Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1984 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around November 17, 1983.

Swamp Thing #21: I read this story first in Best of DC #61 (March 1985) along with the NTT story from last month and the LSH backup this month. It blew my mind at 12 years old, and it is still a great story today.  Swamp Thing has been transferred to Sunderland Corp for study and put in the hands of the Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue, who Moore and Bissette give a creepy update in a way that will set the standard for late 80s "more mature" updates. His dissections reveal that the Swamp Things vegetable replicas of human organs are nonfunctional. The bombshell reveal is that Swamp Thing is not, and never was, Alec Holland. He isn't a man transformed into a plant creature but rather unicellular life that mutated into a new organism thanks to the bio-restorative formula that just believed it was Holland after it consumed his remains. Woodrue leaves his notes where the Swamp Thing can find them. When it realizes the truth of its condition--that no cure is possible--it flies into a rage, breaks out of the lab, and kills Sutherland.

Power Lords #3: While there isn't a whole lot to the story here, Fleisher and Texiera/Marcos certainly bring the action. It's pretty much nonstop, and the art looks good. Fighting the forces of the badguys, the Power Lords realize they will soon be overrun and flee so that they can switch tactics. Arkus has called and assembly of worlds so they he can give his terms for their surrender, or they'll face the might of his battle station. Sydot and Shaya infiltrate the proceedings but get captured. Adam manages to defeat the enemy force in deep space and comes to the rescue. He assaults Volcan Rock itself, and defeats Raygoth, Gryptogg, and finally Arkus in one-on-one fights. The galaxy is saved, and the Power Lords disappear from comics for about 42 years.

Batman and the Outsiders #7: Barr and Aparo pick up right at last issue's cliffhanger. It looks like Batman and crew are popsicles, but Halo saw the cryonic attack coming and managed to turn her heat power on. Once she's out, she melts free her teammates. She also figures out Katana's sword is sentient and can lead them to where the Cryonic Man has taken her. They crash his lair and engage in battle before he can harvest Katana's organs. Speaking with the Cryonic Man's "family" telepathically, the team learns that they had put themselves in suspended animation in 1947 in order to survive the nuclear war they were sure was coming. Phillip (the Cryonic Man) was revived at a later date to insure that the threat had passed, but in the name of saving his wife from a progressive and ultimately fatal illness, he's being lying to them about the year and the conditions, playing for time. Learning the truth and that they were betrayed, the Cryonic Man's family strike him down with some sort of psychoelectric blast before allowing themselves to die.

Green Lantern #173: The cover announces the new creative team of Wein and Gibbons, though they started last issue. Hal is still getting reacquainted with life back on Earth and his old job, but all his old friends aren't glad to see him. Even after Hal saves Rich Davis' life, the man thinks to himself that Hal is going to spoil things. Clay Kendall is doing psionic experiments, which I'm sure will be fine. Meanwhile, the villain Javelin has been hired to hijack a truck heading to Ferris Aircraft and steal a new engine. Green Lantern intervenes, but the Javelin surprises him with an exploding javelin that coats Jordan in yellow plastic, cancelling his ring's ability to keep him flying!

Oh, and the Monitor and Lyla show up this issue, up to their (by all appearances) nefarious ends. The Monitor seems to be involved in weapons trafficking.

The Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Cavalieri and Gibbons is a silent/wordless story. It shows the events in the "life" of a ring, as a Lantern is killed in battle, but passes the ring on to a member of a primitive species on the planet where he crashed. The new Lantern uses the ring to advance his civilization and defend his people until he too falls in battle and the ring finds a successor.

Legion of Super-Heroes #308: Levitz, Giffen, and Mahlstedt continue the Prophet attack on Khundia. The biggest threat here, though, may be distrust and political division, as the six Legionnaires that followed him to fight him are viewed as someone complicit, and the rest of the Legion is forced to standdown or precipitate a wider diplomatic incident.

The real point of interest in this issue for me, though, is the Colossal Boy backup, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" by Levitz/Giffen with art by Tuska/Mahlstedt. As mentioned above, it's another one of the stories featured in that seminal (at least for me as a young comics reader) anthology Best of DC #61. This story is a nice bit of character stuff (no action at all) clearly riffing on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). It is slighter on social commentary than the equivalent story would be today, no doubt, but the fact that they did it at all in 1983 shows how comics were evolving. Rereading it in 2024, I was pleased with its humorous touches and the warmth of it that still works after 41 years.

Sgt. Rock #384: The main story is another of Kanigher's "honorable opponent; brutality of war" riffs with a canny Wehrmacht sergeant who seems Rock's match in both warcraft and honor going up against Easy, but ultimately losing, in part because the SS shelled his men and well as Rock's.  After that, there's a one page humor strip by Bilby (2nd of the 3 credits in his DC career), and a reprint from 1971 of a story of Egyptians versus Persians with moody art by Toth.

Supergirl #16: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner have Giffen's Ambush Bug guest star, a character whose first appearance Kupperberg scripted. The cover is by Giffen and Oksner. Ambush Bug breaks out of jail and decides to become a superhero instead of a villain. Otherwise, he's up to the same old silliness. He gets in the same of Supergirl trying to track down a Stradivarius violin stolen by the notorious musical instrument thief, the Bandit. After her friend Phil Decker is kidnapped, Supergirl discovers that the Bandit wants him to conduct an orchestra consisting of crooks playing all the various stolen instruments in the hopes of creating the supreme orchestra performance. Supergirl manages to stop him and bring Ambush Bug back into custody, though Ambush Bug sees through her secret I.D.

Thriller #4: This issue has a lot of action, and the visual storytelling light gives it a great feeling a breakneck pace. Unfortunately, beyond that sense of motion it's hard to make sense of what's going on except in broad strokes. Salvo plummets to his confrontation with Scabbard on a speeding train, while the other members of the 7 Seconds race to get in position as well. Salvo rescues Dan from Molly Lusk and knocks her out. Salvo goes to the top of the train where Scabbard is waiting with a detonator in his palm to blow up Salvo's and Angie's mother, Marietta. Dan almost falls to his death, Data gets stuck in the mud and he and Crackerjack may not make it in time. We keep jumping between close shots of the participants, as Salvo shoots off Scabbard's hand apparently (which Crackerjack catches), Beaker Parrish saves Dan, and a helicopter blade cuts off Scabbards head. Molly, shocked, pulls the emergency cord, and the train screeches to a halt, injuring Marietta. Beaker and Angie save her (somehow) by Angie inhabiting Beaker which melts his artificial flesh. The mysterious Quo shows up and switches Molly's and Marietta's eyes (or at least their eye color?), restoring Marietta's sight and making Molly blind. Our heroes go home.

Warlord #78: I covered the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal and crew set out across the desert on lizard-back to find the advanced enclave that took down their salvaged starship. Unfortunately, they first run into an ambush by a group of slavers with a tank.

New Talent Showcase #2: The Kellogg/Mandrake Sky Dogs open this issue. It's more fast-paced but not terribly compelling derring-do, with Kidd and his crew trying to acquire the Crown of Siva and the Seven Jewels of Power but having to contend with the sorcerer Melin.

In the Klein/Hampton Class of 2064, Perrin is trying to get close to Chryse, which is trouble because the Free Earth extremists are after Chryse for something she unknowningly carries.  Chryse manages to escape them, but she's left stranded on their hot air balloon with no way to control it. Pern and Tycho still a small ship and race to the rescue.

Gary Kwapisz delivers the done-in-one "Danger Dungeon," a numerous story where a high school kid winds up in the dungeon fantasy setting of his daydreams. The jokes are stale, but there's an indie vibe to this one that gives it some charm.

Last up, Margopoulos/Woch continue Forever Amber. Our heroine manages to book passage to San Francisco, enduring sexual assault to get closer to her vengeance. She does turn their cargo of opium to amber in revenge as she leaves the ship... and immediately gets picked up by the cops!

A More Realistic Middle Earth

Listening to the History of the Germans podcast in episodes about the struggle for power between the Papacy and the Hofenstaufen Holy Roman Emperors, when reading a bit of a MERP supplement started me thinking about righting a post about a grittier, more realistic Middle Earth. Then I discovered I already sort of had written a post like that, back in 2020...

If we take The Silmarillion as Elvish mythology (which it is) promoting a slanted point of view, then most of the doings in Middle Earth are a proxy conflict between two super-powers: Sauron and his minions and the Valar and the Elves. We needn't assume either side is particularly good, In fact, we know the Valar unleashed a devastating weapon of mass destruction against their former allies in Numenor just for getting too cozy with Sauron.

In the modern era, Sauron's forces have been engaged in a protracted occupation of  Eriador. Through the action of the Mordor proxy Angmar, the Western kingdoms of Man were shattered, much of the population fled south, but fanatical bands, the Rangers, structured around the heir to throne of Arnor and Gondor, and supported by the Elves, continued to fight an insurgency against Mordor's Orcish forces and her allies.

Sauron has been a distant and not terribly effective leader for some time. He has been unable to consolidate Angmar's victory over Arnor (a victory that saw Angmar destroyed in the process) and unable to wipe out the remaining Elvish enclaves and human insurgents.

You get the idea. Shorn of much of its epic fantasy trappings, Middle Earth becomes a grittier place, where Men, Orcs, and local Elves, are all dealing with the aftermath of a terrible war wrought by super-powers that they perhaps only have the smallest of stakes in but yet are forced to take most of the risk.

Seems like an interesting place to adventure. It's certainly place where you can get a more interesting mix of adventurers and adventures, perhaps.

Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1984 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics released on the week of Novenber 10, 1983. 

New Teen Titans #39: Acting on information provided by Bethany Snow, the Teen Titans invade an Alaskan base of Brother Blood's cult and find proof he's got members of Congress and other political figures in his pocket. Terra secretly reports the Titans' activities (complete with video from a contact lens camera) to the Terminator and then engages in a very serious training exercise where he's really impressed with her power.  At the next Titans meeting, Kid Flash formally announces that he is leaving the team to focus on college. After goodbyes are said, Robin drops the bombshell (unless you've read Batman #368) that he's giving up his costumed identity too—not because he is retiring, but because he intends to take on a new one to step out of Batman's shadow. He just doesn't know what that will be yet, so he proposes Donna as field leader until he figures it out. With Terra there when all this is happening, the Terminator now knows Robin's and Kid Flash's identities.

Batman #368:  Moench and Newton/Alcala pick up where last month's issue of Detective left off with Bruce and Jason discussing codenames for him. Dick shows up and solves the problem, but announcing his retirement as Robin, bequeathing the identity to Jason. Weirdly, Jason abandons his updated version of the Robin outfit with long pants, for the shorts and elf-shoes look. Later, Batman and Robin go out on their first patrol and discover that Crazy Quilt is out and must be looking for revenge against Robin. Trying to protect his new sidekick, Batman leaves Robin behind to investigate some multi-colored lights. It's a ruse, though, and once Robin is alone, he's attacked by Crazy Quilt, who can't tell this is a new Robin. When Batman realizes he has been tricked, he returns to Robin, only to find him lying motionless, and he assumes the Boy Wonder has been killed.

Arak Son of Thunder #30: Randall's cover seems to be an homage to Conan the Barbarian #100. The Thomases and Randall/Forton pick up where last issue left off. Arak, having lost his will and become a priest of Artemis, is about to kill his friend Satyricus. Suddenly, a literal bolt of lightning out of the blue strikes the grove containing the Temple of Artemis and restores Arak's mind. Maximus, the wizard who intends to use the satyr blood to grant himself immortality sends his soldiers to attack. While Arak fights them, the sorcerer heads for the golden bough because once he touches it with the axe wet with satyr blood, he'll become immortal.

The Amazons try to stop him, but he overcomes them with magic, transforming them into their lioness forms and sending them to kill Arak. Arak is forced to kill all but Dyanna who was too strong to be controlled. She moves to thwart Maximus, jumping onto the golden bough and breaking it--and its magic. Arak then beheads the raging wizard. Dyanna disappears into the forest, the last survivor of her people.

In the Valda backup by the Thomases and Randall/Yeates, Valda is forced to make a deal with Baledor where she most wear the cursed suit of (ahistorical) armor which will control her mind. However, that gives Malagigi and opening, and he causes a rogue wave to destroy Baledor's castle. Still, he is imprisoned, and Valda remains in thrall leading us to the point where they entered Arak's saga.

Flash #330: Cavalieri joins Bates on scripting. After visiting Fiona in rather over-the-top psychiatric hospital (she's in 4-point restraints in a padded room) and teaching a lesson to a crooked employee planning to sell her story to the tabloids for money, the Flash agrees to look into the disappearance of the kid, Angelo Torres, for the police department. Grodd lures the Flash into another dimension, where the amplified mind-power of Angelo Torres and the the powers Grodd has given the Vultures gang members lead to the Flash's super-speed being slowly siphoned away so he's vulnerable. Infantino's stylization of the environment of the alternate dimension is the most interesting part of the issue.

G.I. Combat #262: The Mercenaries again get the cover. The story by Kanigher/Vicatan, continues and this trip to Cambodia is easily the most fantastic adventure we've seen yet. A room full of cobras is mundane compared to the river monster and yeti that turn out before this thing is done. As we most Mercenaries yarns, they wind up doing good (mostly) and also wind up not getting paid what they thought.

The first Haunted Tank story has the brass deciding to add a fifth crewman to the tank, and they choose Sgt. Craig's son. Craig tries to ride him hard to get him to request a transfer, but the kid sticks with it and wins his place after the two of them help a trapped Maquis leader escape the Nazis. In the second story, Rick is haunted by death of a young man he shot in a hunting accident before the war. The past becomes present, when he finds the older brother of that man also in the vicinity and stalking him for revenge. The two have to team up to escape a shack surrounded by Germans, but the other man still promises vengeance.

In the last story by Kasdan/Cruz an ammo truck driver with a lifelong fear of explosives wins a pyrrhic victory over fear when he gives his life ramming his truck into a German tank.

Nathaniel Dusk #1: MacGregor and Colan present a straightforward detective story. The art is interesting, because it looks as if it wasn't inked, but just colored from Colan's tight pencils. Anyway, it's January 31, 1934. P. I. Nathaniel Dusk has been working a divorce case, and as he heads to his office from a newsstand, two thugs (Gugenheim and Pichano) are watching him from a car. After delivering news of her husband's adultery to his client, Mrs. Grant Morrison (!), he goes out for drinks with his girlfriend Joyce and the thugs follow. Gugenheim goes into the bar, but Dusk had apparently already spotted the tail and confronts him. They fight, but Gugenheim's ferocity surprises Dusk, and the thug gets aways. After spending the rest of the evening with Joyce at her place, Dusk returns to his office to find the thugs waiting. Gugenheim calls "Blondie" telling him to "go to work." The thugs then take Dusk at gunpoint to the top of a building and after all scuffle, knock him over the edge.

Omega Men #11: Slifer and Smith/DeCarlo have Primus and the others bring Harpis to Raggashoon where she used to be employed as a sex worker so her form boss, Mama Madame, can use psychodrama to cure her nervous breakdown. Surprisingly, that seems to work. Before then though, we get to see the origins of Harpis and Demona, and to some degree the Omega Men as a team. Harpis' and Demona's backstory what with forced physical transformation via Blackfire's experimentation, and sexual assault by her troops is pretty dark, but she gets a happy ending (sort of) by being reunited with her lost love who didn't die but just became a cyborg.

Star Trek #1: Barr and Sutton/Villagran bring the maroon uniform era of the Star Trek films to comics. This is the third American comics series for Star Trek, following Gold Key's and Marvel's. It comes between Star Trek II (1982) and III (June 1984). Klingon cruisers surprise and destroy USS Gallant in the Neutral Zone, leading to the death of all the crew, including Captain Bearclaw and Science Officer Bryce.

Kirk (again in command of Enterprise) and his old crew (minus the deceased Spock) are sent to the Neutral Zone. The ship also carries new crew members including Ensigns Bearclaw and Bryce, each of whom blames the other's father for their father's death. At the Neutral Zone, after an engagement with the Klingons, they discover how the cruisers are able to appear and disappear--the Klingon's have found a way to stabilize a wormhole. And at the other end is a Klingon space station.

There's also a subplot with a Klingon Ensign, Konom, who seems uncomfortable with his people's actions and surreptitiously helps Enterprise. All in all, it's a very Trekian story, compared to what we've seen in comics before.

Superman #392: Bates/Maggin and Swan/Hunt bring this storyline to a weird conclusion. Not because Srakka's (the ameboid parasite controlling Vartox) plot to use Lana to draw Superman into a fight where he can become Srakka's new host fails, but because Vartox's spirit? essence? in the body of Lana's stalker is part of saving the day, and Lana declares both Vartox and stalker guy her heroes. She's going to get the stalker guy a job at the TV station! Now, I misinterpreted his actions last issue, so looking back he isn't as malevolent figure as I thought. But he's still a guy she pushed off a balcony (accidentally) and he kept coming! And he's a guy with a Lana manikin in a room in his apartment he talks to as if she's real! Doesn't seem wise to be encouraging him, I don't think.

Over the Garden Wall returns

 In case you missed it, last week was the 10th anniversary of Over the Garden Wall. They released this stop-motion short that was pretty cool:

Early Modern Magic

I read some interesting stuff this week on magical belief in the early modern era. Specifically, magic used for protection from weapons, surely a common interest of soldiers of the era and D&D adventures alike.

A Historical Fencer's Primer on Late Medieval and Early Modern Magic

From the German Wikipedia, the concept of "Gefrorner" which meant to be invulnerable to harm.

And finally, a scholarly article: "Invincible blades and invulnerable bodies: weapons magic in early-modern Germany" from the European Review of History.

Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands on the week of November 3, 1983. 

Atari Force #2: After how good the first episode was, I suppose it's natural the second might be a bit of a letdown. We're still "getting the band together," so we check in on Pakrat and Babe who pretty much repeat their story beats from last issue. Tempest faces prejudice from his (former) girlfriend and her father due to his mutant powers. Morphea has a chat with Martin Champion, who we find out is viewed as a bit of a kook because he believes there's an evil force behind the strife and conflict in this part of the galaxy (spoiler: he's right). The real spotlight here is on Dart, though. She and Blackjack have taken up with the rebels after their former employer burned them, but she winds up having to go one-on-one against Warbeast, a creature sent by the Dark Destroyer. 

DC Comics Presents #66: Wein and Kubert bring in Etrigan the Demon for his last appearance before Moore gets ahold of him in Swamp Thing. And there's an interesting thing: Etrigan rhymes here. I had always thought that was a Moore invention, as it wasn't an original attribute of the character, but no, Wein does it first. Anyway, Prof. Lang unveils an ancient, wooden statue of a Druid at an event, but it turns out that it isn't a statue but the actual evil druid, Blackbriar Thorn, who was turned to wood for his crimes. He comes to life thanks to astrological conditions, and Superman and the Demon must do battle against his sorcery. He's defeated through cleverness as Superman lifts the group he is standing on, severing his connection with his elemental powerbase, and throws him into space.

Kubert is an unusual choice for the Demon or Superman, but he draws a great wooden druid. What this issue most makes me think about is the real lack of rigorous formula for inclusion in the Who's Who, at least around the edges, as Blackbriar Thorn (1 appearance) gets an entry while Black Eagle (strip headliner with 6 appearances!) did not. I suspect the fact that Wein was editor of Who's Who had something to do with it. 

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #10: Dark Opal is seeking fragments of various houses gems so he can usurp their magical power. He doesn't have them all yet but next on his list is amethyst. There is an amethyst gem fragment in his domain thanks to Granch, but Opal hasn't found it yet and Amethyst and friends want to retrieve it. Topaz goes to convince his sister to join the rebellion while Amethyst and Princess Emerald face Carnelian.

Blackhawk #267: The death of Blackhawk's doppelganger provides ad opportunity. He hatches a plan (with Churchill's blessing) to let the world believe he has died, then infiltrate Germany pretending to be the doppelganger, Agent Schoener, and kill Hitler. Beyond that, a lot of the issue is given over to exploring the Blackhawks' attitudes toward Germans. They tell us several times that the German people are fundamentally different from other nations, and that Hitler has them utterly in thrall. Blackhawk's assumptions are challenged when he meets and falls for a waitress in a German restaurant. She happens to be a "Helga," having the same first name as Domino. All of this is fine but poorly integrated thematically, I feel like, with the main story, involving Blackhawk's failed assassination attempt and swift escape. Still, I appreciate the depth Evanier and Spiegle are trying to give the title.

Fury of Firestorm #20: Conway and Kayanan/Rodriquez are mostly doing setup this issue. Firehawk (Lorraine Reilly) and Firestorm start their relationship, much to the discomfort of Martin. On the plus side for him, he gets his job back, though maybe it isn't so much of a plus since it's due to the machinations of whatever shady entity his ex-wife is working with. Then, Killer Frost escapes prison, kills a few people and comes for Stein. 

Justice League of America #223: Months back, I said Conway's work on the JLA was underappreciated, and I stand by that, but this arc has been a counter-argument. Conway and Patton/Tanghal bring the Beast Men storyline to an end, and I'm not sorry to see it go. Given the number of heavy-hitters on the JLA, it stretches credulity that Maximus Rex and his cronies get the better of them at every turn, yet they do. Somehow Dr. Lovecraft is aware of Superman's power loss under a red sun and exploits it. Somehow, he knows Firestorm will get a power drain if he tries to use his power against organic material, and he exploits that, too. While the League takes out some of the Beast Men, it is Reena that does battle with Rex, and in the end, it's their continuing mutation into pure animal forms that dooms them, not the League's actions.

Wonder Woman #311: Mishkin and Heck continue the gremlin storyline, and we learn some of the history of the alien species. It turns out the bigger aliens from last issue are really just replicas used by the gremlins to throw off suspicion. Anyway, they agree to return Wonder Woman's invisible jet, but Wonder Woman and Trevor manage to make off with the robot plane too before the gremlins' ship returns to the stars. Meanwhile, Circe gets ahold of Major Griggs.

In the Cavalieri and Speigle Huntress backup, Nedra Borrower and Terry Marsh have stirred up public animosity toward the Huntress. It's so bad that the cliffhanger ending sees the Huntress in the grip of an angry mob. We also learn that Marsh is in the employ of Earthworm, and his moves against the Huntress are to get her out of the way to help Earthworm's baby-selling ring.

Vigilante #3: Wolfman and Pollard/Marcos figure having a guest star from the popular New Teen Titans can't hurt. Vigilante is chasing Cyborg and an organized crime figure, Stryker, through a forest with the intent to kill Stryker who was only found guilty of a firearm possession charge due to a "technicality." Cyborg is trying to get the guy to prison alive. There is a lot of back and worth about Vigilante's philosophy and he (multiple times) justifies killing the guy, but when he gets the change, he can't do it. When Stryker kills somebody and takes a hostage, Vigilante kills him. Vigilante's ideas about exactly what the parameters of his mission are seem to be evolving; he certainly is willing to kill, if necessary, but he isn't an executioner. We also get an indication that some shadowy organization trained him, which was something I had wondered about. Chase also mentions that "somehow" he got years of training in months, which lampshades why he's suddenly so formidable, but I wonder if that's ever really addressed?

Kiss of Blood (part 1)

 We had our first session of They Came From Beyond the Grave! last night adapting the Call of Cthulhu adventure, Kiss of Blood.

The cast:

• Tony Kovac - San Francisco cop whose vacation in the Old Country is anything but relaxing. (Jason).
• Jess Barrow - Half of the occult folk-rock duo, Fata Morgana, gifted with second sight. (Andrea)
• Dean Starkey - The other half of Fata Morgana. A guy used to gettin by on his wits.

The three Americans arrived in Karloczig, Wystdovja Vale, (in Slovenia, on the Adriatic) for different reasons. Kovac was going to get a vacation and help local cops out on a case as a favor for a friend. Dean and Jess had been booked to play the local festival around Walpurgis Night. None of them imagined they'd wind up working together to find a missing girl. Well, the players did, the characters, not so much.

While Kovac discovered Inspektor Hochmair wasn't exactly overjoyed to have his help. Jess and Dean met Gustav Homan, the father of the missing girl, Matilda. They also heard that there were a lot of disappearances around the village of Karloczig, but the local Burgomeister doesn't take them seriously. There are legends about the castle Heidenstein up on the hill. It's cursed, it's said.

That night at the festival, Jess sees an eerie, mysterious woman, perhaps watching her, but the woman disappears before she can point her out to Dean.

After a night of attempting to out-drink Hochmair, Kovac is awakened early by a knock on his hotel room door. There's been a body found. Hochmair takes him to the office of the coroner (and doctor) von Kluge. The woman is young and brunette, but she isn't Matilda, but someone from out of town. She has been mutilated, as if by some animal, her throat ravaged and her body partially exsanguinated.

They Came From Beyond the Grave!

This weekend, in the spirit of Halloween, I plan to run a one shot (well, probably two shot before it's over with) of the Onyx Path game They Came From Beyond the Grave! It's part of their series of They Came From games, each made to sort of emulate some cinematic genre from 50s to monster movies, to Italian Sword and Sandals pictures, to (in this case) 60-70s horror films of the Hammer, Amicus, or AIP variety.

All these games use the Storypath system which is basically a descendant of the old White Wolf d10 dice pool system, but lighter and with some mildly narrative mechanics, like Rewrites which players can use to change the results of bad rolls or get a bit of narrative control. One of the things Rewrites can be spent on (though this is an optional rule) are Cinematic Powers which imbue the game world with the elements of the low budget films it's emulating. For instance, there's Dangerous Liaison wherein a player can pay for an awkwardly inserted scene (utterly free of danger!) to romance an NPC.

Players have other, less game-reality bending extras to employ like Tropes, Trademarks, and Quips that lend bonuses in specific situations. In fact, if I have any criticism, it's that the system is perhaps a little overstuffed with options for an otherwise "at the light end of rules medium" game.

Anyway, I plan to run to run Cthulhu Dreadfuls Presents #1 - Kiss of Blood, which is a very Hammer Horror flavored scenario. It seems easy enough to adapt.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1984 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on the newsstand on October 27, 1983.

New Adventures of Superboy #49: Nice Kane cover. Kupperberg and Schaffenberger have Clark and Lisa go on a date to see a Smallville performance by Zatara. When the magician's magic accidently opens a portal allowing the barbarian warrior, Turlock the Berserker, to invade Earth, Superboy's and Zatara's powers combined aren't enough to stop him. Luckily, Johnny Webber, the former Dyna-Mind, has genuinely reformed and surreptitiously renders aid.

In the Dial H backup, Bridwell/Rozakis and Bender/Giacoia reach the end of this arc and with it the entire series. The Master remains confused as to his goal in all of this, and our heroes can't help him. When the Wizard that created their dials shows up, he merges with the Master, and it turns out they were actually two parts of Robbie Reed, the original Hero Dialer from the 60s. He tells the kids how he got split and how he lost his original dial. Thanking the kids for their good deeds, he decides wisely to retire from hero-ing and gives his dial to Nick. The Dial H kids get one last appearance in Crisis.

Ronin #4: Miller really takes his time with this one. It looks good but not a lot happens. In one half of the story, the Ronin gets around (eventually) to rescuing Casey from an underground cannibalistic tribe. In the other, where things happen at a bit of a quicker pace, Peter McKenna, concerned about Aquarius' move into weapons manufacture, comes to believe Taggart isn't himself. That's true, but McKenna is unprepared when he discovers the truth about what's behind Taggart's sudden personality changes.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #15: Picking up where last issue left off, Mara attacks Chaon with predicable results. The god of Chaos gloats for a little while, but then Chian senses the danger and comes to Arion's aid too. She rescues Arion from the sewers, but Chaon (disguised as the priest Trykhun) slaps a spell on Mara so she can't say anything. He urges Arion and Chian to go back to the sewers. They fight a gang of mutant folks of some sort then reach something called the Flame of Hjerta.  Chaon tricks Arion into thinking Chian is dead to goad him into attacking. Somehow, if Arion strikes him, he'll achieve victory and be able to destroy existence, but this isn't clear to me. Anyway, thanks to Mara's ingenuity in discovering she has telepathy (not just in animal form) and her persistence, Arion gets wise to Chaon's plan, and instead strikes the Flame, ending Chaon's threat for now.

Action Comics #551: Kane is on art and Wolfman is back as the writer. With him, the simmering Vandal Savage storyline gets mentioned again, but it's mostly it's just background. Two children are going to die without an experimental medication from the Soviet Union, but the supply is being held up due to an attack by Afghan militants. Superman races to get the drug in time but is held up by emergencies around the globe. 

All-Star Squadron #29: The Shining Knight has just finished a sortie against German raiders over Britain when he gets a request to assemble with all the All-Stars back in America. Pondering whether to leave his native Britain, he tells Churchill of an adventure he had with the Seven Soldiers of Victory, which is essentially a retelling and expansion of Leading Comics #3, where all Seven Soldiers get a solo mission in Golden Age team comics fashion.

Detective Comics #534: Moench and Colon/Alcala continue the story from this month's Batman. The captured Dr. Lignier refuses to give up anything to the police, and Jason doing his own investigation can't turn up Ivy's location. When the Wayne Foundation execs that visited Exotica get up and walk out of the office though, the situation gets more urgent. Ivy calls them to her, and her plants and machines steal their brainwaves to create more of those plant men. 

Batman figures out the fire was ruse, and Ivy is still at the site of her "old" Crime Alley hideout, just underground. He and Jason go there, but Ivy throws a vine rope around Jason's neck and Batman has to fight the plant men. It's Jason that saves the day by turning the tables on Ivy and getting the garrot around her neck and forcing her to call off her minions. Later, with Ivy in custody, Batman announces Jason is ready to be his partner, and they humorously discuss possible codenames.

In the Green Arrow backup by Cavalieri and Patton/McManus, the Werewolves of London motorcycle gang make off with the black box everybody's after, and The Detonator also escapes. Green Arrow gets a captured gang member to tell him where they're holed up. When he goes to the Werewolves' hideout, another of their crew gets the jump on him before he can do anything.

Jonah Hex #80: Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga pick up where last issue left off. Hart rescues Jonah but the arrival of the sheriff means Hex has to do his recovering in jail. Hart agrees to go retrieve the letter which will exonerate Hex--though not from this most recent false charge--but he's captured by Turnbull's men who also want the letter. Emmy Lou (dressed like a "Sexy, Native American Princess" Halloween costume) is at the jail at the same time Mei Ling visits making things awkward. Man of Two Bloods shows up that night and busts Hex out of jail. Meanwhile, Hart has escaped the goons, but Turnbull is off to get the letter.

Hex and Turnbull have a confrontation at the place the letter is hidden. It ends up with Turnbull getting rattlesnake bit. Dying, he still aims a pistol for Hex's back...

World's Finest Comics #299: The intriguing cover only barely has any connection to the interior. I have to hand it to Kraft here: This story is a really modern-seeming condemnation of colonialism for something from 1983. Superman and Batman (still tense with each other over the Markovia incident) follow Zeta into the tree. Zeta, still pondering his place in the cosmos, plans to send them to two different places where they will be individually tested. They agree.

Batman meets the aliens at the top of the Cosmic Tree who tell him that their world is in danger of over-population. The Cosmic Tree is a portal to other worlds that they use to seek out new colonies for their people. They claim their enemies at the bottom of the Tree are impatient with the pace of things and want to commit genocide on Earth to hasten colonization. Superman arrives at the bottom of the Cosmic Tree, and he meets a group called the Sensitives who can see through time. They claim that the aliens at the top of the tree are dooming their race by preventing them from colonizing new worlds. Superman is lied to by the "Present" who was creator of the Pantheon. 

In the end, the problem is communication. Both sides of this struggle have stopped talking. However, both plan to exploit the Earth and destroy humanity. It's only the timeframe and means they are arguing about. We are told their society is nothing but consumers who produce nothing,

Batman and Superman manage to trick the aliens, allowing Superman to get back to Earth where he can stop Mu of the Pantheon from executing his plan. But the portal closes and Batman seems trapped on the alien world.

A 10th Azurthversary

This week marks the 10th anniversary of our Land of Azurth campaign using 5e. While nothing's for certain, I suspect we will "finish" in this year as the big conflict with the Wizard of Azurth that simmered in the background for several years and finally boiled over the last two will come to a conclusion.

I wrote a post on the last anniversary which felt necessary not only because nine years is a nice run (though it is), but because we had faced adversity due to the pandemic and the loss of two members of our group--Eric due to burnout on tele-anything and Jim to cancer--and I felt like our perseverance needed to be commemorated. 

I don't want to just repeat what I said there, so I won't. Instead, I will say that 10 years of a an elfgame with a group of friends which now includes a new addition, Kathy, who plays the Mortzengersturm pregen, Zabra, gives me completely different insights and perspective on gaming than my nearly 15 years of blogging or the latest wisdom dropped on social media. 

Games are a social activity. While rpgs are fun to theorize, write, or argue about, the real alchemy comes in the playing of them. And, for me at least, the playing of them not mainly in pickup games with strangers, though I don't discount the fun in that, but with the same crew, repeatedly.

Thanks to Andrea, Bob, Gina, Kathy, and Tug, for still being here, and to Eric and Jim who came most of the way. Azurth wouldn't be the same without you. 

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1984 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around October 20, 1983.

Thriller #3: Scabbard wants the President of the U.S. dead, and he's coercing Salvo to do it by kidnapping his mother and putting a bomb under her skin. Scabbard's holding a train on the LA-New York route hostage unless the President surrenders himself. He also wants Dan Grove to join him on the train for some reason. Dan isn't thrilled about this, but the team isn't giving him much choice, and a visit to Beaker's confessional where he revisits his father's death helps a bit. Meanwhile, Proxy is already on the train in disguise, and the rest of the Seven Seconds prepare to go into action.

Power Lords #2: Fleisher and Texiera/Dee continue the story from last issue, and we discover that Arkus's blast didn't destroy Adam and Shaya, it merely sent them to the Dimension of Doom where they will be imprisoned forever. There, they meet the boastful, orange, sauroid Sydot who knows of a way out through an interdimensional cavern guarded by monsters. They make it out, but all this battling has drained Adam's power gem, so they go looking for a means of recharge. They try the Toranian power crystal, as one does, but it has been destroyed by Arkus. They have no choice but to seek the Wellspring in a distant dimension. After some trippy scenery, they arrive at the place. There's a guardian that resembles a golden, child buddha. The Extraterrestrial Alliance is also there, and a fight breaks out. When the fight is over, the villains are revealed as illusions. The guardian reveals the power was in Adam all along. Our heroes fly out to confront the villains in the final issue.

Batman and the Outsiders #6: Barr and Aparo start this one off with the Outsiders settling into their civilian lives in Gotham: Halo starting school, Katana and Black Lightning starting jobs, and Geo-Force and Metamorpho visiting Dr. Jace in the hospital. Then, there's an attack by a new villain, the Cryonic Man, who tries to steal an artificial kidney that's supposed to go to a young girl who is a patient at the hospital. While the Cryonic Man talks to his family who seem to have been in suspended animation for decades, the Outsiders lay a trap for him. He takes the bait, and it leads to a fight on a Gotham City highway. In the end, the Cryonic Man takes Katana hostage and manages to freeze the rest of the team in liquid nitrogen.

Green Lantern #172: The new creative team of Wein and Gibbons take over, and they waste no time dispensing with the detritus of the old storyline. Jordan flies up to Oa, greets his friends, and has his hearing in front of the Guardians. They allow him to return to Earth, and he gets back in time to reunite with Carol and manage to fight some earthly crime. The spaceship he bought and has been traveling in for several issues is never mentioned, and poor old Dorine who has been his companion for the last few stories is only mentioned in a line of dialogue (telling us Hal dropped her off on her homeworld).

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Klein and Gibbons, a professional scavenger Metalfinder on a distant world finds an unconscious Green Lantern, the Green Man, and salvages his ring and power battery. When the Green Man wakes up, he tries to warn the villagers about the threat from the Spider Guild, they but won't return his stuff. When the Spider Guild does arrive, he suggests they can keep the metals from the ship if they help him, and they agree. The plan works and the village is now metal-rich, but the Metalfinder is now out of a job and about to leave town! He asks Green Man to take away the riches of the other villagers so he can be their supplier again, but the Green Lantern refuses.

Legion of Super-Heroes #307: Levitz and Giffen/Mahlstedt begin the teasing reveal of a new menace. A group of Legionnaires investigating a destroyed planetoid encounter and are forced to flee from something so powerful they namecheck Darkseid in categorizing it. Meanwhile, Elemental Lad can't believe he was elected chairman. With another group of Legionnaires on a difficult diplomatic mission to Khund, we find out Saturn Girl is pregnant. The mission is interrupted by the arrival of the menace to Khundia. The Legionnaires hear the Prophet proclaim Khundia's coming destruction!

The story juggles a lot of characters, action, and character bits nicely. It's a bit exhausting in this era of decompression, but I think I like this approach a bit better in some ways than the Claremont/X-Men style of handling big casts. Giffen's art here straddles his Kirby-influenced past and the simplification and packed grid layouts that are coming, showing both styles.

Sgt. Rock #384: The main story by Kanigher/Redondo has Easy in Sicily where they encounter a fatalistic old farmer and his recalcitrant mule. After a firefight in a cemetery, the paisano has a change of heart and goes off to join the partisans. 

For the first time (at least that I've noticed), the other two stories are reprints. Friedrich and Thorne present a story about war in the trenches not ending just because there's an armistice from Our Army at War #227 (1971). Glanzman clues us in to how liberties work on WWII era naval vessels in a piece from Our Fighting Forces #138 (1972).

Supergirl #15: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner reveal Blackstarr's origin, and sure enough she is Mrs. Berkowitz's daughter who got separated at Aushwitz. She came to feel abandoned by her mother and when taken in by the camp commandant and his wife, begins to identify with their ideology and view her own people as weak. She kidnaps Berkowtiz, trying to decide whether to kill her. Supergirl intervenes and their fight that takes them to the center of the universe. When Blackstar manipulates gravity around her to reduce Supergirl to atoms, Supergirl rushes towards her. The overwhelming gravitation draws close two black holes which rip Blackstarr apart. Supergirl returns to visit Berkowitz, and wordlessly shares with her a sad smile before flying off. Ultimately, this arc seems to have abandoned its themes (such as they were) for a superhero fight.

Swamp Thing #20: This is Alan Moore's first issue as writer of this title, and he's joined by artists Day and Totleben. I don't think this issue was included in the original, first trade paperback of Moore's run, and there's a reason. As the title suggests it's tying up "Loose Ends" rather quickly. After defeating Arcane, Sunderland Corporation comes for Swamp Thing and his allies. Liz and Dennis, whose relationship seems to be over just as it seems to have been starting, luckily escape a bomb left in a motel room for them and are forced to go on the run. Abigail is like Liz, disenchanted with her partner, though perhaps for better reasons. Matt is drinking still, but his broadcast hallucinations/demons appear to be better. Perhaps they are just under his control. Swamp Thing spends a lot of the issue brooding about his place in the world before he is shot dead (apparently) by Sunderland goons.

Warlord #77: I covered the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, some unknown technological power is notified of the re-activated battleship Jinal found last issue. She's barely had time to show off a few of its wonders, before someone takes remote control and causes it to be destroyed. Jinal and friends decide to seek out this hidden power.

New Talent Showcase #1: This is an anthology book to (as the title says) showcase "new" talent. I'm not sure if the talent was responsible for the creation of the characters as well as the stories, but it's interesting that there are no straight-up superheroes among them. The first, "Forever Amber" by Margopoulos and Woch/Maygar, tells the sort of origin of a biracial young woman in Southeast Asia who gets powers from Kali after a gem she stole from a Dacoits Temple becomes embedded in her palm. She plans to find and confront her American father who she believes abandoned her mother and her.

Skydogs by Kellog and Mandrake is a swashbuckling romp with the twist that the titular rogues have a ship, Moonjammer, that flies via a balloon (I think). Hawke and his mate Ndemba find themselves embroiled in magical doings after the rescue (I guess) of a princess of India. "Rock of Ages" is a oneshot involving a timeloop by Tod Smith. Klein and Scott Hampton present their sci-fi Class of 2064 strip. A virus is stolen from a lab on Mars. Later, a group of high school kids are traveling to Earth on a school trip, and Pern meets a young girl who is secretly carrying the virus with her.