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.) 

  

Rocket Comics #2 - pt. 1

I don't recall a thing about reviewing #1 of this series, which doesn't bode well as we begin issue #2...

We start with Rocket Riley and pals crash landing on a surprisingly solid and foliage-covered Saturn. We can't necessarily call this bad comic book science, though; the term "gas giant" didn't even exist until the 1950s. 

YES! Oh, sorry, I got excited because this new alien starts with a Z, so I don't have to quickly add it to the Mobster Manual Vol. 1, which is just a few pages away from being completed now.

We don't know anything about Zarno yet except that they must fly very quickly, or have a higher chance of surprise, for it to pounce on Griselda before Rocket can shoot at it.

Sadly, the Zarno is shot dead on the first try on the next page and we learn nothing else about it.

Now this is nice; the big globe with chairs in it is a sort of floating elevator that doesn't need a shaft. It's the kind of trapping that would be perfect for an ultra hi-tech hideout.

Not every villain is so considerate to tell you what you'll encounter in his dungeon before you go there. Oh, interesting, giant leeches and - WHOA! HARPY-VAMPIRES?? I've gotta see this...

+

Huh, those do look like harpies. So they're harpies, and they have all the powers of a vampire? I've gotta put these in the Mobster Manual now. Sigh. More to do...

Oh come on! They're dead already? From an ice gun? Harpy-vampires must have some kind of special vulnerability to ice. 

Speaking of ice guns...it's powered by a detonator? Was the writer thinking of batteries, but couldn't remember the word?

Well, we lost the harpy-vampires already. Let's check in on the giant leeches and see if they're -- OH MY GOSH, the giant leeches are dead already too! How is he even killing them by hand? Are these some rare form of vertebrate leech and he's snapping their spines? Or is he squeezing them too hard, like a roll of Charmin's toilet paper?

In our next story, here's a pearl that's worth a fortune, when the average pearl is going to be worth $100. Statistically, the chance of its worth doubling that many times is highly unlikely.

Shadowy figures are a mobstertype since Supplement V. 

Lastly, this is a page from The Phantom Ranger. I'd previously added killer stallions to the Mobster Manual. I'll have to add a note about how lack of water and being driven crazy by heat can turn a horse into a killer stallion.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

 

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.) 

Fantastic Comics #5 - pt. 2

We're back for round 2 of Samson vs. Eelo! Although he doesn't look like your "traditional" merman, I'd already decided last time I would stat Eelo as a merman. So panel 1 is either proof that mermen have great swimming movement rate, or this is the first clue that Eelo is actually a supervillain buffed with the Race the Train power.

I've seen some interesting rayguns in golden age comic books, but an underseas gun is a new one. A heat ray shoots heat. What is this one shooting out? Underseas? Is it just a water pistol?

That is some significant wrecking going on there. A submarine weighs a couple of thousand tons, so we're talking battleship category. 

But a hero shouldn't have to do everything; eventually moping up the enemies gets to be rote, or antic-climactic. It's good, then, to have the "cavalry" come in and mop up the remainder, or the remaining sub in this case.
 

I like most of this page. Samson, stoically guarding the two reunited lovers...Eelo, almost heroically, pulling himself up for one more contest with Samson (Eelo must be a supervillain with a few more powers at his disposal, to think he has a chance here)...

And then Samson just hits him and kills him. Ugh. Death-Dealing Blow needs to be its own power. It would be more powerful than Super Punch because Super Punch just does a bunch of damage to knock out virtually any foe, whereas Death-Dealing Blow must make you save vs. plot or die. So, a level 5 power? Maybe level 6? At this point, Samson only should have enough XP to reach 2nd level, so he's either been gifted more brevet ranks, or he's had more all this time and was actually holding back.

Like with ultra-powerful magic-users in the comics, one could ask me, Scott, if superheroes are this powerful, then don't you need more power inflation in even the early levels for Hideouts & Hoodlums? Good question, random stranger, but two explanations for this: 1) the superhero class is based on the first year of Superman stories, before all this power inflation happens, and 2) there are certainly elements I don't want to emulate about the early comic books because I just don't like them. These include done-in-one-blow fights and grossly overpowered heroes.

"Mercury is getting closer to the Sun every year. Eventually it will be destroyed by the - ah, I'm just kiddin'. Mercury is in a stable orbit and is gonna outlast both of us, baby." Apparently Flip just likes to periodically test how gullible Adele is.

Now I'm being flip, but this science is so bad it actually makes me mad that anyone would write it in a book children would be reading. What if they repeated this nonsense in class?

You know...you'd think someone brilliant enough to invent a fourth-dimensional projector would figure out a way to put two separate seats into it. I suspect Flip just uses this as an excuse to get all hands-on with Adele.

I don't even know what I'm looking at with those aliens. Are they giant pigeon angels with halos? Are those beanie copters?

Darn, I was just getting excited about statting Mercurian pigeon angels, but those are just thought-wave helmets. 

Whoa, I thought the misogyny in this issue was just going to be subtle, but this just got way over the top. Not cool, giant pigeon angle impersonators! But what do we think about Flip now? Is he off the hook for sparing her feelings, or should he be honest and tell her that the aliens are women-bashing in front of her? 

A thought about the architecture: at first these look like Earth skyscrapers, but if the natives are birds...what if these "buildings" are actually solid perches for the natives to roost on top of?

Nice...looks like I'm getting something cool for the Mobster Manual after all out of this issue. Heidites are D&D basilisk-like monsters, but instead of having a petrifying gaze attack, they exude green slime from their skin! From a D&D context, this potentially makes them even more dangerous than basilisks. 

Heck, I'm so excited, I just added it into the manuscript now! *sigh* Now to fix all the layout of the book after it...

 

Jumping ahead to Golden Knight, we have a lot of people in chainmail here. Except the girl, of course, who is for some reason in a 20th century bathing suit instead of even a dress. The chainmail is AC 5, but it exists almost as flavor text -- if you hit the target, you can stab right through the chainmail as if isn't there.

I had commented recently on a Facebook post about monster tactics in D&D that the DM has to have some latitude for deciding how advantageous to make those tactics, that the Editor had to stop short of making them so advantageous that the players will switch to the same tactics.

Here, we see entangling with nets giving great advantage. The Golden Knight, despite having a sword in hand, can apparently not cut his way out, or stab through the nets. Now, if this is simply a failed saving throw, and the player knows it, maybe this won't become his next character's main tactic. But if nets work like this every time? Then he will, and he'll expect it to always work for him too, and should. 

Other than that, what bothers me most about this page? The spaghetti straps on The Golden Knight's tabard? The Gothic style of the castle in medieval times? The fact that the castle is brightly painted all over? Okay, it's actually all three.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.) 

Mystic Comics #2 - pt. 2

Next up is Flexo the Rubber Man. This is like old home week for me, as both of these heroes (Mastermind Excello and Flexo) were played in my 1962 Marvel Super Heroes campaign I ran two years back. 

Flexo's inventors, Joel and Joshua, aren't ones to rest on their laurels; they're already hard at work reinventing those common comic book staples, the torpedo repeller and the new, more deadly explosive. And our enemies are up to the same tricks, because they have one of those dime-a-dozen rayguns that turn off electric motors. The 2nd edition basic book has no tables for specific trophies, but if it did, they would be weighted by frequency and these items would have some of the widest ranges on the table. 

Joel, captured by spies, is placed in a pretty lame deathtrap; he is tied to a tree with rope and left for wolves to eat. Wolves? Do these spies think they're in Siberia? The spies also don't think to check Joel's pockets, or they would have found the portable transmitter. Portable transmitters are also pretty common among comic book characters, but what makes Joel's different is that he taps on a button on his jacket, Morse code-style, and that transmits the message. 

When Josh gets the message, he takes the hi-tech approach of using Flexo to get him there and the low-tech approach of tying himself to Flexo's back with rope. I hope you're really good at knots, Josh! The comic book doesn't really explain how Flexo flies, but in the RPG campaign I ran that Flexo was played in, we came up with the idea that he shoots gas out his butt for propulsion. 

Josh reaches Joel just as 4 or 5 wolves arrive and, even though the wolves have shown nothing but curiosity about Joel so far, Flexo is made to viciously attack the wolves.

Flexo lifts their plane over his head (its head?). I think a 4-seat, single prop plane weighs about 1.5 tons, which is almost to the point where the power Raise Car tops out. Then they follow the repeller because it's magnetic and their compass in the plane points towards it because...you know, magnetism has no range to it.

As they charge into the spies' hideout, the marching order is unusual in that Josh and Joel go in first, with Flexo trailing behind. You'd think the human beings would want to use him for cover. Unless Flexo just moves really slowly on foot? 

The entrance is trapped with dynamite and all three of them are buried beneath "a mass of rock and heavy timbers" (without specifying how much a mass weighs). The entrance is trapped with dynamite and all three of them are buried beneath "a mass of rock and heavy timbers" (without specifying how much a mass weighs). The panel is pretty dramatic, with it looking like the timbers are exploding towards them instead of just falling. I would rate that as at least 3-18 points of damage. It makes sense that Flexo is not harmed by it if he buffed himself with a strong defensive power, but what's really surprising is that Josh and Joel only have scratches. I had considered them noncombatant supporting cast members - but are they actually mid-level scientists with a fair amount of hit points?

Although Josh and Joel normally control Flexo with a remote, it seems it can respond to voice commands too. The really interesting thing about Flexo is that bullets don't just bounce off of him like you'd expect from a rubber robot; instead, Flexo reseals after being punctured, like self-sealing tires. Only, as far as I can tell, self-sealing tires weren't a thing until 2006, so this seems to have anticipated the technology.

Flexo's "machine gun blows" must be the Flurry of Blows power. What's harder to describe with game mechanics is when the spies' car bounces off of Flexo, as there's not really a good power for that. Bounce Back Blows, maybe, if you let it work on vehicles and not just living attackers. Bounce Back Blows is powerful, so Flexo has a lot of brevet ranks. At this point, Flexo should still be just a first-level superhero. 

Moving on, the next adventure features Dynamic Man, and it starts with a curious mystery. Saboteurs are planning to blow up a bridge to crash a train. Dynamic Man is riding, in costume, on the top of the train. Is that because he knows the train is in danger, or is it just coincidence? Like Mastermind Excello, Dynamic Man has Clairvoyance and can see the bomb being placed, but Clairvoyance only has so much range, so he shouldn't have known about this until the train was close. 

Dynamic Man can fly fast enough to catch up to a speeding car, which is difficult to do with Fly II, and might require Fly III if the car had enough of a head start. He is buffed, possibly with Imperviousness, or relying on Nigh-Invulnerable Skin and a little luck, before going in so he doesn't have to worry about the bullets bouncing off of him. He picks up the men with ease, suggesting he has Raise Car activated, and appears to be beating the men against the ground like clubs, doing clubbing damage to them (which would be 1-6 points only -- unless he is also buffed with one of the Get Tough powers). The one surprise is that Dynamic Man seems to have a power that works just like rayguns that shut off engines, though you might be able to duplicate that effect with Wreck at Range, if the Editor allowed you to use it on just the engine and not the whole car. 

The bad guys' car has a special add-on; a radio transmitter in the back seat so their boss can listen in on everything...

(Read in Marvel Masterworks: Mystic Comics vol. 1.)

  

Zip Comics #3 - pt. 2

It looked like Steel Sterling's third adventure was all wrapped up last time, but that was just a breather before giant mosquitos turn up! Giant mosquitoes have been in Hideouts & Hoodlums since 1st edition, and I'm glad to have an illustration for them now. 

I don't think stuffing the bad guy into a super-Howitzer should make it backfire in any game this side of Toon. We could say this speaks to Steel's willingness to murder his enemies but, given the lightness of tone in this story, I think we can chalk this up to the hero being aware of the trope that says the master villain always escapes his apparent death. 

I'm guessing the $10,000 reward for Steel Sterling is not for the murder of the Black Knight, anyway.

The Scarlet Avenger's plane isn't quite VTOL, but only a special trophy plane can take off with that short a runway.

It's really unusual for a master villain to break out the giant pterodactyls first thing, instead of throwing a few human hoodlums at the Hero first. 

I wonder what that ray does that is attracting the pterodactyls (probably pteranodons). Makes things smell like pteranodon food?

Panel 4 reminds me of my current D&D campaign, where the main villain can grant monsters magic resistance. Immunity to paralysis seems awfully specific. Making unexpected changes to monsters can definitely liven up an encounter with familiar mobstertypes.    

I was on board with this story up to the second panel of this page. Now, I would be fine with the mastermind being a woman, that is really different and unusual for a comic book - but dressed like a cocktail waitress? And her name is Texa?

So, Texa is a genius, right? What does she think his clothes are made out of that they would smoke that much? ...A smoking jacket? 

I like the concept of a capsule parachute, and really it's not that much more fantastic than the Flash being able to store his costume compressed in a ring. 

I also like the concept of the Scarlet Avenger being able to outsmart Texa because he works with a team and she only works alone, but I'm put off by the execution. 

"Faster! Faster!" 

"But, boss, we haven't had a break all day. What about labor laws?"

"I said faster! How are you going to work feverishly and talk at the same time?"

The way Texa and her henchmen are dressed you'd think there was kinky stuff going on here...

"Prepare to shower them with the liquid gas."

"You mean...water?"

If the sleeping gas was turned into a liquid -- in order to speed delivery? -- then how does it put the soldiers indoors to sleep? Does the liquid quickly evaporate after it falls and retains all its properties in its gaseous state? Because that's kinda cool...

Speaking of science...wouldn't the magnets pull the zeppelin down, rather than pull tons of metal and stone up? 

Magneutralizing? There already is a word for this, diamagnetic. 

By coincidence, exploding bubbles was an example of a dungeon trap listed in the original Greyhawk supplement. I'm pretty sure this is a coincidence...

 

We'll leave off here (it's Thanksgiving and I have pie to go eat soon...) with one page of Nevada Jones. There's not much to discuss here, except that I did my duty and searched the Internet for about five seconds and couldn't find any sign of a real town called Rattleweed, which probably speaks well for the real West.

Also, although there are a lot of racist assumptions going on here, they occur so early in the story that we can surely expect a plot twist in the next few pages. We'll see...next time!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Amazing Mystery Funnies #19 - pt. 4

 And we're back, looking at more of Jon Linton today. Maybe it's worth reminding novice game Editors that it is important to make sure your non-Hero characters fail, so the Heroes can succeed instead.

I get that it's more dramatic to blast the ceiling away (even when it doesn't make sense to do so; I had this issue with the TV show 24 in the past...), but isn't Jon worried about debris falling on his own workers? Better unionize, people! 

The N in N-ray could stand for nitrogen; well before the nitrogen bomb, nitrogen was already being used in TNT and other explosives. The next page suggests it stands for neutrons, though. Which is interesting, because we were much further away from neutron bombs than nitrogen bombs in 1940.

20,000 MPH is super-fast, barely attainable by today's technology (we can only achieve it with satellites in outer space). That's (roughly) Mach 27, traveling through Earth's mesosphere, and...well, I'm not qualified to say how safe that would be, but with so much at stake in this story, I think it's certainly reasonable to take chances!

References to atomic power might seem visionary for 1940, but New York Times articles from then were already pretty specific about how atomic power would work -- "We have been brooding over the atomic power houses which are to do away with coal and in which uranium-235 is to sputter array in water and make energy so cheap that it will hardly pay to read meters..." (https://www.nytimes.com/1940/06/09/archives/science-in-the-news-atomic-power.html)

I'm less convinced by the science behind "Jon! We're dropping!" Wouldn't an equal and opposite reaction push them backwards instead of downwards? Unless...instead of being repelled from the force field, maybe the field is draining power from the rocket? But since it's an atomic-powered rocket, that's some impressive energy draining!

Spoiler: Jon saves the day, but Satan Rex escapes to fight another day.

But not to fight Speed Centaur, who is busy knocking hats off of bad guys. I find that image funnier than it probably deserves, particularly since, on the other side of the panel, Speed is kicking that guy so hard it probably would kill someone in real life.

The reference to a previous adventure, as vague as it is, was pretty rare in the golden age. Continuity didn't get talked about a lot because it was not assumed anyone was keeping back issues. 

Panels 4 and 5 serve to remind us that Speed is completely naked most of the time. I find the concept of centaurs disturbing on all kinds of levels, and this is just one of them.

I can just imagine the future producer of the Mister Ed TV show reading this as a boy and thinking, "Hmm, a talking horse..."

I cannot figure out why Simp and Flame are in quotation marks, while Speed and Reel are not. Simp and Reel are both nicknames. Flame is the horse's real name. Is Speed Speed Centaur's real name? Does that make Centaur his real surname? This feature makes my head hurt.

"I know, Reel, but they're only the hirelings! I want the big shot of this racket."

"But couldn't we have followed them and seen if they let us back to the big shot?"

".......Why do you leave all these decisions up to me? I'm just a horse with half a human on me!"

"Dope" is slang for a variety of illegal drugs, including marijuana, opium, and cocaine, so it's hard to say exactly what's in those pills. It probably is not marijuana, as I doubt you could infuse enough into a pill form to significantly affect a horse. 

Although Speed is acting like he spotted the pills before eating out of the feed-bag, he's sure acting like he's high on something -- because this is the second time he let the bad guys just get away.

Second spoiler: Speed wins!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)