Amazing Man Comics #11 - part 1

Now that I'm finally publishing Amazing Man (see Funny Picture Stories #7 - on sale now!), covering this story might not only seem biased, but posting pages seems like it might hurt future sales - but oh well!

There are some big changes this issue, starting with how Aman seems to have dropped his first name, John. Gone also is the interesting struggle in John Aman between hero and antihero; the Council of Seven has decided these stories need to be a lot more straightforward from now on. 

Aman is "purified" by fire, but what this would mean game mechanically isn't clear. Is it simply a magical effect of Alignment correction? Is Aman taking damage from the fire? Given that his initial tests involved stabbing him with knives, I'm guessing he's taking damage. Aman is a really good sport about this, as I'm guessing they would not allow him to buff himself with the Resist Fire power. 

We begin to get some explanation here about why Aman is being dressed up like John Carter of Mars. Having an indestructible costume would normally be some comfort, but maybe Aman is secretly wishing it covered up enough of him to offer more protection? For that matter, how much should an indesctruble costume protect him?  In the 2nd edition rulebook, I have indestructible costumes being statted as Armor Class 2 (and remember, lower is better). My description wisely does not describe how much of the body needs to be covered by the costume, so maybe these straps and sternum hield are enough? Is what a costume looks like really no more than flavor text?

Has the purification ritual protected Aman from the Great Question's influence, or did Aman make his saving throw vs. charm?

It's just as well that Everett doesn't give us an exact number of days it takes to get from Tibet to Louisiana by plane. Even Google Maps can't tell me this today! What I can't figure out, which is probably more important, is where Aman was heading before he wound up near Louisiana. It certainly isn't on the way to Chicago or New York City from Tibet. Maybe he was planning on vacationing in Florida before fighting evil?

As far as I can tell, the "lost" in the "lost bayous of Louisiana" means that they have disappeared due to landscaping the terrain, as opposed to unmapped "lost world"-type areas. Still, this first interpretation is definitely more interesting and lends itself to adventure fiction.

This page attempts to explain away Amazing Man's John Carter rip-off togs as a "Tibetan uniform." Could this be the Great Question's final laugh at Aman, convincing him that this was the latest in Tibetan fashion?

I appreciate that Amazing Man has the subtlety, that you don't see often in superheroes, to climb a wall and oberve the bad guys unnoticed. Because he's climbing vines, I would probably still make the player roll a skill check, but at a large bonus. 

I like this hideout set-up, where the prison cells are behind a cell with three panthers in it (we'll see there are three of them on the next page). How Aman circumvents the panthers to get to the prisoner is great too, showcasing the versatility of this power. 

I've probably talked about this before, but I haven't posted in a long time and I can't remember. The issue is, how would Amazing Man have this power in H&H? Because Green Mist is not a 1st-level superhero power, or even a low-level one. It does bear some resemblance to the 1st-level magic-user spell, Poof! Could that be all it is - just an exception of allowing a Superhero to prepare a Magic-User spell as a power, and everything about it that isn't movement is flavor text?  

Three panthers is actually a pretty tough encounter in H&H, so it's disappointing that Aman takes them each out in one punch. It is more likely than them being knocked out that they have each failed their morale saves after taking damage and they choose to stop fighting. 

These bayou pirates have a lot of personality to them. We even get help with statting them. One is a brute (a variant of thug) and another is a slick hoodlum. Garlock, their leader, doesn't seem the master criminal type, but might be a mid-level fighter, since he can subdue panthers.

The brute gets upgraded on this page to pseudo-giant, a mobstertype that appears in the recently released Mobster Manual.  The throw is a very effective grappling move in the 2nd edition grappling rules - probably not enough on its own to take out a pseudo-giant, but Amazing Man may be buffed with one of the Get Tough powers to boost his damage. We also learn there are thugs present in the room (I see two of them, not counting Slick and Garlock).

Aman can be casual about what happens to the treasure because his Editor awards xp for treasure just for taking it out of the hideout. What happens to it after that doesn't matter if you don't have personal expenses!

But Aman is clearly gaming the system; there was no reason for him to kill those three alligators (he calls them crocodiles, but it makes sense that he did; he hasn't been in the U.S. more than six months). He obviously did it for the experience points!

What I like here is that Everett gives us almost a whole page of chemistry-building between Aman and Zona. Unlike Lois' attraction to Superman's animal magnetism, it looks like Zona is going to be attracted to how thoughtful Aman is (offering her his jacket for modesty) as much as for his rippling muscles. 

This next bit of research I had done back in November for the Public Domain Heroes Facebook group, but I'll reshare it here. 

I had long assumed that Amazing Man's companion, Zona Henderson, had a made-up first name, or it was a nickname (short for Arizona?). According to SSA.gov's baby names by years list - https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi - Zona was a real name, though a rare one, ranking 712th-820th most common baby name in the span of years I think she was most likely born.

And, of course, we get the familiar trope of televisions being able to function like crystal balls. 

Chuck Hardy has moved up to second feature (which, I understand, was not generally considered the second best position in a comic book; it went first, last, and then alternated in towards the center). 

Frog men last appeared in Fantastic Comics #3. They turn up like bad pennies!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 6

It's hard to believe there is so much we need to go over from this one issue, but here we are, squeezing out a few more pages for a 6th post!

We're still on the Rio Kid. I like this one story detail, where Keller has been trying to legally acquire that land all this time, but when he faces a last minute inconvenience his true nature is revealed and he tries to bully his way past it.

I can't be certain, as I've seen that trick shot stunt in a lot of cowboy stories, but this might be the first time I've seen a pen shot out of someone's hand. Considering that the Rio Kid is maybe five feet away from Keller, at most, and could simpy grab the pen away, makes me think Rio is just showing off. 

Panel 6 is confusing, as Rio appears to be gunning down Keller, but it is just someone else wearing the same shirt as Keller, because Keller shows up again in panel 7. It also looks like Rio is shooting the bad guys in the back as they're fleeing, but it's really just that one guy who has his gun in his hand. Rio "generously" allows the others to escape because they are unarmed. 

Panel 7 has several examples of hard cover. 

I had to look up "cayuse." According to Wikipedia, "Cayuse is an archaic term used in the American West, originally referring to a small landrace horse, often noted for unruly temperament. The name came from the horses of the Cayuse people of the Pacific Northwest."

If I was to do a cowboy-themed supplement someday -- which I've not ever fully ruled out -- I wonder if tough cowhands would need to be statted. They definitely are weaker than deputies.

Panel 6 confuses me. Does Kid Rio have some past with Keller we don't know about? Because it seems like Green has a score to settle with Keller, not Rio.

Bear with me on this -- this final feature is ridiculously racist -- but it is actually the first appearance of a pegasus in a comic book, not counting the pegasus-unicorns in Action Comics #6.

I like the quest - to bring back milk for undernourished children everywhere - and it seems very appropriate for a high fantasy scenario with half-pint protagonists. 

I'm also willing to forgive the racism on this page.  Assuming this is all in Marco's imagination, including Snowball, and Marco's only exposure to black people is from comic books, then it is entirely possible that he would imagine a black person looks like this.

I can't resist commenting on this page. For one thing, Ice Cream Mountains is wonderfully evocative and would be a good addition to a Candyland-themed campaign setting.  While the narrator calls them the Ice Cream Mountains, Snowball calls them the Tutti-Frutti Mountains. My first thought was that Snowball is using the term as a euphemism for an expletive (like "rassum-frassum"), but I see no evidence that tutti-fruitti was ever used as an adjective with negative connotations before the 1970s.  Tutti-frutti, as an ice cream flavor, has been around since the 1860s.

I also had to look up if there had been a particularly bad blizzard in 1899 or if that was a made-up detail. Sure enough, it was real!

I am tempted to stat snowmen as a mobstertype...

5,000 miles is just a fraction of the distance to the Moon. Not that the snowman is wrong; since we are already in the Milky Way Galaxy, you are there whether you go 5,000 miles or 1 mile.

The idea of an alien species that simply chooses not to age is an interesting one, more so than the Libertarian fantasy of a utopia the goat-riding baby alien espouses. Also more interesting is that the alien is riding a goat at all, which makes me think of Thor and his goat-drawn chariot.

Final feature! Now how the robbers think thousands of dollars is "the world's richest haul." This is entirely appropriate for a non-serious scenario.

$1,000 is a very generous reward for the theft of thousands of dollars and quite the xp boost for Buddy Braver. We also learn that a box of candy costs 50 cents. 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 5

We're back, and so is The Lone Eagle! Here we see the Lone Eagle being overcome by four-to-one odds, which I find refreshing, even if it will not be the norm in this adventure from here. Perhaps he levels up quickly! 

Note that LE isn't placed in a deathtrap, but just left behind and they assume he's dead. Who has time to check for a pulse or watch for breathing? 

Now panel 6 is a big mystery, though you might not have realized that it was Where is this "no-man's-land"? You might assume, like I did, this is France - but this was published in February 1940 and Germany did not invade France until May! In February, the world knew Hitler had his eyes on Norway, but most of the fighting in Europe was taking place between Finland and Russia. This panel is like someone wasn't paying attention to current events and just, by coincidence, predicted the future!

I'm amused how Lone Eagle, clearly an Air Force guy, is able to commandeer a tank just by pointing at it. "This isn't Hertz, Lone Eagle!" that officer should be saying (fun fact: Hertz rent-a-car goes back to 1918!). 

I'm calling shenanigans on being inside an exploding tank and emerging unharmed, unless Lone Eagle is secretly a superhero buffed by the Invulnerability power. I think 8-80 points of damage, for being caught inside when a tank explodes, seems more than reasonable.

How did Lone Eagle catch up with Brent? If Brent was there some time ago, asking for the fastest route to German Intelligence, why is he still wandering around the battlefield? Or, if the soldiers didn't believe him and took him into custody - again, how is he now wandering around the battlefield? I feel like we missed at least three pages of Brent's daring escape from confinement.

Lastly, I'm again amused, this time by how Lone Eagle has a secret pocket in that jumpsuit. Come on, LE, the "secret" compartment is one of those huge, obvious cargo pants pockets above your knees, right?  

Great, thanks to this page we need to address the unpleasant subject of torture. Comic book heroes get tortured more often than I enjoy seeing. The goal is never to beat the hero unconscious, but to break his spirit and make him act unheroic. But how to handle that as a game mechanic? It might make sense to consider the whip damage subdual damage -- the hero can no longer resist if he reaches zero hp -- but LE just got over 100 lashes and I'm guessing he doesn't have over 100 hit points. I think how I would handle this is, every time the hero is reduced to zero hp, he has to make a save vs. plot or be broken by the torture. If the hero makes the save, hit points are effectively restored to full and the process can start again. 

But even if the hero is broken, what does that look like? Is the player forced to roleplay blubbering? A player could simply spare himself the headache of the game mechanics and chose this, as it's not really a consequence. But what if the hero lost something crucial - like experience points - if broken? There is precedent for energy draining in the game and, while it's purely supernatural, torture is a draining experience too...

One can't help but wonder what the warden was doing, taking a late night stroll without guards through the prison...but before that is the mystery of how LE got out of his cell. Did he use wrecking things to bust the door down?

Nope, nope, nope - unless that plane was planning to drop a person onto the roof of the train, there is no way LE should be able to leap up to the plane. I can no longer ignore that LE is clearly statted as a superhero, despite his lack of a proper costume and other genre tropes. 

That a superhero could have so much trouble with a single pilot is very much in keeping with how I pictured the superhero class balancing out in H&H; being a relatively weak fighter when not buffed with combat-related powers. 

But he's not just a superhero; it seems pretty clear that he's going to win this 6:1 dogfight (spoiler from next page: he defeats three and then escapes), which suggests to me that he's at least a 3rd level aviator, in addition to at least a 1st level superhero.

I do like the smart tactics of the Germans - trying to stop this unstoppable killing machine indirectly rather than continuing to approach the train with that field gun on it.

There were a lot of comic books published around this time that proved to be prophetic, not that it was hard - during WWII, if you imagined the worst scenario possible, that usually happened sooner or later. This comic predicts a German invasion of the Netherlands three months before it actually happened. Apparently the Dutch failed to believe Lone Eagle's warning. 

Again, this story predicts the bombing of London seven months before it happened. It predicts the bombing of Berlin by four months, though clearly the author is wrong that bombing Berlin first stops the bombing of London.

"Gee, good thing you told us not to miss, Lone Eagle! We were aiming low for a 50-50 success rate!"

A 50-50 success rate is, of course, the norm for 1st-level characters in H&H.

Yes, the British RAF did use some American planes, but most of them were British-made. The implications of this story are, of course, that the English can't save themselves withou the U.S.'s help (again, largely true), and that Americans would seem like superheroes on the battlefield with Europeans (this is just propaganda).

Moving on, we return to what I have long dubbed the Mythic West, a "demi-plane," if you will, that allows for "Wild West" action in the modern day. 

Nueces, Arizona, is not a real place, but is likely named after Nueces County, Texas. 

Panel 3 has some rather disturbing implications.

I had to look up the use of punchers here. From the Internet: "In those early days of cattle drives the cattle were not particularly eager to enter loading chutes or box cars, so the cowboys poked or punched the cattle with long poles to get them in to the cars. The term was first recorded in 1880 and soon became a synonym for all those who worked cattle."  I don't think "Fork-D punchers" has any special meaning, other than they work for the Fork-D ranch...

I had to look twice to verify this, but the guy in the fight at the bottom isn't the Rio Kid; he's just some guy who's about to become Supporting Cast, and is probably at least a 2nd-level cowboy, given how well he's doing in this fight.

Boy, this is one violent comic book! This page is a nice reminder, though, that not everyone in a given organization is going to be the same Alignment. Here we have a Lawful jailer having a disagreement with the Chaotic sheriff. Turn this around when you're stocking your hideouts - make sure there are the occasional Lawful hoodlums who may turn on their bosses and help the Heroes!

Shooting a rope, while riding on horseback, would normally require a natural 20 on an attack roll (at least while I'm running the game) - but this is why the cowboy class, when it resurfaces in 2nd edition someday, will still need to have stunts. 

Tombstone is, of course, a real place. It is likely a portal site that exists in both the real world and the Mythic West, so one could leave Tombstone heading into either.

(Scans courtesty of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 4

We're back (after a LONG time away!), still with the Three Comrades, though you'll only see two of them on this page. 

Max should be statted as a guard, or maybe a beat cop. 

Note that our two Heroes intentionally surrender to Von Sneer, no doubt to learn what he's up to. If they'd wanted to, they could have rushed him, even from across the room, and still gone before him if they'd won initiative (which I see happen in comics a lot!).

It's worth noting that Heroes shouldn't have to worry about what languages they know, but you're encouraged to take this benefit away from non-Hero characters. This is a good way to give Heroes another advantage over normal people (and here, greatly assists the plot!).

This page brings up an interesting point, because a lot of the time Heroes are tied up for deathtraps, but are almost never gagged. And they almost never yell for help either. Now, we don't expect them to because it doesn't come off as very heroic, but it is certainly the most natural reaction to being tied up. 

I am skeptical about allowing a filing cabinet tipping over on someone to knock them out - though it will famously be super-effective against Iron Man years later - and would probably allow this to do no more than 1 point of damage. Of course, it's possible for mobsters to only have 1 hit point!

That's a really good guess as to what the oil drums are for. I probably would have guessed they were smugglers myself, but this makes for a better story with higher stakes.

It's weird how physics work in comic books to feed the narrative. A filing cabinet tipping over knocks out a guard, but Lucky bounces down a flight of stairs, caught halfway in a barrel, and seems virtually unharmed. Two thoughts: 1) this proves that damage ranges are a thing, and 2) it makes me wonder if objects should be able to soak damage. I have ruled before if you fall on a person, you can half your damage and transfer the other half to the person you're landing on. But if we applied that to inanimate objects...then armor has to work much differently game mechanics-wise. I think we'll skip this for now.

"Attaboy, Lucky, keep 'em busy killing you!" Seriously, how is Lucky not dead, as the mobsters shoot down at him at short range and he's only moving as fast as a motorboat attempting to match to their vessel? Luckily, in the hands of a 1 HD mobster, even sub-machine guns only get 1 attack per turn. 

I am as unconvinced by that wooden beam being able to do that as I was by the filing cabinet. This is a very generous Editor these boys' players have.

Using the oil seemed an ingenious move at first, but wouldn't starting a fire with it have been more effective?

We're done with those crazy kids and moving onto the next feature, The Woman in Red. The violence level is pretty extreme in this feature, with a man being shown (granted, in silhouette) hanging from the rope that you see on this page on the previous page, and on this page you get a knife thrown into someone's neck (again, granted, not the first time I've seen that in a golden age comic book; it even features into Amazing Man's origin story). 

I mainly include this page for two points. One, American mansions have a tendency to be castles or have many castle-like features in golden age comic books -- and that is a good thing, because you can freely borrow castle maps from That Other Game and use them here and they fit this game. And secondly, telling the handedness of someone from how they tied a knot sounds like a basic skill check to me.

Okay, one more observation - other than having very pronounced cheekbones, there doesn't seem to be anything too terrifying about The Terror.

 

Since The Woman in Red and The Terror are both unencumbered and, hence, moving at the same movement rate, it's only natural that WiR fails to catch up. 

 

Here, we learn that you can open a secret door and still get a surprise turn after. 

 

A 200' drop is a very tall castle, unless this also accounts for a dry moat at the base of the castle wall too? 

 

It's not clear where the mysteriously handy rope is hanging from. Depending on how far down she is when she passes it would help me determine how fast she's falling and, from that, the AC to reach out and "hit" the rope -- AC 9 in the first second, AC 7 in the second second, AC 4 in the third second - by then she's fallen more than halfway. I might also require a Strength or a Dexterity check (whichever is better on the 1st second; whichever is worse on the 3rd second) to determine if she can keep a hold on the rope after catching it, or if her downward momentum pulls her past it. 

 

I'm puzzled by what that shape is in front of the window, as I'm not aware of that being a castle feature. I mean, it makes sense, as it makes it harder for anyone to smash through the window and fit inside, but I just don't know what that pole would be called.  

 

I wish I had enough detail to map this castle, because we keep getting tantalizing glimpses of how elaborate it is. So far we have a rooftop access door from a tower, multiple staircases, rooms that are only accessible by secret doors and outside windows (or by digging your way into them), and a literal dungeon with cell doors (double-barred no less) on the same floor with a library.
 

 

More interesting points - the Woman in Red gives away her real name in order to gain someone's trust, a rare instance of a gun being used to disarm a knife, and in the Scooby Doo-esque climax we learn that the butler - that is, someone named Butler - did it.

 

 

 

 

Here's a quick look at the next feature, which gives us two novel twists - one, a new location to rescue a damsel in distress from, and two, a new "Macguffin" - a military code book (thank goodness it's not yet another new invention!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)
 

 

  

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 3

Well I'll be...I called this issue #2 in my last two posts, but it's been issue 3 I've been reviewing all this time! Sorry if I confused anyone.

It's been a long while since we last visited The Ghost, but you might recall he was tossing around Wish-level spells all over before the scenario even got started. Now that he has mobsters to fight, we get - Knock, Mirror Images, and throwing a dagger instead of casting a spell. Wow, this is what a mid-level magic-user looks like!

In my current Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign, we just had a long scene of the Heroes mixing it up with police in a precinct house, so it's interesting to see how quickly The Ghost is able to muscle his way in to see the ...Captain? Commissioner? - after just levitating a beat cop out of his way.

That is a strange spell that gets cast mid-page. It's not a Phantasmal Image because The Ghost doesn't know what the spell will reveal. It seems closer to Object Reading, the psionic power. It's also unusual to have a golden age Hero's initial hunch turn out to be wrong.

Now this is interesting! Only some magic-users have ever shown Achilles Heels - like needing to be holding their wand, or needing the use of their hands - The Ghost has to be facing you.

Wall of Force stops the car. 

It's interesting how The Ghost only sometimes bothers to use his "ghost" look and other times just walks around like a normal guy. I wonder how he decides...?

I also wonder -- is that chair a Chair of Scrying, like a comfy Crystal Ball?

The Ghost uses Levitate to save himself from bullets. I find it so refreshing to see so many 2nd-level spells getting used!

Hypnotism, or Charm Person spell? 

We don't know exactly how many hit points The Ghost has, but a surprise head blow can take him out.

The Ghost casts Wizard Eye through the door.

I like the details of that trap; it's a trap that, if you play it just right, helps the Heroes free themselves from it. Of course, you need to have Heroes weak enough not to be able to break rope...

Normally, in a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign, exploring an entire hideout from cellar to roof could take multiple play sessions; here, we see it come to pass in a single caption. It's rather remarkable, I think, that the only clue he finds in the whole building are the pigeons on the roof. I wonder how many "secret door" rolls he failed on his way though the house...

I'm not sure what to make out of a spell that makes pigeons leave flaming trails. Some sort of Feed Jalapenos to Birds spell? Or perhaps this is just a generous interpretation of the Find the Path spell?

I believe I already have a Detect Lie spell in my game (or should if I don't). Is there any difference between Detect Lie and Speak Only Truth?

Out of all the spells in The Ghost's repertoire, what impresses this guy is the Change Self spell. 

I've never heard of a trick gun like that, but now I think it should be a minor trophy item. 

When did The Ghost cast that spell, turning the bullets to vapor? While writing the suicide note? After grabbing the gun away? As the bullets are being shot? Possibly the first two options, if the spell was cast off-panel, but it's hard to believe Tanko didn't notice. I think he could realistically have cast it at the beginning of the melee turn before being grappled by Tanko.  

Also...Tanko? That's an African name. Is it a nickname here? 

Ignoring the panel where the lights go out, but we can see everything...there are some strange reactions to magic in this story. Like, the phantasmal faces trick the chief into confessing...instead of just running away?

Was the matchbox ever admissible evidence? I bet it's not now, since a roomful of witnesses saw this appear out of nowhere. How do you prove it's the same matchbox? 

Moving on...I'm more amused than anything else by this page of the next story. For one, the "Three Comrades" are hanging out in what appears to be a middle class German restaurant, and the two German spies dressed up for a fancy nightclub aren't attracting any attention to themselves. What amuses me even more is how much Books looks like Peter Parker.

At least Cal thought the spies were suspicious. You can always count on Non-Heroes controlled by the Editor to fail to notice anything suspicious about a name like Baron Von Sneer, even though that just screams "comic book villain!" to the rest of us. 

Wow...you can also always count on European villains to have castle hideouts, even when just visiting the U.S. The caption calls it a mansion, but I know a castle when I see one...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Thrilling Comics #3 - pt. 2

Here we have Dr. Strange using wrecking things, only to find his great strength "sapped." This actually happens just like that in Hideouts & Hoodlums, when activated powers run out and you're out of powers to activate. By waiting until the next day for his deathtrap, the villains have actually given him time to regain all his powers from the previous day.

I'm tempted to stat wild hill warriors as berserkers. I could also make them 2nd level fighters, using the level title of warrior from That Other Game.  I could also just use natives, since that's the broad stereotype being used here. 

I've never seen elephants in an arena before! Too bad Doc has Raise Elephant prepared. And a Leap power (looks like II or better) that makes escaping from an arena super-easy. 

As unstoppable as Dr. Strange seems to be, you have to wonder why he doesn't stay at the arena and take out Kong then, and sneaks back in disguise later. Maybe because there's more pages to fill...?

"You're fighting for freedom, men! Don't waste your shots! Keep dropping like flies - even though I could have wrecked my way through that wall for you at any time!"

Or could he? Dr. Strange has to be at least level 3, the bare minimum for wrecking stone walls, but he could also just be rolling poorly and failing to wreck the walls the whole fight so far. 

Or..maybe he really did not try wrecking through the wall until now. This is an early precedent for a trope of the superhero genre to come, that says superheroes try to stay neutral in the course of events until something occurs that ordinary people can't deal with on their own, like a deathray. Of course, not every superhero respects this trope - like Superman himself, who almost exclusively dealt with mundane crime despite being able to do so much more. 

Is this our first evidence that Doc is Neutral in Alignment? Hmm...

Interestingly, the deathray can only affect a single target at a time. So, even though it is killing them like a deathray, it is also, game mechanics-wise, perhaps no different than a Magic Missile spell (with cool flavor text). 

And here we've got a line-up of standard cliches - the big cat (a panther, this time) in the cage, the damsel in distress...and somehow Doc gets to the panther before it gets to the damsel? Now, I've covered many times before in this blog that random initiative needs to trump common sense when it comes to who goes first in a comic book story, but, Doc is wrecking things in the same turn that the panther is first attacking. So, we can only assume, then, that the panther missed with every attack on Virginia, even though it didn't even need to roll very high (reminds me of my rolls when I'm playing!). 

So, we also get the cliches of a big cat being killed (SIGH), and the villain threatening to blow himself up to take out the Hero. I bet it doesn't work...

Hmm...now, if I was running this scenario, I would have let Kong drop the potion as a free action; that is too easily done, and not a direct attack, for it to be trumped by initiative. 

Also, why not use Kong's raygun to revive the men, instead of experimenting with Alosun in a totally untested way (though, I suppose, Doc could argue that they're already dead, what worse could happen to them?)?

Here's a new character and an interesting twist on Tarzan and the Jungle Book. Instead of the infant being raised by animals, he's raised by yogis in India. They teach him potent spells like Rope Trick and ...Wall of Force, to stop mad dogs with? That seems a bit like overkill.

*SIGH* ...what I wouldn't give to read a magic-user story that doesn't throw around ridiculously overpowered spells all the time. Causing a submarine to rise into space ...well, that's got to be a Wish spell. So we've already given The Ghost 17 brevet ranks! Just to get him through a wandering encounter!

Here we get a dose of more insanely powerful magic being tossed about haphazardly -- a Telekinesis spell as powerful as the Raise Trolley Car power, and a Teleport Sandwich spell able to reach around the world. 

Chance's only interest in fighting crime is when the man who just hired him to entertain at parties was murdered. Had the man not been murdered, would Chance have been content to be a party magician instead?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)