Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of August 4, 1983. 

Vigilante #1: Vigilante is a very 80s character in a way that it would have been hard to recognize in the 80s. His mission brief, as laid out here by Wolfman, is that he goes after criminals who escaped the law due to "a technicality"--a frequent 80s complaint, but what we now would term "due process." Anyway, Vigilante has got a tricked out, improbably huge RV, and a sidekick who is a tech expert. I'm struck by how much this setup reminds of where the Punisher winds up when he gets his on series (no RV, but a cool custom van). I can't blame Punisher's writers from cribbing from Vigilante, because Vigilante's stark, black and white suit (excepting a blue strip) and origin seem inspired by the Punisher, who I will note, was featured in 1982 in a character-re-popularizing 3 issue arc of Miller's run on Daredevil. The costume as rendered by Pollard and Giordano is pretty snazzy, though.

Anyway, after a criminal, Quilt, who Chase has long had his eye on, gets off thanks to a corrupt judge, Vigilante agrees to help a widow with a secret. Quilt has got a henchman named Brand who dresses all in white, has a white curly mohawk, and uses (guess!) a "B" branding iron as a weapon. There's a big fight scene at Coney Island and a climatic struggle on a roller coaster.

All-Star Squadron Annual #2: One thing I've discovered in this read through is that the comic tradition of large-scale team-ups with subgroups squaring off against villains that I so enjoyed is a kid, mostly winds up with me skimming pages of fights when I'm reading more than 6 comics a week for these reviews! This weeks Justice League is a such a comic, and Thomas and Ordway deliver the same sort of thing here. With extra pages! Which is not to say, in isolation, that it's bad. Finally, the heroes have rallied enough to be on the offensive against Ultra and his goons and this overlong storyline comes to a reasonable conclusion. The 1942 Ultra is seemingly blown up in Cyclotron's self-destruction (perhaps creating a paradox given he's alive in '83) and Infinity, Inc. get to team up with the All-Stars/JSA. Amazing-Man reveals he did make a heel-face turn, but was just playing along with the bad guys.

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #7: Mishkin/Cohn and Colon have Amethyst go on the offensive, crashing the wedding of Prince Topaz and Princess Sapphire to make sure that the nuptials do not come off, thwarting the plans of Dark Opal. She begins recruiting for her coalition to defeat the tyrant. There's a lot of Comics Code approved Game of Thrones-esque lord and lady intros and hints of political intrigue. It could all no doubt seem darker rendered by another hand, by it's all pretty breezy in Colon's cartoony style, and I kind of like it.

Blackhawk #264: Blackhawk pursues the Nazi assassin known as De Morder and they are both forced down in the remote Alps where they find a sort of European Shangri-La: a city of near immortal pacifists with telekinetic powers. Blackhawk and De Morder are forced through a trial to see which of the two men of violence is actually evil. In the end, De Morder's villainy is revealed, and Blackhawk is allowed to take him into custody. Meanwhile, the other Blackhawks attack Merson's recently discovered secret laboratory, but the evil inventor releases a swarm of trained bats fitted with explosive vests to down their planes.

In the solo story backup by Evanier and Meugniot, Chop Chop is in Switzerland breaking up a meeting between Japanese arms dealers and an amoral American arms exporter. The Japanese try a double cross using a giant robot. Chop-Chop defeats the robot and saves the American but she doesn't change her ways.

Arak: Son of Thunder #27: The Thomases and Randall pick up where last issue left off in the hippodrome of Byzantium. Arak recognizes the woman in the cage who can change into a tiger as the sister of the priestess Dziewona (who he met back in the Warlord preview). Risking his own life, Arak frees the woman. The empress orders their deaths, and it looks like the soldiers will bear down Arak and Satyricus through weight of numbers but the woman, Dyanna, calls down the power of her goddess. It's manifest as a solar eclipse and the animation of a pair of bronze horse statues. Arak follows Dyanna out of the city riding one of the horses.

In the backup with art by Randall/Yeates, we catch up with what Valda and Malgigi are up to on their way back to Frankland. Mostly, this means a flashback to Valda's training as a young knight and an incident which began when Creston, the Knight All in Scarlet, dying, whispered to her the name of the Archangel Michael.

DC Comics Presents #63: Mishkin/Cohn and Saviuk/Colon go for some synergy this week and have Amethyst team-up with Superman. Carnelian has come to Earth and is causing trouble, using Kryptonite as a source of magical power. The issue has a clever structure in that part is on Earth where Amethyst is just a kid, but she has useful information to help Superman, and the second half is on Gemworld where Amethyst takes the lead, but Superman's powers, unfamiliar to Dark Opal and his crew, allow the heroes to win the day.

Flash #327: Fiona is still in the hospital thinking any guy with a vague resemblance to Barry is him, but the Flash thinks that's better than revealing himself. Members of a street gang harassing a homeless guy inadvertently re-awaken Gorilla Grodd, who regains his true form. Meanwhile, the Justice League summons the Flash to the satellite for a vote on his continued membership given the charges. The way the votes go down doesn't map to my conception of the characters, but this was also 41 years ago. Firestorm, Green Arrow, and Elongated Man are for letting him stay, while Hawkman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman vote to expel him. Superman arrives and will cast the tie-breaking vote.

Fury of Firestorm #18: Taking up where last issue left off, Conway and Tuska/Rodriguez reveal Hewitt's knew inelegant supervillain identity--Tokamak. He can shoot "quantum rings." First, he fills Merkyn, the former Enforcer, for failure, then he gives the Enforcer suit to Mica Love before he goes after Lorraine Reilly in the hospital. Firestorm, whose been trying to figure out the connection between all these events, is jolted into action to protect her. We learn Hewitt is working with some organization called the 2000 Committee.

Justice League #220: Thomas and Patton complete the JSA/JLA team-up, revealing the true origin of Black Canary, and it has real "One Last Day" energy, in the since that it's pretty dumb, but it was a means to an end. Evil Earth-One Johnny (we're never given any backstory on his villainy) and T-bolt reveal that Dinah and Larry Lance had a daughter who was cursed by an evil Wizard to have a really loud cry (or sonic scream), so Dinah calls a guy who used to crush on her to see if he will get his genie to help. The genie can't do anything but take the baby away and let her grow up in isolated, suspended animation. Problem solved! Except the parents get radiation poisoning and die, but the Dinah's dying wish is to let her now-grown but mentally a black slate daughter continue for her by making her a mental clone. And Superman knew all this, but never told Black Canary or the JLA. Thomas thanks Wolfman for the idea, which seems to me to be a way of sharing the blame.

Anyway, the JSA and JLA defeat the villains, and Black Canaries youth and super-powers are explained.

Wonder Woman #309: Mishkin and Heck conclude the story started last issue, with the Roma woman, Zenna, whose mind is in Black Canary's body, explaining how the sadistic Nazi Schlagel has continued his experiments and has been using Roma children with psychic gifts to power a machine so that he can have the power to challenge the U.S. military. Our heroes free Black Canary, but Zenna jumps to Diana's body in her quest for vengeance, so now Wonder Woman is in Zenna's body as they race to stop Schlagel from launching missiles. In the end, Wonder Woman in Zenna's body is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, but the real Zenna jumps back in at the last second.

The Cavalieri and Burgard/Rodriguez Huntress backup reveals a new villain, the sewer-dwelling Earthworm, who I recognize from his half-page in the DC Who's Who. He's apparently the supplier of this baby-snatching ring, but we don't get the details just yet.

To Catch A Titan

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last night with the party having successfully completed their quest to collect all the pieces of the magical armor known as the Quicksilver Panoply from the mind of Gob. They returned to the regular world, only to hear from Princess Viola that the giant automaton they were acquiring the armor to safely control had been stolen by a traitorous gnome artificer, Zobus Bok and a group of mercenaries. 

Bok apparently plans to sell the giant automaton to the Wizard.  Princess Viola wants to party to chase down the automaton and regain control using the armor. She tells them there's a way to get inside the giant from either foot.

After a rest, the party pursues the automation using a device the princess gave them. When it stops to survey a ravine, the party attaches chains to its feet to try to trip it, but that doesn't work. They gain access through the right foot portal, though a gnome guard escapes to raise the alarm.

Traveling up the leg on an internal portal system, they make it to the first floor in the body, where they find a conference room--and an ambush by two tough bravos of the Nighthawk mercenary group. The party's superior numbers carry the day and after looting the bodies, they prepare to proceed upward.

RPG Crowdfunding to Check Out

 Time for some plugs for rpg projects by friends of mine I think you ought to check out.

Luka Rejec's Our Golden Age: An Ultraviolet Grasslands rpg has taken off big time, so you are probably already aware of this one, but just in case, you should follow the link and cast you eyes upon its goodness!

Chris Vermeren has been toiling away for a while now on a cool cyberpunk rpg, Terminal State. I've been privileged to see the teases he's been dropping on Discord, and think if it's a genre you dig you won't want to miss this one when it launches. Be there in the beginning for the street cred! You can download the Quickstart free, too.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on the newsstand on July 28, 1983.

Detective Comics #531: Moench and Colon/Alcala conclude the Chimera arc with Batman escaping the hungry lions, but absent most of the issue while Jason tries to figure out the Chimera's identity in the daytime. Has he killed Waldo and replaced him completely, or could he be someone else in the circus? Investigating Waldo, he comes upon Batman--who turns out to be the Chimera, but luckily Waldo appears and he's Batman is disguise. The two take out the Chimera together and free the real Waldo. This super-villain-less story line was a nice change of pace, and a good showcase for the soon to be much maligned Jason Todd.

In the backup by Cavalieri and Moore/DeCarlo, Green Arrow thwarts the Survivalists by preventing the nuclear silos from completely opening with magnetic arrows and blasting the power supply for the missile detonators. He trails the terrorists through the sewers, but winds up getting caught along with a thief pilfering the Survivalists' stores of supplies. 

New Adventures of Superboy #46: Kupperberg and Saviuk/Schaffenberger continue Superboy's visit to Japan and his conflict with Sunburst. We get further hints that there is some motivation behind Sunburst's crimes other than greed, but Superboy doesn't pick up on the hints, so we don't get an answer. Also: Clark tries sushi and spits it out when he hears it's raw fish. Meanwhile, hoods with a protection racket visit Jonathan Kent to persuade him not to run for city council, which has the opposite effect.

In the Dial H backup by Bridwell/Rozakis and Bender/Giella, Chris (as Trouble Clef), Vicki (as Venus the Flyign Trap) and Nick Stevens storm the Master's hideout, but are greeted by a group of super-villains: Hitpin, Decibel, Electron, and the Overseer. As soon as they defeat those guys, they discover a room full of other costumed characters awakening from some sort of tubes.

Action Comics #548: Bates, Saviuk and Colletta/Marcos present a story we are told is occurring somewhat out of continuity, but we're not given any indication when (Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics places it between next month's JLA and this week's World's Finest). Anyway, it's sort of an intriguing start: A group of aliens land on a meteor and discover that it's debris of the planet Krypton. They find evidence of the ruined Argo City – the birthplace of Supergirl. Meanwhile, an attempt to create a synthetic diamond becomes unstable and Superman compresses it and throws it into space. In other, I'm sure unrelated, jewel-centric developments, some of the Phantom Zone criminals escape the Zone by concentrating their mental energies on an ultra-rare example of Jewel Kryptonite.

Later, Clark Kent is assigned to interview a community watch organization in inner city Metropolis known as the White Wildcats. During the interview, Clark discovers that the hi-tech outfits they sport are based on Kryptonian designs.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #12: Moench and Duursema/Mandrake send Arion and friends off to the city Thamuz, where Garn Daanuth kept a tower stronghold, on a quest to restore his magic. In the tower, Arion, Wyynde, and Mara encounter a series of magical creatures and traps. This includes S'Net, Garn's jackal-headed former lieutenant, who's also seeking the magic of the tower. Arion and friends triumph, but all they retrieve from the tower is an empty sword hilt. Lady Chian shows up at the end with a message for Wyynde concerning his father.

Jonah Hex #77: As was strongly hinted last issue, Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga reveal that Jonah has been tricked into getting imprisoned by the machinations of Turnbull. He shows up to gloat. That was probably a mistake, because Hex now knows the score and begins looking for an opportunity to escape. The warden puts out the false story that Hex has died in prison, which makes the situation all the more embarrassing potentially when Hex does escape. Turnbull visits his crony the governor and accidentally kills him in anger after the guy reveals he gave a signed letter to Hex stating the bounty hunter's innocence. Hex's escape is revealed, but everyone thinks he killed the governor. Turnbull and his goons go after Emmy Lou because they think she must have the governor's letter.

Sword of the Atom #2: Strnad and Kane have the Atom and Taren spared a death by rats so they can fight and die in Morlaidh's gladiatorial games. However, Taren is blinded before the games, apparently by order of King Caellich's prime minister Deraegis, but the deed is blamed on the king. A riot breaks out because of this action, and the Atom and Taren are spirited away by Princess Laethwen to a rebel camp outside the city. Due to his disability, Taren asks the Atom to lead the rebels in the field. We learn that Taren was captured due to a traitor in his ranks. Voss, either jealous of the Atom or a traitor, attacks him. Meanwhile, we get a glimpse of Deraegis' plan to fan the fires of revolt, so he can seize the throne.

World's Finest Comics #296: Kraft is the writer here, but Fontes is given a credit as "co-plotter and creative cohort." Andru and DeCarlo are on art. This still continues to be a team-up book with the conceit that the two stars are sort of on the outs, so they spend the issue doing things solo.

In Gotham, Batman encounters a group of robotic-looking individuals called the Pantheon, who raid the Gotham Art Museum. In Metropolis, Jimmy tells Clark about sightings of a dinosaur around Mount Ossa in East Africa, just before Superman has to fly to the Gotham Airport to stop the Pantheon from stealing a plane.

Earthquakes start occurring all over the world. While Superman deals with the natural disasters, Batman traces the Pantheon to Africa. At Mount Ossa, Batman fights the Pantheon who tells him they plan to replacement humanity, and Superman arrives, tracing the earthquake source, and finds a giant, crystalline structure called the Cosmic Tree.

 

All-Star Squadron #26: Thomas and Ordway/Machlan are milking this arc for all it's worth and then some. Or maybe they are doing decompression before it was cool? In any case, there is a lot of talking with a few important revelations, like that the Ultra-Humanite of the 80s (fresh off the JLA/JSA crossover) found a way to contact the Ultra of 1942 and hatch a plan to free him and the other super-villains from that previous story from Limbo. Also, we learn from Brainwave, Jr. how the other members of Infinity, Inc. got co-opted to Ultra's cause. The super-villains from 1983 appear in place of the missing 40s heroes. Brainwave leads the All-Stars in a search for Ultra, who is now hidden with his allies and captives in Mt. St. Helens, Amazing Man decides for the moment to stay a heel, and the Infinitors escape.

Minotaurs, Mazes, and the Eyes of Gob

 

Our Land of Azurth 5e game continued last Sunday with the party exploring further into the Level 4 of the brain of Gob. They find the passage into one of Gob's eyes where they find a bunch of Phantfasm-serving goblins sleeping. In the other, a theriocephalic Phantfasm is instructing bored goblins on evil.

In Gob's equivalent the pineal region, they find a throne with an armored boot upon it. Another piece of the armored suit they were seeking! The quest was nearing completion.

Soon after they came upon a labyrinth stalked by a minotaur, or as it turned out, minotaurs. They killed one and looted his ring of Hill Giant Strength. Then they made their slow way through the labyrinth by following a wall constantly with their left hands. When they got to the exit, the other minotaur they had covered it with a large stone. They killed this one too and stole his magic items as well.  It required the additional strength of a blessing to help them roll aside the rock.

Then they came to a dungeon or torture chamber with skeletal former victims in cages dangling from chains.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around July 21, 1983.

House of Mystery #321: The House gets shuttered, and unfortunately, it's last harrah seems to be inventory stories. That's outside of the mild humorous frame story by Mishkin/Gonzales, which has Cain receiving a letter about his cancellation and protest its closing by first accosting Karen Berger and then Joe Orlando. He also meets another version of himself, which does make me think of the modern, post-Sandman version of the character. The Bronze falls to the Modern Age.

In the other stories, DeMatteis and Redondo tell the story of a vampire being used by the U.S. government to deal with problems and detractors, who eventually turns on his handlers. There are a couple of comedy shorts, but Mishkin's last story with Geroche is also humorous (or intended to be) with a night custodian at a building inadvertently thwarting a mad scientist turned into a rampaging monster by unplugging his power source--because it's causing interference with the custodian's work music.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #12: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner wrap up Supergirl's fight with her menacing minis. She manages to dig in and survive in the disintegration pit they dropped her into, but also get handily cured of the radiation sickness due to some element of the pit. She's forced to expose the minis to gold kryptonite to stop them. Professor Drake is killed by his mysterious boss for her failure, and Supergirl gets a lecture from Lt. Peters about leaving this stuff to the cops which is kind of ridiculous, whatever one thinks of super-vigilantism.

In the Lois Lane backup by Cavalieri and Oksner/Hunt, Lois recounts a story about seeing one of her criminal sources killed by the blowgun killer, who she also winds up chasing on a motorcycle while wearing a business skirt suit and wearing heels.

Batman and the Outsiders #3: In the Outsider's first outing after their origin is sort of a clunker. There's some necessary establishing of their base of operations and their status quo in Gotham, and then they investigate some chemical plant bombings. It's all the work of Agent Orange, a deranged Vietnam veteran who wants revenge on the government, which he plans to get by unleashing a bomb on Gotham. 

Green Lantern #169: Cavalieri and Delbo reveal that the "War of the Rings" of the previous issue is just a simulation the Guardians are forcing on Hal as a test. When some of the other Lanterns question the need for that test, the Guardians use it as an excuse to take up the rest of the issue with a story about a Lantern on the cheekily named world of Tanjent, art here by Simpson/Martin. Unlike the rest of his people, Symon doesn't have mental powers, so his parents exile him to the moon and clone another son. Symon is made a Green Lantern then most make peace with the people of Tanjent and "invaders" who turn out to be exiles like him. He then comes to embrace his own clone brother. The people of Tanjent come to recognize the error of their ways. Like anyone hearing this story, the Lantern Krista is not completely convinced of her masters' methods.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Harris and Moore/Trapani we get the conclusion of the Lysandra Saga. As she and her people begin to move their world of Zintha, the other Lantern of her Sector shows up to reveal Zintha's son isn't going nova at all, but instead a living being about to give birth. Moving Zintha would doom mother and baby. Lysandra stops her people form making a mistake and they end up with two suns in their sky. It turns out the mother sun is in fact named Thar, and was the source of her people's deity of that name.

Sgt. Rock #381: In the main feature by Kanigher/Redondo, Rock is told by an SS doctor that he's implanted an ampule of the ridiculously fictional sound "rabidicine" poison in when, and a wire is pulled out, it will enter Rock's bloodstream. He wants Rock to escort him to safety. The poison thing turns out to be ruse, but the doctor gets his just desserts in the end as a German troop carrier mistakes him for an enemy and torches him with a flamethrower. 

The backups involve information on the P-61 Black Widow, the Long Tom 155mm gun, and a out of flash satire of M.A.S.H. called "S.M.A.S.H." by Ed Burdej. This is his lone DC credit, and his other two credits are TV parodies (including another M.A.S.H. parody) in Archie humor titles.

Legion of Super-Heroes #304: Levitz and Giffen deliver an issue more focused on the characters than action. Most of the issue involves introducing the students at the Legion Academy as Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel train them. We also get to see the trainees' differing perspectives on Wildfire, and we see what happened with the Dawnstar/Wildfire relationship: she left to find someone with a physical body. Ouch. The question posed on the cover winds up being a bit deceptive. The Legion ultimately decides than none of the trainees are yet ready for full membership, a decision that honestly comes out of left field.

Warlord #74: I reviewed the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn/Randall get to recap what's gone before for someone that might be jumping on in the guise of an evening discussion between Jinal and the reptilian Barasha.

Superhero Teams in RPGs

As a follow-up to my post on pulp teams, I thought I would address the perhaps more common issue of teams in supers rpgs. As with superhero character concepts, I admit to some dissatisfaction at times with the sort of teams that get built by players in supers games. There's nothing wrong with the superhero formulation of Reints' old high concept pitch of D&D about Conan and Gandalf fighting Dracula, but just as most everybody's (or at least a lot of people's) D&D isn't so eclectic, I don't see any reason why every supers campaign needs to permit playing Golden Age Sandman (Vertigo version) and Witchblade versus the Beyonder. 

Having a team that really feels like it fits goes beyond just identifying what supers subgenre or style (Four Color, Golden Age mystery men, realistic, gritty, etc.) is going to the subject of play, though I think that's probably the first step. Before we considering other things, I want to talk about superhero teams as they occur in comics. I think there are three broad categories:

• The Band: A small group (3-6, maybe) of disparate members thrown together for some reason. Their dynamics are more based on tropes around specific personalities/story roles rather than anything else (see the tvtropes articles like Four Temperament Ensemble, Four Philosophy Ensemble, and Five Man Band, among others), though they sometimes have a theme (elements being common). Examples: The Fantastic Four, The Challengers of the Unknown, the original Teen Titans, the original X-Men.
• The Supergroup: Solo characters who come together as a team. Neither their powers or their personalities tend to be coordinated, but they bring individual histories and backstories with them. One or more Supergroup tends to be a big deal in most comic universes, but not all of them. The building up to the formation of one might be short campaign itself.  Examples: the Avengers, The Justice League, the Mighty Crusaders.
• The Ensemble: Purpose-built groups of new or mostly new characters. They are typically attempts to create something of a Supergroup (but without the characters being previously established) or a band (but with so many members they can't all get a distinct, stock personality). They tend to have power portfolios that are easily understandable in terms of combat/team roles (the Brick, the Blaster, etc.) and often sport really on the nose codenames. Examples: The Authority, Youngblood, the new X-Men, the Outsiders (original team), Squadron Supreme.

Assembling Your Avengers (or what have you)

Creating a Band or Ensemble is pretty easy, it just requires coordinating character creation. Once the general subgenre, style, and tone is agreed on, players can discuss concepts to either get personalities or powers/roles divvied up.

It might seem as if a rpg superhero team of newly minted characters could only ever be a Band or an Ensemble. That's true in the literal sense, but I think things can be done to sort of replicate the feel of a Supergroup, if that's what you want to do. It requires coming up with more about the characters than just their name and powers, however. 

Emergent worldbuilding is popular in some circles, and I think a supers campaign can certainly be done that way, but I think it's bound to be less satisfying if a Supergroup is what you're after. Most people, even very creative people, just don't always come up with their best stuff at the spur of the moment. Best is certainly not always required--in fact in a supers game meant to replicate the comics, you probably don't always want your best. But people also don't want to be saddled with ill-considered ideas as important character concepts.

I suggest people take a little time and come up with at least the stuff that would have happened in the first issue (or maybe, in these days of decompression, the first arc) of their character's comic: besides the basics on the character sheet, that would include supporting cast, home base, and at least one antagonist. I actually favor going a little farther and sketching the contents of an original DC Who's Who's/ Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (not the Deluxe addition, I don't think. Too detailed!) style entry for the character. That still leaves a lot to discover (or backfill in play), but it allows a foundation to credibly kayfabe a character with a history.