Planet Comics #2 - pt. 3

Well...that was a disappointing debut for the Taloned Man. We don't even get to see if Tiger Beat punched him off the roof or just pushed him off. At least we know he's okay, as he must have fallen into the same moat.

That is some sword Tiger Beat has; he just whacks a diamond and it shatters into a thousand pieces? That's better than a Ginsu knife!





===

That's also a really improbable example of the wrecking things mechanic from Hideouts & Hoodlums. This would be like wrecking a dam, but at a -1 or -2 penalty.

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There's a whimsical naivte to thinking that we'll still have a Washington in the year 40,000, not to mention the notion that we'll be launching our spaceships from giant mortars.

The notion of our power source being special elements only found on some planets, though...well, that's textbook Star Trek with its dilithium crystals.

As Spurt Hammond might conceivably go on to become an obscure influence on Star Trek, so does this page show us how Spurt is inspired by the John Carter of Mars series. Well, "inspired" might be too generous, as the Red Men of Mars are blatantly ripped off from A Princess of Mars here.

Even the Martian ships look like they were taken straight from Edgar Rice Burroughs' imagination, while the Earth ships are more boring rocket-like ships.

===

This is a large scale aerial combat. I have no plans to produce game mechanics for such; it would need to be handled by someone with a firmer grasp of wargames than me.

Spurt uses a raygun to wreck his way inside, takes out a guard, and uses the guard's cloak as a disguise -- some of the details are different, but the tactic has been used a thousand times in fiction up to this point.

Now, how Spurt knew this was the ship that the prince was on, that part is much harder to follow. Was he somehow able to detect that this ship was more heavily protected than the others?

You would also think that at least one of the prince's guards would have a weapon on them, but Spurt catches them all empty-handed and gets to wale on them with his fists!

Now we're moving on to the next story, with Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol. Here we get a new mobstertype -- crab-men! Crab-men are numerous in appearance, outnumbering a spaceship's crew. We also find out here that crab-men are vulnerable to radiation, and this makes them susceptible to commands.

Look at how tough this crab-man is, picking Buzzup and just throwing him on the ground like a rag doll. These bad boys have got to be at least 4 Hit Dice.

Being trapped in giant specimen jars is an unusual form of trap too.

Spoilers: Buzz wins.

...So we're going to jump ahead now to the next feature, Captain Nelson Cole of the Solar Force. 

Dwight Field Airport is a real place, and I strongly support using real world locations in comic book stories for realism, though the ground-based, sideways-launching spacecraft then take some of that realism away.

There's also no such thing as  "light mile," though this might just be future shorthand for miles traveled at the speed of light. If 250,000 is the number of light years, though, that makes the number of miles 1.4696563 x 10¹⁸. Conversely, if it means 250,000 miles, that is just the distance to Earth's Moon, and reaching it at the speed of light would be like teleportation.

The object that can take out two spaceships moving at the speed of light? A shooting star, or meteor. Meteors, of course, move nothing close to the speed of light.

"Poor fellows! Oh well, they were newbies and kinda deserved it for being dumb. Full speed ahead, and let's skip contacting their families back home!"

Note how spaceships are controlled by simple levers.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Detective Comics #36 - pt. 1

It's been awhile since we last checked in on The Batman. This is still the pre-Robin Batman that I'm not particularly fond of. Bill Finger's The Batman, probably at Bob Kane's insistence, is a dark, menacing figure who is not opposed to killing by any means at hand.

Like many a Superman adventure of the time, this scenario starts with a wandering encounter -- a dying plot hook character escapes from a speeding car within sight of the Batman.  Batman's player is smart and has him search the body for clues!

True to the tropes of the Mysteryman class, the police catch him standing over the body and assume the Batman is a murderer. They even try to shoot him down without even bothering to tell him to surrender first!

Later, as Bruce Wayne, the Batman solves a clue and figures out that Professor Hugo Strange is up to something. The description that Bruce gives to himself of Hugo Strange resembles Sherlock Holmes' Moriarty.

Now, some people feel that, since the Batman already knows of Hugo Strange, that means this story was published out of order with the next Hugo Strange tale in Batman #1, but another possibility is that readers were supposed to understand from this that Hugo's first true appearance, in the 1934 Doc Savage novel, The Monsters, was canon for Batman's world.

The Batman, aware from the G-Man's notebook where Strange's first robbery will be, takes a big risk by disguising himself as the night watchman. Had the plan been to kill the night watchman, we wouldn't have a Batman today. But it does work out perfectly for him, as the robbers relax their guard and leave only one armed while the rest move boxes -- a perfect time for the Batman to attack and get one free turn of action while the mobsters would drop their boxes and go for their weapons. Better, he gets a surprise turn, on which he decks the guard and drops him, and then wins initiative on the first regular turn and takes out two mobsters (with low hit points) with his punches (two attacks because they are unarmed). It appears he is taking out four at once, but this must be turn-compression and showing his attacks on subsequent turns as well.

After the battle ends, the Batman shoots a gun into the air to bring the police, but it is not clear if it is his gun, or if he just picked up a mobster's gun.

The next night, Hugo thinks nine-to-one odds will be enough to stop the Batman, and it almost isn't. It appears that a single lucky head blow takes him out, but it could have been a gradual reduction of hit points throughout the battle.

Bucking villain tradition, Hugo does not put the Batman in a deathtrap, but plans to torture him with a whip while chained up instead. I suppose, eventually, that could kill him, so maybe it's just not a particularly efficient deathtrap. The Batman escapes by wrecking the chains. The Batman is a perplexing man (4th level Mysteryman) by now, so for him to wreck the category of machines (for chains), he needs to only roll a 4 or higher on 2 dice. I would also rule that he only gets one chance before Strange figures out what he's trying and stops fooling around with him.

The Batman is shown keeping a vial of sleeping gas in his utility belt.


(Read in Batman Archives vol. 1.)

Thrilling Comics #1 - pt. 3

And we're back with more of Dr. Strange! If this feature seems unusually long, it's because it is! It runs on for a record-breaking 37 pages and was probably intended for the first three issues, but I'm guessing the new publisher, Better Publications, didn't have enough other material to get a full anthology out.

We get an example of wrecking things in panel 2, unarmed combat (2 attacks vs. unarmed foes) in panel 3, but now we have to decide what to do about panel 4. Is the Faceless Phantom using Invisibility (as I first thought, but now seems increasingly unlikely), the spell Poof! (disappearing in a swirling purple mist is very Poof!-like), or is this a new power of Intangibility? Or, is intangibility just flavor text for Imperviousness?

What's more important is that, without Super-Senses, a superhero is practically powerless in the dark. Had the lights stayed on, there was no way anyone would have been able to spirit Victoria away from him again.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting kind of annoyed with these early superheroes killing every animal they encounter. What is with that?

The hidden aeroplane is dropped trophy loot, meant for the Hero to find.

It would be nice if I could tell from this blurry picture how many natives it takes to "hopelessly outnumber" Strange. Very likely, they just keep coming at him in waves until the durations end on all his buffing powers.

What doesn't emulate well in Hideouts & Hoodlums is not being able to wreck things, and getting back his defensive powers. I have considered putting a cap on how often per day a superhero can wreck things, and maybe he wasted them all on wrecking spears and shields in the big fight.

As for getting his powers back, maybe he was a prisoner for 8 hours, giving him time to get his power slots refilled, but it doesn't make sense to waste 1 turn of a high-level power protecting himself from the fire when he could just bust the ropes by flexing his muscles instead. Even ignoring game mechanics and looking at this from a story perspective, it doesn't make much sense.

Poisonous snakes can be encountered in groups up to 7, when found in their dens, which are apparently sometimes at the bottom of 20' deep pits.

Pushing attacks must always work on superheroes, no matter how defensively they are buffed up.

Wha?? The delta ray gun is only a rifle? That's the weapon that had a range of about a mile?

Amazingly, after killing a tiger in one hit, Strange is unable to save himself from seven poisonous snakes without help. Perhaps he burnt through all his powers fighting the natives.

The Faceless Phantom had a pen and paper on him in the jungle, and took the time to write Strange a note? Or was he so cocky he wrote the note in advance?

Again, Strange failed a save vs. poison and was kept asleep.

Watch this plot hole about the stolen Alosun. Despite not having his Alosun, he will be displaying superpowers repeatedly for the rest of the story (and don't forget how he recovered his powers while tied to a stake without taking more Alosun). The Alosun is clearly flavor text and does not affect him game mechanics-wise in any way.

Tropical hurricanes need to be on outdoor wandering encounter lists when out at sea. As must giant octopi (naturally).

Almost as bad as all this animal killing is how they never even stand a chance against the Hero. If anything killed the superhero genre, it's probably the lack of suspense that engendered.

Without any fatigue rules tied to movement, there is no game mechanic stopping Strange from swimming a few miles without even needing to buff with a power.

If I was Strange's player, I would call shenanigans on my Editor for this agent of the Faceless Phantom, who just happens to be near the beach where Strange just happens to wash up on shore. How the Faceless Phantom could possibly anticipate that Strange's plane was downed by a hurricane and had to swim to Florida, instead of arriving at an airport, is beyond suspicious.

And speaking of that hurricane, what happened to the hurricane that was just miles away from mainland Florida a little while ago? Now there's not even a tropical storm on the coast.

I skipped a page where the Phantom's men tried to off Strange by crashing another train into his (they were two well-drawn trains at that). The crash gave him amnesia - a comic book staple so common that I finally included it in 2nd edition (p. 90) of the Basic book, but only under head blows.

The amnesia was only temporary and the hobos all got beat up on the pages I skipped over.

By now, you've probably figured out that I'm not a fan of this story, over all. One of the things I do like about it occurs here -- Strange's failure to stop the Faceless Phantom earlier has campaign-changing consequences. Now, weeks later, New York City is in a state of terror, besieged by FP's mobster henchmen.

Oh, and Strange picks up a kid sidekick. This is kind of a big deal because this is two months before Robin debuts in Detective Comics, making Jerry one of the first kid sidekicks, and the first one for a superhero.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

More Fun Comics #49 - pt. 2

The Buccaneer picks up with a sword duel about to begin between Dennis and Dr. Killmen -- which would be a pretty good name for a supervillain! Instead, Killmen lasts about one melee turn before getting run through. Such are the vagaries of randomly generated combat results!  Dennis is trying to get the crown prince of Natria back on the throne, Natria being a fictional country on some island near Mexico, despite it looking an awful lot like Europe.

In Radio Squad (another feature ruined by lackluster post-Shuster art), Sandy and Larry are called to the scene of a stabbing, but can't reach the fleeing suspect because of people in the way. This would be an example of a "slowing obstacle," as defined on page 113 of the Basic rulebook, in the chase section. Outside, Sandy and Larry "take aim," and unload their pistols in the suspect's direction as he climbs a fire escape to the roof. Granted, the fire escape probably gives him cover and hence an Armor Class bonus, but this illustrates how there is a good chance of missing even for fourth level fighters (by my page count conversion, Sandy is just shy of 10,000 XP now and is a "lieutenant" for level title).

Sandy, Larry, and the guy they are pursuing all jump down through a skylight and seemingly land unharmed in the apartment below, demonstrating that a jump/controlled fall maybe should not cause damage. Sandy and Larry, twice, enter the apartment without a search warrant. Larry is shot in the arm and takes a week to heal from his injury.

Lieut. Bob Neal of Sub 662 is sent from Panama to Honolulu for maneuvers, but the scenario quickly becomes fighting ruffian/kidnappers in an alley hand-to-hand. They fail their surprise attempt on Bob and one of them gets thrown (grappling result), then punched out. The scientist he rescues lives on "Kolawura" Island, which could just be a typo for Kolavara Island.  "Mt. Palolo" erupts while they're there; Palolo Valley is where Ka'au Crater is. An interesting twist to the scenario (which seems to have no connection to the kidnapping attempt) is the volcanic eruption, forcing the submarine off its maneuvers to evacuate people from the island. Sadly, the native Hawaiians are treated like primitives.

Bob takes precautions like pouring water on himself and wearing a wet handkerchief over his face before approaching a fire. I'm not sure that should have any affect on if he takes damage. It could translate into a saving throw bonus, but there's not a save vs. fire damage under normal circumstances, only against magical fire. Bob takes "a few days" to recover from smoke inhalation.

The Flying Fox tangles with two "rough hombres," but I hesitate to stat them as anything other than fighters. The hombres/ruffians work for air pirates, some of whom are armed with sub-machine guns.

Detective Sergeant Carey is needed on a murder investigation because Captain Dart, who looks pretty long in the tooth, might be getting a little senile. Dart has his suspects -- dancing girls at a nightclub -- reenact their dance to pinpoint the killer, without even considering that the killer could guess the purpose of this and switch places with another dancer. Carey seems a little loopy too, he seems to not be able to resist saying the word "voodoo" every other panel, just because it's the theme of the nightclub.

Luckily, Carey just happens to know the bartender. Maybe he really did meet the bartender and add him to his SCM list during downtime between scenarios, but something that recently came up in our message board game was the possibility of switching out a SCM you already have after a successful save vs. plot. This is not an official Hideouts & Hoodlums rule, but it does not run counter to the spirit of the rules.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)
 









  

Blue Ribbon Comics #3 - pt. 3

And we continue with Scoop Cody, what could have been a dry and boring crime reporter strip, but is livened by the energetic artwork of Charles Biro.

Here, we get to see a jewel case being used as a throwing weapon (improvised weapons do the same damage as fists, 1-3) with another example of disarming. Scoop follows up with a grappling move, a throw that would leave the Count prone for the following turn. But there seems to be a turn of fighting missing between panels, because the Count is back up on his feet to get punched already in panel 4. Now the Count is prone again in panel 5 (as if they were out of order...), but is still able to kick at a -1 penalty to hit. We may have missed another turn of action between panels 5 and 6, or maybe the Count got to draw his knife at the beginning of the turn, but has to wait until the end of the turn to use it. It does seem strange to grapple a prone opponent to make him lose his knife instead of just kicking it out of his hand, though.

I guess chewing gum sticking to a dress could happen, but I'm skeptical he could slip it around her back like that without anyone noticing. A sleight of hand skill check, as an expert skill?

The Marvel is Biro's first "superhero." His power might be levitation...as I'm wondering what he's standing on while looking through that porthole from the outside...

The first time we met Corporal Collins was during our landmark 500th post. I had conjectured that Collins was statted as an alien superhero because of what all he could do, so let's take another look and see if that bears up.

Initially, I wrote off the fabri-steel flexible repeller as flavor text for some Armor Class-buffing power like Nigh-Invulnerable Skin, but an awful lot is made of the "science" behind the repeller, and maybe it really is a trophy item (one that gives the wielder the Turn Guns on Bad Guys power, no less!).

It's also worth noting that, since the U.S. is still not at war with anyone, Collins has to be fighting with the French.

I almost have nightmares about this happening in one of my games. "Oh look, guys, we just captured an enemy fighter plane! Let's be unstoppable for awhile!"

That said, I'm REALLY skeptical that you could take off in a plane like that. Maybe that's an expert skill check, with a penalty of having to take a higher die (so 1 in 8 instead of 1 in 6).

I'm sure that munitions dump was worth a lot of XP!

Now, here's where the story differs from what players would really do. Instead of ditching the plane to stay in the combat, players would look at the longterm benefits of keeping the plane, bail from the fight, and go refuel.  You could put every fuel depot under heavy guard, but that's not too big a deterrent when you can strafe the depots with machine gun fire from above.

Now, Collins landing on the balloon would be an attack roll, but against AC 9 since it's a big target. I would require a basic skill check for climbing around the balloon like that.

There is absolutely no explanation for the corkscrew tank that Collins steals after he reaches the ground. What purpose does it serve? Does it wreck through walls faster? I would think that tanks wreck through walls pretty well already. Maybe it opens giant champagne bottles.

That is one super-powerful grenade. I might give one a chance to wreck a tank or a bridge, but a grenade that can wreck both at once? I do have a high-level power called Mass Wrecking. Is Collins a superhero of that high a level?

This is a new series called Devils in the Deep. I really want to stat that monster, but I don't know what to call it -- killer lobster-tiger shark-barracuda-man? 

And how big was that barracuda to have a heart that size?

The monster is pretty smart, since it understands what dynamite is. It's also cagey enough to pretend to kill Dr. Carbo, even though it must know it can't.

Later, the killer lobster-tiger shark-barracuda-man kills a giant octopus, so we know it's at least that strong.

This is from a series called Secret Assignments. Jack only has to overpower two guards to free the prisoners. You might think they would have bum-rushed the guards themselves, having superior numbers. Perhaps even stranger is that Jack leaps all that way down to reach the guard -- maybe sustaining 1-6 points of damage from the fall? -- and then punches the guard. Of course, what happened was that Jack rolled poorly and missed falling on the guard!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Feature Comics #28

Phew! Some of the copy of this issue from Quality is of, well, poor quality!

From this page of Joe Palooka that I can read, I see some prices listed. Now, I am highly skeptical of the $3 offer for a used camper -- I suspect Ham Fisher had a really bad experience with campers -- but more interesting to me is Knobby's accepted offer of $10 for car repairs. So much cheaper than today!

I started out thinking that Porto Bello was a joke about mushrooms, but it turns out that Porto Bello is/was a real place in Panama. Panama was controlled by Spain when this took place, but note how not only does everyone there talk in English, but even the signs are written in English.

The phrase "pike ye the dandy" is an unusual one, as I've never seen "pike" used to mean trip before, but it clearly does here.

Ripping right through this issue, we're on Rance Keane already. And speaking of tripping....Even braced, I have trouble believing that Rance could trip a horse like that; surely, the horse's strength and mass would just pull Rance off the roof. In this instance, I would treat it as an opposed grappling attack, even though Rance is not in melee range. If the horse wins, Rance gets pulled off the roof and lands for 1-6 points of damage; if Rance wins, the horse gets pulled over and is prone. I might even give the horse a +2 situational modifier.

I haven't featured The Bungle Family in a while. Here we see George Bungle taking two good smacks to the kisser, each of which should be doing 1-3 points of damage, and walking away from them. He must be a bit of a scrapper; possibly a 1st level fighter with max (or near-max) hit points.

The ineffectiveness of bare knuckle punching in Hideouts & Hoodlums' current edition bothers me. It's realistic, but leads to no one wanting to fight without weapons. I've been thinking about introducing graduated punching damage, so that they do 1-4 points of damage starting at 2nd level, 1-6 points starting at 4th level, 1-8 points starting at 6th level, and so on.

This is The Clock.  We've seen Heroes be able to boss around beat cops before, but never with an excuse this flimsy -- based purely on having been Captain Kane's driver, The Clock is able to wander around the crime scene and pocket evidence.

With little confidence in their new feature Dollman, we find this installment pushed towards the back of the book. The "monsterous machine" is an aquatic tank.

This is why I don't like rats -- you never know when they might have dynamite strapped to them. This would also make for a really dangerous encounter!

This is Reynolds of the Mountains. The bright light blinds them during a surprise attack. Then they lose initiative and receive lucky head blows. Had they won initiative, they could have still tried to attack first, but would have done so at a penalty.

Most of this checks out. The floor board is an improvised club, so that does 1-3 points of damage, but that's enough to trigger a disarm check. More curious is how Reynolds misses Sam. Even assuming Sam is at medium range (that's -2), Sam is wearing no armor, has no cover, and isn't moving fast enough in an accelerating speedboat to get more bonuses -- that gives Sam only slightly worse than 50/50 chances of hitting, better if he's higher level already. I guess he just really got an unlucky die roll!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Pep Comics #1 - pt. 3

We return to Sergeant Boyle.  Charles Biro would soon go on to do great things in comics, but like Jack Cole he was still finding his bearings on this feature.

Boyle's ability to dodge bullets, normally not possible at human speed, demonstrates how all classes should get the save vs. missiles to dodge gunfire.

There are two unexpected occurrences on this page that could affect game mechanics. One is the notion that anti-personnel weapons could also create concealing smokescreens, making grenades extra desirable for Heroes.  The other is the notion that artillery weapons are so combustible that they can be shot and made to explode. I like that notion, and may cite this as an example the next time my players want to cart a machine gun around with them.

It's also worth noting how graphic the violence is on this page; even from the beginning Biro was pushing the envelope there.

Could deciphering code be as simple as an expert-level skill check? Yes, I think so...

And this is interesting -- I can't think of other examples of grenades being used as distractions before. I'm not sure if my players would ever toss away a grenade like that instead of just choosing to blow bad guys up.

Aha -- the reason he didn't blow them up was that he wanted to make them do his digging for him!

And no, I would not allow someone to make three grappling attacks at once. In fact, in my campaigns, you can only attack the same target with multiple melee attacks, though that is not an official H&H rule.

This feature is Queen of Diamonds. The author is, supposedly, novelist Manly Wade Wellman, who must have just been cashing in a paycheck here. Rocket is here in the Land of Diamonds to woo their queen, but immediately turns completely subservient to her, anticipating a sort of reverse Gor.

The lion is knocked out with two punches.  I made punches pretty weak in 2nd edition to go with realism, but I definitely erred in staying comic book-authentic.

In true RPG fashion, Rocket doesn't stick with his fists because it fits his character concept, but picks up new weapons and armor/cover from battle to battle.

In the end, he is rewarded with the queen as a Supporting Cast Member, and also a title. The SCM is already worth XP, because he can earn XP for including her in his future adventures. I would award a one-time XP award to go along with earning the title.

Apparently also written by Wellman, according to comics.org --  I would like to have had a conversation with Manly about how a Chinese magician managed to be a direct descendant of Aladdin. Sometimes, not a lot of thought went into these stories. In fact, to get a real Golden Age feel to your H&H scenarios, it might be better to plot them out as fast as possible and avoid overthinking anything.

So Fu Chang, through the aid of the ghost of an old wizard, is able to animated his magic chess set and send them out to spy on people. This could be elaborate flavor text for a Clairvoyance spell...but I think what we're actually seeing are the first Figurines of Wondrous Power in H&H.

This figurine grants the Find Evidence power to anyone holding it.

And such convenient evidence too, pinned to the wall behind a curtain (who pins envelopes to walls??).


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Fight Comics #1 - pt. 3

I somehow skipped this page of Kayo Kirby last time, even though there's something rather interesting here. In the consummables subsection of the trophy section, there should be an entry for adrenalin, with the benefit being that it gives you 1-6 bonus hit points temporarily.

This is the unfortunately named Kinks Mason. Kinks is a test diver, wearing a new kind of diving helmet, when he gets caught in an apparently supernatural undertow that pulls him deep underwater (supernatural because, just panels earlier, he announced he was only two fathoms, or 12', deep).

Here we find it's pulled him into a lost world setting that's a bit unusual, being in an enormous air-filled grotto deep underwater. The barrier of sunken ships blocking the entrance serve as a nice transition between worlds.

A carnivoplant looks a lot like the creeper vines I introduced in first edition.  This is a large, maybe even a huge creeper vine and with 5 vines I would give it 1-3 attacks per turn.

The phosphomites are tougher to stat. They look like giant sea urchins, so they probably do sea urchin-y type stuff in battle. They appear to be helping Kinks, but maybe they are just a wandering encounter that turned up in the middle of combat and attacked a random party.

The goor are definitely non-humans, though I don't see any particular way to stat them except maybe as orc substitutes. It's interesting that the first of the Gor novels, Tarnsman of Gor, is 26 years away at this point.

By virtue of having rescued a princess (I guess) of the Procono people, Kinks is suddenly an admiral leading their navy. The navy rid on the back of giant "tauserus", which look vaguely like large Plesiosaurs, and are big enough to have tank turret-like structures mounted on their backs (though it's not clear how they keep from falling off...unless the tanks are somehow grafted to their skin...?). Anyway, that's a pretty powerful navy for a 1st-level fighter to be leading!

Note the map showing, roughly, the layout of this hidden realm.

Granted, Kinks did put himself at considerable risk in that scenario, so giving him the chance to leave with all the gold he can carry may seem like an okay reward. Gold was worth $34 per ounce in 1940, so if he left with 50 lbs, that would be over $27,000 -- way more than he needs to level up. So, it's really up to the Editor if he wants Kinks' player to have that much this soon...

This is Big Red McLane, and I love how all he has to do to get a job in 1940 is to put up his dukes. I think that's how we know Mr. Farlow is a plot hook character instead of a random character who would have rolled on the encounter reaction chart for this job interview. "Oh, no experience? (*rolls*) Don't call us, Mr. McLane, we'll call you."

Here I'm stuck wondering a couple of things. Is cutting down a tree so that it falls on someone an attack, or a trap? Does the lumberjack roll to hit (attack), or does Big Red roll a saving throw (trap)? And either way, how much damage should a tree falling on you do? If falling does 1-6 damage per 10', is it safe to assume that a 60' tall tree should do 6-36 points of damage?

Big Red is certainly a capable fighter. He appears to be making two attacks simultaneously each time, which is odd. In the first battle, when everyone is fighting unarmed, then Big Red is entitled to two attacks, but I don't think my rules let him split them between targets like that. And in the second battle, when people are using improvised weapons, that should slow the combat down to 1 attack per turn (oh...unless improvised weapons should not count against that -- I like this idea, because it allows barroom brawls with the occasional chairs and bottles to proceed at the same pace).

Note that Big Red can hit hard enough to knock his opponents prone. The punching rules don't account for that yet (unless these gangsters just happened to have 3 hit points or less), and it's something I'll have to work on (maybe for a future supplement, unless I accumulate enough material to need an Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Editor's Guide someday).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)