Silver Streak Comics #1 - pt. 2

This is Mister Midnite and he's a strange duck. He looks like a Mysteryman, acts like a Mysteryman, but has a ridiculously powerful magic spell -- every night, during the final strokes of midnight, he can choose to stop time. In That Other Game, this would be the 9th level spell Time Stop, but with a very specific limitation. I, frankly, don't know how you would build this Hero with Hideouts & Hoodlums.  You would need a very flexible and accommodating Editor to let your Hero have such a potentially campaign-breaking ability, especially right away in the campaign.

Also note that, despite telling us through the story to this point that Chief Birey has it in for Mister Midnite, he's easily persuaded to cooperate with Mister Midnite on this case. Past encounter reaction failures do not weigh against you in present encounter reaction rolls.

Speaking of Heroes with campaign-unbalancing powers when just at first level -- Red Reeves is just a half-pint, an ordinary boy, until he finds a magic marble that releases a genie, or djinni, to serve him. That's a potent magic item -- unless the marble and the genie are all just flavor text, to explain Red's magic-user abilities.

As if having a genie serving you wasn't enough, the genie gives Red a "wand of power."  There's no wand of power in That Other Game, but there's a Staff of Power, and that's yet another potent magic item. Or, the wand is Red's normal magic wand for casting spells with, as a magic-user, and the genie is then more of a supporting cast member.

Red's first spell is Create Food & Water.

It seems that Red is casting Wish spells, but they can be explained other ways. He casts Enlarge on his dog and then Fly.

This is an odd one -- no spell really matches this one, but it does match the power Raise Building.

Plant Growth.

Teleport.  And then Fly again (unless the duration hadn't ended from the first casting).

Red has to be at least a 9th level magic-user, if he is the one casting all these spells.

A sloop is present in the transportation section of the 2nd ed. H&H rules. It's an expensive item, at $8,000, well beyond what most Heroes have for starting money. So, what is it? The exploding dice option for rolling starting money that I'm introducing makes it hypothetically possible for even a 1st level Hero to start with that much. Or, it could be a house rule where every Hero gets to start with a trophy item of some sort.

Captain Fearless has three sharks advancing on him when a seaplane comes down to save him. Is Lieutenant Dugan a Hero or a Supporting Cast Member? Is this a wandering encounter? And did Dugan roll to hit the shark with his plane? How much damage does hitting a shark with a plane do? I can come up with an easy mechanic for basing damage on speed, but it would get complex if it had to take the mass of the vehicle into account too.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Silver Streak Comics #1 - pt. 1

Here we are, finally at December 1939, and with our first comic book from Lev Gleason, or Your Guide Publications, as the company was called this early.

Comics had plenty of yellow peril villains by now -- Fang Gow, Chen Chang, and even Fu Manchu -- but none as monstrous as the Claw until now.

Ricca is a fictional South Seas island. Judging by its population of 10,000, it must be a medium-sized island; Fiji and the Solomon Islands far eclipsed it in population at the time, while 10,000 was well above the populations of Easter Island or the Pitcairn Islands. The name may itself be an inside joke, since the artist here is Don Rico.

How big is The Claw?  When I statted the clawed giant for Book II, I arbitrarily set them at 12' tall, but gave them the ability to grow to 100' tall. Here, in his very first appearance, Claw seems to be 50' tall -- and possibly immune to heat.

The flames actually seem to be behind the throne, but that could be some kind of trick. When The Claw expands to what appears to be hundreds of feet tall, that could be some kind of trick too. A projected image of some kind? The "hypnotic hum" is telling -- maybe some sort of mass hypnosis, making everyone think they see a giant that size?

Jerry Morris has a humdinger of a potion there -- a potion of invulnerability that also protects from mind-controlling attacks. What a superhero he would make if he just made more of the stuff!

The trap is a rather clever twist on the dropping cage cliche, since this cage becomes portable.

What is described here sounds an awful lot like the spell Nightmares from Supplement III, but with a reversed version called Happiest Dreams. Other than its addictive quality, it's unclear what game mechanic effects happy dreams would give.

This also means The Claw is at least a warlock (5th level magic-user).

Is a leach-boat going to need to become a trophy item? There's a pretty good description here of how it works.

Acetylene torches have been on the trophy list since Book II.

The lethal qualities of carbon monoxide make it ideal for traps, if not a weapon, Since it would count as a poison, I wouldn't let Heroes use it.

Gas masks, on the other hand, are super handy. Some Heroes build their whole personas around their gas masks. Here is a chance for Jerry to pick up five of them in one haul!

We also see that Jerry's potion lasts at least a full day here -- which seems like a really long duration, until you realize Jerry spent most of that in rest turns.

This is why Jerry isn't a superhero -- superheroes are usually selfish with the source of their power and keep it to themselves. Jerry makes an invulnerability potion, and just hands out samples to anyone who agrees to go fight beside him.  Good way to keep morale high, Jerry!

This trap, with liquid fire raining from the ceiling, looks like it would be pretty deadly if you don't happen to have an invulnerability potion in your system.

In an unusual, if not singular occurrence, the good guys are rendered invulnerable, but not their clothing. There could obviously be some hilarious role-playing opportunities here.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Four Color #2: Don Winslow of the Navy

This special issue includes just about every page of the Don Winslow comic strip Dell had reprinted up to this point. Here's some things I missed discussing the first time round.

There needs to be limits to trophy items. A good rule of thumb would be to set a weight limit. For the basic book, nothing weighing more than 3 tons will be available. At 10,000 tons, a tramp steamer is going to be way out of bounds, not to mention the naval carrier.

Here we see what the international code flags are for distress. We also see how much easier you make it for your players when your villains aren't smart enough to board ships under fake names.

Centaur's paralyzing machine is different from a raygun in that it effects all targets with a radius instead of in a straight path. That would make this a mad science invention instead, categorically.

Sound-muffling hoods that can protect against sound-based machines could also be a trophy item.

I'm having some serious deja vu here, having shared this page way back when.

The reference to the "Cyclops" is explained here.

Not sure why Dr. Centaur keeps a handkerchief soaked in cobalt salts, but apparently cobalt salt is a good ingredient for invisible ink.

When a villain endangers innocents in order to escape, the Heroes have to save vs. plot to pursue the villain instead of saving the innocents.

I'm skeptical that you could turn a ship at just the right angle to make a smokescreen, but smokescreens are another classic villain strategy. When I get to the evasion rules, I'll have to make mention of smokescreens.

Centaur's lair is this ring-shaped island, but like every island it has a door. This is a big one, though, a concealed drawbridge made to look like part of the wall. It could be a clue to the scale of the hideout on the other side, or just a trick to make it look more impressive than it is inside.

The entrance to the hideout is trapped, there's a dynamite charge here that will create a landslide. On the next page it sends tons of rock crashing down. That's a lot of potential damage.

A school of sharks is the proper term. This school seems to have five sharks, which isn't a lot, but it's probably the most sharks I've seen in one panel yet.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Famous Funnies #64

Okay, so this month's Hairbreadth Harry is pretty awful racist -- but it does contain two standout features. One is a pretty awful (but delightfully awful) trap -- our damsel in distress is tied to a giant candle that is going to set her on fire when it burns down. I can just imagine the Adam West Batman being tied to something like this by a villain called the Crime Candle.

And then there's an unusual trophy/treasure item to collect -- a solid gold bell clapper.

This is from Life's Like That. I find it particularly amusing because this seems like just the sort of thing that would happen to me.

Again, yes, racist -- but if we look past that, we see that encounters with wild animals tend to end in violent attacks more often than they would in real life. This fits, of course, with That Other Game where encounters are usually resolved with violence.

Detecting poison - is this a skill Heroes could have, or just their dogs?

Dickie's guardian, Dan, is in a tight fix and seems to have no other choice but to bribe the crew to mutiny. That he's bribing them with money he hasn't stolen yet could mean a penalty to his encounter reaction roll. On the other hand, the high amount and the promise of going free afterwards could cancel that modifier out.

We also learn that you can fit two machine guns and belts into the same crate.

Mike is willing to betray Dan because a) he's a mobster, and b) his reaction roll must have been positive or less (friendly or higher would have secured his loyalty for the mutiny).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Amazing Man Comics #7 -pt. 5

Let's just keep the ball rolling!

We'll pick back up with Mighty Man as he uses a power to catch a runaway railcar. Technically, you'd think this would be the 4th level power Hold Train, but it's not a full train and nowhere near in that weight class. I'd allow this with the 2nd level version, Raise Elephant.

Wrecking trees, particularly one that size, should be like wrecking cars.

My wife pointed out to me that I have an uncle-in-law who looks a lot like that lumberjack with the white mustache.

I never thought of this before, but water must make a different type of noise when it flows into an underground passage. This type of specific information might require a penalty to your listen check, unless you specifically asked for it.

Mighty Man's battle is over in "an instant", which must mean 1 combat turn at most. So, for Mighty Man to have knocked out all five mobsters present, he must have used the power Flurry of Blows.

And now we get to The Shark, who is finally getting some backstory here. Inheriting his first magic item, he gets a...let's call it a Dagger of Poseidon +2, +2 to wrecking things for mermen.

A stationary (non-portable) heat raygun can evaporate an entire lake pretty quickly.

Now here's a set-up for a dangerous scenario -- the Heroes know where the hideout is, approach the entrance, and...it's not the real hideout, it's a fake one rigged as a trap! Yes, the entire building is the trap, thanks to a powerful bomb. Heroes will need lots of caution or lots of hit points to survive this one.

In a curious bit of hideout design, the mad scientist's giant generator is placed inside the entrance to his hideout. That makes it really easy to knock out the power to all his electronic traps, weapons, etc.

Since The Shark and Poseidon make it sound so easy, I'm going to say that this generator wrecks as if ...an ordinary generator, despite appearing to be giant in size.

Generally not a good idea to situation your enormous heat raygun on the edge of a 200' cliff. Could make for some excitement, though!

We see The Shark has a pet octopus here -- possibly a giant octopus, though the scale is hard to tell. This must be a supporting cast member we haven't seen before.

And that's it!  We finally got through the whole issue.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Amazing Man Comics #7 - pt. 4

In an unprecedented move for this blog, I'm going to spend a fourth day looking at this issue, because there's so many pages I think we should look at from it.

Up to this point, I was thinking the Magician from Mars would be, you know, a magic-user. And she is -- but, there's growing evidence here that she has two classes and is also a superhero. At first I was overlooking the jumping through a wall as creative flavor text for the spell Passwall, but jumping through walls and taking super-leaps? This has "superhero"written all over her now.

Also note how easily they just happen to encounter a meteor, just one day out from Mars. Despite the vastness of space, wandering encounters can come just as frequently in space as they would anywhere else (I would roll once per rest turn,1 in 6 chance).

Jane uses the spell Phantasmal Image, or maybe the power Change Self, here, but the guard makes his morale save and stays put.

It's a little odd that the Martians use dollars as currency, but maybe our narrator is just translating their term for us.

Make no mistake; our "hero" Jane is robbing the ship of its gold. She wrecks her way into the vault to take it.

Remember that Mending spell she used on the vase? Apparently it's much more powerful than that. Has to be at least a 2nd level, if not a 3rd level spell. In fact, it may be almost as powerful as the 4th level power Raise Building.

Because Jane has stolen $3 million in gold, but donates half to a worthy cause, maybe in That Other Game we could call that Chaotic Neutral with Good tendencies.

Infantile paralysis, of course, refers to polio. It's useful for dating this adventure that polio is still around, since it was wiped out in the U.S. by vaccines from 1955-1979.

This is Minimidget -- and Ritty, who doesn't get billing. Here, armed with a mini-spear, MM demonstrates how it can be set to receive a charge, just like you can do with spears in the Advanced version of That Other Game.

Surprisingly, this is the first weasel we see in comics. Against normal sized foes, a weasel isn't going to be anymore of a threat than an owl, though giant-sized versions of each are tempting.

I include this page, not because I enjoy seeing weasel's murdered in grisly fashion, but because this is the first indication that there might be super strength in Minimidget's "super-midget body."  There is no discussion of anything science-y, like density, and in fact his strength might wind up being nothing that adrenaline can't explain.

Chuck Hardy visits the royal palace of the Aquatanians (but not true mermen) in this issue, and we get some sense of its layout here. From the previous page, we know the outside entrance is one long staircase flanked with green dragon statues. Inside we have this brightly-colored checkered hallway flanked by columned arcades. It seems that the hall empties into a surprisingly small audience chamber, dominated by a long table worthy of the Justice Society of America. The next page actually shows how large the audience chamber is, with the table on a large checkerboard dais. Overlooking the throne room is an observation gallery where commoners can sit and watch their rulers, but a heavy curtain can be drawn over the balcony in case they need privacy.

The king probably rules by virtue of being the only person who can sit comfortably in a throne with upright seashells for armrests. There are multiple wings to the palace, including this one where the king's advisers have their private rooms.

This page explains the geography of the hollow world of Aquatania.  Roara must be a constantly active volcano to light their world, which seems a pretty dangerous situation to live in. That the frog men live in the cold side of Aquatania seems to defy biology, but they are only frog-like in appearance, I guess.

This page establishes that Mighty Man is only 12' tall -- when he seemed to be more like 18' tall in his first appearance -- and reveals that the Valley of the Giants is in Nevada.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)