Detective Comics #37 - pt. 1

SPOILERS: This is the very last pre-Robin Batman story. 

One of the reasons I find the infallible Batman of today's comics so laughable is that he bears nothing but name and costume in common with this Batman, the Batman who gets lost and stops at a random house to ask for directions. 

In the house, a man is being tortured by three mobsters. Despite the fact that one of them gets the drop on the Batman with a pistol, the Batman is still able to go first and kicks him in the face hard enough to knock him into the mobster behind him. Two game mechanic things here: one is that there is no order of battle in Hideouts & Hoodlums, where missiles always go before melee. The Batman has won initiative, so the advantage of already pointing a gun at him disappears. The other point is the two attacks. This should only be possible if the Batman has levels in fighter and these mobsters have less than 1 Hit Die, or if he was a superhero using the Multi-Attack power. Neither should be the case here, since the Batman is obviously a mysteryman. There is one more area with some wiggle room, and if you recall the Batman's stats from Supplement IV you know I already used it; the Batman's signature move is hitting mobsters with other mobsters. This is actually borne out in the following panels; the Batman drops those first two with one kick, but it takes him two punches to drop the third one, possibly because that mobster had more hit points, but also possibly because the Batman no longer has as good an attack bonus against a single opponent. 

The first plot twist is that the tortured man, once freed, delivers a head blow that stuns the Batman (head blows are common enough that it is now a combat rule in 2nd edition). Because the Batman had already tied up the three mobsters, they are easy targets for the fourth man, Joey, when he uses a gun on them. If the tied-up men were Heroes, he would only get a +4 bonus to hit them (or at least the one who was only stunned and is awake already), but because these are just mobsters the Editor can handwave that and say they are each killed in one shot (as happens here).

The Batman's only clue as to where Joey went is that they all said they worked for a man named Turg. Later, Bruce Wayne remarks how uncommon that name is. No kidding, Bruce! Ancestry.com only lists six Turg families in Ontario, and none in the United States. But in this story, Bruce finds three in the New York City phone book and after visiting all three deduces the suspicious one is the one, Elias Turg, who opened a grocery store in a part of town without many houses in it. Most people would consider that a zoning issue, but to the Batman, it's a vital clue that turns out to be correct!

Later that night, the Batman barges into the upstairs office of the grocery store and finds Turg there with Joey and two more mobsters. He decides to intimidate them from the doorway first, spoiling any chance of a surprise attack. They are all 15-20' away, so the Batman can reach them easily for melee if he wants to, but this Batman doesn't feel infallible against four-to-one odds, so he turns off the lights and uses night-vision goggles. They aren't called night-vision goggles; the narrator calls it a "queer piece of glass," probably because the term "night-vision goggles" isn't in use yet. Night-vision devices are brand new on the battlefields of Europe, so new that I'm not sure the author (Comics.org credits Bill Finger) would even have heard of it yet and may have invented this idea independently.

After roughing them all up, the Batman does something I think is really clever; he pretends to leave and then hides before the lights come back on, so the mobsters will start to talk incriminatingly in front of him. It turns out, they aren't hoodlums but spies (or at least all of them but poor Joey, who they turn on and kill because the Batman called him out by name). 

En route to the piers to commit sabotage, Elias Turg splits off from the other spies and the Batman has to choose who to follow. He follows the other spies to the pier, where they are met by two more spies. Actually three more spies, because Carl (probably the lookout) is on the balcony of a building behind the Batman and gains a surprise attack (because he is standing separate from the others, he gets his own separate surprise roll). He drops a heavy sack full of ...something heavy on the Batman's head and it counts as a head blow attack, stunning the Batman again. Instead of just shooting him and killing him (which actually makes sense here, since they don't want to alert the ship they plan to attack), the spies put him in a sack and toss him in the water. Stunning has a very short duration and the Batman is able to cut his way out of the sack with a knife in his utility belt before drowning. 

When the Batman sneaks back up onto the pier, he switches to another favorite tactic of his, swinging on a rope to attack. It's very cinematic, but definitely would not improve his chance to hit. I think I talked about this before when he killed Jabbah this way and decided I might allow a +1 to damage for doing this, due to the additional momentum. 

Despite beating all five spies in melee combat, they still managed to start the moto launch rigged with TNT that will blow up the docked steamer that was their target. The Batman tells his feet to run like they've "never run before," perhaps burning his first stunt of the night to run faster so he can reach the end of the pier in time to jump on board. Once he's on board, the cutting of the ropes holding the steering wheel and turning the wheel in time takes four panels, but there are no game mechanics in play anymore to resolve this, only stated intentions.  

The story could have been over at this point, but there are two additional pages that seem rushed, as if tacked on. Joey had given the Batman the phone number for The Head (as in, the head of the operation) before dying, so the Batman finds out who's number that is and goes to his house. It's someone named Count Grutt and the Batman is either genuinely surprised or being sarcastic when he seems astonished that someone named Count Grutt is a foreign agent. Grutt is actually Turg without a disguise on (notice how the name is reversed; semi-clever, but if Grutt had gone by the name Smith, the Batman never would have found him). 

Grutt/Turg has super-strength, able to throw a sword across a room with enough force that it goes halfway through a door. Count Grutt must be a supervillain, buffed with ...Extend Missile Range? Then the Batman pummels Grutt until he's down to zero hit points. With his last punch, the Batman must have pulled his punch a little and transferred some points of damage into pushing Grutt back, because Grutt falls back into the sword, which kills him, since he just took more damage while at zero hp. The Batman doesn't seem concerned.

(Read in Batman Archives vol. 1.)

  

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.)

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 3

I did promise, so here's Dash Dixon's villain, The Eyes, in person. As you can see, having light-up fake eyes is a cool look, but...if that's why he's called The Eyes...then what are Fingers' fingers like...?

It seems weird that Dash is following directions from a blindfolded man, but what you don't know from the previous page is that the man had been abducted by The Eyes' men before and, though blindfolded then, from counting the number of stops and turns he thinks he knows where their hideout is. 

Now, players in a similar situation can try this tactic, but it seems to me that it would be really easy to guess wrong how long it was between stops, unless you count the seconds and have a fantastic memory for numbers. For this, I would have them make an Intelligence check, possibly even with a -2 penalty, since it seems like the route was pretty complex.

Lastly, Dash is using the Multi-Attack power to get two grappling attacks at once.

While I still think Dash himself is ludicrous, there is a lot to like about this story. I like the detail of the entrance to the hideout being a ladder concealed in a fake boiler. I like the trapped, electrified door. How much damage should 3,000 volts do? I just read that 30 volts can kill you, but it's not an even progression where every 30 volts should do a point of damage. Electricity is weird (that's my term for it, not the scientific term) and there are a lot of factors that affect how much damage electricity does to you, and a high voltage is not necessarily going to do more harm than a low voltage. Also, 3,000 volts is the strength of a strong Taser, so I'm going to set the damage range low for this -- 1-8 points.

Something else to consider here: should an electrified door be harder to wreck? Yes, I would say it would move the category up to machine level.  

I also like how all the mobsters have nicknames to distinguish them -- Finger, Trusty, and Switch. Nicknames can instantly give us a sense of character, and also help us keep track of which one is which.

Far from the first cross-dressing villain. Hey, wait...how does Dash know Eyes' eyes are cameras? Did he see a clue in the hideout we missed? Did he use a Microscopic Vision or Super-Senses power to see it? Is he just guessing?

 

Next up is The Scorpion and, sadly, this feature does not live up to the promise of that first panel.

Often, when you have a character who's supposed to be a celebrity in a story, you give him a name that's similar to a real world celebrity in that field, but I can't find any famous crooners with a name like Bill Phelps. 

Also, what is so suspicious about a millionaire cashing $10,000 checks daily? For all this guy knows, he's working with donations to charities.

I thought Zenda seemed like a made-up name, but Ancestry.com tells me that there were about 20 Zenda families in the U.S. in the 1920s, the majority of them living in Wisconsin! 

"Gosh, I'm so scared of Gus Zenda, my hair just turned white!"

Rex Gray, The Scorpion's superpower is his ability to make fantastic logical leaps that just happen to be true. Not only is there something suspicious about a millionaire making out checks, not only does he reach the conclusion that Phelps is actually an imposter based on two overheard sentences, but he figures he'll be able to prove it...by listening to Phelps' records?

And how do you get to be "number one kidnapper"? Kidnappers always try to stay anonymous until they're caught.

It gets zanier. Rex is so convinced he's right that he's willing to bash an innocent butler over the head so hard it changes the color of his jacket. Then, for the first and possibly last time in comics, a hero makes a villain sing at gunpoint.

The name of the song is, of course "Old Folks at Home," but even by 1940 it was already commonly known as "Swanee River," even leading to a movie with that name that came out in '39. The last crooner to release an album featuring this song was Bing Crosby in 1935, but Phelps clearly bears no physical resemblance to Crosby and I'm willing to discard that theory now.

What? Where did this oscillograph come from? Rex's back pocket? This violates the unwritten rule of every Old School RPG I know -- your character has no items on him other than what is recorded on your character sheet.

I also find it laughable that the casually dressed and boyish-looking Rex is immediately recognized as The Scorpion. This guy is the terror of the underworld? Really?

 

Oh my gosh...before I let you go, I just have to rant about the amateurish artwork here. Not only is every panel background-less, not only is Rex himself clearly the one shooting the imposter and shouting "Take that you squealer" in the first panel, not only does the real Phelps look nothing like the fake Phelps, but no one on this page is dressed like Zenda was on the previous page. Has Rex captured a Zenda impersonator while the real Zenda got away? 

Comics.org tells me the artist for this story is unknown. I wouldn't take credit for it either...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)
 

 
 

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 2

Welcome back! We're not quite done with Sky Wizard yet, and neither is Hawk Armand and his pals Vera and Butch. In fact, Hawk now has the upper hand and is taking his prisoners to his boss' secret kingdom in the Himalayas. Is it Black Bolt of the Inhumans? Oops, too soon for that!

Hawk may be smart, but he doesn't get the difference between a map and a globe. On a flat map, it appears the fastest way to get to Tibet from Guatemala is east, but it's actually north!  It's 9,460 miles to the Arctic Circle and back to get to Tibet. Since we know from yesterday's pages that the villains were able to catch up to the sky island in a plane that could go 300 MPH, we know sky island moves slower than that. That means it will take 37 days to reach Tibet. No wonder Sky Wizard had so much time to get free!

Let's also take a moment to talk about Kee-Shan. Keeshan would become a name used by blacks (sparingly) by the 1980s, but would be meaningless in 1940. Unless it is a phonetic spelling? It 

matches no Arabic names I can find...

I don't know about famous, but Secret Agent K-7 really was a radio character with 15-minute weekly episodes in 1939. 

Secret explosives are a common MacGuffin in spy stories. It's not clear here if the thermite bomb explodes silently or drops silently. Either way, it would be a trophy weapon to mid- and high-level Heroes (and probably best kept out of the hands of low-level ones!).

Sometimes it's the simple things that jump at me while reading these old pages, like the clever idea of having a machine gunner hiding in the back of an old cart under a pile of wood. Saving that idea for a future scenario...

I'm only including this page because I am so baffled by what is going on in the top tier. It appears that K-7 has shot the machine gunner and the driver surrenders to him as he drives past...but in the next panel he's saying "Good girl" to Yvonne because she...got the driver? So, did they jump out between panels and attack the driver? Was Yvonne shooting too, but we just never saw her do it? Did she take the wheel and run the driver over?  What do you think happened?

Hircon is clearly meant to be a Rasputin-like character. I could call this mobstertype a hypnotist, mentalist, or even a rasputin (following my examples of fu manchus, genghis khans, and napoleons). Hircon is not a real name and suggests no nationality/ethnicity.  

Ironically, petrosene is more of a real life name, even though it is used as a fictional chemical compound here. Fulmites are not a real thing either, though nitro is obviously nitroglycerin.

Would he really kill his best friend? The theory is never tested in this issue, and Charlotta could be wrong about how hypnotism works. In-game, I would say that a magically charmed fighter could be tricked into killing his best friend, and any other class might if they fail a save vs. spells. I don't think normal hypnosis should allow this, though. 

There are a lot of ways for Heroes to foil being locked in a room -- shoot the lock, bash the door in, pull it off its hinges (if you've a superhero in the party), cast a Knock spell...heck, this door even has a glass window in it, so you can just break it, reach around, and turn the doorknob from the other side. Normally, the reason why you would do this to your players is so your bad guy(s) can get a head start on running away, but our charmed doctor squanders his lead by searching for a bomb.

Here's something I don't think we've ever seen before -- un-hypnotizing someone. I guess it makes sense that one would use the same skill to unhypnotize as hypnotize. 

We're halfway through the issue now and we're just going to peek in on Dash Dixon again before heading out for the day. Yes, Dash is still dressed like a bellhop with his tighty-whiteys on over his uniform (at least you can't see his undies clearly on this page). The only cool thing here is the villain, The Eyes, a blind spy who has two light-up glass eyes (not that it makes much sense that they light up, but it becomes a semi-cool visual on the next page (and maybe I'll show you next time!)

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Miracle Comics #2 - pt. 1

This is Sky Wizard's feature, but we're going to start focused on the bad guys. It's not easy being a Sky Wizard bad guy; not only does Sky Wizard have way more resources than you, but he's got you outnumbered if you count both kids! They are a handy source for slang, though. "Croaked" and "deader than a mackeral" make plenty of sense, but "he did a Brody" took a little research. It's a phrase that was still in use at least up to the 1960s, but actually dates back to 1886. Steve Brodie was a saloon owner from Manhattan who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived, so any seemingly impossible jump became "doing a Brodie/y."

Remarkably, no one seems cold at 10,000 feet, even though they should be freezing already.

New to the author? Modern hydroponic research began in earnest in 1925. Of course, there is little preventing this story from taking place in the past..

The science here might seem more plausible if Hawk had some super-sciency-looking device to send the damaging frequency from. Instead, it looks like he's using a ham radio he picked up at Sears for $5. 

It does not seem in keeping with Arabic culture to suggest djinni come from the underworld. Although, if you believe Wikipedia on this one, the jinn entry conflates jinn with ghouls, and ghouls definitely are from the underworld. I think the entry is wrong on this, though.

Spoiler: Sky Wizard saves the day, though the kids are nearly killed. Oops!

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the New York Blade wasn't a real newspaper -- at that time. Interestingly, a newspaper with that name, focused on gay rights issues, first appeared in New York in 1997.

300 MPH is actually an unusual speed for a plane of that time. It's much faster than a trainer, a little faster than a transport plane, but slow for the average small passenger monoplane, like this. 

Now, the story isn't clear about this, but I'm guessing the blimp island needs to at least get close to the ground before it gets its helium chambers refilled, so it's not like he's giving them glider wings at 10,000 feet and sending them over the side of the island...right?

Oh, and "hey, Jerry, you're, what, 10? Here's a gun. I'm not even going to show you how it works. Just have fun!"

Why does a 10 year old have a paralyzing gun with a kill setting??

C'mon, kids, it's a 25 lb bird, 1-1 HD at best. If the condor is bothering you that bad, how about just flying back to the island and asking Sky Wizard to help?

I like how Vera is so mean-spirited that even when throwing the message she hopes it hits Sky Wizard. It's a pretty innocuous way to deliver the message; if they had really wanted to hurt SW, they could have at least taken the time to find a bigger rock.

Maybe SW should try negotiating. Is there a softer part of Guatemala (consistently misspelled here) they could throw the kids out over instead? Maybe over some peat moss?

You know, rather than take the time to paralyze them, it looks like they could have just hit Sky Wizard with their plane and been done with it.

The paralyzer leaves them free to talk, so this must be its lowest setting.

 

We know how long the Paralyzer's effect lasts from this page (although I suspect the lethal setting is more permanent). One hour is a duration that doesn't fit well with 4-hour rest turns. Of course, since SW is in danger, it's not appropriate to count this in rest turns. One hour is six exploration turns. He's not exploring except to find out how comfy the floor is, but that length of time fits the scenario here.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

More Fun Comics #53

This issue begins with the Spectre! The story picks up where it left off last issue, with Jim Corrigan (the Spectre, when he still looks like a person, but he's a ghost either way) uses the spell Passwall to appear in the mobsters' hideout. After one of the mobsters spots him, Jim turns invisible (shown visually by shading him out on the page). That first mobster is now dead -- Jim has used a new spell called Death Gaze that requires a save vs. spell or the victim dies in 1 turn (similar to Finger of Death, but not instantaneous). This needs to be a 5th level spell.

Jim ends his invisibility (confirming that magic-users can end spells before their duration ends at will) and one of the remaining two mobsters opens fire; the bullets pass right through Jim. This is in keeping with the ghost race presented in Supplement V: Big Bang Comics and its ability to go ethereal a few times per day.

Then Jim uses another new spell, Withering Touch. This happens to the next person who touches the magic-user. Unless a save vs. spell is made, over the next three turns, the person touching withers away until only a skeleton remains, remains alive and aware in that third turn as nothing but a skeleton, but then dies. Further, the victim has to save vs. spell for every item on his person or those items wither to nothingness too, with a +1 to +5 bonus for magic items, depending on how powerful they are. This probably needs to be a 7th level spell.

Jim toys with the remaining mobster, confounding him with a Mirror Images spell, but this leaves the mobster free to shoot his prisoner, the unconscious Clarice (from last issue). Jim thinks Clarice is going to die from a critical wound, but Jim casts Cure Critical Wounds just by touching her.

When police show up, Jim casts Raise Dead on the mobster he killed with his death gaze, but not the one that withered to a skeleton -- perhaps Jim has finally hit his first limit, that he can't raise someone without a complete body. We also clearly see that Jim can cast spells without anyone around him knowing he's doing it. This runs counter to how most magic-users operate in comics, so maybe this needs to be a new special ability of ghosts.

We see a disadvantage of being a ghost, that Jim doesn't breathe anymore and can't even appear to be breathing (no air exhales from his nose or mouth). Since he will be unable to hide his deathly state from Clarice for long, he breaks up with her.

Although his powers are supernatural, the Spectre's costume is sewn by hand. At this point it's unclear if his body is white and he's only wearing green shorts, or if he's wearing a white bodysuit under the shorts.

The rest of the issue is unavailable to me. From some vague descriptions on a Wiki, it seems that Biff Bronson, in his story, goes up against the "mechanical men" (man-sized robots) of a villain called the Wizard and Captain Desmo, in his story, runs afoul of the Society of Assassins in Bombay.

(Spectre story read in Golden Age Spectre Archives Vol. 1.)

Target Comics #2 - pt. 4

 I just can't seem to let go of Calling 2R, being such a bold, ambitious utopian story -- the sort of thing I wish I could write, if I were to get really confessional. And that attention to detail in the background work! I don't think I would have the patience to draw that first panel alone.

I'm hoping the old man's not literally talking about fining those two for wrong thinking, as that sounds too 1984 for my taste. Owing a debt to society for wrong doing is nothing new, of course.

This page is full of glorious period detail, from the realistically drawn slums, to the sign for a "ice and coal" store, to slang you don't see in most stories, like "nerts" (= an exclamation like "nuts," and a fairly new exclamation, according to Mirriam-Webster online first used in 1929), "bulls" (= city police? But that's an unusual use of it, as Wikipedia tells me this was used for railroad police specifically), and the even more unusual term "white lights." This one's so obscure it almost has me baffled, except...if the punk likes to ride the rails like a hobo and has run afoul of the bulls before, then maybe "white lights" refers to the head lamps of trains?

Here's the protective vests of the rangers in action, and it looks like they work just like the force screen around the city, in terms of hurting and knocking back anyone who tries to melee with them, while also stopping bullets as if the wearer had the Imperviousness power. That's a pretty powerful vest; I'd try to balance that out by saying it can only operate for 3 turns in a row before needing 4 turns to recharge. 

It's unclear if the force gun actually harms/does damage to the opponent to render him unconscious or if it stuns (with a save to resist?). 

And this last page I'll share is from the last story in this issue; a stand-alone story about a pilot who befriends an ugly hermit. The hermit is so grateful that he shares a secret; he's guarding a cave full of dust (magic dust?) that disintegrates all metal it touches. A nice touch is that the dust is so fine that you can't see that it's in the air all around you while you're walking through the cave tunnels (as seen on a previous page). I'm sharing this page to show how incredibly potent this Dust of Disintegration is, effectively wrecking as if a 7th level superhero (I'm guessing, by how easily it destroys that tank). It's used here to stop the War in Europe, but it's a good challenging trap for high-level Heroes too.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)