Jumbo Comics #3

We've already seen a few dragons on this blog, but this is the first moon dragon. It looks like its only pair of legs are too weak for a claw attack, but it can bite and gore with its horn. It has a hot breath, possibly a steam breath weapon. It might also be particularly vulnerable to electrical damage -- or Peter's electric ray gun is particularly powerful.

There are several elements of this page to ponder. One is how far away the noise is that Peter hears through the first door; Editors will need to play it by ear (ahem) how far sound travels in their hideouts.


Two, what is the size of an anthropomorphic animal? The scale of the panels seems to suggest that Peter Pupp is short. Does that mean that a "giant" he encounters might just be 6' tall? Or is the scimitar-wielding guard more like an ogre?


Third, what should the chance be of a gun jamming? Or, because it's a raygun, does it have charges and has just run out?

 Two cents for a newspaper, according to Spenser Steel!

Inspector Dayton's player might be tempted by that check, especially if he thinks it equals 10,000 XP. However, a distinction needs to be made in the game between money earned as a trophy and money just given to them. Ripping it up in the villain's face should still be worth 100 XP for a good deed award, though.

This is ZX-5, who came up with a rather clever, if not dangerous, way of escaping from a plane's machine guns while parachuting to safety. Of course, how safe this is depends on if the Editor rules that tree tops are soft enough to cushion some of the falling damage. There are an awful lot of sharp branches in trees, after all, usually facing upwards. I might allow, if feeling generous, a save vs. plot to land "safely" in the treetops for half-damage, or else inflict full damage -- or possibly more for being impaled on branches!


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Funnies #26

This poison dart comes from Four Aces and -- even using the abstract weapon damage rule, where all weapons do 1-6 points of damage -- I hesitate to have this apply to small darts. Maybe the 1d6 could take into account some damage from the poison (you make your save vs. death, but you still take 1d6 damage), but an un-poisoned dart should do 1-3 points of damage at most.

Goat joke #17!  And that bottom panel...both funny and a little disturbing...

Ben Webster is still getting to know a "missing link". As much as I loathe the execution here...the concept of highly intelligent, telepathic cavemen is pretty interesting...

10 cent parking.

This bridge encounter looks like it would be fun to play. How to determine, though, if the car can crash through the barricade of barrels? I would reverse the wrecking things table by figuring a car is equal to a 5th level Superhero (the same distance down the left side of the table and across the top). The strength of the barricade would vary, but I would not make it stronger than "robot" on the left hand column. So the car would either auto-wreck, or possibly need a 4+ or 7+ to wreck.

This is from Bob Baker.  Using a battering ram allows multiple people to pool their chance to wreck things. In this case, since none of the men holding the ram are Superheroes, I would use the non-Superhero wrecking things chart to figure out the door's saving throw, then assign it a -1 penalty per additional man holding the ram.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Crackajack Funnies #6

These panels are from Capt. Frank Hawks, Air Ace, and shows the old "shoot the lock off" trick. The game mechanics for wrecking things don't distinguish between what tool you're using, so shooting the lock has the same non-Superhero wrecking chance as going at it with a crowbar.

You can definitely move around in combat, as shone here. You only have to be within 10' of your opponent to stay in melee range with them, so a combatant could move up 10' to engage, then pass and stand 10' on the far side of their opponent, without ever leaving melee.

I've never understood how diving underwater protects fictional characters from bullets so well, but maybe water should serve as hard cover?

And, of course, an amphibious plane is a trophy transport item.  Collect 'em all!

Myra North, Special Nurse, is not normally prone to flights of fancy, so maybe this is a real thing, injecting a capsule into a chicken so that it gets passed through into an egg. It seems a crazy way to pass a secret message to me, but maybe it'll really catch your players off-guard someday.

There's not a really good long shot of this hideout, but it seems to be a cluster of cabins located in a remote mountain pass. You can approach it from either end, and be observed by scouts, or you can climb up over the sides and lower yourself down 70' cliffs by rope. I suppose you could also just drop flaming debris onto the cabins, to the scenario had best call for making sure everyone isn't killed. Indeed, in this story, Buck Jones is going into the hideout to rescue someone.

I liked this idea from Don Winslow -- bad guys drain a lake to reveal a sunken Mayan city. Now the Heroes get to explore the ruins with a nice mix of dry and aquatic encounter areas.

Don's plan to re-take the stolen naval cruiser is to use a tin pan full of flaming oil in the powder magazine to make the crew think there's an out-of-control fire in with the explosives. It's a desperate gamble; I would leave some chance, if I was running this scenario, for the fire to get out of control.  I would also make morale saves for the crew, and some unlucky rolls might mean some of the crew are willing to play hero and go down to fight the fire.

This is Tom Mix, and the hideout here appears to be a cave with a giant secret door blocking the entrance that can only be turned by a crank from the inside. However, since the door is really only canvas on a frame, made to look like stone, it would actually be easy to wreck through. However, because it's only canvas, it's real easy for the defenders to shoot through at anyone trying to wreck through...

And lastly, there is the sanitarium hideout of Doctor Sabin in Tom Traylor. No single page of the story gives you a very good sense of the layout of the place, but it a spacious, well-furnished, house built on the shore of a sound, with a dock and a boat out back. Besides the dining room, sanitarium office, and operating room, there is a radio room, a dungeon (complete with prison cells), and an underground passage that extends from the dungeon up to the dock.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Action Comics #6

Though the covers still don't indicate it, this is the sixth comic book to feature Superman. It's also a special Superman story because it's the first story to look at the effects a real superhero would have on the world around him.  Specifically, in this case, how famous a superhero would be.

I had just this week talked about how there is no fame/popularity mechanic in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it. The simplest such mechanic would be a 10% cumulative chance per level of the Hero being recognized. That would work for Heroes who travel broadly, but what about Heroes who choose to stay local -- how to modify that result for geographical distance outside the Heroes' campaign base? And how to modify it for Heroes trying to keep a low profile, versus those who were actively trying to court the press?  No, it makes more sense just to have the Editor wing this, based on the circumstances.

Back to the story...it amazingly anticipates the wealth of Superman merchandising that happened in the real world in the years following the character's debut. In the story, there's Superman Gasoline, the Superman Streamline Special (a car), Superman bathing suits -- all licensed products. If players want to pursue licensing deals for their Heroes in your game, you should probably use a simple encounter reaction roll to determine it. You could modify for level if you wanted to (+1 for levels 2-3, +2 for levels 4-6, +3 for levels 7+), or just leave it to the Hero's Charisma to modify.

Superman makes his saving throw vs. poison when Lois tries to drug him.

Superman snatching Lois out of mid-air is a simple attack roll.

Superman uses wrecking things to tear open the elevator doors, then uses the power Raise Car to raise the elevator (a quite pun-ish use of the power too, I might add).

"Chuck" Dawson loses his hat, or "sky-piece" as he calls it (the first time I've ever heard a hat called that). Even stranger is the line Chuck says next: "I'm sure glad those crooks didn't get a hold of this to use in their schemes".  Now, taken in the context of the fact that one bad guy had just stolen his horse, maybe Chuck is kidding, but taken literally, the idea has distinct possibilities. What if a bad cowboy can make himself appear to be a good cowboy by wearing a good cowboy's hat?

Pep Morgan goes on a hunting trip in this adventure and bags the biggest wildcat his guide has ever seen. Now, maybe the guide is prone to a little exaggeration, because the wildcat doesn't look proportionately larger than a cougar to my untrained eyes. Perhaps it's only slightly larger than normal because it has max or near-max hit points.

He also shoots a black bear, that goes down after two shots. I'm not keen on the idea of lowering bears to only 2 Hit Dice, so either this bear had unusually low hp, or this episode is a case for the optional expanded weapon damage for firearms (from Supplement I: National).

The Adventures of Marco Polo installment is remarkable for teaching me the word "caravansary", which is apparently an inn with a courtyard large enough to accommodate an entire caravan. How did I go so long without knowing this word for D&D?

In the scimitar duel Marco observes, parrying is clearly a combat option. Parrying has always been a feature (albeit a little-used one) in H&H's combat mechanics. But in Marco's follow-up sword fight, it seems dodging is a combat option as well. If players aren't using parry, will they be more inclined to use dodge?

The "Tex" Thompson adventure takes place in Europe. I've long disliked the use of fictional place names in comics and don't see much use in them, so it's a little frustrating when a place name comes along that I can't place to a real world analogy. In this case, Tex is flying over the "Trysolian" Mountains, and I cannot figure out what that's supposed to mean.

A big fighter plane forces Tex to land his biplane. I'm not sure if Force to Land should be an aviator stunt, or if it would just be a normal reaction to being shot at in the sky.

Last month, Black X ran into a villain who looked just like him in Feature Funnies and, this month, Tex runs into Captain Diablo who looks just like him. I might need a doppelganger mobster type for this, since the trope reoccurs so frequently.

In their aerial dogfight, Tex and Diablo keep circling each other, as if they both use the Find Blind Spot stunt, and cancel each other out.

My coverage of Zatara the Master Magician begins with a bit of a poser -- how does Zatara cast a spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components, while his hands are tied? He casts a spell on the Tigress that makes her look old and ugly. I'm not even sure what spell this would be -- Polymorph Other? Bestow Curse? A new spell called Uglify? Not for the first time, I wonder if H&H Magic-Users should have access to a combination of traditional spells and psionic disciplines...

Zatara uses a new spell that lets him, and Tong, assume gaseous form. His next spell is really tricky, though, when he transforms two dervishes (from Book II: Mobsters & Trophies) into mounds of sand, but mounds of sand that can still talk. So what's that? Clearly not a polymorph spell, since sand can't talk. Maybe an illusion, fooling them into thinking they are mounds of sand?

Zatara travels in his spirit form again in this issue, but the narrator calls it his "shadow" instead. He summons two pegasus-unicorns, which should be beyond all but the most powerful Mobster Summoning spells. Then he casts a spell he calls The Swords of Fire of Allah, which looks an awful lot like a Blade Barrier spell, except that it's really just another illusion; a dervish leader is able to disbelieve it.  He also casts a spell that buries the leader up this neck in sand and leaves two followers floating helplessly in the air (another variation of Hold Person?).

There isn't much elaboration on the contents of the pyramid of Cheops, but we know that Cheops is still there as an undead mummy, and guards a chest full of treasure but is really only interested in guarding one large emerald. If you win a friendly encounter reaction from Cheops (like Cheops did), he will loan you the Dead Armies of Cheops -- who are strangely dressed in medieval scale armor and riding horses, even though Egyptian troops did not have saddles. There are apparently thousands of soldiers, enough to sack a city defended with superior weaponry.

Lastly, Zatara seals the pyramid with a "curse", but he probably means a Wizard Lock spell.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Feature Funnies #14

Jane Arden's advice to players: when checking a document to see if it's a forgery, make sure to check the feel of the paper as well.

This is "Off the Record" gag filler, some of the most consistently funny gag filler I've read in these early comic books. They're not all winners, but the upper left and lower right really amuse me.

This page of Archie O'Toole isn't really Hideouts & Hoodlums-pertinent -- but I think it's got a great message to it that bears sharing.

I can imagine a Halloween-themed scenario for first-level Heroes where they just have to get across town, a town filled with half-pints armed with improvised saps (socks filled with flour -- 1-2 points of damage?). If things escalate, they might start throwing rocks for 1-3 points of damage. Halloween was a much wilder night back then. Note the look of 1930s-era costumes.

This is from Will Eisner's Espionage. There is no game mechanic for fame in H&H. Unless they happen to be spies, it is entirely up to them how much credit and publicity they want to pursue for the good deeds they do. All of this should be handled through role-playing.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Amazing Mystery Funnies #3

Often overlooked as a trophy item is the treasure map, yet see how happy Skyrocket Steele is with the map he's found? Sure, he probably would have wound up searching these rooms anyway, but now he can do it with more purpose!

There's good attention to detail on the rooms here, from the stonework on the floor to the skull and bottles in the secret room, but what really interests me is why there are sarcophagi in a chemist's lab...

Here's a thought...as common as "the invisible man" is in comics and literature, maybe invisible men needs to be a mobster type. Maybe like a much weaker version (2 HD?) of the invisible stalker?

The "self-propelled bomb" sounds like a good idea -- a miniature plane that drops a bomb and then returns to the sender. What's weird is the short range here...would you really want to propel a bomb from just 10' away...?

This is Dirk the Demon and his 24th century friends. It's boys' adventure with a twist -- futuristic hi-tech stuff is going to be mundane to them, and the trophies these amateur archaeologists collect are relics from the 20th century, like a simple handgun. For this type of scenario, invert XP as you would normally give it for trophies; the more mundane the item seems, the more it should be worth.

Archaeology can be a dangerous hobby, even in the 20th century. There's crumbling ruins that could result in falling damage, relics that might go off and hurt someone while being examined, and -- as the next page reveals (which I'm neglecting to share), living threats from the 20th century that are held in suspended animation until encountered.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum. Art by Bill Everett.)

Funny Pages v. 2 #11

This is the second appearance of Centaur's first superhero, The Arrow.  Now, I had skimmed a few Arrow stories before, but until last night when I read this one, I would have bet money that The Arrow was actually best statted with the Fighter class. But here he is, wrecking chains, and climbing a sheer wall with a person on his back (this would require the new power, Wall-Climbing, I plan to introduce in 2nd ed.).  Perhaps most impressive, he shoots an arrow through this guy that pins him to a stone wall.  Hold Person?

It's unclear how The Arrow blows up the yacht with the canister of nitro-glycerine. Perhaps he just throws it at the yacht? Of course, many players would rather capture the yacht, and keep both that and the nitro-glycerine. One of the challenges of being the Editor is to always make blowing up, or otherwise destroying, the trophy items seem like a good option.

And that's all I've got to say from that issue!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)