All-American Comics #11

The lead feature is still Red, White, and Blue, written by Superman's creator, Jerry Siegel. Like Bart Regan, Spy, the highlight of this feature is the fun romance between the lead characters, Red and Doris. Their interplay keeps the story light even when the subject is the murder-disguised-as-suicide of a U.S. Senator. The Senator's name is Clifton A. Carter, which is interesting because Lyndon Johnson would later have an aide named Clifton C. Carter.

The villain is a Mr. I.M. Glib, a refreshingly friendly mad scientist with an invisible car -- the same gimmick Siegel had recently used with the Ultra-Humanite against Superman. Glib has clothes that make him invisible too, and we even get an explanation for how that works; electrical impulses received by silver wire sewn through the suit cause it to become invisible. Unusual in a story, the Heroes decide to share this secret with the government and ask them to make more invisibility suits. It's unclear how this makes everyone wearing invisibility suits able to see each other.

Glib is foolishly killing senators because they won't agree to give him $1 billion for his invisibility invention; if he'd just taken out a patent and a bank loan, he might have made a billion dollars legitimately.

Hop Harrigan starts with a pretty exciting take-off; Hop's plane is parked on a frozen river, and has to take off just as the ice starts cracking underneath the plane. Mechanically, the Editor could decide this with a skill check for Hop, or maybe even an initiative roll to see if Hop can act before the ice does.

Adventures in the Unknown still has Ted and Alan 1 million years in the past, where they encounter ape men. One million years ago there were several real-life contenders for these "ape men," including neanderthals, homo erectus, and homo antecessor. The ape men use cunning tactics, having some of them roll around on the ground as a distraction while others jump down from the trees from behind. The ape men are also advanced enough to make cages and thatched roof huts.

The Scribbly installment clearly is taking place on New Year's Eve, 1939/New Year's Day, 1940.

In the reprinted newspaper feature Ben Webster, Ben goes on a trip in the first RV (recreational vehicle) in comic books.

In Gary Concord, the Ultra-Man, Gary is captured by Stella Tor, the wicked (and wickedly hot) dictatrix who has stormed Gary's lab with her men and found Gary (and his sidekick, Guppy) seemingly dead, but actually being revived from poison gas while in a comatose state. Recovering, Gary locks a door between them and Stella's guards' futuristic weapons are not able to get them through a steel door.

When Stella escapes, Gary's vibra-detector is able to hear the hum of her rocketship in the distance, and can tell it is hers and not anyone else's rocketship, apparently. Gary's helio-shaft is a rocket that is fired out of a giant cannon, making it faster than Stella's rocket. There's a catch to using it, though -- it can't be steered but will crash when it eventually lands. Rather than take her alive, Gary fires a giant bolo at her rocket; the bolo is made from "elasteel" with "destroynamite" on either end.

Luckily, the helio-shaft lands in water. Unluckily, it lands inside the territory controlled by Stella's father. Gary is captured, and observes first hand the flying guns and destroynamite torpedoes that the Tor Army is amassing. Gary's cell is protected by "ray-eyes" (electric eye beams?), electrified bars, and armored guards. In fact, one poorly drawn guard in the background might be wearing some kind of powered armor.

(Read at fullcomic.pro) 

Amazing Man Comics #9 - pt. 3

This is still Magician from Mars, and she's here in battle with the (fear) elemental (which I already statted and added to the Mobster Manual last night!). Almost too subtle to notice in panel 2, Jane seems to be tossing tiny lightning bolts at the elemental -- or are those Magic Missiles?

I'll have to add a note that fear elementals can assume gaseous form once per day.

The "Aug. 10" note, superimposed on the newspaper clipping, tells us that this story can't be taking place in the present; it has to have been the recent past (Aug. 10, 1939), or some time in the future.

Sleep gas is a standard trope of the genre, as is the tactic of pretending to be unconscious to get captured.

This time, Jane tries a much different tactic, hitting just the right musical notes to send the elemental back (likely flavor text for a Dispel Evil spell, though).

How is it that the elemental appears taller than the ceiling in panel 5? Could it be that its size is illusory...?

Just to remind you that Jane is a magic-user/superhero, here she wrecks the staircase.

This is Chuck Hardy in the Land beneath the Sea (you know, where the pressure should be crushing him to death, but...). Jerry has just been captured by something we'll soon learn is called a Quadropel Man.

Chuck, Oxan, and Jerry were outfitted like D&D adventurers, with backpacks and lanterns.

Before Chuck can find Jerry he has a random encounter with a giant pterodactyl (comic book writers never seemed to be aware how small pterodactyls were).

This might be the first time a sword has been specifically a shortsword in comics.

The Quadropel Men look a lot like green Martians.

In a nice twist on the "knock the statue over on the cultists" cliche, Chuck tips the statue over into a pool of scalding water, the scalding water floods the room, and that kils the Quadropel Men/Green Martians (or at least damages enough of them that they fail a morale save en masse). I would have scalding water do 1-4 points of damage to everyone in the room (more if they were submerged in it, but the water level doesn't rise that high in the temple).

REALLY unusual for a comic book story -- not only does Oxan decapitate a foe so he can bring its head home as a trophy, but Chuck is willing to accept this as a cultural difference. In Golden Age comics, cultural differences are usually an excuse to shoot first and ask questions later.

Now we're going to move on to Mighty Man, the 12' giant. I'm not really interested in anything Mighty Man does on this page, but I'm remarkably amused by panels 3 and 4 and what I'm tempted to stat as a "jack-in-the-trunk." When hitchhiking with strangers, be extra wary if they start humming "Pop Goes the Weasel" to themselves.

It is remarkable to me, raised on comic books of the '70s and '80s with their issue-long fight scenes, how many fights are done in one hit in the '40s. Here, an ordinary person sucker punches a 12' giant in the face and takes him down in one hit.

"Little cage" has got to be a joke, since it has a 12' giant in it. Still, you've got to ask yourself, if your assistant is that dangerous that you need to keep 10' square cages set up around your fortress, maybe you should think about firing your assistant?

I'm not much interested in statting half-wolves separately from normal wolves, but the assistant (our jack-in-the-trunk from earlier) will be handy for me. I had statted assistants for the Mobster Manual what seems like ages ago, but did not have a good illustration of one to use until now.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Amazing Man Comics #9 - pt. 2

This is still King of the South Seas, and it's Junkins who crowns him! I've written before about improvised weapons sometimes doing only half a die of damage, but without any firm guidelines as to when. I'm afraid I still don't have firm guidelines, but a lot of it has to do with weight and how wieldy it is. In this case, that looks like a heavy kettle, easily thrown by its handle, so it gets a full die of damage, but a lighter kettle or one without  a handle would not make as effective a weapon.

I included brief rules on amnesia in 2nd edition, but really don't like the old trope of needing a second blow to the head to recover (Heroes would just hit each other right away) and opted for a random duration instead.

Jungle Battles is a bizarre little one-shot, and that's saying something because the comic book landscape circa 1935-1940 is littered with bizarreness. It starts with Jay jumping into the trees to save a person from this gorilla, then Jay feels sorry for it and helps the gorilla free itself from quicksand. Then, a stegosaurus just waltzes in and no one seems enormously surprised to see it, as if Africa was full of Jurassic-era dinosaurs.

In a rare instance of a dinosaur having lots of hit points (as they do in Hideouts & Hoodlums), the stegosaurus takes a bomb to the face, is stunned, then gets back up and shrugs off a rifle shot, and then only fails a morale check when more men come running.

Then the constrictor snake encounter just seems to come out of nowhere. I can't help but wonder if this was part of a larger story, but it was chopped down to fit three pages. Missing panels could have explained a lot more of this strange continuity.

The gorilla is recruited as supporting cast simply by being rescued (remember to make those recruitment checks, even if the players don't ask for them!).

Iron Skull's adventures now take place in 1970 instead of 1950. Retcon or time jump? Either way, it's the biggest of its kind yet in the early comic book medium. Since none of the supporting cast is the same, and Iron Skull is an android and would look the same anyway, this could well be 20 years after the previous issue.

Rocket planes -- or rather, jets -- are just months away from becoming reality in February 1940. Sound detectors had been around since the 1910s. So the technology level envisioned here for 1970 has barely changed at all.

Ray guns that kill motors are the oldest mad science trope in comics, so they don't need to come from 1970.

Dead Stick Landing was a stunt for aviators in 1st edition (and could be coming back in 2nd...).

Though Iron Skull is often depicted as a superhero, there are times when he is more like the fighter class. Here is a prime example, where he seems to be unable to wreck his way out of a net. Of course, Iron Skull might be pretending to be captured so he can get Ludwig to reveal his plan to him (which does happen, on the following pages we'll skip looking at).

By the way, it's extremely hard for one person to throw a net like that.

This is Magician from Mars -- the feature, not the creature shown here. What we're looking at is a new variety of elemental. Let's call it a fear elemental. It is summoned accidentally when a musician just happens to make the right sounds in sequence. It has a paralyzing gaze, grows larger the more people fear it (size based on crowd size). His size seems to max out at 120' tall.

"No Earthly substance seems to affect it" seems to suggest that it can only be harmed by magic weapons (generally always true about elementals anyway).

Jane's ability to match the elemental for size far exceeds what the spell Enlargement is usually capable of. We might need a higher level version (Super Enlargement?) that goes up to 120' tall (or taller? They look even taller than 120' in panel 4) and increases hit dice accordingly.

Before pointing out the impracticality of fighting in what Jane is wearing, keep in mind that the elemental is wearing a loose, baggy robe he could easily be tripping over.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Smash Comics #5 - pt. 1

Black X/Ace doesn't have a clue where the saboteurs are, but he gets a "hunch" that seems to come out of nowhere. I actually wrote a game mechanic for the never-played Detective class that allows him to get a clue from the Editor.

The fight here with the saboteur is a mix of grappling and punching, and I've talked about unarmed combat on this blog plenty (and Black X/Ace doesn't dodge in panel 6; the saboteur just misses). What's worth noting here is that circumstances -- not anything in particular that Black X/Ace does -- forces the morale save (and that saboteur either rolled well or has a fanatical morale).

It's unclear what Batu is doing here, though it seems an awful lot like the spell Locate Object. The casting time seems unusually long, but if Batu is a Supporting Cast Member and not a Hero then the Editor has a little more latitude for changing how magic works for him. Now, the Editor doesn't have a lot of wiggle room for changing things like casting times -- once or twice to heighten tension and the players might overlook it, but used too often it will have the players rightly calling foul.

The crushed forearm is an unusual complication from an injury and, of course, one incompatible with the abstract hit point mechanic. I have talked on the blog before about adding complications for injuries for SCMs, tacked on to hit point loss, but this rule is unlikely to make it into the 2nd ed. basic rulebook now, mainly for space considerations (I'm already past page 110!). I would treat this, then, as just a knockdown/trip attack (and I do need to make sure there's room for that in my combat section) with some pretty brutal flavor text.

Those are some awfully convenient papers Batu finds on Taneo's body. Black X/Ace would be wise to say they were too convenient and might have been intended to falsely implicate another country. That seems a more convincing argument, to me, not to make the papers known.

This is some interesting alternate history, a dream scenario where just the threat of U.S. intervention ends wars. Future history will clearly show otherwise, that the U.S. can't ever seem to end a war in just one year.

The Chief's curious joke about what league the Dodgers were in is, according to Wikipedia, likely a reference to this: "In 1934, Giants player/manager Bill Terry was asked about the Dodgers’ chances in the coming pennant race and cracked infamously, 'Is Brooklyn still in the league?'"  The Brooklyn Dodgers had actually been in the National League since 1890.

Chic Carter is in "Moravia" -- what seems like a clear reference to the then-Soviet-controlled state of Moldova. But the "Arlbourg Pass" must be a reference to the Arlberg Tunnel in Austria. And Brennburg is a barely disguised Brennberg, Bavaria. But, if Chic's train is stopped less than 10 miles from Brennberg, where does that put him? Regensburg is the next largest city, but I believe that would be more than 10 minutes away by train. So that leaves Chic in some little way-stop village along the tracks. No wonder he thinks the place is dead!

The abduction of a Bavarian princess kind of makes sense. The Bavarian royal family, the House of Wittelsbach, was anti-Nazi, and the family's arrest after fleeing to Hungary earlier in the 1930s might have inspired this story.

Bavaria had no king, but a crown prince.

It's a bit of a stretch that the crown prince would want an American journalist's help...but, hey, if that's what it takes to give out a plot hook!

Some Heroes would investigate the duke carefully. Maybe search his home for clues. But our man Chic, he just marches right up to the duke in public and asks him to his face. It's a risky move that angers the duke into attacking Chic with a sword and implicating himself, but an encounter reaction check could have gone a lot of different ways than that.

I'm not sure electric eyes can do what John Law, Scientective, is saying they can, but it's plausible enough for comic books, and thus for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Also, as a Hero, it pays to check under your hood every once in awhile to look for planted devices. You can never be too careful around villains!

Given how dangerous falling damage is in H&H, levitating someone 35' into the air is a pretty effective trap. Luckily the distance to the trees is shorter, though John's player must have rolled to hit to reach the trees.

(Read at Digital Comic Museum.)

Marvel Mystery Comics #2 - pt. 4

Namor kills one of the policemen who survived his vehicular weapon attack later by drowning him, racking up a kill total of five over two adventures so far.

The Masked Raider's story begins with intriguing narration -- it describes a hideout in a hidden valley protected by "rocky mountains" -- perhaps meaning the Rocky Mountains?  This could be the only clue we ever get for where the Masked Raider's adventures take place.

The entrance to the hidden valley is protected by a lone sentry, later referred to as a dead shot. I would stat him as an assassin, a mobster type left out of the 2nd ed. basic rules, but will be in the more comprehensive AH&H Mobster Manual.

Rifles are called "smoke poles" in this story, because cowboys always have strange names for things.

Dressing in the hidden valley includes a U.S. Marshal's skeleton, still wearing his white hat and badge. I have white hats and badges statted as Mythic West trophies (badges appeared in Supplement III: Better Quality) and will both appear in the AH&H Editor's Guide.

Late in the scenario, we learn that the Masked Raider is infiltrating the group of outlaws to find out where they have their loot stashed. This is almost the opposite of how most players would play this scenario, preferring to fight the outlaws first and then search the valley for the loot themselves. The secret storage vault is concealed down at the bottom of a dry well, where, admittedly, not every player would think to look. A ladder leads down inside the well, while a tunnel also leads into the vault from another direction.

The American Ace story is an alternate history where World War I was perpetrated, not by the Austrians, but by the French, following a young French queen named Ursula -- only France is here called Castile D'or. Like Napoleon, Ursula is in exile, only Ursula is rescued by her old allies and put back in power. The focus of her revenge is Attainia -- likely standing in for Britannia. Ursula has her own minister assassinated in Britannia as a pretext to declare war, similar to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in WWI. Attania has a king instead of a queen. But all this is simply backstory before Perry Wade, the American Ace, shows up.

In Attainia, Perry encounters a steady string of random encounters: trucks and artillery heading for the front (Attainia is not an island in this world), old, weeping peasant women, children begging in the streets, and an air raid as a random event.

This scenario does not shy away from violence, as the aforementioned beggar children are blown to bits by a bomb. Perry is temporarily knocked out by the bomb, but recovers quickly. And that's all we see of him in this installment!

I don't normally mention text stories, but this issue contains a one-page Angel story that treats (mistreats?) him as if he had Superman's powers.

In Ka-Zar's installment, a jungle explorer only needs low-tech trophy items, as Ka-Zar fights Bardak the Ape for an old mirror.  As they fight over the mirror, Bardak uses a grappling move to disarm Ka-Zar of his knife. Now, normally I would not let dumb animals make disarming moves, but in the jungle explorer genre, all animals seem to have human or near-human intelligence.

African elephants are shown to be able to uproot trees, which should be as difficult as wrecking cars for a superhero.

Ka-Zar avoids falling damage when shaken out of a tree by grabbing onto a branch. Only at the Editor's discretion should there be saves vs. plot to see if some projection can be grabbed onto and protect the Hero from falling.

Elephants are explained to suffer a madness that makes them go rogue. It also makes them a really dangerous encounter in a H&H scenario.

In Ka-Zar's rematch with Bardak, Bardak doesn't seem to have to make morale checks because all of his tribe is watching them fight, and fear of dishonor checks his fear of Ka-Zar.

Ka-Zar kills Bardak with a single thrust of his dagger -- which seems like Bardak must have awful low hit points. Because Ka-Zar falls on Bardak while stabbing him, perhaps it is the transfer of falling damage, coupled with the dagger wound, that delivers enough damage to knock out Bardak. Then it's Bardak's fall from the tree that actually kills him (because he's now at zero hp).

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies: Volume 1, 1929-1930 - pt. 1

I've been reading and reviewing Famous Funnies almost since the start of this blog, but have never read the Buck Rogers installments because they have all been excised from the public domain issues online. That doesn't mean I don't have access to Buck Rogers, though, as I have recently picked up this first volume in the reprint series.

How old is Buck? We know he's over 400 years old because he was in suspended animation for 400 years. He was also 20 years old when the Great War ended. If the first two panels take place in the then-present day of 1929, before he travels to the future, then he was 31 when he was trapped in the mine with the peculiar gas.

A passage that caves in and traps you with peculiar gas that puts you in suspended animation for 400 years is quite a trap.

Buck's first battle is with half-breeds because...yeah, Buck Rogers is pretty racist.

Buck's first trophy item is a jumping belt that he takes from one of the half-breeds he defeats (possibly kills, though the story isn't clear). The jumping belts make you weigh 1/30 your normal weight and let you make 300' standing high or long jumps.

The Mongol Empire that has conquered North America in this future world has anti-gravity technology, but have not been able to master miniaturization like the North Americans have (almost the exact opposite of which continent mastered miniaturization in the real world). So, while the Mongols don’t have jumping belts, they do have large armored airships. There seems to be no distinction between the U.S. and Canada anymore in the future, so everyone Buck encounters for awhile who is not Mongolian or a half-breed is a North American. Native Americans are, interestingly, finally on even footing with the white man, as their “org zones” (territories) are no more primitive than anyone else’s.

Weapons are also distinctly different for each culture. The North Americans have rocket pistols that shoot exploding bullets. It’s hard to say how to stat them, really, as they seem to miss an awful lot. Perhaps rocket guns would just be +1 guns and exploding bullets would do…2-8 points of damage? The Mongols use disintegrator rays. They are devastatingly effective when within range -- airships and giant mortars might have a 1-mile range -- while hand-held disintegrators have terribly short range, maybe half that of a rocket pistol. It’s unclear how much damage a Mongol disintegrator would do to a person, but the big ones wreck like mighty men (7th level superheroes).

The North Americans have an electro-hypnotic chair that they use to find out if someone is telling the truth. The Mongols use surgery instead, removing the parts of the brain able to tell lies (although they seem to still be able to withhold information, sometimes -- save vs. science to do so?). Other than jumping belts, rocket pistols, and electro-hypnotic chairs, the North Americans live exactly like early 20th century people (even flying in single-prop biplanes, though ones that could be flown by remote control). The reason for that seems to be that the Mongols, when they took over, took all technology away from the Americans. After about 50 years of that, the Mongols started to settle down in just the western U.S., leaving the east coast free for the Americans to begin slowly rebuilding their cities, their culture and their technology. But they fast forward past some technology, like past bows and arrows back to guns. Wilma has never seen a bow and arrow until Buck makes them.

That is not to say that all ancient weapons are unknown in the future. When Buck’s jealous rival Killer Kane challenges him to a duel, Kane’s weapon is a mace, while Buck goes for a more “modern” rifle and bayonet.

The Mongols eat synthetic food, though it isn’t clear what that means. Genetically modified? Theirs is the only culture that watches television; instead of prepared programming, though, Mongols entertain themselves by spying on each other (since their TVs work like crystal balls). All work in the Mongol mines is automated (at least they don’t use slave labor!).

Further evidence of how easy disguise is, going all the way back to the beginning of comic strips -- Buck Rogers only has to wear oriental clothing to disguise himself as a Mongol; apparently his face doesn't give him away at all.

Though Mongol soldiers use disentegrator rayguns, ordinary patrolmen in their cities use a gas gun that is shaped like a large syringe. The gas is simply pushed out with the handle at the back, so it can’t have a very effective range.

The Mongols also have glider cars that look like one-room huts with rocket tubes bending downwards from the sides of the “car”. Other than levitation, the glider cars have not yet been shown to do anything else.

Demonstrating how racy even all ages fare could be in the 1920s-30s, it is implied that Wilma would be drugged so she couldn’t resist the Mongol emperor having his way with her.

Fantastic Comics #1 - pt. 3

This is still The Golden Knight.  I like the underground castle, as it's so That Other Game. Note how jumping and climbing are not hindered by the knight's armor at all.

The woman is referred to as both a hag and a witch. I'm already adding a hag to 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums; I may have to give it the ability to use Change Self 1/day.

I already have Martian green men represented in 2nd ed. H&H, but now here's Martian imp men. Transmitting yourself on sound waves sounds cool, though I'm not sure how that works. Maybe they "surf" on the sound waves to travel as fast as sound, which would be equal to the 3rd level power Race the Bullet.

The Martian imp men are somehow hitting Space Smith and Dianna with radium rays, but the imp men aren't carrying any weapons we can see, so maybe it's a natural ability? The radium rays just put people to sleep.

Transmitting belts teleport the wearer to a preset location.

This page makes it clear that the imp men are only about 3' tall.

As fearsome as the imp men look, they don't seem to do much damage with their claws -- maybe 1-4 points? And this begs the question -- how many Hit Dice should imp men have? Maybe as little as 2-3 HD.

Behold, the huge, man-eating Martian mosquito. And that's "huge" -- not even giant!  This has got to be at least 4 Hit Dice. Note that it doesn't have a proboscis to feed through like a mosquito, it has a mouth and the proboscis-like appendage is actually a stinger, I presume capable of delivering poison.

This is the first indication I've seen in comics that the working of rayguns is not immediately obvious -- and this is in the future!  I could use a flowchart for figuring out alien technology (the Other Game used that mechanic on occasion) or a simple save vs. plot to immediately understand something of an alien nature.

Even in the future, guards are easily overcome!

Amazingly, I have an easier time believing that Space Smith story with Martian mosquitoes than I do this story about the Eskimongolian Empire in the Arctic Circle being strong enough to challenge the U.S. This has got to be the most ridiculous alternate history I've ever read and I'm just on the first page!

Mind you -- if this was done gonzo-style, waving all logic, you could have polar bear-riding soldiers.  Hmm...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Fantastic Comics #1 - pt.1

The debut of Samson starts out with a bit of creative alternate history. "Peace reigned in Europe" either means this takes place before 1939, or this is an alternate world. The army of huns marching on Europe from the East makes it seem even more like an alternate history. Indeed, it bears some similarity to the future of Buck Rogers.

Like, how old is Samson? Is he out of the mist of history or descendant of ancient forbears? They seem contradictory, unless it just means his ancestry goes back into the mist of history, but then so does everybody's.

It seems comical today that anyone would have ever thought a threat to Europe would be coming out of Tibet, instead of, oh, say Germany or Italy. Tibetans are rarely portrayed as villains, and it's more likely that Thorga's army is just passing through Tibet from China or Mongolia -- with Mongolia often being perceived as a threat in pulp fiction and early comic books, despite having not been a threat to anyone for about 500 years.

More and more powerful explosives is a comic book cliche, and I've done my part for Hideouts & Hoodlums by upping the damage that explosives do.

High frequency thought transmitters may seem like super-powerful trophy items, given the range implied here...but are they really any more than telephones with flavor text enhancement, if they are limited to transmitting surface thoughts?

That wide screen TV, though...that looks like it would make many a person with a home entertainment center today envious.
Mad scientists must have the lowest wisdom scores; Thorga could have become a billionaire had he marketed that widescreen television with telepathic transmitter. Even the super-explosive could have made him a tidy sum.

A battallion is 300-800 soldiers, making Samson one of the most powerful superheroes. His buffing powers must have remarkably long durations, as this battle would take at least 57 turns, unless morale saves failed and ended the battle sooner.

Samson's first fight is remarkable both for his results -- he apparently defeats an entire battalion bare-handed, but how he does it, with no obvious use of powers. He fights soldiers two at a time with punches, apparently with Multi-Attack since in H&H you don't normally get two attacks per turn with fists if your opponent is armed. He might have some other power buffs in place, like Get Tough or Nigh-Invulnerable Skin (since he is just in furry underpants).

Thorganians? Did Thorga name his country after himself?

That three-tiered aerodrome is a pretty impressive image, though I don't think there's a real precedent for one. The tanks, on the other hand, have the giant treads look of late WWI British tanks. Each has four light cannons instead of one heavy tank gun.

If that's a British Mark V tank, like it looks like, it weighs 29 tons, which means Samson needs a 4th level Raise power to hoist it in the air. That means Samson has at least five brevet ranks -- though I'm already assuming he has more because of that batallion he took out.

A possible weakness in the various Raise powers is that they increase incrementally at first, so that Raise Car can lift 2 tons, Raise Elephant can raise 5 tons, and Raise Trolley Car can lift 8 tons. That leaves a huge gap for Raise Bridge to cover, that would include hefting tanks and chucking them around.

If I had increased the Raise powers so that they went 2 tons, 20 tons, 200 tons, then the 3rd level Raise power would handle tanks, but would also handle small bridges too. So...

A better question here is, if Samson is as powerful as he appears to be, why dodge the bullets? He's going to be bulletproof, like most Superman clones, right? Well, maybe he's not. Or, his defensive buffs were up for so long in the giant battle that they've expired now and he's vulnerable now.

There are two things unusual about this page. One, there's absolutely no reason for that bomber to come down so low that Samson can grab its wing as it flies past. But the other is even more interesting -- Samson doesn't leap. As much like Superman as most early superheroes were, Samson does not seem to be a leaper.

This page is peculiar in terms of just what is going on here. First of all, the narrator says Samson leaps up to the plane, even though we clearly see his foot still on the ground. Then he pulls the plane out of the sky -- how do we handle that game mechanics-wise? Is he making a grappling attack on the plane, and we're treating the plane as an enemy combatant? Is he somehow reversing one of the Raise powers?



It might not be as clear, since throwing and exploding are in the description, but this is flavor text added to Samson using his wrecking things power. He's not turning the plane into a missile weapon, since the pilot is inside it and not being aimed at with the plane. And yet...the Editor would be within his rights to say the explosion still causes damage to Samson, for being so close to it, unless he threw it further away than it appears here. And in that case he is using the Wreck at Range power.

That the pilot emerged unharmed is perfectly in keeping with how the wrecking things mechanic works, since wrecking only affects inorganic objects.



How fast can Samson run? If the "Thorganians" reached a European country, and assuming Samson is even just running as far as Tibet, that is at least 2,000 miles. If he ran that distance from noon to dusk, and assuming that was 6 hours, then he ran 333 MPH. That means he is using the 4th level buffing power, Invisibly Fast.

Samson is such a good sneaker that he can take a guard by surprise while sneaking up on his right flank!

Samson seems to be displaying unusual and unnecessary stealth if he is as invincible as he was in the battle against an entire battalion. The best explanation I have for this is that he can't be at full power all the time -- and powers work just like that in Hideouts & Hoodlums.


The combat is a little off, unless Samson is using Multi-Attack again. The power doesn't specify this (yet), but I guess you could use different attack forms in the same turn and split them between your available attacks with Multi-Attack. Otherwise, you should not be able to maintain a hold and kick a new opponent in the same turn.

I wonder if those hood antennae are the high frequency thought transmitters we've heard about...

Yes, it's an impressive-sized door -- with a big padlock, no less -- but still wrecks as if an ordinary door. Only the largest of bank vaults should wreck as anything higher, and then at the category of machines.

Samson seems extremely vicious here, cold-blooded murdering an underling just for getting in his way. And yet...in H&H, to confront a main villain before dealing with underlings first requires a save vs. plot. Samson could have failed his save, yet already activated a damage-buffing power (like one of the Get Tough variants), and it was too late to stop himself before unleashing all that damage on the underling.

Despite the fact that Samson is attacking bare-handed, he's dealing "death-dealing blows". Now, technically, any attack on an unconscious person in H&H is a death-dealing blow, but the pacing on this page does not suggest that he's taking the time to murder the guards and let Thorga run further. Maybe there needs to be a power called Death-Dealing Blows, that let's attacks do lethal damage if they drop an opponent to zero hit points. I would reserve something that dangerous for at least a fourth level power, though.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Smash Comics #1 - pt. 1

We continue the exciting (cover date) month of August 1939, when a lot of companies first started adding new titles to jump on the sales boost that Superman had begun. Today, we find Quality Comics finally putting a second title out in the field.

Smash Comics leads with Espionage, the best feature from Feature Comics. This story is an allegory for Germany and Europe obviously, and carries with it some significant alternate history for South America. Editors can be free to shake up world history as much as they want in their campaigns.

For some reason Black X is called Black Ace in this story.

Disguise is clearly central to being a Spy, and is the primary ability of the Spy class.

Black X/Ace's strategy is borrowed straight from "A Scandal in Bohemia". Feel free to borrow from the classics when running or playing in your Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns.

I usually give Will Eisner credit for having well-thought out his stories, but this one seems a little lacking. If Koran's empire extends only as far north as Brazil, then does it make sense for the freedom fighters to be in Colombia, outside the empire? And how did Mara Hani get there ahead of Black X/Ace? I could imagine players crying foul there.

The numbness in Black X/Ace's arm seems to be mere flavor text, as it doesn't seem to be affecting his fighting ability any.

Jaguars we've seen before, and were statted in Supplement III.

Another example of a Hero taking "months" to recover from injuries, while a mobster dies from conditions that, for a Hero, could have been avoided with simple first aid and rest.

I include this page of Philpot Veep, Master Detective for three reasons. One, the inside joke on the wanted poster in the background about G. Brenner (long-time readers will recognize that as the creator of The Clock!); two, $8.65 is apparently a reasonable price for a radio, with tubes, in 1939; and three, the casual reference to Sherlock Holmes' infamous cocaine addiction.

Interestingly, we saw this same panel of the gar-wrestling man in another comic book, from a different publisher! This title from Quality and Fiction House's Jumbo Comics both had the Will Eisner shop in common -- does this mean both comic books were produced by his shop? Or was Eisner able to re-sell the already-published page because no one paid attention to the educational filler?

Swordfish were also covered here. A 450 lb. swordfish would only qualify as a large, 2 Hit Dice, swordfish.

This is Chic Carter, Ace Reporter, the new feature from Vernon Henkel, who we've seen before doing Gallant Knight.

A monogrammed broken watch fob is a good clue for an Editor to let Heroes find.

Players will know when they got a good encounter reaction roll, when the police walks in on their Heroes, catches them compromising a crime scene, and still just lets them walk away.

This is not a tactic I would normally recommend, since there's a good chance the bad guys will try harder to lose you. But if you're confident in your driver, you might want to make it easy to let the bad guys know you're tailing them, so they'll stop and attack you or try to capture you.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)