Wednesday Comics: DC, October 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 July 23, 1981. 

Legion of Super-Heroes #280: So Reflecto wasn't Ultra Boy, he's Superboy--but a Superboy who thinks he's Ultra Boy. The Legion sets out to interrogate him to find out the truth. When that proves inconclusive, they decide to travel back to the 20th Century to see if they can solve the mystery. This story seems to take place before (at least partially) the team-up with Batman in the Brave and the Bold issue this month, as that is foreshadowed here.

New Adventures of Superboy #22: Bates and Schaffenberger put the Teen of Steel through the ringer in a story titled "The Heroic Failures of Superboy." A series of heroic deeds seem to lead to worse unintended consequences, so Superboy gets so bummed out he leaves Smallville. 

In the Krypto backup by Rozakis and Tanghal, Krypto proves himself a hero to canine kind as he saves a dog falsely accused of being rabid from execution and catches two human crooks.

Sgt. Rock #357: Kanigher and Redondo end this one on a darker note than usual. Rock and Easy save an orphan from a bombed convent school, and Rock discovers the boy wears his dogtags. He recalls saving an orphaned infant and recognizes this must be the kid grown older (just how long has this war gone on?). Anyway, Rock goes through various perils to get the kid to his new family, but in the end we see the family are secret Nazis! 

In an amateurish early work by Ron Randall, mutants in 2095 overwhelm the last of the human troops that had sought to exterminate them. Finally, a clan feud in the Scottish highlands is settled by the serpentine Beast of Blackloch in a tale drawn by Jan Duursema.

Unexpected #215: Not much good this month. Harris and Rodriquez present a Victorian era tale of a Scotland yard detective who falls for a beautiful woman while investigating a series of murders of woman, only to discover she's the murderer, killing attractive women she is jealous of. Snyder/Ayers give us a non-horror story about a woman looking at old pictures of her kid with the twist he became a criminal and got the electric chair. Snyder doubles down on no horror with a "comedic" (in form, if not result tale of a guy who daydreams about flying, and one day he does. Snyder's third story is slightly better than the other two and is about a guy in a post-apocalyptic future who throws away his gun because because its a continued symbol of violence and hate--only then to be weaponless when he needs to save a woman from a pack of feral dogs. I did say only slightly better!

The last story by Wessler and Nebres has a woman and her hypnotherapist husband scheme to stop her brother's new girlfriend from becoming his wife and inheriting his money by hypnotizing her into worrying about his age and healthy. When the girlfriend dies from worry, the hypnotherapist goes to jail, but the sister's ambitions are thwarted after her brother cremates his money with his girlfriend.

Unknown Soldier #256: Haney and Ayers/Tlaloc come up with an inventive problem for the Soldier. He's concussed in a bombing in London, and wakes up what he's told is months later in an underground resistance enclave. It seems the German's have conquered the UK and the USA has signed a treaty. Before he figures out its all a Nazi trick, he gives away the location (vaguely) of the Enigma machine! Before he can plot his escape, the Germans are coming to kill him.

In the Dateline: Frontline, we get a Comics Code safe taste of the cruelty of the Bataan Death March, before the protagonist manages to escape the Philippines. The Micheline/Simonson Captain Fear comes to an all to soon, but action-packed conclusion. Fear and the ninja team-up to leave the Spaniard without gold or the document. There's also a story about a Japanese soldier who believes he's following Bushido and two American soldiers: one who tries and fails to understand his enemies code, and one who is dismissive of it.

Warlord #50:  Read about this issue here. No backup this month.

World's Finest Comics #272: In the Burkett and Buckler/Giella Batman and Superman lead. Supes hears that Batman has been getting more ruthless lately, and this being 1981 not 1986, he goes to try to cheer his friend up, not violently confront him. He invites Batman to the Fortress of Solitude. It's tempting, but these criminals aren't going to capture themselves--so Superman basically kidnaps Batman. At the fortress they reminisce about old times and Superman thinks it maybe Robin leaving that changed Batman's mood. Anyway, Superman has speed away to help some people caught in an avalanche. It turns out the avalanche was artificial created to get him away from the fortress so robots with phasing abilities can rob the place. They don't expect Batman to be there though. He manages to keep the robots at bay until Superman gets back. The robots are being controlled by an alien spacecraft, but that gets away. To be continued.

Haney and von Eeden/Breeding send Green Arrow and one of followers to Vlatava to return Count Vertigo's body--but it's all a trick! And a very Haneyian trick, at that. Now Vertigo has gained new power. In the Rozakis and Saviuk/Rodriguez Hawkman story, Katar traps a Thanagarian invasion fleet in hyperspace, which shocks Hawkgirl with its callousness--enough that she makes the long overdue demand that he call her Hawkwoman, not girl. On the other hand The Robot Killer learns tolerance in the Conway/Delbo Red Tornado story where he and Reddy most rely on each other after getting trapped after an explosion. In the Bridwell/Newton/Mitchell Mary Marvel story, Mary uses her brains to defeat a one-off villainess, Chain Lightning, who figures out she can steal Marvel's powers.

West Coast Avengers: Radioactive Fallout!

Last night, we continued our double exploration of out of print games by running through the MSHrpg adventure Last Resort using Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. 

Not remembering how close Pyro was to done, I elided the end of that combat, and the crew picked up with the interrogation of the mutant villain. He spun the say tale about the caves to the North and Mr. Chu. The team called in the park rangers to pick him up, too, and moved on to cliffs.

Soon they ran in to Whirlwind, and even after Hawkeye successful suckerpunched him (metaphorically speaking) Whirlwind put up a good ight, refusing to go down, even though he had no success in hurting the heroes. He eventually tells them a similar story to the others.

Finally, reaching the cliffs, Tigra is scouting a cave, when she spotted a big green guy seated on a log in a clearing. Hawkeye is sure it's the Radioactive Man, and shoots a foaming radiation absorbing arrow, that bounces off the guy's back. The battle is joined, and the first round is a draw. Then, the Radioactive Man attempts to sicken them all with an intense dose of radiation. Not only do they resist, but Tigra turns her acrobatic escape into a counter-attack, and claws at his face. Wonder Man stepped in to deliver the knockout punch.

Hawkeye yells at him for hitting Radioactive Man right as he was about to say something about the Mandarin.

Olshevsky's Marvel Time Revisited

I had forgotten I had written a post about this back in 2018. I've updated it a bit here. To allow their characters to stay evergreen, both Marvel and DC have established "sliding timelines" so that the present is always today, and modern Heroic Ages of their respective universes are only 10 or 15 (or some less specified number) of years old.

(There is some evidence Dan DiDio was looking to kind of abandon this at DC in favor of "generations," but then he got the boot before he could do it.)

As I've mentioned before, this was not always the case. George Olshevsky's Marvel indices argue that in the early years, Marvel seemed to preceded in real time. While most are unfazed by this, at least this guy thinks abandoned it ruined the Marvel Universe. While I wouldn't go that far, I do think there are certainly tradeoffs. The eternal present comes at the sacrifice of allowing characters to truly grow and inevitably means big changes are impermanent.

Anyway, here are the "Marvel Years" as outlined by Olshevsky. He measures them by years in Peter Parker's life. The actual calendar years are my addition and relate to the most likely real-world translation (if your were inclined to do that) based on the time of publication.

YEAR ONE [1960-1961] (PP-HS-SophY):
June*- FF spaceflight.
Sept. - Peter Parker is a junior in high school.
Winter – events of FF #1.
(Hank Pym in the Ant-Hill) (The Hulk)
Spring (March-April) – Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man [Aug 62]
intro Thor
debut Ant-Man

YEAR TWO [1961-1962] (PP HS-JunY)
debut Wasp
Intro. Dr. Strange

YEAR THREE [1962-1963](PP HS-SenY):
Sept. – PP is a senior in high school.
Sept. – The Avengers form.
Oct. – The X-Men go public. [Sep 63]
November – Ant-Man becomes Giant Man.
mid-Dec. – The Black Widow first appears.
March – Iron Man fights Hawkeye and Black Widow.
May – Reed and Sue engaged. Johnny and Ben almost meet the Beatles.
June – Hawkeye joins Avengers. PP and JS graduate High School. Quicksilver and SW join the Avengers. Reed and Sue marry. Nick Fury named director of SHIELD.
July – Galactus arrives. Sentinels. Quentin Quire is born. (this wasn't in Olshevsky!)

YEAR FOUR [1963-1964] (PP-CY-1):
Peter Parker’s freshman year of college.
Winter- Captain Mar-Vell arrives.
Feb. - Bobby Drake (Iceman) turns 18.
Late May-early June – 1: Lorna Dane
Summer. Franklin Richards born.

YEAR FIVE [1964-1965] (PP CY-2):
September. The Vision is created. Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are married.
Late Sept-early Oct – 1: Sunfire
June-July: Hank McCoy goes to work for Brand Corp

YEAR SIX [1965-1966] (PP CY-3):
October – Beast gets furry.
May – GXM#1. The New X-Men

YEAR SIX [1966-1967] (PP CY-4):
Sept – Thunderbird dies.
Jan – Jean Grey replaced by Phoenix.

If Jean Grey was 24 when she is presumed to have died (based on the dates on her tombstone), and she is the same age as Peter Parker, then she must have died around 1968-69. This might jibe well with X-Men #101, which depicts snow in New York City on Christmas, something that has only happened 18 times since 1900, but did happen in 1966.

*Obviously the start date is speculative. Fantastic Four #1 was published in August of 1961 so the events must have occurred before that. 

The DC Comics Work of Alan Grant

Art by Norm Breyfogle

The Scottish comics writer Alan Grant passed away yesterday. He started his career with 2000AD and Judge Dredd, but I became aware of him when he and co-writer John Wagner teamed up with artist Norm Breyfogle on Detective Comics. For me, and I think perhaps a lot of others, that late 80s-early 90s run really defines the post-Crisis Batman. The run added several interesting villains to the Batman's rogues gallery, and one perhaps the pantheon of all-time greats: The Ventriloquist.

His other big contribution to DC was probably the Lobo limited series with Keith Giffen and Simon Bisley. Lobo had first appeared in the Omega Men, but this series recreated him essentially and catapulted the character to super-stardom for a time--and unfortunately, over-exposure.

To get a taste of Grant's DC work, I would suggest starting with Batman: The Dark Knight Detective vol. 2, The Batman/Judge Dredd Collection, and  Lobo by Keith Giffen & Alan Grant Vol. 1.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 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 July 23, 1981.

Action Comics #524: The Superman titles of this era are big on callbacks and continuity, definitely. Perhaps it's the writers, like Martin Pasko here, being former fanboys? A Luthor-created clone escapes from the Fortress of Solitude (though he thinks he's the real Superman at first) and tries to steal Clark Kent's life. Superman defeats him, but the convenient death of a family-less newscast allows the clone to assume that guy's life, so everybody lives happily ever after.

The Atom backup continues the Calculator story that was already stretched then, by having the Calculator escape from a court room. He's prepared for the Atom's powers, so the Atom calls in Air Wave to help him out. Sorry, Rozakis and Saviuk, but this feels like filler.

Adventure Comics #486: This demonic creature, Grockk, sends his supervillain minions to make way for his kingdom on Earth. They're stopped by the Dial "H" kids in the usual array of supposedly reader suggested superhero identities. Also, Chris is giving Vicki a hard time about hanging with her old boyfriend and reformed badboy, Brad, which only serves to make him look bad and drive Vicki closer to Brad. So much so she goes on a solo Hero Dial adventure and wanders if she needs a partner, after all.

Brave & the Bold #179: Pasko and Colon/DeCarlo have Anton Halkor, an ally of Universo's, traveling to 20th Century Gotham replace a time capsule with a look alike alien, anti-matter egg from the 30th Century, but Batman comes to the future to get help from the Legion of Super-Heroes to stop him. I like that the Legion don't know Batman (though certainly know of him) but it doesn't take much to convince them he's the real deal, because hey, folks time traveling happens to them all the time.

All-Star Squadron #2: Given their marching orders by FDR, the nascent Squadron heads out to the West Coast to protect it from further Japanese aggression. This provides a chance for everyone to introduce themselves. Meanwhile, the heroes captured by Per Degaton get an ear full of his origin and his evil plan for conquest. The heroes manage to stop his hypnotized Japanese pilots flying toward San Francisco, but Degaton decides to eliminate the rest of the JSA with a volcano--but then Shining Knight gets free..

Detective Comics #507: Continues the Conway/Newton Manikin story. Batman manages to save the designer Hoston and escape the fire, but only because the smoke takes its toll on Manikin. That gives Batman the idea of get some sort of spray sealant to cut off her air long enough to incapacitate her. While Batman is preparing his weapon and a trap to lure her out, we get the Manikin's origin. She is, of course, a model and the woman Batman saved from the car. Horribly disfigured she's out for revenge on the fashion designers--one of which she thinks is responsible. Her devoted brother made the suit for her. Despite his warnings, Manikin walks into the trap. Batman defeats her with the sealant, but only her brother is able to convince her to choose life over revenge. Batman confronts Hoston about the car fire, and he confesses his guilt. This was a solid two-parter.

House of Mystery #297: DeMatteis and Sutton are back with I...Vampire. Bennett and friends are on the trail of the monks from a Zen monastery who they are told now serve the Blood Moon, but it turns out to be a trick. The monks are vampires, but like Bennett, have retained their humanity. Then there's an EC-esque story by Kashdan and Carrillo about a crooked televangelist who's schtick is he beats the devil on all his broadcasts. When his devil actor threatens to reveal he's a fraud, the televangelist kills him. The replacement is the actual devil who disintegrates the preacher on TV. The final story by Conway and Cowan/De Zuniga is about a musician whose been around since the 30s, thanks to the fact he's a mutant with the ability to draw life force for anyone who can hear his singing. When a journalist discovers his longevity, he drains her to keep his secret, but he when his car wrecks shortly thereafter he's mortally wounded--and outside a hospital for the deaf.

Green Lantern #145: Wolfman and Staton are still on duty here. Carol's dad isn't all bad as he buys her a cliffside mansion like in Malibu or something. She lets Hal stay in the Gardener's house because she isn't ready for commitment. Meanwhile, Richard Davis, the new Ferris Aircraft VP and mentor of Hal's is acting oddly, like there's a health issue with him. The big problem this issue is Goldface's attempts to become a crime boss. He fights GL and beats him--GL not seeming to realize until late in the fight that his inability to use his ring against yellow only applies to directly using it against yellow.

In the Adam Strange backup from Sutton and Infantino a giant, ugly insect attacks Rann, and Strange defeats it but gets sent back to Earth before the eggs start to hatch.

Superman Family #211: Pasko (he's all over the place this month!) and Mortimer present the Supergirl story. A psychic saboteur, the Mind-Bomber, boosts Lena Luthor powers so she figures out Supergirl's identity. Supergirl is weirded out by the way stories in the soap opera she works on predict the Bomber's attacks, but it turn out that Lena was ghost-writing those scripts and the ideas were being planted in her mind by the bomber, who was really after revenge on his family. A lot of convolution here for little payoff.

The Bridwell/Schaffenberger Mr. and Mrs. Kent story have them stumbling upon an assassination plot at the wedding of Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle. The plot turns on a bit of comics trivia that the Earth-Two Two-Face is named Harvey Kent, not Dent. In the Private Life of Clark Kent, Clark gets a visit from Elongated Man. He thinks its a ploy by someone to reveal his identity as Superman to Dibny but the truth is dumber: Dibny just dreamed a phone call. Conway and Oksner have Lois Lane getting too close to a hostage situation so she gets taken hostage herself, but ultimately she saves the day. Pasko's and Delbo's Jimmy Olsen has Jimmy confronting the criminal that tried to ruin his life with duplicates. His friends and family (well, mainly Superman) come to his rescue, and Olsen helps the guy who had set out to hurt him.

A Journey to Pre-Azurth

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e campaign continued last night with the party following a puppy automaton into a scret cave where they found a strange observatory, and it's observer, Lum-One, a automaton version of Mirabilis Lum. He says he's been expecting them. He needs them to go into the prehistory of Azurth and foil "the Shadow" (by which he means the servants of the Anti-Sun, not the living shadow that has been perplexing the party). Lum's theory was that Azurth was born from solidified chaos magic that fell to earth in the distance past (these celestial objects were the origin of the Whim-Wham Stone), and the Anti-Sun's servants are trying to co-opt that.

He reveals to the party that Lum is likely still alive, but senile, and residing in a junkyard city in Sang. He doesn't know anything about the Clockwork Princess' current doings.

He also suggests the shadow the party has been dealing with may be a temporally fractured individual.

All that deep lore out of the way, the party agrees and is transported to a landscape that looks post-apocalyptic (there are ruins of strange buildings) but they do find the knife-like, black tower he told them to find.

Eldritch glyphs that decorate many doors and some floors prove punishing for the unwary, and the party doesn't make it far before needing to rest. Kully does get to viciously mock a gray ooze, though. They do find out something of the tower's workings, however from the writings of whoever was here before. It was apparently built to capture and channel the chaos magic of the stone from the heavens.

Damselfly for Marvel Heroic

Here's another Marvel Heroic RPG adaptation. This time, one of my own creations. You can read more about her here.

Art by Dean Kotz

DAMSELFLY 
Xazandra Zaantarz/Cassandra “Cassie” Saunders [secret]

Affiliations: Solo d8  Buddy d6  Team d10

Distinctions: Alien Law Enforcer; Called a Traitor on Zurrz-Zann; Compassion must always temper justice

Power Sets:

Alien Physiology
Insect Control d8 Enhanced Senses d8
SFX: Stronger on Earth. When using Insect Control to create an asset or complication, add a D6 and step up your effect die.
Limit: Feedback. Shutdown a Alien Physiology power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Biomechanical Enhancements
Enhanced Reflexes d8 Shrinking d10 Flight d6
SFX: Boost. Spend 1 PP to step up or double Biomechanical Enhancement power for one die roll.
Limit: Size Matters. Add a complication equal to Shrinking to an opposing dice pool to gain 1 PP.

Enforcer Equipment
Energy Blast d8 Enhanced Durability d8
SFX: Stun Setting. If your attack roll includes Energy Blast, add a d6 and step up physical 

stress. If the target is stressed out from this attack, they take no trauma.

SFX: Burst Setting. If your attack roll includes Energy Blast, add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

Limit: Gear. Shutdown Enforcer Equipment power to gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. the 

doom pool to recover Enforcer Equipment.

Specialties: Combat Expert d8, Covert Expert d8, Crime Expert d8, Psych Expert d8, Tech Expert d8