Wednesday Comics: DC, July 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 April 23, 1981.

Action Comics #521: Conway and Oksner had pitched Vixen (which is her official name here, but she's called Lady Fox more often this issue) for the DC Explosion, but that was not to be. She is introduced here, stealing a truck load of furs belonging to Mordecai Mule. Superman views her as a criminal at first, but Lois and Clark discover that Mule is dealing in illegal furs, so instigates an elephant herd to stampede, hopping to kill them. Superman and Vixen  team up to stop them, then Vixen apprehends Mule.

In the Aquaman backup by Rozakis and Saviuk, Aquaman is practicing his fish telepathy because he's envious of Hawkman's ability to talk to birds, because Aquaman can only send thoughts, not hold a conversation. This dubious premise laid out, Aquaman soon discovers a gelatinous sea creature with the power to shrink. He calls in the Atom, who's the only shrinking expert he knows. Ultimately, they discover the creature changes size in response to threats and Aquaman's telepathy frightened it. I bet that never happened to Hawkman.

Adventure Comics #483: The first story here is the most interesting for it's world-building. The villain is the Games-Master who uses various game themed gadgets. We are told he was a former hitman for the Joker and his lieutenant also is a former member of the Joker's gang. He's unusually stiff opposition for the Dial H kids--or maybe their just off their game. The rest of the issue they have a tough time with a big game poacher in a furry outfit called the Wildebeest. The kids dial up their first superhero duo with Black and White. In a subplot, the parents of the kid whose always antagonizing Chris are getting divorced, so he starts ditching school and falls in with a street gang like out of a 60s tv show.

Brave & the Bold #176: Batman teams up with Swamp Thing in a story by Aparo and future Saga of the Swamp Thing writer, Martin Pasko. Selina Kyle asks Batman to help save the life of her sister (who knew she had a sister?) who is going to be killed in the Louisiana prison she's in by former criminal associates. Batman gets there too late, and Felicia has already escaped into the swamps, but she's being pursued by hired killers. She's killed, but Swamp Thing mistakes her for his wife Linda and attacks the killers. The killers escape, but Batman and the Swamp Thing team up (after the required initial confusion and conflict) to track down the killers and bring them to justice. The lack of success in saving Felicia makes them story a bit more the ending more downbeat that typical.

Madame Xanadu #1: This was DC's first comic exclusive to the direct market, and their second publication to not be available on the newsstand. It's pretty much like an issue of her cancelled 70's title Doorway to Nightmare. In the main story by Englehart and Rogers, Madame Xanadu deals with two difficult visitors. The first is a drug addict that tries to rob her, but she convinces him to go to treatment. Then, a woman shows up with a book of spells wanting to learn witchcraft. Xanadu refuses to teach her and tries to warn her off, but the woman storms out and runs into the addict and they have an instant attraction. Next Xanadu sees them, they're swingers living together with drugs and magic. They throw a big party and the night of debauchery culminates with the demons Ishtar and Tammuz being summoned, but Xanadu reveals her presence. She appeals to the couple's sweeter, more tender side and the two break the spell. The guy gets clean and the woman swears off magic.

The other story reminds me a bit of The Martian Chronicles. It's by DeMatteis and Bolland. A native of an alien world takes an injured human from a spaceship crash into his home. His wife, who seems ill herself, demands he kill the human, blaming him for the deaths of her friends and children. The alien uses his powers to heal the human and sees into his mind at the same time. Including the desperate search for resources that drove humans to strip the resources of other worlds (like this one). This man, however, tried to stop the other humans and was an outcast because of it. The alien's wife believes he is being deceived and again demands he kill the human before succumbing to her illness. The alien considering that humans killed his wife too in a way looks at the unconscious man with anger. Later, other humans come looking him. The alien and his wife tell them the man Turner has died. They go away laughing that he won't get his back pay. The alien drops the illusion. He and Turner are left alive.  The alien comments on the disease of hate, and the two go together to bury his wife.

These two stories are above average for anthologies of the period. Maybe they felt they could stretch a bit more in the direct market?

House of Mystery #294: Kaluta's cover is more intriguing than the stories, per usual. The first story by Conway and Infantino/Beatty is about wealthy financer Craig who is completely afraid of the dark since he stole a charm from a voodoo practitioner in Haiti as a boy and felt the presence of something in the darkness. When the power goes out in his home, taking all his lights with it, Craig panics and has a heart attack. It turns out his subordinate (looking to take over his company) did it, but when he turns out the lights whatever it was that had haunted Craig bites him in two. 

The second story by Jones and Yeates is a bit better, and "samples" The Haunting of Hill House in some of its narration. Jud periodically visits a an abandoned old house where a murder took place and meets a beautiful woman who only appears at night. She claims to be ghost who killed herself after catching her husband in an affair, but Jud discovers the truth. She isn't a ghost at all but a living woman "haunting" her old house in her guilt over the accidental death of her husband after he caught her in an affair. Jud coaxes her out of the house and back into the world, but disappears--and she sees his grave in the yard.

The last story by Kupperberg and Tuska/DeZuniga is a EC sort of tale updated for the 80s. The Bates family has a new baby, but John Bates doesn't want the baby to grow up in the witch coven he and his wife are members off. He starts a legal preceding to stop her, but in the course of the trial his wife asks they consider the child's wishes--then John Bates disappears, his baby having changed him into a teddy bear.

Legion of Super-Heroes #277: So, the Legionnaires are back on Earth trying to save a cargo ship of these camel-headed aliens when Phantom Girl is attacked by kelp that has somehow been brought to life. her teammates are distracted, but luckily a costumed guy called Reflecto shows up to save her and whisk her off to Legion HQ for medical attention. Some of the Legion (well, Wildfire) is suspicious of Reflecto but other than refusing to say who he is or what his deal is, he seems a decent guy, so they let him fly off. Meanwhile, Grimbor the Chainsman is out for revenge for the death of Charma, so he wraps the Earth in light-chains to hold it hostage. The Legion flies off to help, and Reflecto follows. Conway and Thomas wrote this nonsense, but hey, Janes is back on art, so it's better than it could be.

The Unknown Solider #253: Haney and Ayers/Tlaloc manage to contrive to have the Soldier fighting Nazi spies at the Statue of Liberty. The actually events of the story aren't as cool as the cover, though. The Solider has to bring a German American corporal back to New York City from Europe. The government wants the corporal to help stop his grandfather who is apparently spying for the Germans. The corporal is reluctant to do the mission, in part because it's his grandfather, but also because he knows the mob will be after him once he's back in New York. In the end, the Soldier takes care of the mob interference and the corporal's grandfather takes a dive from the crown of the Statue of Liberty after refusing to see error of his ways.

The Enemy Ace backup is a disappointment. Von Hammer takes the young woman he caught signaling the British up with him to protect the German zeppelins. She gets hit by stray shot and dying, she reveals she is the sister of the soldier he's been looking for, showing her matching bracelet. She the first person he happened to tell the story to was the one he was looking for. 

Solar System Recap (So Far)

 

Stopping here to collate my pulpish sci-fi solar system for a game that I'm planning. 

In order from the sun (there are a lot of gaps here):
Merkuro

Verdis

Wanaxar

Vurania

Verdis

Verdis, second planet from the sun, is closest in many respects to New Terra (and Old Earth), but has a slightly thicker atmosphere, higher average temperatures, and more area covered by water. Its polar continents (without ice caps) are the most comfortable place for human visitors. Though there are reasons for humans to visit the marshy, equatorial islands (the collection of plants for sale to pharmaceutical companies being a major one), the climate and local lifeforms insure that few reside there longterm.

Though Verdis has at least two intelligent species, it is the hadozee humans think of as Verdisians. They are tall, thin humanoids who largely resemble earthly primates except for the flying squirrel-like patagia. The cradle of hadozee civilization is centered in the forests of massive trees on plateaus on the south polar continent. These trees dwarf the mighty redwoods of Old Earth. The the hadozee have built cities among there branches.

The hadozee were mostly pre-industrial at the time of first contact with humans but with some advanced knowledge they claimed to have acquired from the "Sky People" from New Terra, presumably the Precursors. The hadozee clans were frequently at war with each other, but gradually formed regional leagues to protect certain sites of significance. These leagues eventually coalesced into larger structures and eventually a council of leagues, loose enough to bring in more clans as time went on. The death of council leaders as a potential  a loss to all the clans of in a dissolution of the council has insured that any attempted violence on their persons is punished severely. Despite the volatile (from the human perspective) nature of hadozee, this system has worked.

The vast seas of Verdis are home to an aquatic species, called Mer-folk by humans and "Deep Hunters" by hadozee. Little about them is known, as they have mostly resisted communication, though some hadozee island dwellers have been known to trade with them.

Art by Tony Moore

A Rough Planet of the Apes Chronology

I was talking with Jim Shelley of the Flashback Universe blog yesterday about the Planet of the Apes franchise (a not uncommon occurrence), and I suggested to him a way though prequel series from the 21st Century could be merged with the original series of films. Well, actually a couple of ways, but I'm only going to talk about one here.

The "original" timeline, is the story presented is definitively present in Rise of the Planet of the Apes through War for the Planet of the Apes. An experimental Alzheimer's drug inadvertently leads to an increase in simian intelligence and a super-flu. These events lead to conflict between humans and apes.

In the end, the apes have defeated their foes and migrated to an isolated place to build their city. Their leader, Caesar, first of the intelligence apes, dies.

Rise in passing mentions the Icarus spacecraft was lost, allowing for the possibly that it will return to earth at some point in the far future and events similar to Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes play out. Not identical perhaps, but similar.

Somehow, Cornelius, Zira, and Milo manage to go back in time as shown in Escape the Planet of the Apes to 1973. Much of what was depicted in this film would work exactly, as it posits an Icarus which had launched prior to '73, but a group of apes coming to Earth in an advanced spacecraft and revealing things about the future could. These events change to timeline.

This altered timeline ironically accelerates some events people were trying to avoid, leading to the events depicted in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes and limited nuclear war.

So there you go. Like I said, it's rough, but it works if you don't sweat every detail. For a much more detailed timeline (though not taking into account the newer films) check out Timeline of the Planet of the Apes by Rich Handley.

Wednesday Comics: Marvel Treasury Edition #28

Since my goal is to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis, why am I talking about Marvel Treasury Edition #28? Well, that's because the title of this issue is Superman and Spider-Man. Released around April 28, 1981, this is a follow-up to Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man #1 from 1976. It is the last issue of Marvel Treasury Edition.

Jim Shooter is the writer here and John Buscema is on pencils, embellished by a whole slew of inkers, on backgrounds mostly, with Joe Sinnott handling the figures. 

Spider-Man inadvertently interferes with the plans of Dr. Doom, but Doom's got even bigger plans. It involves inducing the Hulk to rampage in Metropolis where we get to see some Superman vs. Hulk action. Spider-Man (Peter Parker having been sent to Metropolis to take photos) gets to stand around and watch the titans tussle. Superman locates and destroys the Doom device enraging Hulk.

All this rampaging releases the Parasite, though, which was apparently what Doom planned. While he's breaking out, Peter and Jimmy Olsen are paling around (which makes sense), and Superman is confronting Doom, who tells him "we're a lot alike you and me." Sure, this shows Doom's ego, but he also has a not crazy point that Superman's inaction on any number of things decides the fate of any number of people as much as him taking action would. Then he blasts Superman with Kryptonite.

Superman beats that trap, but Doom pulls the ol' diplomatic immunity thing, and Supes leaves. Parasite comes out of hiding. The two villains are already in cahoots.

Superman gets to meet the Daily Bugle staff and take care of some street crime in New York. Spidey can't catch a break in Metropolis, getting turned down by Lana Lang, and being thought of as a criminal by the police. Even Wonder Woman calls him "creepy." 

Superman and Spider-Man meet up and compare notes from their investigations on Doom's world conquering plan (which is so bold and so ridiculous I'm not going to go into it, but suffice to say it involves destroying all the world's energy resources and all the worlds weapons). Superman says it's all too dangerous for Spider-Man and heads in to tackle Doom and Parasite alone, but he gets into trouble, so it's a good thing Spidey didn't listen to him. He doesn't help much though, and Superman and Spider-Man are both captured.

Now it's time for the villain betrayal. It turns out Doom doesn't want Parasite as a lackey, but instead needs him to get crystalized by absorbing too much power (Hulk, Wonder Woman, and Superman). This crystal is integral to his plan because without it, well, his device will blow up and destroy the planet.

But Parasite now has spider-sense, and gets forewarned of the danger. A fight breaks out and the device gets damaged, so now it's going to destroy the planet. Doom tries to escape in a spacecraft. Superman and Spider-Man try to stop the reactor build up, and Spider-Man saves the day with a bit of spider-sense gifted intuition.

The villains defeated, the heroes return to their respective towns.

A goofy Bronze Age story, admittedly, but it's sort of fun. Buscema's Superman is not the best, but that's the only character that seems slightly "off model."

Shrouded Vurania

Distant Vurania is cloaked in impenetrable clouds, but is known from two recorded Terran expeditions to have a surface capable of supporting human life, at least for a time. It is warmed by volcanism and radioactive elements, and is aided in retaining the heat these produce by it's thick clouds. The light from these sources plays luridly in the gray-green fog, but only partially relieves the darkness. No light from the sun or stars penetrates the gloom, and indeed the atmosphere is opaque to sound and electromagnetic waves in a fairly sort distance. Vurania holds on to its secrets.

There is little life beyond the level of arthropods apparent on the surface of Vurania, though there is evidence that intelligent life once resided there in the form of crumbling monumental structures believed to be temple complexes. Some are decorated with images known from subterranean Precursor ruins on New Terra associated with the worship of the "Spider Goddess." The prevailing theory is that these were built by Precursor dissidents who fled to Vurania following a war, but why Vurania ought of all the worlds in the System is unknown. Scholars who disagree with this theory point to the lack of any apparent buildings beyond the temples in the (admittedly limited) explored areas of the planet, and suggest this was a religious site, and possibly the source of the Spider Goddess cult.

Vurania might be a tempting haven for interplanetary outlaws, but its environmental conditions and distance are factors against it. The everpresent fog has probably contributed to the frequent old spacers' yarns that paint it as a haunted world, a sort of purgatory where crews unlucky enough to stop there may be held forever by the ghosts of their own misdeeds.

Weird Revisited: Gods from the Comics Page

This post first appeared in 2011...

Fantasy rpg settings usually make-do with Bullfinch’s Mythology derived/inspired pantheons, monstrous deities of the Lovecraftian or Howardian variety, or the occasional monotheism. Nothing wrong with those, but looking to the pages of comic books suggests some interesting variations:

Space Gods
Kirby’s Eternals posits that those classical pantheons were just misidentifications of a subspecies of humanity uplifted enigmatic aliens. In the fantasy context, maybe the aliens are some sort of elder gods (recall that Lovecraft’s Elder Gods felt unaccountably protective to the gods of the Dreamlands) and the Eternal stand-ins could be something like the Menzter’s Immortals. The other option would be to play up the science fantasy aspects for the full von Daniken. “A sufficiently advanced technology, etc., etc,”--maybe the world only appears to be a fantasy world and alien super-science is the order of the day?

The Endless
Neil Gaiman’s Sandman strips down the pantheon idea with the Endless. Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium are (as their names would imply) personifications of concepts. Marvel Comics has a similar (though less developed) class of beings like this: Eternity, Oblivion, Lord Chaos and Master Order, and again Death. The Endless fit into the mythologies of various cultures in various ways, but they don’t have mythology of their own really, just personal history. A group of beings like the Endless could be the sole deities of a world, just worshipped under different names by different cultures, or (like in Sandman) these sorts of personifications could be an order of cosmic beings separate and “above” the usual pantheons with whom PCs could interact.

New Gods
“There came a time when the old gods died!” as Kirby told us in New Gods #1. As the title suggests, Kirby started in with the exploits of the New Gods--and Grant Morrison gave us even newer new gods in Final Crisis. A world could be post-god shift, adding some interesting background, or the setting could be in the midst of the “godless” period, post-Götterdämmerung but pre-reemergence of the new gods. Players might actually have a roll in finding/shaping the new gods that would appear.

Wanaxar

 Further developing this idea.

Art by Matt Hilker

Wanaxar is the fifth planet (currently), and the largest in the System. The crushing gravity and terrible atmospheric pressure make whatever surface might exist inaccessible to most denizens of the System, but Wanaxar is not uninhabited. Floating cities drift through its colorful, poison clouds and ride its frequent storms.

The Wanaxarans (Giff or Giv, in their language) are a broad, powerfully built people, adapted to their homeworld's high gravity. It has been suggested that they resemble anthropomorphic hippopotamuses, but in truth, no living human has actually seen these fabled beasts as they did not survive Old Earth, if they ever existed at all. The source for this reference is a popular animated character inspired by archaic children's books.

The Giff are not native to Wanaxar. Their own legends say their ancestors came here from one of Wanaxar's numerous moons fleeing a rapacious invader that they never saw in the flesh but whose warships laid waste to several worlds. It is the memory of this event that likely led to militaristic bent of Wanaxaran cultural today. Indeed, the entirety of their society is organized along military lines, though obviously not all serve in a combat-related capacity. Still, Wanaxarans find it usual to contractors of other species to perform tasks they consider beneath them, and aliens on Wanaxar can be found in positions form menial laborers to city administrators.

Wanaxarans can be rather stiff from the human perspective, governed as they are by complicated system of military courtesy, but they can be quite affable once initial formalities have been honored.

Merkuro

 This is a follow-up to this post.

Merkuro is the closest planet to the sun and tidally locked, so that it has a searing Dayside where temperatures climb high enough to melt lead, and a frigid Nightside that's cold enough to chill oxygen to a liquid. Only the narrow band of the Twilight Belt is close to habitable, and it is a badland riven by canyons and caves, wracked by storms. 

Human explorers would have been surprised to find life here, had the Vrusk of Marva not tipped them off. Liquid gases flow underground from the Nightside and melt to provide breathable, if rarified, air for cave complexes and even deep canyons in the Twilight Belt. Here peculiar invertebrate life developed, amorphous like amebae, but multicellular. One species (if such a term has any meaning with these lifeforms) developed sentience. These unlikely, elastic creatures, the plasmoids, would become one of humanity's best allies in the System.

Plasmoids are somewhat mysterious in that while they did not have particularly advanced technology at the time of human first contact, they possessed the theoretical framework to understand advanced concepts, and took to modern technology easily.  Some have proposed that plasmoid knowledge, perhaps even plasmoid sentience, may have come from consuming earlier interplanetary explorers (perhaps members of the Precursor race that inhabited New Terra before humanity's arrival) and absorbing their knowledge. It is a credit to plasmoid broadmindedness (and perhaps their renowned sense of humor) that they do not find such speculation offensive.

There is a human-operated spaceport in the Twilight Belt, called Solar City. This is a mining and broadcast power planet for New Terra. Most of it's inhabitants are roughnecks, miners, and technicians who do their hitch and then return to New Terra with a big paycheck. There are naturally ramshackle saloons, gambling houses, and other places of entertainment that tend to grow up around such camps to separate the workers from their money.

Wednesday Comics: DC, July 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 April 9, 1981.

Justice League of America #192: This is a pretty good issue from Conway and Perez. Red Tornado shows up and tries to kill the JLA, injuring Batman (imagine a Justice League issue that treats Batman as more fragile than the rest of the team!) and the Flash. They destroy that one, but then another attacks and this one has Kryptonite, and is only defeated when the Flash gets out of the bacta-tank (well, that's what it looks like) to save Superman. All of these Reddy duplicates come from T.O. Morrow who retcons eh, explains, why it is he's still alive when we saw him die a few months ago in World's Finest. It's Marvel retcon convoluted. Anyway, it turns out none of these Red Tornado's weren't the original, but now Morrow has gone after him, too.

New Teen Titans #9: HIVE is out to steal promethium from Changeling's adopted father's company, and they send the Puppeteer/Puppetmaster (not the one you're thinking of) to take out the Titans. Over half the team is controlled by the Puppeteer, but the other manage to defeat. Nothing noteworthy about this issue, but it's not bad.

Secrets of Haunted House #38: This is a pretty good issue art-wise. Story-wise, it's lackluster. In the first story, a Native American legend about a cave full of gold where a demon was unleashed draws in two criminals. In the end, it turns out the legend had a kernel of truth as the men are killed by a torrent of oil unleashed by their searching. The second story, written by Ms. Charlie Seegar, doesn't make a lot of sense, but has grotty art by Jodloman. It involves a sweatshop owner making a deal with the Devil for slave labor, only to have men wearing the Satan-imbued jackets his factory made come to kill him so the Devil could claim his due.

The Mister E story by Rozakis and Spiegle has E on the trail of Judge Kobold from his first appearance, but Kobold has apparently disguised himself as one of a group of business men. This installment is probably the weakest Mister E story was far.

Superman #361: Captain Strong (DC's Popeye stand-in) guest stars, which distracts a bit from the fact that this is yet another "never to be seen again alien coming to Earth with a problem" story from Bates and Swan. The alien is transforming into all sorts of creatures, including a Kryptonian beast Supes needs Strong's help to defeat, but ultimately she's just trying to feed her starving people. It turns out Strong's sauncha seaweed that gives him his strength is just the thing.

The backup is more forgettable than the main tale, as most of these "Superman of 2021" stories seem to be. Superman has a second secret identity as some sort of future sports star. Step up your game, Rozakis!

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #3: After their defeat last issue, the Corps is ready to pack it in and go home to spend the last days of the Universe with their families, but Jordan rallies them to do their duty to the last. The Corps arrives at the riff to Nekron's realm and the battle is again joined. One of Krona's minions is inspired to by the Lanterns and is given a ring by Jordan to become one himself. Jordan flies through the riff and recruits dead Lanterns to fight, and they over-power Nekron, but Jordan is trapped in his dimension. The other Lanterns get him out, and the day is saved. The Guardians offer to make Jordan head of the Corps, but he declines. A satisfying finale from Barr/Wein and Staton.

Weird War Tales #101: G.I. Robot makes his debut in a story by Kanigher and Casares. In the standard "robot partner" sort of story, a loner sergeant is initially skeptical of having a robot partner, but learns the power of buddy-dom from his more-human-than-expected companion. It's the best story of the issue for all its formula.

Kashdan and Taberna present a story of child soldiers, who it turns out are only taking part in a game to scare (more like traumatize) them away from war forever. A ex-Nazi gets what he deserves as a member of the French Foreign Legion when he is betrayed by the ghost of a man he spared in return for betraying his neighbors in a Jewish ghetto. Kashdan returns for the last story with Vicatan Jr. It's a story of a calculator device found by some G.I.'s that seems to predict successful battle tactics, but in the end only brings misery.

Wonder Woman #281: Conway and Delbo/Hunt send Wonder Woman and the Demon through a weird, mystical dimension to rescue Etta Candy from Baal-Satyr. Delbo does okay mystical realms, but his Demon his pretty rough, which brings down the issue for me. In the end, they rescue Candy, but they appear to be trapped in the netherworld. 

In the Huntress backup by Levitz and Staton/Mitchell, it turns out Helena Wayne's DA beau wasn't killed by the joker venom, but he's in the hospital. Next, the Joker gets Commissioner O'Hara. The story ends with one of those nonsensical hero moves you sometimes see in comics: Huntress breaks her own dart-firing crossbow in half--because the Joker is firing darts at people? Doesn't make much sense to me. Anyway, she vows "the gloves are off!" There's also a panel in this issue where he appears that Staton has drawn Helena Wayne in a parted robe that appears to show public hair. Surprised he got that one by the Code Authority!

Rockets , Rayguns, and Other Worlds

I've been thinking about a campaign setting that would utilize a bit of material from Spelljammer, a bit of material from Star Frontiers, and then some reconfigured stuff from D&D in general. The ruleset would be 5e (it's what the group I would likely play it with knows the best), but that would allow me to draw from Rocket Age 5e and other sources saving me some work. 

I sketched some of the bones last week, and it would conform to some of the particulars I outlined in this alternate Spelljammer idea, here. The basic idea is that humanity, fleeing some cataclysm on Earth, wind up either in a distant star system or either an alternate universe (I don't know if the players will know which or if it will matter) where the solar system is uncannily like a pulp version of our own. The laws of physics will obviously be somewhat different here, but I don't expect that to be a focus of play.

Technology will conform to pulp sci-fi standards, with rockets with some sort of atomic powered aether drive playing their way through the system. Swords of some sort will be present side-by-side with rayguns, but I haven't decided whether they will be or everyone or particular characters, or whether they will be normal swords or something special. Psychic powers will take the place of magic.

Azurth Revisited: The Glamour of Virid

Since the party in my campaign has finally gotten to Virid, it seemed like a good time to revisit this post from 2015...

"Virid, the Western Country of Azurth, is the place where magic of the faerie is the strongest. There are a few mundane places there. Or perhaps it is truer to say the fantastic is the mundane in Virid. It's Queen Desira is called an Enchantress by those of other countries, either for her beauty, her sorcery, or perhaps both. Certainly, she has ensnared the hearts of her people, though they speak of her compassion and fairness, and the brave deeds she performed in her youth."

-  A History of the Land of Azurth

High Concept: A patchwork fantasyland ruled by a faerie-descended Enchantress, brave and beautiful, who with her companions sought adventure and love in her youth.
Conspectus: an inland sea of mists with a castle beneath its roiling color; creatures of myth and legend abound: mermaids, centaurs, unicorns; many of the rulers were once friends and companions on adventures--but also rivals for the affections of Queen Desira.
Media Inspirations: Wonder Woman comics in the Golden Age and her imitators; She-Ra: Princess of Power and her rival Golden Girl; the various incarnations of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, some magical girl anime and manga projected into the future when the magical girls are adults.

Wednesday Comics: DC, July 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

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

Batman #337: Conway/Thomas and Garcia-Lopez/Mitchell present a new version of that classic tale: A scientist exploring the Himalayans is rescued by a gallant, if hirsute Yeti. Himalayan nights are cold, well, nine months, later, a sort of abominable snowman is born. That's really the villain's origin in this issue. He's is a thief with ice and cold powers, stealing to support his need to travel to really cold climes much of the year to support his weird biology. Did I say Conway was better on Batman? Perhaps I spoke too soon! I will say this story reads better than it thumbnails due to the great art by Garcia-Lopez. 

The backup is a Robin solo story where he visits the clown he last saw in the DC Comics Presents story a few months back (continuity!). Deadman's brother Cleveland Brand also works here (more continuity!). Anyway, Robin gets a job in the circus, and it appears his clown friend has committed a murder.

DC Comics Presents #35: Pasko and Swan deliver the unlikely team-up of Superman and Man-Bat. This one sort of follows up the Brave and Bold story from months back, as Man-Bat is still looking for a cure for his daughter's insomnia. He goes to STAR Labs and stumbles upon a theft of sonic wave device by Atomic Skull and his Skull cronies. Superman's powers get hobbled for much of this issue to give Man-Bat more to do. It turns out Atomic Skull wants to make his love interest permanently human because she's an evolved panther! Anyway, Man-Bat's daughter gets the sonic therapy she needs.

The backup by Teffenbacher and Kane is a charming "Whatever Happened to.." staring Rex the Wonder Dog. Rex teams up with his biggest fan, Detective Chimp, and the two beat some bad guys and accidentally discover the fountain of youth in Florida, so they get stay eternally young.

Flash #290: This picks up from last issue, with the Flash in possession of Shade's cane (which is hiding Shade) and on the case of the weird color leaching effect occurring in Central City. His "dad," meanwhile is still acting creepy and thinking ominously about Flash's death. The Rainbow Raider executes his plan before Flash can stop him, and now is able to shoot color beams from his eyes with various powers, but the with the Shade as his temporary ally, Flash prevails. At the end of the issue, we see a guy wrapped in bandages like a mummy in a hospital who the captions tell us is named "Barry Allen."

The Firestorm backup has Firestorm taking the time to interact with the little guy. In this case, some two-bit criminals that wind up stealing some toxic waste accidentally. The strong placement of this story in New York City through various details seems like Conway was trying to emphasize the realness of this locale versus DC's fictional cities.

Ghosts #102: Gill and DeZuniga present the story of a serial wife murder whose former victims' ghosts get their revenge by causing him to be burned alive in the crematorium with his last victim. O'Flynn and Estrada present ghostly revenge by sports car, as a father-in-law brings a reckoning to his murderous son-in-law. 

The Dr. 13 story by Kupperberg and Bender/Rodriquez has Thirteen's team (which now includes Mad Dog from last issue) busting a ghost in Chicago's Stillman Museum of art. The ghost isn't a ghost of course, but a thief using a fancy alarm to cause pain through high frequency sound.

G.I. Combat #231: Kanigher's first Haunted Tank story here is mildly amusing, which is something I guess. The Tank is supposed to secure a cache of Nazi loot to fund the Maquis so they will take out a Luftwaffe radar tower that endangers an allied attack, but a fight with a German tank ensures most of the money goes up in flames. Stuart manages to save a $10,000 bill, which they proceed to use to try to pay various French townsfolk they encounter. None of them can change it, so Stuart gives them an IOU assuring them the U.S. government is worth it, which none of the townsfolk believe. In the end, the radar tower goes down, and the crew has to burn that 10K bill to warm out their sluggish oil and get the tank moving again. The second story has the crew doing a Trojan Horse gambit when their tank is "salvaged" by some bandits in North Africa. 

The other stories include the typical gritty O.S.S. tale with a brainwashed agent sent to kill Control--only he isn't as brainwashed as he appears. Then there's a story set in Malaysia in WW2 by Newman and Henson where a native charm helps a British agent complete a mission. What stands out about this story to me is how its point should have been that the agent never would have gotten anywhere without the aid of various native peoples he comes across. The last story by Haney and Landgraf/Simmons is about a young soldier who goes soft on a captured German and doesn't execute him, only to have the guy come back with a squad and try to kill him and his friends. A luger he stashed away saves the day.

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Jonah Hex #50: Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga set this one October (because Jonah's birthday on November 1st) is a plot point, as Jonah plans to go out on a hunting expedition to get his growing family meat for the winter. Things don't go as easy as he planned. He accidentally rescues a young woman who has been captive of an Indian tribe (and who is dressed slightly better than some sort of "sexy Native American costume" but not enough better.) and has to fight a bear while taking her to safety. All that done, he makes it home with bear steaks to celebrate his birthday with his wife.

The Queen of Virid

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party making their way to the city at the bottom of the strange, gaseous lake. Kully asks the guards to take them to the Queen, but they don't have the authority and don't know where she is in any case. They direct the party to the palace. 

Within the palace, they find a bunch of courtiers of the elemental faeborn race of Virid and the major domo, Glafko. After they prove their bona fides by relating how they rescued Desira's winged steed, Zephyrus, from the Cloud Castle, Glafko tells them the Queen is her folly at the center of the Silk Garden where her colonies of silk making spiders live. There has been a revel going on within that hedge maze for months, and the Queen hasn't emerged. 

Our heroes enter the maze and have a few strange encounters before reaching the green crystal folly at its center. They have a fight with a dragon-like creature with a snout and long tongue like an anteater that has the power to shrink people. Then they meet an elemental woman made of rock who seems to be pondering deep thoughts and wants to be left alone. Finally, they meet a raving elf named Melfon who warns of the end of the world. He says he read about it in a book called The Triumph of the Wizard of Azurth, but he believes it to be prophecy. He gives the book (really more a dime novel) to the party.

Finally, they reach the folly and find more intoxicated revelers and in a smaller flower garden, Queen Desira. Desira confides that she's been distracted of late and some of her advisors have become frustrated with her. She attributes it to being in love. When Dagmar asks who she is in love with, the Queen says they'll meet him soon.

After a bit more small talk, her lover arrives. A shadow man steps form a path into the center of the garden, and Desira greets him warmly.

The Four Species of the Alliance of Inner Worlds

Human: Born of a distant world called Earth, which lost in some cataclysm and lost, humans have made there home on the third planet of the system and named it New Terra. It was there arrival that led to the formation of the Alliance.

Hadozee: An arboreal, anthropoid species native to the Verdis, Hadozee were the most technologically backward of the Alliance members. 

Plasmoid: Short, semi-gelatinous invertebrates native the Twilight Belt and adjacent subterranean regions of Myrkuro. 

Vrusk: Ten-limbed beings with an insectoid appearance, the Vrusk dwell in domed cities on arid Marza.  

The Many Worlds of Vega

I've posted this beore, but this is the setting for DC Comics' Omega Men. The links here will take you to detail about some of the locations, but of course, it might be much more game-useful to make up your own details.

I've been thinking about Spelljammer (again) so this sort of thing has been on my mind.

Wednesday Comics: DC, June 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 March 19, 1981. 

Detective Comics #503: I feel like Conway's best DC work in this era (such as it is) is probably on Batman. Here he teams up with Newton on a Scarecrow story. Batman, while on patrol, is shot with a dart that makes him start producing pheromones that cause people, even his friends and allies, to have a fear response to him. It falls to Batgirl and Robin to track down Scarecrow, but they get captured, and Batman has to go in for the final confrontation. Scarecrow gets overdosed with his own drug and winds up in Arkham, afraid of himself.

New Adventures of Superboy #18: Moosie slips over from frenemy to villain by teaming up with Kator, the android antagonist Superboy built for himself last issue. After Superboy destroys Kator, the android has his powers transferred to Moosie. The envious guy wants the Boy of Steel out of the way so he can ask out Lana. Superboy defeats Kator II, too, but we're told that Moosie will grow up to be the villain Master Jailer. 

The backup by Rozakis and Schaffenberger has Superboy trying out a yellow costume, but that doesn't work so well because the costume reflects the yellow sunlight that empowers him.

Sgt. Rock #353: Kanigher and Redondo give Easy a new C.O. in the form of a Major with something to prove. In the end, he leads from the front and earns the men's respect. Kelley and DeMulder present a story of a Roman soldier getting played by an Egyptian woman who turns out to be Cleopatra. The next story with art by Thomas Mandrake, "Red Devil" really isn't a war story at all, but the weird (but true) story of the "Red Ghost." The last story is a "Men of Easy" spotlight on Wildman by Kanigher and Randall.

Super Friends #45: Bridwell and Tanghal team the Justice League up with a group of Global Guardians. In Silver Age fashion, they divide up in mixed sub-teams to free a group of villains captured by the mysterious Conqueror. It all turns out to have been a gambit to gain possession of the villains powerful weapons/tools.

The Plastic Man backup by Pasko and Staton has Plas getting involved when actor Rhienhold Slaschenhacker is kidnapped from the set of Carnage the Barbarian (a film by Jon Militant) by villains Rubberneck and Puttyface. That's really all you need to know about that one.

Unexpected #211: Drake and Catan open this one with the story of a gourmand actor with a taste for exotic foods who meets his end when he attempts to get peacock tongues and the birds peck him to death. In the next story, the domineering wife of a fisherman convinces him to attempt to prove he's a descendant of the Man in the Iron Mask. The ghost of Marchioly instead takes its vengeance on her as a descendant of the Bourbons. Drake's back again with Garcia and a story about a spaceship crew's response to a distress signal that winds up being from a hungry planet. 

Finally, Barr and von Eedon/Breeding bring the Johnny Peril storyline to an overdue close. The Master of the Seven Stars reveals the stars are a beacon to bring Lovecraftian alien horrors to Earth. I don't know how everything he was doing up until this point makes sense with that plan, but I also admit I haven't been reading too closely, so maybe it's airtight. Anyway, Peril and his friends triumph, the end.

Unknown Soldier #252: In a story by Haney and Ayers/Tlaloc U.S. bombers are unable to take advantage of the "Bomber's Moon" because the crews keep being struck by a strange madness mid-flight. The Unknown Soldier joins the crew of the Buckle Down Winsocki and discovers the malady is cause by music broadcast in Holland. The Unknown Soldier parachutes in and takes out the church being used as a broadcast point in a story that hits all the Low Country highpoints: a Dutch boy with the requisite hair cut, tulips, windmills, ice skating, and dikes.

In the Enemy Ace backup by Kanigher and Severin, Hans Von Hammer does a lot more ruminating about the nature of honor and war and his role in it, still trying to find a way to get a message to the downed English pilot's sister. He discovers the young woman he met at the party in the last issue using a flashlight to signal allied pilots.

Warlord #46:  Read more about it here. The OMAC backup is not credited, but Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics says it is still LaRocque and Colletta, and I believe it as it looks like the same style, but it is even worse than last issue. I can't believe DC published this. The story is OMAC being naïve and getting duped in the corporate controlled future, so same old stuff.

Pulp Inspirations

A few passages from science fiction of the pulp era to get the creative juices flowing.

"Carse walked beside the still black waters in their ancient channel, cut in the dead sea-bottom.  He watched the dry wind shake the torches that never went out and listened to the broken music of the harps that were never stilled.  Lean lithe men and women passed him in the shadowy streets, silent as cats except for the chime and the whisper of the tiny bells the women wear, a sound as delicate as rain, distillate of all the sweet wickedness of the world.

They paid no attention to Carse, though despite his Martian dress he was obviously an Earthman and though an Earthman's life is usually less than the light of a snuffed candle along the Low Canals, Carse was one of them.  The men of Jekkara and Valkis and Barrakesh are the aristocracy of thieves and they admire skill and respect knowledge and know a gentleman when they meet one."

- The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett

"At the corner gleamed a luminous red sign, “THE CLUB OF WEARY SPACEMEN.” In and out of the vibration-joint, thus benevolently named, were streaming dozens of the motley throng that jammed the blue-lit street. Reedy-looking red Martians, squat and surly Jovians, hard-bitten Earthmen-sailors from all the eight inhabited worlds, spewed up by the great spaceport nearby. There were many naval officers and men, too—a few in the crimson of Mars, the green of Venus and blue of Mercury, but most of them in the gray uniform of the Earth Navy."

- The Three Planeteers, Edmond Hamilton

"Graff Dingle stolidly watched yellow mold form around the stiletto hole in his arm. He smelled the first faint jasmine odor of the disease and glanced up to where the sun glowed unhappily behind a mass of dirty clouds and wind-driven rain.

Dingle kicked morosely at the Heatwave thug left behind to ambush him, and the charred body turned soughingly in the mud. 'Be seeing you, bully-boy, in about five and a half hours. Your electroblast may have missed me, but it cooked my antiseptic pouch into soup. It made that last knife-thrust really rate.'

There was a dumb dryhorn blunder, Graff reflected, sneering at himself out of a face that was dark from life-long exposure to a huge sun. Bending over an enemy before making certain he was burned to a crisp.

But he'd had to search the man's clothing for a clue to the disappearance of Greta and Dr. Bergenson and—even above Greta—the unspeakably precious cargo of lobodin they'd been flying in from Earth.

So I'll pay for my hurry, he thought. Like one always does in the Venusian jungle."

- "Ricardo's Virus," William Tenn

"The small, round metal platform rocked uneasily under his feet. Beyond the railing, as far as MacVickers could see to the short curve of Io's horizon, there was mud. Thin, slimy blue-green mud.

The shaft went down under the mud. MacVickers looked at it. He licked dry lips, and his grey-green eyes, narrow and hot in his gaunt dark face, flashed a desperate look at the small flyer from which he had just been taken.

It bobbed on the heaving mud, mocking him. The eight-foot Europan guard standing between it and MacVickers made a slow weaving motion with his tentacles."

- "Outpost on Io," Leigh Brackett

Spock Has A Twelth-Level Intellect

A perhaps silly idea I had back in 2017...

This is something I thought of the other day: certain parallels between comic book alien species and those in Star Trek. What's the use of it? I don't know. Trek with different aliens or different backstories for the aliens? Supers with Trek aliens? Some sort of Wold-Newton Space (Woldspace)? Make of it what you will.

Skrulls and the Founders/Changelings
The Founders are a shapeshifting race that runs an expansionist space empire and so are the Skrulls. DC's Durlans would fit the shapeshifting part, too. They've faced prejudice like the Changelings, but they don't run an empire.

Shi'ar and the Romulans
One species has a space empire with a bird motif and a sprinkling of Roman Empire terminology and the other is the Romulans. Sure, the Romulan Star Empire never seems as multi-species as the Shi'ar, but no reason it couldn't be. Might want to drop the link to Vulcan, though...

Coluans and Vulcans
Turning to DC comics for the Federation species, I'll note the somewhat emotionlessness and computer-like logic of the Vulcans and Brainiac's people, the Coluans.

The other other identifications I thought of, but some are too similar to add anything particularly interesting (The Khunds and the Klingons) and some distant enough to be suggest substitution (Thanagarians and Andorians. Thanagarians might stand-in for Romulans, too, depending on which version we're talking about) but you get the idea.