Down and Out in Taren Kost – Campaign Report Episode 14 – Road to Ruins

This takes place following Episode 13.

Our cast for this episode (for more information on the game background, see here):

Reed Greenbottle and Skathfka, later joined by Agrippa.  (Mercutio is a GMC for this episode.)

Episode 14: Road to Ruins

Superheroes – Once upon a Time in 1967 – Getting Started

So, we got together for our first session of Masks in the 1960s (see campaign outline here) unfortunately, we only got through character creation and not onto the first issue but soon.

Character creation for Masks is fairly involved, even more so than most Powered by the Apocalypse games, as it aims to tie the characters together as a coherent group who have already come together and defeated their first big bad.

Our heroes are:

Heroes Inc – Reflections looking Back

Heroes Incorporated, two decades on

It was a great campaign with great people, the core of the group -Peter, Daniel and Tom- were also superhero genre fiends like me with Steve and Dave happy to join in.  Steve was also a history buff helping with context.  We played the game, a lot, forty to fifty session went into creating all those issues, and talked about it on three levels:

• What was in the in the game/comic.
• The editorial decisions that keep other things out of the comics.
• How Grant Morrison was going to rewrite it all in the late 1990s.

Now, this was the late 1990s, so we had to dig up our historical data the old fashioned way.  But there were other things going on, so I did not delve as deeply as I should have.  Now, I know I made some mistakes, some less than sensitive choices which I regret.  Should I CH a new supers game, I will make a much greater effort to avoid such insensitivity, I am sure I will still make mistake but I will be more aware.

I liked the campaign world so much, I continued it with: The New Atlantians, using the ICONS rules and set in Atlanta, and the LA Stars, twice, using the Mutants & Masterminds and set in Los Angles.  Neither of which ran quite as long, with the New Atlantians only managing a single session.

As I love superheroes and the silver age so much, I really hope that I can get another campaign going probably using Masks: A New Generation this time around.

Back to Heroes Inc Roll Call.

Photo by Cecil E Burdick, Jr, on his trip to NYC in 1967, posted and copyrighted by his son.  See the full set here.

Heroes Inc – Summaries of Issue 21 and 22

Heroes Incorporated, Summaries of Issues 21 and 22

(This story is refined as part of a “secret files” collection published in the 1990s filling in some continuity gaps.  It was decided by the players and the GM to be far to violent and dark to have been part of the ‘official’ 1960s continuity.)

“Fires of the New Sun”

The Heroes Inc team (Playboy, Human Jackrabbit, Plasma-man and the Cleaning Agent) are in Tokyo for the Olympics.  While at a dinner party, which includes the Soviet and Red Chinese representatives, it is attacked by a group of New Sun (Japanese) nationalists in powered armor who are trying the kill the communists.

The team stops them, but at great cost as the armor is equipped with ‘kamikaze’ bombs which exploded when the wearer was knocked unconscious.  Many guests were wounded after the first two attackers were killed, forcing the heroes to careful contain the others until the rest of the guests could be removed from the scene. [The Human Jackrabbit was able to use his new mega-scale running to get the wounded people to the hospital.]

Issue 21: Dragons of California

Heroes Inc – Rebel – Interview TEEN BEAT magazine

Rebel – Interview from TEENBEAT magazine.

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           Without doubt the hippest of the new wave of superheroes is the teen idol Rebel™. With his bad-boy good looks and his super cool super powers this hunk shows that there’s more to crime fighting than a squaresville cape and mask. This cat knows the kids and knows where it’s at. It was with her heart in her throat that this girl reporter approached the door to his hotel suite. I was about to meet the man who is redefining the term icon…

            Some suit opens the door and I ‘m ushered into his presence. He is framed by the window and let me tell you gentle reader everything you ‘ve heard about that profile is true! He holds an old Milwaukee in one hand and a smoking Black Label™ in the other; the bad boy of the hero world doesn ‘t take any bull from anyone! He slowly turns to me. I feel a blush rising. He peers deep into my eyes over the top of his sunglasses (Rayban Aviators style fiends). My heart skips a beat.

            “Hey. ” He says nonchalantly.

            Hey. Just that one syllable takes on so much depth coming from his lips. I am listening to the voice of the tortured soul of our generation. Flustered I sit down and fumble with the pages of my note pad. He pretends not to notice my discomfort and lets me regain my composure while staring out of the window. I take a couple of deep breaths and try not to let myself be intimidated. On top of my game again, I turn to the teen hero and bring out my big guns. I open with my hardest question first.

Heroes Inc – Rebel: The Untold Story

Rebel Special 1 – Rebel: the Untold Story

Cover: Rebel looking back over his shoulder as he steps through the gates of Warner Brothers Studios. A speech balloon from rebel says, “Are you ready to learn the truth?” Splashed across the bottom, “Rebel’s Secret Origin Revealed for the First Time!”

The scene: Hollywood, late June to early July 1963. Rebel has gone west to Warner Brothers Studios, Hollywood, to star in his first feature film, his origin story entitled, Rebel: The Untold Story. The opening scenes in the comic are of Rebel flying in front of the Hollywood sign, Rebel at Gruman’s Chinese Theater, Rebel at the Brown Derby, and so on.

Rebel first works with WB Studios animation department, having a cameo in a Bugs Bunny cartoon which is being specially made to accompany Rebel’s movie (“Rabbit without a Cause“?). So, Rebel gets to meet Mel Blanc (the man of a thousand voices).

Heroes Inc – Special Issue: Our Government at Work

Heroes Incorporated, Special Issue (1): Heroes Incorporated: Our Government at Work.

Appearing in this issue: Playboy, Kid Comic, Plasma-Man and Lt. Steele. Cameo by: Captain Liberty.

In this issue, our Heroes explain about how the United States Government works, using the Superhero Samaritan Act (SuSA) sponsored by Senator Goldwater in early 1964 as an example of how laws are passed. The team also testifies before the Senate on matters regarding the threat poised to the United States and Earth as a whole by aliens such as the Consolidation.

While in D.C.: The team visits the sights (the Library of Congress, the Lincoln Memorial, usw). Billy sneaks out and buys soul music. Lt. Steele converses with William S. Burroughs. Jack discusses comparative economic systems with a lovely Soviet aide. Plasma-man and his girlfriend share some time alone.

Sideways back to to Summaries of Issues 12 to 15!

Back to Heroes Inc Roll Call.

Notes: In the classic idea of superheroes doing PSAs.  I cannot recall how this came into being, we must have just drifted into discussion about government policy in a superheroes world and this was the end result.  Unfortunately, we never managed any more of these.  See also I’m just a bill.

Photos: “Abraham Lincoln Memorial” by LunchboxLarry is licensed under CC BY 2.0.