Wednesday Comics: DC, October 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 July 9, 1981.

Justice League of America #195: This is a good one from Conway and Perez/Beatty and builds anticipation for the next issue. A shadowy someone recruits the Monocle from Earth-2 and Killer Frost from Earth-1 then sends them to recruit Psycho-Pirate, Signalman, Cheetah (her first appearance since the 2-parter that introduced her in Wonder Woman), the Ragdoll, Brainwave, the Mist, and the Floronic Man for a new Sercret Society of Super-villains. It turns out that the mastermind is the Ultra-Humanite whose got a plan to take out selected heroes from the two universes, thus causing an equilibrium reaction that will wipe out all heroes from one universe or the other. Oookay. Of course, Ultra isn't telling the crew everything he knows. Anyway, the JSA and JLA are having their annual mixer, so their guard is down. The villains split up and acquire their targets: Black Canary, Earth-2 Hawkman, and Earth-1 Wonder Woman this issue. This such classic, meat-and-potatoes supers right here. 

Krypton Chronicles #2: Bridwell and Swan continue to explore Superman's family tree. In the frame story, Supes figures out the yagrum beast from last issue is only an illusion. Zor-El helps Superman to learn the stories of yet more of his ancestors through a device connected to their headbands, which have absorbed some of their memories in addition to their sweat. He learns about Hatu-El, who helped liberate the Kryptonians from the alien Vrangs; Sul-El, who developed a telescope, saw the Vrang fleet in space, and tried to warn the governor of Kandor; Val-El, an explorer who discovered new lands; and of Val's black sheep brother Tro-El, who led an unsuccessful mutiny and became founder of an isle of pirates. While Superman is living genealogy, Supergirl nabs Black Flame, who has been trying to prolong Superman's and Supergirl's stay until the Cosmic Axis shifts again to prevent them from returning to Earth. Superman and Supergirl leave Rokyn shortly before it vanishes, and Superman tells his cousin he has another plan to get information about his ancestors prior to Val-El.

New Teen Titans #12: The enthralled Wonder Girl and the Titans of Myth attack and defeat the gods of Olympus. Athena brings the other female Teen Titans and the Amazons to Olympus to regroup for a second attack. Starfire frees the captive Zeus, and Wonder Girl is released from Hyperion's enchantment. The Titans abruptly realize the error of their ways and decide to go back to Tartarus, returning Olympus to the gods, and our heroes and the Amazons go back to Paradise Island.

Secrets of Haunted House #41: Better than the last couple of issues, I think, though not by much. Rozakis/LaRoque get the cover with a somewhat humorous tell of a man who finds a toy castle in his attic which somehow grows to full size. When he's captured by the giant there, he has to be rescued by his young son who is aware of it and has done battle with the giant in the past. Snyder and Zamora present a stumbling block just out of the gate, though with a short about a talking dog. Harris and Ditko are up next with a story about a woman and her ex-convict boyfriend fleeing to the a desert house at the end of Devil's Tail Road. The name turns out to be very literally, as the boyfriend tries to seize a rather phallic looking treasure, which turns out to be the literal tip of the Devil's tail. Gwyon and Nicholas follow it up with a confused time travel yarn that has a man from the future coming back to euthanize his bed and pain ridden father, but winding up a bed-ridden old man himself because he changed time. 

Finally, there's a Rozakis/Spiegle tale about blood coming from a well, which ties into a Hawthrone story and seems (if we buy E's not wholly satisfying explanation) a hoax in the end.

Superman #364: Swan takes a break, and Buckler is on art chores this issue. Same old Bates kind of story, though. A Metropolis reporter named Rory is upset that Olsen, Kent, and Lane always win the awards, feeling that they have an unfair advantage on the big scoops as they are tight with Superman. Then, when a mysterious amorphous Metro-Monster begins striking the city, it's Rory turn to get the scoop because he gets an exclusive from the monster's secret ID. It turns out the monster is an audiologist whose monster transformation is due to him trying to cure his own tinnitus. Anyway, he gets cured, and Rory and Jimmy become friends.

In the  Rozakis and Saviuk Superman 2020 backup, we learn that Grandpa Superman went prematurely gray from exposure to red solar radiation, and he fights valiantly to prevent his grandson from sharing that fate. Who says its hard to find credible challenges for Superman?

Weird War Tales #104: The Creature Commandos are back (well, the Monster Marines) but only in a gag one-pager by Manak. We don't even get dinosaurs this issue. Instead, we get central American revolutionaries stumbling upon a lost city, and at least one of them succumbing to murderous greed, "The Secret Enemy." Kashdan and Rogue present a "moral dilemma" with no answer when a court has to decide what to do with now adult clones of Third Reich leaders. Cavalieri and Dikto present a pirate yarn that asserts the origin of the jolly roger was a skeletal ghost. 

The last story is the best of the issue, though that isn't saying much. A pompous Soviet general disturbs the tomb of Tamerlane in Samarkand in 1982, and he and his entire force suffer the vengeance of the ghost conqueror and his undead army.

Wonder Woman #284: The dragon from last issue turns out to be a robot, but we don't find that out until Wonder Woman defeats it. Diana, Steve and Chinese agent Lao Chen investigate and find more weapons stolen from the U.S., including a crate that held a new cruise missile. The three head to China to find the missile and stop the Red Dragon. Soon after the arrive they are knocked unconscious by a sleep-gas bomb hurled by one of the Dragon's agents, who inserts a "control crystal" in Steve's neck. A The Red Dragon launches the cruise missile, which is able to evade all known aircraft, at Peiping. Steve has a device which can control or abort the missile, but the Dragon exerts his control over him and Steve destroys the device, allowing the missile to hit the Great Wall!

In the Huntress backup, the Huntress and the Earth-2 Robin team-up to lean on an organized crime figure trying to frame their senior law partner.

West Coast Avengers: The Mysterious Mr. Chu

We continued our Marvel Heroic rpg adaptation of the MSHrpg adventure, The Last Resort. The players seemed a little better with the rules this week, whereas I had forgotten a few things.

The adventure continues to be very silly, with random B-list villains who (as the player's learn) have been paid to hide out in caves in a state park in Idaho, and then get teleported to a spot to waylay the West Coast Avengers. From a testing the mechanics standpoint, though, that works just fine and the PCs tangled with, and defeated Blizzard and had Pyro on the ropes when we stopped for the evening.

Marvel Heroic is simple in base rules but has a lot of little "extras" to remember, particularly in regard to how the metacurrency of Plot Points and the Doom Pool are used. Still, it is pretty fast paced, and opponents go down pretty quick: one or two rounds of PC attacks mostly.

Hawkeye discovered an important clue this adventure after Plantman spilled what he knew. All the villains were hired by a shadow Mr. Chu. Thanks to a call to the Avengers Compound and a run through the databanks, they found that to be a known alias of the Mandarin.

Hourman for Marvel Heroic

 Still getting used to the Marvel Heroic RPG, I decided to make up a couple of characters in the system to get the feel of it. Here's the Golden Age Hourman, missing only XP milestones.

HOURMAN 
Rex Tyler [secret]

Affiliations: Solo d10  Buddy d8  Team d6

Distinctions: Man of the Hour; Secret Champion of the Oppressed; Better Living Through Chemistry  

Power Sets:

Miraclo
Superhuman Strength d10 Superhuman Stamina d10 Superhuman Durability d10 Superhuman Speed d10
SFX: Focus. In a pool including a Miraclo die, replace two dice of equal steps with one die of +1 step.
Limit: The Hour’s Up. Shutdown any Miraclo power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Specialties: Combat Expert d8, Covert Expert d8, Science Expert d8, Tech Expert d8

Thursday Comics: DC, October 1981 (wk 1 pt 1)

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

Arak Son of Thunder #2: Thomas and Colon/DeZuniga pick up the story with the Son of the Thunder washing up, well, somewhere in Europe, where he meets Corinna, the beautiful daughter of Lord Hessa, and runs afoul of the mute knights that protect her. He's taken to the castle, where Hessa takes a dislike to him and has him thrown in the dungeon--but not before Arak discovers the knights are merely armor animated by magic. In the dungeon, Arak meets Malagigi a sorcerer serving Carolus Magnus. Before Malagigi can clue Arak in on what's going on, the not suspicious at all Corinna frees our hero and gets him to run away with her into the forest. It turns out Corinna isn't daughter but mother to Hessa. She made a pact with a devil, and she's used Arak to help her escape. In the end, she goes willing with the devil to Hell, as revoking his gift makes her age rapidly, and she can't take it. Malagigi and Arak set out for Charlemagne's court. Setting-aside, a rather Conan-y story, which makes sense and it works.

Batman #340: Conway/Thomas and Colan/Gonzales have Batman take on another one-shot villain, the Mole. The mole has been mutated by exposure to toxic chemical into a humanoid mole (which is convenient as mutation goes, since his nickname was "the mole" before), and he's getting gruesome revenge on the people he thinks are responsible. Batman puts a stop to it, of course. This story has a bit more of a horror angle than your average Batman story, but it's otherwise unremarkable.

DC Comics Presents #38: I've read this Pasko/Heck Superman and Flash team-up before in the DC Showcase trade for DCP. Anyway, Superman and Flash find the world around them frozen in time--just when they both need to rescue someone from a deadly situation (Jim and Fiona, respectively). It's all due to the machinations of an alien tyrant, but she tricks our heroes into thinking the other is to blame so they fight each other. The thing I find most interesting about this story is that some of it takes place at a location 102 miles from Central City and 322 miles from Metropolis, which might help in locating the two. Or might not.

The "What Ever Happened To..." backup by Wein and Saviuk is about the Crimson Avenger, the first costumed superhero to appear in Detective Comics. Lee Travis, feeling forgotten, is dying of an incurable condition. Seeing a boat in trouble in the harbor, he rushes to the rescue as the Crimson Avenger, stopping to save a young boy along the way. The boat is carrying chemicals and ready to explode, but he guides it away from the city, but dies in the blast. No one on the boat knew who he was, so it appears he will be forgotten, but he told his name to the mother whose boy he saved and she and the boy remember. A simple story, but the sort of thing this strip was meant for.

Flash #302: Finally the identity of the villain impersonating Barry's dad is revealed, and it turns out to be the Top, which, no offense to all you Top stans, but I find sort of anti-climactic. Anyway, most of this issue is the Flash dealing with the Top's accomplice, the Golden Glider. In their first skirmish, she mesmerizes him somehow, and the smitten Flash lets her go. And man, the people of Central City turn on him quick for that. In their second clash, he's onto her tricks and relieves her of the hypnotic gem that made him fall for her. 

In the Firestorm backup, Ronnie is visiting the home of his girlfriend Doreen Day. He's trying to figure out the connection the Hyena has to their family. He decides to snoop in Doreen's sister Summer's diary, but the Hyena appears on the window seal and they do battle. Firestorm winds up in the middle of the Harlem River.

G.I. Combat #235: In the first Haunted Tank story, it seems that since now that the crew is in a Sherman tank, the ghost of General Sherman shows up to take over and Stuart is given the boot along with his Confederate emblem. He flashes back to the H.Q. in the Sky, where Alexander the Great first ordered him to look at the tank crew. Hans von Hammer was there to, in case you are interested, suggesting that Enemy Ace was dead by World War II. Anyway, eventually after we get several pages of how callous Sherman is, Stuart is back. 

The second story is much better than that nonsense, and is sort of Twilight Zone-esque, with the crew picking up a soldier with a head wound, who keeps asking about whether Stein is still alive. The crew assumes Stein was his body, and they are unable to stop the G.I.'s reckless search, but eventually it kills him. His dogtags reveal he was Stein.

Rounding out the issue, with got an O.S.S. story with Vera trying to get an art book that supposedly carries a message to Control out from under the nose of Goering as she tries to escape his castle. Then there's "P.F.C. Snafu" by Kashdan and Vicatan where a G.I.'s screw-ups in an artillery squad wind up being their lucky break. Finally, in a "Woman at War" story by Laurie and Trinidad, a M.A.S.H. nurse in Korea, refuses to take the life of a Chinese soldier who had spared hers, even though the Chinese forces had killed her twin brother.

Ghosts #105: Better than last issue, but that may be damning with faint praise. The highlights: A Kanigher/Carrillo story set in 18th Century Sicily where a French soldier seduces a local girl with promises of marriage, leading her to commit suicide but after vowing that he will be with her even if in death. Sure enough, years later on the day he is to marry another girl, an earthquake sends him fleeing into the graveyard, where he winds up falling into a chasm around the dead girl's grave and being buried alive. A Haney/Zamora story of graverobber has Digger Duggan agreeing to take a drug that will make him appear dead provided by the doctor he works for. He's buried alive, but dug up by a competitor who mistakes him for dead, but ultimately winds up on the vivisection table.

Less good is the Allikas/Spiegle tale of a child custody battle that gets really ugly when the recently deceased dad tries to convince his daughter to drown to be with him forever. He has a change of heart, though, when she appears willing to do it. The less said about the Snyder/Estrada story about a farmer who complains so much to the ghost in a wishing well, the ghost strangles him and steals his body, the better.

Jonah Hex #53: In true cliffhanger fashion, this issue reveals Hex was not in the cabin when it blew up last issue. He pursues the kidnappers and succeeds in getting the kid, Petey Foster back and returning him to his family. Unfortunately, He returns home to find a note from Mei Ling saying that has left him and taken the baby. In the meantime, Mei Ling seeks a shelter in the house of Hiram and Ruth. Hex proceeds to get drunk and starts seeing illusions from ghosts of the past including his abusive father and his old enemy El Papagayo.

In the mostly charmless Tejano Ranger backup by Cohn/Mishkin and Veitch/Yeates we are introduced to Antonio Ramirez, a Hispanic Texan, who sides with the colonists from the U.S. against the Mexican central government, serving as a ranger. He faces prejudice from the gringo Texans, and ends up facing the spears of General Rojas' cavalry, as he is captured by Mexican forces.

Salvage in Space

We played the first session of a "rockets and rayguns" pulp sci-fi game using a modified version of Rocket Age for 5e. The characters were:

Jones: human, ex-soldier
Lor' el-Am: Hadozee engineer
Mitchell: another human and ex-Space Marine
Trzkt: Vrusk scientist

All were marking time in Ziszkhar, a minor spaceport and domed city of Marva, when Trzkt was approached by another Vrusk named Niszk Zrnn, who was acting as an agent for an insurance claims for a big New Terran shipping insurance firm. The firm was interested in hiring a crew for a salvage mission in the Belt. Niszk thought Trzkt might know a suitable group. In fact, she did, and they agreed to meet the insurance agent.

Arlik Taine told them that his company was preparing to pay out a significant amount on the Aurora Queen, a new luxury spaceliner that had mysteriously disappeared in the Belt, just days from Marva. It's inaugural cruise with only a small group of passengers had been a cruise out to Kronion's moons. It was coming back when contact was lost. A prospector in the belt had a caught a glimpse of a derelict in the distance that might by the Queen, so Taine was willing to pay to have it checked out.

He added that there was a famous archeologist on board, Dr. Brennan Carter, who was returning from an expedition to one of the nameless moons of Vurania, with a treasure in exotic gems.

The crew was outfitted with an aging but serviceable cruiser, and they set out for the Belt, to the coordinates extrapolated from the prospector's sighting. They find the ship, powerless and tumbling through space. Attaching themselves with a magnetic grapple, they went inside. There was evidence of some bloody conflict in gruesome stains on walls and doors, but no bodies. In the ship's control room they found the bleeding and concussed officer in the uniform of the line, Captain Cyril Falconer. He tells them there is an invisible monster on the ship that has been slaughtering the crew and passengers!

My Favorite Comics Character Revamp Series

 In the post-Crisis era, revamps of characters became common. Perhaps too common. But for all the ill-conceived ones and ones done for no good reason, there have been a number of good ones, they really did something interesting with the character. Here are a few of my favorites, roughly chronological particular order:

Blackhawk: Blood & Iron (1988)

Chaykin's masterful and historically rooted take on the Blackhawks. Chaykin has brought this sort of approach to other characters (The Phantom Eagle, Dominic Fortune, and the Young Allies) but never as effectively or as beautifully rendered as here.

Hawkworld (1989)
I suppose this could be considered part of the 80s-early 90s "grim and gritty" wave, but Truman's art (abetted by Alcatena) does gritty so well! Thanagar is dystopian and Katar Hol is a murderer and a drug addict--at first. Still, the themes of inequality and class remain as relevant as ever.

The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty (1991)

This isn't technically a revamp, but it's something more than a retelling. A refinement or streamlining perhaps? Nicieza's story in Kevin Maguire's art (on the first two issues, then Kevin West on the last two) is the best Captain America origin movie Joe Johnston never got to direct.

Blaze of Glory: The Last Ride of the Western Heroes (1999)

Ostrander brings all of Marvel's Western characters together for a Magnificent Seven-esque last stand. Manco's art is gorgeous if you can excuse his very Young Guns design sensibilities regarding the the characters.

Martian Manhunter: Identity (2019)

I would have also included the DeMatteis/Badger 1988 Martian Manhunter limited series on this list, that overturned the Silver Age Planetary Romance version and set the template in part for all portrayals to follow, but it has criminally never been collected. This 2019 "maxi-series" by Orlando and Rossmo takes the 1988 series' ideas, but in some ways moves it back in the direction of the Silver Age version--while giving it a fresh, science fiction veneer. Never has Mars seemed so alien, but also had a series made you feel the death its civilization so keenly. Like many of the best Martian Manhunter stories, this one mixes detective work with an exploration of how outsiders from society can stop being on the outside.

West Coast Avengers: The Last Resort

 

I've got interested in trying Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, the years out-of-print game based on the Cortex Plus system, and we were between games in one of my groups so it seemed a good time to give it a try. As MHR is geared to playing characters in the Marvel Universe, I decided to adapt a module from TSR's old Marvel Superheroes game, and since I could find MHR stats for all the characters online, I went with possibly the only MSHRPG module I ever played, The Last Resort by Kim Eastland, which stars the West Coast Avengers--a team I have some nostalgia for, since I subscribed to their comic. 

Paul, Aaron, and Andrea were the group or the season playing Hawkeye, Wonder Man, and Tigra respectively. The stats, unfortunately, weren't period perfect, being based on the versions of the characters from 30 years later, but that's to be expected and only mildly offends my sense of nostalgia, really. 

The story involvements Iron Man and a group of Boy Scouts going missing during the hero's appearance at a Jamboree in Idaho. The other Avengers must investigate, and of course, discover nefarious doings.

I'll reserve my full judgements for both the system and the adventure until we've completed the latter, but some initial thoughts on both: I liked MHR on my read through of it, and so far it has held up well in play, moving fairly fast despite our lack of familiarity with it, but for the simplicity of its base mechanic it does have a lot of exceptions and options to keep track of. The module is silly in concept and detail, and not silly in a way that is congruent with what would be likely to occur in the comics, but it has thus far served its purpose of allowing us to test out the system.