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.

The Adventures of Doc Savage

In 1985, NPR ran a Doc Savage serial in the style of old-time radio. The series adapted two of the original novels by Lester Dent Fear Cay and The Thousand-Headed Man, in 13 episodes. The latter adaptation was done by Will Murray, who has also penned original Doc Savage novels.

The series was released on CD by Radio Archives, but it also appears to be available on a couple of places on the internet, including here.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I've looking at the comics released the week of July 14, 1983. 

This week sees the publication of Green Arrow/Green Lantern #1, the first issue of a limited series reprinting the seminal run by Adams and O'Neil from 1970. As it's all reprints, I won't review every issue, but I felt like the first issue deserved mention as this would likely be the place a lot of Gen Xers first read these stories.

Flash #326: Bates and Infantino/Martin move things along with the Flash gets booked and arraigned for manslaughter. Flash feels like his life as Barry Allen is over, and in an uncharacteristic display of frustration he trashes Barry's apartment. Meanwhile, the hospital goes psychiatric ward after Fiona claims Barry visited her and that just can't be! This issue really displays the difference between these really law-aligned Silver Age DC heroes and Marvel's more outlaw ones. I can't imagine many Marvel characters turning themselves in this situation (except maybe Captain America), or there really being a context where they would feel safe to do so.

Batman #363:  Jason is back with the circus, but he's also playing amateur detective trying to find the Chimera, a thief whose crime spree seems to have trailed the circus' travels (and whose appearance seems inspired by Rondo Hatton's). Batman's also there, watching out for Jason, but Bruce in disguise and the Chimera in disguise confuses Jason's investigation. The Chimera gets the drop on Batman and leaves him at the mercy of lions, while Jason confronts the thief and finds out the villain has been impersonating his friend Waldo the Clown. Newton/Alcala's art works notably well this issue.

Omega Men #7: Silfer and Smith (through the first Citadelian) lay out the secret origin of Vegan civilization and X'Hal, and it's distasteful in the centrality of rape to the story. Beyond that it has a fantasy/parable kind of feel that isn't bad. It reminds me a bit of Starlin's science fantasy works like Metamorphosis Odyssey. Like Tigorr, I don't completely buy the conceit that the First Citadelian, as the serpent in the Okaaran garden isn't the cause of their aggression but merely the revealer of it. And it seems pretty simplistic to blame the Citadels tyrannical rule on the Vegan people merely being flawed. Tod Smith takes over this issue from Giffen as regular artist.

G.I. Combat #258: The first Haunted Tank story continues the weird time travel/fantasy detour, with Jeb turning out to be some sort of "chosen one' for Zeena's people via a prophecy given then by their oracle (who seems suspiciously like the ghost of J.E.B Stuart). He's got to marry Zeena after defeating a rival suitor in axe to axe combat. I assume they'll get back to World War II eventually. The second Haunted Tank tale hammers home the common reframe of this book regarding valuing your equipment. Craig rides a burning tank into a skirmish over an oasis. Easy Company has a cameo.

In the Mercenaries story, the trio is in Negombo, Sri Lanka, and hired by a mysterious guy name Han to secure a shipment of guns for the government against theft by Leftist terrorists. Turns out the rebels are the good guys and the mysterious bald dude who has a poisonous snake wrapped around his arm is the baddie! 

Kashdan/Catan serve up one of those "from the equipment's POV" about combat boots in Korea, and the issue is rounded out with one of Kanigher's dueling POV stories set on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Warlord Annual #2: I wrote about this annual in detail here. This issue introduces Krystovar, a Warlord sidekick who I thought was unfortunately under-used.

New Teen Titans #35: This story really irritated me because Wolfman and Perez use a trope I really don't like. Sarah Simms' ex goes crazy, kidnaps her, shoots a guy, then holds some other people at gunpoint. Cyborg finally realizes he's been a jerk by dodging her calls and he, Changeling, and Raven go to the rescue, only because the plot demands it, a single troubled guy with a gun manages to hold them off, initially defeating cyborg with a graze and beating Changeling in a fight. The plot needs time for the guy to do his crazy, so the Titans get nerfed. It's not an uncommon thing in comics, but I feel like this usage is particularly bad.

Saga of the Swamp Thing #17: I have never before read the waning issues of Pasko's run. With Bissette and Totleben on art, and Abbie and Matt Cable reintroduced, it's beginning to look like Moore's run which follows. Swamp Thing and friends just happen to run into Abbie and learn of her marriage to the now-alcoholic Matt Cable. They're occasionally attacked by grotesque monsters in full Bissette style, which seem to appear and disappear, suggesting perhaps they are products of an unwell mind--like one in the grips of delirium. Harry Kay, having wandered off, gets stuck in a bear trap and is retrieved by the occupant of a strange insect-ship-- Anton Arcane. The Sunderland conspiracy story is still limping along, but it sort of feels like something vestigial.

Superman #388: Lois returns to confront Perry and Lana for stealing her story and is finally convinced her anger is misplaced, but not before getting in a fight with Lana that involves Lana shoving her face into a punch bowl! Meanwhile, Superman helps out a young fan with telepathic powers who is captured by (yet another never to be seen again) group of extradimensional aliens looking for a place to send their undesirables. Though the synopsis may not convey it, I think it's a better than average issue in the typical Bates/Swan mold.

The Pulp Team

As with several genres adapted to rpgs, pulp gaming presents a little bit of a problem going from the inspirational fiction to the gaming table in that pulp fiction/movies/comics tend to be about solo heroes or a primary hero and sidekicks but rpgs tend to be about a group of equals. It's perhaps reasonable to play Indy plus Short Round and Sallah or even Doc Savage plus his Fabulous Five for one story arc, but it might not be as desirable for a long campaign.

On the other hand, a group composed of Indiana Jones, Jake Cutter (from Tales of the Gold Monkey), and Sam Spade may be fine for some, but seems to be less satisfying to me for a long-term campaign, because the characters don't see cohesive. 

The solution seems to me to build a group wherein the characters are roughly equal, but each has their own specialty, and they have the same theme/subgenre. Sort of like if the Fabulous Five didn't have a Doc Savage to outshine them. There are really more examples of this in comics rather than the pulps (though that may just be my knowledge of the pulps is less). Check out the Challengers of the Unknown:

Having the same subgenre is important for keeping power levels similar. Having the same sort of theme is important for helping support their reason for staying together as a group. Of course, both of these can be stretched a bit. 

Sometimes teams are brought together or forced to stay together by an outside force. DC Comics' The Secret Six and Suicide Squad (either the Silver Age nonsupers version or the later supers versions) are examples of this, but so is the more eccentrically charactered League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For that matter, the Avengers, particularly in the Ultimate Universe and the CMU start out like this too.

A Cold Reception on Level 4

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last weekend with the party still searching the lower levels of the mind of Gob looking for pieces of a magical suit of armor. Having explored the 3rd level, they had moved on to level 4, but avoided a room that appeared to be the site of a battle shrouded in some magical mist.  Their avoidance had been rewarded by the lucky discovery of an armor piece in a kobold gut-wagon.

Now, though there was nothing to do but brave the battle. They chose to skirt the edges of the room, having several near-misses with combatants--and some not misses, as a stray lightning bolt injured two of them. A group of the avian Fantsies, clearing the fallen, informed them that this was the site of an eternal battle between good and evil. They kept creeping around, and Waylon "recoveed" a Ring of Flight from the body of a slain ogre that almost literally fell into their path.

After skirting the room they encountered a giant with a whip and a captive woman wearing one of the gauntlets. Classic story: the giant claimed the woman was a monster and had to be imprisoned, while the woman protested her innocence and begged for release. The party didn't for a minute completely buy the woman's story, but they also questioned her imprisonment and treatment. And, at the end of the day, they needed that gauntlet chained up with her! They negotiated with the giant to let them get the gauntlet, but when they tried, the imprisoned demon in a woman's form escaped. Still, mission accomplished!

Next, they encountered a statue of one of the evil Phantfasms with the bird-like wings of a Fantsie instead of arms. They remembered the statue whose wings he been removed on an upper level. They went to retrieve them, the statue breathed cold at them and nearly killed poor Waylon.

Wednesday Comics: A Bigger Comic Book Implosion

In 2018, TwoMorrows released Comic Book Implosion by Keith Dallas and John Wells, which was an oral history of the DC's 1978 plan for an "Explosion" that ended in failure: The DC Implosion. I talked about the book here.

This year, Dallas and Wells are back with an expanded edition, this one with color. I haven't read it yet, but Amazon tells me it has "additional coverage of lost 1970s DC projects like Ninja the Invisible and an adaptation of “The Wiz,” Jim Starlin’s unaltered cover art for Batman Family #21."

I'm eager to check it out.

More Gwelf

Larry MacDougall released another book in his Redwall-esque fantasy series, Gwelf last month. This one is called Gwelf: Into the Hinterlands. In this one, Willburton Fox and his party set out into the North, first the Scrublands, then the dangerous territory controlled by the Ravens and menaced by Rats, Trolls, and the Mange.

MacDougall's art is just as wonderful as the first book, and there is good worldbuilding in the union of the text and pictures.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 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 July 7, 1983. 

There was a freebie this week, DC Sampler #1. It has no real story in it, just two-page ads for DC Comics and all comics that are already on the shelves. Two things jumped out at me. It does give away how Supergirl defeats her mini-clone foes, and the Legion of Super-Heroes ad cleverly evokes the titles and logos of old DC non-supers books to taut the various genres at play in the title.

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #6: Granch and his brothers go down in defeat and are killed in their assault on Dark Opal while Amethyst says good-bye (at list for a time) to her Earth foster parents and undergoes a training montage. Princess Topaz is still mopey about his upcoming wedding. Not a whole lot of forward motion story-wise, but Colon's art is still great.

Wonder Woman #308: Nice cover by Andru/Giordano, and representative of the issues contents, for once! Sofia Constantinas is getting used to Paradise Island by eavesdropping and witnesses the ceremony in which Wonder Woman's bracelets of submission and magic lasso are restored by Athena and Aphrodite. She keeps snooping and hears the goddesses and the queen mention that Steve Trevor has been brought back twice from the dead. Elsewhere, Black Canary intervenes with a woman chasing an old man, only find that the old man is a Nazi, Karl Schlagel. The woman mystically transfers her consciousness into Black Canary's body. As Canary, she goes to the League satellite, and is captured by Wonder Woman and the Elongated Man, who learn that she is a Roma mystic and Nazi-hunter. Meanwhile, Black Canary, in Zenna's body, is captured by beast-men goons, and Dr. Schlagel prepares to inject her with something.

The Cavalieri and Bair (credited as Hernandez)/Gaicola Huntress backup seems to be mostly setting up a new status quo but it's awkward. There's a crusading reporter who reveals she's really just out to get Huntress because the heroine has the freedom she was taught she couldn't have as a woman. After allowing Huntress the use of his shower, Minelli asks her out--but we find out in a separate scene that he's an undercover agent for Commissioner O'Hara. The story ends with Huntress thwarting what she believes to be a drug deal, which turns out to possibly be a baby exchange.

Blackhawk #263: Blackhawk has been assigned to find and stop Domino while for her part, Domino has been ordered to assassinated Blackhawk. The two wind up in Marrakesh where they are captured by a group looking to ransom them both. Meanwhile, the Blackhawks are tracking the war wheel and discover the secret of its appearances and disappearances (its being carted around by zeppelins) and bring all that to a stop. Blackhawk and Domino work together to escape, but then Hendricks shoots and kills Domino after she appears about to turn on Blackhawk. But was she? Blackhawk is haunted by the possibility she might have been ready to reform. I'm surprised they killed off Domino. Maybe Evanier just felt they had done everything with her they could? Spiegle's art really sells that seen though, and in general this issue with the war wheel and its large scale carnage this is a standout in an already great run from him.

Justice League #219: Only a few months after his exit, Conway is back, albeit teaming up with Thomas. I wonder if this turn is due to cancellation of the JLA/Avengers project, which Conway was writing? In any case, this JSA/JLA team-up story seems more of a Thomas idea as it is in service of a retcon regarding the history of Black Canary--though that goal isn't entirely clear from this issue. Johnny Thunder's T-bolt attacks the two Flashes then assaults the annual JLA/ JSA reunion, incapacitating only those heroes born on Earth-One, leaving Black Canary, Red Tornado, and the Justice Society members uninjured. Before they can figure out what's going on, the heroes they have to go off to stop the Crime Champions, who are attacking various locales on Earth-One. Starman and Black Canary, meanwhile, trail the Thunderbolt to his home dimension, where they discover villain behind it all is the criminal Earth-One counterpart of Johnny Thunder--and he's got transparent coffin type thing containing the bodies of Larry Lance and Black Canary!

Arak: Son of Thunder #26: Ron Randall comes on board as artist. Arak and Satyricus arrive in Byzantium to report the death of Kallinikos to Emperess Irene and request the use of a ship to get back to the New World. Those plans have to wait as they're attacked by a lioness that Arak must defeat Tarzan-style, which leads to him getting an offer to be a charioteer for the Green team (not to be confused with the Green Team).

The chariot race is about as Ben Hur amped up for comics as you might imagine, but Arak is victorious after killing some rivals. Before he can ask his boon of Empress Irene, he seems the lioness about to be burned alive in a cage in front of the cheering crowed--then she turns into a beautiful woman!

DC Comics Presents #62: Rozakis/Mishkin and Novick/Hunt serve up a goofily patriotic team-up with the Freedom Fighters, which seems like it would have been more at home in the bicentennial ramp-up of 1976, but I guess is honoring the 4th. There's even a framing sequence where a kid visiting a museum who doesn't care about the U.S.'s history reads this very comic and sees the error of his ways. In the story proper, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters come to Earth-One to stop Neo-Nazis from stealing and destroying the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which in fact, are some sort of totemic, mystical protectors of America. Superman is busy dealing with the national crises the theft caused and can't help. We do get a couple of references to the Freedom Fighters' 70s series, at least.

Fury of Firestorm #17: Conway and Broderick/Tuska/Rodriguez open on the funeral for Ed Raymond, who we find out isn't dead. There are suggestions of maybe some sort of witness protection type situation, but we aren't given a lot to go on. Anyway, Ronnie and everyone else believes he's dead. While this is going on Hewitt's experiment turns Lorraine Reilly into the nuclear-powered, Firehawk, who has been conditioned to obey Hewitt's commands. He sends her to attack Firestorm. Ronnie, distracted by grief and the feeling he is responsible for his father's death, initially just tries to escape the attack, but once Firehawk burns some civilians, he fights back and quickly defeats her. When she reverts to Lorraine, that gives Ronnie something else to feel guilty about. 

Dissatisfied with Firehawk's performance, Hewitt decides to create another superhuman. This time, he'll be the test subject.

Way Up North

Art by Vsevolod Ivanov

While I was vacationing in Alaska a couple of weeks ago, I got though idea for a campaign inspired by the Klondike and other Alaskan gold rushes. To give something for fantasy rpg PCs to do besides turn prospector (though they could do that) I figure the forbidding northern wilderness would have once been part of a prehistoric empire whose great works and lost wonders have been buried.

To complicate matters and make for some interesting factions, there would be a current empire filling the "haughty Elvish jerk" niche that claim suzerainty over the region but spend most of their time fighting a rebellious faction of their own people. There would also be a more technologically primitive native people (maybe Neolithic dwarves or something) who naturally resent the invaders from afar.

Magic Like This

 I'd like to see a traditional fantasy rpg with magic like this:

Podmore picked up his fork and stood it on its end. Snaith stood, stepped over to the shelf behind Arthur’s head, and picked up a sharp knife. Moving by instinct, Arthur reached out and knocked over Snaith’s wine-glass. Snaith slipped on spilled borscht. He lay on his back looking confused, as if he had no idea what had just happened or why he’d stood up in the first place...

...Arthur said, “George—I’m sorry.” 

He snapped the stem of his wineglass, causing the leg of George’s chair to snap so that he fell on the floor and hit his head on the chair behind him. The dowager dame who’d been sitting in that chair gave a little shriek, then got to her feet and left, taking her party with her. A couple of waiters quickly came and led George off, bleeding from the head, in search of first aid. 

- Felix Gilman, The Revolutions

And this:

Her bedroom was still dark when Sadie woke up and there was a lump in her throat. She turned her head and coughed, and spat a stone into her hand. It was the size of her thumbnail, chalky white and light as a feather. Its dimpled surface was covered all around with tiny holes, and when she held it up to her ear she could hear wind in the treetops of a faraway forest.

She mixed a resin and coated the stone several times, until it was as hard and shiny as a nut, then took it outside where the morning sky had begun to turn pink along the horizon. She set the stone in the middle of the long trail that ran south from her house, through ruined cornfields and over the Arkansas River.

She left the stone there and went inside, laid back down in her bed and went to sleep.

- Alex Grecian, Red Rabbit

The last quote is the beginning of a sequence of events wherein the "stone" is picked up by a squirrel which is in turn carried away by a hawk, dropped and eaten by a fox, which is in turn killed and eaten by the man the stone is a message for. He chips a tooth on it before realizing what it is, putting it up to his ear, and hearing the witch's message.

In both of these works, magic isn't visually fantastic or flashy. Not at all like super-powers. But it is nonetheless powerful and mostly quick without a lot of ceremony. I suspect there are modern/occult rpgs with magic like this, but I'm unaware of any traditional, Medievalish fantasy with it, but I'd like to see it.

Wednesday Comics: DC, September 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 June 23, 1983.

Sword of the Atom #1: After Ray Palmer discovers his wife Jean cheating on him with her new legal partner, he takes a trip to the Amazon jungle to give them some time apart in search of a White Dwarf Star Fragment. Unfortunately, the pilots of the plane he charters are also cocaine smugglers so when his explorations get too close to their facilities, they attack him. He fights them off as the Atom, but the plan crashes and he's stuck in his 6-inch size. Luckily, He meets a tribe of similarly sized, yellow-skinned people, citizens of the hidden city of Morlaidh. Unluckily, he takes the side of the condemned Taren, and is also condemned to death by rats. Meanwhile, in Ivy Town, Jean hears that Ray's wedding band has been discovered in the plane wreckage in Brazil and assumes her husband is dead. Strnad and Kane remake the Atom as a Lost World/Planetary Romance sort of hero, which is a combo Kane was born to draw.

Ronin #2: The samurai reborn in a cybernetic body in the 21st century spends most of the issue looking for a sword, encountering Miller's phantasmagorical underbelly of future Manhattan. He final gets one, and violence ensues. Well, there was violence before that, but now the samurai is getting his licks in. Meanwhile, an AI catches a corporate security leader up on everything that went down last issue, she sends her men to start looking for the samurai. The demon is lurking in the background, also. It's inhabiting the body of the corporation's CEO. Again, while the similarities to Miller's later work like Dark Knight Returns is clear, I'm struck by how much this seems like something that could have been serialized in Heavy Metal.

Action Comics #547: Rozakis, Kupperberg and Swan/Colletta/Marcos complete the Planeteer story arc. Superman keeps flying around the world, rescuing the kidnapped world leaders and unknowingly doing exactly what the Planeteer wants to power him up to Superman(ish) power levels. It isn't enough though, and after a goofy but not unappealing combat where they keep punching each other around the globe into landmarks (the Redwood of California, the Great Wall of China, the Sphinx), Superman defeats him at the North Pole. 

All-Star Squadron #25: Thomas and Ordway/Machlan add some new complications to the Ultra-Humanite arc. The JSA splits up as they are wont to do and encounter duos of new powered beings (the Infinitors from the future, it turns out, but you'd only know that from the cover) who seem convinced by Ultra that the JSA are working with the fascists. These combats end with a number of the JSA disappearing mysteriously. Meanwhile, Amazing Man has decided with work with the All-Stars to save Detroit as his parents are there. Infinitor Brainwave, Jr. wakes up and realizes he may be too late to stop his friends who are inadvertently going to cause a catastrophe.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #11: Moench and Duursema/Mandrake work in some stuff borrowed Blavatsky. An reveals an underground passageway beneath the palace, leading to the ruins of an ancient city of the Rmoahals. Arion and friends discover a being encased in a block of ice, and they bring tit to the surface for study. Ar

Arion is training with Calculha's crystals to try to reclaim his magic, but the psychic energy awakens the creature trapped in ice. It's a mutant created by the Rmoahals to remove their need for traditional food, as it feeds on psychic energy. After rampaging for a bit, the creature targets Mara who has the most powerful energy. She changes form into a chimera with doesn't have the level of mental energy the creatures needs and fights it tooth and claw. Arion then arrives and kills the creature who actually wishes to end its existence with a sword.

Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #19: The cover proclaims Thomas and Hoberg as the creators, but the actual credits list Shaw as the plotter and Cavalieri as the scripter. The Zoo Crew goes on a cruise and once again encounter Frogzilla who is in cahoots with a shady landcrab real estate speculator. Cavalieri's scripting as opposed to Thomas's or Shaw's is decidedly less pun heavy, which seems to me a bit of an improvement. 

Detective Comics #530: Moench and Colon/Giordano continue the story of Nocturna from this month's Batman. The Thief of Night is in custody after his last encounter with Batman. Justice is swift in Gotham because he's about to get his day in court, except Batman convinces the DA to hold it at night so he can show up to testify. Before that, however, Jason Todd who's running away to return to the circus happens to encounter Nocturna. She actually advises him to stick with his foster parent. She makes a good point, but Jason ultimately decides to go through with his plan.

Nocturna attends the hearing in disguise, then attacks the transport van taking Thief of Night to prison using her hot air balloon and some weaponized jewelry. Batman foils the escape attempt and captures both criminals.

All the time this has been going on, Bruce has been absent from his relationship with Vicki Vale. Fed up, she asks for an assignment out of the country and plans to leave town.

In the Green Arrow backup by Cavalieri and Gonzales/Magyar, the Russian embassy in Star City is attacked by 1983 topical right-wing paramilitary nuts led by the Survivalist. Ollie happens to be there for his paper, so Green Arrow is able to stop the attack, but he can't do anything about the suspicious the Soviets have that the U.S. government was behind events. GA shows one of their captured weapons to a General at the local army installation, who confirms it's of an advanced type, not a standard issue. They're interrupted by an attack by the Survivalist and his followers, who are using a device to start raising nuclear missiles from their silos. Their plan is to precipitate a nuclear war as they feel they will be prepared to take over in the aftermath.

Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2: Giffen is still involved as co-plotter here with Levitz, but he hands off art chores to Gibbons, which isn't as good as I might have thought. Gibbons just doesn't seem to have a real handle on some of the character designs. Anyway, the Projectra and Karate Kid are married in a ceremony unmarred by super-villain attack. The only wrinkle being that several of the Legionnaries got accidentally marooned in the past where they encounter Durlans masquerading as the Greek gods and have to rescued. It's an odd interlude, but not a bad issue.

Jonah Hex #76: Another nice cover, this one by Jim Aparo. Emmylou is back she issue, so I guess Fleischer hasn't forgotten her. She's still traveling with Jonah (and still dressed in Native American garb) though she's once him to settle down, and Jonah frets he's misleading her, because he isn't in love with her. Turnbull has hatched another plan for revenge on Hex. Does it have something to do with the governor requesting Hex undertake a secret mission going undercover in the territory prison? Hex's cover has him branded a criminal (and Mei Ling sees the charges in a newspaper), and things are pretty grim in the prison thanks to a sadistic and corrupt guard.

New Adventures of Superboy #45: A change in the art time this issue as Saviuk is on pencils and Schaffenberger inks. Despite everything going on in Smallville with Clark now dating Lisa, his father being asked to run for political office, and some sort of shennanigans at the local paper, Superboy finds time to head to Japan to help the authorities against Sunburst, a tokusatsu movie hero who apparently has real super-powers and seems to be behaving like a villain. We're left with a cliffhanger.

In the Dial H backup by Bridwell/Rozakis and Bender/Jensen, Chris and Vicki tell Nick Stevens about how they got the dials and he wants to see the mysterious box in Chris' attic himself.  They figure out a way to witness a past battle between the Master and a super-hero called the Wizard which leads to the creation of the dials and allows Nick to get over his mental block in drawing a sketch of the Master's appearance.

World's Finest Comics #295: This one is from a plot by Kellogg and script by Kraft with art by Moore/McLaughlin. With a setup that would seem strange with the "creature of the night" Batman post-Crisis, Batman is called to Cape Canaveral to investigate the possibility of sabotage of a new space weapon satellite. Batman has only begun to consider suspects, when there's an attack by the Moon Dancers, a very 70s Marvel Two-in-One team of themed adversaries. They manage to escape by incapacitating Batman with a gas bomb which turns out to contain a deadly alien virus. Superman strives to save his friend, and after traveling all over space finds the cure in the burning heart of a comet. (Yes, I know comets don't have burning heats. Tell Kellogg and Kraft!) 

Batman is cured, but this turns out to (amazingly) by exactly what the mysterious mastermind behind the Moon Dancers intended, because it involves Superman making a device with the cometary energy source. He sends the Moon Dancers to steal it, and Batman is too weak to fight them off. Superman shows up, and the heroes track the thieves down, discovering that NASA scientist Nakamura is the mastermind. A survivor of the atomic bombing of Japan he wanted to end the nuclear threat forever. The Moon Dancers wanted the same end, but were in the dark in regard to his means. The heroes defeat Nakamura and the Moon Dancers repent--in fact, the heroes just let them get away, despite their crimes. 

Superman III (Superman Movie Special #1): Weirdly, although the title on the cover is Superman III: The Official Adaptation of the Movie, the indicia for the book says the title is "Superman Movie Special, Vol. 1, No. 1." I wasn't able to get ahold of a copy to read, but I remember the movie and there's a review of adaptation here with some sample pages.

Amid the Kobold Parts

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with the party searching the room they fought the spider god in, then wedging shut the exits so they could take a much needed rest.

Once that was done, they explored beyond a secret door they had found. They gave goodberries to a troop of white apes to avoid conflict and then a suit of extra leather armor to a small party of rebel goblins. They took a seemingly magical crystal from the hands of an ensorcelled dwarf who appeared to have had his memories stolen by it, but unfortunately that led to his death despite the party's best intentions.

Having explored this level of the mind of Gob, they took the stairs down the the next level. In in the stairwell, they could hear the clamor of battle. They explored in a direction other than toward those sounds at first and came upon a pair of villainous Phanfasms gnawing on the choice bits of a wheelbarrow full of dismembered kobold corpses.

These guys the party fought and their numbers quickly won the day. Within the corpse wagon, they found a glittering gauntlet, one of the pieces of armor they sought!

John Benteen's Fargo

On my recent vacation, I decided to check out the men's adventure paperback series Fargo by John Benteen after discovering the whole series was cheap on Kindle. I became aware of the series thanks to the upcoming graphic novel adaptation, Fargo: Hell on Wheels, by Howard Chaykin.

Amazon bills the series as a Westerns, and I suppose some of them are, in the same way The Professionals (1966) or Fist Full of Dynamite (aka Duck You Sucker) (1972) or other adventure films in Western locales are considered Westerns. They take place in the early 20th Century (1912-1915 in the ones I've read so far) and involve imagery and action out of Westerns (tough men in wild country on horseback with guns), but they involve a range of locales more again to traditional adventure pulp. They range to the jungles of the Philippines and Panama, as well as the more traditional Mexican desert or Yukon.

I've read blogpost reviews that refer to Fargo as sort of a "Western Conan." I can see what they mean in that Fargo is tough as hell, irresistible to women (apparently due to sheer manliness, as he is described as unhandsome and hardly has a scintillating personality), and good at most everything in his warrior and outdoorsman purview. However, Benteen's attention to detail regarding gear and preparation for obstacles his hero faces, and his penchant for pitting Fargo against enemies that appear to be a match for him, serve to make the series feel more grounded and realistic. Only slightly pulpy instead of completely so.

Benteen's prose is lean in the mid-Century way, not pulp purple. His action and dialog are punchy and mostly effective but without any lyricism or descriptive vistas despite their natural locales. Unfortunately, but expected given their genre and when they were written, they carry a streak of misogyny, some of the volumes moreso that others. There is likely some cultural and racial insensitivity lurking in their too, but in the volumes, I have read the narrative is not unsympathetic to both Native Americans and Latinos, and Fargo himself doesn't exhibit any prejudice that I recall--though some of the villainous characters use racial slurs. 

They're all quick reads (under 200 pages) and fast-paced. So far I've read:

• Fargo (vol 1): Set in 1914 during the Mexican Revolution, Fargo is hired to rescue an engineer (and his mine's haul of silver) from deep inside that war torn and escape bandits with revolutionary pretensions.
• Panama Gold (vol 2): A prequel set in 1912. Fargo is asked by Teddy Roosevelt himself to investigate and thwart an attempt to foreign powers to use a mercenary army to sabotage the nearly completed Panama Canal.
• Alaska Steel (vol 3) In 1914, Fargo is hired by a movie starlet to find her wayward husband so he can claim his oil money inheritance. The problem is, he's disappeared in the Yukon where he was seeking his fortune as a prospector.
• Apache Raiders (vol 4) Just started this one, but Fargo is back in Mexico in 1915, smuggling guns for Pancho Villa. Presumably there are Apaches.