science is okay...Ganymede is said to be −120 °F when it's really more like -343 °F. The escape velocity from Jupiter would have to be 2.4 times faster than Earth, but it's weird that anyone would set up a Ganymede colony while being unprepared for that. The author also thought Ganymede would have an atmosphere, when it doesn't. The 1,000 MPH winds would be closer to realistic for Jupiter, but tend to top off below 400 MPH.

Why are there no colonies between Earth and Ganymede?

Iron doesn't know that Earth's President died five years earlier, despite radio waves only taking 35 minutes to each Jupiter from Earth.

Iron is a superhero on Earth, using the Multi-Attack power to beat up the soldiers he first encounters on Earth. It also appears he can safely jump 50' down without injury, using the Leap I power.

Gold is still valuable in the future.

The current President becomes Iron's Supporting Cast Member, and follows him off-planet on adventure!

Iron's new spaceship is solar-powered. It can travel at almost one-fifth the speed of light. News to science: when an object strikes another object at that speed, they get shunted into another dimension. In this new dimension, the sun is blue. No idea how that makes sense...

Next up is that other stalwart of pulp fiction, Doc Savage! Doc Savage is in the delicate situation of having to put down an uprising of natives in an African colony...allegedly to keep the natives from being slaughtered, but it also looks like Doc is okay with maintaining the status quo of colonialism.

True to a Doc Savage story there are elements of mystery here; who put the handwritten note on the dead man's body? But because this story is much shorter than a Doc Savage novella, the answers come in one page (spoiler: it was the villain, Von Guyter, to lay a trap for Savage).

Doc escapes from being tied up thanks to a mini-flamethrower in his belt buckle -- which is a cool trophy item for Heroes, but one Doc has never needed in his stories, since he's easily escaped being tied up before. Doc also carries a vial of liquid explosive, good for pouring into rifles to wreck them, and if he pours it into fire it -- no, it doesn't explode (for some reason), it makes a smokescreen.

Carrie Cashin is a female detective with her own feature...but she's not a very good detective. She picks up a suspect's dropped gun with her own hand, obscuring any useful fingerprints. "Don't you know it's a penal offense to send threatening notes?" she asks, as if unaware that any law violation, even a misdemeanor, is a penal offense.

Pulp hero Nick Carter gets his own adventure, but the only thing remarkable about it is that the "hatchet men" Nick fights are refreshingly un-stereotyped, wearing ordinary suits and using knives as weapons.

The next feature is the unfortunately named Diamond Dick, and you would never in your life guess that Diamond Dick is a frontier scout character. The story takes place at Fort Advance, currently under the command of General Custer. Interestingly, I couldn't find evidence that Fort Advance was real, but a Fort Advance does figure into the dime novels of Buffalo Bill. Diamond uses a two-gun fighting style, highly unusual in 19th century stories. He makes a disarming shot with one gun, but only shoots the hat off the man's head with the other, seemingly verifying that holding two weapons doesn't give you a meaningful second attack in comic books (and in Hideouts & Hoodlums).

Dick escapes from Indians and finds the fort's horses the Indians are keeping; the story doesn't say how he finds them. It would make sense if he used his tracking skill, but it seems more likely that he just luckily stumbled across them while running away. The horses only have a single guard on them, a mistake bad guys often make in fiction.

---

Jake Bigley, the evil trapper who sold the stolen horses to the Indians, leaps down on Dick from a tree to give himself both a height advantage bonus (+1) and a from behind bonus (+2) to his surprise attack. In the ensuing conflict, it appears that Dick is grappling to keep Jake's knife away, which is technically true because if Dick initiates a grappling attack, Jake can only grapple back. If Jake won initiative and attacked with his knife first, then Dick's grappling attempt might just be flavor text.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Adventure Comics #46 - pt. 3

In Anchors Aweigh, Lt. Commander Kerry and Lt. Murphy are on vacation in California when they encounter spies who are armed with rifles and hand grenades (that's pretty dangerous to use against a party of two!). The spies have taken over a cottage because the land is useful for them to reach via seaplane. There are five spies, and they already have a radio room set up in the cottage's basement. Seemingly unknown to them, the shack behind the cottage is the lab for a chemist making another one of those super-explosives, and Kerry uses the explosives to blow up the spies. The one interesting wrinkle in the story is that the chemist initially appears to be a bum just pretending to be smart.  The explosive solution winds up being worth $500,000 to the chemist (good news, since Kerry blew up his house!).

Lastly, Cotton Carver has a new quest in his hollow world adventures -- the pirate chiefs (who are good guys?) ask Cotton to lead them to the mythical land of Sere, which is rich in radium. Cotton thinks this sounds like a great idea, despite the fact the people of Sere seem to be the rightful owners of the radium (Chaotic?), and that the Princess of Barlunda wants to marry him. Or does she? She doesn't put up much of a fight when he leaves ("You need excitement, Cotton.").

Barlunda has advanced airships that travel through unknown means (jets?). He also has a personal flier that looks like a surfboard on wheels (really not sure how that one flies). The flier is tough; Cotton can crash it through a wall without it getting a scratch. It can carry two people in a pinch, so long as one lays on top of the other.

The people of Sere (Sereians?) have advanced tech too; they can control the weather with electrical control staves; a priestess decimates Cotton's ship and his pirate allies by whipping up a tornado. Staff of Weather Control duplicates the mad science machine found in the trophies section of Hideouts & Hoodlums, only is much more portable.

Luckily, the priestess has another quest for Cotton, and when that turns out to be incredibly easy, he gets back to Barlunda and finds that the princess has been kidnapped. Really, if the Editor just put more effort into these scenarios, they would last longer and he wouldn't have to come up with so many of them.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

Crackajack Funnies #19 - pt. 1

Back to public domain stories I can show!

Here we rejoin Don Winslow of the Navy, explaining a bit of problem solving he did. We also are reminded of a definition of "dope" that we might often forget these days.

Someone's been pranking this poor ship captain, replacing his maps with fakes. The Balkans do not border the Mediterranean Sea; they border the Adriatic.

What a "paravane" is is explained here.

The idea that Indians were secretly hoarding gold has enticed white men since arriving in North America.

If I ever succeed in making the Cowboy class (debuted in Supplement III: Better Quality) viable in 2nd edition, it will surely keep the ability to summon mount.

This is Ed Tracer, G-Man X32.

Dapper Danz is very excited about narcotics.

The secret hideout is an old moonshiner's cave with a secret front door.

This page is a nice twist. When we met "Deacon" Slade a few pages earlier, he just seemed like a harmless wandering encounter, maybe a red herring. But it turns out he's a rival with a different agenda vs. Dapper Danz.

Man, that sure is a nice looking Donald Duck pocket watch. It's going to cost a lot more than $1 today!

Stratosphere Jim has an interesting alternative explanation for how VTOL planes would work. A pressurized cabin was also a rare novelty circa 1940.

It would be 1953 before any plane officially matched this airspeed record.  A simple system for keeping track of trophy items would be to say that a plane 13 years ahead of its time is a Plane +1, 26 years ahead of its time would be a Plane +2, 39 years ahead of its time would be a Plane +3, and so on.

The notion that secrets need to be kept, even from your own government, were a comic book staple before WWII, but would quickly seem unpatriotic. Yet, I wonder how many superheroes quietly shared their weapons' secrets with the War Department...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)