Golden Age Marvel (Timely) Goodness

Feeling nostalgic, I started researching my boy Captain America and his original appearances in Timely comics in 1941. This led me to some nice info and more background on Human Torch, Toro, Bucky, and Sub-Mariner as well. Digging deeper, I now understand all the titles and characters that predate the Marvel Universe.

Why would I care? It's helpful to know where you've been so you can determine where you're going! I've been delving into Silver Age Marvel so long that I sometimes forget that all this is built on the characters and interactions of the 1940s heroes. I always love the tribute comics featuring original Golden Age comics done by DC and would love to see the same done at Marvel. For all I know they already have done something in this vein. I did find some of the lesser known characters from Marvel Mystery Comics in an independent book (since they are now Public Domain), but I don't think I would go for it. So much of the Golden Age stuff has been ret-conned that I don't even see a way to link it to the current Marvel Universe.

I would love to do some sort of Golden Age story, maybe even try to get it scripted and published! However, for now I would just like to focus on the "Invaders" of old Timely Comics and make a MSHRPG adventure based on that. I've just picked up  the Invaders: Complete Collection volumes 1 and 2 from Amazon.com and can't wait to read through them! I had a few Invaders comics back in my youth (talking 1975 or so) and these were mainly from my Grand-Uncle Joe who served in the army in WWII and read about these characters in the very comics I'm now researching! He knew these characters well and wanted me to know them too! But back then, I didn't understand books that were non-linear. Besides, the Human Torch I knew was in the Fantastic Four and bickered with Ben Grimm all the time and the Sub-Mariner was a villain. Toro was confusing to me....I had no idea who he was. But Union Jack was visually stimulating to my young mind and the others were cool as well. Cap has almost always had a spot in my heart - I go for the patriotic heroes all the time!

So now I can work up write-ups for Destroyer, Human Torch (android), Miss Fury, Black Marvel, the Fin, the Angel, and the others and hopefully come up with some sort of adventure based on these characters. I'll have to bone up on my 1940s history too!

MARVEL COMICS: YEAR ONE

I've been  working on my Silver Age Marvel Super Heroes campaign once again. I wanted to go back to the very beginning and see how Marvel Comics became so popular. Obviously, there was a lot of difference between the Marvel Comics I grew up with in the mid 1970s and those published only a decade prior. It was a completely different time, before the wild late 1960s and the turbulent years of the early 1970s. I've written up a list gleaned from re-reading Marvel Masterworks and Marvel Essentials reprinting the original stories. There's a lot of hokey dialogue in these stories and situations that most people nowadays wouldn't appreciate. The overwhelmingly effeminate nature of women, for example, makes most of these stories seem chauvinistic. However, one can appreciate the stories more when you realize that all the comic book conventions of modern plots and characters did not exist yet. All they had to work with were their wild imaginations and the need to tell a story in about 12 pages of artwork. The heroes and villains listed with an asterisk (*) are both heroes AND villains simultaneously. They are either misunderstood (like the Sub-Mariner) or dealing with alter egos (like the Hulk). Villains listed in bold-face are recurring, iconic villains who return to plague the heroes time and time again, rather than being one-shot, throw-away adversaries (even those who were supposedly killed or "dealt with" permanently).

Year One (Nov. 1961 to Nov 1962)

Cast of Marvel Heroes

Mr. Fantastic (limits to his stretching)

The Thing (lumpy-rock form, turned back by Reed’s serum but only temporarily)

Invisible Girl (can only turn invisible)

Human Torch (limited time aflame; flight, flaming body and fireballs only)

Dr. Henry Pym (later as Ant-Man)

Hulk* (both hero and villain; transforms at night, later by gamma pulse)

Thor (Donald Blake’s personality; 60 seconds without hammer transforms him back)

Spider-Man (Peter Parker) (debut only)

Cast of Marvel Villains

Mole Man

Skrulls (aliens with shape-shifting abilities)

Miracle Man (master hypnotist)

Sub-Mariner*

Giganto (giant whale creature)

Dr. Doom (mixes mysticism with super-science)

Toad Men (aliens with magnetic technology)

Rock Men from Saturn (aliens)

Executioner (communist dictator)

Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime

Kurggo from Planet X (abandoned on the doomed planet)

The Destroyer (saboteur)

Loki (loses his powers when immersed in water, sent back to Asgard)

Comrade X (communist agent)

Puppet Master (presumed to have fallen to his death in the end)

The Wizard (outwitted by the Human Torch and his sister)

Zarrko the Tomorrow Man (defeated by amnesia)

The Protector (jeweler in a robotic exoskeleton)

Mongu, Gladiator from Space (actually communist in robotic suit)

Supporting Cast

Rick Jones

General “Thunderbolt” Ross

Betty Ross

Aunt May

J. Jonah Jameson

Alicia Masters

Nurse Jane Foster

Heimdall

Odin

Marvel Comic Titles (in order of publication)

FANTASTIC FOUR

TALES TO ASTONISH (Ant-Man)

HULK

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (Thor)

STRANGE TALES (Human Torch)

AMAZING FANTASY #15 (Spider-Man)

TIMELINE

Nov. 1961

FANTASTIC FOUR #1: Origin of the Fantastic Four and debut of the Mole Man.

Jan. 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #2: The Skrulls invade and try to pose as the Fantastic Four.

TALES TO ASTONISH #27: Dr. Henry Pym creates potions to shrink and restore himself to normal size; after having an adventure in an anthill, he destroys the formulae as being too dangerous.

Mar. 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #3: Miracle Man challenges the group; they unveil the Baxter Building, Fantasti-car, and new costumes.

May 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #4: Sub-Mariner found by the Human Torch who restores his memory; he vows to destroy humanity for what it did to Atlantis after WWII.

HULK #1: Origin of the Hulk; gray-skinned and turns into the Hulk only at night; first appearance of Rick Jones. First and last appearance of the communist scientist known as the Gargoyle.

Jul. 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #5: Dr. Doom throws an electrified net over the Baxter Building and takes Sue hostage; he then sends the other members of the FF back in time to collect Blackbeard’s treasure; they return and fool Doom then escape and burn his castle to the ground; Doom escapes.

HULK #2: Invasion of the Toad Men; aliens with great magnetic weapons invade the Earth; they capture the greatest mind on the planet (Banner) and accidentally trigger his transformation to the Hulk; the spaceship is shot down and Banner is held prisoner for treason.

Aug. 1962

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #83: First appearance of Thor when Donald Blake finds the hammer in a cave; deals with the invasion of rock men from Saturn.

AMAZING FANTASY #15: First appearance of Spider-Man, a young teen bitten by a radioactive spider who avenges his uncle’s death and becomes a super-hero.

Sep. 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #6: Sub-Mariner teams up with Dr. Doom against the F.F. (now monthly title)

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #84: A Communist dictator known as the Executioner captures Thor.

TALES TO ASTONISH #35: Ant-Man takes on the Reds with a new Helmet to control ants and his newly re-created shrinking serum.

HULK #3: The Hulk is tricked into entering a rocket and shot into space where the radiation belts have a strange effect on him, linking him to the conscious mind of Rick Jones who can now control him. Jones is hypnotized by the Ringmaster and summons the Hulk to face the Circus of Crime.

Oct. 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #7: The F.F. are recruited to help Kurggo save Planet X from destruction. Although Richards agrees and succeeds in saving the population, Kurrgo is left behind and presumed killed.

STRANGE TALES #101: Human Torch in his first solo story faces the Destroyer, a saboteur.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #85: Thor faces off against his evil half-brother Loki in Manhattan.

TALES TO ASTONISH #36: Ant-Man tackles the communist threat of Comrade X (actually Madame X)

Nov. 1962

FANTASTIC FOUR #8: The Puppet-Master attacks the F.F.; first meeting of the Thing and Alicia Masters.

STRANGE TALES #102: Human Torch faces the Wizard for the first time (in non-costumed form).

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #86: Tomorrow Man steals a test bomb and retreats to the future to enslave mankind (first evidence that Thor can time travel with the hammer).

TALES TO ASTONISH #37: Ant-Man takes on the Protector.

HULK #4: Hulk faces the alien Mongu, Gladiator from Space (actually a communist agent luring Hulk for capture).

Converting all this information into game material is going to take a long while. There are so many strange limitations to the powers of the heroes and even stranger uses of their powers in never-before  documented ways. The Silver Age played fast and loose with the laws of physics and the other sciences, but still more "realistic" than the stories being printed at DC. Some of my favorite heroes are yet to be created (Iron Man, the modern Captain America, Doctor Strange, the X-Men, etc.) and it seems that most of the villains are simply ordinary men and women either working for the communist governments of the world or seeking world domination through super-scientific means. There are a lot of aliens in these stories as well (as can be expected since they were still all the rage at the movies and in the comics). The heroes themselves seem to be less heroic than the standard super-hero, with more character flaws than merits in most cases (like the Hulk, Thing, or Spider-Man). Again, it was a different time. Who knew it would soon be referred to as the Marvel Age?

MARVEL PLOT: ALPHA FLIGHT #2-4

I spent last weekend trying to write a MARVEL SUPER HEROES adventure for Alpha Flight based on the second plotline in the series printed back in 1983. I named it MH-12: MASTER OF THE WORLD and it featured, you guessed it, the Master! (My first adventure was MH-10: DOOMSDAY! and my second was MH-11: RAGE ACROSS THIS LAND). This was the Master's first appearance in Marvel Comics, but it would not be his last. Oddly enough, Byrne seemed to introduce Marrina in issue #1, then it seemed like he was getting rid of her in issue #2! She suffers from the same problems that Aquaman and Sub-Mariner have - no water = useless! It was so obvious that this was the case in issue #1 when she had to swim at excessive speeds and drag a water-spout THREE MILES inland to where the others were fighting Tundra. All this without even knowing what they were facing or where exactly she was to go. Seemed to be a stretch....and it was!

By the way, the waterspout power for Marrina was never actually mentioned anywhere in the game, and I don't think it was ever reproduced in the comics. Just a way to make a non-useful character contribute SOMETHING to the story. But why even include her in Alpha Flight to begin with? She wasn't in the debut in X-Men, and was only casually mentioned in reference to Beta Flight in issue #1 before she was "activated" as a member of Alpha Flight. I would have simply left her as a Beta member and had the others foster her for a while since she had nowhere else to go. Puck also was more of a "why the hell do we have this useless runt in the group?" kind of character. He's also taken out in the beginning of issue #2 (by Marrina the other useless character!) and spends the next 3 issues in the hospital (being even more useless). They should have kept the team as the originals and not added these two into the mix.

OK. That aside, the plot for the adventure is a bit thin (as most John Byrne plots seem to be; great artist, not-so-great writer). More time was spent seeing Snowbird showcase her powers and Aurora going bat-shit crazy on Sasquatch than any real meaningful plot developments. The inclusion of Invisible Girl and Namor at the end seems gratuitous. Snowbird's appearance and rescue of Marrina at the last second is forced. And worse, there is no true confrontation between the Master and Alpha Flight. The only ones who even know what he looks like are Marrina, Namor, and Sue Richards since they were the only ones in the chamber when he escaped! It seems I picked the wrong plotline to convert to a module.

The adventure, however, has several classic comic elements that did translate into the game rules. For instance, the sudden shooting of the omni-jet as it passed over the buried spacecraft perfectly showcased the Vehicle rules for Control, Body, and Speed. Some of the traps showcased the use of smashing through materials, adjudicating slam results as an unintentional charge, and Intuition and Reason checks to figure things out or detect things.

I used two groups of characters for this scenario: group #1 consisting of Guardian, Sasquatch, Shaman, Northstar, and Aurora (with Puck and Marrina as NPCs); group #2 consists of Guardian, Sasquatch, Snowbird, Northstar, and Aurora (Shaman and Puck are out of the picture, and Marrina, Invisible Girl, and Sub-Mariner are NPCs). Ideally, the person playing Snowbird would play Shaman for the first half of the adventure.

The first chapter has the heroes fighting each other in a training practice in teams. This is when Marrina nearly disembowels Puck with a surprise attack and takes off swimming (having received the signal from the Plodex ship). Unfortunately, according to the comics, Northstar and Aurora speed after her, and according to the game rules should have caught up to her in no time, but plot demanded that she escape.

The second chapter deals with the team getting Puck to the hospital, Shaman saving his life, and Snowbird taking off to assist when she senses Shaman's prayer to the Great Spirit. How Snowbird knows where to go without contacting the rest of the team is unknown...since Shaman is in Fort Albany, Ontario, and she somehow shows up in the far north of Canada's islands. Several pages here are devoted to Guardian explaining the origin of Marrina (boxed text for the chapter, 'natch). The omni-jet (using Quinjet stats) leaves Fort Albany on the trail of Marrina's signal which is leading to the north magnetic pole. In 1984, this was located between Victoria and Ellesmere Islands. Some calculations using the game rules would have them take 20 hours to make the 4,660 mile trip! Scratching those and going to the Mach 2.1 speed of the Quinjet from the Marvel Universe cut that down to 3 hours, so I went with that. The chapter ends with the omni-jet being shot down and the team's survival (which is not guaranteed in an RPG) as it crashes. Exposure rules did not exist in the basic MSHRPG. They were added in the Advanced rules, so I adapted them. Silly heroes in their flimsy unstable molecule costumes.

Chapter three showcases the Plodex spaceship and the various traps executed by the Master to detain the heroes. Snowbird also arrives late to the party, can use her postcognition to figure out what happens to the others, and follows them inside. (Yay! the Snowbird player gets to play again!!) While inside it is quite possible for Aurora to go schizoid, and for Sasquatch to go bestial. Ideally, this chapter ends with the heroes making their way to the Master, although Sue Richards and Namor might bump into them. Why are they here? Because something was forcing the barbarians of the Arctic Ocean to raid south into Atlantis. Apparently, the ship sucks out essential elements from the environment to grow and begin the colonization process. I noted that this was molecular reconstruction by neutron absorption, creating something from something else! Therefore the water was debilitating to Atlanteans and the ice itself was changing consistency, so Snowbird would sense the unnaturalness of the situation. Lots of little plot points that, if missed, lose the heroes in the midst of the adventure!

Chapter four is the confrontation with the Master, which will be anticlimactic if certain things were not discovered during chapter three. For instance, although it is only hinted at, I assume there are still eggs on board the ship. The Master wants the Plodex destroyed, but I'm pretty sure the computer won't allow him to do that himself. So he tricks the heroes into doing it for him. If Guardian fails to connect to the alien computer and learn this little fact, then they never blow the place up. It is also hinted that the Master must remain in his seat to control the place. What happens when he disconnects? Does he lose his immortality? Are there other ships on the planet? None of this is known or explained.

It's important to note that the Master spends most of his time over Marrina (who is being poked, prodded and probed) telling her the history of the Plodex and himself. Over three issues that's a lot of backstory, which is never learned by the players in the actual adventure since they never even meet him! They only learn the details of his history when, and if, they rescue Marrina!

So, I get to the end of the adventure arc and, like the heroes in the story, I have no follow-up clues or hooks on what to do. So all the heroes just fly off home. Marrina leaves with Namor to head to Atlantis and figure out what's up with her powers and alien nature, but they could have done better work on her at Four Freedoms Plaza! Again, weak plot. I might have to scrap the adventure or completely re-write it so that it makes more logical sense. It seemed to be much more epic in scale than what was presented here. But then again, when you're a 13 year old boy reading about this for the first time and just loving all the John Byrne artwork, you sorta gloss over the details.

A re-write might have Sue alert the rest of the F.F. to the Plodex menace. If the Master does not trick the heroes into blowing the place up, it continues its colonization procedure until it summons the remaining Plodex eggs to it and continues to drain the environment of essential elements. The follow up adventure could be a Fantastic Four adventure featuring Namor and Marrina as they seek out any remaining Plodex eggs (or ships), encounter the Master again at a new base, and pit his ancient intellect against Reed Richards'. Perhaps removing the F.F. presence in the first module is the way to go, but keeping Namor since he is the link between the two teams, and has a reason to be there.