Colossus Comics #1 - pt. 1

Wow! I have been reviewing comic books from only the cover date of March 1940 since August 2019. It's hard to believe it's taken this long, and makes me a little fearful of how long it's going to take to get through April! But now we are on the final issue available to me from this month, the one and only issue of Colossus Comics from Sun Publications (one of only two comic books they ever produced). It reads like a cheaper knock-off of Planet Comics...but I'm getting ahead of myself!

First we get a glimpse of the 27th century. We know from this page that mankind has colonized the solar system at least as far as Jupiter's moons by then, and that we've gone back to manned, moon-bound telescopes instead of automated satellite telescopes. Because this is the second attack of the Plantaliens -- vicious-looking Mr. Potato Heads with spaghetti-like green tentacles -- we get a "oh no, not again!" reaction and not a "we've finally encountered other life in the universe!" reaction. So we don't know from this story if this is the only other intelligent species out there. 

Getting permission from a patient before injecting an untested drug into them is apparently not a thing anymore in the future. Darn you, lax medical malpractice laws!   

Oh, girls are so ditzy! How can you expect them to notice the difference between 2/100th of a part of a catalyst and a portion 10,000 times larger?

 2,000' tall may or may not be a record for largest giant in a comic book to this point; the moon giants in Flip Falcon would definitely give him a run for his money. Thank goodness his clothes (somehow) grow with him!

That's right, technology has still not replaced the zipper by the 27th century -- unless Zenith just likes to wear super-retro clothes. Incidentally, if 20th century clothes were the retro-fashion of the 27th century, that would be akin to people dressing in 13th century garb in the 20th century to look retro.

I'm curious about that threat that he could crush them with his breath. I don't know how even the Mythbusters team would test that one. If we accepted this at face value, we'd have to assign damage to his breath, since Hideouts & Hoodlums currently has no wind-based powers that do damage.

Urbania is either a renamed city or a city that doesn't exist in our time. 

In the future they still have televisions with poor color quality, and use telegrams instead of, oh, an electronic version that transmits over some electronic device.

Here we see the Colossus using his breath to Wreck at Range, though at a distance of 2,000' it's more of an inconvenience than a threat.

You know, it's really annoying that we never get any frame of reference for the size of the Plantaliens. I'm tempted to stat them like a D&D roper, but what if they are only 2' tall?

So, these are fleets? I'm seeing 5 vs. 6. 

The range on those ground ray batteries/electric rayguns is fantastic; they can reach from ground level to the upper atmosphere.

It's not clear from this story if the Martians and Venusians are Earth colonists or aliens.

As odd a futuristic story as Colossus AD 2640 was, the Educational Adventures of Panda-Lin is much weirder. Why does the panda have a P on his chest? Who knows.

I'm showing you this page because of the unusual flying carpet that's a split bamboo mat. Magic items can be shaped to fit the culture they came from.

We're going to end today with just this one page from Lucky Lucifer, Flyer of Fortune. The artwork is so terrible I'm almost embarrassed to have it on my blog; I could find 5th graders who can draw better than this. I share it for two things. One is the concept of Heroes having an emblem on their vehicles that identifies them -- this is long before Batman gets his Batmobile. 

The other is the concept of a direct hit. Critical hits are a house rule almost as old as D&D itself, and in any d20-based game using criticals, it is usually treated as a natural (unmodified) roll of 20 on the die. But what if a direct hit was rolling the exact target number for the Armor Class? Against a live opponent, your direct hit might do +1 damage, or against a vehicle automatically cause a complication (like here, where the engine catches on fire).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

Master Comics #1 - pt. 1

Another new title! The disturbingly named Master Comics is home to the disturbingly named Master Man! In addition to having mastered being a man, he can also do all the things shown on this page. Maybe! Comic book narrators are notorious for exaggeration. This particular origin story goes surprisingly well, considering that most people don't get superpowers when a stranger gives them pills. 

Master Man builds his castle on the highest peak...where? The highest peak on Earth would be Mount Everest, but the rest of this story sure doesn't look like it takes place in Tibet. The highest peak in the United States is Mount Whitney -- making Master Man the first confirmed Californian superhero. 

He can see all evil in the world...from 14,500 feet? Okaayyy, crazy narrator person!

Does that say Ecaldon or Ecalpon? Ecalpon is from Discworld! Unsurprisingly, this is a made-up name either way. 

Master Man's ability to run 100 MPH is the Race the Train power. He also uses Leap II at rivers and, it looks like, Imperviousness when he reaches town. Obviously, he is the superhero class.

It's interesting that he bares his chest. Is his shirt not bulletproof? The power description intentionally doesn't specify if items worn are protected by this power; this is something the player and Editor should work out between themselves and aim to be consistent thereafter.

The bad guys are a mixed group of four gangsters and thugs, probably half of each. 

I like the phrase "he scatters them like raindrops in a gale." Speaking of that, I like that Master Man can fail; he tries to catch that thrown torch and just misses, and the consequence is the building burns.

However, there is a lot to dislike here too. Why are the bad guys dropping a bomb on an orphanage? Are they terrorists? Why is Master Man smiling when he catches the bomb, when he knows he could have missed? How are the thugs strong enough to hurl a lit torch through an upper-story window that looks like it's 30' high? How on Earth does one lit torch immediately catch the entire building on fire? 

About that one question, "when he knows he could have missed?"

....it occurs to me that if Master Man is high enough in level to get a stunt -- and I have thought about letting all classes have stunts at some eventual level -- then one should be able to use a stunt for an attack roll in non-combat situations, like when you're trying to grab something out of the air. 

Master Man uses the powers Resist Fire and Raise Car here. There's a wrinkle here that the car is barreling down on Master Man at the same time, so both sides would roll for initiative. If Master Man wins, then he can raise the car before he takes ramming damage. He uses wrecking things on the car and the bomber. He's still using Leap II from earlier, as the duration hasn't ended.

It seems odd, from a Hideouts & Hoodlums perspective of mobstertypes, but the leader of gangsters and thugs is a bandit. There was originally going to be hierarchical trees of mobstertypes in the 1.5 edition books that I wound up eliminating. On those trees, bandits would be low on the pecking order. 

You can tell the scenario was too easy and the players still have more time to play, so the Editor has to create a new threat to overcome and the mayor turns up to reveal the kidnapping. 

Dragging a car to a stop is another use for the Raise Car power. 

We never did get any clue as to what the bad guys' motives were.

We're going to jump ahead to The Jeweled Crown of Ramistan, a starring a Tarzan/Mowgli mash-up called White Rajah (just not yet, as this is his origin story).   
 

I can't find any evidence that there are or were headhunters in India. 

Not even Sikhs wear their head wraps in their sleep like this.

This animal summoning power is why I keep leaning towards keeping the explorer class, since this seems beyond what a fighter should be able to do.
 

So, a "black jungle" is right next to India? Riiight. This page is pretty unbearable, not just for that, but for Sin-Gee falling into a trap and David just leaves her there! 

I'm only sharing this page because I want to spend a little time on this death trap. The theory behind it is, by binding one of David's hands, he can't dodge during the knife fight. I wouldn't necessarily call him prone, because he still has some range of movement, so maybe he's +2 to be hit, plus this can kill him because it still qualifies as a deathtrap. 

 

Wrecking things is the obvious way out of this trap, and I would let him wreck his way out of the rope knots as if it was a door.

 

I don't have game mechanics to discuss from this page. I just want to vent. Despite being left behind to die, Sin-Gee gets himself out of the pit without any help, sprints to David's rescue, saves the day and the crown, and then David not only gets all the rewards, but Sin-Gee still has to carry him around! Poor Sin-Gee. As far as I'm concerned, this feature should be called White Elephant!

 

 

 

There is a Carterville in Illinois, but it's only a city in the academic sense since there were less than 3,000 people there in 1940. No, this must represent a larger metropolis, though which city it's representing escapes me. The only clues here is the neighboring mountain, but that still leaves dozens of possibilities.

 

The rivalry with a Moriarty-like villain is appealing, but what made Moriarty so sinister is that only Sherlock Holmes knew he was a criminal. Jeff isn't much of a criminal mastermind if the local newspapermen are already onto him. 

 

I am half tempted to stat a street loafer, but I suspect a wimpy hoodlum would suffice. 

 

And we'll probably pick up with this feature next time! 

 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)
 

 

 

 
 

 

Popular Comics #49 - pt. 3

UGHH...the new Blogger is so terrible, I hate to even work with it. We'll see if I can plow through and at least finish this issue.

Captain Tornado finally earns some points -- despite how Jane is dressed, he keeps his eyes facing nice and high -- and then promptly tosses them away with senseless violence. "Giant eyes! I can't even see what it is, if it's dangerous or not, or what it's intentions are -- but I'm a'gonna shoot it anyway!"  

That's a pretty dynamic first panel for a strip this otherwise...well, I still don't know what to make of this strip. Let's try to work it out together, shall we? 

Pro: Moon Mountain Manor sounds like a great name for an adventure module.

Pro: Although the Village of Rose Hollow seems to be fictional, there is a Rose Hollow Valley in Baxter County, Arkansas that is near the Ozarks.

Con: A minor quibble, but newspapers don't print their headlines in color.

Pro? Con?: The story turns conventions on their head by having the unattractive scientist in the lonely laboratory overlooking the village be the hero instead of the villain.

Con: The laughably named Mancho Phyroe. Mancho makes me think our hero is Spanish, but what to make of Phyroe...?

Using field glasses to read cablegrams at a distance is a sound tactic.

"Yugrarvia" surely refers to the then-Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

This page brings up a good point about the importance of thinking about where your hideouts are getting their electricity. If from the local power grid, it is too easy for the Heroes to turn that power off, but if the hideout has its own dynamo, you must place it somewhere. 

I am wondering what is supposed to be so "horrifying" about that laboratory. It looks more "intriguing" than anything.

"Soft-shoe prowl" is a cool term.

This is a rare occurrence of a Hero using a chimney to navigate vertically through a hideout, but it is a good idea to be prepared for this in-game.

I'm amused by, not only how the death ray says "death ray" on it, but that he's advertising it took nine tries to perfect it. 

There are no unexplored frequency bands in the vicinity of the X-ray; those are ultraviolet rays and gamma rays.

1,000 miles is a crazy long range for trophy weapons, but not that unusual in the comics. Consider carefully its effect on game balance, since players can get their hands on these. 

Wing-walking was a stunt for Aviators in 1st edition Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Gas tanks exploding is a fairly critical complication for aerial combat.

Shark is smart to rescue his opponents, as it does give him people to question for information.

In 1940, the "medical magic of the hypodermic" likely refers to morphine.

Here is a rare occasion of Asians speaking an actual foreign language instead of broken English.

The Syndicate sounds like a criminal organization, but here seems to be refer to a national alliance (the Axis, perhaps?). It does not seem to be a coincidence that the bad guys here seem to be Japanese.

Being able to throw destroyers against the Heroes does make it a seriously high-level challenge.

 

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Science Comics #2 - pt. 4

We return now to Dr. Doom, the evil mad scientist who isn't really out to conquer the future so much as just to put small groups of people into weird situations. Case in point, this battle in a cage against "mosquitoes" after being shrunken down to smaller-than-mosquito size. I had to go back two pages and double check to make sure that page really said mosquitoes -- it did! -- but it seems no one told the artist.

Perhaps of more use to us would be a discussion of how to handle breaking a mount, game mechanically, in Hideouts & Hoodlums. One could argue it would be a skill check. It could also be an encounter reaction roll for the animal. Since breaking in a mount shouldn't be easy, I would require both rolls. In terms of skills, I would treat making it rideable as a basic skill, but if you wanted to teach it a trick, an expert skill.

And now even the writer has forgotten what they are! Unless, of course, mosquitoes have mutated into more of a bee-like creature at some point in the future. The thought here in the last panel is that all animals, like the myth about bulls, get angry when they see red. Indeed, the solution on the next panel is to throw all their red clothes into a pile and the "mosquitoes" all kill themselves stinging the floor through the pile. Yeah...

How many fish-men can be in an encounter? The answer is "lots." I'm not sure if that third panel is even countable, but fish-men are clearly very organized and militaristic (Lawful Evil, as they would be known in the AH&H Mobster Manual).

I don't have much to add here, except to say that despite how obviously the fish-men are all traced, the composition is really good.

Navy Jones was already a strange feature, but it runs into overdrive here as Navy encounters a fiendish trap where people strapped onto railway cars are transported into the waiting maws of a gigantic carnivorous plant. Yes, that two-headed thing is supposed to be a plant! I don't know for sure how to stat that thing. It looks gigantic, but being a mostly hollow plant, probably doesn't weigh nearly as much as it looks like it would. Maybe 13 HD, normal 6-sided hit dice, would not be unreasonable.

Those rayguns use a really obtuse-angled ray, able to hit up to  5 targets at short range. I bet their maximum range is not very far, as diffuse as it must be.

If you hurtle out a window, underwater, wouldn't you just float there?

I like sea swine, though. Those are so cute!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Famous Funnies #67 - pt. 2

Just a few pages left to share from this issue...

Jack Kirby isn't doing the art anymore on Lightnin' and the Lone Rider at this point, but it's still an interesting set-up with some unusual additions to the cowboy genre -- a Dragon Lady-like femme fatale, and "advanced" technology, like television, in the villains' lair.

This is from Mescal Ike, and while I think the top strip is pretty funny, I'm including this for the interesting turn of phrase in the middle tier. "Head of the class" is still a common term in use today, but if there's a head it stands to reason there's also a "foot of the class," with the bottom scores. Today's school system would not emphasize this fact and humiliate the student, but in 1940...?

This is from the one-page gag filler, Life's Like That. I'm partial to librarians, even though the "Squeaky" panels aren't as funny. What I found really funny was the baby panel.

We're checking in on Homer Hoopee again for the first time in awhile for several reasons. One, even though the chase sequence is over, it alludes to two important factors -- attack penalties for hitting a target moving at great speed (found in 1st edition Hideouts & Hoodlums' vehicular combat rules, but should also apply to attacking movement-buffed speedsters), and ranges on missile attacks. Further, Homer's prize is an example of how generous monetary rewards can be at the end of a long adventure ($50,000 -- in 1940 no less!).

If you can ignore the racism in this page of Spunky Dory, you'll see perhaps the first critical hit to the groin in comic books, and delivered by a goat no less (longtime readers of this blog are aware of the importance of goats in golden age comics)!

The question then is, is this evidence of the need for a critical hit mechanic in H&H, or does the headbutt to the groin simply explain how it did maximum damage on the damage die? I lean towards the latter.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Fantastic Comics #3 - pt. 4

As 2018 winds down, we find ourselves still in February 1940 and this month's Captain Kidd story. Here we see the need for a voodoo doll spell in Hideouts & Hoodlums (though Supplement III had introduced the voodoo doll as a magic item, a perhaps equally satisfying solution).

Here we have our first hideout that is all in one tree, and I dare say I've never seen a rope ladder quite like that before (the rope makes up only the rungs, connected to the inside of the tree).

When has Kidd seen black magic before? It seems a stretch that he so quickly identifies the glass as Negus' wand (even I missed that, treating it as a new magic item just yesterday).

Negus' last spell is Smoke Image, one of the new 3rd level spells that debuted in the 2nd edition basic book. It's not clear what his intent with it is other than to try and scare off Kidd, but that's not easy to do when Kidd's plane is packing bombs -- bombs are one of the big equalizers for the fighter class.

Again I find myself sharing Professor Fiend, a joke feature with sometimes valuable lessons learned. Here, I was amused by the notion that Fiend might accidentally fall into a mirror, but floored by the idea that he could escape by scratching off the quicksilver backing, so that it would no longer be a mirror. And then bursting out the back, which was made of a separate material, was thinking outside the box, if you will, as well.

And now we get to Stardust, where Stardust is -- no, that's not a VR headset, but a crime-detecting ray view plate. At a range of millions of miles, it can detect when large scale crimes are about to take place on Earth.

Everyone always thought Thanos was a Darkseid rip-off, but it turns out that his "there are too many people" schtick came from The Demon here.

Space is big. Just the Moon is over 2 million miles away, so technically Stardust could be as close as the Moon.

"Undersea pressure-disturber" sounds like the kind of understated name a scientist would actually give a tidal wave generator. It's unclear if the undersea pressure-disturber also creates heat waves through vibration, or the Demon is describing two mad science inventions to his pal Max. 

If you can look away from Stardust callously crushing the Demon's chest with one hand, take note of the first two panels and Stardust's arrival. Is he the glowing energy star transformed into physical matter? Or is the glowing energy star a flavor text manifestation of his power, and what he's really done is Teleport through Focus, with his focus being the shadow on the wall? I'm asking because I seriously can't tell. Either way, it's a high-level power.

Anti-gravity will become a power, and reverse ray practically is already (Turn Gun on Bad Guy, but this would be a somewhat broader application than originally intended).

Sky Writing may need to become a power; it can't just be hand-waved as flavor text if the communication is important to the scenario. It would be 1st-level, though -- easily Stardust's simplest power to date.

And, lastly, we're going to jump into Sub Saunders. Sub's enemy, King Poseida, is using a hydro-vision like a television. A hydro-vision, I'm guessing, projects onto a wall of water?

Those are some crazy-looking mermen. Are those tentacles hanging from their chins?

That's one big giant octopus! Maybe 9 HD?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Thrilling Comics #1 - pt. 2

Returning to Dr. Strange's debut adventure (already in progress), we find Strange has activated either the Imperviousness or the Invulnerability power. He grapples two men at once, which he could do if he has activated Multi-Attack.

Here, we also get a great example of how the power Raise Car can be used offensively, by tossing it and its occupants over a cliff.

It really looks like the "mysterious figure" is also grappling two opponents at the same time, even though there is no further evidence that this guy is a superhero.

What appears to have happened is that a wandering good man (1st level superhero) just happened to come by and see a chance to do a good deed. Of course, what makes this much more interesting is that Togo is a third-party agent, ingratiating himself into the supporting cast in order to spy on them.

Which reminds me that, non-Heroes should have the option of waving the Supporting Cast recruitment roll and volunteering to become SCMs, if it makes sense for them to do so.

Strange says the address and stamp are on the letter, but I suspect what he meant is that they are on the envelope. A stamped envelope is a great clue to find at the scene of a crime.

Not to put too big a spoiler out there, but Strange should be suspicious that a police commissioner has enough free time for long ocean voyages...

Not buffed with Different Physical Structure (to boost his saves), Strange easily falls victim to the sleeping poison in his food.

The shark could be a random wandering encounter, but as often as sharks seem to show up every time in this situation, I think we have to assume that the Editor just likes to have this happen.

Superheroes shouldn't be able to "tear apart" living things (that sounds like wrecking things), but it is also possible that the shark just ran out of hit points while being grappled.

The plane swooping down at just that moment, immediately after a shark encounter, is unlikely a wandering encounter. One does not normally roll for wandering encounters during combat turns unless there are lots of mobsters in that area. This event just screams Editor intervention. Perhaps Strange legitimately made his SCM roll for Parker, at least.

By now, Strange's player should be expecting that everyone he encounters was planned out by the Editor -- and some Editors do prefer to work that way.

Strange fails an encounter reaction check, but a bribe gets him a new encounter reaction check from one of them.

Okay, punching planes out of the sky does look pretty cool...but it is pretty hard to believe that any pilot would intentionally fly that close to another plane. Maybe we need a new power called Extend Melee Range? Or, this could be the power Wreck at Range (since he is wrecking the planes), and the punching is only flavor text.

Stationary rayguns have enormous range, as is demonstrated in entries of the 2nd edition Basic book.

Being hit by a vehicle normally does (ahem) a boatload of damage, see the Basic book for examples of ramming damage.

Although the encounter with the huge constrictor snake seems to come directly after landing, Strange's Invulnerability power might still be active then, which would negate any suspense from this encounter.

Strange uses Flurry of Blows vs. the giant crocodiles. It seems like Strange has an awful lot of power slots available to him, but there may be some time compression in the telling of this story, as I hinted at about the previous page. He may be swimming towards the island on the say after fighting the serpent.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)