The Funhouse Crawl

This past weekend, I visited my mother's family's old hometown of Panama City Beach, Florida. I got a chance to show my kid one of the landmark's I remembered from my childhood, the kitschy miniature golf course known as Goofy Golf. The firebreathing pink dinosaur that once demanded your attention at the roadside is, alas, no longer there, but the sphinx, giant ape, statue of Buddha, Asian dragon, Easter Island head, and assorted more mundane dinosaurs are still in evidence, along with rockets, windmills and the like.

I feel Goofy Golf is good inspiration for a point- or hexcrawl. I don't mean in its specific set-pieces (not necessarily, at least) but in the way it's basically a spread out funhouse dungeon. I like a good, well-thought out setting as much as the next guy, but I also enjoy the kitchen sink weird lost worlds. I'm thinking of things like Ka-Zar's Savage Land or the world beyond the Bermuda Triangle Skull the Slayer gets sucked into. Hollow World has more than a little of this vibe with cavemen, Rip Van Winkle still dwarves, and gaucho orcs, but there isn't as much of this done in gaming as there could be.

Making it a bounded location to be explored like a pocket dimension or lost world frees it to strain seriousness and consistency in a way than might not work in an entire setting. 

Old Time Radio for Halloween

Jason Sholtis and I have been listening to some old time radio horror stories as we get ready for Halloween and posting about them over on the Flashback Universe blog. So far, we've done:

"The Thing on the Fourble Board" from Quiet, Please.

"Three Skeleton Key" from Escape.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1985 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I read the comics released the week of October 11, 1985. 

Immortal Dr. Fate #1: In keeping with my standing policy, I won't review this issue as it is a collection of reprints of two Dr. Fate stories from the 70s (one of them being the one from 1st Issue Special #9) and one from the 40s, but I did want to mention it as I think it was likely my first encounter with Dr. Fate as a solo character--and it has a cool Simonson cover.

Amethyst #1: Mishkin/Cohn and Estrada/Colon take us back to Gemworld. Amy and Emmy (the Princess Emerald) aren't there, though, because they are stuck on Earth and can't seem to find a way back. What's more, there are new neighbors next door that appear to be Dark Opal and Prince Carnelian in 80s suburbanite disguise. In Gemworld, an evil is building while the houses squabble without Amethyst to lead them. That evil appears to be Fire Jade, who already has Sardonyx working for her. Thanks to a magical call from the ailing Citrina, Amethyst finally returns to Gemworld, but somehow without her body, leaving Amy Winston in a dangerous sleep.

Flash #341: The Flash's trial gets underway in earnest, and we find out Central City must not be in a state that requires grand jury indictments, because the prosecutor just announces in court he's changing the charge from manslaughter to second degree murder.  Meanwhile, the Rogues again capture and brainwash Big Sir who has been busy freeing dogs from animal control. He attacks the Flash just after court adjourns for the day and smashes his face to a pulp with his morning star. Flash is left unconscious and unmasked but unrecognizable.

Arak Son of Thunder #40: Interesting that Valda gets a special "co-starring" billing on the cover here. The Thomases and DeZuniga have Arak and friends participate in a living game of "Shah" (chess) for the life of the impetuous Alsind. This comes after Arak already used a ritual to save his life from his stab injury. The letter column contains some additional details about the Persian version of the game that became chess, so it's educational!

Batman #379: Moench and Newton/Alcala aren't done with the Mad Hatter as the villain pivots to a scheme to use crooks mind-controlled and given enhanced strength by special hats to set a trap for Batman. A trap the Caped Crusader and Robin fall into and would have been killed by had Nocturna not come to the rescue. She's keeping up her press to when the affections of the dynamic duo after the court awarded her custody of Jason Todd.

There are other plates spinning: Julia gets a job as a writer for the picture news. Vicki Vale is still interested in Bruce Wayne though she's trying to keep her distance. The blind girl and her dog have nursed Night Slayer back to health, convinced he is the Batman.

G.I. Combat #273: In the Haunted Tank story, Stuart's Raiders are sent to rescue two concentration camp escapees, a German stage memory expert and his Jewish wife, because the expert has memorized the names and contacts for the Nazi leadership's escape plans if the war should go badly. Briefly, it seems things are a bust because he has amnesia following a head injury, but an electric shock triggers his memory of the torture he suffered and everything else returns with it.

There are two more World War II shorts by Newman/Patricio and Drake/Gonzales. The Drake story has two G.I.'s escaping a German P.O.W. camp dressed as women. The final story is the "Bravos of Vietnam" with Trinidad on art. Kiley and crew are following an ARVN soldier to a supposed VC weapon cache, but they suspect he's a traitor leading them into a trap. That turns out to be the case, but the Bravos manage to beat the odds and make it out alive.

Jemm, Son of Saturn #5: Jemm is prisoner aboard the White Saturnian vessel, and that gives Potter and Colan/Janson time to catch us up on how there happen to be any White Saturnians still around since we were told they were all dead. Turns out this bunch was an exploratory expedition and all off-planet when the nuclear war happened. They've turned pirate since under Synn's leadership, and the soldier women have enslaved the scientist men aboard. Hearing that the hidden Red Saturnian city of Bhok was still around, they headed back home to check it out. Jemm and friends manage to escape with the help of Synn's concubine. Meanwhile, Superman has made his way to Bhok and tells them about Jemm, only to hear the leader say he despises the Saturnian Prince.

Omega Men #21: The letter column tells us this is Moench's and Smith's/Maygar's last issue, but the new creative team isn't announced yet. The Omega Men are on the planet Dreadfahl. After a bar fight, Nimbus tries the bring a wounded man peace but instead turns him briefly into an angry ghost. Losing the will to live over the horror he inadvertently committed, he goes into a catatonic state and Primus, Broot, and Doc enter his soul, facing perils there, to try and bring him back.

Star Trek #10: Captain Styles and Excelsior arrive at Regula Station to retrieve Kirk and his crew. The pompous Styles has no love for any of them and seems determined to make things as difficult as possible. When confronted by the Mirror Enterprise and its crew, though, he's quickly off maneuvered and his ship boarded. The Kirks of two universes come face to face on Excelsior's bridges.

Superman #403: Kupperberg writes both stories this month. In the main one, he's joined by Swan/Oksner and they reveal that Superman is potentially far too trusting. An alien master thief from the planet Ramox gets intel from the Monitor to start a crime spree on Earth. After a couple of clashes, Superman finally stops him, then the thief seems to change personality and claims he was suffering from a genetic compulsion to theft, but being caught broke the compulsion and now he'll never do it again. Superman buys it without any real evidence. 

In the backup art is by Saviuk and Marcos. It's got an interesting conceit, I guess, but it doesn't make for a riveting story. Johnny Webber, Clark Kent's old classmate and the reformed villain Dyna-Mind, invites Clark to come to a Smallville High School reunion, but keeps calling him "Superman" and calls Superman "Clark Kent." Webber seems unaware he's got this mixed up, but it causes Clark a great deal of consternation as he scrambles to cover this up and figure out how it happened. In the end, super-hypnosis comes to the rescue, to make Webber forget what he must have accidentally picked up as Dyna-Mind. It was nice to see the Superboy series not forgotten, though.

Weird Revisited: Spelljammer 1961

The original version of this post appeared in December 2020...

"Thinking beings of earth planet. This message was sent subsequent to the bravery of Yuri Gagarin and the achievements of the Soviet Union, but its intended recipient is every individual of your species. We are the Esoteric. We are now honored to admit you into the interstellar society. Many things we have to show you will definitely shock you and cause confusion. We have regret in that our policies mean you are living in a controlled environment where your understanding of physics has been restricted. We guarantee that this was done to protect you. Now, you are graded ready to have the safety guard removed to more fully experience the universe. We look forward to meeting with your government representatives and giving you a menu of offered services."

The poorly translated message broadcast to the entire planet was from beings who called themselves the Arcane. They revealed the image of the solar system taking shape from modern observations was an illusion. The real solar system was teeming with life, and ships powered by something more like magic that rocketry sailed through the heavens.

Once the principals were understood, humanity was able to get impossible, physics-defining things to happen even deep within Earth's gravity well, but it was always easier the thinner the atmosphere was. Humanity wasted no time in establishing orbital colonies and bases on the Moon, though they were ultimately more fantastic than anything science fiction had dreamed since the Victorian era. Once trade started with Mars and magical wood was imported, even private individuals were able to build all manner of spacecraft.

The Space Age had truly begun.

One thing that would have to determine with a setting like this is how technology Earth's technology would work in the Spelljammer type space. Could guns (or nuclear weapons) be exported into space. Spelljammer ships look much like sailing ships, but I don't know that the setting requires that as written. Could a C-47 cargo plane fly through "space?" What about a nuclear submarine, if it could get there?

The answers to these questions would perhaps take you further afield from trad fantasy, potentially moving things in a pulpier (and I think) more interesting direction, but it would make it harder to implement with D&D rules. 

From Azurth to the Moon

 

After a bit of a hiatus, we weren't to our 5e Land of Azurth game this past Sunday. We left our heroes with the shock of finding the princesses of the four countries, the leaders of the rebellion against the Wizard, turned to stone.

A council of important secondary leaders was quickly assembled. In addition to the PCs, it included some familiar names and faces from the party's adventures: Mapache Took, alleged head of the Raccoon-Folk Crime Family, who's brother's vault the party robbed; Black Iris, Pirate Captain from the Motley Isles who they rescued from the Candy Isle; King Gheode of the Earth Fae, who helped them get passage through Subazurth beneath Noxia; and Freedy, frogling ambassador from Under Sea.

Princess Viola's gnome techs have done a lot of analysis and report that have a high degree of suspicion that the Wizard used the power of the Shadow Elves focused through a crystalline power-purifier, likely one of the original heavenly crystals from the Sapphire City was supposedly grown. Some of the council favors sending a group in stealthily to perhaps still this supposed crystal from within the Wizard's palace. Others feel it's the time to strike with the giant robot the party recovered from Sang.

While they were discussing it, a representative from the Mysteriarchs of Zed appears in the room from a glowing orb. He is perhaps the same one they met previously. The representative tells them that a crystal such as they seek exists on the Moon!

As everyone knows the Moon is the home of the Bright Lady and the Thrice Hundred demigods revered by the Rabbit Folk. It's reasonable to think they might be willing to help the heroes of Azurth. But how can the party get to the mood?

Well, they have a ship, the one they took from the Domed City of Yai, and a pilot in the person of Irwin-37. They don't know anything about the Moon or how to get there, but they recall that Jaka Oloap, who they met originally in the Hybercube prison and met again in Sang, had boasted of going there.

After a quick flight to Sang to recruit Jaka, the group takes off for the Moon. They're enjoying the strange vistas of Azurth from far above, when they are approached by shantak-riding women bandits calling themselves the Night Sisters. The party refuses to surrender their vessel and a fight ensues on the hull (the party has to tie themselves to the ship with rope). When Tura, the leader of the Night Sisters, is killed the others break off the attack, but promise revenge.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1985 (week 1)

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis. This week, I start a new year in cover dates. I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands in the week of October 4, 1984. 

In the "Meanwhile..." column this month, Giordano announces that Justice League/Avengers isn't happening and gives his side of the story as to why this is, taking issue specifically with comments by Shooter in Marvel Age that he feels mischaracterized the situation.

Swamp Thing Annual #2: As a kid I thought this issue was amazing, a real tour de force. It sees Swamp Thing journey into the afterlife, first Heaven and then Hell, to recover the soul of Abbie. Along the way he meets some DC supernatural stars: Deadman, Phantom Stranger, the Demon, and the Spectre. Seeing these guys spouting (semi-)profundities and presented in a more mystical than superheroic context gave then a gravitas they didn't seem to possess before. 

It's a good issue, undeniably. One that pretty much lays the blueprint for a lot of what we'll see in Sandman, both in content and style. Reading it as an adult, though, it isn't perfect. It seems really more a standard issue amount of story expanded to annual length just to give us a chance to have all these guest stars. It feels like there could have been a little more to it, and it comes off as a bit slight, beyond the worldbuilding.

Atari Force #13: The editorial column announces this is Conway's last issue; Mike Baron will be taking over as scripter. Conway and Barreto/Villagran definitely do a lot to bring this long arc to a resolution. The Dark Destroyer takes a few minutes to gloat and reveal how he came to be in a copy of Martin's body. All this taunting, though, just enrages Martin who attacks the Destroyer, and the surprise of that allows the other Atari Force members to break free. They can't stop the antimatter bomb though, so they are forced to escape, leaving a beaten Destroyer behind. The bomb explodes, seemingly killing him and destroying the world.

There's another "humorous" Hukka backup by Kupperberg and Manak/Giffen.

DC Comics Presents #77: Wolfman and Swan/Hunt bring back the Forgotten Heroes who we last saw in Action Comics #553, some 9 months ago. Mr. Posiedon frees Ultivac, and the robot's rampage attracts the attention of the Forgotten Heroes who are giving a press conference nearby. Poseidon is partnered with the Enchantress (still a villain, but now blonde for some reason) who is trying to free the sorcerer, Kraklow. The b-list Superman villain Atom-Master allies with them and we've got the Forgotten Villains, though they don't get that name this issue. The Forgotten Heroes have to contend with Superman who gets turned into a dragon by Kraklow's magic. Thankfully, Animal Man's powers to copy animal abilities apparently extend to mythical creatures as well. In the last panel, the villains are bolstered by the arrival of the Faceless Hunter from Saturn.

Fury of Firestorm #31: Tuska's guesting on art so there's a pretty big stylistic shift, and some characters are off model. Conway's back to tie up the story, in a way that feels like a season-ending TV episode rushing to tie up all the loose ends. Firestorm reveals he was sort of baiting Mindboggler this time. She leads him to Breathtaker, who he deals with pretty easily, having figured out that he also is about mind games. Mindboggler then offers to help Firestorm and Firehawk against the 2000 Committee, who likely have Lorraine's father captive. The assault against the Committee is over pretty quick (some of the fight is even handled off-panel!) and Clarissa's perfidy is also revealed. That's that, everybody goes back to their lives, with the bad guys going to jail--except for Mindboggler who the heroes let go.

Justice League of America #234: Conway and Patton continue the New Teen Titans inspired character stuff as Steel goes out with Vibe's sister, Zatanna chastises Aquaman for being too hard on the new guys, but most of the story goes to Vixen who finds out a terrorist organization is working for her uncle, the dictator of M'Changa and the man who killed her father. She goes after his men to learn his whereabouts but tries to keep the rest of the League out of it. Meanwhile, the Monitor and Lyla watch as a being known as the Overmaster recruits and trains the Cadre, which includes Crowbar from last issue.

New Teen Titans #4: This is an odd issue to me because Wolfman and Perez don't play things the usual way. Trigon and Raven seem to have achieved victory. The Titans (among other heroes) are physically embedded in a column and Lilith can only observe as her friends, trapped in nightmares of their own worst fears and taunted by sinister doubles, one by one give in to anger and kill their tormenting duplicates. Often in comics, overcoming one's evil doppelganger rather than cowering or giving in is the correct solution, but here besting them gives Trigon his victory. Then the evil Titans, freed from their softer emotions, attack and kill Raven! They return to their normal selves, but Lilith reassures her horrified friends that that was what needed to happen, which again, is certainly a zag instead of a zig for this sort of story.  Trigon awakens to take vengeance for the death of his daughter, but I have to wonder: Didn't he realize something like this might happen when he turned the Titans evil?

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #1: Kupperberg is still trying to make Maaldor a thing. Having him as a Superman foe must not have been getting him there, so now he gets to menace the Green Lantern Corps, with Kane giving him a whole new, more orcish appearance. Something has drained the power of the Main Battery on Oa and kidnapped three Guardians. A group of well-known lanterns (but not one from Earth) set out to find them. It's a trap to drain yet more energy by Maaldor, whose breaking out of his other-dimensional prison. Arkkis Chummuck bravely goes hand-to-hand with the villain, as the other lanterns back him up. Arkkis and Maaldor appear to die together. Well, except Maaldor will appear in Crisis. But he's defeated for now!

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Maybe there's a game or setting I'm unaware of, but I feel like there's a missed opportunity for a dinosaur themed "incursion from elsewhere" post-apocalypse. I realize Rifts has a Dinosaur Swamp and could have dinos elsewhere and probably Torg has some somewhere, but neither have made it as central as I think it could be.

Another interesting approach would be a fantasy world that plays to the Lost World tropes (like the Warlord's Skartaris or Ka-Zar's Savage Land) but is ultimately a post-apocalyptic setting like, well, Warlord I guess (though it's an Atlantean apocalypse) or Corman's Teenage Caveman with dinosaurs and magic. 

Sorry if I spoiled the twist of Teenage Caveman for you.

Weirdest of all possibilities: you take Valley of the Gwangi and combine it King's Dark Tower series to get Western, dinosaur, post-apocalypse.