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.

Whale Hunting in the Skies of Azurth

 Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last Sunday with the party on their way to Virid (still!) and encountering an odd character repairing an airship of the sort they had seen used by the Cloud Folk. He gave his name as Captain Ahab Flint and told them his profession was recovering treasure from balloon whales.

It seems these large but slow-moving creatures sifted clouds for food and invariably swallowed all sort of items from old Cloud Giant civilization. These ancient items could be sold for a profit, if you can induce the balloon whales to vomit them up. Flint was bereft of crew and offered the party a ride to Virid and a share in the treasure for their help. The party agreed.

Flint instructed the party in the use of  the net gun to fire the net and reel in the beasts, and the "ticklers" (long poles with leather covered padding on the end) which is used to poke and stroke the balloon whale ribs to make this disgorge the treasure.  Finally, he requested one of them server as "the diver" to potentially fish stuck items out of the very mouths of the balloon whales.

Soon, they sight one of the creatures and the hunt was on. The creature looks like a plump, giant manatee with a sad looking almost human face (not unlike a blobfish). They manage to get a haul of weird gold tokens or nonmetallic coins out of the first one.

Flint also has a musical instrument that looks uncannily like an older version of Kully's. Flint says it was given to him by a guy named Drue. Kully does an experiment by scratching a mark inside his instrument, then later he examines Flint's and finds it on the inside!

After a couple of hauls, they hear a thunderous bellowing, which Flint hypothesizes might be the Giant Shepherd of the Night Skies. This being supposedly claims the balloon whales, but Flint has never seen him. Sure enough, an ebon giant whose skin seems marked with stars and nebula comes stalking across the sky. He throws an ice storm at the ship, forcing it to drop precipitously. The party attacks with spells, but the giant seems unfazed. Flint dives and soon they are beneath the clouds and the giant is far behind.

After stopping to effect repairs, the ship arrives in the Virid capital the following day. The party is confused, when all they seem is a vast lack, but Flint tells them its below the magical waters, and they dive down...

TO BE CONTINUED

Wednesday Comics: DC, June 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 March 19, 1981.

Action Comics #520: Conway and Swan don't bring in yet another alien menace, at least. Eric Burton, some superstar tech-entrepreneur, has his sights on Lois Lane, and he's using his money and technology to make sure Superman is distracted by every event on Earth that might need his intervention. Burton isn't causing the events, he's just making sure Superman knows about them, and the Man of Steel can't resist helping. In the end, Lois needs help and Burton shows his cowardice while Superman saves the day. Not a great story, but I think there's a kernel of something interesting here regarding Superman's sense of duty.

The Aquaman backup by DeMatteis/Heck comes to an end (that's even the title). Aquaman and the robot Poseidon with his dad's mind go to confront his crazy mom. She throws a bunch of robots at him in the form of his foes, highlighting how obscure most of Aquaman's rogue's gallery are. In the end, her sister shows up and reveals Aquaman isn't the prophesized one. Atlanna sees the error of her ways and says she's sorry, then destroys herself and the robots. Aquaman opines that as far as he's concerned, this parents were gone a long time ago, practically stating outright that this storyline will be ignored in the future.

Adventure Comics #482: The villains come and go pretty quick in whatever town Vicky and Chris live in! Well, I guess the first one, Interchange, is attacking Washington, D.C., but that still puts 2 super-villians in their at-best medium-sized city. There's Silversmith (with the power to coat things in silver), and the H.I.V.E. assassin Blademaster. Various rookie mistakes bring Chris's cop dad ever closer to figuring out the two are someone related to the superheroes that all show up only once.

Brave & the Bold #175: Batman teams up with Lois Lane to fight Metallo with Jim Aparo on art. Lois might not be the perfect partner to take on a villain with a Kryptonite heart, but they get the job done in the end. Not a bad issue, but far from standout.

In the Nemesis backup by Burkett and Spiegle, Nemesis teams up with the Scotland Yard guy as they figure out the bad guy is playing a chess game with all his kidnappings, and his ultimate target is the Queen.

Green Lantern #141: Wolfman and Staton introduce the Omega Men. Jordan and Carol Ferris go for a campout since they've both lost their jobs at Ferris with her father's return to a more active role. In the woods, they run across the Omega Men. These guys are played more antagonistically in this first encounter than I'm used to seeing them. Also, I never really thought about it, but most of this initial group have an animal-based schtick: tiger, reptile, and bird.  

House of Mystery #293: I..Vampire is back by DeMatteis and Sutton. Bennett and his sidekicks are still on the trail of the Blood Red Moon and attend a rally by racist politician Q.B. Stonewall. He's denounced by a Black Senator, Olive, whose house is later set on fire by the KKK. Bennett is sure Stonewall is a vampire (though he doesn't see the red crescent mark on Olive), but Stonewall is dead. It turns out his assistant is the vampire, but before Bennett can strike, his friend Dmtri stops him. The assistant is his mother!

In the opening story by Conway and Tuska/Celardo, a dead man's dog pesters a gravedigger until the man follow's the dog. He hear the deceased's son confess to the dog's master's murder. The dog was guided in these actions by his master's ghost. "The Senior Sin!" by Ms. Charlie Seegar and Tenny Henson has two young hoodlums who like to prey on the elderly getting cursed by the people whose deaths they've cause to age prematurely, then they are murdered by other young punks.

Legion of Super-Heroes #276: I'm embarrassed today say, I didn't catch the hint regarding the villain of this issue in the title "Lord Romdur's Castle." Conway has the team on of those Medieval worlds the 30th Century seems to have, and they go to check out this villainous Lord Romdur who turns out to be Mordru! (See, Romdur is an anagram for Mordru.) The art by Ditko and Chiaramonte seems mostly phoned in. The cover by Buckler and Giordano is the best part of the issue.

Marvel Super-Heroes with Step Dice

I got a set of those unusual DCC polyhedrals this weekend just for the hell of it, and I was musing on Discord how you could replicate the MSHRPG rankings (Feeble to Unearthly) with a complete set of those dice, like this: Fe (d4), Pr (d5), Ty (d6), Gd (d7), Ex (d8), Rm (d10), In (d12), Am (d14), Mn (d16), Un (d20).

I suppose switching to that sort of mechanic would allow you to ditch the action table, but but keeping something even loosely approximate to the success percentages of the actual game would probably be complicated enough to require one, as shown here:

If you didn't care about sticking as closely as possible to Marvel's percentages (and admittedly, even with this, you've had to give up on the chance of a red success for lower scores) then you could give flat roll thresholds: 4 for green, 7 for yellow, and 10 for red.

I don't actually think there is any reason to do this, but it was amusing to think about.

Pulp Sci-Fi Technology

Star Wars (and to a lesser extent Star Trek) are products of their respective eras in regard to the futuristic technology then portray (or don't feature), but both are also probably beholden to their pulp antecedents and the imagine (and failures of imagination) of the authors that wrote them.

While I won't claim to have made an exhaustive study, here are some things I've noticed about the technology of the retro-future, supplemented by things noticed by Marcus L. Rowland in his excellent Forgotten Futures rpg Planets of Peril based on the works of Stanley Weinbaum, and by GURPS Ultratech 2.

• Radium: Radium seems almost sort of unobtanium in a lot of old stories, an is imbued with uses and properties it doesn't really possess in real life. This goes along with...
• Radiation: Various sorts of radiation (or even sometimes a vaguer property called "vibration" of matter or energy) can do almost magical things. This continues in science fiction, of course, but by the Atomic Age the language used to describe it much less mystical.
• Mechanical not Electronic: One can hardly fault writers of the 20s-40s for not including many (or often any) computers in their works, beyond the occasional mechanical brain, but it's interesting how even the electrical devices appear sparingly, outside of things like visiplates/visiphones (visual communication devices). Some more planetary romance leaning authors like Leigh Brackett, tend to describe virtually none of this sort of technology. This has implications we might not think of: Edmond Hamilton's stories for instance have no jail cells with coded keypads or even simply push button keypads like Star Trek. All his futuristic locks seem to require a hand held "vibratory key."
• Planet and ship based: Artificial satellites and space stations are very rare. In fact, I don't think I've read a story written before the 50s that had them.
• Acquired not Synthesized: Many more breakthrough materials or pharmaceuticals are harvested from alien worlds that made in the laboratory. Even breakthrough laboratory discovers often require some exotic "natural" material.
• Solitary Inventor: Great scientific leaps from space travel to super-weapons are typically the province of single geniuses or experimenters, not teams of government or industry-funded scientists. First space travel is almost always mentioned as a work of a sort of Wright Brothers instead of a NASA.
• Atomic Energy: Everything is atomic powered it seems like.
• No TV: I'm sure there are stories that make reference to something like television as an entertainment medium, but it appears in very few stories.