st barbara

Unfortunately it is mostly a comic "book of lists" but I recently purchased a book entitled "Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent ?" by Brian Cronin. The first list is "Ten Crazy Items found on Batman's utility belt".

Re magical girls in the D C universe. One might get recruited into the" Birds Of Prey ".

I'm reading a book about this guy at the moment Colonel Percy Fawcett. Explorer who disappeared into the wilds of Brazil in the 1920's while searching for "The Lost City Of Z". (He got a mention in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull" from memory). Also his great rival Dr Alexander Hamilton Rice.

"Rocket Age " (already mentioned) is fun. I have, from time to time, both run and played in a campaign. The campaign features Leigh Brackett as an NPC (an adventurous journalist on Mars who has decided that the P C's "make good copy").

What are you providing them with to begin the game ? Do they have a base, vehicles etc ? How do they get along with the city administration of wherever they are based ? If they are new, how will the public react to them, the media, the police force etc ? Also, does the place where they are operating have a history of supers, or are they the first ? You have probably already thought of these things but I thought that i'd bring them up anyway. The other item that you might need to consider is team balance; do the P C's cover most of the conventional super types (Brick, energy projector, stealth type, gadgeteer etc). If they don't you may need to either ask someone to alter his character to help fill a niche (does anyone have flight or superfast running for example ?) or provide NPC's.

Possibly more useful as a villain (partly because He made himself out to be evil) Aleister Crowley deserves a mention. Occultist and British secret agent ! Then there is F A Mitchell-Hedges explorer, adventurer and the man whose daughter discovered the most famous of the Crystal Skulls.

Or how about a female plant manipulator named "Lantana". Lantanas are a particularly prickly weed.

Maybe "Wombat Man" should also be super tough . Stories of cars coming off second best after meeting wombats are legendary !

I am sure that I have mentioned him before but Reg "Snowy" Baker. Multi sport phenomenon , represented Australia in international competition in five sports, took part in 29 different sports, silent movie star, hollywood stunt man. Olympic silver medal (boxing 1908, middleweight) . The circumstances of this were somewhat controversial as his oponent's(JWHT Douglas), father in law was the referee and had the deciding vote in a split decision !

"King Kong" (obviously the original, with Fay Wray) also "The Most Dangerous Game" (also known as "The Hounds Of Zaroff").

Feeding penguins to shoggoths is all well and good, but what happens if you feed shoggoths (or proto shoggoth matter) to penguins ?

Not quite "period", but pulpy in style I recently read "Lara Croft Tomb Raider : The Man Of Bronze" No it isn't a crossover with Doc Savage, but fun all the same.

I have some "G8" paperbacks, but they are not in good condition and i'm not sure if I can read them without having them fall apart !

One of my favorites (I have used him in my campaign) is General Smedley Butler. Twice winner of the Congressional Medal Of Honor, may have been responsible for stopping a coup against the U S government, author of the anti war pamphlet "War Is A Racket". Nicknamed "Old Duckboard" and "Gimlet Eye".

I want a dessert eagle as well; but only if it comes in chocolate or passionfruit !

I had a stroke of luck and uncovered a cache of the old Bantam "Doc Savage" novels in a second hand bookshop. Not cheap these days, but because I am got twenty odd of them at once I gat them for about $7.00 Australian each instead of their cover price of $9.00. I'll pay them the rest of the money I owe them ($50.00) tomorrow, and see if they have any more titles that I don't have lying around. I now have over 160 of the stories including some of the new ones that are being published at the moment !

Well I got vol 1 of "Sin City" (I saw the movie last week on T V and enjoyed it) and "Corto Maltese : The Ballad Of The Salt Sea". I might have got more but I was distracted by a cache of old "Doc Savage" paperbacks at the shop where I bought the "Corto Maltese". I picked up five , but when I got home I found two of them to be duplicates (I have the stories "The Gold Ogre" and "The Pirate's Ghost" in the later anthology volumes) . Still I would count it a worthwhile trip to a second hand bookshop. The shop assistant told me that they had more that weren't on display; i'll have to go back on Monday for another look !

Looks a bit like an upgunned French Char2 c to me .

Does the helium shortage mean that they will have to go back to using hydrogen ?

Further to my post about "1001 Battles" I recently got "1001 Comics You Should Read Before You Die". Fascinating and reminds me of all the comics I have missed. It covers comics from 1837 ("The Adventures Of Mr Obediah Oldbuck") to 2011 ("Habibi") with a lot of comics from countries other than the U S A included. Short essays of about a page for each comic. Definitely means I will have to go looking for "Sin City" and "Corto Maltese" now !

The reference to "100 Battles" has reminded me of a book that I got for Christmas "1001 Battles That Changed The Course Of History". It is done historically , starting with a battle between two city states of ancient Sumer (2450 bce) and going up to the battle of Marjah in Afghanistan in 2010. Very short write ups (a page, sometimes less), but with information on a number of obscure battles that I knew nothing about. Short write ups or not it is still nearly 1000 pages !

Surely if they induct the Macho man they have to put Elizabeth in as well !

Belgian supers hmm. The only one I have thought of is "Le Destrier" (that's French of course, but I think that they speak French in Belgium). Basically he is a man who has found and kept an alien batlesuit that gives him some of the powers of the "Predator" from the movie of the same name.

I liked the fact that the animated Justice League series always played up The Martian Manhunter's other abilities (desolid, mental powers etc, even if it DID make him come across as a copy of Marvel's "Vision") rather than his super strength.

A terrible shame. Does anyone know how old he was ?