Weird Revisited: Found in a Shoebox

This a Weird Adventures post, originally present in August of 2012...

Cataloging of a deceased adventurer’s belongings revealed a shoebox full of assorted old photos.  A few held more than sentimental interest:

The Dark Manor
The most dangerous photo of the lot.  If stared at during night, the photo may open a portal to the pictured manor in a strange demi-realm shrouded in mist and populated by people who appeared to come from a gothic horror yarn. Anyone transported to the realm will be there for 24 hours on earth--though the exact time in the demi-realm is variable: anything from one night to a two weeks.

The Gold Women

A set of automata construct by a Staarkish thaumaturgist two centuries ago.  They disappeared from a private collection in Lutha during the Great War.  This photo has an address in Metropolis written on the back of it.

The Succubus
Naughty postcard from roughly 40 years ago.  It can be used to summon a succubus once per week if the incantation written on back is read and a few drops of the summoners blood (or other body fluid) is spilled into a circle draw on the floor.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1982 (week 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 February 11, 1982.

Batman #347: Slifer and von Eeden/Marcos present one of those "people talk about Batman" type stories within a story as a small-time crook tries to persuade a buddy to join in on a bank robbery, but his friend relates two tales of their biggest obstacle: Batman. In the end they decide to go straight. More interesting is the politics of the story. A group has been setting fire to slum tenements ostensibly as a "blow against capitalism." Batman calls it the "big business is bad syndrome." When the arson hurts someone in the community Batman is able to show the group the error of their ways. 

The rest of the issue is filled with mystery "shorts" with Bat Family characters: Batman and a retired police detective turned security guard solve the mystery of a detective's murder. Then, Alfred gets in the game by proving that the nephew of a friend's employer murdered his uncle and made it look like suicide.

Flash #309: Bates and Infantino/Smith have a time-traveler from the 98th Century comes back to the 1982 to find out if superheroes are real, and if so, steal the powers of one to save his future from a monster. The Flash prevents the visitor from stealing his powers but helps him by leading the guy back to the day Barry Allen became the Flash (April 23rd, if you were wondering) and allowing the visitor to get duplicate Flash powers. The visitor returns to his time and as the Flash of the 98th Century, sacrifices himself to save his people.

In the Dr. Fate backup, all seems lost as the Helm of Fate has been stolen by Malferrazae and Inza is dead. Inza's spirit reveals to the grieving Nelson that there is a way to bring her back, by reuniting her body with the entity of jealous the Lord of Chaos made from her. Nelson smartly defeats the Jealous entity, by showing interest in her, causing her to turn her wrath on herself. This allows him to snatch back the helm and reassume the mantle of Dr. Fate. Using his power to his utmost, he is able to defeat Malferrazae and repair the damage done. Inza is restored and the riff between the couple patched.

G.I. Combat #241: The Haunted Tank crew in some ways seem to be the luckiest guys in the war. They are being transported from North Africa to Sicily on an LST, but they are attacked by German aircraft. Everyone else on the ship is killed, but the vessel runs aground and the door opens to let the Tank about before the ship is consumed in an explosion. Anyway, Jeb is guided by his superiors to a series of locations seemingly for no reason, but really to to drive a narrow wedge through the enemy lines while the American forces followed in secret behind them. The tank is destroyed, but the crew survives and wins the day. 

The second Haunted Tank yarn is a flashback to their earliest days in Africa. Once again, the Tank is the only survivor of a squadron, but Jeb grabs his dead captain's helmet to replace his missing one, inadvertently spurring the company coming behind them to come to their aid in an assault on a German fortress.

The other stories include a history of the song "Taps," and a story by Allikas and Bercasio set in the Korean War where a rich kid learns he can't always buy his way out of work or trouble, but steps up and becomes a better man and soldier. The O.S.S. story involves trying to keep the site of the D-Day landing secret from the Germans. Hitler thinks the Allies are using reverse psychology via a captured spy and the landing will be in Calais, but Control is employing reverse reverse psychology. Or something like that.

Jonah Hex #60: Hex has been kidnapped and is on a ship to China. When pirates attack, Hex falls off the ship, but then washes up on the Chinese coast. He's nursed back to health by a local couple, but then captured again by the authorities. It turns out a Warlord wants Hex to do something for him--and they've got Mei Ling captive to ensure his cooperation. 

The El Diablo backup by Cohn and Ayers/DeZuniga has the town all riled up due to some abductions which they blame on a new religious group that's moved into town. I was thinking wrongly accused Mennonites or something, but nope, they are full-on robed, Satanic cultists into human sacrifice. They call up the Devil, but El Diablo turns the tables on them, because he and the Devil apparently have an understanding.

Saga of the Swamp Thing #1: Just in time for the movie (premiering on February 19, 1982) we get a new Swamp Thing title by Pasko and Yeates. After a recap of his origin, we find Swamp Thing near Limbo, North Carolina, near the Great Dismal Swamp. He's having a bad time of things, as he loses a hand while trying to save some dumb hunters from a bear. While waiting on his hand to regrow, he befriends a strange young girl who's father was preparing to kill her because he thinks she's a witch. Instead, he accidentally kills himself after the Swamp Thing intervenes. Meanwhile, a guy working for the Sunderland Corporation is after Swamp Thing. He's got Swamp Thing's dismembered hand, and he tells his boss Swamp Thing is dying.

The Phantom Stranger backup is by Jones and Spiegle. The Stranger bears witness to the strange end of a corrupt Baptist Preacher who fleeces his parishioners and uses his church as a front for his heroin operation. Unfortunately for him, one of his flock is a former voodoo practitioner, and when she gets wise to his con, she summons a swarm of cockroaches to end him.

New Teen Titans #19: Wolfman and Perez bring back Dr. Light and again play him as a joke to the heroes. He tries to rob an Indian exhibit in (I guess) a Midway City museum, only to run afoul of visiting museum curator Carter Hall in his Hawkman identity. Somehow, his light power brings to life monstrous incarnations of Vishnu. Light leads them to the Titans, hoping they will protect him from the vengeful beings. Once Robin and Hawkman get the truth from Light, Starfire uses her power to reverse the effect and banish the creatures. Light goes back to jail.

Superman #371: Wein and Swan have Superman puttering around the ol' Fortress, when he discovers a 

race of tiny, other-dimensional aliens have taken up residence in the Kandor replica Superman built in the old bottle. They want to live and normal sized people somewhere in our universe. Superman helps two volunteers to grow to human-size, but they are devolved into humanoid monsters by Earth bacteria. Superman is able to turn them back to normal with Kryptonite. He promises to work on a way to vaccinate them all, but until then they must remain in the bottled city as the new Kandorians. This has the feel of a "discontinuity nod" as the tvtropes folks say.

Rozakis and Calnan bring "The Private Life of Clark Kent" over here from World's Finest. An exposure to the rays of a purple sun gives Superman temporary mind-over-matter powers, which leads to numerous instances of hm creating money out of nowhere until he realizes what's going on. 

13th Age

 

I've had the 13th Age core book for sometime, but after picking up most of the rest of the publications for the game in a recent Bundle of Holding, I decided to give it a try. My online group was willing to give it a try. 

For the unfamiliar, 13th Age is sort of an "alternate evolution" of D&D. Debuting in 2013, it sort sort of took D&D 4e and stepped in a rules lighter direction, adding some freeform elements, quite different from the specification of 3e versions of the game. It's roughly equivalent in crunch, I would say, to 5e, but lighter than 5e in some areas.

We spent the first session in character creation. It took perhaps a little longer than 5e because the freeform elements required a little more thought. What are these elements? Well, the biggest is that every character has "One Unique Thing" some (noncombat) thing that sets them apart from perhaps everyone else. Not only does this serve as a character hook, but it allows the player to define something about the world. 

Then there are backgrounds. Unlike 5e backgrounds which are essentially packages of skills and accoutrements, 13th Age backgrounds are player defined (and presumably GM negotiated) broad skills. You could do something simple like "Miner," but it could also be something like (one my wife picked) "Gnomish Debutante." Like the One Unique Thing, backgrounds have the effect of fleshing out the world to a degree. The only downside I see to them is that characters might not be as "well-rounded" in the arena of adventure related tasks as their 5e counterparts. Still, that just means that (like older versions of D&D) skills are likely of less importance.

One final element not found in typical D&D is that every character has a relationship to one of the settings Icons, vaguely defined (so the GM can flesh them out more) beings of great power and importance in the setting. Characters can have a positive, conflicted, or negative relationship with one or more Icons. These are meant to be adventure hooks. You roll to see when they might come into play.

Anyway, the group seem to like what they've seen of the system so far and are interested in giving it a go.

The Age of the Wizard Kings

 

Millennia after the technological civilization of humankind was cast in ruins, a strange, new world had risen from the old. This time was known as the Age of the Wizard Kings as it was dominated by practitioners of magic. While the most of humanity had reverted to primitivism, the smaller, near human folk that are the ancestors of elves, dwarfs, and halflings, dominated the eastern part of the continent through their mastery of magic.

The Wizard Kings at earlier times had been ranked according to power, but by the time of the Orc Incursions that ravaged the land and threatened the stability of their rule, they were more or less equal in power. They held a magical contest to see who would possess a mystic tome of great power. Details have been lost to time, but someone that contest resulted in the ascendance of the Dark Lord, whose ultimate defeat came at a terrible cost. The city-states never recovered and were easy conquests for the human tribes entering the region.

Despite the millennia since it's fall, the influence of the Age of Wizard Kings can be felt in the present day. Many of the spell formulae known by human mages in the present day and many half-buried ruins and subterranean treasure vaults current adventurers seek to plunder date from this period.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1982 (week 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of February 4, 1982. 

Arak Son of Thunder #9: Thomas and Colon/Rodriquez are following the Conan playbook and have Arak and Valda head out to sea, trying to get to Constantinople. The sailing is of course not smooth as they must fight back against piractical types. In the Viking Prince backup by Kanigher and Duursema, the Prince loses an arm saving a woman from druidic sacrifice, but she knows a place he may be able to get it magically reattached!

DC Comics Presents #45: A freak accident while stealing tech secrets for the Soviets turns a Kristopher Kross (not that one) into Kriss-Kross (not the other ones) into a lame, one-off villain for Superman and Firestorm. But Conway does get to plug his upcoming Firestorm series.

Ghosts #112: This title gives up the ghost with this issue, but they saved some not bad stories for it. Also of interest is the editorial that thanks the writers and artists and plugs some new/upcoming DC titles. It particularly spends time on the titles in what it calls the "mystery genre" which include Saga of the Swamp Thing (premiering later this month) and the upcoming The Dark Force--which will see print as Night Force.  

In the stories, Harris and Texeira have a kid named Joey who is allowed to join the bigger kids pirate club rise to lead it after being possessed by the spirit in an old pirate's skull. Kanigher and Bender send John Wilkes Booth to hell where he has to live out the assassination he committed over and over--in Lincoln's place. Finally, in a proto-Death Note, a cop gets ahold of a page from Death's book and uses it to extort money from people looking to prevent their death or the death of a loved one. When Death comes to get it back, he extorts immortality from Death, too! The Grim Reaper tricks him though, and he gets eternal life--buried alive!

Justice League #202: I don't know what Conway and Heck were thinking on this one. It's like a Space: 1999 plot or something. Batman's injured while doing repairs on the outside of the JLA satellite. Before his teammates can get to him, he's picked up by an alien medical ship, whose automated systems heal him--but in the image of its presumably long-dead creator, Ursak. The process leaves Batman deranged. His teammates have to defeat him, before they can get the ship to heal him again, then Hawkman reprograms it and sends it on its way.

Weird War Tales #111: I had this issue as a kid. Kanigher and Spiegle do the sensible thing and team-up G.I. Robot and the Creature Commandos on an island with dinosaurs and survivors from Lemuria. Well, technically they are Atlanteans from an Atlantide colony in the Pacific--and they are survivors, but instead their robot descendants. Due to the Doctor's snaky tresses the Atlanteans decide to attack, but the Creature Commandos dispatch them. The Atlantean leader appeals to a fellow robot for help, but as with all G.I. Robot stories, the robot's humanity shows through, and J.A.K.E sacrifices himself to save the Commandos.

Wonder Woman #291: This is probably Thomas' Marvel roots showing. A gigantic and ultra-powerful alien, The Adjudicator, arrives to judge the Earth, as he has countless planets before. He discovers all the parallel Earths and plans to judge a number of them, too. Wonder Woman calls in the assistance of the JLA. Black Canary heads to Earth-2 to warn the JSA, Green Lantern heads to Oa to see what the Guardians know about the alien, and Superman goes to the Fortress of Solitude to search its archives. Wonder Woman and Zatanna are left to challenge Adjudicators physical manifestations: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The two battle the Horseman Famine in India and manage to defeat it.

The Rise of the Orc

 Orcs first appear in the annals of history in the Age of the Wizard-Kings. Though they had already been mutated from pre-cataclysm humanity, they were at that point less divergent than today. As highly organized military bands, they raided across the mountains and into the lands of the Wizard-Kings. They were greatly feared due to their mastery of some of the lost technology of humankind. 

Latter day scholars have been skeptical on this point, but surviving writings from the era make it clear the Orc bands struck rapidly through the use of motorized conveyances. Their depredations further destabilized the fractious, petty kingdoms and hastened the end of the Age. The chaos that followed, however, was damaging to Orc culture as well, and those in the East did not retain much of their technology in the aftermath.

The Orcs see themselves as the defenders and preservers of High Human Culture. They wish to restore a perhaps-mythic paradise called Murka. The fierce war eagle is their symbol for this land and for their own people. The ancestors of the Orcs apparently survived much of the devastation of the collapse of previous human civilization by moving underground, and modern Orcs continue to be at least semi-subterranean. They believe in the necessity of keeping their race "pure," and tend to remain apart from other peoples. They have a reverence for items of technology and often worship ancient machines with grisly sacrifices. 

Orc knowledge of ancient technology is generally more advanced peoples. Some Orcish groups in known regions have abandoned the marauding ways of their ancestors, but not their love of technology. They often make a living as tinkers or mountebanks.

There is said to be a still-thriving Orc Empire to the West in possession of powerful and frightening ancient weapons of war.

The Gygaxian D&D Implied Setting Recipe

 

I present this only semi-seriously, and I'll admit to a less than unassailably rigorous methodology--but I think I have identified the key ingredients and steps involved in creating a D&D setting that would have the true old school D&D (as opposed to Old School Rennaissance) vibe. These steps were developed from pondering the various inspirational reading lists supplied by Gygax, including some forum responses regarding the most important works there in, and comparing it to the implied setting of the manuals and the explicit setting of Greyhawk.

Here's what I came up with:

1. Take Middle-Earth and excise the human nations/cultures, gods and history.

2. Replace with the relevant material from Howard's Hyborian Age (making sure to keep the ethnography and mass migration) and add additional nations/cultures and deities as needed from the Elric Saga and the fantasies of de Camp.

3. Work in a cosmic struggle between Law and Chaos, derived from Anderson with seasoning from Moorcock

4. Place at least one Lankhmar stand-in urban center.

5. Sprinkle in lost worlds from Burroughs and some extra dimensions from Theosophy and de Camp.

5. Strain out any pulp magic in favor of a "logical" and pedantic magical system flavored with Vance, but with a foundation in de Camp/Pratt.

6. Downplay any doomed or destined, great heroes in favor of a cast of scoundrels rounded up in Vance's Dying Earth and Leiber's Lankhmar. 

7. Pull monsters from anywhere and everywhere, including science fiction (particularly post-apocalyptic). 

8. Emphasize underground environments with a hint of St. Claire and Leiber's Quarmall.

Wednesday Comics: DC, April 1982 (week 4)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, we review the comics hitting the newsstand on January 28, 1982.

Action Comics #530: Wolfman and Swan are dragging this storyline out, but Superman and the Brainiac he reprogrammed for evil finally get to confronting the Planet-Eater. And predictably, evil Brainiac (now more evil than ever, we are told) betrays Superman and plans to use the device to clear out the clutter of the current universe so he can start anew. Superman manages to defeat Brainiac, though, stopping the Planet-Eater and trapping Brainiac inside.

Speaking of draggin things out, Aquaman is still hanging on that alien planet, but he manages to get a creature to blast him, and he's vibrated back to Earth's ocean. In a pointless crossover, the Atom and Jean just happen to be sailing by so they can rescue him.

All-Star Squadron #8: It's now December 30, 1941, and Liberty Belle, the Shining Knight, plus the new hero, Steel, defeat an assassin sent by Baron Blitzkrieg. The main story is by Thomas and Gonzales/Ordway, but the recap of Steel's origin is handled by Conway and Heck. This makes since because that team created Steel in 1978's Steel series, but it only lasted 5 issues thanks to the Implosion. This issue also has some file entries in the back.

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #2: Thomas and Alcala/Shaw pick up where issue #1 left off. Thomas, showing his Marvel roots, has the team almost immediately beset by internal conflict. Pig Iron, not use to his new body, inadvertently wreaks havoc as he's just trying to leave town. Shortly after, he's approached by A.C.R.O.S.T.I.C. (A Corporation Recently Organized to Instigate Crimes) who want to pay him to join their side. Pig Iron declines, so they set their operative, the Armadillo on him. The team shows up, and ultimately Pig Iron decides to join the Zoo Crew after all. 

Detective Comics #513: Conway and Newton continue the Two-Face story from this month's Batman. Batman has been missing for a week, and Two-Face's gang has been on a crime spree. Robin thwarts one of the crimes and forces the goons to tell him Batman's whereabouts. Meanwhile, Batman devises his on escape by molding a plastic tray into a mask of Two-Face's scarred visage and using it to freak the criminal out. By the time Robin and the police arrive, Batman has captured the criminals. In the aftermath, Bruce tells Alfred and Dick of his decision to move out of the penthouse and back to Wayne Manor.

In the Burkett/Delbo Batgirl backup, Barbara tangles with a biker gang known as the Demon Riders but receives help from a mysterious stranger.

New Adventures of Superboy #28: The Kryptonian criminals from last issue finally seem to have convinced Superboy that they are his parents, much to the distress of the Kents. Superboy's own memories seem to confirm it. Superboy releases Sar-Ul and Ralsa from where he imprisoned them and goes with them to another world. It turns out to be be under a red sun, so they are powerless. Superboy reveals he's onto their memory-falsifying telepath tricks. He leaves them on that world where they can't cause trouble.

Dial H for Hero arrives in this issue as a backup. The villain (presumably created by a fan, so we can't blame Rozakis and Bridwell for the name), the Senses-Taker, goes on a crime spree and only the kids can stop him.

Unexpected #221: This is a sci-fi focused issue. In the opener by Snyder and Catan, a group of astronauts return to a devastated Earth with a desire to repopulate it. The grow their children in an accelerated way in some sort of artificial wombs, though there's dissention among the group about this. In the end, the evolutionarily advanced children emerge and reject their flawed parents to set out on their own. The next story by Ditko is an old fashioned if creative Atlas style story about an electromagnetic alien that can inhabit and animate any material. 

The next story by Kelley and Ayers is the only non-sci-fi piece, and also the worst. I guy runs to a woman's aid and inadvertently kills her assailant only to discover she was the assailant and the other guy her victim. The final story by Conway and Zeck has an explorer on Pluto getting frozen to the spot with no way to call for her thanks to frozen oxygen from a ruptured tank, but she saved by alien creatures she previously didn't recognize as being alive.

Unknown Soldier #262: This issue has two new backup features: Balloon Buster and Tomahawk. Both of these characters I feel like are under-appreciated. Kanigher and Spiegle reintroduce Balloon Buster, telling his origin, and recounting part of an encounter with Enemy Ace. I feel like this basically recaps stuff from previous appearances, but I'm not sure. There's no Balloon Buster Archives to consult! The Tomahawk story by Haney and Delbo starts out on an odd note: Tomahawk at odds with Washington and his foreign military supporters over the execution of a deserter who needed to return home and tend his farm. Tomahawk is whipped for insubordination to a von Steuben. Tomahawk is then sent on a scouting mission as punishment and is captured by the British force's allies, the Delaware. He escapes and makes it back to the fort, only to find he is under arrest for the attempted assassination of Washington!

The Unknown Soldier story by Haney and Ayers/Tlaloc involves a French painter sent to pretend to paint Hitler's portrait while secretly encoding the German preparations to counter D-Day. When he gets so angry at Hitler's callousness that he paints him in an inflattering light, he's marked for death, but Soldier as a master of disguise manages to get the painter out alive and the painting out intact.

World's Finest Comics #278: Rozakis and Buckler/Marcos team-up Hawkman with Batman and Superman to finish off the Hawkman arc. The three go to Thanagar and execute a plan to take down Hyathis' rule (if it was this easy, why wait until now?). Hawkgirl briefly appears again, but before Hawkman can attempt to reconcile, she's gone again. Barr and von Eeden continue their Green Arrow story, with Ollie's quick thinking and quicker reflexes saving him from a fall to his death. He discovers who framed Green Arrow for murder, and it is ironically, the informant whose identity Ollie went to jail to protect.

The Kupperberg/Spiegle Zatanna story shows the shortcomings of the anthology format as executed as Zatanna takes on dog-nappers and goes to a dog show. The Bridwell/Newton Marvel family story has the group taking on a new villain, Darkling, who appears this issue. Mary has to defeat her, because the male Marvels can't hit a woman.

Back to Broken Compass

 

One of my two gaming groups picked back up last night after the holiday hiatus. We got back into the "Serpent Throne" adventure for the pulp version of Broken Compass.

I've noticed that CMON has made the pirate supplement, Jolly Roger, and Voyages Extraordinaires, the supplement for Jules Vernes type adventures, available on drivethru. They both seem pretty cool, but there are other things from that last Kickstarter I hope they get out soon.

Weird Revisited: The Conquered Setting

One of the dangers of writing a long-lasting blog, is that you sometimes can't remember what you wrote about versus what you just thought about writing. I wrote two posts on a "Conquered Setting"--one in 2020 and one over a year later in 2021--because I forgot I did it. Here's the first one again.

 

It's widely understood that the D&D is generically post-apocalyptic, but seldom is this fact exploited other than the existence of dungeons and treasures, or possibly some science fantasy stuff in old school games. I think more could be done with that idea.

Maybe the apocalypse involved conquest? This could have been a long time ago, explaining a decline in technology (if you wanted to have a decline in technology) or maybe some degree of pseudo-Medievalism is enforced by the conquerors. (This is the case in Divide And Rule by L. Spraque de Camp, and The Tripods series by John Christopher.) The technology level could be more mixed due to temporal proximity to the apocalyptic event like in Killraven (Thundarr appears to be close, though canonically it's been 2000 years!) Another possibility is a society that was not really that advanced when it got conquered, like Lord of the Rings if Sauron won or there was some sort of faerie apocalypse.

There are at least couple interesting elements to this sort of setup. One, is it would set up a world where humans weren't the dominant culture, which would be fairly novel for D&D. Too, it would provide background for PC adventures beyond just treasure hunting. Vance's Planet of Adventure would be instructive with this last part.

Wednesday Comics: DC, April 1982 (week 3)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around January 21, 1982.

Brave & the Bold #185: Kraar and Gonzales/DeCarlo throw Green Arrow into the mix. It's a fun pairing because, despite the characters' not dissimilar schticks, their personalities are very different. It almost has a bit of "buddy comedy" feel. Batman asks Green Arrow to play the role of Robin Hood during the party of a millionaire, and Ollie reluctantly agrees. The Penguin crashes the party--and who knew he had robots at his disposal? The portrayal here of Penguin's menace and competence isn't what I expected. 

Legion of Super-Heroes #286: Levitz and Broderick/Tanghal have the Legion enjoying some time off when Dr. Regulus shows up on R. J. Brande's private planetoid for a death match against Sun Boy. It takes more than Sun Boy to defeat Regulus and stop the destruction his sabotage will cause. Also, Brande tries to connect with his son, Chameleon Boy, but Cham takes the espionage squad off on a mission, apparently to avoid his dad. 

In the backup by Levitz and Giffen, Princess Projectra is crowned Queen of Orando after her father's death, but her cousin challenges and defeats both her and Karate Kid in a trial by combat for the crown.

Green Lantern #151: Wolfman and Staton detail Jordan's last 24 hours on Earth before his space exile. He's got a lot to do. He tells the Flash to tell the League he's going. He goes to Carol's house and winds up in another fight with Gold Face and his goons and defeats them. Gold Face reveals he's been working with Bloch. Jordan flies off, arriving just in time to save Carol and Bruce Gordon from Benjamin Bloch and his men. 

Green Lantern also arrives in the desert just in time to save Carl Ferris from Ted Bishop. Bishop manages to burn some of the papers than prove Bloch's guilt, though. Still, there's enough to exonerate Ferris even if it doesn't convict Bloch. Lastly, Jordan professes his love for Carol again and leaves.

House of Mystery #303: Here is the carnival story promised last issue. Jones and Sutton have Bennett infiltrating the show which is controlled by agents of the Blood Red Moon to stop their plans and rescue a woman. In the end, the woman is killed, and he appears to get a stake through the heart from Mary. Next up is a two-pager nonhorror thing by Wein and Spiegle about a primitive couple in a post-apocalyptic, swamp Los Angeles area.

"Hellride" by Mishkin/Cohn and Infante has a jack-o-lantern headed fiend riding after an outlaw biker, but the biker's skill wins out in the end. Jones and Tlaloc round out the issue with some EC-esque ridiculousness about a man with such a fear of bugs, he goes into pesticide synthesis to eradicate it. He marries a woman who is an insect enthusiast, but eventually he can't take it anymore and hatches a murder scheme. The insects he hates so much make sure he's the one that dies instead.

Phantom Zone #4: Gerber and Colan/DeZuniga's epic concludes. Superman challenges and escapes from Aethyr, but only after the death of Charlie Kweskill/Quex-Ul. Meanwhile, Earth's heroes have rallied. Superman and Supergirl smash the giant, Phantom Zone projector the criminals are menacing Earth with, knocking out the villains, and restoring Green Lantern's power battery to him.

The Zoners turn on each other. Az-Rel burns Faora to settle a score. The fanatic Jer-Em kills himself and Nadira with kryptonite. In her dying moments, she uses her power on Az-Rel, who loses control of his power and burns himself to ash. The surviving villains are sent back to the Phantom Zone created by Green Lantern.

Sgt. Rock #363: Easy Company is lured into a trap in the town of Boileau. While they are holed up, the men are convinced they are going to die and carve their names on a wooden post by way of memorial. Rock isn't ready to give up yet and gets them out in the end. Mandrake joins Kanigher on a story about a pilot so haunted by dreams of dying in fire, he chooses drowning instead. The last story has G.I.'s overthrowing the commander of a sadistic Japanese P.O.W. camp after the war has technically ended. It's marred by the carcicaturish coloring of the Japanese skintones, somehow made worse paired with Truman's somewhat crude art here.

Superman Family #217: No Private Life of Clark Kent story this month which is really just as well. In the Bridwell/Schaffenberger Mr. and Mrs. Superman story, Metalo (one "l" on Earth-2) weakens Supes with a ray, so he's got to do an exercise program to regain his strength for the fight. In the Kupperberg/Mortimer Supergirl story we're treated to an amazing display of her powers (following radio waves visually back to their source, memorizing a fingerprint then perusing police files from miles away to find a match) as she brings to justice a bomber bent on revenge in the 2 minute break of TV interview.

Kupperberg is back again with Delbo for Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy has to solve a mystery when his lunch with Inspector Henderson is interrupted by a writer who confessing to a murder he didn't commit. Finally, the O'Flynn/Delbo Lois Lane story has a famous country singer performing a song stolen from Lois's old college roommate, now a struggling songwriter (who's so Western-dudded out, it makes me wonder where Lois went to college), and Lois sets out to find the guilty party.

Warlord #56: I detailed the main story in this issue here. The backup continues Kupperberg's and Duursema's Arion. Arion heads out into the frozen wastes with his companions/protectors Wynde and Chian to find his former master. They get in a fight with a primitive tribe dwelling in a cave. Ultimately, Arion is captured and about to be sacrificed. 

Science Fantasy Knights

I feel like knights in a post-apocalyptic setting is an under utilized setting in rpgs. The sort of thing where in the mid- to far future, human civilization has gone back to something more like the Middle Ages. Often magic will have returned or old science will seem like magic. There is some pretty good source material out there, but the only game I think can think of is Mutants in Avalon. 

Fiction-wise, we've got: Moorcock's History of the Runestaff, Christopher's Sword of Spirits trilogy, and Harrison's The Pastel City (less so the sequels), at least. Comics-wise there isn't an exact fit (beyond the adaptations of Moorcock's work), but Camelot 3000 is close. There is even an 80s cartoon and toyline in the form of Visionaries.

Stephen King's Dark Tower series does a bit of this, but also leans on Western aesthetic and tropes and does that a bit more. Into the Badlands likewise has an Western element, but also wuxia.

Wednesday Comics: DC, April 1982 (week 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 January 14, 1982.

Batman #346: Two-Face escapes from Arkham by hypnotizing the guards with a special coin. While Batman searches for him, Gordon worries about Mayor Hills promise to get rid of him, Dick frets over his mysterious new girlfriend, Dala, and Vicki Vale becomes ever-more suspicious that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Conway is juggling a lot here! In the end, Batman tracks Two-Face down and overcomes numerous traps but is captured anyway.

In the Catwoman backup by Jones and von Eeden/Marcos, Catwoman discovers that the detective who hired her is really an ex-Nazi searching for an h-bomb formula hidden on the train. H wants revenge on her because her father killed his father. He ties Catwoman to the railroad tracks and he explains how he made the trains disappear with an underground tunnel and made everyone believe in ghosts with holographic images. Catwoman gets free and uses his own holograms against him.

Flash #308: Bates and Infantino/Smith have actress Daphne Dean seeking out the help of her childhood friend Barry Allen. It seems she's been getting increasingly more creepy letters of love from Lance Basilla, their childhood bully. Lance has been participating in some sort of sleep study and while he has dreamed his fancies are given physical form. A mummy monster from his mind challenges the Flash in an attempt to get Daphne. In the end, lightning thwarts the monster, and Lance seems to give up his obsession.

In the Dr. Fate backup, The Lord of Chaos Malferrazae (who has masqueraded as the god Totec) has sent a creature to destroy Fate. Only after the combat has gone on for sometime, does Fate discover the creature is borne of Inza's jealousy. If Fate manages to destroy the monster, Inza will die, devastating Kent Nelson's and destroying his will to serve as Doctor Fate, allowing Malferrazae to cause the fifth massive extinction on Earth! But if he doesn't destroy the monster, Malferrazae still wins.

G.I. Combat #240: There's a note in the letter column of this issue that they've had to cut back on pages. In Kanigher's and Glanzman's first Haunted Tank tale is more fantastic than most, with our heroes going up against a robot tank crew. When they are defeated by quicksand, Hitler executes the inventor in a fit of pique in true super-villain fashion. Kashdan and Matucenio deliver an ode to a hardworking truck. In the O.S.S. story, the metal plate on an agent's head gives a signal for the bombers to follow to destroy a German radar installation. Kashdan and Redondo present a story about a really by the book sargeant--who ultimately uses that manual to leave a paper trail for rescues to follow when he and his men are captured. 

The issue is rounded out as always by the Haunted Tank. With his tank busted and his men injured, Jeb has to go for help, but runs into a German death squad. His crew comes to the rescue at the last minute in a captured German armored car.

Jonah Hex #59: DeZuniga's cover for this issue is completely misleading because it just depicts the events of a nightmare Jonah has. Meanwhile, Wu Gong Phat, who claims to be a merchant from Nanking, sets a trap for Hex. Mei Ling receives a mysterious letter and rides off. The issue ends with Hex apparently being loaded on a boat in the San Francisco harbor.

The El Diablo backup by Cohn and Ayers has a traveling hypnotist arrive in town. After a seemingly innocuous show of his abilities, he gets the subjects he demonstrated on to rob a bank. All except Lazarus Long who becomes El Diablo and brings the wrongdoers to justice. Something El Diablo does leaves the hypnotist a jibbering madman.

New Teen Titans #18: Wolfman and Perez bring back the original Starfire. When his son is killed by Americans in El Salvador, a Soviet official seeks revenge by sending his secretary, Maladi Malanova, to America ostensibly as a courier--but she's also carrying a deadly disease. Learning of the plot, the Soviet government dispatches Starfire (the Russian one) to the U.S. to stop her. This being a superhero comic, the Titans mistake Starfire for the plague-carrier, and they fight. Then, they fight some more when they find out he intends to kill Maladi who is incurable. The Titans fight Starfire to a stalemate and Maladi is finally taken to a hospital to die in peace. Kid Flash condemns Starfire for his callousness, but the hero ultimately reveals that Maladi was his fiancée, and he had only volunteered for the mission to spare her the pain of a tortuous death.

Superman #370: Wein and Swan present "Better Living Through Chemo-stry!" Chemo returns to Earth and somehow merges with a laid-off factory-worker whose animus for his old employers drives Chemo to attack their factories. Superman succeeds in separating the two.

In the retro-topical "Superman: The In-Between Years" backup by Rozakis and Schaffenberger, Clark Kent learns that his roommate Tommy Lee's parents in South Viet Nam are endangered by the Communists and goes to help them as Superboy.

D&D Icons

Thinking about the 13th Age Icons this weekend, I think it would be fun to replace them with these guys. Really, it wouldn't take much modification of the official 13th Age crew. 

Caruso the Bard probably wouldn't make the cut, though.

Games I Liked in 2022

The pandemic led to more gaming, and that continued in 2022. In addition to running my long-standing 5e Land of Azurth game, I ran a few other systems:

Broken Compass: I really like this rules lite pulp game, and so do both the groups I've run it for. It makes for a great palate cleanser when you might get tired of a longrunning campaign in something else. I hope to run it more in 2023.

Marvel Heroic: I ignored this game at the time it was released, but I really shouldn't have. After running it for a short-time, I think it will become my go-to supers game in the future. There are somethings I don't like about it, but it runs quick and has a comic book feel. I might "update" a game to Cortex Prime (the latest iteration of the basic engine) if I was to run it again.

Rocket Age 5e: I only ran one session of this. I don't think it's a bad system, but 5e just doesn't seem the best to me for pulpy, retro-sci-fi. I think if I tried to run this setting again, I'd likely do it in Broken Compass. I would still recommend Rocket Age (both 5e and otherwise) for the setting material, though.