Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of August 4, 1983. 

Vigilante #1: Vigilante is a very 80s character in a way that it would have been hard to recognize in the 80s. His mission brief, as laid out here by Wolfman, is that he goes after criminals who escaped the law due to "a technicality"--a frequent 80s complaint, but what we now would term "due process." Anyway, Vigilante has got a tricked out, improbably huge RV, and a sidekick who is a tech expert. I'm struck by how much this setup reminds of where the Punisher winds up when he gets his on series (no RV, but a cool custom van). I can't blame Punisher's writers from cribbing from Vigilante, because Vigilante's stark, black and white suit (excepting a blue strip) and origin seem inspired by the Punisher, who I will note, was featured in 1982 in a character-re-popularizing 3 issue arc of Miller's run on Daredevil. The costume as rendered by Pollard and Giordano is pretty snazzy, though.

Anyway, after a criminal, Quilt, who Chase has long had his eye on, gets off thanks to a corrupt judge, Vigilante agrees to help a widow with a secret. Quilt has got a henchman named Brand who dresses all in white, has a white curly mohawk, and uses (guess!) a "B" branding iron as a weapon. There's a big fight scene at Coney Island and a climatic struggle on a roller coaster.

All-Star Squadron Annual #2: One thing I've discovered in this read through is that the comic tradition of large-scale team-ups with subgroups squaring off against villains that I so enjoyed is a kid, mostly winds up with me skimming pages of fights when I'm reading more than 6 comics a week for these reviews! This weeks Justice League is a such a comic, and Thomas and Ordway deliver the same sort of thing here. With extra pages! Which is not to say, in isolation, that it's bad. Finally, the heroes have rallied enough to be on the offensive against Ultra and his goons and this overlong storyline comes to a reasonable conclusion. The 1942 Ultra is seemingly blown up in Cyclotron's self-destruction (perhaps creating a paradox given he's alive in '83) and Infinity, Inc. get to team up with the All-Stars/JSA. Amazing-Man reveals he did make a heel-face turn, but was just playing along with the bad guys.

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #7: Mishkin/Cohn and Colon have Amethyst go on the offensive, crashing the wedding of Prince Topaz and Princess Sapphire to make sure that the nuptials do not come off, thwarting the plans of Dark Opal. She begins recruiting for her coalition to defeat the tyrant. There's a lot of Comics Code approved Game of Thrones-esque lord and lady intros and hints of political intrigue. It could all no doubt seem darker rendered by another hand, by it's all pretty breezy in Colon's cartoony style, and I kind of like it.

Blackhawk #264: Blackhawk pursues the Nazi assassin known as De Morder and they are both forced down in the remote Alps where they find a sort of European Shangri-La: a city of near immortal pacifists with telekinetic powers. Blackhawk and De Morder are forced through a trial to see which of the two men of violence is actually evil. In the end, De Morder's villainy is revealed, and Blackhawk is allowed to take him into custody. Meanwhile, the other Blackhawks attack Merson's recently discovered secret laboratory, but the evil inventor releases a swarm of trained bats fitted with explosive vests to down their planes.

In the solo story backup by Evanier and Meugniot, Chop Chop is in Switzerland breaking up a meeting between Japanese arms dealers and an amoral American arms exporter. The Japanese try a double cross using a giant robot. Chop-Chop defeats the robot and saves the American but she doesn't change her ways.

Arak: Son of Thunder #27: The Thomases and Randall pick up where last issue left off in the hippodrome of Byzantium. Arak recognizes the woman in the cage who can change into a tiger as the sister of the priestess Dziewona (who he met back in the Warlord preview). Risking his own life, Arak frees the woman. The empress orders their deaths, and it looks like the soldiers will bear down Arak and Satyricus through weight of numbers but the woman, Dyanna, calls down the power of her goddess. It's manifest as a solar eclipse and the animation of a pair of bronze horse statues. Arak follows Dyanna out of the city riding one of the horses.

In the backup with art by Randall/Yeates, we catch up with what Valda and Malgigi are up to on their way back to Frankland. Mostly, this means a flashback to Valda's training as a young knight and an incident which began when Creston, the Knight All in Scarlet, dying, whispered to her the name of the Archangel Michael.

DC Comics Presents #63: Mishkin/Cohn and Saviuk/Colon go for some synergy this week and have Amethyst team-up with Superman. Carnelian has come to Earth and is causing trouble, using Kryptonite as a source of magical power. The issue has a clever structure in that part is on Earth where Amethyst is just a kid, but she has useful information to help Superman, and the second half is on Gemworld where Amethyst takes the lead, but Superman's powers, unfamiliar to Dark Opal and his crew, allow the heroes to win the day.

Flash #327: Fiona is still in the hospital thinking any guy with a vague resemblance to Barry is him, but the Flash thinks that's better than revealing himself. Members of a street gang harassing a homeless guy inadvertently re-awaken Gorilla Grodd, who regains his true form. Meanwhile, the Justice League summons the Flash to the satellite for a vote on his continued membership given the charges. The way the votes go down doesn't map to my conception of the characters, but this was also 41 years ago. Firestorm, Green Arrow, and Elongated Man are for letting him stay, while Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman vote to expel him. Superman arrives and will cast the tie-breaking vote.

Fury of Firestorm #18: Taking up where last issue left off, Conway and Tuska/Rodriguez reveal Hewitt's knew inelegant supervillain identity--Tokamak. He can shoot "quantum rings." First, he fills Merkyn, the former Enforcer, for failure, then he gives the Enforcer suit to Mica Love before he goes after Lorraine Reilly in the hospital. Firestorm, whose been trying to figure out the connection between all these events, is jolted into action to protect her. We learn Hewitt is working with some organization called the 2000 Committee.

Justice League #220: Thomas and Patton complete the JSA/JLA team-up, revealing the true origin of Black Canary, and it has real "One Last Day" energy, in the since that it's pretty dumb, but it was a means to an end. Evil Earth-One Johnny (we're never given any backstory on his villainy) and T-bolt reveal that Dinah and Larry Lance had a daughter who was cursed by an evil Wizard to have a really loud cry (or sonic scream), so Dinah calls a guy who used to crush on her to see if he will get his genie to help. The genie can't do anything but take the baby away and let her grow up in isolated, suspended animation. Problem solved! Except the parents get radiation poisoning and die, but the Dinah's dying wish is to let her now-grown but mentally a black slate daughter continue for her by making her a mental clone. And Superman knew all this, but never told Black Canary or the JLA. Thomas thanks Wolfman for the idea, which seems to me to be a way of sharing the blame.

Anyway, the JSA and JLA defeat the villains, and Black Canaries youth and super-powers are explained.

Wonder Woman #309: Mishkin and Heck conclude the story started last issue, with the Roma woman, Zenna, whose mind is in Black Canary's body, explaining how the sadistic Nazi Schlagel has continued his experiments and has been using Roma children with psychic gifts to power a machine so that he can have the power to challenge the U.S. military. Our heroes free Black Canary, but Zenna jumps to Diana's body in her quest for vengeance, so now Wonder Woman is in Zenna's body as they race to stop Schlagel from launching missiles. In the end, Wonder Woman in Zenna's body is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, but the real Zenna jumps back in at the last second.

The Cavalieri and Burgard/Rodriguez Huntress backup reveals a new villain, the sewer-dwelling Earthworm, who I recognize from his half-page in the DC Who's Who. He's apparently the supplier of this baby-snatching ring, but we don't get the details just yet.

To Catch A Titan

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party having successfully completed their quest to collect all the pieces of the magical armor known as the Quicksilver Panoply from the mind of Gob. They returned to the regular world, only to hear from Princess Viola that the giant automaton they were acquiring the armor to safely control had been stolen by a traitorous gnome artificer, Zobus Bok and a group of mercenaries. 

Bok apparently plans to sell the giant automaton to the Wizard.  Princess Viola wants to party to chase down the automaton and regain control using the armor. She tells them there's a way to get inside the giant from either foot.

After a rest, the party pursues the automation using a device the princess gave them. When it stops to survey a ravine, the party attaches chains to its feet to try to trip it, but that doesn't work. They gain access through the right foot portal, though a gnome guard escapes to raise the alarm.

Traveling up the leg on an internal portal system, they make it to the first floor in the body, where they find a conference room--and an ambush by two tough bravos of the Nighthawk mercenary group. The party's superior numbers carry the day and after looting the bodies, they prepare to proceed upward.

RPG Crowdfunding to Check Out

 Time for some plugs for rpg projects by friends of mine I think you ought to check out.

Luka Rejec's Our Golden Age: An Ultraviolet Grasslands rpg has taken off big time, so you are probably already aware of this one, but just in case, you should follow the link and cast you eyes upon its goodness!

Chris Vermeren has been toiling away for a while now on a cool cyberpunk rpg, Terminal State. I've been privileged to see the teases he's been dropping on Discord, and think if it's a genre you dig you won't want to miss this one when it launches. Be there in the beginning for the street cred! You can download the Quickstart free, too.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on the newsstand on July 28, 1983.

Detective Comics #531: Moench and Colon/Alcala conclude the Chimera arc with Batman escaping the hungry lions, but absent most of the issue while Jason tries to figure out the Chimera's identity in the daytime. Has he killed Waldo and replaced him completely, or could he be someone else in the circus? Investigating Waldo, he comes upon Batman--who turns out to be the Chimera, but luckily Waldo appears and he's Batman is disguise. The two take out the Chimera together and free the real Waldo. This super-villain-less story line was a nice change of pace, and a good showcase for the soon to be much maligned Jason Todd.

In the backup by Cavalieri and Moore/DeCarlo, Green Arrow thwarts the Survivalists by preventing the nuclear silos from completely opening with magnetic arrows and blasting the power supply for the missile detonators. He trails the terrorists through the sewers, but winds up getting caught along with a thief pilfering the Survivalists' stores of supplies. 

New Adventures of Superboy #46: Kupperberg and Saviuk/Schaffenberger continue Superboy's visit to Japan and his conflict with Sunburst. We get further hints that there is some motivation behind Sunburst's crimes other than greed, but Superboy doesn't pick up on the hints, so we don't get an answer. Also: Clark tries sushi and spits it out when he hears it's raw fish. Meanwhile, hoods with a protection racket visit Jonathan Kent to persuade him not to run for city council, which has the opposite effect.

In the Dial H backup by Bridwell/Rozakis and Bender/Giella, Chris (as Trouble Clef), Vicki (as Venus the Flyign Trap) and Nick Stevens storm the Master's hideout, but are greeted by a group of super-villains: Hitpin, Decibel, Electron, and the Overseer. As soon as they defeat those guys, they discover a room full of other costumed characters awakening from some sort of tubes.

Action Comics #548: Bates, Saviuk and Colletta/Marcos present a story we are told is occurring somewhat out of continuity, but we're not given any indication when (Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics places it between next month's JLA and this week's World's Finest). Anyway, it's sort of an intriguing start: A group of aliens land on a meteor and discover that it's debris of the planet Krypton. They find evidence of the ruined Argo City – the birthplace of Supergirl. Meanwhile, an attempt to create a synthetic diamond becomes unstable and Superman compresses it and throws it into space. In other, I'm sure unrelated, jewel-centric developments, some of the Phantom Zone criminals escape the Zone by concentrating their mental energies on an ultra-rare example of Jewel Kryptonite.

Later, Clark Kent is assigned to interview a community watch organization in inner city Metropolis known as the White Wildcats. During the interview, Clark discovers that the hi-tech outfits they sport are based on Kryptonian designs.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #12: Moench and Duursema/Mandrake send Arion and friends off to the city Thamuz, where Garn Daanuth kept a tower stronghold, on a quest to restore his magic. In the tower, Arion, Wyynde, and Mara encounter a series of magical creatures and traps. This includes S'Net, Garn's jackal-headed former lieutenant, who's also seeking the magic of the tower. Arion and friends triumph, but all they retrieve from the tower is an empty sword hilt. Lady Chian shows up at the end with a message for Wyynde concerning his father.

Jonah Hex #77: As was strongly hinted last issue, Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga reveal that Jonah has been tricked into getting imprisoned by the machinations of Turnbull. He shows up to gloat. That was probably a mistake, because Hex now knows the score and begins looking for an opportunity to escape. The warden puts out the false story that Hex has died in prison, which makes the situation all the more embarrassing potentially when Hex does escape. Turnbull visits his crony the governor and accidentally kills him in anger after the guy reveals he gave a signed letter to Hex stating the bounty hunter's innocence. Hex's escape is revealed, but everyone thinks he killed the governor. Turnbull and his goons go after Emmy Lou because they think she must have the governor's letter.

Sword of the Atom #2: Strnad and Kane have the Atom and Taren spared a death by rats so they can fight and die in Morlaidh's gladiatorial games. However, Taren is blinded before the games, apparently by order of King Caellich's prime minister Deraegis, but the deed is blamed on the king. A riot breaks out because of this action, and the Atom and Taren are spirited away by Princess Laethwen to a rebel camp outside the city. Due to his disability, Taren asks the Atom to lead the rebels in the field. We learn that Taren was captured due to a traitor in his ranks. Voss, either jealous of the Atom or a traitor, attacks him. Meanwhile, we get a glimpse of Deraegis' plan to fan the fires of revolt, so he can seize the throne.

World's Finest Comics #296: Kraft is the writer here, but Fontes is given a credit as "co-plotter and creative cohort." Andru and DeCarlo are on art. This still continues to be a team-up book with the conceit that the two stars are sort of on the outs, so they spend the issue doing things solo.

In Gotham, Batman encounters a group of robotic-looking individuals called the Pantheon, who raid the Gotham Art Museum. In Metropolis, Jimmy tells Clark about sightings of a dinosaur around Mount Ossa in East Africa, just before Superman has to fly to the Gotham Airport to stop the Pantheon from stealing a plane.

Earthquakes start occurring all over the world. While Superman deals with the natural disasters, Batman traces the Pantheon to Africa. At Mount Ossa, Batman fights the Pantheon who tells him they plan to replacement humanity, and Superman arrives, tracing the earthquake source, and finds a giant, crystalline structure called the Cosmic Tree.

 

All-Star Squadron #26: Thomas and Ordway/Machlan are milking this arc for all it's worth and then some. Or maybe they are doing decompression before it was cool? In any case, there is a lot of talking with a few important revelations, like that the Ultra-Humanite of the 80s (fresh off the JLA/JSA crossover) found a way to contact the Ultra of 1942 and hatch a plan to free him and the other super-villains from that previous story from Limbo. Also, we learn from Brainwave, Jr. how the other members of Infinity, Inc. got co-opted to Ultra's cause. The super-villains from 1983 appear in place of the missing 40s heroes. Brainwave leads the All-Stars in a search for Ultra, who is now hidden with his allies and captives in Mt. St. Helens, Amazing Man decides for the moment to stay a heel, and the Infinitors escape.

Minotaurs, Mazes, and the Eyes of Gob

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last Sunday with the party exploring further into the Level 4 of the brain of Gob. They find the passage into one of Gob's eyes where they find a bunch of Phantfasm-serving goblins sleeping. In the other, a theriocephalic Phantfasm is instructing bored goblins on evil.

In Gob's equivalent the pineal region, they find a throne with an armored boot upon it. Another piece of the armored suit they were seeking! The quest was nearing completion.

Soon after they came upon a labyrinth stalked by a minotaur, or as it turned out, minotaurs. They killed one and looted his ring of Hill Giant Strength. Then they made their slow way through the labyrinth by following a wall constantly with their left hands. When they got to the exit, the other minotaur they had covered it with a large stone. They killed this one too and stole his magic items as well.  It required the additional strength of a blessing to help them roll aside the rock.

Then they came to a dungeon or torture chamber with skeletal former victims in cages dangling from chains.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around July 21, 1983.

House of Mystery #321: The House gets shuttered, and unfortunately, it's last harrah seems to be inventory stories. That's outside of the mild humorous frame story by Mishkin/Gonzales, which has Cain receiving a letter about his cancellation and protest its closing by first accosting Karen Berger and then Joe Orlando. He also meets another version of himself, which does make me think of the modern, post-Sandman version of the character. The Bronze falls to the Modern Age.

In the other stories, DeMatteis and Redondo tell the story of a vampire being used by the U.S. government to deal with problems and detractors, who eventually turns on his handlers. There are a couple of comedy shorts, but Mishkin's last story with Geroche is also humorous (or intended to be) with a night custodian at a building inadvertently thwarting a mad scientist turned into a rampaging monster by unplugging his power source--because it's causing interference with the custodian's work music.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #12: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner wrap up Supergirl's fight with her menacing minis. She manages to dig in and survive in the disintegration pit they dropped her into, but also get handily cured of the radiation sickness due to some element of the pit. She's forced to expose the minis to gold kryptonite to stop them. Professor Drake is killed by his mysterious boss for her failure, and Supergirl gets a lecture from Lt. Peters about leaving this stuff to the cops which is kind of ridiculous, whatever one thinks of super-vigilantism.

In the Lois Lane backup by Cavalieri and Oksner/Hunt, Lois recounts a story about seeing one of her criminal sources killed by the blowgun killer, who she also winds up chasing on a motorcycle while wearing a business skirt suit and wearing heels.

Batman and the Outsiders #3: In the Outsider's first outing after their origin is sort of a clunker. There's some necessary establishing of their base of operations and their status quo in Gotham, and then they investigate some chemical plant bombings. It's all the work of Agent Orange, a deranged Vietnam veteran who wants revenge on the government, which he plans to get by unleashing a bomb on Gotham. 

Green Lantern #169: Cavalieri and Delbo reveal that the "War of the Rings" of the previous issue is just a simulation the Guardians are forcing on Hal as a test. When some of the other Lanterns question the need for that test, the Guardians use it as an excuse to take up the rest of the issue with a story about a Lantern on the cheekily named world of Tanjent, art here by Simpson/Martin. Unlike the rest of his people, Symon doesn't have mental powers, so his parents exile him to the moon and clone another son. Symon is made a Green Lantern then most make peace with the people of Tanjent and "invaders" who turn out to be exiles like him. He then comes to embrace his own clone brother. The people of Tanjent come to recognize the error of their ways. Like anyone hearing this story, the Lantern Krista is not completely convinced of her masters' methods.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Harris and Moore/Trapani we get the conclusion of the Lysandra Saga. As she and her people begin to move their world of Zintha, the other Lantern of her Sector shows up to reveal Zintha's son isn't going nova at all, but instead a living being about to give birth. Moving Zintha would doom mother and baby. Lysandra stops her people form making a mistake and they end up with two suns in their sky. It turns out the mother sun is in fact named Thar, and was the source of her people's deity of that name.

Sgt. Rock #381: In the main feature by Kanigher/Redondo, Rock is told by an SS doctor that he's implanted an ampule of the ridiculously fictional sound "rabidicine" poison in when, and a wire is pulled out, it will enter Rock's bloodstream. He wants Rock to escort him to safety. The poison thing turns out to be ruse, but the doctor gets his just desserts in the end as a German troop carrier mistakes him for an enemy and torches him with a flamethrower. 

The backups involve information on the P-61 Black Widow, the Long Tom 155mm gun, and a out of flash satire of M.A.S.H. called "S.M.A.S.H." by Ed Burdej. This is his lone DC credit, and his other two credits are TV parodies (including another M.A.S.H. parody) in Archie humor titles.

Legion of Super-Heroes #304: Levitz and Giffen deliver an issue more focused on the characters than action. Most of the issue involves introducing the students at the Legion Academy as Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel train them. We also get to see the trainees' differing perspectives on Wildfire, and we see what happened with the Dawnstar/Wildfire relationship: she left to find someone with a physical body. Ouch. The question posed on the cover winds up being a bit deceptive. The Legion ultimately decides than none of the trainees are yet ready for full membership, a decision that honestly comes out of left field.

Warlord #74: I reviewed the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn/Randall get to recap what's gone before for someone that might be jumping on in the guise of an evening discussion between Jinal and the reptilian Barasha.

Superhero Teams in RPGs

As a follow-up to my post on pulp teams, I thought I would address the perhaps more common issue of teams in supers rpgs. As with superhero character concepts, I admit to some dissatisfaction at times with the sort of teams that get built by players in supers games. There's nothing wrong with the superhero formulation of Reints' old high concept pitch of D&D about Conan and Gandalf fighting Dracula, but just as most everybody's (or at least a lot of people's) D&D isn't so eclectic, I don't see any reason why every supers campaign needs to permit playing Golden Age Sandman (Vertigo version) and Witchblade versus the Beyonder. 

Having a team that really feels like it fits goes beyond just identifying what supers subgenre or style (Four Color, Golden Age mystery men, realistic, gritty, etc.) is going to the subject of play, though I think that's probably the first step. Before we considering other things, I want to talk about superhero teams as they occur in comics. I think there are three broad categories:

• The Band: A small group (3-6, maybe) of disparate members thrown together for some reason. Their dynamics are more based on tropes around specific personalities/story roles rather than anything else (see the tvtropes articles like Four Temperament Ensemble, Four Philosophy Ensemble, and Five Man Band, among others), though they sometimes have a theme (elements being common). Examples: The Fantastic Four, The Challengers of the Unknown, the original Teen Titans, the original X-Men.
• The Supergroup: Solo characters who come together as a team. Neither their powers or their personalities tend to be coordinated, but they bring individual histories and backstories with them. One or more Supergroup tends to be a big deal in most comic universes, but not all of them. The building up to the formation of one might be short campaign itself.  Examples: the Avengers, The Justice League, the Mighty Crusaders.
• The Ensemble: Purpose-built groups of new or mostly new characters. They are typically attempts to create something of a Supergroup (but without the characters being previously established) or a band (but with so many members they can't all get a distinct, stock personality). They tend to have power portfolios that are easily understandable in terms of combat/team roles (the Brick, the Blaster, etc.) and often sport really on the nose codenames. Examples: The Authority, Youngblood, the new X-Men, the Outsiders (original team), Squadron Supreme.

Assembling Your Avengers (or what have you)

Creating a Band or Ensemble is pretty easy, it just requires coordinating character creation. Once the general subgenre, style, and tone is agreed on, players can discuss concepts to either get personalities or powers/roles divvied up.

It might seem as if a rpg superhero team of newly minted characters could only ever be a Band or an Ensemble. That's true in the literal sense, but I think things can be done to sort of replicate the feel of a Supergroup, if that's what you want to do. It requires coming up with more about the characters than just their name and powers, however. 

Emergent worldbuilding is popular in some circles, and I think a supers campaign can certainly be done that way, but I think it's bound to be less satisfying if a Supergroup is what you're after. Most people, even very creative people, just don't always come up with their best stuff at the spur of the moment. Best is certainly not always required--in fact in a supers game meant to replicate the comics, you probably don't always want your best. But people also don't want to be saddled with ill-considered ideas as important character concepts.

I suggest people take a little time and come up with at least the stuff that would have happened in the first issue (or maybe, in these days of decompression, the first arc) of their character's comic: besides the basics on the character sheet, that would include supporting cast, home base, and at least one antagonist. I actually favor going a little farther and sketching the contents of an original DC Who's Who's/ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (not the Deluxe addition, I don't think. Too detailed!) style entry for the character. That still leaves a lot to discover (or backfill in play), but it allows a foundation to credibly kayfabe a character with a history.

The Adventures of Doc Savage

In 1985, NPR ran a Doc Savage serial in the style of old-time radio. The series adapted two of the original novels by Lester Dent Fear Cay and The Thousand-Headed Man, in 13 episodes. The latter adaptation was done by Will Murray, who has also penned original Doc Savage novels.

The series was released on CD by Radio Archives, but it also appears to be available on a couple of places on the internet, including here.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I've looking at the comics released the week of July 14, 1983. 

This week sees the publication of Green Arrow/Green Lantern #1, the first issue of a limited series reprinting the seminal run by Adams and O'Neil from 1970. As it's all reprints, I won't review every issue, but I felt like the first issue deserved mention as this would likely be the place a lot of Gen Xers first read these stories.

Flash #326: Bates and Infantino/Martin move things along with the Flash gets booked and arraigned for manslaughter. Flash feels like his life as Barry Allen is over, and in an uncharacteristic display of frustration he trashes Barry's apartment. Meanwhile, the hospital goes psychiatric ward after Fiona claims Barry visited her and that just can't be! This issue really displays the difference between these really law-aligned Silver Age DC heroes and Marvel's more outlaw ones. I can't imagine many Marvel characters turning themselves in this situation (except maybe Captain America), or there really being a context where they would feel safe to do so.

Batman #364:  Jason is back with the circus, but he's also playing amateur detective trying to find the Chimera, a thief whose crime spree seems to have trailed the circus' travels (and whose appearance seems inspired by Rondo Hatton's). Batman's also there, watching out for Jason, but Bruce in disguise and the Chimera in disguise confuses Jason's investigation. The Chimera gets the drop on Batman and leaves him at the mercy of lions, while Jason confronts the thief and finds out the villain has been impersonating his friend Waldo the Clown. Newton/Alcala's art works notably well this issue.

Omega Men #7: Silfer and Smith (through the first Citadelian) lay out the secret origin of Vegan civilization and X'Hal, and it's distasteful in the centrality of rape to the story. Beyond that it has a fantasy/parable kind of feel that isn't bad. It reminds me a bit of Starlin's science fantasy works like Metamorphosis Odyssey. Like Tigorr, I don't completely buy the conceit that the First Citadelian, as the serpent in the Okaaran garden isn't the cause of their aggression but merely the revealer of it. And it seems pretty simplistic to blame the Citadels tyrannical rule on the Vegan people merely being flawed. Tod Smith takes over this issue from Giffen as regular artist.

G.I. Combat #258: The first Haunted Tank story continues the weird time travel/fantasy detour, with Jeb turning out to be some sort of "chosen one' for Zeena's people via a prophecy given then by their oracle (who seems suspiciously like the ghost of J.E.B Stuart). He's got to marry Zeena after defeating a rival suitor in axe to axe combat. I assume they'll get back to World War II eventually. The second Haunted Tank tale hammers home the common reframe of this book regarding valuing your equipment. Craig rides a burning tank into a skirmish over an oasis. Easy Company has a cameo.

In the Mercenaries story, the trio is in Negombo, Sri Lanka, and hired by a mysterious guy name Han to secure a shipment of guns for the government against theft by Leftist terrorists. Turns out the rebels are the good guys and the mysterious bald dude who has a poisonous snake wrapped around his arm is the baddie! 

Kashdan/Catan serve up one of those "from the equipment's POV" about combat boots in Korea, and the issue is rounded out with one of Kanigher's dueling POV stories set on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Warlord Annual #2: I wrote about this annual in detail here. This issue introduces Krystovar, a Warlord sidekick who I thought was unfortunately under-used.

New Teen Titans #35: This story really irritated me because Wolfman and Perez use a trope I really don't like. Sarah Simms' ex goes crazy, kidnaps her, shoots a guy, then holds some other people at gunpoint. Cyborg finally realizes he's been a jerk by dodging her calls and he, Changeling, and Raven go to the rescue, only because the plot demands it, a single troubled guy with a gun manages to hold them off, initially defeating cyborg with a graze and beating Changeling in a fight. The plot needs time for the guy to do his crazy, so the Titans get nerfed. It's not an uncommon thing in comics, but I feel like this usage is particularly bad.

Saga of the Swamp Thing #17: I have never before read the waning issues of Pasko's run. With Bissette and Totleben on art, and Abbie and Matt Cable reintroduced, it's beginning to look like Moore's run which follows. Swamp Thing and friends just happen to run into Abbie and learn of her marriage to the now-alcoholic Matt Cable. They're occasionally attacked by grotesque monsters in full Bissette style, which seem to appear and disappear, suggesting perhaps they are products of an unwell mind--like one in the grips of delirium. Harry Kay, having wandered off, gets stuck in a bear trap and is retrieved by the occupant of a strange insect-ship-- Anton Arcane. The Sunderland conspiracy story is still limping along, but it sort of feels like something vestigial.

Superman #388: Lois returns to confront Perry and Lana for stealing her story and is finally convinced her anger is misplaced, but not before getting in a fight with Lana that involves Lana shoving her face into a punch bowl! Meanwhile, Superman helps out a young fan with telepathic powers who is captured by (yet another never to be seen again) group of extradimensional aliens looking for a place to send their undesirables. Though the synopsis may not convey it, I think it's a better than average issue in the typical Bates/Swan mold.

The Pulp Team

As with several genres adapted to rpgs, pulp gaming presents a little bit of a problem going from the inspirational fiction to the gaming table in that pulp fiction/movies/comics tend to be about solo heroes or a primary hero and sidekicks but rpgs tend to be about a group of equals. It's perhaps reasonable to play Indy plus Short Round and Sallah or even Doc Savage plus his Fabulous Five for one story arc, but it might not be as desirable for a long campaign.

On the other hand, a group composed of Indiana Jones, Jake Cutter (from Tales of the Gold Monkey), and Sam Spade may be fine for some, but seems to be less satisfying to me for a long-term campaign, because the characters don't see cohesive. 

The solution seems to me to build a group wherein the characters are roughly equal, but each has their own specialty, and they have the same theme/subgenre. Sort of like if the Fabulous Five didn't have a Doc Savage to outshine them. There are really more examples of this in comics rather than the pulps (though that may just be my knowledge of the pulps is less). Check out the Challengers of the Unknown:

Having the same subgenre is important for keeping power levels similar. Having the same sort of theme is important for helping support their reason for staying together as a group. Of course, both of these can be stretched a bit. 

Sometimes teams are brought together or forced to stay together by an outside force. DC Comics' The Secret Six and Suicide Squad (either the Silver Age nonsupers version or the later supers versions) are examples of this, but so is the more eccentrically charactered League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For that matter, the Avengers, particularly in the Ultimate Universe and the CMU start out like this too.

A Cold Reception on Level 4

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last weekend with the party still searching the lower levels of the mind of Gob looking for pieces of a magical suit of armor. Having explored the 3rd level, they had moved on to level 4, but avoided a room that appeared to be the site of a battle shrouded in some magical mist.  Their avoidance had been rewarded by the lucky discovery of an armor piece in a kobold gut-wagon.

Now, though there was nothing to do but brave the battle. They chose to skirt the edges of the room, having several near-misses with combatants--and some not misses, as a stray lightning bolt injured two of them. A group of the avian Fantsies, clearing the fallen, informed them that this was the site of an eternal battle between good and evil. They kept creeping around, and Waylon "recoveed" a Ring of Flight from the body of a slain ogre that almost literally fell into their path.

After skirting the room they encountered a giant with a whip and a captive woman wearing one of the gauntlets. Classic story: the giant claimed the woman was a monster and had to be imprisoned, while the woman protested her innocence and begged for release. The party didn't for a minute completely buy the woman's story, but they also questioned her imprisonment and treatment. And, at the end of the day, they needed that gauntlet chained up with her! They negotiated with the giant to let them get the gauntlet, but when they tried, the imprisoned demon in a woman's form escaped. Still, mission accomplished!

Next, they encountered a statue of one of the evil Phantfasms with the bird-like wings of a Fantsie instead of arms. They remembered the statue whose wings he been removed on an upper level. They went to retrieve them, the statue breathed cold at them and nearly killed poor Waylon.

Wednesday Comics: A Bigger Comic Book Implosion

In 2018, TwoMorrows released Comic Book Implosion by Keith Dallas and John Wells, which was an oral history of the DC's 1978 plan for an "Explosion" that ended in failure: The DC Implosion. I talked about the book here.

This year, Dallas and Wells are back with an expanded edition, this one with color. I haven't read it yet, but Amazon tells me it has "additional coverage of lost 1970s DC projects like Ninja the Invisible and an adaptation of “The Wiz,” Jim Starlin’s unaltered cover art for Batman Family #21."

I'm eager to check it out.

More Gwelf

Larry MacDougall released another book in his Redwall-esque fantasy series, Gwelf last month. This one is called Gwelf: Into the Hinterlands. In this one, Willburton Fox and his party set out into the North, first the Scrublands, then the dangerous territory controlled by the Ravens and menaced by Rats, Trolls, and the Mange.

MacDougall's art is just as wonderful as the first book, and there is good worldbuilding in the union of the text and pictures.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of July 7, 1983. 

There was a freebie this week, DC Sampler #1. It has no real story in it, just two-page ads for DC Comics and all comics that are already on the shelves. Two things jumped out at me. It does give away how Supergirl defeats her mini-clone foes, and the Legion of Super-Heroes ad cleverly evokes the titles and logos of old DC non-supers books to taut the various genres at play in the title.

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #6: Granch and his brothers go down in defeat and are killed in their assault on Dark Opal while Amethyst says good-bye (at list for a time) to her Earth foster parents and undergoes a training montage. Princess Topaz is still mopey about his upcoming wedding. Not a whole lot of forward motion story-wise, but Colon's art is still great.

Wonder Woman #308: Nice cover by Andru/Giordano, and representative of the issues contents, for once! Sofia Constantinas is getting used to Paradise Island by eavesdropping and witnesses the ceremony in which Wonder Woman's bracelets of submission and magic lasso are restored by Athena and Aphrodite. She keeps snooping and hears the goddesses and the queen mention that Steve Trevor has been brought back twice from the dead. Elsewhere, Black Canary intervenes with a woman chasing an old man, only find that the old man is a Nazi, Karl Schlagel. The woman mystically transfers her consciousness into Black Canary's body. As Canary, she goes to the League satellite, and is captured by Wonder Woman and the Elongated Man, who learn that she is a Roma mystic and Nazi-hunter. Meanwhile, Black Canary, in Zenna's body, is captured by beast-men goons, and Dr. Schlagel prepares to inject her with something.

The Cavalieri and Bair (credited as Hernandez)/Gaicola Huntress backup seems to be mostly setting up a new status quo but it's awkward. There's a crusading reporter who reveals she's really just out to get Huntress because the heroine has the freedom she was taught she couldn't have as a woman. After allowing Huntress the use of his shower, Minelli asks her out--but we find out in a separate scene that he's an undercover agent for Commissioner O'Hara. The story ends with Huntress thwarting what she believes to be a drug deal, which turns out to possibly be a baby exchange.

Blackhawk #263: Blackhawk has been assigned to find and stop Domino while for her part, Domino has been ordered to assassinated Blackhawk. The two wind up in Marrakesh where they are captured by a group looking to ransom them both. Meanwhile, the Blackhawks are tracking the war wheel and discover the secret of its appearances and disappearances (its being carted around by zeppelins) and bring all that to a stop. Blackhawk and Domino work together to escape, but then Hendricks shoots and kills Domino after she appears about to turn on Blackhawk. But was she? Blackhawk is haunted by the possibility she might have been ready to reform. I'm surprised they killed off Domino. Maybe Evanier just felt they had done everything with her they could? Spiegle's art really sells that seen though, and in general this issue with the war wheel and its large scale carnage this is a standout in an already great run from him.

Justice League #219: Only a few months after his exit, Conway is back, albeit teaming up with Thomas. I wonder if this turn is due to cancellation of the JLA/Avengers project, which Conway was writing? In any case, this JSA/JLA team-up story seems more of a Thomas idea as it is in service of a retcon regarding the history of Black Canary--though that goal isn't entirely clear from this issue. Johnny Thunder's T-bolt attacks the two Flashes then assaults the annual JLA/ JSA reunion, incapacitating only those heroes born on Earth-One, leaving Black Canary, Red Tornado, and the Justice Society members uninjured. Before they can figure out what's going on, the heroes they have to go off to stop the Crime Champions, who are attacking various locales on Earth-One. Starman and Black Canary, meanwhile, trail the Thunderbolt to his home dimension, where they discover villain behind it all is the criminal Earth-One counterpart of Johnny Thunder--and he's got transparent coffin type thing containing the bodies of Larry Lance and Black Canary!

Arak: Son of Thunder #26: Ron Randall comes on board as artist. Arak and Satyricus arrive in Byzantium to report the death of Kallinikos to Emperess Irene and request the use of a ship to get back to the New World. Those plans have to wait as they're attacked by a lioness that Arak must defeat Tarzan-style, which leads to him getting an offer to be a charioteer for the Green team (not to be confused with the Green Team).

The chariot race is about as Ben Hur amped up for comics as you might imagine, but Arak is victorious after killing some rivals. Before he can ask his boon of Empress Irene, he seems the lioness about to be burned alive in a cage in front of the cheering crowed--then she turns into a beautiful woman!

DC Comics Presents #62: Rozakis/Mishkin and Novick/Hunt serve up a goofily patriotic team-up with the Freedom Fighters, which seems like it would have been more at home in the bicentennial ramp-up of 1976, but I guess is honoring the 4th. There's even a framing sequence where a kid visiting a museum who doesn't care about the U.S.'s history reads this very comic and sees the error of his ways. In the story proper, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters come to Earth-One to stop Neo-Nazis from stealing and destroying the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which in fact, are some sort of totemic, mystical protectors of America. Superman is busy dealing with the national crises the theft caused and can't help. We do get a couple of references to the Freedom Fighters' 70s series, at least.

Fury of Firestorm #17: Conway and Broderick/Tuska/Rodriguez open on the funeral for Ed Raymond, who we find out isn't dead. There are suggestions of maybe some sort of witness protection type situation, but we aren't given a lot to go on. Anyway, Ronnie and everyone else believes he's dead. While this is going on Hewitt's experiment turns Lorraine Reilly into the nuclear-powered, Firehawk, who has been conditioned to obey Hewitt's commands. He sends her to attack Firestorm. Ronnie, distracted by grief and the feeling he is responsible for his father's death, initially just tries to escape the attack, but once Firehawk burns some civilians, he fights back and quickly defeats her. When she reverts to Lorraine, that gives Ronnie something else to feel guilty about. 

Dissatisfied with Firehawk's performance, Hewitt decides to create another superhuman. This time, he'll be the test subject.

Way Up North

Art by Vsevolod Ivanov

While I was vacationing in Alaska a couple of weeks ago, I got though idea for a campaign inspired by the Klondike and other Alaskan gold rushes. To give something for fantasy rpg PCs to do besides turn prospector (though they could do that) I figure the forbidding northern wilderness would have once been part of a prehistoric empire whose great works and lost wonders have been buried.

To complicate matters and make for some interesting factions, there would be a current empire filling the "haughty Elvish jerk" niche that claim suzerainty over the region but spend most of their time fighting a rebellious faction of their own people. There would also be a more technologically primitive native people (maybe Neolithic dwarves or something) who naturally resent the invaders from afar.

Magic Like This

 I'd like to see a traditional fantasy rpg with magic like this:

Podmore picked up his fork and stood it on its end. Snaith stood, stepped over to the shelf behind Arthur’s head, and picked up a sharp knife. Moving by instinct, Arthur reached out and knocked over Snaith’s wine-glass. Snaith slipped on spilled borscht. He lay on his back looking confused, as if he had no idea what had just happened or why he’d stood up in the first place...

...Arthur said, “George—I’m sorry.” 

He snapped the stem of his wineglass, causing the leg of George’s chair to snap so that he fell on the floor and hit his head on the chair behind him. The dowager dame who’d been sitting in that chair gave a little shriek, then got to her feet and left, taking her party with her. A couple of waiters quickly came and led George off, bleeding from the head, in search of first aid. 

- Felix Gilman, The Revolutions

And this:

Her bedroom was still dark when Sadie woke up and there was a lump in her throat. She turned her head and coughed, and spat a stone into her hand. It was the size of her thumbnail, chalky white and light as a feather. Its dimpled surface was covered all around with tiny holes, and when she held it up to her ear she could hear wind in the treetops of a faraway forest.

She mixed a resin and coated the stone several times, until it was as hard and shiny as a nut, then took it outside where the morning sky had begun to turn pink along the horizon. She set the stone in the middle of the long trail that ran south from her house, through ruined cornfields and over the Arkansas River.

She left the stone there and went inside, laid back down in her bed and went to sleep.

- Alex Grecian, Red Rabbit

The last quote is the beginning of a sequence of events wherein the "stone" is picked up by a squirrel which is in turn carried away by a hawk, dropped and eaten by a fox, which is in turn killed and eaten by the man the stone is a message for. He chips a tooth on it before realizing what it is, putting it up to his ear, and hearing the witch's message.

In both of these works, magic isn't visually fantastic or flashy. Not at all like super-powers. But it is nonetheless powerful and mostly quick without a lot of ceremony. I suspect there are modern/occult rpgs with magic like this, but I'm unaware of any traditional, Medievalish fantasy with it, but I'd like to see it.