Weird Revisited: The Dungeon Mad God Machine

This post originally appeared in 2017...

 

Seeing Alien: Covenant yesterday, which (no real spoilers) carries a theme from Prometheus (and from Frankenstein, ultimately) of lesser beings meddling in creation of life, gave me an idea. I've written before (and it's sort of baked into the rules in any case, most explicitly in BECMI) about dungeons in D&D being an engine of apotheosis.

What if dungeons didn't just create gods or god-like being? What if they tended to create mad ones? All those weird D&D monsters are waved off as the products of crazy wizards, but maybe they're more specifically the product of crazy, god-level wizards?

In fact, it's possible dungeons weren't originally a tool of apotheosis at all. One mad race, the Engineers (or Dungeoneers) did came upon that accidentally. The first dungeons were their laboratories, their three dimensional journals of magical experimentation. A delve into one charts (and recapitulates) their ascension to post-mortaldom--and their descent in madness. A dungeon then, is a living blasphemous tome, recording secrets man was not meant to know.

It goes without saying that probably all life in the campaign world began their. Everything crawled up from the depths, evolving away from its original purpose to its current form. Unless of course, that evolution was the point. The Dungeoneers might have felt they would only have arrived at godhood when they could create beings that could follow in their footsteps--or maybe even challenge their supremacy. Perhaps there's another, higher level game and they need soldiers, or experimental subjects, to win it?

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 4)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around October 29, 1981. 

Action Comics #527: Superman is a pawn in the struggle between two sorcerers from 1 million years in the future: Syrene and her husband, the villainous Lord Satanis. They seek Merlin's Runestone, but in the end Satanis is banished to Hell--at least until issue 539 when he's going to return to trouble Supes again. All this is courtesy of Wolfman and Swan.

Adventure Comics #489: Two Dial H stories again, with more one shot heroes created by readers against more one shot villains created by readers. The first story by Rozakis and Infantino/McLaughlin has the concept of the superheroes Chris and Vicki turned into having to appear in court to testify against the villain--which is difficult because they can't become the same heroes twice. They instead dial up other heroes and have to disguise themselves to keep their court date. The second story by Bridwell and von Eeden/Mahlstedt has the kids dialing in now identities to take on an alien menace who is a literal marionette with strings going to an x-shaped spacecraft. It's kind of a weird but interesting character than could have been used in a better story.

All-Star Squadron #5: As usual Thomas packs a lot of story in 28 pages. Most of the members of the Justice Society intend to resign and join the military in their civilian identities, but first they need to go to the Yucatan to find out what happened to Shiera Sanders (Hawkgirl) who was down there on an archeological expedition. Meanwhile, Johnny Quick and Robotman thwart terrorists at the statue of liberty, then arrive in time to see the new Firebrand's debut. The Buckler/Ordway art continues to be great for this sort of standard superhero material.

Detective Comics #510: Conway's mayoral contest subplot continues but seems to be drawing toward its conclusion as Reeves threatens to unleash photos revealing Batman's secret identity. Meanwhile, Lucius Fox is kidnapped, and Batman has to tangle with a foe he has dealt with in a long time--the original Mad Hatter. Now, up until this issue, there was just one DC Comics Mad Hatter, but here Conway retcons Alice in Wonderland-obsessed, Tennell character resembling Mad Hatter of his first 1948 appearance to be the original, and the hat-themed crime committing, mustachioed Mad Hatter that was in the tv show and the comics from the 50s-70s as "an imposter." Tetch says he was in a mental institution and that since getting out he has killed the imposter, but that guy shows up again in the late 80s.

In the Batgirl backup, the Annihilator is still trying to make Batgirl is bride, but the dynamic duo of Supergirl and Batgirl keep foiling his plans. Batgirl frets about being useless with all Supergirl's might, but in a twist, you can see coming a mile away, it's her clever thinking that wins the day.

New Adventures of Superboy #25: When Prof. Lewis Lang and his hippie-ish assistant Burt Belker bring back the Chaos Helmet from the Valley of Ur, Belker puts it on and is possessed by a Lord of Chaos. He becomes Dr. Chaos who looks like a costume color switched Dr. Fate. I wonder why Dr. Chaos never got picked up as a Dr. Fate foe? 

Unexpected #218: In the first story by Snyder and Ayers, the Mexican General is defeated in 1836 because the Texans attack during his siesta time. Okay, that may be "unexpected," but c'mon, DC! Next, Kashdan and Ayers have a story about a guy traveling to the future and discovering aliens have taken over Earth. His fellow researchers don't believe him, but he manages to track down the aliens in his present and wipe them out. He's killed in the process, and his fellow time travels never realize he saved the future for humankind. 

In the cover story, Native American survivors of a nuclear holocaust venture forth from their home into the deep swamps of southern Florida only to discover horrors including gator people eager to transform others into their kind. The final, meandering story by Kanigher and Vicatan, a woman finds the mask of Medusa in a scuba-diving scavenger hunt and lives only long enough to regret it.

Unknown Soldier #259: Haney and Ayers/Talaoc give us another one of their high concept yarns. The Soldier is in Italy and forced to fight a crazy Italian strongman who has sided with the Germans in a gladiatorial arena for the amusement of Goering who's decked out like a Roman emperor. In the gallery of war feature, a pair of young soldiers on guard duty on opposite sides of the Civil War bond over there commonalities, including their harmonica playing. That doesn't keep them from accidentally killing each other in the next day's battle. In the Captain Storm story, he finally manages to get John F. Kennedy out of harm's way and take out the commander of the Japanese sub he's been after, but only at the cost of his own PT boat.

World's Finest Comics #275: Metropolis is having a heatwave when Gotham unseasonable snows. it turns out to be Mr. Freeze in an abandoned Soviet space station, but I like that Kupperberg sticks with the Bronze Age idea that Metropolis and Gotham are not very far apart. Barr and von Eeden have prison leading Oliver Queen to develop even more of a social conscience as he befriends a fellow inmate Green Arrow nabbed and gets Black Canary to help his undocumented immigrant family deal with an exploitive landlord forcing them into crime.

Zatanna is still fighting that guy with a sonic scream on a cruise ship courtesy of Conway and Speigle. He's crazy powerful, being able to freeze a large area of water with a scream, but he gets an accidental electric shock and loses consciousness. His powers are gone but their source is still a mystery to our heroine. After some new bachelor bonding with Flash, Hawkman nabs the Matter Master who has been robbing the museum by changing the material of items so that the museum thinks they have been stolen and replace--and then stealing the items and changing them back. Bridwell and Newton have Captain Marvel have to come to the rescue of a kidnapped Billy Batson, which involves a stand in and the help of Captain Marvel, Jr.

Astral Space, The Final Frontier

The cosmological setup of the 5e Spelljammer where spelljamming ships fly into Astral Sea after passing through something like normal space combined with the Astral Plane's (or Sea's) traditional roll of connecting the Material Plane with various afterlifes (i.e. Outer Planes) makes me think this new setup would be good for doing something similar to the comic Outer Darkness (which I wrote a post about before).

I fell off Outer Darkness the comic but the setting still has a lot of appeal. A magitech future with a starship (like the Enterprise in a universe with magic and less noble authorities) can fly out into a magical space and encounter demons inhabiting stars and storms of ghosts.

Without upping the horror factor, D&D space with the appropriate emphasis could be pretty darn horrific to a crew from a relatively sedate wildspace (really "normal space") like the one we appear to inhabit. Not unlike how standard dungeons would be places of horror if they popped up in the real world.

They makes me think it might be most interesting to play this not in D&D but in a science fiction game and just use the D&D cosmology as setting. Then again, having the ship's doctor actually be a cleric (so the Chaplain, I guess) has a certain appeal, too.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 3)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around October 22, 1981.

Brave & the Bold #181: Brennert and Aparo give us a team-up both familiar and unfamilar: The Earth-1 Batman with the Earth-2 Robin and (briefly) Batwoman. This winds up being a more interesting combo than you might think as this Robin is the age as this Batman and doesn't want to be treated as a junior partner--nor does he like this guy who reminds him of his mentor and father figure but isn't him. Batwoman has unresolved feelings for her Bruce, and her presence reminds Earth-1 Bruce of the recent death of his Earth's Batwoman. Anyway, it's not all drama. There's a suitably villainous plot by Hugo Strange, but there's more going on here than the average Brave and the Bold issue.

In Burkett and Spiegle's Nemesis backup, the three surviving members of the Council hire Greyfox, an assassin, to take out Nemesis. I feel like this series has sort of overstayed its welcome. I don't know if the backup enforced installment lengths have served it well.

Legion of Super-Heroes #283: Thomas does the sort of thing he tends to do well: fill in backstories. In this case, he has Wildfire relate his complete origin for the first time to a group of Legionnaire wannabes. It's got all the pathos Thomas learned at Marvel: lost loves and fears of lost humanity. 

Green Lantern #148: Wolfman and Staton start "change of direction" for this title. A shipful of Ungarans, (Abin Sur's people) show up seeking the help of the Green Lantern of Earth. They basically kidnap Jordan in the middle of some heavy soap opera-ish subplots at Ferris Aircraft, so he isn't happy, but even after they plead that their world is in peril, he won't help. He's got his own stuff to deal with, and besides the Guardians would have alerted him of they required his intervention. The Guardians aren't pleased this this response, and though his friends plead with them to give him time to deal with issues on Earth, he is sent off to Ungara. After that, Hal says he'll go to Oa and give up his ring.

Honestly, with pretty much everything going wrong at Ferris from Congressional hearings to his mentor's heart attack to Tom's whining, I'd think Hal might be glad for the respite.

House of Mystery #300: It's the 300th issue and the stories are maybe a bit better than average. Wein and Kane start things out strong with the story of a middle-aged man dissatisfied with his life who employs the services of an unusual therapy company that allows him to kill the aspects of himself he doesn't like. In the end, he kills so much he winds up committing a murder of someone who isn't him and sealing his fate. Wolfman and Staton follow that up with a woman caught in a construction collapse who frets about her baby, not realizing the man working to free her is death. Conway and Craig have the only survivor of an airplane disaster taking another flight with the ghostly passengers he was destined to join in death. Mishkin/Cohn and Gonzales present a "humorous" short about a paper girl trying to collect from Cain. Jones and Spiegle bring the issue to a close with a long-suffering guy fed up with his limelight hogging partner planning murder but accidentally getting his wife instead.

Phantom Zone #1: Gerber and Colan/DeZuniga set out to tell the definitive tale of the Phantom Zone. Charlie Kweskill, a Daily Planet pasteup man, is the focus of psychic assault from the denizens of th Phantom Zone. It turns out Kweskill is an amnesiac former Phantom Zone inmate whose Kryptonian powers removed by Gold Kryptonite in an elaborate escape attempt. The Kryptonian cons hypnotize Kweskill into breaking into hi-tech labs in his sleep, stealing valuable components, and using them to assemble a Phantom Zone Projector. Superman finds out about the plot just in time to break into Charlie's apartment as Kweskill activates the projector. It frees the Phantom Zone villains and sends Superman and Charlie Kweskill into the Zone! Along the way, Gerber presents an abbreviated history of the Zone and its most infamous prisoners. I've always liked this limited, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

Sgt. Rock #360: Kanigher and Redondo make it appear as if Easy Company has been wiped out, after they are sent on a dangerous mission, which is essentially a suicide mission when they keep being denied supplies and support. Of course, Rock and much of Easy survives. Next up, A mercenary questions his career choice when the solider he kills turns out to be his own son. There's the rare Vietnam story with art by Randall with the obligatory heroism and sacrifice. Finally, there's a Confederate junior officer who proves to his father the general he's no coward by dying.

Superman #367: The Bates/Swan Superman Revenge Squad story continues. Superman has infiltrated Revengers in his elaborate disguise as Vlatuu, but the aliens are sharper than he thinks. A conversation between Green Lantern (who along with Batman has been playing Clark Kent) and Supergirl is overheard by a Revenge Squad spy, who clues in his fellows that Vlatuu is really Supes. There's disagreement among Squad members about whether this is true, but when Vlatuu destroys the Superman proto-droid in battle, both the Squad leaders decide to send him to Earth to assassinate Superman. If Superman has hypnotized himself into thinking he is really Vlatuu, then Superman will become his own assassin! I'm enjoying this storyline so far. It's not exactly "modern" (meaning for this purpose post-Crisis) storytelling--more the surviving Bronze Age DC style that's one of the three types of stories you get in this era--but it's well done.

Superman Family #214: Pasko and Mortimer bring us the last (I guess) chapter in this Lena Thorul arc, but it's pretty convoluted to summarize briefly. They pack a lot of plot in! Suffice to say, Lena isn't happy with the reveal that Luthor is her brother, but Supergirl manages to foil a plot by Luthor's cellmate to get revenge on Lena's FBI officer husband. Lena and Lex seem to move cautiously to some reconciliation. 

In Mr. and Mrs. Superman, Lois realizes the Insect Queen is Lana and they figure out the sound of Superman's high-speed flying is somehow triggering the broach and setting her off. They, the Ultra-Humanite shows up with his brain in the body of one of her giant ants. Rozakis and Calnan present more of a PSA than a story as Clark Kent participates in a blood drive with a little help from a disguised Zatanna. Lois gets in a modern thriller sort of predicament courtesy of Levitz and Oksner as she's gassed unconscious and wakes up in handcuffs in an apartment which a guy she helped send to prison has designed to be her prison cell for life. She kicks his ass and runs the water until the apartment beneath floods to escape. Finally, Jimmy Olsen escapes from the gym deathtrap and helps Lucy Lane's beau but can't escape his own jerkdom as he pines for Lucy openly to his current girlfriend.

Warlord #53: I detailed the main story in this issue here. In the Levitz/Yeates Dragonsword backup, Thiron, his sidekick, and his mentors show up at the castle of Quisel who comes across less as a threat to the entire world and more a just bald guy with an axe. We're given several hints that the mentors have played Thiron in some way and he will have to sacrifice to when the victory they are after, but in this installment all we see is they won't do anything to help.

Lost on Planet X

I've been thinking about an alien planet hexcrawl in the vein of my posts about somewhat goofy somewhat gonzo science fiction. The sort of thing that could sit on a shelf next to a Gold Key Star Trek collection:

Of course, a planet in big--particularly a planet (like Vance's Big Planet or Silverberg's Majipoor) that is substantially larger than Earth, but less dense. So I think the way to limit that is a shipwreck sort of scenario, so that travel would likely only be in a limited radius around the "home base" of the ship, at least at first.

The aforementioned Gold Key Star Trek comics would be an inspiration as would the 60s Lost in Space show, the 70s Logan's Run show, classic Dr. Who, the works of Jack Vance and assorted science fiction/science fantasy comics.

Wonders Beyond the Orbit of Old Earth

Few denizens of Old Earth or worlds of the Anadem that dance around it like myriad, glittering jewels, would think to brave the distances to visit the worlds of the solar system beyond. Let mariners with starlight in their blood make the journeys of weeks, months, or more to these distant and often uncivilized places!

Still, who can fail to wonder at these literally unearthly locales? Everyone enjoys the tales of the far roving spacers in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

The Giant and the Beanstalk

Growing up from one of the mountains of the Martian desert is a beanstalk grown from an alien seed, purchased on some distant world. At the top of it is a castle where a giant lives. Once this giant was a congenial host and servant of visitors, but now he is jealous of his prerogative of access to the castle and has been known to eat trespassers. Once travelers move frequently up and down the beanstalk, and ships docked at the castle, but no longer.

The Titans of the Belt

The legends say that long ago, Titans from the Outer Dark tried to conquer the solar system. They were defeated by Gaia and the Overminds of the other planets and somehow petrified into a state not living, but not fully dead. Their corpses floated in the wastes between Mars and Jupiter and over the centuries, rock accreted on them. their rock-encrusted corpses now often serve as the home bases of the notorious Gith pirate bands.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 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 October 15, 1981.

Batman #343: The arrival of Colan on art suggests we are getting close to some issues I remember from my youth. We pick up shortly after last issue, as Batman is still looking for Man-Bat without success. Also, Poison Ivy is about to take over Wayne Enterprises and Bruce can't tell anybody as they tiresome storyline continues. But the "A-Plot" this issue features another of Conway's one-off villains: Dagger, who specializes in thrown edged-weapons. He manages to destroy a Batmobile (indirectly) before Batman strikes down the origin of his weapons to a Rennington Steel plant in the small town of Stokely. Turns out the owner is Dagger, and Batman defeats him on his home turf.

In the backup, Robin just can't catch a break. After taking the traumatized girl he saved last issue to a psychiatric clinic he just happened to pass in Virginia, Robin learns that the "staff" are actually stand-ins and drug smugglers! The crooks capture Robin and leave him tied to a bed to overdose on anesthesia. Seeing Robin brings the young woman out of her dissociation, and she saves him. Robin is able to capture the criminals and free the real staff of the clinic. When the cops arrive, they ask Robin if there is anything they can do to repay him. He asks for a bus ticket to Gotham City!

Flash #305: Bates and Infantino/Smith present a Silver Age throwback sort of issue with Barry tormented by a dream about the death of Joan Garrick, then journeying to Earth-Two to investigate. His worry increases when he finds out from Jay that she as disappeared! Their search involves Dr. Fate and leads them to the realm ruled by the Lord of Limbo Barry tangled with back in issue #284. Joan is saved and everyone goes home--except the Lord of Limbo, who's still trapped there.

G.I. Combat #237: In Kanigher's and Glanzman's first Haunted Tank yarn, the crew is tasked with meeting the Soviets at the Elbe, and a courageous war photographer is sent along with them. Trouble is that the crew think the photographer's a jinx as they notice he's the only survivor of all the incidents he takes pictures of. They try to leave him behind or thwart his picture-taking, but in the end, he saves them from a Nazi ambush, and his own death is the last thing he photographs.

Kanigher and Trinidad follow that up with story of a lone-surviving Marine tricking dug-in Japanese troops into revealing themselves on an island in the Pacific. Next up is the obligatory O.S.S. story. This one features Kana the Ninja so unlike a lot of O.S.S. tales, the protagonist survives. 

Kashdan reveals a rematch between two Olympic skiers, one a German officer and one an American. The American sacrifices himself to blow up a German train so this time "The Loser Takes All." Then, we're back to the Haunted Tank as the crew helps defends Dover from an invasion from Calais with a group of wounded Commonwealth soldiers.

Jonah Hex #56: Having shoved Jonah's wife and child aside, Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga can get Hex out of the domestic world and back to done-in-one adventuring. Here he discovers a damsel in distress in a somewhat improbable frontier mental asylum. Jonah's meets up with the woman's husband who reveals she was committed by her uncle in an effort get control of the future left to her by her father. Jonah manages to get her out, but then the husband reveals that he plans to kill her and get the fortune for himself. Jonah dispatches him with a knife.

Bates/Mishkin/Cohn and DeZuniga present a pretty good El Diablo backup. A young gun comes to town convinced that Lazarus Lane is just pretending his "locked-in Syndrome" state and his really notorious outlaw Del Corbett. After the gunman shoots the sheriff, El Diablo comes to bring him to justice, and it is revealed that the town preacher is actually Corbett, having become the peaceful, empathetic role he played for years.

New Teen Titans #15: Wolfman and Perez bring this Doom Patrol-related storyline to a close with nonstop action, and more than a little meditation on trauma. Zahl and Rouge put Robotman and the Titans in a "Devolving Pit" causing them to begin changing into "Neanderthals." The two villains continue their brutal invasion of Zandia, which is actually a haven for escaped criminals. Changeling teams up with the new Brotherhood of Evil to attack the villainous duo and their followers and to free his friends. In the battle, Zahl is killed when one of his bullets ricochets off Robotman's body, and Madame Rouge meets her death accidentally in a struggle with Changeling but ends up thanking him for it. The Titans and the Brotherhood escape from the villains' flying island before it explodes, and for their help, the Brotherhood is allowed to go free. The original Doom Patrol is avenged at last, and Changeling and Robotman are reunited with Mento.

Secrets of Haunted House #44: The first story by Cohn/Mishkin and Gonzales is appropriately Halloween themed. A farmer invites a writer on the paranormal to see the Halloween God that supposedly lives in the town pumpkin patch. The creature is harmless, but the writer finds to his horror that the goblins that it produces every 20 years demand a new Halloween God take its place--and the writer is it.

Next to futuristic scavenger hunters fall prey to aliens also on a scavenger hunt, the difference being their hunt ends with the humans' heads on their wall.  Finally, Mishkin and Cohn are back again with Carillo on art and a tale of colonialists as a sought-after artifact is the means of an Indian cult's supernatural vengeance.