Action Comics #15

And we come back around to Superman's home title, Action Comic, as we will periodically do, to see what new and exciting stuff Siegel and Shuster have cooked up for us. Here, we're treated to some delightful attention to continuity, as Superman reflects on having saved money earned months earlier in issue #11.

And raising money is the unusual scenario goal in this issue, as Superman has to raise $1 million to save "Kid-Town". For capturing bank robbers, he gets a $3,000 reward from the bank for returning their money, plus $2,000 from the police for capturing the robbers. He saves a rich man's life and gets $10,000 as his reward. Then he receives a plot hook that sends him after sunken treasure worth $1 million by itself.

All of these rewards can be dangled in front of Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes, though the Editor is discouraged from awarding XP for money that has to be raised for a scenario. Trophy money should be earned on the side while pursuing other goals.

In the course of this adventure, Superman performs the powers Nigh-Invulnerable Skin (but while out of costume!), Raise Car (to lift a massive tree), Hold Breath (said to last for hours!), Get Even Tougher (I presume, since he's able to fight off a dozen sharks!), Hold Train reversed (so he can push a submarine), Super-Tough Skin, and -- of course -- wrecking things.

For some amount under $15,000, Clark Kent is able to rent a steamer ship for two weeks, complete with diving bell. He has to hire his own crew, though.

Another wrinkle in this surprisingly complex Superman tale is rival gangs competing to stop him. One becomes his ship crew, while the other steals a submarine to come after his ship. And Superman has fun with it too, dressing up in a skeleton's conquistador armor to spook the submarine crew.

In Pep Morgan's installment, Pep is given a plot hook by someone he rescued in the previous story -- the start of a series of plot hooks the same character will give him over what is actually a long story arc. He has to catch a combination of gangsters and robbers who are disguising themselves as police officers. Pep disguises himself too, posing as a night watchman and then a policeman himself, to capture the robbers who are using a tricked farmer's farm as their hideout.

Marco Polo shows himself to have some anti-hero leanings in this installment. He knocks out a guard to steal a horse, and then steals a sword from two soldiers (who probably only want to arrest him for horse theft!). I'm not sure how easy it is to snatch a sword from someone else's scabbard, but I'm guessing it's pretty hard and must be a difficult (1 in 6) skill, like picking pockets.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he and his SCM (archaeologist Jim Blake) have been fighting bandits in the Sahara when both sides have to seek shelter from a sandstorm (wandering weather encounter? Editorial fiat?). Jim points out that sandstorms can rip skin to shreds, meaning at least 2-8 points of damage I reckon. Luckily, tents make you automatically immune to the damage. Clip and Jim decide to brave the storm instead; since they emerge unscathed, there must be a save vs. science that lets you avoid the whole damage.

They find a guarded pyramid -- and rightly so, being a national monument. Clip and Jim have a map that will show them where a secret treasure room is inside, but instead of showing it to the Arab guards and offering to share it with them, Clip beats them all up so they can enter and steal the treasure for themselves. The pyramid is the "Pyramid of Cheoks," which clearly means Cheops. While inside, a guard recovers and trains a gun on them from a trapdoor in the ceiling, generously giving them a chance to surrender. But, again, this guy's an Arab, so Clip feels no remorse as he murders the guard. They find the secret door indicated on the map, but run into a mummy at the cliffhanger!

Tex Thompson is taking a break from globe-trotting and is back home in Texas for a change. We see he's an expert dart thrower. He also has an Arab servant named Achmed who never joins him on any adventures and we probably never see again. Tex is asked to find a missing diamond in this story, during which he runs into and adds his second SCM, Gargantua T. Potts. "Gargantua" must be a nickname because Potts is tall, drawn taller than Tex. Other than that, Potts has no special abilities other than being a  horribly drawn racial slur.

Well, well -- Fred Guardineer anticipated global warming! In his Zatara installment this month, "an evil scientist, Berhener, creates a heat ray and uses it to melt a lot of polar ice, causing the oceans to rise, and flooding New York City and many other coastal cities. Zatara is called in, and he figures out where the melting is happening, then tracks the heat ray's creator, Berhener, who turns out to have a mad scheme about extorting the world's governments and banks for a lot of money. Zatara freezes him inside an iceberg, and sinks the heat ray into the ocean." That summary doesn't give me a lot to go on, but apparently Zatara is starting to cast more combat-related spells like Ice Storm or Cone of Cold.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Wonderworld Comics #4 - pt. 3

Fire works kind of goofy in comic books. What was in that lamp to explode like that? Napalm? What was that castle made out of to burn down so fast? Balsa wood? Gems melt in fire?  How hot was that fire? Hmm...

This is Tex Mason.

Maybe cowardly hoodlums should just have a faster movement rate when fleeing?

I really just shared this because I like the dynamic artwork of Munson Paddock here.

This is K-51 Spies at War, though you might not know it by how he's being upstaged by his new fiancee, K-19. It's interesting how K-51 has picked up the relationship dynamic from Siegel & Shuster's Spy, not long after Siegel unwisely abandoned it.

But I really just shared this for the radium gun. This panel gives you a great example of the size of the rayguns described in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies. It's good that the raygun is so stationary too, because it's ability to wreck like a 7th level Superhero at long range is intimidatingly powerful.

Maybe Heroes' guns jam more often in comic books than I gave them credit for. Definitely including a gun jam rule in 2nd edition.

And here is another example of K-19 completely taking over this feature.

This is "Spark" Stevens. I'm working on the combat section of 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums right now and the next mechanic I need to work on is something elegant for entangling weapons, like whips and nets. There has to be a chance of holding your opponent fast, but also a trade-off, like your opponent being able to disarm you, like this.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Wonderworld Comics #4 - pt. 2

When you're seeing a stunt in a comic book, it's always really easy to tell what's going on. When you're seeing a power, it's usually pretty easy to tell what's going on. But with spells...

So the game is, What Spell is Yarko casting? Did he get shot, and then somehow cast Gaseous Form, Spirit Form, Astral Projection, or the like to spy on them? Or is the image on the floor an illusion and Yarko is really invisible?

And here's why the answer is relevant -- if Yarko is having an out of body experience, it seems that going back into his body heals himself. That's a pretty cool and useful spell (with the danger being that the mobsters could have shot him full of more holes while he was Astral projecting).

A polymorph spell that lets you turn two people into pearls is heavy stuff -- like a 9th level spell.

This is Shorty Shortcake again. I include it because, not only is it a classic example of a rich benefactor feeding plot hooks to the Hero, but it's got a good rationale for using half-pint Heroes instead of full-grown ones.

This is Patty O'Day again, and I'm amused that Patty has to go to a special costumer to sell her clothes that make her and Ham look like mobsters (or a sailor and a girl going to Paris on vacation). A costumer could be a useful supporting cast character to have, though we're a long way from Edna Mode here.

I love the unusual slang here -- "toots" as a masculine pet name? "Janes" instead of "dames"?

I also wonder if biting should do more damage if a woman or child does it. Men never bite each other in comic books, so their bites must be less effective?

This is interesting! Vampires needing gems to stay on this plane of existence? It's like liches and their phylacteries.

No reflections in mirrors is obvious, but expressionless eyes is surely a lesser known (made-up) way of identifying vampires.

Vampires can, predictably, turn into bats and back at will.

That's a really curious thing Dan says. If they "can't keep her awake until sunrise, she will really die!" So, if they fail to keep her awake, the vampire dies. So putting her to sleep is the way to end her...?

Note the convenience of the stairs that run all the way down to the cellar. In a game like D&D, many dungeon maps are deliberately made with staircases spread out to force adventurers to explore.

Another curious thing -- if vampires need gems to "exist among the living", then how is the vampire okay without the gem? Is the castle some underworld place outside the living world?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Wonderworld Comics #4 - pt. 1

I'm very familiar with this story, having borrowed a lot of art from this story for the first edition of Hideouts & Hoodlums. Lou Fine was really going all out on this one.

We don't know a lot about The Flame yet at this point, but we see here that he's got a pretty cool looking plane and, like all Golden Age Heroes, he's an ace pilot. Here he is, using the Aviator stunt Increase Speed, despite being a Superhero.

Is the Flame using a flame gun trophy item to melt the bars, or is the flame gun flavor text for his wrecking things ability? It could go either way. Or the flame gun could start out as flavor text, inspiring the Editor to make sure he finds/gets a real flame gun further in the campaign.

The moving walls trap is an old cliche -- and a hard one for low-level Heroes to beat (eventually, superheroes can just plow right through those walls). Plus, the Editor can set the damage from being crushed between walls to whatever he wants, depending on how hard they're being pushed together.

Mind control formula is different than how magic potions usually work. A potion is usually drank by the controller, but this potion is taken in (by syringe in this case) by the victim. There's really no reason why potions couldn't work either way, and don't even have to all be consistent.

I came up with the power Teleport through Focus to explain The Flame's ability to teleport to anywhere there's fire (without making it fire-specific).

This is also an excellent example of the save vs. plot needed to attack the master villain before dealing with the flunkies. The Flame has Doxol by the arm already (in the cover art from Book II!), but still let's Doxol escape so he can fight his way through flunkies first.

It's hard to believe an arch large enough for the wingspan of a plane leads to a "hidden hangar". Maybe there's a door inside the arch that normally looks like an ordinary wall. Or maybe there's normally an illusion there concealing the arch (Doxol looks like he'd be a magic-user/mad scientist, as well as undead!).

I'm ...not prepared to explain this one. I really don't want superheroes being able to teleport something the mass of a plane around with them, at least not at any levels that Heroes are still playable at.

This is from the next story, featuring Yarko the Great. It's funny, from a gaming perspective. It seems like the Editor is just throwing plot hook after plot hook at Yarko's player, trying to get him to react to one. First there's the judge who practically asks Yarko to help him with his smuggling wife, then a detective shows up looking for the wife to arrest her, and then crooks show up and attack -- at which point Yarko finally acts. Way to play a Neutral Alignment, Yarko!

After reading too much of Zatara and his overuse of magic, it's nice to see that Yarko is willing to use a car to pursue bad guys instead of just teleporting into their backseat, or polymorphing wings onto himself and flying after them. When he does cast a spell, it's Enlarge, which works really well in comic books. Here, he must be at least 20' tall.

Or did he cast Enlarge? Now it seems like it was only an illusion. Or maybe magic-users can end their spell duration whenever they want and everything just snaps back to normal.

Yarko also casts Project Image here.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Keen Detective Funnies v. 2 #8

This is from a one-shot story called "Fingerprint Murder". This page makes me think that gangsters could be a special type of hoodlum, able to make people save vs. plot to avoid getting into cars with them.

I'm including this page because it's pretty good detective work. Rearder has figured out that the killers must have observed him at the crime scene, they could have seen him from the opposing window, and he finds out from the landlord that the opposing room was recently rented. Though it seems odd that the landlord doesn't know the name of the renter, at least the identity can be found out by searching the rented room for fingerprints, which had been wiped so judiciously at the crime scene.

I'm amused by this page and how hard Rearder works to avoid his boss. I've had some H&H players really embrace the dual identity of their characters, and others avoid their day jobs with this much fervor.

It's interesting that this character is called a "special policeman". Did the term "security guard" not exist in 1939?

And Rearder punches the man in the face so hard, the man's hat vanishes!

This is The Masked Marvel.  I thought at first that this was going to be a good example of changing geography any way you need to in your campaign -- but there really are two volcanoes in Mexico (Popocateptl and Colima)! Still, it must be the dead of winter for there to be that much ice and snow on Mexican volcanoes...

For the first half of this story, I forgot The Masked Marvel was a superhero! Here he is using two powers. The first one looks like "Hold Plane". There is no Hold Plane power. It would be weaker than Hold Train, and stronger than Hold Person. Interesting that I left such a large gap in the power list.

The other power appears to be Detect Evil. I'd actually taken this power off the powers list in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, because I'd been waiting so long to see actual evidence of it. Of course, maybe The Masked Marvel is just saying he "senses" The Hawk because it should be pretty obvious to sight or sound that the tram is moving.

The asbestos suit and gas mask is a pretty useful trophy item. Bear in mind that asbestos does no harm to people back in the 1930s (because no one knew better!).

The Masked Marvel is either displaying more powers -- like Different Physical Structure and Resist Fire -- or just showing off that he has a lot of hit points.

TNT Todd gets knocked out and takes a whole day to recover to consciousness (but if he's at 1 hp when he confronts Charlie Sin, he's pretty bold!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Jumbo Comics #9

I don't always have perfect digital copies of old comic books to look at, and Jumbo Comics is a perfect example of that. So far, I've had to settle for looking at the entire series in black and white. Normally, that doesn't trouble me greatly, but I do wish I could see "The Golden City" here in color, and determine how much of that "golden" is literal description and how much of it is hyperbole.

We get treated to some great visuals of this hidden land, most especially the courtyard of a palace. We see a dais, two trees growing up behind a throne carved to look like a many-armed demon. A man on the throne, flanked by trained apes. Looks to be quite an encounter!

A rare instance of a gun jam in comics.

The ape is using its "rend" special attack on Bob. Bob doesn't seem to be appreciating it.

The ape takes lethal damage from a fall. Bob was knocked out after two turns of fighting an ape (really, the ape just wailing on him mercilessly), but here is already recovered just a turn or two later.

The text doesn't match up with the pictures when Sheena and Bob fall into the trap. The caption says they are entering the courtyard, but they just fought the apes in the courtyard. It must mean "As they enter the palace".

The ol' trap door leading to an underground river trap. Note that Bob tries and falls to save them by holding onto the trap door, suggesting that the Editor gave them a saving throw to try and save themselves.

Peter Pupp runs into a 20' tall moon giant. They look and act like hill giants, but they're as big as cloud giants.

The Hawk fights Gor, a black "giant". Gor is able to pay "no attention to the rain of punches", probably because he's statted as a thug, and has a thug's Armor Class, despite wearing no actual armor. The Hawk keeps swinging, but isn't actually hitting well enough to do damage yet.

I think that's pretty funny.

Wilton of the West is teamed up with the Crimson Rider with this issue, the Crimson Rider being a cowboy, but of the Mysteryman class. My evidence of this? Mysterymen trigger morale saves as soon as they show up, while other classes have to do something first.

The Crimson Rider isn't concerned about making a 20' leap on horseback, and probably for good reason. The world record for a jumping horse leap is 28', so I'd probably give the Crimson Rider a ...4 in 6 chance of making the jump successfully?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Crackajack Funnies #14

We haven't checked in on Dan Dunn in awhile. Here, I'm interested in the double protection of having a secret room, behind a secret door, and a second concealed door behind a painting in the secret room. But can we distinguish between secret and concealed doors here? We don't actually see the first secret door behind the bookcase; it's just described to us. If the bookcase is only blocking a normal door, then I would call that a concealed door. But if it looked like blank wall behind the bookcase until you pulled a lever disguised to look like a book on the shelf, causing it to slide open, then you have a secret door.

Slade missed his save vs. plot to see through Dan's act, but Fallon made his. It's worth pointing out that a disguise doesn't have to be a fake mustache or stage make-up; it can be trying to pass yourself off as someone else.

This reminds me of the Cowboy stunt Jump into Saddle (from Supplement III), and also reminds me that Jump into Saddle could have explained how Abdul the Arab could have leaped down into a moving car in the post I did on Smash Comics #1 two days ago.

Only a hoodlum who's never read Treasure Island would skip searching a crutch.

But I'm more interested here in Peggy's Mother's concern about her jewelry being all fakes. Granted, this is a non-Hero character, but if it was a Hero, how would I handle this? A successful appraisal check tells her they're fake, but a failed roll only tells her she doesn't know for sure yet.

In Hideouts & Hoodlums I don't tell you who should make the dice rolls, leaving that up to each Editor to decide. Often, I like to let players make their own encounter reaction rolls. I normally do let them make their own skill checks -- but I can see situations, like appraisal, where a secret check by the Editor might make more sense. Then the players have to react to what the Editor tells them, instead of what they know from the dice roll.

The nice thing about this escape plan is that there's no time crunch involved. If the cistern had been filling up with water, that would be another thing, but because the three of them can try the human pyramid trick as many times as they want, there's no reason not to just wave game mechanics, say it works, and reward Easy's player for his good idea.

From Myra North, Special Nurse, we learn that artificial respiration was much different in the 1930s! It makes you wonder how first aid ever worked back then. No wonder it doesn't give you immediate hit points back in H&H!

I just had to share this because it's pretty cool. Myra North must have at least one level in Fighter. Here she takes on a spy armed with a gun, using only a pair of scissors, and still wins!

Sound-proof doors in hideouts is something to consider. It would waste a lot of players' hear noise rolls during a hideout-clearing expedition. On the other hand, it would also keep mobsters from being able to hear combat in their neighbors' rooms and lend aid.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comics Museum)