Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1981 (wk 2 pt 1)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around July 23, 1981.

Action Comics #524: The Superman titles of this era are big on callbacks and continuity, definitely. Perhaps it's the writers, like Martin Pasko here, being former fanboys? A Luthor-created clone escapes from the Fortress of Solitude (though he thinks he's the real Superman at first) and tries to steal Clark Kent's life. Superman defeats him, but the convenient death of a family-less newscast allows the clone to assume that guy's life, so everybody lives happily ever after.

The Atom backup continues the Calculator story that was already stretched then, by having the Calculator escape from a court room. He's prepared for the Atom's powers, so the Atom calls in Air Wave to help him out. Sorry, Rozakis and Saviuk, but this feels like filler.

Adventure Comics #486: This demonic creature, Grockk, sends his supervillain minions to make way for his kingdom on Earth. They're stopped by the Dial "H" kids in the usual array of supposedly reader suggested superhero identities. Also, Chris is giving Vicki a hard time about hanging with her old boyfriend and reformed badboy, Brad, which only serves to make him look bad and drive Vicki closer to Brad. So much so she goes on a solo Hero Dial adventure and wanders if she needs a partner, after all.

Brave & the Bold #179: Pasko and Colon/DeCarlo have Anton Halkor, an ally of Universo's, traveling to 20th Century Gotham replace a time capsule with a look alike alien, anti-matter egg from the 30th Century, but Batman comes to the future to get help from the Legion of Super-Heroes to stop him. I like that the Legion don't know Batman (though certainly know of him) but it doesn't take much to convince them he's the real deal, because hey, folks time traveling happens to them all the time.

All-Star Squadron #2: Given their marching orders by FDR, the nascent Squadron heads out to the West Coast to protect it from further Japanese aggression. This provides a chance for everyone to introduce themselves. Meanwhile, the heroes captured by Per Degaton get an ear full of his origin and his evil plan for conquest. The heroes manage to stop his hypnotized Japanese pilots flying toward San Francisco, but Degaton decides to eliminate the rest of the JSA with a volcano--but then Shining Knight gets free..

Detective Comics #507: Continues the Conway/Newton Manikin story. Batman manages to save the designer Hoston and escape the fire, but only because the smoke takes its toll on Manikin. That gives Batman the idea of get some sort of spray sealant to cut off her air long enough to incapacitate her. While Batman is preparing his weapon and a trap to lure her out, we get the Manikin's origin. She is, of course, a model and the woman Batman saved from the car. Horribly disfigured she's out for revenge on the fashion designers--one of which she thinks is responsible. Her devoted brother made the suit for her. Despite his warnings, Manikin walks into the trap. Batman defeats her with the sealant, but only her brother is able to convince her to choose life over revenge. Batman confronts Hoston about the car fire, and he confesses his guilt. This was a solid two-parter.

House of Mystery #297: DeMatteis and Sutton are back with I...Vampire. Bennett and friends are on the trail of the monks from a Zen monastery who they are told now serve the Blood Moon, but it turns out to be a trick. The monks are vampires, but like Bennett, have retained their humanity. Then there's an EC-esque story by Kashdan and Carrillo about a crooked televangelist who's schtick is he beats the devil on all his broadcasts. When his devil actor threatens to reveal he's a fraud, the televangelist kills him. The replacement is the actual devil who disintegrates the preacher on TV. The final story by Conway and Cowan/De Zuniga is about a musician whose been around since the 30s, thanks to the fact he's a mutant with the ability to draw life force for anyone who can hear his singing. When a journalist discovers his longevity, he drains her to keep his secret, but he when his car wrecks shortly thereafter he's mortally wounded--and outside a hospital for the deaf.

Green Lantern #145: Wolfman and Staton are still on duty here. Carol's dad isn't all bad as he buys her a cliffside mansion like in Malibu or something. She lets Hal stay in the Gardener's house because she isn't ready for commitment. Meanwhile, Richard Davis, the new Ferris Aircraft VP and mentor of Hal's is acting oddly, like there's a health issue with him. The big problem this issue is Goldface's attempts to become a crime boss. He fights GL and beats him--GL not seeming to realize until late in the fight that his inability to use his ring against yellow only applies to directly using it against yellow.

In the Adam Strange backup from Sutton and Infantino a giant, ugly insect attacks Rann, and Strange defeats it but gets sent back to Earth before the eggs start to hatch.

Superman Family #211: Pasko (he's all over the place this month!) and Mortimer present the Supergirl story. A psychic saboteur, the Mind-Bomber, boosts Lena Luthor powers so she figures out Supergirl's identity. Supergirl is weirded out by the way stories in the soap opera she works on predict the Bomber's attacks, but it turn out that Lena was ghost-writing those scripts and the ideas were being planted in her mind by the bomber, who was really after revenge on his family. A lot of convolution here for little payoff.

The Bridwell/Schaffenberger Mr. and Mrs. Kent story have them stumbling upon an assassination plot at the wedding of Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle. The plot turns on a bit of comics trivia that the Earth-Two Two-Face is named Harvey Kent, not Dent. In the Private Life of Clark Kent, Clark gets a visit from Elongated Man. He thinks its a ploy by someone to reveal his identity as Superman to Dibny but the truth is dumber: Dibny just dreamed a phone call. Conway and Oksner have Lois Lane getting too close to a hostage situation so she gets taken hostage herself, but ultimately she saves the day. Pasko's and Delbo's Jimmy Olsen has Jimmy confronting the criminal that tried to ruin his life with duplicates. His friends and family (well, mainly Superman) come to his rescue, and Olsen helps the guy who had set out to hurt him.

A Journey to Pre-Azurth

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the party following a puppy automaton into a scret cave where they found a strange observatory, and it's observer, Lum-One, a automaton version of Mirabilis Lum. He says he's been expecting them. He needs them to go into the prehistory of Azurth and foil "the Shadow" (by which he means the servants of the Anti-Sun, not the living shadow that has been perplexing the party). Lum's theory was that Azurth was born from solidified chaos magic that fell to earth in the distance past (these celestial objects were the origin of the Whim-Wham Stone), and the Anti-Sun's servants are trying to co-opt that.

He reveals to the party that Lum is likely still alive, but senile, and residing in a junkyard city in Sang. He doesn't know anything about the Clockwork Princess' current doings.

He also suggests the shadow the party has been dealing with may be a temporally fractured individual.

All that deep lore out of the way, the party agrees and is transported to a landscape that looks post-apocalyptic (there are ruins of strange buildings) but they do find the knife-like, black tower he told them to find.

Eldritch glyphs that decorate many doors and some floors prove punishing for the unwary, and the party doesn't make it far before needing to rest. Kully does get to viciously mock a gray ooze, though. They do find out something of the tower's workings, however from the writings of whoever was here before. It was apparently built to capture and channel the chaos magic of the stone from the heavens.

Damselfly for Marvel Heroic

Here's another Marvel Heroic RPG adaptation. This time, one of my own creations. You can read more about her here.

Art by Dean Kotz

DAMSELFLY 
Xazandra Zaantarz/Cassandra “Cassie” Saunders [secret]

Affiliations: Solo d8  Buddy d6  Team d10

Distinctions: Alien Law Enforcer; Called a Traitor on Zurrz-Zann; Compassion must always temper justice

Power Sets:

Alien Physiology
Insect Control d8 Enhanced Senses d8
SFX: Stronger on Earth. When using Insect Control to create an asset or complication, add a D6 and step up your effect die.
Limit: Feedback. Shutdown a Alien Physiology power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Biomechanical Enhancements
Enhanced Reflexes d8 Shrinking d10 Flight d6
SFX: Boost. Spend 1 PP to step up or double Biomechanical Enhancement power for one die roll.
Limit: Size Matters. Add a complication equal to Shrinking to an opposing dice pool to gain 1 PP.

Enforcer Equipment
Energy Blast d8 Enhanced Durability d8
SFX: Stun Setting. If your attack roll includes Energy Blast, add a d6 and step up physical 

stress. If the target is stressed out from this attack, they take no trauma.

SFX: Burst Setting. If your attack roll includes Energy Blast, add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

Limit: Gear. Shutdown Enforcer Equipment power to gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. the 

doom pool to recover Enforcer Equipment.

Specialties: Combat Expert d8, Covert Expert d8, Crime Expert d8, Psych Expert d8, Tech Expert d8

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1981 (wk 1 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around July 9, 1981.

Justice League of America #195: This is a good one from Conway and Perez/Beatty and builds anticipation for the next issue. A shadowy someone recruits the Monocle from Earth-2 and Killer Frost from Earth-1 then sends them to recruit Psycho-Pirate, Signalman, Cheetah (her first appearance since the 2-parter that introduced her in Wonder Woman), the Ragdoll, Brainwave, the Mist, and the Floronic Man for a new Sercret Society of Super-villains. It turns out that the mastermind is the Ultra-Humanite whose got a plan to take out selected heroes from the two universes, thus causing an equilibrium reaction that will wipe out all heroes from one universe or the other. Oookay. Of course, Ultra isn't telling the crew everything he knows. Anyway, the JSA and JLA are having their annual mixer, so their guard is down. The villains split up and acquire their targets: Black Canary, Earth-2 Hawkman, and Earth-1 Wonder Woman this issue. This such classic, meat-and-potatoes supers right here. 

Krypton Chronicles #2: Bridwell and Swan continue to explore Superman's family tree. In the frame story, Supes figures out the yagrum beast from last issue is only an illusion. Zor-El helps Superman to learn the stories of yet more of his ancestors through a device connected to their headbands, which have absorbed some of their memories in addition to their sweat. He learns about Hatu-El, who helped liberate the Kryptonians from the alien Vrangs; Sul-El, who developed a telescope, saw the Vrang fleet in space, and tried to warn the governor of Kandor; Val-El, an explorer who discovered new lands; and of Val's black sheep brother Tro-El, who led an unsuccessful mutiny and became founder of an isle of pirates. While Superman is living genealogy, Supergirl nabs Black Flame, who has been trying to prolong Superman's and Supergirl's stay until the Cosmic Axis shifts again to prevent them from returning to Earth. Superman and Supergirl leave Rokyn shortly before it vanishes, and Superman tells his cousin he has another plan to get information about his ancestors prior to Val-El.

New Teen Titans #12: The enthralled Wonder Girl and the Titans of Myth attack and defeat the gods of Olympus. Athena brings the other female Teen Titans and the Amazons to Olympus to regroup for a second attack. Starfire frees the captive Zeus, and Wonder Girl is released from Hyperion's enchantment. The Titans abruptly realize the error of their ways and decide to go back to Tartarus, returning Olympus to the gods, and our heroes and the Amazons go back to Paradise Island.

Secrets of Haunted House #41: Better than the last couple of issues, I think, though not by much. Rozakis/LaRoque get the cover with a somewhat humorous tell of a man who finds a toy castle in his attic which somehow grows to full size. When he's captured by the giant there, he has to be rescued by his young son who is aware of it and has done battle with the giant in the past. Snyder and Zamora present a stumbling block just out of the gate, though with a short about a talking dog. Harris and Ditko are up next with a story about a woman and her ex-convict boyfriend fleeing to the a desert house at the end of Devil's Tail Road. The name turns out to be very literally, as the boyfriend tries to seize a rather phallic looking treasure, which turns out to be the literal tip of the Devil's tail. Gwyon and Nicholas follow it up with a confused time travel yarn that has a man from the future coming back to euthanize his bed and pain ridden father, but winding up a bed-ridden old man himself because he changed time. 

Finally, there's a Rozakis/Spiegle tale about blood coming from a well, which ties into a Hawthrone story and seems (if we buy E's not wholly satisfying explanation) a hoax in the end.

Superman #364: Swan takes a break, and Buckler is on art chores this issue. Same old Bates kind of story, though. A Metropolis reporter named Rory is upset that Olsen, Kent, and Lane always win the awards, feeling that they have an unfair advantage on the big scoops as they are tight with Superman. Then, when a mysterious amorphous Metro-Monster begins striking the city, it's Rory turn to get the scoop because he gets an exclusive from the monster's secret ID. It turns out the monster is an audiologist whose monster transformation is due to him trying to cure his own tinnitus. Anyway, he gets cured, and Rory and Jimmy become friends.

In the  Rozakis and Saviuk Superman 2020 backup, we learn that Grandpa Superman went prematurely gray from exposure to red solar radiation, and he fights valiantly to prevent his grandson from sharing that fate. Who says its hard to find credible challenges for Superman?

Weird War Tales #104: The Creature Commandos are back (well, the Monster Marines) but only in a gag one-pager by Manak. We don't even get dinosaurs this issue. Instead, we get central American revolutionaries stumbling upon a lost city, and at least one of them succumbing to murderous greed, "The Secret Enemy." Kashdan and Rogue present a "moral dilemma" with no answer when a court has to decide what to do with now adult clones of Third Reich leaders. Cavalieri and Dikto present a pirate yarn that asserts the origin of the jolly roger was a skeletal ghost. 

The last story is the best of the issue, though that isn't saying much. A pompous Soviet general disturbs the tomb of Tamerlane in Samarkand in 1982, and he and his entire force suffer the vengeance of the ghost conqueror and his undead army.

Wonder Woman #284: The dragon from last issue turns out to be a robot, but we don't find that out until Wonder Woman defeats it. Diana, Steve and Chinese agent Lao Chen investigate and find more weapons stolen from the U.S., including a crate that held a new cruise missile. The three head to China to find the missile and stop the Red Dragon. Soon after the arrive they are knocked unconscious by a sleep-gas bomb hurled by one of the Dragon's agents, who inserts a "control crystal" in Steve's neck. A The Red Dragon launches the cruise missile, which is able to evade all known aircraft, at Peiping. Steve has a device which can control or abort the missile, but the Dragon exerts his control over him and Steve destroys the device, allowing the missile to hit the Great Wall!

In the Huntress backup, the Huntress and the Earth-2 Robin team-up to lean on an organized crime figure trying to frame their senior law partner.

West Coast Avengers: The Mysterious Mr. Chu

We continued our Marvel Heroic rpg adaptation of the MSHrpg adventure, The Last Resort. The players seemed a little better with the rules this week, whereas I had forgotten a few things.

The adventure continues to be very silly, with random B-list villains who (as the player's learn) have been paid to hide out in caves in a state park in Idaho, and then get teleported to a spot to waylay the West Coast Avengers. From a testing the mechanics standpoint, though, that works just fine and the PCs tangled with, and defeated Blizzard and had Pyro on the ropes when we stopped for the evening.

Marvel Heroic is simple in base rules but has a lot of little "extras" to remember, particularly in regard to how the metacurrency of Plot Points and the Doom Pool are used. Still, it is pretty fast paced, and opponents go down pretty quick: one or two rounds of PC attacks mostly.

Hawkeye discovered an important clue this adventure after Plantman spilled what he knew. All the villains were hired by a shadow Mr. Chu. Thanks to a call to the Avengers Compound and a run through the databanks, they found that to be a known alias of the Mandarin.

Hourman for Marvel Heroic

 Still getting used to the Marvel Heroic RPG, I decided to make up a couple of characters in the system to get the feel of it. Here's the Golden Age Hourman, missing only XP milestones.

HOURMAN 
Rex Tyler [secret]

Affiliations: Solo d10  Buddy d8  Team d6

Distinctions: Man of the Hour; Secret Champion of the Oppressed; Better Living Through Chemistry  

Power Sets:

Miraclo
Superhuman Strength d10 Superhuman Stamina d10 Superhuman Durability d10 Superhuman Speed d10
SFX: Focus. In a pool including a Miraclo die, replace two dice of equal steps with one die of +1 step.
Limit: The Hour’s Up. Shutdown any Miraclo power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Specialties: Combat Expert d8, Covert Expert d8, Science Expert d8, Tech Expert d8

Thursday Comics: DC, October 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! I'm a day later than my usual Wednesday post, but I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  July 9, 1981. 

Arak Son of Thunder #2: Thomas and Colon/DeZuniga pick up the story with the Son of the Thunder washing up, well, somewhere in Europe, where he meets Corinna, the beautiful daughter of Lord Hessa, and runs afoul of the mute knights that protect her. He's taken to the castle, where Hessa takes a dislike to him and has him thrown in the dungeon--but not before Arak discovers the knights are merely armor animated by magic. In the dungeon, Arak meets Malagigi a sorcerer serving Carolus Magnus. Before Malagigi can clue Arak in on what's going on, the not suspicious at all Corinna frees our hero and gets him to run away with her into the forest. It turns out Corinna isn't daughter but mother to Hessa. She made a pact with a devil, and she's used Arak to help her escape. In the end, she goes willing with the devil to Hell, as revoking his gift makes her age rapidly, and she can't take it. Malagigi and Arak set out for Charlemagne's court. Setting-aside, a rather Conan-y story, which makes sense and it works.

Batman #340: Conway/Thomas and Colan/Gonzales have Batman take on another one-shot villain, the Mole. The mole has been mutated by exposure to toxic chemical into a humanoid mole (which is convenient as mutation goes, since his nickname was "the mole" before), and he's getting gruesome revenge on the people he thinks are responsible. Batman puts a stop to it, of course. This story has a bit more of a horror angle than your average Batman story, but it's otherwise unremarkable.

DC Comics Presents #38: I've read this Pasko/Heck Superman and Flash team-up before in the DC Showcase trade for DCP. Anyway, Superman and Flash find the world around them frozen in time--just when they both need to rescue someone from a deadly situation (Jim and Fiona, respectively). It's all due to the machinations of an alien tyrant, but she tricks our heroes into thinking the other is to blame so they fight each other. The thing I find most interesting about this story is that some of it takes place at a location 102 miles from Central City and 322 miles from Metropolis, which might help in locating the two. Or might not.

The "What Ever Happened To..." backup by Wein and Saviuk is about the Crimson Avenger, the first costumed superhero to appear in Detective Comics. Lee Travis, feeling forgotten, is dying of an incurable condition. Seeing a boat in trouble in the harbor, he rushes to the rescue as the Crimson Avenger, stopping to save a young boy along the way. The boat is carrying chemicals and ready to explode, but he guides it away from the city, but dies in the blast. No one on the boat knew who he was, so it appears he will be forgotten, but he told his name to the mother whose boy he saved and she and the boy remember. A simple story, but the sort of thing this strip was meant for.

Flash #302: Finally the identity of the villain impersonating Barry's dad is revealed, and it turns out to be the Top, which, no offense to all you Top stans, but I find sort of anti-climactic. Anyway, most of this issue is the Flash dealing with the Top's accomplice, the Golden Glider. In their first skirmish, she mesmerizes him somehow, and the smitten Flash lets her go. And man, the people of Central City turn on him quick for that. In their second clash, he's onto her tricks and relieves her of the hypnotic gem that made him fall for her. 

In the Firestorm backup, Ronnie is visiting the home of his girlfriend Doreen Day. He's trying to figure out the connection the Hyena has to their family. He decides to snoop in Doreen's sister Summer's diary, but the Hyena appears on the window seal and they do battle. Firestorm winds up in the middle of the Harlem River.

G.I. Combat #235: In the first Haunted Tank story, it seems that since now that the crew is in a Sherman tank, the ghost of General Sherman shows up to take over and Stuart is given the boot along with his Confederate emblem. He flashes back to the H.Q. in the Sky, where Alexander the Great first ordered him to look at the tank crew. Hans von Hammer was there to, in case you are interested, suggesting that Enemy Ace was dead by World War II. Anyway, eventually after we get several pages of how callous Sherman is, Stuart is back. 

The second story is much better than that nonsense, and is sort of Twilight Zone-esque, with the crew picking up a soldier with a head wound, who keeps asking about whether Stein is still alive. The crew assumes Stein was his body, and they are unable to stop the G.I.'s reckless search, but eventually it kills him. His dogtags reveal he was Stein.

Rounding out the issue, with got an O.S.S. story with Vera trying to get an art book that supposedly carries a message to Control out from under the nose of Goering as she tries to escape his castle. Then there's "P.F.C. Snafu" by Kashdan and Vicatan where a G.I.'s screw-ups in an artillery squad wind up being their lucky break. Finally, in a "Woman at War" story by Laurie and Trinidad, a M.A.S.H. nurse in Korea, refuses to take the life of a Chinese soldier who had spared hers, even though the Chinese forces had killed her twin brother.

Ghosts #105: Better than last issue, but that may be damning with faint praise. The highlights: A Kanigher/Carrillo story set in 18th Century Sicily where a French soldier seduces a local girl with promises of marriage, leading her to commit suicide but after vowing that he will be with her even if in death. Sure enough, years later on the day he is to marry another girl, an earthquake sends him fleeing into the graveyard, where he winds up falling into a chasm around the dead girl's grave and being buried alive. A Haney/Zamora story of graverobber has Digger Duggan agreeing to take a drug that will make him appear dead provided by the doctor he works for. He's buried alive, but dug up by a competitor who mistakes him for dead, but ultimately winds up on the vivisection table.

Less good is the Allikas/Spiegle tale of a child custody battle that gets really ugly when the recently deceased dad tries to convince his daughter to drown to be with him forever. He has a change of heart, though, when she appears willing to do it. The less said about the Snyder/Estrada story about a farmer who complains so much to the ghost in a wishing well, the ghost strangles him and steals his body, the better.

Jonah Hex #53: In true cliffhanger fashion, this issue reveals Hex was not in the cabin when it blew up last issue. He pursues the kidnappers and succeeds in getting the kid, Petey Foster back and returning him to his family. Unfortunately, He returns home to find a note from Mei Ling saying that has left him and taken the baby. In the meantime, Mei Ling seeks a shelter in the house of Hiram and Ruth. Hex proceeds to get drunk and starts seeing illusions from ghosts of the past including his abusive father and his old enemy El Papagayo.

In the mostly charmless Tejano Ranger backup by Cohn/Mishkin and Veitch/Yeates we are introduced to Antonio Ramirez, a Hispanic Texan, who sides with the colonists from the U.S. against the Mexican central government, serving as a ranger. He faces prejudice from the gringo Texans, and ends up facing the spears of General Rojas' cavalry, as he is captured by Mexican forces.

Salvage in Space

We played the first session of a "rockets and rayguns" pulp sci-fi game using a modified version of Rocket Age for 5e. The characters were:

Jones: human, ex-soldier
Lor' el-Am: Hadozee engineer
Mitchell: another human and ex-Space Marine
Trzkt: Vrusk scientist

All were marking time in Ziszkhar, a minor spaceport and domed city of Marva, when Trzkt was approached by another Vrusk named Niszk Zrnn, who was acting as an agent for an insurance claims for a big New Terran shipping insurance firm. The firm was interested in hiring a crew for a salvage mission in the Belt. Niszk thought Trzkt might know a suitable group. In fact, she did, and they agreed to meet the insurance agent.

Arlik Taine told them that his company was preparing to pay out a significant amount on the Aurora Queen, a new luxury spaceliner that had mysteriously disappeared in the Belt, just days from Marva. It's inaugural cruise with only a small group of passengers had been a cruise out to Kronion's moons. It was coming back when contact was lost. A prospector in the belt had a caught a glimpse of a derelict in the distance that might by the Queen, so Taine was willing to pay to have it checked out.

He added that there was a famous archeologist on board, Dr. Brennan Carter, who was returning from an expedition to one of the nameless moons of Vurania, with a treasure in exotic gems.

The crew was outfitted with an aging but serviceable cruiser, and they set out for the Belt, to the coordinates extrapolated from the prospector's sighting. They find the ship, powerless and tumbling through space. Attaching themselves with a magnetic grapple, they went inside. There was evidence of some bloody conflict in gruesome stains on walls and doors, but no bodies. In the ship's control room they found the bleeding and concussed officer in the uniform of the line, Captain Cyril Falconer. He tells them there is an invisible monster on the ship that has been slaughtering the crew and passengers!

My Favorite Comics Character Revamp Series

 In the post-Crisis era, revamps of characters became common. Perhaps too common. But for all the ill-conceived ones and ones done for no good reason, there have been a number of good ones, they really did something interesting with the character. Here are a few of my favorites, roughly chronological particular order:

Blackhawk: Blood & Iron (1988)

Chaykin's masterful and historically rooted take on the Blackhawks. Chaykin has brought this sort of approach to other characters (The Phantom Eagle, Dominic Fortune, and the Young Allies) but never as effectively or as beautifully rendered as here.

Hawkworld (1989)
I suppose this could be considered part of the 80s-early 90s "grim and gritty" wave, but Truman's art (abetted by Alcatena) does gritty so well! Thanagar is dystopian and Katar Hol is a murderer and a drug addict--at first. Still, the themes of inequality and class remain as relevant as ever.

The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty (1991)

This isn't technically a revamp, but it's something more than a retelling. A refinement or streamlining perhaps? Nicieza's story in Kevin Maguire's art (on the first two issues, then Kevin West on the last two) is the best Captain America origin movie Joe Johnston never got to direct.

Blaze of Glory: The Last Ride of the Western Heroes (1999)

Ostrander brings all of Marvel's Western characters together for a Magnificent Seven-esque last stand. Manco's art is gorgeous if you can excuse his very Young Guns design sensibilities regarding the the characters.

Martian Manhunter: Identity (2019)

I would have also included the DeMatteis/Badger 1988 Martian Manhunter limited series on this list, that overturned the Silver Age Planetary Romance version and set the template in part for all portrayals to follow, but it has criminally never been collected. This 2019 "maxi-series" by Orlando and Rossmo takes the 1988 series' ideas, but in some ways moves it back in the direction of the Silver Age version--while giving it a fresh, science fiction veneer. Never has Mars seemed so alien, but also had a series made you feel the death its civilization so keenly. Like many of the best Martian Manhunter stories, this one mixes detective work with an exploration of how outsiders from society can stop being on the outside.

West Coast Avengers: The Last Resort

 

I've got interested in trying Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, the years out-of-print game based on the Cortex Plus system, and we were between games in one of my groups so it seemed a good time to give it a try. As MHR is geared to playing characters in the Marvel Universe, I decided to adapt a module from TSR's old Marvel Superheroes game, and since I could find MHR stats for all the characters online, I went with possibly the only MSHRPG module I ever played, The Last Resort by Kim Eastland, which stars the West Coast Avengers--a team I have some nostalgia for, since I subscribed to their comic. 

Paul, Aaron, and Andrea were the group or the season playing Hawkeye, Wonder Man, and Tigra respectively. The stats, unfortunately, weren't period perfect, being based on the versions of the characters from 30 years later, but that's to be expected and only mildly offends my sense of nostalgia, really. 

The story involvements Iron Man and a group of Boy Scouts going missing during the hero's appearance at a Jamboree in Idaho. The other Avengers must investigate, and of course, discover nefarious doings.

I'll reserve my full judgements for both the system and the adventure until we've completed the latter, but some initial thoughts on both: I liked MHR on my read through of it, and so far it has held up well in play, moving fairly fast despite our lack of familiarity with it, but for the simplicity of its base mechanic it does have a lot of exceptions and options to keep track of. The module is silly in concept and detail, and not silly in a way that is congruent with what would be likely to occur in the comics, but it has thus far served its purpose of allowing us to test out the system.

Power Scale in Superhero Comics

 Superhero rpgs often wrestle with the scale of super-power characters. This typically manifests itself in attribute benchmarks like in FASERIP-derived games or Mayfair's DC Heroes, but some games like Mutants & Masterminds have "levels" or even a separate scale trait. In all cases, it's some means of separating the capabilities of more normal heroes from cosmic or godlike ones.

There's another factor that could be called scale that is observable in superhero comics. It is not an "in-world" element; the characters aren't aware it exists, but its existence presents a barrier to superhero rpgs being able to emulate the comics (if that's something you care about), and I think its existence is just sort of an interesting observation about superhero universe comics storytelling in general.

It's pretty noticeable when you look at Batman.

In Batman's solo stories he is often given a hard time or gotten the better of by his rogue's gallery (most of whom are not superhuman and seldom as proficient in combat as him) or street thugs and the like. In Batman's team-up appearances or in his appearances as a member of the Justice League, he is far more formidable. He holds his own or triumphs against very powerful foes. Batman in his solo stories is almost a costumed, pulp vigilante in the vein of the Shadow or the Spider, but Batman in the Justice League is a superhero.

Spider-Man is sort of like this, too. The Enforcers given him a hard time in his own comic, but then in Secret Wars #2 he makes the X-Men look like amateurs, at least briefly.

Superman and Supergirl (and I think Thor and Iron Man) work in the opposite way. In Bronze and Silver Age comics, a Kryptonian can do almost anything the plot requires. Supergirl kicks the moon out of orbit in Superman Family #204...

...but she seldom seems that powerful in team-ups or crossovers.

The narrative reasons for these shifts, I think, are pretty clear. If Superman can solve any problem himself, what does the Justice League do? The type of stories that are classically told with Batman or Spider-Man as solo characters require them to be more vulnerable.

I'm not sure these sorts of "scales" in portrayal exist for all characters but they are certainly pretty common.

Could something approaching this be implemented in a supers game? Sure, in some sorts of rpgs. Marvel Heroic already has "Affiliation" (Solo, Buddy, Team) which doesn't do the same thing, but it could. Still, unless a campaign was going to include a lot solo character adventures as well as team adventures, I don't know that it would be particular necessary.

Still, I think it's interesting.

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 1981 (wk 2 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around June 18, 1981. 

Detective Comics #506: This whole issue has a bit of a (comics code approved) giallo vibe, I think. In the main story by Conway and Newton/Mitchell, 10 months ago, Batman saves a woman from a burning car. The woman is horribly burned, but alive. The car seems to have been bombed. In the present, men in the fashion industry are being killed, and Bruce Wayne winds up in an altercation in a dance club with a woman with immense strength who snaps the neck of a fashion designer with one hand. The woman, the Manikin, removes her coat and mask and appears incased in an articulated, full-body, metal outfit. The clothes she leaves behind are designer and not of the commercial produced variety. Batman goes to question the designer of the garment in question, but the Manikin attacks again. She is too strong and fast for the Batman, and eventually tricks him and knocks him out. To be continued.

In the Batgirl backup by Burkett and Delbo/Giella, the hunchback killer believes he's killed Batgirl, so he leaves her alone when she is merely unconscious. Noticing the hands of a cellist at a concert, Batgirl realizes that the hunchback is a musician of a stringed instrument due to his calluses. Guessing he is a mandolin player, she manages to track his likely identity by checking music stores in the areas the hunchback has operated. She gets lucky and discovers the hunchback look is merely a costume worn by the musician who believes his Muse only speaks to him after he kills. Slipping on a page of sheet music gets Batgirl captured again, he plays his haunting music for her, but then kills himself.

Legion of Super-Heroes #279: We reach the conclusion of the Grimbor story. With most of the LSH neutralized or captured by Grimbor, Princess Projectra and Karate Kid try to take out the energy chains with the Kid's weakness locating abilities, while Reflecto takes on Grimbor. Our heroes triumph, of course, and Reflecto is revealed to be not Ultra-Boy as the story has been leading us to think but Superboy! Thomas gets solo writing credit on this one, Conway having moved on, I guess.

New Adventures of Superboy #21: Bates and Schaffenberger present a pretty rare situation outside of Kryptonite: Superboy being uniquely susceptible to something. In this case, it's the tone frequencies of the voice of a wheeler-dealer business man named McKay. He gets Superboy in a contract that has him performing "charity" benefits weekly. Meanwhile, there's some sort of semi-corporeal creature in a lake whose touch turns things to crumbling mineral. In the end, Superboy returns the creature to space where it belongs, and Pa Kent points out Superboy is a minor and couldn't enter into the contract with McKay, voiding it. In the backup, Superboy builds a ship with the help of his slug sapient friends and escapes the planet under a red sun.

Sgt. Rock #356: In the first story (in a pattern not uncommon in this book), a by-the-book lieutenant learns a thing or two from Rock after he forces the sergeant to stop taking point all the time. They have to go into a French town overrun by Germans to get back the soldiers that got sent ahead instead. In a story by the Veitch brothers, three green and somewhat frightened troops are sent on a mission with a corporal famed for his bravery. When he is captured, they find their courage to rescue him, and also choose to keep his memory untarnished by not revealing he cracked under torture. In the last story, Rock recalls a nameless loner in Easy who nevertheless died making a heroic sacrifice for the unit.

We have no issue of Super Friends this month. That's because last month's was the final issue, and I forgot to note it at the time.

Unexpected #214: No Johnny Peril this issue (in fact, the Johnny Peril revival is over. Outside of Who's Who he won't be seen again until the 1990s), and the issue is better than average. In the first story by Kashdan and Panaligan, an archeological swindler gets buried in the fake tomb he had built by angry native peoples. In the cover story by Kelley/Bissette and Gonzales, a prizefighter is booked to fight a minotaur in a Greek cave by his avaricious son. Then there's a nonhorror pseudohistorical bit of nonsense about Teddy Roosevelt in the old west. The last story, written by Mishkin and Cohn with art by Gonzales/Colletta, is an atypical werewolf yarn. A tagger with dreams of making a name for himself as a graffiti artist instead becomes a hero when a well-placed spray can spray thwarts a subway werewolf.

Unknown Soldier #255: Haney and Ayers/Tlaloc continue the Soldier's adventures in China with his new lady friend, the pirate Lady Jade. Their beached ship is overrun by the troops of the Warlord Chang. Chang intends to use the artillery the Soldier was taking to the Chinese fighters to breach the citadel of Ur Jal. On the festival of Ching Ming he's got to sweep the tomb of his family. That works out ok because Ur Jal is exactly where the Soldier intended to go as the Japanese are using it as a munition depot. They breach the Citadel and Chang sweeps the tomb--before the Unknown Soldier blows the fortress up to destroy the munitions. Jade returns to her piratical ways, and the Unknown Soldier heads off to his next mission.

The Captain Fear story has a pirate fighting a ninja, which is pretty much all the comics reading youth of the early 80s could ask for, I think. The conflict is over the scroll Fear captured last installment where a samurai clan requests the help of the British in overthrowing the Shogun in return for helping fund the war against Austria. Fear doesn't know this though because he can't read, but a Spanish governor and ninja in the service of the Shogun want the scroll for themselves. The art by Simonson is great here.

The last story is a Dateline: Frontline story by Burkett and Estrada. Things are getting desperate in Bataan, with low food and high numbers of sick and wounded. The U.S. general surrenders, and it seems there may be worse things to come.

Warlord #49:  Read about this issue here. In the Claw the Unconquered backup by Harris and Yeates, Claw does battle with the demon his demonic hand originally came from. The battle seems to be a stalemate until Shalieka, the woman he met last issue, suggests she can perform a ritual to return their hands, though one will die. They agree, but Claw double-crosses the demon, cutting off his human hand and casting him into the maw of the Lord of Death. Claw enters the city the conquering hero, but a robed figure watching suggests Shalieka's actions have all been in the service of the Lords of Shadow. We never find out to what end, as this is the last Claw the Unconquered backup.

World's Finest Comics #271: Superman Thomas, Harris, and Bridwell write the sort of continuity heavy story Thomas is known for with art by Buckler/McLaughlin. Superman dreams of a masked man that shoots him with Kryptonite beams, and weirdly, that happens the next day as Atoman is released from a coffin. In trying to determine the identity of Atoman, Superman and Batman remember all the times they met for the first time (in their alter egos, etc.). Finally, they figure out Atoman is from Earth-Two. The defeat him there with the assistant of Superman and Robin from that world.

The F.R.E.E. Lancers Cinematic Universe

"The idea was to bring together a group of of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could."

- Nick Fury, The Avengers

I figure at least some of you remember F.R.E.E. Lancers, the Top Secret/S.I. setting supplement from 1988. The game takes place in a fractured America of 1998 with where low-powered supers exist powered by cybertech, biotech, and psychic powers. It's the sort of idea that was kind of in the Zeitgeist of the era, with Marvel's New Universe, Misfits of Science, and some direct market comics offering up low-powered supers, realistic supers, or the like.

It's not an approach much in vogue today, but it isn't a bad one.

An interesting thing I noticed about F.R.E.E. Lancers the other day, the breakdown of the U.S. Federal government began when a politician tried to build a wall along the border with Mexico. In this case, it was a fictional governor of Texas and the year was 1994, but it got me thinking: one way to update F.R.E.E. Lancers would be to make it an alternate present. 

Of course, it would need an update in some ways. Computer tech, the internet, smartphones. Technological advances since that time would have made some of the "superhuman" characters seem all the more plausible:

Other things like psi powers would still remain in a more fantastical realm. I think it would be an interesting mix.

Of course uniforms/costumes would be updated to the current "realistic" style of superheroic movies and tv shows.

Weird Revisited: Random Rampage Table

On occasion, someone in the City can be heard to ask, incredulously: "What's climbing to the top of that skyscraper?!":

1. nonhuman hominid or primate
2. Gargantuan crustacean (lobstrosity)
3. Fifty-foot showgirl
4. Gi-ant
5. Flesh golem compose of parts of 1-6 other giant creatures
6. Animated statute
8. Man mutated by thaumaturgic accident
9. Gigantolycanthrope
10. Ghost of another creature (roll again to determine which)
11. Amorphous blob or slime
12. Mega-flumph

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 1981 (wk 2 pt 1)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around June 18, 1981.

Action Comics #523: It's a good thing the DC Who's Who didn't pay as much attention to alien species as the OHOTMU did, otherwise they would have needed a whole appendix for the aliens in Conway's Action run alone. Is it editorial that keeps Superman's adventures here so formulaic? Or just simply nostalgia for the 50s by the writers? Still, I've got to commend their inventiveness in terms of the variety of shenanigans the aliens of the month get up to. This time, a shapeshifting alien shows up and claims jock doofus Steve Lombard is really his long lost brother. Tests seem to support the claim, and Lombard goes off to his homeworld. Superman follows and finds the aliens are stealing the athletic abilities from the galaxy's best physical specimens--but really Lombard was just a means to get Superman in a trap. Supes saw all this coming though and defeats them, returning Lombard to Earth. 

In the Rozakis/Saviuk Atom backup, the tiny titan falls back in time to the extreme hurricane season of 1938. There he manages to meet his parents as younger people and help his future father rescue his future mother from the storm. He is able to climb the cable back into 1981 and take out the Calculator by having the professor press all the buttons on Calculator's chest plate at once.

Adventure Comics #485: Really nice Perez cover on this one. On the inside, well, we get a shadowy big bad introduced this issue that may signal a shift to an overarching story. Or maybe not. Anyway, this issue sees said Shadowy "Master" sending a team of villains called the Evil Eight against our heroes in a series of skirmishes in an attempt to get their Hero dials. They do not succeed. Oh, and the kid's friend who ran away and joined a gang because his parents were getting divorced, finally gets away from those delinquents.

Brave & the Bold #178: Brennert and Aparo come up with an interesting villain design in the form of the Origami Man, who pretty much looks like you might think except you might not imagine his really angry looking eyes. Anyway, Jack Ryder is concerned that Clayton Whetley a fellow commentator at WHAM is beginning to take aim at minorities. Meanwhile, Batman is trying to track down the so-called "doll killer" who leaves paper dolls at the scene and also tends to target minorities. The Creeper and Batman manage to corner the Origami creature, but it's too tough for them. Analysis of the paper it's made up of shows that it's a special paper used for origami, likely known only to collectors--like Whetley. Batman and the Creeper confront Whetley, but the creature attacks again. Whetley realizes that he is responsible for creating the monster and has been unwittingly channeling the hate of his audience to fuel the creature's rampage. Whetley's horror and rejection of what he has done causes the creature to burst into flame. In the end, the Creeper points out that the real murderers are of course still out there, and all they need is another focus for their hate.

In the Nemesis backup, our hero is in the hands of Samuel Solomon who wants to use him to take down the other members of the Council to consolidate his power. To ensure Nemesis' cooperation, Solomon's clamped a device to his heart that can induce a heart attack. Nemesis manages to escape, and he hopes Solomon believes he's dead so we won't use the device.

All-Star Squadron #1: Thomas, Buckler, and Ordway follow-up from last month's preview, still introducing their large cast of characters. Hawkman and Plastic Man try to find out what happened to Hawkman's JSA buddies and run afoul of some other villains that are likely time displaced. The two heroes head to Washington to answer Roosevelt's summons. 

Meanwhile, vulcanologist Danette Reilly and the Shining Knight run into Per Degaton and his villainous crew in Hawaii. Soon, the attack on Pearl Harbor occurs and Danette's brother Dan is apparently killed.

Hawkman and Plastic Man meet up in D.C. with Dr. Mid-Nite and the Atom. Johnny Quick and Liberty Belle weren't summoned, but just happen to be there anyway. FDR asks them to mobilize all costumed heroes in an All-Star Squadron. They should go to the West Coast to deal with further attacks.

They may not make it. Per Degaton and his forces are making a submarine attack on San Francisco.

House of Mystery #296: The first story here is a real bit of anti-homeless paranoia by Conway and Infantino. A doctor in a emergency department becomes curious about the bag ladies from the subway tunnels she treats. She goes looking for them and discovers it's one big coven of witches. She joins up, sacrificing her life and looks for secrets of the universe, and we last see her aged and disheveled so much as to be unrecognizable, picking from the garbage and putting stuff into her shopping bags. 

The next story by Kashdan and Randall/Blaisdell has a rebel in a dystopian, robot-controlled future sentenced to give up his brain for the very robot he smashed in the head. In a silly story by Kupperberg and Carrillo, an actor on a soon to be cancelled Gothic soap summons an angel of death to put an end to the talk show host beating his show in the ratings. The angel must take a soul, so when he's pointed to the talk show that happens to be airing a rerun, the actor is taken instead. 

In the final story by Mishkin/Cohn and Hall/Celardo, a struggling community in a post-nuclear war America inadvertently brings a serial killer into its walls after a foraging expedition into the ruins. Ultimately though, it's fear and suspicion of outsiders and the desire to resort to violence to salve that fear that does more damage to the community than the killer by pushing it to isolationism.

Green Lantern #143: Wolfman and Staton have Hal and Carol bid goodbye to the Omega Men and head back into the less interesting "Carol's father makes Ferris Aircraft great again" storyline. An old mentor of Jordan's brought in to replace Carol, so Carol and Hal storm out again and coincidentally run into the Tattooed Man. He does a lot better against GL than you might think because there's "yellow ink" in his tattoos or something. Ultimately, he's shot and killed by whoever the shadowy foe is he's on the run from, and Jordan vows to avenge his death.

In the Sutton/Rodriguez Adam Strange backup, Adam leads an assault on Alva Xur's base with the help of the aquatic folks he met earlier in this arc, and they free Alanna and defeat the badguy.

Superman Family #210: This is a title where the stories are often well-crafted (though not always) but also just not the sort of thing that people read superhero comics for in 2021--not just in the anthology aspect but in the focus and style of a lot of the stories. Sort of good this issue is the goofy Supergirl story by Rozakis and Mortimer/Colletta where it turns out the sports commentator who is somehow making people act badly at sporting events is doing it because he secretly hates sports because he was never any good at them. Supergirl prevails in the end, of course. The Pasko/Delbo Jimmy Olsen story has Jimmy accidentally getting into a cab with 3 lookalikes. It turns out a guy who feels Olsen's reporting ruined his life has hired four stand-ins to ruin Jimmy's! 

The less good: The Mr. and Mrs. Superman has the Earth-2 Lex Luthor (the one with hair) using some tribal mask with magical powers to get back at Superman. The Clark Kent story has the intriguing (ok, mildly interesting) conceit of him writing the story about how Superman stops a bomber before he goes out to actually do it. A mistake on Superman's part when spying on the bomber sends him to the wrong place, and he almost doesn't stop the bomb. The Conway/Oksner Lois Lane story has her thwarting theft at a dog show. A dog show.

Marvel Superheroes RPG Derivates

 Lately, I've been been looking at games employing the old Universal Table. That is derivates of TSR's Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game, sometimes called FASERIP, which is potentially confusing as one of these derivatives is name FASERIP. I haven't made an exhaustive study of them, but I have gotten a feel I think for what the authors were looking to update or add to them.

Interestingly, the Karma system is tweaked in all three of them, suggesting the way it works in the published editions is high on the list of thinks to fix.

Anyway, here's my brief rundown:

FASERIP: This one hews the closest to the original. Mainly it seems to switch out the original powers and their descriptions for a semi-"effects based" system system derived from Icons. It also changes advancement to be based around "milestones" and the pushing of abilities. I hear the character generation system is based on Golden Heroes, but I'm not familiar with that game.

Astonishing Superheroes Book 1: The Basic Rulebook: This is the newest of the three. In fact, it's not really complete yet, though the the published books and a Beta of the second book give you enough to actually play it. It occupies a middle position of the three. It's changes/innovations include adding a mental/spiritual health score called Resolve, and rolls for social interactions like persuasion and the like. It's Karma system cuts character's initial Karma by 10, but makes up for it by more greater rewards based around character personality traits/ideals/ believes. It's power system is a looser than FASERIPs, though perhaps not looser that the original games, other than drawing attention to this looseness by discussing how you would create new powers.

Marvel Superheroes Nth Edition: Is a bit like a mashup of Fate and MSHRPG with a bit of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying in there. Like more than one MSHRPG "heartbreaker" or fan-tweak it adds more ability ranks (more than most others I've seen) and a critical failure level on the universal table. It also adds more attributes, making them more specific in their focus. Talents also get expanded ranks. It adapts the "Four Actions" of Fate, and ditches Karma entirely for a system of Drama Points based on invoking Distinctions, traits that define the personality and backstory of characters. Like ASH, it adds a mental/spiritual stress track (Sanity) and rules for social interaction.

Nth Edition has some interesting ideas, but there's just too much there for me. It's like it wants to be a crunchier MSHRPG and a more narrative one. I'd prefer it picked one or the other. FASERIP is probably the game for those that just want a cleaned up MSHRPG, but really, unless the author's concerns are exactly congruent with your own, it seems like it's playing with someone else's house rules. Of the three, Astonishing Superheroes seems like it overall balances putting some modern innovations into the game without making it alien to the people who love it.

Marva

More about the setting I'm going to use or my 5e pulp sci-fi game...

Marva, fourth planet from the sun, is harsh, desert world, made so by natural processes but also as the result of a long ago atomic war. In ancient times, the advanced science of Marva's native intelligent species, the Vrusk, was bent to the art of weapon-making to wield against the members of rival sociopolitical groups. The Vrusk refer to these conflicts as the Hive Wars. They very nearly led to the race's extinction.

The Vrusk bear some resemble to giant insects in their form, though they actually have internal skeletons and possess eight limbs. Most of the "civilized" Vrusk live within one o several domed cities or the underground structures beneath. Toxins from the ancient wars are still present, so it is prudent to limit exposure the the exterior environment unprotected.

The dwindling resources of their world have forced the Vrusk to develop a fairly regimented society by human standards. Every Vrusk knows their role and performs it for the good of all. Their Council of Experts advises and oversees the various  citizen committees which manage most aspects of Vrusk civilization. Vrusk consider it their duty to serve their race in whatever capacity required of them. Modern Vrusk are seen as industrious, stoic, and rational by most of the Solar Systems peoples--some (like the Hadozee) might call them boring and pedantic.

Of course, Vrusk have their free thinkers and eccentrics just like any other people. When the Vrusk collective cannot find creative ways to utilize these individuals, they are politely ostracized and they typically drift elsewhere in the system.