My step-dad loved his stuff, and I couldn’t afford books, myself, so I was stuck reading my step-dad’s. 
Once I got out of the house, I started to realize just how problematic Anthony’s stuff was, but before that I thought it was normal. 
1 Like
Yeah, I think Anthony had a real gift for combining whimsy with barely-concealed horniness that was very attractive to a lot of young teens, and that both of those things were also very effective at covering a lot of the more problematic elements of his work. I know a lot of people who loved him when they were younger, and then came back around as adults and were caught off-guard by all the stuff they’d missed.
2 Likes
The Randomizers:
Background 2, 6, 6 [Options: Criminal, Upper Class, Struggling, Adventurer, Created]
Power Source 4, 10, 3 [Options: Genetic, Experimentation, Relic, Tech Upgrades, Artificial Being, Alien]
Archetype 2, 7, 9 [Options: Shadow, Armored, Elemental Manipulator, Sorcerer, Form-Changer]
Personality 10, 9, 10 [Options: Inquisitive, Alluring, Jaded, Arrogant]
Tengu Warai
Real Name: Tetsu Kimura, First Appearance: Covert Tactics #54, July 1944
Background: Adventurer, Power Source: Genetic, Archetype: Shadow
Personality: Jaded, Principles: Equality, Tactician
Status Dice: Green d10, Yellow d8, Red d8. Health: 28 [Green 28-22, Yellow 21-11, Red 10-1]
Qualities: Stealth d10, Banter d10, Close Combat d8, Finesse d8, Secrets of the Tengu d8
Powers: Invisibility d10, Agility d8, Intuition d8, Suggestion d8
Green Abilities:
- The Tengu Laughs [A]: Attack using Banter. Other nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zone Recover equal to your Min die.
- Martial Artist [A]: Attack using Agility. Remove one physical bonus or penalty, Hinder a target using your Min die, or maneuver to a new location in your environment.
- Shadowy Combatant [A]: Attack using Invisibility. Defend using your Mind die against all Attacks until your next turn.
- Principle of the Tactician [A]: Overcome when you can flashback to how you prepared for this exact situation. Use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Equality [A]: Overcome to protect the rights of the underprivileged and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- Back To The Shadows [A]: Boost yourself using Agility, then either remove a penalty on yourself or Recover using your Min die.
- Rapid Strike [A]: Attack multiple targets using Agility, using your Min die against each.
- Cloud Minds [R]: When you would take damage, Defend against that damage by rolling your single Suggestion die.
Red Abilities
- Vanish [A]: Defend using Invisibility with your Max+Mid dice against all Attacks against you until your next turn.
- Heroic Stand [A]: Make a basic action using Banter. Use your Max die. All other heroes who take the same basic action on their turn against the same target receive a Boost from your Mid+Min dice.
Out
- Remove a bonus or penalty of your choice.
Over the course of World War II, Venture Comics made several attempts to launch new heroes. Most of them were flashes in the pan, appearing no more than once or twice before vanishing again, and by 1944 they had largely given up in favour of putting their most popular heroes front and centre. The last major hero introduced in the pages of Covert Tactics, however, left a legacy that was larger than his actual presence.
Tetsu Kimura (technically Kimura Tetsu would have been the proper spelling, but Venture’s editors were not confident that Americans would know how Japanese names were written and wrote it in the American style) was the last of a long line of Japanese heroes, who had in their veins the blood of the ancient tengu. Tetsu was a particularly powerful incarnation, able to call on the power of the tengu to confuse the minds of his enemies, slip unseen through the world, and move with preternatural grace and skill. However, as a folk hero, he had been targeted by the Imperial Japanese government, and was forced to flee to the United States, where he joined forces with the American military and fought the Japanese as the Tengu Warai, bringing hope to the oppressed people of the Pacific and convincing Japanese soldiers to throw down their arms and turn on their oppressive masters. His adventures were framed by letters back home to his unnamed wife and young child, and his supporting cast included other Japanese soldiers in the American navy.
In creating Tengu Warai, the editors and Venture hoped to shine a light on the Japanese-Americans fighting for democracy as . As Europe was freed and the war in the Pacific grew, they hoped that they had created an Asian equivalent of Madame Liberty.
They had not.
Tengu Warai only lasted six issues, each one marked by sales lower than the one before. The public, as it transpired, was not interested in sympathetic portrayals of anyone Japanese. The editors received letters of protest and even threats after the first issue was released, and although they stubbornly persisted, by early 1945 Tengu Warai was retired from service.
But they hadn’t given up entirely. In September 1950, as the Korean War began, Venture’s editor at the time attempted to revive Tengu Warai, first introducing him fighting alongside Madame Liberty and then giving him three more stories alone. While this second attempt at the hero was not as reviled as the first, the public appetite for superheroes was low, especially in war stories; sales were no better than the first attempt, and Tengu Warai soon vanished from the pages of Venture Comics.
Despite this, the character would continue to have an impact. A young Japanese boy, Cody Suzuki read about Tengu Warai in the internment camps in 1944, and remembered that Venture had tried. In the late 1950s, he would apply to the company as a colorist, and happened to be in the room when Covert Tactics was being designed. He suggested that while Tengu Warai himself was likely not a good fit, his unnamed child might be a good addition to the team, and Irogane was created. Suzuki would go on to become Venture’s first major non-white artist, providing art for many issues of Covert Tactics, Madame Liberty, and Vanguards.
Behind the Scenes
There are a lot of reasons for a character to fail, but racism is going to be a big one.
There was no way that a Japanese superhero was going to succeed during World War II. Anti-Japanese racism was absolutely wild. But I like the idea that Venture thought that, as the war was approaching an end, they could make the attempt, and I really like the idea that even though he’s a D-Lister that not many folks know about, he had a lasting impact.
Tengu Warai never comes back as a major character, largely because Irogane is a success and him no longer being active is a big part of her own story. My guess is that he ‘officially’ took an injury that meant he couldn’t focus his powers any more, and she didn’t inherit them for whatever reason (although just maybe, that lineage helped her survive her accident and gain powers of her own…)
3 Likes
Even pre-War it was horrible, and after Pearl Harbor there was no restraint at all. Not that Imperial Japan was any better, and many of its war crimes were a direct result of dehumanizing all non-Japanese. And despite it all, tens of thousands of loyal Americans of Japanese descent fought the Axis across every theater of the war, with the 442nd Infantry alone earning more combat decorations than any unit before or since.
Brave try, but like you said, doomed to failure. By 1944 small parts of the military were starting to realize some of the best units you could have fighting alongside of you were nisei, but the civilian populace wouldn’t shed the worst of their bigotry until well after the War (and even the Occupation) ended. I doubt even a single issue could have been printed IRL, if nothing else wartime paper shortages would have given censors an easy way to simply forbid it. There’s a reason Golden Age books are so rare and valuable, and it’s not because they were printed in small numbers - they were mostly collected by paper drives and recycled as part of the war effort.
There’s a chance, but yeah, it wouldn’t have been likely. Venture stacked the deck to get past the censors - the hero is designed to use American military colors, exclusively fights against the Japanese army, exclusively fights alongside American forces, and doesn’t debut until we’re far enough into the war that the American government has started debating what occupation will look like (Tengu Warai comes out only a few months before the government starts the process of reversing Japanese internment.) I expect in this setting, someone saw the character as a useful way of measuring just how hard occupation was going to be to sell, and let him through, and even then he was under a microscope that other Venture heroes weren’t for his short existence.
1 Like
The Randomizers:
Background 3, 7, 8 [Options: Performer, Law Enforcement, Struggling, Unremarkable, Dynasty, Retired]
Power Source 10, 6, 4 [Options: Experimentation, Nature, Tech Upgrades, Alien, Cosmos]
Archetype 4, 1, 8 [Options: Speedster, Marksman, Blaster, Flyer, Elemental Manipulator, Psychic]
Personality 6, 10, 1 [Options: Lone Wolf, Distant, Stalwart, Alluring, Stoic, Cheerful]
Venture Girl
Real Name: Sylvie MacMillan, First Appearance: Champions of Truth #71, March 1949
Background: Struggling, Power Source: Cosmos, Archetype: Elemental Manipulator
Personality: Cheerful, Principles: Responsibility, Esoteric
Status Dice: Green d10, Yellow d8, Red d8. Health: 28 [Green 28-22, Yellow 21-11, Red 10-1]
Qualities: Banter d10, Investigation d8, Ranged Combat d8, Science d8, Creativity d6, Orphan d8
Powers: Cosmic d10, Flight d10, Intuition d8, Gadgets d8
Green Abilities:
- Surge [A]: Attack up to two targets using Cosmic. Also take an amount of damage equal to your Mid die.
- Joy of Flight [A]: Defend using Flight. Use your Max die. Boost using your Min die.
- Principle of Youth [A]: Overcome a situation where your age or size is an asset and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Cosmic Energy [A]: Overcome a challenge involving cosmic energy and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- The Universe Loves Children (I): If you would take Cosmic damage, reduce that damage to 0 and Recover that amount of Health instead.
- Plucky Kid [A]: Boost or Hinder using Intuition and apply that mod to multiple close targets.
- Cosmic Shift [A]: Attack using Cosmic. Boost all nearby heroes taking Attack or Overcome actions using your Min die until your next turn.
Red Abilities
- Tricky Moves [R]: When an Attack deals damage to a nearby hero in the Red zone, you may take d6 irreducible damage to redirect that Attack to a target of your choice, other than the source of the Attack.
- Surprising Solve [A]: Overcome using Investigation. Use your Max+Min dice. Hinder all nearby opponents with your Mid die.
Out
- Boost an ally by rolling your single Cosmic die.
By 1949, superheroes were on the decline, and Champions of Truth was seeing its sales slowly dropping. The staff at Venture Comics put their heads together, and decided that the problem was that they weren’t attracting enough kids. The solution was to give the Steward a sidekick.
Several Golden Age Venture heroes had sidekicks - Madame Liberty and Skybreaker had the powered sidekicks Kid Liberty and Cormorant, while Flatfoot and Greenheart had unpowered teens in Freddie Wells and Mandy Murphy. But the Steward had always stood alone. Venture’s editor hoped that a young ward would help attract young readers and give the comic more pizazz, and so, on the tenth anniversary of the founding of Venture Comics, Venture Girl was created.
Sylvie MacMillan was a twelve-year-old orphan whose parents had died in World War II. Raised in an orphanage, she snuck out one night when she saw a bright red meteor streak across the sky, only to end up at ground zero for an alien invasion! The Steward arrived in the nick of time, saving Sylvie from the invaders, but in the process she was badly hurt by the alien ship’s cosmic engine. Only the Steward’s advanced medicine was able to save her, leaving her with cosmic energies rippling through her body. Since he couldn’t very well send her back to the orphanage, the Steward used his civilian persona to adopt the girl, and took it upon himself to train her to use her powers for good.
Sylvie was a precocious youth, a child who would frequently race into danger, only to get in over her head and need her mentor to save her. She was cheerful even in deadly situations, a danger magnet, and absolutely unpopular with the remaining Champions of Truth fanbase. She never made an appearance in the Steward’s few non-Champions appearances post-1949, and when the title was cancelled in 1950, she was cancelled alongside it. She also had the dubious distinction of being the last superhero that Venture introduced in the Golden Age; after Champions of Truth was cancelled, Venture stopped any plans to expand for the next several years.
When the Steward was revived in 1962, the writers of Covert Tactics very deliberately decided to forget that Venture Girl had ever existed, leaving her fate a mystery. Eventually, a Bronze Age writer decided to revisit her, ‘revealing’ that her powers had faded as she grew older, and the Steward’s desire for her to lead a normal life had led to the two of them having a falling-out. Sylvie and the Steward were able to reconcile, and she became a minor supporting cast member for Earthwatch until his death.
Behind the Scenes
And our last Golden Age hero is a failed sidekick who manages to combine all the problems - she showed up too late, she’s out of style, and no one liked her. Sorry, Venture Girl! At least you got one good story in the 70s.
5 Likes
Oof, what a flop - and named after the publisher too. That stings extra hard.
Interesting giving your Superman expy (of sorts, anyway) an actual sidekick*, and a legacy one with similar powers no less. Clark never had a proper sidekick as such, but Venture Girl’s similarities to Kara are obvious. I like the (I assume) deliberate jab at the way DC shoved Supergirl into an orphanage for years while Stalwart immediately realized that sending a newly-superpowered young girl back to one wasn’t a good idea in any way.
*Supes didn’t technically have a sidekick, but both Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane filled a similar role - and were inexplicably popular enough to have solo books with triple-digit runs that lasted into the early Iron Age, eventually bundled into Superman Family to eke out a few more years. Didn’t see poor Robin (any of them) getting a solo book until years later. No accounting for tastes.
1 Like
Randomizers:
Approach: 6, 7, 9 [Options: Disruptive, Focused, Specialized, Creator, Adaptive, Dampening]
Archetype: 1, 2, 5 [Options: Predator, Inventor, Bruiser, Indomitable, Overlord, Formidable]
Upgrade: 4, 8, 3 [Options: Group Fighter, Villainous Vehicle, Quality Upgrade II]
Mastery: 9, 8, 5 [Options: Mad Science, Profitability, Superiority]
Doctor Despair
Real Name: Dr. Desmond Parris, First Appearance: Company Town #150, October 1951
Approach: Creator, Archetype: Inventor
Upgrade: Villainous Vehicle, Mastery: Mad Science
Status Dice: Based on Science inventions and bonuses/penalties. 4+: d12. 2-3: d10. 1: d8. None: d6. Health: 25+5H (Upgraded 40+5H)
Qualities: Medicine d10, Ranged Combat d8, Imposing d8, Alertness d8, Black Market Scientist d8
Powers: Toxic d10, Intuition d8, Presence d8, Gadgets d6
Abilities:
- Chemical Vats [A]: Boost using Toxic and use your max die, also Boost with your Mid die, and either make one of those bonuses persistent and exclusive or Attack with your Min die.
- Deploy Plaguelings [A]: Use Toxic to create a number of minions equal to the value of your Max die. The starting die size for those minions is the same as the size of your Min die.
- Deadly Mist [A]: Boost using Toxic. Hinder with your Max die. Attack with your Min die.
- Unstable Creations [R]: When one of your minions is destroyed, roll its die and deal damage equal to that roll to another target.
-
(U) The Deadly Dirigible of Doctor Despair! (I): The Deadly Dirigible is a d10 lieutenant with the following abilities:
- Flying Dirigible (I): To attack this vehicle, the hero must make an Overcome action in order to get close enough to it.
- Massive (I): When rolling a damage save, add 2 to the result.
- Deploy Gas [A]: Attack all heroes with this vehicle’s roll. Use this ability only if the vehicle is below its starting die size or the scene is in the Red zone.
- (U) Master of Mad Science (I): As long as you have access to materials, you can automatically succeed when Overcoming a challenge by using scientific principles and inventions.
Common Scene Elements:
- Plaguelings: d8 minions. Plaguelings get +2 to all actions, and drop by one die size after each of their turns.
- A City In Chaos: An environment plagued by toxic monsters, clouds of gas, and panicking civilians.
- Innocent Hostages: A multi-step challenge to save civilians, which will produce plaguelings until resolved.
Throughout his career in the pages of Company Town, the Revenant walked a fine line between superheroics and crime pulp stories, often pulled one way or the other by whichever writer was handling his stories at the time. One ultimately unsuccessful attempt to thread that needle was the devious Doctor Despair.
Introduced in late 1951, Doctor Despair was first introduced as an actual doctor serving the poorest patients in the slums of Ferristown. Doctor Parris secretly injected some of his patients with experimental drugs, which could be triggered to transform them into monstrous forms and compel them to follow his bidding. He used these targeted attacks to spread fear and threaten businesses, building a criminal empire. When the Revenant investigated the source of these strange monsters, he himself was nearly transformed; his unique resurrection abilities let him return, and he was able to reveal Doctor Parris’s dark actions.
But Doctor Despair wasn’t done. In 1952, he returned at the helm of the Deadly Dirigible of Doctor Despair, spreading toxic gas through the streets of Ferristown to wreck havoc and gain revenge for his earlier defeat. The Revenant was able to board the dirigible and fight the doctor, saving civilians who he was transforming into his personal plaguelings. This appearance was much closer to a traditional supervillain than to a criminal, and Doctor Despair was believed to be dead in the ruins of the airship. Of course, he returned a third time, in November 1953, determined to take control of the city once and for all… and before the Revenant could finish tracking him down, Mr. Ferris did. The Revenant was left to discover Doctor Despair’s bullet-riddled corpse, and pronounced him dead once and for all.
The intent of the Doctor’s powerful rise and fall was to both given the Revenant a minor recurring foe, and help build Mr. Ferris back up to a powerful operator, able to casually snuff out threats to his operations. It’s possible that, given enough time, Doctor Despair would have been revived once again, but the cancellation of Company Town less than a year later removed his nemesis from existence for decades, and the rise of the Comics Code both made him too brutal, and moved the much more popular Doctor Freak into a position to be doing many of the things that a more child-friendly Doctor Despair would. As such, no one ever bothered to bring him back to life, and he remained an interesting but minor footnote in the pages of Venture Comics.
Behind the Scenes
Look, I just really wanted to write Deadly Dirigible of Doctor Despair a couple of times.
Golden Age had a lot of mad scientists, and a lot of them ended up heavily sidelined by the fact that they were exactly like each other. There are a lot of more interesting villains in the future of Venture Comics, so Doctor Despair ends up being a trivia note rather than a cool guy.
Creator/Inventor is a frankly mean combo unless you’re up against a really good group at minion clearing/Hindering. Taking your first turn to create a large Max-die persistent bonus and push your status die to d10, then applying that massive bonus to a d10/d10/d10 roll to create potentially 10+ d10 minions is a frankly rude combination. Relative fragility helps, but a villain is a single scene element, and there’s a good chance there’s things to distract or delay the heroes rather than letting them just beat the villain down from moment one.
4 Likes
If you colored the goggles with red/green lenses that’d be a pretty good Spider Jerusalem sculpt.
That’s a good enough reason for me. 
True, although the best of them managed to rise above it. Look at the Ultra-Humanite. Started off about as stereotypical as could be, with his only noteworthy feature being how he was confined to a wheelchair (which I still contend was a nod to polio). Left at that he’d have faded away, but not U-H. He was brain transplanted into a Hollywood starlet before the Silver Age even started, then a giant big and a brain in a jar until finally settling into his big white ape form. He’s a real mad scientist’s mad scientist, he is.
Never had a dirigible though, at least AFIK.
One of my groups worked out a solid counter using that Physical Powerhouse ability where the target has to Attack you on their next turn if possible. Can’t create minions if you’re forced to deal with Superman in your face. Works on most of the minion-maker types, but you have to be careful using physical damage on Legion archetypes with that “cancel damage and split” ability.
1 Like
Heh. Venture editorial really does love their villainous doctors, huh? Drs. Freak, Roach, Strife, and now (first?) this guy.
On a mechanical note, are d4 plaguelings meant to die after taking a turn? Also, are the plaguelings and/or dirigible meant to count as inventions for his status die?
2 Likes
Maybe, but note that Inventors (unlike overlords or Legions) can’t get down to a d4 status, they bottom out at d6 so they’ll never create a minion that small. Still, you could wind up with d6 ones that degraded to that point.
1 Like
Villainous doctors are weirdly popular in comics in general (especially in DC)! DC had Doctor Alchemy, Doctor Bedlam, Doctor Cyber, Doctor Death, Doctor Destiny, Doctor Impossible, Doctor Light, Doctor Phosphorus, Doctor Polaris, Doctor Psycho, Doctor Shocker, Doctor Sivana, and Doctor Spectro (and probably more). Marvel had Doctor Angst, Doctor Decibel, Doctor Doom, Doctor Faustus, Doctor Nemesis (twice!), Doctor Octopus, Doctor Sun, and again, probably more.
For Plaguelings: Yes, the intent is that if they hit D4 and take an action, they dissolve. It forces Doctor Despair to keep creating new ones without truly overwhelming the heroes.
2 Likes
Just passed 4:20 here. You forgot Doctor Bong.
Also Doctor Demonicus, who started out in Godzilla, next appeared in Shogun Warriors, and somehow managed to get brought back yet again in Avengers, no less. He’s canonically one of the escapees from the Raft when Electro’s mass breakout took place, although I don’t think he’s appeared since.
The Avengers have a weird connection with Godzilla, inexplicably inheriting bits of a series they won’t (and really can’t - licensing, y’know) talk about anymore. They also served to bring Red Ronin out of oblivion way back when, which has made quite a few appearances in mainstream Marvel since then (albeit without its original 12 year old kid pilot from Godzilla).
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and since this came out in the 50’s the writers might have heard the Todd Lito action hour Legacy radio show with Dr. Desmond Dower and his Toxic Tinctures raining down from a Zeplin.
2 Likes
whoops
I had not recalled that that was a thing. Yes, it is possible that Doctor Despair is, perhaps, not an entirely original metaverse creation.
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Randomizers:
Approach: 1, 9, 10 [Options: Relentless, Specialized, Overpowered, Generalist, Ancient]
Archetype: 1, 6, 1 [Options: Predator, Inventor, Overlord, Formidable, Fragile]
Upgrade: 1, 9, 11 [Options: Mook Squad, Defense Shield, Power Dampening Field]
Mastery: 4, 11, 7 [Options: Enforced Order, Mysticism, Unfathomable]
Coven
Real Name: unknown , First Appearance: Cryptic Trails #143, Feb 1953
Approach: Ancient, Archetype: Fragile
Upgrade: Defense Shield, Mastery: Mysticism
Status Dice: Green d10, Yellow d8, Red d6. Health: 25+5H
Qualities: Self-Discipline d12, Magical Lore d12, Leadership d10, Stealth d8, Mistress of Forgotten Lore d8
Powers: Weather d12, Intangibility d10, Infernal d10, Presence d8
Abilities:
- Summon the Storm [A]: Hinder using Weather against multiple targets and use your Max die. Attack each using your Mid+Min dice.
- Ancient Terror [A]: Take a basic action using Magical Lore and use your Max die.
- Strip Power [A]: Attack using Magical Lore. Then remove all bonuses from the target.
- Fade Away (I): Whenever your personal zone changes, you may immediately move elsewhere in the scene.
- (U) Magical Shield (I): You cannot be damaged by anyone except yourself until your shield is destroyed. The defense shield has 40 Health, or can be deactivated with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist working on the shield, you can make an Attack as a reaction by rolling your single Infernal die.
- (U) Restore Shield [A]: Overcome using Infernal. Use your Max die. On a success, remove one success from the deactivating challenge. Alternatively, instead of an Overcome, use the Max die to Recover that much of the defense shield’s Health. This ability cannot be used if the defense shield has been completely removed.
- (U) Master of Mysticism (I): If you have access to proper materials, automatically succeed at an Overcome in a situation involving harnessing magical forces.
Common Scene Elements:
- Apprentice Witches: d6 minions. Apprentice Witches get +2 to Hinder rolls.
- Circle Witches: d8 lieutenants. When a Circle Witch Overcomes, she may also Hinder with the same result.
- A Ritual Environment. The location of a magical ritual, which spawns challenges the villains can overcome to advance the scene tracker as well as magical chaos.
As the Golden Age began to wind down, the editors of Venture Comics struggled to keep its comics relevant. In 1953, with plans underway to finish the story of Skybreaker and Cormorant and finish transferring Cryptic Trails to be a Greenheart exclusive, plans were put in place to give her a new, more occult-oriented villain who the writers hoped would let the comic keep pace with Campfire Terrors and Twilight Carnival. The result was the terrible ancient witch known as Coven.
Coven dated back to the days of the Romans, a pagan priestess of a forgotten god crushed by the Roman Legions who turned to acquiring dark magic in search of revenge. It was said that her influence helped to bring down Caesar, and after the fall of the Roman Empire, she lived forever by trading on dark magic and spreading her influence across the world, looking for the remnants of her ancient enemies.
When Coven discovered Greenheart, she didn’t care that she was estranged from the True Roman Empire. She wanted its location, and as much as her family and home had hurt her by exiling her to Earth, Greenheart refused to give them up to a magical monster. The two clashed a few times over the next two years, as Greenheart undermined Coven’s rituals and Coven sought to claim Greenheart’s power and knowledge.
In the middle of that process, the Comics Code occurred. Fortunately for Coven, her magic didn’t specifically trade on human sacrifice, torture, or similar things, and she made one appearance between the establishment of the Code and the end of Greenheart’s Golden Age incarnation. That one appearance was enough for her to return in the Silver Age, appearing to attack the ‘new’ Greenheart in Venture into the Unknown #24 with the stated goal of stealing Greenheart’s nature powers and blending them with her own mastery over the natural world. She was handily defeated, and slunk into the shadows to try again.
And again. And again.
It wasn’t entirely clear when it happened. Coven was an ancient, powerful witch, who should have been a serious threat. But in part because of the disappearance of her original motivation, and in part because her powers could not be shown to be either gruesome or frightening, her appearances quickly became something of a joke - an easily-defeated villain always scheming to acquire Greenheart’s magic. And as that became her reputation, writers leaned into it. Her followers went from powerful witches in their own right to deluded hippies or middle class would-be cultists, without proper knowledge of magical affairs. Her plots became smaller and smaller-scale. By the 1970s, Coven was a punchline that would pulled out every few years to serve as the setup to a more interesting story. One writer tried to give her a reboot after Aquila entered the scene, but any space she would have had was taken up by Greyheart and she once again fell back into being a minor joke of a villain.
Behind the Scenes
Ancient and Fragile is a fun combination - powerful dice, substantially less health than Ancients typically command. The ultimate glass cannon of a villain. And I’ve doubled down on that by giving Coven almost no defensive abilities whatsoever. If you can get past her shield, you can punch her.
I wanted our last Golden Age villain to be someone who does endure, but not in a good way. Coven is probably only one really good storyline away from being Mr. Freeze, but until someone hits on that storyline, she’s a goof who can’t get anything done.
Also, her name is the name of an organization and no one in the modern day can take that seriously.
3 Likes
Meta-metatextually, she can’t beat Greenheart (or any other hero that’s been around for decades) because they’ve accumulated so many collections they can spend four of them a round every round to maximize all their dice and use an ability a GYRO zone early. Even if heroes only gain about two collections a year between their own book and crossover appearances Greenheart’s been around for almost eleven years when Coven first shows up, and by the 70s she ought to have well over 40 collections to burn each issue. And with that record it ain’t hard to find old stories to refer back to to explain the usage. The panels must be littered with “See issue #XXX” editor’s notes until they finally stop doing them altogether.
Wow, you’ve discovered why editor’s notes faded away. The longer running characters ruined them for everyone by collection-spamming.
I’d point out that both DC and Marvel have characters named Coven, but neither’s been active in the last 20 years so you have a point about modern naming conventions. The 90s might have been peak season for that kind of supranym, what with Brigade, Battalion, and who knows how many Legions, to name just a few.
None of that makes Swarm any less cool though (Nazis made of bees never go out of style) and I won’t have any criticisms of the original OMAC (One Man Army Corp) either.
Come to think of it, I’ve got Chorus and Horde myself. Hmmm.
1 Like
Meta-metatextually, that’s why the game suggests limiting the number of collections that players can use to create bonuses in an issue. If you follow that rule, players of long-running characters may have a dramatic ability to establish facts, but not so much to change numbers or ignore twists.
(I know that this is a major problem that you ran into in your own games, and I assume that your players wouldn’t have gone for “our collection limit this issue is 5” as the solution, but it is the solution listed in the core rules.)
I’d also assume that whenever you change authors, the hero’s collection resets to 0. So every five to ten years you’re zeroing out.
Good points all around! Guess it’s just me. 
1 Like
We did that many times, usually while introducing new players. It’s not really a solution to the lack of legs for a long term game, it’s a patch to let heroes of different mechanical power levels (which collections are ultimately the only measure of) play together. Which is a nice touch for getting new people in without feeling behind the curve, but it doesn’t address the question of what you do with collections beyond whatever arbitrary cap the scenarios (or GM) regularly allow. And realistically, how often will players who’ve earned 10, 12, 20+ collections be willing to have their capabilities shackled like that before they decide to quit?
It’s the equivalent to telling a D&D player their tenth-level character they’ve spent years playing is going to have to operate at level three because that’s what tonight’s adventure is written for. You can get away with that now and then, maybe, and it’s easier in supers games with minimal mortality risk and the ability to explain it away as a flashback, but people will balk sooner or later.
Ah well, I won’t derail the thread for what could be a long discussion. There’s other forums for that.
Actually, I agree with your point. I can’t be positive owing to how little I follow the Big Two these days, but I think you’re right about there being very few villains being created post-2000 with “organization” supranyms - at least compared to before then. Maybe the 90s just used up all the ones that were left? They’ve even taken Union, who probably doesn’t have a nemesis named Pinkerton bought really ought to.
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I’m actually going to touch on this for a moment, because I think it underlines some of the problems you’ve been having.
D&D 5th Edition suggests that players get one level a session for the first two sessions, then one level every 2-3 sessions for the rest of the campaign. Effectively, one collection in SCRPG is the equivalent of about 2.5 levels, with the potential starter collection being the equivalent of starting at Level 3.
Under that metric, a player with 12 collections under their belt isn’t playing a tenth-level character, they’re playing a character who’s Level 25. A character with 20 collections is a Level 50 character.
D&D 5th Edition cannot survive a Level 50 character.
Most modern games just do not have the advancement structure that would necessitate or allow for games that run weekly for a year. I honestly can’t think of a game released in the last ten years in which playing the same character for 100 sessions would be possible without either stopping or restarting progress, or dramatically revising how antagonists work.
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