Prize Comics #2 - pt. 2

We're still visiting with Ted O'Neil in Mexico. He's dealing with diamond smugglers, but pretty poor smugglers. Are they really about to brag about having $1,000 in diamonds? That should be easy, even in 1940. 

Here we have an uncommon instance of a whip being used as an entangling weapon. 

Just as rare, we have a missile weapon -- a rock -- being thrown into a melee to great effect.

Here we're told these are poor smugglers again, willing to kill over only thousands of dollars. 

They're slow smugglers too, though that is because of Hideouts & Hoodlums' initiative system. Even though Bates should be able to pull a trigger before Ted can reach up and grab that beam, he can't if Ted out-rolls him.

The smugglers are also poor shots, missing despite the +2 bonus they should have for attacking from behind, and while Ted can't move too much.

Tossing a lasso over someone while flying by in a fast-moving plane strains cred -- oh, who am I kidding? This whole story is straining me. This lasso trick would need a natural 20, over a result over 20, to pull off. 

And how dark is this ending? It's implied that Ted landed so rough that Bates' face is smashed in by the fall. 

You know, this issue really isn't winning me over, and Jupiter, Master Magician isn't helping. Let's ignore for the moment that Jupiter's antennae look like pencils sticking out of his hair. Let's pretend that monster is drawn less goofy-looking and more like the D&D gargoyle it superficially resembles. Let's even try to ignore the fact that, if the city is shielded by rays so he can't locate it, then how does Jupiter know it's far away? Instead, let's talk about how dumb your supporting cast member has to be to volunteer to be a decoy, while you watch a monster carry him away, even though you have no idea if the monster is going to eat him the minute it leaves town with him. And even if they're convinced from the crystal ball that the monsters are taking their abductees to this far away city, maybe the abductees don't need to show up alive, or with their heads still on. 

Okay, I lied -- let's go back and talk about the crystal ball shielding too. We need a Protection from Scrying spell for H&H

to simulate that.

On this next page, we learn how gargoyles are made. Ouch! And made by mad scientists...or is the old man a magic-user? It seems he is if he knows about white magic and shielding his location from scrying.

Jupiter here casts Hold Person, Knock, and ...Clean Room? Or just a use of Telekinesis maybe? Oh, and previously he used a Fly spell I forgot to note! It's worth noting that the Fly spell for magic-users is slower than gargoyles fly (12 vs. 15), so it would be hard for Jupiter to keep up, unless he has a faster Fly spell.

It's not a very successful ambush if the other side is able to attack first, is it? 

Jupiter's next spell is a new one and I'm inclined to call it Jupiter's Disarming Hand. It creates one invisible hand per level of the caster that can all make attack rolls vs. visible targets within a, oh, let's say 20' diameter area of each other and if the roll succeeds the target is disarmed of a weapon. The range is, let's say, 60' + 10' per level. It's a pretty weak spell, weaker than Sleep, so I think I'd put it at 1st level.

I'm not clear about how to describe the next panel. Is Jupiter using Hold Person, and then loading the paralyzed gargoyles onto Floating Disc spells? Or is there a new spell in play here (actually, Floating Disc would also be new, to H&H)? Maybe something called Jupiter's Delivery, where 1 inanimate, or paralyzed animate, object per level will float to any location you name for them to go, as long as the caster knows the location,

and it is within, oh, let's say 200' + 25' per level? This is maybe a 3rd level spell.

Then Jupiter scrys the bad guy's location with his crystal ball. "Wow! I still don't know how you do it!" "Really? Really? I'm holding a crystal ball right in front of you. How was this not a big clue for you?"

Up to this point, I could still pretend Jupiter is 3rd or 4th level with a Crystal Ball trophy item, but then he casts Earthquake and I'm just rolling my eyes at how many brevet ranks I have to throw at comic book magic-users. 

Now this turn of events starts out pretty cool; we get a nice visual of a paralysis raygun. And then...whaaaat? Instead of Jupiter thinking his way out of this trap, they luck into a stupid gargoyle tripping over the cord and unplugging it? They're miles underground -- why are there even wall plugs down here? 

It's unclear how Jupiter wrecks the raygun (and a lot of wooden rafters around it). Some spell version of Wreck at Range? Or a Fireball spell? 

It's worth pointing out here that Jupiter has either cast Fly twice, or has a Mass Fly spell that let's them both fly separately. He also has a higher level version of the Strength spell that boosts multiple (at least 2, let's say 2-5) targets' STR scores. This spell is going to be level 3. 

"Hey, watch where you're grabbing with that hand, mister!" You know which panel I'm talking about.

That is one funky ramp onto the plane. And for that matter, why are subterranean monsters using a plane?

Uh...H&H already has an Enlarge spell, but the size of Jupiter's hand is pretty ridiculous there. More so because we're lead to believe it's only his hand that gigantic and the rest of his body, off-panel, is normal size. 

Jupiter demonstrates a Mass Teleport spell that, gosh, that would have to be a 7th-level spell, especially since Johnson isn't anywhere near them when Jupiter and the mad scientist teleport. Johnson is, of course, only there to either witness Jupiter's victory (because Jupiter needs it for his ego) or -- as happens -- to give the mad scientist one last chance to threaten them. Polymorph is already a 4th-level spell. Based on the 7th-level spell alone, we know Jupiter is at least 15th level, and that's with 13 brevet ranks, just for what we see in this story. And I don't even remember how many brevet ranks we had to assign him last time!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Master Comics #1 - pt. 4

I was too quick in my review of El Carim last time and missed pointing out its most unique feature -- the conceit that El Carim is using science that looks like magic and not actually magic. We are meant to believe that his toaster and monocle combination, the spectrograph, actually gives him the ability of clairvoyance. We are meant to believe that his magnet is actually paralyzing people. Given this, it doesn't seem so unusual at the end when he relies on a rifle when his "spells" run out. 

Now, we all know that magic-users can't use rifles, but he never actually uses it except to threaten with it and no one ever calls his bluff.

It appears El Carim is only using escape artist skills to get out of that chair, not any kind of "spell." 

One possible plot hole in this story: a previous page called that a "phantom castle." Why? Had it appeared out of nowhere,

 or was it just spooky looking? I was expecting more from that.

As we speed towards the end of this issue, we're going to jump into the last feature in progress, Rick O'Shay (ricochet, get it? Har har...). There's a lot of typical colonial racism here, with the French ("Fraconian") occupiers being presented as the "good" victims and the native Arabs are the "evil" bandits and saboteurs. Oh, and there's the master/servant relationship between Rick and Mekki to disturb you -- although at least Mekki is a real ethnic name! 

The scale also seems to be a little off in this adventure. Rick has to fly 1,000 miles to find the saboteurs? If we were to assume that the French colony was, oh, let's say Lebanon, that puts the bandit lair in ...the middle of Iran? What a strange launching point for attacks on Lebanon! The encounter with a leopard, likely a Persian leopard, seems to only support my theory that these are the mountains of Iran. 

From that last page, I don't get why there would be a tripwire to trigger a landmine, when it would be much more effective if buried - except to make it easier for the players to spot, of course.

It appears that Rick and Mekki are outnumbered four-to-one.

I'll say this, appearing to be able to shrink your prisoners down and store them in crystal balls has got to be pretty intimidating to your new prisoners. In Hideouts & Hoodlums, effects like shrinking always have a duration, so eventually they would return to normal size unless they Reduce spells are recast on them, or some scientific equivalent is reapplied. It seems like a lot of hassle to go to when a normal prison cell would do just as effectively -- unless he plans on taking so many prisoners that space is at a premium, of course.

Snoopy friends? Aw, they're bonding over a mutual love for The Peanuts! Oops, it's 15 years too early for that; he must mean they were snooping around.

I like how panel 3 says they were subjected to "minor tortures" after showing us the rack and the iron maiden in panel 2. Would being hung by your wrists over a fire pit actually be more painful? They weren't even hung by their thumbs. 

I do not get where two things are going on this page. Why is that guy chopping down a cabin and what does that have to do with anything? And what's the point in bringing growth serum in for the cat? Is confusing the prisoners part of the torture?

I think this whole scene gets only more confusing. So...the prisoners are kept in a remote cabin to be tortured -- and that part makes sense; who wants to hear all those screams in the palace? But what was all the torture for if you only plan to kill them? Why destroy your cabin to kill them rather than shoot them? Why bring your shrunken prisoners there and the antidote and your cat there?

And how exactly did Rick escape? If his "strong muscles" broke only the rope on one of his wrists, did he swing on the other rope until he wasn't over the fire pit anymore? How did that help him get Mekki down? 

A "horde" of bandits is apparently eight or more.

 

Now this page I like because a lot of players would not bother switching from a rifle butt to a sword because, in terms of game mechanics, they are identical. Picking up the sword is probably just for the flavor text -- unless Rick's player is hoping to find a magic sword this way!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

   

 

Adventure Comics #48 - pt. 3

When we left off with Socko Strong, he was confronting Monte on the wing of a flying plane about Monte's attempts to kill him. In a clever trick, even though both parachutes are actually fine, Socko pretends he switched parachutes on Monte to give him the "sabotaged" one. You would think Socko would use this trick to make Monte confess, but instead Socko pushes him off the wing to panic him, just to pay him back.

Moving on to Steve Conrad, Adventurer, we find Steve on a cruise where he spots and recognizes 'Singapore Sal,' a notorious jewel thief (perhaps after making an INT ability score check?). When she leaves the deck, Steve is surprised she didn't notice him, suggesting they've met before (and letting us know that Steve had surprise in that encounter?). Sal's partner is called Slick -- he's almost surely a slick hoodlum. Steve comes up with a pretty clever trick where he has his comic sidekick slip a handwritten, signed note by Steve under the door, then listen to the two of them talk about their plans through the door after they read it. 

The next wrinkle in the story is that Steve tries to stop the valuable jewels on the ship from being stolen. The would-be thief appears to be Slick, but he's wearing a mask and, surprisingly, he manages to get away from Steve easily after just hitting him once with a sap (and not even a head blow at that). When Steve confronts Slick he discovers it wasn't him -- Slick is not wearing the same jacket and hasn't had time to change it. Although the wrinkle requires a bit of railroading to let the thief escape, it winds up being a pretty interesting wrinkle. The clue turns out to be the cord Steve tore off the thief; he doesn't know where he's seen it before until he remembers it was holding another passenger's monocle in place (if the player had trouble thinking of this, maybe he was allowed to "remember" after an INT check). 

The only other thing I'm going to say about the Steve Conrad story is that it is extremely verbose with big word balloons in almost every panel.

Am I just going to have to accept that it's a lot easier to throw a missile weapon hard enough to pin it into a wall in comics than real life? In Rusty and His Pals, Rusty manages to throw a spear -- and it's not really a spear, it's just called a spear in the story but it's clearly a lance -- across a room, knocks a man's gun out of his hand, sails right past him, and still hits the wall hard enough to become embedded into it. Did I mention Rusty looks like he's 11 years old? You know...sure, why not. Embedding in the wall is just flavor text at the end of the combat turn that doesn't affect the disarming attack or anything in the following turn. 

Having cleared the bad guys out of the house, they consider the clue they have, that they're supposed to look "behind Stevenson," and then they figure out that there's something in the library behind a copy of Treasure Island -- a clever clue, so long as no one felt like reading it and took it back to their room, of course. Behind the book is a button that opens a secret door. The boys realize they need to consider illumination issues behind the secret door so they all fetch candles. They mysterious passage looks straight out of D&D, leading to a small room with a chair, desk, and a small chest on the desk. The desk contains both a clue, a journal, and a secret clue concealed in a false top -- a single sheet of paper, the contents of which we'll find out next issue.

In Anchors Aweigh, we hear about the trick of putting cotton in your nose to make it look broader, when disguising yourself as someone with a broader nose. There is an interesting wrinkle to the story where Kerry finds out the man he's impersonating has a wife who he has to push away without making her suspicious. The last page, though, is terribly confusing. When the Naval officers burst in on the smugglers' headquarters, they leave the driver tied up in the elevator. The driver, trying to escape, makes the elevator go down with his feet. Somehow, the elevator doors do not close on their own (did elevators not have automatic doors at this time?), so the boss smuggler backs up to the elevator and falls. But...somehow he falls onto the driver at the bottom of the shaft and not onto the roof of the elevator car. Were there ever roofless elevators?

Lastly, Cotton Carver and Deela crash-land in a petrified valley where the challenge of this scenario is finding food! On day 2, they find a tree with edible berries (skill check to identify they are not poisonous?). Hunting for meat, Cotton knows he will run out of bullets soon, so he builds a bow. The terrain gets progressively worse for them; they come across a chasm thousands of feet deep filled with hot geysers, and at their backs they encounter three ape men armed with warclubs weighted for throwing. The ape men seem unusually intelligent and manage to defeat Cotton, then carry them away down to the bottom of the chasm by leaping from branch to branch growing out of the rock wall. Cotton was only stunned and cowardly shoots the ape men in the back (I guess with his last bullets?). Too bad he didn't try to talk to the ape men, because it seems like they could talk. They probably also were responsible for making the stairs they find, and the tall ladders that lead to the top of a volcanic cone. The volcanic cone is dangerous because of poisonous fumes in the air. Both of them make saving throws vs. poison and Deela fails, faints, and falls off the ladder. Cotton grabs her with an attack roll, then makes a Strength check, probably with a significant penalty (-5? More?) to continue climbing the ladder one-handed, while holding Deela with the other.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

  

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 4

Whew, I've got just a few scraps left from the bottom of this issue I'm going to make you look at, and I'm not exaggerating when I say scraps.

This is Blanda, Queen of the Jungle. I could make a bunch of "bland" jokes here, but I only wish this feature was blande. It's actually racy (Blanda is bathing nude on one page, and only her long hair conceals her nudity) and incredibly racist. I'm going to make you suffer just this one page as an example. The only thing I can recommend from this page is the tactic of pushing sacred animals in front of your enemies to keep them from attacking.

This is Dusty Doyle, the Circus Cyclone. It's almost a given that an animal is going to escape eventually in any circus story, and this time it's a gorilla. Based on this page, I think I'll remember to give gorillas an excellent skill check towards climbing.

Hmm...I would be inclined not to allow this bolo trick to work, but I actually have a similar trophy weapon in a H&H scenario I'm writing right now, so I'd better not be too quick to dismiss it. In a sense, it doesn't really matter if the bolo hits both the gorilla and the pole; as long as it hits the gorilla and entangles him, it's done its job. If there was some reason why the gorilla had to be entangled and attached to the pole, I would allow this if Dusty rolled to hit both targets and struck them with the bolo.

Did I remember to include bolos on the starting equipment list? *checks* Phew! Sure did!

The art just gets worse! I'm only making you look at this page because we haven't seen a lookout in a while, and this page suggests lookouts might be better than normal at sneak attacks. 

But what is the lookout hitting him over the head with? A chalkboard eraser??

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Target Comics #2 - pt. 3

Welcome to the new year. First post of 2021! Whew...this will be Year 7 for the blog...

We're still looking at T-Men, which on the surface seems a pretty generic government agent adventure strip, yet when I look at the details it can be surprisingly well-informed. Like here, the U.S.S. Lexington isn't a random made-up name; there was a U.S.S. Lexington aircraft carrier, the second one, sailing in 1940, and would be until it was lost in 1942 in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Then there's this weird, two-panel dogfight where it's really hard to tell what is going on. Which plane is the bad guy plane? Well, it's the one on fire. Why is it on fire? It's unlikely the Navy has a plane with a flamethrower on it, so I think this was an engine hit from bullets, even though the artist skipped showing us the plane being shot at. "The chief must have..." what? Rigged the plane so the pilot couldn't get out? How exactly did he do that...remote control locks? That actually seems an idea ahead of its time.

Southport is a curious name. For a strip that doesn't shy away from naming actual naval ships, you'd think it would name Bridgeport, Connecticut -- right across Long Island Sound from Long Island -- and a likely candidate for being where the plane took off from. There is a Southport, New York, but it's actually upstate, about halfway between Scranton, Penn. and Rochester, NY.

I am amused by how much the Treasury Department values Agent Turner. "There might be a lead there. Go on...take a year. Longer if you need it! Don't hurry back..."

Moving on to the next page, I'm equally amused by the hungry spy chief who forgot to eat today and "I want the lunch box, too!" But seriously, these saboteurs are unusually smart, using proxies whenever possible -- like the guy they hired to fly that rigged plane, or this guy, who is going to be impersonated with the aid of plastic surgery, and the man's own lunch box for added realism.

Man, you should never cross that spy chief! Shortchange him and he'll gun you down in cold blood. I mention it because, for the only villain unnamed in this story (and the other two have cool names like Gazor and Count Karna), this chief really shows up most every comic book villain up to this point, short of the Ultra-Humanite, for cunning, intelligence, and ruthlessness. The chief is captured and we're told on the last page that he'll likely go to the electric chair, but I kind of hope he escapes so I can re-use him in a campaign someday...

 

 

This is from a pretty engaging ensemble feature called City Editor. The City Editor isn't the hero of the piece; he's more like Professor X, leading from behind, back at HQ, while a male and female journalist and the kid who, I'm guessing, sells the papers on street corners, go out and complete missions for him. Because these two heroes aren't combat-types (maybe the Detective sub-class from a past Trophy Case?), a single woman with a blackjack is a serious challenge for them. This is -- for a weapon so common in Hideouts & Hoodlums -- the very first time we've seen a blackjack, or at least this clearly.   

Funny, I never would have thought of that as a "coal hole," it just looks like a manhole cover to me. It turns out coal holes were a real thing (accessing underground coal bunkers), though you were more likely to find them in 19th century Great Britain than 1940 New York City. 

Only in a story where the reporter is a main character would the reporter be allowed to barge into the building in front of the police officers on the scene.

I'm pretty sure the police officers are just supporting cast in this scene, so it's kind of surprising that one of them is the one who knocks the automatic out of her hands and saves the day, instead of Phil -- but this can easily happen in a game system ruled by random dice results. 

Golf bags are a good place to search for hidden clues and loot!

Lastly...is Pinky a boy? He's looking pretty effeminate in those last few panels, particularly with those girlish legs and shoes in the final panel. Hmm...

This is from Calling 2-R, a marvelously inventive and ambitious feature, just one with a terrible name. This is utopian fiction, something we don't see often enough in comic books, so I'm certainly willing to forgive it for its lack of suspense when an ineffectual villain shows up here. Note how the force wall does damage when touched (maybe 1-3 points, certainly not much), but also repels him back 1-6'. It otherwise functions as a Wall of Force spell.

I suspect a lot of tracing went into these panels, but they're still quite impressive! 

Free healing in the barracks? If my future players see this strip they'll want to go here between adventures. They'll probably want a speed plane too; this super-metal would make it resistant to wrecking, and the speed it flies at would seem futuristic until 1956.

The trick with utopian fiction, of course, is that one man's idea of utopia is not necessarily another's, and I'm having a hard time with the privacy issues surrounding an all-seeing television eye, and the misuses that mind picture machine could be put to. Still, vehicles run on cosmic force? That's better than electric cars! And I've had plenty of players who would want those force guns and body protectors. The gravity diminishers that let them walk on air would make a great trophy item too!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)
 

 

Target Comics #2 - pt. 1

We return to Carl Burgos' third android hero. I don't have much to say here, since this is largely recap from the first issue, but...Dr. Simms, the world is at peace? In 1940? How long has it been since you looked at a newspaper?

Carl Burgos seems to be on the side of isolationists here (spoilers: that's definitely not the direction the U.S. wound up going in). 

So far, we don't know what this chromelac can do, unless it can make blinding flashes. Maybe an alloy made with magnesium?

Here's the page where we first learn chromelac is an alloy. We also get a demonstration of how you made phone calls in 1940.

It's worth noting that Manowar has to climb the fence; he does not have the leaping power prepared and it's not his built-in android power. The white streaks from his eyes suggest Wreck at Range is his built-in power. However, a speeding bullet is an awful specific, hard-to-hit target to wreck.  It's tricky because wrecking doesn't specifically call for attack rolls normally, to some extent wrecking is an area-effecting ability, but the Editor can require them at his discretion. A stingy Editor could assign an Armor Class of 0 or lower to a speeding bullet.  

It's rare for us to learn that mobsters are using automatics, not that it does them any good. It seems that only one of them gets a chance to hit before Manowar gets to go, which defies how initiative normally works in H&H, with each side rolling against each other. Now, it won't break H&H if you, as Editor, decide to switch to individual initiative rolls, but it does slow combat down unnecessarily.  Of course, just because they're present doesn't mean mobsters need to attack.  They might have been overconfident enough to just have one attack first.

"High tension electrons," huh? Well, that's sort of a thing. He must mean high tension electron voltage, but tension is, as far as I can tell, what helps power your television or your electron microscopic; it's the voltage that can harm you. Here, Manowar is using the Blast power -- perhaps our first encounter with it in a comic book! -- to harm, although an alternate explanation is that he's using Wreck at Range to disarm (his goal is clearly to disarm, but both attack methods have a chance of disarming).

I'm not sure what the science is, if any, behind the electrons having to strike the steel bar first before hitting the water. Apparently being stunned by electricity makes you mispronounce words. 

Manowar is sort of correct, that electrocution typically means grave injury or death, but I think, technically, even being stunned should count as electrocution.

I don't plan on making "toughie" a mobstertype. Toughie sounds enough like thug that I would just use that one.

Note that, again, Manowar has to climb because he can't leap (I point it out because it's so unusual for a superhero circa 1940).

Ha, I would have been right to use thug stats for the toughie!

The narrator calls those guys guards in panel 4; I wonder if that makes them rented cops, as opposed to on-duty officers. There shouldn't be any difference in statting them; they would still be beat cops. 

There is no game mechanic that causes heart attacks; that must have been a freebie from the Editor because the game session needed to wrap up. 

I'm going to have a Message power in the Heroes Handbook, if I ever get that done.

Wait - we still don't know what chromelac is! Is it a magnesium alloy? If it is, why do you want to make bridges and houses out of it? Maybe you should have thought this through before killing Tomsen for just wanting to make a profit off of it, Manowar...

We're going to jump right into the middle of Bulls-Eye Bill and the good stuff. Everett does not write your typical hero stories, so here's the bad guy kicking the good guys' butts. The question I pose here is, should kicking with boots with spurs on them do more damage than kicking with boots alone? Except in deliberately rare situations (trophy weapons), all weapons do the same range of damage in H&H. Again, it's a deliberate choice to go with abstraction over accuracy. 

Now, an option for the Editor that isn't really spelled out in the rulebooks is that, in a situation like this, where the bad guy really kicks butt due to lucky die rolls, the Editor could make his weapon a trophy weapon with a higher damage die, even if the weapon had not been intended to be a trophy weapon, nor did higher damage during the battle. The fact that there's a fun anecdote tied to the item enhances its importance in the campaign.

Let's overlook the racist Chinese caricature for a moment. Can you guess the code? That's the kind of clue that can keep your players guessing for sessions...I love it!

*sigh* Now we have a racist "half-breed" caricature. Relax, I'm not going to create a half-breed mobstertype with fantastic leaping abilities. Rather, I think this is a good example of an enemy mysteryman using a stunt! He's probably higher than 1st level too, since he takes a bullet and is still ready for more fighting!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

   

Fight Comics #3 - pt. 2

We're going to skip the introduction and jump right into this issue's Kinks Mason story. These mermen are too strange to stat as ordinary mermen. They are called nothing but amphibians all through the story, so I'll keep that name. They don't seem all that tough; I wouldn't give them more than 1+1 Hit Dice (Kinks kicks their butts bare-handed), plus a -1 to hit because of their monocular vision. As true amphibians, they suffer no penalties for fighting out of water. Maybe they get a +1 to grappling rolls too, since it seems to be the only thing they're good at? It looks like they can be encountered in groups up to 8.

I don't have much to say here, but I like the layout of this factory. There's enough detail that one could start to fashion a map based on it.

"Huge fish?" Is Kinks not aware that looks like a dolphin or porpoise?

Kinks is immune to the bends, or just making all of his saving throws?

It's unclear if Kinks has more than one crew member on his boat. It doesn't seem to be that big, so it's possible there is just this one guy.

Wait, didn't they want to test that ray on Kinks first? I guess Plan B was to invade the surface world without running any tests on the ray yet.

Kinks' strategy might work over time in a chase scene; if not everyone makes their skill checks to increase speed, then some pilots will fall behind and create these gaps between ships.

This is also an interesting example of rayguns having limited charges. 

Spoiler - Kinks wins. So let's jump ahead to Fletcher Hawks' favorite lumberjack, Big Red McLane. We've talked before about pacing golden age scenarios and sometimes they can require a lot of patience (this is baked into Hideouts & Hoodlums in various ways, from the low chance of wandering encounters to the slow rate of healing from hit point loss). Here, we see that Big Red has to wait out in the woods for two whole days before this encounter finally happens.

The six bad guy lumberjacks -- what do I stat them as? Brigands, maybe? -- they don't fare well against Big Red despite two of them having weapons vs an unarmed attacker, and using the tactic of surrounding him to make sure at least some of them are getting an attack-from-behind bonus to hit.

This is an unusual reward for a scenario, both the flapjacks and the percentage stake in the company rescued. The latter is actually a great idea, giving the Hero(es) incentive to keep protecting the company against future threats.

The lumberjacks were careful to use facing to their advantage in the above encounter, so I share this page of Oran of the Jungle to show how Oran deliberately tosses away any benefit he would have from it by jumping down into the middle of the group of natives. It seems like the smart thing to do would have been to jump down before they reached him, so he can block them from getting to the village, or jumping down after them, so he can attack them from behind. The only benefit I can see here is if he is expecting to get the "combat machine" advantage of fighters and multiple attacks against low Hit Die mobsters, so he places himself within reach of the maximum number of opponents.

Oran tracks them all night. Just think about how dark that second panel would really be, then, compared to how clearly we see the tracks in the dirt, and try to imagine what kind of penalty you would assign to Oran's tracking skill check. Then he successfully tracks them for hours. How many skill checks should that be? I would count this time in exploration turns, which means he has to succeed at six skill checks per hour. That is a lot of lucky rolls!

Oran is overwhelmed because the natives use "heavy weapons." H&H doesn't distinguish between normal weapons and heavy weapons. I would take this simply to mean that the weapons feel heavy as they are bludgeoning him for so many points of damage.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Fight Comics #3 - pt. 1

This could be the last comic book I read at the age of 48. Will Fiction House do right by me?

George Tuska's Shark Brodie is on the island of Tahilla, a fictional South Seas island.

Taverns are a great place to sit and listen for rumors, no matter what milieu your campaign takes place in.

Urban Dictionary has some pretty disgusting suggestions for what "angel cake" is slang for. In this case, I think Brodie just means they don't look like angels.

It takes five-to-one odds to take Shark down, which is pretty good considering Shark should only be a 2nd-level fighter by this point.

Deathtraps involving tides are surprisingly rare to this point, but sharks are a dime-a-dozen. Now, defending yourself from a shark by kicking it, I don't think I've ever seen that before or since...

 ...so it's disappointing that the shark is ultimately dispatched with a cliched knife.

Non-superheroes being able to wreck rope bindings is possible in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, but conditions are far from ideal for it by the time Brodie succeeds. I would give him increasing penalties each turn as the tide rises, until he finally got a lucky roll.

Does Shark not own dry clothes to change into?

 Moving on to Saber, the future hero of 1998! Here, America is attacked by an air force. And what an air force! Can you imagine how tough a plane would have to be to fly straight through a skyscraper without being damaged, or even knocked off its flight path?

So, when did Saber start investigating the ranks of the Army and Intelligence Department? Just this morning? They must not be very large departments in 1998.

 Okay, I've got some problems with this scene. If this traitor knew the planes were coming, why is he hanging around to watch? Is Saber only lucky to be standing that close to the traitor while using his Detect Thoughts power?

The coordinates given here don't point to anywhere specific.

Saber has invented a Helm of Thought Casting.

Complications in aerial combat usually occurs only between planes, but anti-aircraft guns can cause complications too. Losing a tail fin can force you to land.

Where was this American air force when the enemy air force was attacking? There seems to be no fighter planes present in either air force, only bombers. So whichever air force has the higher ground automatically wins.















I think that's enough of Saber for today. Let's peek in on the Kayo Kirby story. Lead-filled gloves cause more serious damage than normal boxing gloves, though really, punch someone enough with even normal boxing gloves on and you can do serious harm. I think we can say that lead-filled gloves do normal weapon damage instead of punching damage.

The thing that tickles me about this page, though, is that the would-be killer's name is Slam deMan. If I was ever to become a wrestler, I would go by the name Slam deMan.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)