Wonderworld Comics #10 - pt. 2

This is only Yarko the Great's eighth story, but already his second trip to the land of the dead -- and surprisingly his way there is entirely different this time. Instead of transitioning through a Dante-lite version of the afterlife, Yarko is able to transport himself (Plane Shift spell?) directly to the Valley of Shadows, or an area of it that is more desolate and uninhabited than when we last saw it. Interestingly, Yarko needs an item belonging to the Baron in order to track him across the planes; one could interpret from this that Yarko would wind up in some random space on the same plane without the sword to attract him to the Baron.

Shining Knight, no! (Just kidding; the old knight just has the same coloration as the Shining Knight will have a year or two from now).

Here we see Yarko fighting with a sword, and fighting well, invalidating the "magic-users can only fight with daggers" conceit.

We also get a good example of why we want to put powerful Heroes in environments where they can't use their full range of spells or powers. We know Yarko can still cast spells in the Afterlife, but there must be anti-magic zones throughout and Yarko had temporarily stepped into one.

Yarko's spell -- conjuring the ghosts of his past victims to attack him -- reminds me of the Phantasmal Killer spell.

This is Shorty Shortcake, and those are some really big germs flying out of that watch case! Rigging something to release tear gas -- or "crying germs", as it's called here -- is not a bad trap.

Hideouts & Hoodlums has rules for pushing opponents, but pulling them? That's trickier, I think. It would probably be a grappling attack and then, if successful, I would allow the grappler to make half-moves and pull the victim along, so long as the grappler had the higher Strength score.

While grappling your opponent, if you have a strong enough hold on them (that means at the Editor's discretion), you could roll to make another attack and put a hat on your opponent's head, if that was really something you wanted to do. I'm definitely not opposed to giving free attacks if they're used to do something in-character, but not actually harm anyone.

I'm glad I've never statted giant bats as having very many hit points, as these giant vampire bats (simply called vampire bats here, but the scale is always way off in a Shorty Shortcake adventure -- oh, I wonder if that is a feature I should talk about?) fall easily after just being hit with a rubber-band ball (an improvised weapon, doing no more than 1-3 points of damage, if ever there was one).

I'm kind of surprised that I've never seen a Hero track a bad guy by his cigar ash until this point.

This is also the first time I can recall seeing one trophy item specifically able to counteract another trophy item.

This is Patty O'Day, so naturally I'm going to focus on her partner Ham being awesome instead. Here it takes not one, but two head blows to knock him out, demonstrating that head blows are not automatic knockouts.

We also get a glimpse of a secret door concealed as a wall panel.

How long, in game time, should it take for eyes to become accustomed to the dimness? It probably doesn't matter for this scene, but if combat was about to begin it could be relevant. Or maybe not; I'd probably ignore the issue, unless Patty lost initiative, and then I could use the "eyes adjusting" thing as an excuse to explain why.

It's a smart tactic to keep the rope you were tied up in. Awesome Ham has figured out a use for it already!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Wonderworld Comics #10 - pt. 1

I certainly like it when Hideouts & Hoodlums perfectly emulates the look and feel of comic books from the golden age...but there are certain stories that make me go, hmm, maybe strict emulation could be taken too far. Case in point: should tanks be allowed to burrow through the center of the Earth, as a "shortcut" from Mongolia to Florida? Not only is that completely impossible, but it's so impossible that air dropping tanks from above would be relatively easy in comparison.

That said, I like that we get our invasion started in Florida for a change. The story imagines a Fort Blane in southern Florida, near the Everglades, but southern Florida only has Navy and Coast Guard bases in it for real.

A superhero using his wrecking things ability would not be unbelievable, except that we just saw (on a page I skipped over) the tanks shrugging off bombs dropped from airplanes like they were nothing. Is there some special vulnerability to fire to these tanks, and if so, how did they ever make it through the heat as they drew closer to the Earth's core?

And yet, there must be a known vulnerability to fire in the design, or there would be no reason for the men to have asbestos suits with them (unless they were anticipating the Flame showing up?).

10-to-1 odds seems too much for the Flame, though he uses Get Tough on at least four of them before taking off.

Oh, come on, Flame! What did that poor huge (5 HD?) alligator ever do to you? It looks like it was only trying to give you a hug to me, you murdering bum! And why do you only afterwards get the idea to use your flame to drive off the others? (Common sense morale check, at the Editor's discretion.)

More evidence of how easy disguise is in comic books: despite the fact these are see-thru helmets, no one questions the fact that one of the men is wearing the Flame's mask under his helmet.

The Flame can now wreck dams, which means he is at least 6th level -- not a surprise, since we've already seen him use the high-level Teleport through Focus power. He's only been published in enough pages to warrant being 3rd level by now, so there are plenty of brevet ranks in play here (if not for the teleport power, it would be possible that his flame-gun is a trophy item that wrecks at a higher level, and that the gun is not itself just flavor text describing how he uses his powers).

As loony as this story has been...that is one gorgeous page of art.

Here's that Teleport through Focus power we were just talking about! It would appear that we are talking about a range that can take him halfway around the world...but we also don't have to assume that the Flame made this trip in just one jump. Perhaps it took him days to teleport from open flame to open flame until he got to Mongolia.

Genghis Khan villains are apparently high kickers. I'm not sure how that makes a game mechanics difference, but it sure looks impressive!

 A very rare example of a sword being used as a missile weapon.

Despite being a relatively inexperienced superhero, the Flame already commands the respect of the U.S. Army.

It should not surprise you to learn that Evergreen Chasm is not a real place. Florida is relatively free of chasms. Sinkholes, on the other hand...

Not the first time we've seen plot hook characters literally crash into the Heroes.

Nor is the first time we've seen Heroes feel they have to escape bad weather by heading indoors, no matter how spooky the building looks (save vs. plot required).

That still looks like Eisner to me, but comics.org tells me this is Bob Powell doing a good Eisner impersonation.  I'm impressed by the sense of space in the castle interior. The door knocker, the height of the door and ceilings, the rafters, and the blazing chandelier are all dressing details for a good hideout.

Yarko, despite having gone spell-to-spell with the Devil already, can't overcome this one guard. Granted, the grappling rules are not kind towards magic-users (with their low attack bonuses), and perhaps we've finally discovered Yarko's weakness here, that he needs his hands free to cast spells.

Poof! is a 1st-level spell in 2nd ed. H&H. It only works on one person, so this is perhaps a higher-level version (Poof II?) that allows multiple people to disappear. It's also possible that more pf them than just the baron is casting versions of this spell.

 (Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Champion Comics #4 - pt. 3

This is from Blazing Scarab and...what's this? An immortal league of assassins? How can this not be where the idea for Batman nemesis Ra's al-Ghul came from?

The immortal city of Baracs, full of immortal assassins, is just begging for a Hideouts & Hoodlums adventure module. Who's going to volunteer to write it for me?

I'm also curious about this condition where, if they lose their heart or their brain, they live on, but lost their "identity" (all levels in their class/es lost?), and become only half-visible.

Here's an interesting description of how the magic portal to Baracs works, and why humans (and human-like races, I suppose) are the only ones who can cross through the portal.

This is Jungleman, who has a ridiculously large army of animals working for him, but what really gets me is that crazy spelling of orangutan. Orang-outang? Did someone not have a dictionary handy, or was the spelling that non-standardized by 1940?

A rare instance of a Hero using a blowgun as a weapon. The implication seems to be that the dart is poisoned, but we're never actually told that. Maybe he's just trying to distract the chief?

I'm amused that Louise immediately thanks Jungleman, but look how hard those monkeys have to work to take down the pygmies! And without knives, no less!

The death toll of animals in this feature is pretty staggering. Tigers, snakes -- they all bite it trying to protect Jungleman.

"Monkey-like people" seems to stink of racism a bit. I hope the gibbon men in H&H don't have the same odor...

This is Revenge of the Zombies. We're treated to a pretty standard pit trap (nice that there's a ladder at the bottom!), and an adventuring party that wisely puts their best fighters in the lead, the light source in the second rank, and keep to their marching order.

Giant death head moths are now definitely going into the AH&H Mobster Manual. I guess under D? They'll probably have only 1 hit point, and can only drain 1 hp, but when encountered by dozens or a hundred at a time, would be quite deadly.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Champion Comics #4 - pt. 2

This is Penny Wright, girl reporter. We can see here how useful it is carrying glass compacts, especially if you get tired up a lot.

I still do not plan on statting henchmen as their own mobstertype. Hair-pulling? This henchman fights like a girl...

Although, according to Penny Wright, the way a girl fights is to put out a cigarette in your opponent's eye. Normally I wouldn't allow a called shot, but a lit cigarette to any other part of the body would barely qualify for a point of damage. An eye is going to be a small target -- AC 2? If it hits, I would let it do 1-6 points of normal damage.

The people in the sewers are not labeled, but they are "Apaches," also known as bloodthirsty hoodlums.

Waist-deep in raw sewage, Penny is going to have to save vs. poison or be diseased after this.

Doormen are good bad guys because they see everyone who's coming and going.

Until this page it wasn't clear what Nina's scheme was or that she was mesmerizing people. That would be simple skill-based hypnosis, rather than a magic spell.

The guy from the window is actually smart to put away his gun, since Penny can save vs. missiles to dodge getting shot...

But he's maybe not so smart to choose grappling, because grappling can always turn against you.

Typewriters, particularly 1940 typewriters, are heavy. I would let that do normal 1-6 damage.

The French police talk about being indebted to Penny, but it seems like the squad did all the hard work, except for the one guy she hit with the typewriter.

This filler page has an interesting image of what a Martian could look like. It's distinctly different from any other Martians we've seen. Do I need to stat another Martian??

This is Neptina, Queen of the Deep, though the cast is expanding so fast that Neptina only gets a cameo on this page. It is worth pointing out that the top two tiers of panels are told from point of views that no hero in the story is present to witness. This kind of "set-up" scene is common in modern comics with their infinite subplots, but is virtually unheard of this early in comic books.

That second tier of panels clearly illustrate what bothers me the most about so many underwater adventures -- how do merpeople or fish-men smelt ore to make things out of metal underwater? And these giant tools we see in the background, winches and cranes -- would they really be the best way to move things underwater?

Now, what interests me on this page are the fish-men "shadowers," which makes me think of allowing fish-men to be classed as mysterymen, or the obscure 1st edition class, the spy. But, on the other hand...they aren't very good secret agents, are they? They fail to blend in, inside a city of fish-men, and then easily fall prey to an ambush.

Note the merwomen's antiquated weapons. Brad's tuning fork, as we've seen previously in this serial, is a thought transmitter, which explains how the merpeople can talk to each other underwater (except for, again, how they smelt the ore to make the metal to make the tuning forks).

Sub-plane? Why would it need to be a plane underwater?

I'm half-convinced I should make some kind of a joke about revolting seamen here, but probably won't.

Remember how the merwomen "took care" of the shadowers on the previous page? So they've already been beaten or surrendered, but here's our murderous Brad, still going around stabbing them to death and getting to the battle at the palace late. Way to lead, Brad!

Lastly, note the hydraulic jet pack on Brad's back, which would be a handy way of getting around underwater.

These are the Liberty Lads, appearing three years before Johnny Tremain was published.

Liberty Lad Tom here demonstrates what not to do when trying to find the American Secret Service headquarters -- walk up to complete strangers on the street and openly ask them.

Sgt. Upjohn triggers a morale save with just a trip attack.

This is from the Adventures of Bill Handy. Here we get a rare look at a wild boar in comics. Curiously, guns are less effective than stabbing weapons against boars. Who knew?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Champion Comics #4 - pt. 1

Time to revisit the only comic book published by Worth Publishing, before being absorbed by Harvey. And the first feature is still The Champ.

I'm already intrigued by this first panel, and the suggestion that the helping hand helps the "dwarf" win the foot race. I've just recently talked about offering assistance in combat, but what if you could assist any roll in the game, like a skill check in a chase scene?

The traffic cop is an obstacle in a vehicular chase, even though only one party in the chase is using a vehicle.

The flying tackle is an attack roll, but desperately clinging is a skill check and not a grappling attack because the spare tire can't attack Champ back. 

By hitting the hedge, the driver introduces a chase obstacle; this means the chase rules are still in effect, even though Champ seems to have won the chase by catching up to the car. Because Champ is on foot vs. in a car, he is going to have to make his roll to overcome this obstacle at a severe penalty.

The Yellow Spider is Champ's first named villain.

The theta-ray is a new name for a raygun so cliched that I should just assign a 1 in 4 chance for every mad scientist to have one.

I'm much more interested in whatever device the Yellow Spider is using to make untraceable phone calls and, presumedly, monitor conversations in the room using the same phone while it's not in use.

Here's an unusual entrance to a hideout -- a cylinder suspended on a single cable that is lowered from and hoisted back up to an airship (blimp?) concealed in the clouds. The sleeping gas in the cylinder makes it difficult for guests to get the drop on the guards up top.

The ominous curtain, and talking from right behind the image of the huge yellow spider, are good details for a hideout.

The lie-detector chair is a good invention for both bad guys and good guys to have.

The midget has been called both a dwarf and an imp up to this point, but to be fair he does turn out to be the main villain, so I guess it's more fair to have made fun of him.

The Champ beats 7-to-1 odds -- pretty good for a fighter who would only be 2nd-level so far.

I really like the detail of how the airship has a catwalk around it and sections of it can be made to drop away by pulling levers. Sounds really dangerous for Heroes without parachutes!

This is from the next feature, Yaqui Gold. The Aztec sculptures look suitably authentic and were probably taken from photo references, but what I'm really interested in is the feel of the discovery of an underground passage and slowly exploring it with a flashlight -- this is what Hideouts & Hoodlums is all about!

I've talked on here long ago about how splashing water doesn't revive people at zero hit points, game mechanics-wise. I might, however, be willing to hand wave that if the victim was only stunned and about to wake up anyway.

Gold is not really a good substance for chains; I would give Jose a +1 bonus to wreck his way out of them.

Here at the beginning of 1940, it's interesting that Paris is still a city for espionage and not for open warfare.

Here we see thugs working for spies (I'm guessing I would stat Nina as a spy and not as a palm reader).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Action Comics #21 - pt. 2

'Chuck' Dawson's adventure starts with an interesting variation on the "message in a bottle" -- as someone chucks a flask containing a written warning into the canyon Chuck is traveling through. Like any good plot hook, the warning only encourages him to investigate and he uncovers kidnappers. Unfortunately, the story includes the racist stereotype that "half-breeds" are evil.

"Clip" Carson takes place in Algiers, the capital city of Algeria. Rescuing a man from attackers serves as both good deed and plot hook for Clip, as he winds up working as a guard on a caravan for the man he rescued. In a plot twist, the man told Clip he was delivering food to a sheikh, but is secretly an arms dealer; further, he plans to have Clip killed after the delivery, so he can't tell anyone he delivered arms to the sheikh. The sheikh's people are called "touregs" by the narrator, but what was meant was Touareg or Tuareg -- a Berber ethnicity indigenous to the Sahara region.

Because disguise is such an easy skill in comic books, staining your skin to look dark with a cigarette and water should be a basic skill check (as improbable as it may seem...).

This story is the first time I've seen the term "tractor car;" I suspect what the author means is a four-wheel drive vehicle, which were around but uncommon circa 1940 (in the late '30s they were considered luxury cars and produced by BMW and Mercedes-Benz). Clip tells us his tractor car can go 40 MPH over sand.

The "Clip" Carson art is much improved this issue by Sheldon Moldoff.

Tex Thompson is back home from his Africa adventures, home probably being Texas, even though the narrator never tells us so. This one's a murder mystery, and it's intriguing at first that the retired colonel is murdered right in front of Tex. Unfortunately, the clues are easy (why send a wooden figure to the victim made out of a special wood only you own?) and the explanation for where the knife came from is far from convincing. Also, there's the whole uncomfortably racist, nonhuman look of Gargantuan.

The Three Aces adventure starts in Alaska at the building of a Koyokuk Dam. I don't believe there is such a facility, though the Koyokuk River is real. None of the action takes place there, but it establishes that one job for aviators in their downtime is aerial photography. The Three Aces leave and fly over an unnamed mountain range, but in Alaska there are only three to choose from, the Alaskan Range, the Aleutian Range, and the Brooks Range.

Uncharacteristic of most fighter-types in comics, when Gunner, Fog, and Whistler arrive in town and see a fight in progress, but don't know the story behind it, they use nonviolent attacks like tripping and disarming to end the fight without hurting anyone.

The Three Aces help an old prospector who tells of his friend's find in the Mummy Range. It sounds made up, but there is such a place as Mummy Range -- only it's in Colorado, not Alaska. There is a Bald Peak in Alaska, so the old man's story is soon back on track.

Fred Guardineer's Zatara teams up with "Lord Ralway" in this month's story, but the dialogue strongly implies that Ralway is actually Lord Baskerville, of Sherlock Holmes fame. Sherlock Holmes is name checked as a real person, making this the first time he is added to DC canon.

Zatara casts a Levitate/Telekinesis spell powerful enough to lift a car into the air. He projects his astral form from his jail cell after being detained in a murder investigation. His astral form is invisible, but he can speak and be heard. His astral form can also fly and move through walls. Bizarrely, Zatara's astral form is able to carry Tong on its back, though perhaps he is simply levitating Tong directly behind him.

Zatara turns the bars of his cell into people, which seems ridiculously overpowered for a spell, even if it only lasts 1 turn. He turns a man into a salt cellar (what we would call a shaker today). Another man he ages by about 20 years. He turns the murdered body into a statuette so he's easy to carry. Tong -- who is way too understandable about this -- gets turned into a blood hound so he can sniff out Ralway's trail.

With another spell he causes all gun barrels to twist in a specific area. With another spell he gazes into a room he hasn't entered yet (Wizard Eye?). With another spell he teleports two people to him. With yet another spell he causes three large buckets of molten lead to appear in the room. He casts Cure Light Wounds on Tong, but we've seen him do that before. Lastly, he casts a spell something like Bigby's Grasping Hand to catch the two fleeing bad guys.

In a real surprise, Zatara says his magic has little effect on birds, so he is worried about three trained condors. There's no way to make the game mechanics do this without setting arbitrary weaknesses to spells, but that's not entirely unreasonable, as I've already added them to some of the race options.

Lastly, I would not put much stock in condors as a palpable threat, assigning them maybe 1/2 HD.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

Action Comics #21 - pt. 1

Superman is nearly a two-year old concept by this point. He still works for the Daily Star, so this is still taking place in Cleveland. Or is it? This is the first story in which the city is called Metropolis. Ultra-Humanite is still his main villain (now villainness). Clark Kent writes an article for the Daily Star about Terry Curtis and his atomic disintegrator, an article that Ultra reads, making Clark responsible for the danger Terry soon finds himself in. 

Although Clark gets a serious clue as to who Terry's new girlfriend is (she looks like the very actress Ultra's brain now inhabits? Hmm...), it takes him a surprising amount of time -- a week, in fact -- to guess at the truth (clearly he has not read much fiction and doesn't know how villains return from seemingly dying). Superman's player has to take the full blame for this, as there is no game mechanic for solving clues. It seems like the player was just tired of going after Ultra, feeling the Editor was forcing the same villain on him too often. Instead of being flexible, the Editor simply ups the ante, as Ultra is soon extorting $2 million from Metropolis over the threat of the disintegrator, forcing Superman to finally deal with this.

Ultra forces Terry's obedience with a "torture ray" that projects a blinding light into his eyes. It only takes several hours (1 rest turn) for the ray to break him. The new version of the disintegrator Terry makes is a raygun that can be mounted on the front of a plane. The narrator calls the plane a "fantastic air-vessel," but it clearly resembles a 1937 Boeing Flying Fortress. 

Ultra demonstrates the disintegrator on the Wentworth Tower. I can't find any evidence of anything like a Wentworth Tower in Cleveland, so that seems to be more evidence that we're in a fictional new city now.

Superman finally uses a power, Raise Building, to hold up the tower until all the bystanders are clear. It is very unclear if Superman is flying or leaping in this story. He manages to dodge the raygun in mid-air, but then has to descend to the ground. This is why I put into the power Leap III that the leaper can make a 45-degree turn in mid-air. 

That Superman is able to trigger an eruption in the volcano Ultra is using as his new hideout makes me suspect the location is Ecuadaor, since the last time a volcano erupted in the Americas was the Sangay Volcano there in 1934. Superman hitches a ride on an airplane -- on top of the airplane -- to get to Ecuador, so the only power we need concern ourselves with here is perhaps the use of Hold Breath when the plane rose too high in the atmosphere, or perhaps a Resist Cold/Endure Elements power to cope with the temperature at that altitude.

Ultra's hideout is a glass-sheathed "city" inside the volcano. It is the first, but not the last, time that Jerry Siegel would toy with the notion of hiding lost ruins of forgotten civilizations in Superman's world. 

Ultra sics "huge" robots on Superman, making it his first battle ever with robots. They appear to be man-sized, though.

Superman is stopped by a trap -- if he crosses a photoelectric beam in the room, a disintegrator raygun aimed at Metropolis will be turned on remotely. It's a diabolical trap, but it's got some issues. Could Ultra have really created an intercontinental remote control, or is he bluffing? And what if Superman just left the room, came around it, and broke through the opposite wall? Instead, Superman allows himself to be suckered into a false offer to trade Curtis' life for some "crown jewels" being stored in Metropolis. Perhaps Superman is just curious to see what Ultra's game is...

There is no explanation for why the crown jewels are in Metropolis, or what country they are from. It was long rumored, while war was raging in Europe, the UK shipped its crown jewels to the U.S. for safekeeping (and now it is rumored that they never left Windsor Castle). 

Superman returns to the U.S. by running up through the Americas. It is suggested by the narrator that he is only at outrunning train speeds, which means he might have taken days to get back. Race the Plane would have got him back home in 7 hours. 

Regardless, it is enough time for the National Guard and the city's police force to assemble to stop Superman (when Ultra phones ahead to tip them off).  They certainly don't come prepared; their one cannon is pre-WWI vintage. 

Superman makes a subtle use of wrecking things to wreck open a fire hydrant. A long time ago on this blog I talked about using the water pressure from a fire hose as a ranged push attack, but maybe it should be strong enough to do damage too?

Instead of just wrecking his way inside, Superman uses the power Wall-Climbing...I'm guessing because he expects to see the crown jewels through a window.

The National Guard get inventive with trying to stop Superman. They chop off the flagpoles so Superman can't use them to help climb (but he's using the power, so he doesn't need them). When that fails, they try to drop a safe on him from at least two stories higher up. The safe maybe weighs around 600 lbs (3 men can move it). So what damage would a 600 lb. safe cause falling two stories onto someone's head?  Someone weighing an average of 180 lbs. does 1-6 damage with a weapon. If we double that for each d6 of progression, we get 3-18 damage for the safe (rounded up). If the damage progresses at +1d6 per 180 lbs., we're still at 3-18 damage -- at this weight -- but that makes dinosaurs SUPER dangerous. It the safe falls 10' it takes/does 1-6 damage, +1d6 for each additional 10'. So we're up to a whopping 5-30 damage for the falling safe -- good call, National Guardsmen, this safe is about as dangerous as a cannon! Unfortunately, Superman comes up with an unusual use of the Raise Car power, negating damage when something is dropped on him (because he can lift it away). Indeed, Superman then buffs himself again with Extend Missile Range so he can toss the safe back up onto the roof (a harmless move, but one that might trigger morale saves at the Editor's discretion).

Superman takes the uncharacteristic action of holding the National Guard Commander over the side of the roof, to force the surrender of his men. It's unclear how he recognizes the man as the commander, since he's not wearing any special uniform. Presumedly, Superman was bluffing and did not really intend to drop the man to his death, but this early in his career no one knew that about him.

Superman is able to rip open a vault door as "tho' it were a toy," which is why all types of doors all wreck at the same category.

Superman is able to disregard tear gas because of the Different Physical Structure power and machine gun fire because of the Imperviousness power. 

The situation escalates when three Army fighter planes show up and bombard the floor Superman is on with gunfire -- presumedly killing all the National Guardsmen inside. Superman "outmaneuvers them" in a panel where he appears to be running on clouds. I'm not quite ready to introduce a Cloud Walking power yet, as I believe that was not the artist's intentions. Indeed, I believe Shuster intended that to be smoke from the gunfire around Superman, not clouds, but was changed by Siegel's narrative caption.

Superman returns to the volcano in Ecuador "shortly later," meaning that he definitely used a higher level Race the- power this time. Ultra immediately "double-crosses" Superman by trying to kill him in a death trap; it's unclear if Superman really planned to trade the crown jewels for Curtis until the double cross. The death trap is four panels that raise out of the floor around a 5' square and close in on a single target, each with two diamond-tipped drills set on the inside of the panel. One could presume this trap would do up to 8-48 damage, provided all eight drills hit. I would probably roll to hit for all eight (as 4 HD mobsters), accounting for the victim's ability to squirm in the available space and avoid them. Superman simply wrecks his way out of the trap. Not only does he wreck the drills, but he is shown to break the diamond bits in half with the force of his punch. It's difficult to assign a category to that, but I would go with battleships or dams. 

The atomic disintegrator also comes in rifle size, but this weapon is not a raygun; it shoots a thin beam (that looks like fire) that the attacker needs to roll to attack to use (spoiler: he misses Superman, so we don't find out if Superman is immune or not). 

Superman lets Ultra jump out of the room, assuming the volcano would kill him, feeling that wrecking the larger raygun is more important. Causing a volcano to erupt by wrecking things would be in the dam category.

Pep Morgan's feature follows; it's a standard vs. gamblers plot, but is marked by the meta-humor of Pep reading a copy of Action Comics.

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives vol. 2, the rest read at fullcomic.pro)