Silver Streak Comics #3 - pt. 2

Not many days left in December to work on the ol' blog, but let's try to get through Silver Streak Comics #3, if nothing else.

This is the last page of Bill Wayne, the Texas Terror. Here he consistently shoots twice per turn, but I already discussed ways of accounting for that in the Hideouts & Hoodlums rules last time. This time, I want to point out the neck sheathe for a concealed knife -- and what an insanely dangerous place to store a knife that seems to be, to me.

Panel 5 is a clear example of simultaneous initiative.

Now we're going to look in on Lance Hale again, comics' only loincloth-clad interplanetary warrior.

That is one incredibly durable spaceship, since it is traveling faster than light when it crash lands. No one inside is even harmed!

Traveling faster than time transports you, not into the past or future, but into spirit-land here, which is a highly unusual twist. Spirit-land is inhabited by beast men (long ago presented as a playable race for 1st ed H&H in...one of the Trophy Case issues; I forget which one...).

How kind of the artist not to burden us with having to view that ferocious battle!

Here is some unusual evolutionary science: spiritmen have no bodies, but are somehow able to interact with Lance and grapple him. Having no souls puts them just below mankind "in the cycle of evolution." How did they evolve to have no souls or bodies?

As a reminder, Lance wears an armband that lets him operate as a superhero, wrecking things like chains (the door category) with ease.

That is a highly untraditional Crystal Ball, giving bodies to body-less beings instead of scrying.

Or is the Crystal Ball only an illusion generator? King Loti is revealed as a beastman...or a kenku...or a type I demon?

Can spiritmen/beastmen turn invsible, or is King Loti a beastman magic-user?

And what manner of invisibility is this, that Lance can see him but Dr. Grey can't. This is not like the Invisibility spell, so it must be a special ability of spiritmen, one that gives a saving throw vs. spells to resist.

Here we have the age-old question that has always plagued D&D -- how to adjudicate disbelieving in illusions? It seems that Lance here gets a saving throw just by stating the intention to disbelieve, or to "use his own will power."

Here's a special rule that will keep players from attempting to disbelieve in illusions all willy-nilly: disbelieving in one is so draining that you are too weak too move -- essentially paralyzed -- for 1-4 turns afterwards.

A chair is soft cover, improving Lance's AC by 1 (which he desperately needs, since he's almost naked).

Dr. Grey is taking quite a chance on a scheme that doesn't make much sense. Why does he need a silver bowl to disbelieve in illusions? And what if the spiritmen weren't illusions? Or are spiritmen always illusions?

This is from the next feature, Ace Powers. Here we have a very rare complication from combat -- arm paralysis caused by taking damage. Now, we could make up a new rule that any head blow that doesn't cause unconscious has a chance of a different result, and we could even design a random table for that...but the paralyzed arm doesn't here really change the combat any, so it passes the smell test for flavor text to me.

Tying the Hero to a steam radiator seems a low-key deathtrap that I'm surprised we've never seen before. Since the steam has to build slowly, it could start as 1 point of heat damage in turn 1, 1-2 points in turn 2, and so on.

This is one of those strange instances in comic books where taking damage causes consciousness instead of unconsciousness. It runs counter-intuitive to how damage works in both H&H and, frankly, every game system I can think of.

Duplicate keys must be like a skeleton key.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Rocket Comics #1 - pt. 1

We made it to March 1940! At the same time, we're going into the future with Rocket Riley. I think I'm gonna get whiplash!

There's not going to be much Hideouts & Hoodlums content here today, more just frolicking in pure goofiness.

"How naive, Dad! Don't you know that the secret of exploding the atom will be made into a terrible weapon, not a tool for peace?"

Ah, how blissfully ignorant the next five years will be.

"I'm going to build a spaceship -- and mount it on my roof! I'm sure that won't harm the building at all!"

It seems crazy how gold is going to destabilize a nuclear reactor, but ignoring real world science, there is perhaps some logic to this. We know that mass can't travel at light speed, only energy. Three pages from here, we'll hear Rocket claim they are approaching the speed of light. What if the nuclear reactor isn't just powering the engines, but is transmuting the ship and its interior into energy? And the one element it can't transmute into energy is gold.

There's actually good science concealed on this page. Even the void of space isn't completely empty, and one of the biggest dangers of interstellar travel would be collisions with objects.

...Although, if they were being transmuted into energy for the trip, they would probably just bounce off the object. Not immediately fatal, but being thrown randomly off-course could be deadly in the long run.

There's a lot of aviation talk here that's surprisingly accurate; let's break it down. An aileron is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's pitch, and therefore the angle of attack and the lift of the wing. A heliometer is a refracting telescope with a split objective lens, used for finding the angular distance between two stars. An inclinometer, or clinometer, is an instrument used for measuring angles of slope (or tilt), elevation, or depression of an object with respect to gravity's direction. Laterals -- on a plane -- would be flaps on the wing that control lateral movement; lateral control on a spaceship would be something very different, like maybe mini-jets on the port and starboard sides. Ceiling, here, does not refer to maximum altitude, but to ceiling functions in mathematical formulae. 

Here we see the importance of commas; note that Prof. Sterling is not saying, "I must start the vacuum, retards, or we will crash!"

This is also where Rocket says they are approaching light speed, as I mentioned earlier.

That there are four moons means, if they are still in this solar system, they must have entered orbit around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto. The surface clearly doesn't look like a gas giant -- though the dialog only says they entered orbit of a planet, not that they were landing on the planet; they could well be landing on a fifth moon.

Traveling to even Pluto at light speed would take less than five hours. They have clearly not left our solar system, because that would take over 4 years to reach the next closest star, Proxima Centauri, at that speed.

Now here's where things get really weird, as whatever world this is, is home to octopus men. They are encountered in groups of over 100 at a time.

Octopus men are fast on land, with a slightly faster move than normal humans (13-14?).

I'm not sure that's a sound tactic Rocket tried. By dodging, he makes two of the aliens crash into each. What is the other 100 doing, standing and watching behind them? I think Rocket really did fall, and the narrator is just covering for him.

Nope. Uh-uh. The wind resistance as they approach escape velocity would mean saving throws vs. science with a -11 penalty to keep from being blown off. Rocket should be taking 20d6 falling damage by the end of this page!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Planet Comics #1 - pt. 1

Fiction House debuted three new titles this month of January 1940, and Planet Comics was the third of them.  Here is Flint Baker, by Dick Briefer.  Flint is a scientist who has created a rocketship capable of reaching Mars, something that did not happen in real life until 1964, and never with a manned craft yet.

I include this page because, by counting the portholes, we may be able to estimate the length of this Mars rocket. If each porthole represents a 10' wide room, and the portholes cover just under half the length of the ship, then I'd guess that is 220' in total length, or if I initially misjudged the perspective and that is more like the top one-third of the ship, then we're looking at 300' in total length.

Eight miles per second may seem fast, but it is just 20% over escape velocity and that would take 136 days to reach Mars. Since the story tells us they reach Mars in just a few weeks, it seems the ship picked up considerable speed en route.

The ship swerves? Is it on autopilot?

Flint, product of his times that he is, is immediately placated by a little "accidental" chest rubbing. Oh, Flint!

Flint must be listening to these stories and thinking, "Okay, that sounds plausible...that sounds plausible...what the--?" Note the range on that hypnotism; while hypnotism is now treated as a skill anyone can try in second edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, it is meant for short range. Nothing short of a Charm Person spell works that well in H&H.

I just have to say here, the suspense might be thrown off by the frantic pace of this story, but this suspenseful plot development is genius. What a hook!

This is clearly a rocket car. I'm not sure how Flint knew Mars' terrain would be flat enough to warrant a rocket car instead of, oh, an all-terrain vehicle. Note how Martian rocket cars are even faster than Flint's rocket car.

Perspective makes the Martian city look gigantic, though counting windows, the tallest building may be no more than 19 stories tall.

Everyone who's read John Carter knows that a Martian dog is a calot, but this creature resembles more closely an Asian fu lion. It looks big, but it's hard to say how big it is. I'm guessing it would have at least 3 Hit Dice.

Speaking of John Carter, this goofy-looking dark side Martian looks like it could have came from one of Edgar Rice Burrough's later books. Dark side Martians possess advanced technology, which is pretty remarkable considering they have neither hands nor arms.

They do have prehensile tails, which I guess they use to grasp the controls in their planes. At first they look pretty puny, as if they would only have 1 Hit Dice. But they are also capable of fantastic leaps. If they are truly leaping over the buildings in the city, then they can leap 100-200'. That makes me think they are a lot tougher than they look, maybe 3-4 Hit Dice.

Here, Sarko has the upper hand after a grappling exchange with Flint (indeed, choke hold is one of the results on the grappling results table). On the following turn, Sarko's intention is to switch to shooting at point blank range, and if he won initiative he would have enjoyed a +2 bonus to hit because Flint was still prone. Instead, he loses initiative and gets shot in the back. Good thing Harry didn't miss Sarko, as he would have had to roll again to see if he hit Flint!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Mystery Men Comics #3 - pt. 1

I've talked before on this blog about feeling free -- as many Golden Age comic book writers did -- to mine classic literature for story ideas. Here, The Green Mask borrows heavily from Oliver Twist.

The Green Mask seems to "suddenly appear". It is likely that he merely achieved surprise when encountering them, though he might have used the move silently skill to sneak up on them, or even (in 2nd edition) burned a stunt to perform it extra well.

"Talk up!" seems to have been a common way of saying "Speak up!" back in 1939.

More evidence of 1) how easy it needs to be for Heroes to climb. If there's less than a 50% chance of scaling nine stories to that window, then Green Mask here -- who can't be higher than 2nd level, tops -- would find this a very dangerous fall. And 2) it's ridiculously easy to knock someone out from behind. I have added a combat rule about this for 2nd edition, but it's only good during a surprise attack, not during regular combat.

Okay, now that's just silly. Pushing their guns into their chins is just going to make them look at you funny, not knock them out. Sometimes players get bored with their normal combat options and try new things like this. Well, not exactly like this, but it reminds me of the old "Can I stab him with my arrow instead of shooting it?" question.

I've talked about this before on the blog too, weapons that aren't really weapons, and having them do 1-3 points of damage instead of a full die.

Where did that air pocket come from? A freebie from the Editor when the player seemed stuck? A random encounter? The player asking for something to happen, and using asking the Editor to allow the save vs. plot mechanic to determine if it happens?

Also note the handwritten letter from Green Mask, now in police custody. Golden Age Heroes don't have to worry about anyone being able to trace their identity from even fairly obvious clues.

It's amazing how prescient Dick Briefer was about watches being able to make phone calls, and then how goofy he was with the cone-shaped planet. Don't be afraid to mix stuff we know now makes sense with stuff that we know now is just plain crazy talk.

I'm sharing this page because I love that crazy ship design. Spaceships designed like giant shovels -- why not? It reminds me of TSR's Spelljammer setting. I wonder if H&H will ever have a supplement like that someday...

Although the last panel calls those things "creatures", the next page reveals them to be more spaceships. Perfect Spelljammer fodder.

Yeah, don't worry, players, I'm not including a 150' giant in the 2nd ed. basic book. The story only ever calls it a "beast" or a "monster".  I'd probably call it something like a "gargantuan" to distinguish it from a normal giant.

Chen Chang's men are consistently called bandits in this installment of Chen Chang, but stat-wise they seem more like nomads.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)