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

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

- Nick Fury, The Avengers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weird Revisited: Random Rampage Table

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marvel Superheroes RPG Derivates

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

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

Anyway, here's my brief rundown:

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

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

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

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

Marva

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 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 June 4, 1981.

G.I. Combat #233: I'll say this for Haunted Tank: for a kids comic, it doesn't skimp on the everyday grimness of war. In the first story, the crew is given a tank that they have just pulled the bodies of the previous crew out of. Their ghosts haunt Jeb and the boys until they get the German plane that killed them. The second story plays on the "honor among soldiers" thing Kanigher likes to get into from time to time. A German nurse threatens to blow up the Haunted Tank with a bazooka to save the wounded men in her charge. Instead of leaving them to die, Jeb and his crew transport them back to German lines. They are about to be executed, but the nurse argues for letting them go. The German tank commander appears prepared to take them prisoner, but instead escorts them back to the front and lets them go.

The O.S.S. story is the first appearance of the agent, Fleur, who claims to be the daughter of Mata Hari and appears to be working for the Germans, but then reveals herself to be a double agent. Drake and Tlaloc a story called "The Dummy G.I.s" where three illiterate and probably disadvantaged soldiers prove their worth. Kanigher and Henson tell the story of a heroic Gurkha fighting for his colonial rulers in various places, but he loses the use of his legs in Burma.

Justice League of America #194: Several members of the JLA have encounters (which they lose) with characters based off of Tarot card Major Arcana, leaving them all hobbled in some way. Zatanna (though blinded by her encounter with Devil) is able to cast a spell to lead them them to the cards' creator, Amos Fortune. Fortune unleashes the final card, Death, on them, but the League defeats him and they are returned to normal. Fortune tries to escape using his magic cards but only succeeds in getting himself trapped in the world of the Tarot deck. Another solid Conway/Perez installment.

Krypton Chronicles #1: This sort of thing is the closest we got to stuff like Marvel Saga or the History of the DC Universe until, well, we got those things. Bridwell and Swan have Morgan Edge deciding with the popularity of Roots and Shogun, they need to do a tv mini-series about Superman's Kryptonian roots. He tasks Clark with writing the articles that they will turn into a book and then a TV show. Clark realizes he doesn't know much about his family tree, so he and Supergirl head to Kandor to get some info from Supergirl's dad (Superman's uncle). In the House of El's Vault, they hear stories about their prestigious family line. While they do, a shadowy foe sneaks up and releases a Kryptonian yargrum with which our heroes must prepare to do battle.

New Teen Titans #11: Gar was critically injured by the Terminator, so the team is flying him to Paradise Island to save him with some Amazonian super-science. Before they can do that, Hyperion, Titan of the Sun, busts out of Tartarus and throws some mind control on Wonder Girl to make her fall in love with him. He whisks her away to free the other Titans. Starfire and the Amazons ride to her rescue, but Wonder Girl herself asks them to stand down. Then, a mysterious someone else appears. I know Greek myth has always been a part of the Wonder Woman mythos, but this story gives real Marvel vibes to me with its emphasis on supers versus mythological beings.

Secrets of Haunted House #40: Not great. In the first story by Wessler and Tanghal/Smith, a hag leaves her baby on a doorstep, because she's too poor to support the infant and her brother. And the baby looks "normal" so the family will take her in. The elderly couple does, but the baby's abnormality quickly becomes apparent. Soon the hag comes back for her, but the old woman doesn't want to give the child up and invites the hag and her soon to stay. Soon, the hag is ordering the couple around, and when the husband stands up to her, she threatens to turn them into the police for kidnapping. Ultimately, the couple is forced to move into an old shack on their land and the hag's family gets the house. Then there's a story by Harris and Rodriquez that has the shards of a crystal ball predict the fates of the cops that took it from a fortune teller--and seem to show the fates of their grown kids, who ultimately discovered a demon is responsible, but it's weakness is it's tied to the crystal ball.

The Mr. E story by Rozakis and Spiegle barely has Mr. E in it. Instead, the guy he met last issue and E's assistant, Kelly O'Toole, deal with a dog that turns into a monster. It's no werewolf but a witch-dog! It's all rather silly.

Superman #363: Bates and Swan continue the story from last issue. Lana and Lois are dying of the same infection that killed the Kents, though Superman is the only one who knows it. Superman thinks about sending them to the Phantom Zone until a cure can be found, but the vindictive Phantom Zone criminals overload the projector so he can't. Next he goes to Luthor to help. Luthor points out Superman could coerce him, but infecting Luthor, too, but he know Superman won't. Luthor laughs at him cruelly as he refuses. Finally, Superman travels to the future (the 88th Century) to find a cure, but the they won't give it to him, citing potential disruption to the future. They do tell him that someone in his time will soon discover a cure. Supes realizes since he is immune he can pass the immunity in his blood. He saves Lana and Lois and the future folks muse on whether it was cruel not to tell Superman that he was one to discover the cure. The basic story was only so so, but I like Bates characterization of Luthor and he does a good job of giving Supes conundrums he can't punch his way out of.

The backup by Rozakis and Bucker is a another Bruce Wayne: Superman story. Wayne marries Barbara Gordon. She eventually makes him give up crimefighting in favor of putting his scientific talents to use finding medical cures. He's cured headaches and he's working on the common cold, when Barbara gets word her father was gunned down by a criminal. She turns vigilante and Batgirl and Superman team-up to bring Lew Moxon to justice.

Weird War Tales #103: Every one of these War That Time Forgot stories makes it abundantly clear that Kanigher is no paleontologist and neither is Bob Hall. This story features a giant (like big enough to carry a WWII sub), orange carnosaur that encounters a U.S. submarine while submerged, then carries it on land and defends it from a bunch of other monstrous dinosaurs.

Jones and Sutton present a story than seems inspired by Twilight Zone episodes and is the strongest of the issue. An astronaut awaiting rescue watches ants develop civilization and destroy themselves in nuclear war after consuming the brain nutrient leaking from his damaged rocket. It turns out he's on Earth and his rescuers don't believe what he saw, but the detritus of the ant civilization remains. 

Allikas and Tuska present a weak story about a German World War I holdout locked in a tower. The remaining story by Newman and Yeates has a White Knight championing fighting for the Christian forces in the Outremer. It turns out the knight is an illusion created by a minstrel with hypnotic powers, but then the Knight takes on a life of his own.

Wonder Woman #283: Conway's and Delbo's story is much less interesting this time around: no Demon or Klarion. Instead we get international intrigue with the Red Dragon trying to restore feudalism to China. The only interesting twist is that the Red Dragon is revealed to be an actual dragon.

The Huntress backup by Levitz and Staton/Mitchell backup wraps up the arc with the Huntress taking down the Joker after he's flushed out of hiding by the supposed return of Batman (whose actually deceased). The Huntress had intended to pull this trick, but Dick Grayson returns to Gotham in this story and beats her to the punch. 

Rockets & Rayguns

Most of my gaming group got together (virtually) for a character creation session for the pulpy science fantasy thing in 5e. I've been blogging about the setting here which borrows from Star Frontiers, Spelljammer, and assorted works of the pulp era of science fiction. The mechanics are the pertinent bits of Rocket Age 5e on top of regular 5e.

Anyway, so far the the party has a Hadozee Explorer, a Vrusk Scientist, a Human Soldier, and a Plasmoid Scoundrel. 

I'll probably be posting some of the material I wrote up or that in an abbreviated form, and certainly the session reports will show up here.