You’re missing a green psychic ability again.
Every time!
I will fix that shortly.
The pie is an interesting touch, especially with an ability named Pratfall. You know someone’s face-planting in that thing. Must be fresh out of the oven too, Max die damage and all. Or maybe they’re just allergic. 
In montage scenes he’s just that background figure the readers doesn’t notice until someone points him out.
One of my groups has a shapeshifter hero who spends part of most fights disguised as a innocent victim via Overcome, quietly evacuating all the real civilians via teleportation.
1 Like
what a cool idea 
1 Like
The Randomizers:
Background 7, 1, 8 [Options: Blank Slate, Law Enforcement, Struggling, Tragic, Retired]
Power Source 5, 2, 6 [Options: Training, Mystical, Nature, Relic, Powered Suit, Supernatural]
Archetype 5, 8, 2 [Options: Shadow, Blaster, Armored, Flyer, Robot/Cyborg, Transporter]
Personality 10, 3, 2 [Options: Natural Leader, Impulsive, Sarcastic, Alluring, Nurturing, Analytical]
Reverie
Real Name: Charlotte Williams, First Appearance: Liberty’s Dream #1, June 1963
Background: Law Enforcement, Power Source: Supernatural, Archetype: Transporter
Personality: Natural Leader, Principles: Reckoning, Whispers
Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: H [Green I-J, Yellow L-M, Red N-O]
Qualities: Investigation d10, Acrobatics d10, Insight d10, Fitness d6, Otherworldly Lore d6, Sworn Protector d8
Powers: Illusion d10, Deduction d10, Teleportation d10, Radiant d8, Vitality d6
Green Abilities:
- Portal Drop [A]: Attack using Teleportation. Either Hinder your target with your Min die or move them elsewhere in the scene.
- Shimmering Veil [A]: Attack using Illusions. Defend against all Attacks against you using your Min die until your next turn.
- Principle of the Reckoning [A]: Overcome when you are repaying a favour or avenging a slight and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Whispers [A]: Overcome against a challenge that involves information that you have no real way of knowing and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- Sow Chaos [A]: Attack multiple targets using Illusion. Use your Min die against each.
- Wrapped In A Dream [A]: Boost or Hinder using Illusions, and apply that mod to multiple close targets.
- The Underhill [R]: When a nearby ally would take damage, Defend that ally by rolling your single status die, and move them elsewhere in the same scene.
Red Abilities
- Shadows Strike [A]: Hinder using Illusions. Use your Max+Mid dice. If you roll doubles, also Attack the target using your Mid+Min dice and take damage equal to you Min die.
- Prepared for Anything [A]: Boost using Deduction and use your Max die. Defend against all Attacks against you using your Mid die until your next turn. Note your Min die result: as a Reaction, until your next turn, you may Hinder an attacker using that result.
Out
- Boost an ally by rolling your single Investigation die.
By 1963, the civil rights movement was in full swing in the United States. Venture Comics had staked out their position on the matter with Covert Tactics, an integrated military-affiliated team with a Black leader (and which was thus not sold in much of the American south), but with new titles opening up, the editors agreed to take a stronger stance.
Charlotte Williams was a Ferrisville defense attorney who became involved in a case in which her defendant, an older man and pillar of the community, was accused of what seemed to be an open-shut robbery case. Finding inconsistencies, she investigated further, and was swept into a realm of magic, discovering that the crime had been committed by Unseelie fae aiming to ruin her client as a prank; when she fought back, another faerie (Robin Goodfellow) came to her aid, promising her access to fae magic so long as she swore an oath to protect the innocent and vulnerable. Charlotte swore it without hesitation, and challenged the dark fae for her client’s safety. When she won, the evidence indicting him vanished, and he was set free - but Charlotte learned that powerful people were swearing fae oaths for their own ends. She began working to undermine the dark fae, protect the people of her community, and fight for justice and equality as the superhero Reverie. Robin Goodfellow, through the power of her oath, continued to talk with her, giving her advice and knowledge and only occasionally tricking her as a joke.
When Reverie was first introduced, she sparked a fierce fight between the Code’s censors; many of her foes were white men using fae pacts to empower themselves at the expense of poor communities, and the censors were suspicious that this was violating their standards. The editors of Venture Comics, still smarting over the Irogane situation, argued strenuously that the people Reverie was taking down were neither law enforcement nor government, and because they were being defeated summarily they were not benefiting from their power. They challenged the censors to say outright that Reverie was being challenged because she was a black woman fighting segregationists, and narrowly won.
Liberty’s Dream was not one of Venture Comics’ top sellers. Like Covert Tactics, many stores in the South refused to carry it outright, and many others claimed there was ‘no market’ for it. But it maintained a steady readership, and brought early Black writers to Venture Comics.
Behind the Scenes
So, one rough fact I learned while writing this is that the first full-time Black comic writer at either Marvel or DC was not hired until 1979 and did not become a full-time writer until the mid-80s. I had expected that Black writers would pre-date Black characters, but apparently not. Well, this is an alternate history and thanks to Sentinel Comics we already know that Reverie isn’t the first Black superhero in the meta-setting (that honor goes to Black Fist, over ten years earlier) so we can have these writers start appearing 10-15 years earlier too.
I finally get a Supernatural character and a Transporter at the same time. Reverie is tying us back into Celtic myth, although hers is less well-defined and more Shakespearean, and I expect that she’ll end up loosely connected to Skybreaker and possibly the Fomori as we enter the Bronze Age. For now, she’s a mixture between Daredevil and John Constantine, using legal skills and dangerous pacts to protect the innocent.
I’ve also given Reverie a unique Principle, as follows:
Principle of Reckoning
During Roleplaying: You believe that both good deeds and bad should be repaid in kind. You can always remember what you are owed.
Minor Twist: What slight do you need to account for?
Major Twist: What favour has just come due?
Principle of Reckoning [A]: Overcome when you are repaying a favour or avenging a slight and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Identity is a tricky category to write Principles for, but I think this falls into behaviour and treating people rather than ideals and goals. Hard to say, really.
3 Likes
Solid character concept, and I would absolutely have read that book as a kid if it existed IRL. Then again, I read essentially everything published with a female lead up into the 80s, something I never really noticed until a decade ago. Just always assumed there were more out there that kid me hadn’t seen or liked, which wasn’t actually the case.
If it helps any, you might want to read Invisible Men for a history of Golden Age Black comic creators who’ve been largely ignored by most of the industry. Many of them were both artist and writer for their works, and they vastly predate anything the Big Two did to diversify their staffs. There were even early attempts to form a Black-owned publishing house aimed at Black audiences, although they were stymied almost immediately by racism. There’s a decent review/synopsis here and the book should be available through the US inter-library loan system even if your local branches don’t have it. Well worth a look, even if just makes DC and Marvel look even worse by comparison.
Or “What favor do you need to repay?” if both good deeds and bad need to be repaid in kind.
I’m pretty much convinced the categories for Principles only exist to (somewhat arbitrarily) divide them up into digestible chunks rather than confronting players with a single giant list to choose from. One of the things I’m most likely to okay as a GM is a player request to take a Principle that’s technically an illegal choice for them but fits their concept.
1 Like
I can also see the choices that Sentinel Comics made in response to Venture Comics. Sentinel took longer to introduce The Fey Court and they are less Shakespearian dark whimsy but darkly capricious and closer classical Celtic mythology.
I can see the intercompany crossover between Wonder and Scholar being a classic for decades.
I can also see modern, gritty, but not grim dark comics, where Ignition figures out Fissions secret ID and is still looking to make out with him even with the complexities of working at cross purposes. I collected the Ryan Choi Atom run and his thing with Giganta.
2 Likes
That was good stuff. My favorite Atom stories outside of Sword of the Atom (because Gil Kane doing Ray as a Burroughs hero is pretty much my idea of perfection). Plus Cheatin’ Jean established her as awful long before she murdered Sue Dibny.
2 Likes
I like some of the comics where Ray gets attacked and pulls a sword out of his belt. Surprise I have another skill set I don’t talk about often.
2 Likes
Ooh, that sounds awesome, and I am absolutely going to pick it up (although, being Canadian, we don’t have a great inter-library loan system. But I bet I can find it.)
The Randomizers:
Background 1, 8, 5 [Options: Blank Slate, Academic, Upper Class, Struggling, Tragic, Medical]
Power Source 7, 4, 3 [Options: Genetic, Experimentation, Relic, Tech Upgrades, Supernatural]
Archetype 5, 7, 1 [Options: Speedster, Blaster, Close Quarters, Armored, Flyer, Psychic]
Personality 1, 6, 6 [Options: Lone Wolf, Distant, Stalwart, Nuruturing, Cheerful]
Nucleon
Real Name: Faith Evans, First Appearance: (As Faith Evans) Reactors #12, November 1962. (As Nucleon) Reactors #42, July 1965.
Background: Academic, Power Source: Experimentation, Archetype: Psychic
Personality: Lone Wolf, Principles: Lab, Cosmic
Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 30 [Green I-J, Yellow L-M, Red N-O]
Qualities: Science d12, Otherworldly Mythos d8, Self-Discipline d8, Professor d8
Powers: Cosmic d10, Postcognition d8, Telepathy d8, Lightning Calculator d6, Intangibility d6
Green Abilities:
- Cosmic Unity [A]: Boost using Telepathy. Apply that bonus to all hero Attack and Overcome actions until the start of your next turn.
- Universal Knowledge [R]: After rolling during your turn, you may take 1 irreducible damage to reroll your entire dice pool.
- Cosmic Fusion (I): When you are Boosted, increase that bonus by +1. Then, if that bonus is +5 or higher, take damage equal to the bonus and remove it.
- Principle of the Lab [A]: Overcome while in a familiar workspace or when you have ample research time. Use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Cosmic Forces [A]: Overcome a challenge involving cosmic energies and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- Postcognitive Understanding [R]: After an enemy rolls dice to take an action for their turn but before using the result, Hinder that enemy’s roll using your single Postcognition die.
- Telepathic Dissonance [A]: Attack using Telepathy and use your Max die. Hinder the target with a persistent and exclusive penalty using your Min die.
- Power Overwhelming [A]: Boost yourself using Cosmic. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
- Pass Through [A]: Attack a minion using Intangibility. The result of the minion’s save Attacks another target of your choice.
Red Abilities
- Cosmic Strike [A]: Attack using Cosmic. Use your Max+Mid dice.
- Exploit Vulnerability [A]: Remove a bonus on a target. Hinder that target using Science. Use your Max die, and that penalty is persistent and exclusive.
Out
- Boost an ally by rolling your single Science die.
By the end of 1964, it was becoming obvious that while Into the Green, Liberty’s Dream, and Wondrous Adventures were all doing well as monthly titles, The Reactors was struggling. Readers felt that the adventures facing the duo were too similar, and while they’d been willing to check it out every other month, as a monthly title sales were dropping slowly but steadily. Rather than cancelling the comic and replacing it with something new, the editors decided to try and shake things up by adding a third hero to the team. The result was Nucleon.
Faith Evans was a researcher obsessed with cosmic forces and the paranatural, and who had made a few appearances in The Reactors as a minor civilian antagonist trying to prove the existence of an underground spaceship in Santa Juanita. Early in 1965, she returned a third time, witnessing the Reactors and Doctor Cosmos stopping an alien invasion, and she secretly recovered a piece of cosmic debris from their wreckage of their fight.
In Reactors #42, using the cosmic fragment and the information that she had gathered, Faith attempted to reproduce the conditions that had created Doctor Cosmos, and in the process tore a hole in the fabric of reality and began to unspool from existence. The Reactors responded, barely managing to save the day, and Faith exerted all of her power to help them, and to make up for the damage she had caused; all three nearly died, but the rift was ultimately sealed. In the aftermath, she discovered that while she hadn’t developed the same powers as Doctor Cosmos, she had accidentally retained a connection to the universe that she couldn’t fully control, her mind and body occasionally lost in contemplation. Joining the Reactors as Nucleon, she pledged to help protect the ship that she had intended to reveal, and to keep anyone else from making her mistake.
As a member of the team, Nucleon was brusque and aloof, certain that she knew more than her teammates even as she struggled to remember that her hubris had nearly killed all three of them. Her scientific genius, coupled with Wavelength’s historical brilliance and Fission’s easygoing nature, allowed the Reactors to begin to study their ship in more depth, learning about its nature and the forces that it seemed to be keeping in check. The new Reactors had more soap opera between team members, and more exploration of other realms using the power of their ship, which served to keep the title afloat for a few more years.
Behind the Scenes
I was aiming for someone who would balance Fission and Wavelength by providing Hinders and group effects, and I think it was moderately successful. Nucleon isn’t particularly effective in Green, but can take strong basic actions or support; in Yellow, she forgets that she’s supposed to be a team player and starts getting in the bad guys’ faces instead, powering herself up and messing with enemies directly.
3 Likes
Misnaming error, for your eventual editing pass.
1 Like
I need to get better at doing those editing passes earlier!
The Randomizers:
Background 8, 8, 10 [Options: Struggling, Unremarkable, Created, Exile]
Power Source 2, 3, 2 [Options: Training, Genetic, Experimentation, Mystical, Artificial Being]
Archetype 1, 5, 5 [Options: Speedster, Blaster, Close Quarters, Robot/Cyborg, Wild Card]
Personality 9, 3, 7 [Options: Impulsive, Stalwart, Inquisitive, Alluring, Nurturing, Cheerful]
Flatfoot
Real Name: James Lawson, First Appearance: Flatfoot Adventures #300, July 1968
Background: Created, Power Source: Artificial Being, Archetype: Robot/Cyborg
Personality: Cheerful, Principles: Justice, Strength
Status Dice: Green d10, Yellow d8, Red d8. Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Close Combat d12, Investigation d8, Criminal Underworld Knowledge d8, Alertness d6, Undercover Robot d8
Powers: Strength d10, Gadgets d10, Electricity d10, Lightning Calculator d8, Presence d6
Green Abilities:
- Calculate Outcomes [A]: Boost yourself using Lightning Calculator. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
- Metal Frame (I): Reduce the amount of physical damage taken by 1 while you are in the Green zone, 2 while in the Yellow zone, and 3 while in the Red zone.
- Precise Action (I): Whenever you roll a 1 on one or more dice, you may reroll those dice. You must accept the result of the reroll.
- Principle of Justice [A]: Overcome to stop an act of injustice in progress and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Strength [A]: Overcome using brute force and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- The Long Arm Of The Law [A]: Attack using Strength with a bonus equal to the number of bonuses you currently have.
- One-Robot Army [A]: Attack using Strength against multiple targets, using your Min die against each.
- Charge Up (I): When you would take damage from electricity, you may Recover that amount of Health instead.
Red Abilities
- Unstable Core [A]: Attack up to three targets, one of which must be you, using Electricity. Assign your Min, Mid, and Max dice as you choose among those targets.
- The State of Progress [A]: Overcome using Strength in a situation that requires you to be more than humanly capable. Use your Max+Min dice. Boost all nearby allies with your Mid die.
Out
- Boost an ally by rolling your single Gadgets die.
The exact end of the Silver Age is a matter of some debate among comics historians, but the beginning of the shift for Venture Comics is generally agreed to have taken place over the years of 1968 to 1970, and to have focused on three key moments that predicted the age to come. The first of these three occurred in May and June of 1968, with the Death of Flatfoot two-parter!
Throughout 1968, writers had begun introducing moments in which Flatfoot’s vacuum tubes and pistons failed at unexpected moments. With the scientist who had created him long dead, the robot officer’s many repairs were threatening to give out, and Flatfoot’s villains noticed his weakness and began to take advantage. Finally, in a grand confrontation with Steeldriver in Flatfoot #299, the unthinkable happened. Flatfoot’s servos collapsed in the middle of the fight, allowing Steeldriver to smash through Flatfoot’s chest, seemingly destroying the robot.
Flatfoot #300 was billed as “The Death of Flatfoot”, with the company claiming that while “something” was in the future, this was the final issue of Flatfoot Adventures. The first half of the issue seemed to support this, featuring various heroes mourning the fallen robot, and pledging to carry on in his stead. Madame Liberty and Covert Tactics tracked down Steeldriver and reclaimed his stolen goods, and the city of Ferrisville held a public funeral for their fallen hero.
And then, of course, he came back.
Flatfoot’s human friends had been working tirelessly on the robot’s chassis, begging and borrowing parts from his fellow heroes, drawing on insights from Neutrino, Big Brain, and Nucleon, and doing everything in their power to repair and upgrade him. At the end of the issue, they were successful - the combination of his original chassis and the upgrades from his allies brought Flatfoot back to life, more human-looking than ever, armed with an upgraded electro-positronic core and the latest in artificial circuitry.
The new Flatfoot decided that he would work undercover. The limelight had served him well, but it had also left him vulnerable. Now, as James Lawson, he enrolled in the police force of Ferrisville undercover, fighting crime at night as the mysterious new Flatfoot, a hero that most believed to be someone taking up the former robot’s legacy in the newly-launched pages of The Fearless Flatfoot.
Behind the Scenes
I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a reboot for either Flatfoot or Madame Liberty in the Silver Age, but right at the end we hit one that was a little too on the nose to do otherwise. Electric Flatfoot is a little bit reminiscent of the “lightning Superman” arc, but he’s coming out of the gate more focused, more secretive, and less inspirational.
Robot/Cyborg is actually a poor match for Artificial Being, relying on other heroes to give you the Boosts that your neatest abilities make use of. But I can live with that, this is a Flatfoot who relies a bit more on his friends to get things done.
3 Likes
Even without random super-geniuses and alien tech the real world had largely completed the switchover from vacuum tubes to transistors by the early 1960s. If Flatfoot was still running on them in '68 he was definitely in need of a refit no matter how his servos were doing. The advantages of solid-state electronics are huge, which is why vacuum tubes are used mostly in fairly specific roles these days. Microwave oven magnetrons for ex, and a bunch of radio, radar and medical applications, particle accelerators, fusion research - and the music and film industry , where the tubes produce a “warmer” audio tone that many artists/SFX guys prefer.
1 Like
Oh yeah, definitely. I believe the timeline worked something like this: in the 40s and early 50s, Flatfoot talks a lot about his vaccuum tubes and their amazing power. In the mid-50s and early 60s, the comics almost never talk about his vital components at all (and when they do it’s probably often contradictory), and then as the character is getting on and editorial wants a reboot, a cunning writer decides to thematically connect the fact that Flatfoot is getting a bit old with the fact that his parts are now deeply outdated.
2 Likes
I love the story of his death and return. What an iconic character!
2 Likes
Good opportunity to boast about all the things Flatfoot can do with his new transistors. I mean, it worked for Marvel with early Iron Man stories. Pretty much could do anything with transistors for a few years there, kind of like Superman’s “X-Ray” vision did anything the plot required.
“It wasn’t a wizard, it was transistors!”
3 Likes
The Randomizers:
Background 4, 3, 8 [Options: Performer, Military, Law Enforcement, Struggling, Dynasty, Adventurer]
Power Source 6, 2, 5 [Options: Training, Mystical, Nature, Relic, Powered Suit, Supernatural]
Archetype 10, 8, 4 [Options: Marksman, Flyer, Robot/Cyborg, Sorcerer, Minion-Maker, Reality Shaper]
Personality 7, 8, 8 [Options: Stalwart, Fast-Talking, Jovial, Cheerful, Apathetic]
Veilwalker
Real Name: Karita Denton, First Appearance: Dark Rivers #1, 1969
Background: Performer, Power Source: Supernatural, Archetype: Reality Shaper
Personality: Fast-Talker, Principles: Family, Mastery
Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 28 [Green 28-22, Yellow 21-11, Red 10-1]
Qualities: Finesse d10, Magical Lore d10, Banter d8, Alertness d6, Comanche Magician d8
Powers: Awareness d10, Necromancy d10, Shapeshifting d10, Transmutation d10, Postcognition d6
Green Abilities:
- Now You See Me [A]: Hinder using Necromancy. That penalty is persistent and exclusive.
- Now You Don’t [A]: Attack using Transmutation. You may move the target of that Attack anywhere else nearby. If the target goes next, you decide who takes the next turn after that.
- Principle of Family [A]: Overcome in a situation where you have been given advice from a family member and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Mastery [A]: Overcome in a situation that uses your powers in a new way and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- Alter Self [A]: Boost yourself using Shapeshifting. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
- Part the Veil [A]: Boost or Hinder using Awareness, and apply that mod to multiple close targets.
- Rewind Time [R]: One nearby ally may reroll their dice pool. You lose Health equal to the Min die of the new roll.
Red Abilities
- Summon the Dead [A]: Use Necromancy to create a number of d6 minions equal to your Mid die. Choose the one same basic action that they each perform. They all act at the start of your turn.
- Out of Phase [R]: When you are Attacked and dealt damage, you may ignore that damage completely. If you do, treat the value of the damage as a Hinder action against you instead.
- Rewrite Reality (I): At the start of your turn, change any penalty into a bonus.
Out
- Hinder a minion or lieutenant by rolling your single Magical Lore die, and increase that penalty by -1.
The last hero introduced in the Silver Age of Venture Comics was also a sign of the beginning of its transition into the Bronze Age. With several titles being shuffled around in the aftermath of Dimensional Devastation, the editors of Venture Comics hit on a concept that they felt was a sure hit. Instead of debuting their newest hero in the pages of Venture into the Unknown, they launched her directly in her own title, Dark Rivers, at the start of 1969.
Karita’s father was a young Comanche code talker in World War II, and she grew up on stories of his adventures. Flamboyant and cheerful, the teen worked part-time as an assistant to the buffoonish and overbearing Mercator The Magnificent, a moderately successful stage magician. She was a quick learner, picking up many of his tricks - while he was a jerk, Mercator was also dedicated to teaching her properly.
Then one day, while practising her tricks, Karita accidentally completed a mystical ritual - the props that Mercator had gathered for his latest set had, entirely unbeknownst to him, contained actual magical objects that were still charged. Falling into a spiritual world, Karita was forced to test her wits against various mystical forces, using her stage tricks and quick thinking to outwit them and save herself. When she returned to Earth, she was startled to realize that the various spirits she had bested had given her parts of their own powers as a reward, and became determined to treat them with respect.
Taking on the mantle of the Veilwalker, Karita found that the mystical world was in disarray, its protectors apparently long vanished, and began to work to protect the worlds of the living and the dead, safeguarding them from other dark wizards and spirits while keeping her secret role as Mercator’s assistant. Veilwalker’s stories also asked - why was the mystical world in disarray? Why were its champions, aside from Wonderer, all extremely recent arrivals on the superheroic scene? This question would not be answered in the Silver Age, but it hung over Veilwalker’s early stories…
Behind the Scenes
We almost got out of the Silver Age without a magician, and we could not have that. We also almost got out of the Silver Age without a key teen hero, so I went two for two.
I almost chose Training to create a stage magician who just pretended to have magic, but i have a fondness for situations in which someone was an actual stage magician, and this back-doored them into getting real magic. Veilwalker gets to do this; she’s been raised to respect the supernatural, and then discovers that she can control it. She’s not too beefy, but that’s fine because if she gets into Red she is going to start solving problems with horrific speed, able to soak hits, turn the penalties into bonuses, and then summon hordes of the dead to harry her foes.
Interestingly, the Comics Code forbids the walking dead, vampires, ghouls, and werewolves, but not ghosts (as long as they aren’t portrayed luridly.) So Veilwalker is okay to summon ghosts as long as they’re not drawn as being particularly creepy. She doesn’t literally raise the dead, and I suspect some early stories make it clear that most people don’t become ghosts and she can’t actually bring anyone who isn’t already a ghost back from the afterlife, for Comics Code reasons as well as simple narrative ones.
3 Likes
Randomizers:
Approach: 3, 2, 1 [Options: Relentless, Skilled, Prideful, Underpowered, Bully*]*
Archetype: 1, 2, 1 [Options: Predator, Inventor, Bruiser, Domain*]*
Upgrade: 9, 12, 3 [Options: Group Fighter, Defense Shield, Brainwashing Zone*]*
Mastery: 5, 7, 2 [Options: Behind the Curtain, Mad Science, Mysticism*]*
The Retriever
Real Name: , First Appearance: (Second Form) Flatfoot Adventures #226, May 1962
Approach: Relentless, Archetype: Predator
Upgrade: Defense Shield, Mastery: Mad Science
Status Dice: 0-1 Engaged Opponents d10, 2-3 Engaged Opponents d8, 4+ engaged opponents d6. Health: 35+5H
Qualities: Close Combat d10, Technology d8, Investigation d6, Rubber Body d8
Powers: Elasticity d10, Inventions d8, Awareness d6
Abilities:
- Surveillance Systems [A]: Boost yourself using Inventions. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Defend using your Mid die against all Attacks until the start of your next turn.
- Capture Cords [A]: Attack and Hinder using Close Combat. If the target has: a d6 or less status die, use your Max+Min dice; a d8 status die, use your Max die; larger than a d8, use your Mid die.
- Constrict [A]: Attack using Technology. Use your Max die. If the target does not Attack you on their next turn, Hinder them using your Mid die.
- Rubber and Glue [R]: When Attacked, roll your single status die. Hinder the Attack using that result, and deal damage to the attacker equal to that penalty.
- (U) Defense Shield (I): You cannot be damaged by anyone except yourself until the defense 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 Elasticity die.
- (U) Reestablish Shield [A]: Overcome using Inventions. 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 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:
- A challenge related to a captive person or unstable device already in the Retriever’s grasp
- An unpredictable environment created by the Retriever to cover its tracks
- A group of lieutenants or minions acting as support to draw away heroes.
In 1962, the classic Flatfoot villain the Retriever received a design upgrade, inspired by the spacesuits first unveiled the year before. Along with this upgrade, the Silver Age saw a slight shift in the Retriever’s operations. Where before, each Retriever story opened with the robot having been found or activated by a new villain, in the start of the story the robot simply lumbered up to Steeldriver, and with its new voicebox demanded a task. Never one to look a gift robot in the mouth, Steeldriver immediately sent the Retriever and a crew of Company Men to assault Ferris Chemicals, a plant which had once belonged to his father. Once again, Flatfoot intervened and saved the neighbourhood from a potential chemical explosion, but the Retriever was able to escape with a selection of chemicals which Steeldriver then used in his newest plot in the next issue.
This would prove to be the Retriever’s new modus operandi for the next several years. No longer a mere machine, the constant conflicting upgrades from dozens of villains had left it with a desire to serve and the ability to upgrade and maintain its own parts. The capturing robot was stealthier, now, prone to ambushes rather than fighting off groups while grabbing its prey. It continued to lack goals of its own beyond “find someone who wants a thing, get the thing, find someone else”, and it moved on regardless of whether its mission succeeded or failed. It proved a dangerous threat primarily to Flatfoot, but also appearing in issues of Covert Tactics and The Reactors as it worked for other super-science villains, somehow finding ways to travel around the world.
Behind the Scenes
Spoiler:
I had a Silver Age Retriever model, so I knew this was going to happen; I was just waiting for the right combination of effects. This set gave me the Approach, Archetype, and Upgrade that I wanted and then absolutely threw me with three very odd Masteries - and so the idea of the Retriever being able to mad science itself was born! This robot is still not an Omnitron or an Ultron, but it’s probably not a great sign that it’s messing with its own parts.
3 Likes
Be interesting to see it occasionally pick on a new “employer” who’s not a supervillain. Having it march up to some innocent civilian and ask them what they want has some potential for stories where the heroes have to stop it from fulfilling the order of (say) some kid who wanted an ice cream cone (Retriever lugging around a whole ice cream truck with the music still playing) or an unhappy wife who told it she wants her absconding husband back (“I AM LOOKING FOR SAMUEL CONNOR”). Or maybe you do something poignant like a widow who just wants her husband back, although the rubbery lunkhead might just dig up his coffin.
It might even approach a hero, mightn’t it? Especially a shady-seeming vigilante/antihero type. What could possibly go wrong with asking Retriever to bring you that villain you’ve been having trouble tracking down?
1 Like
Okay, that one is definitely canon. I love the other ideas; the widow might need to wait for the Bronze Age, so we’ll see where the Retriever develops, but there’s a strong throughline of “hero makes impulsive mistake, has to fix it” in the Silver Age (or, for that matter, for a non-powered member of the hero’s social circle to try to use the Retriever.)
I am now imagining a story in which Ignition demands that the Retriever grab Fission for her, and it goes and gets Trevor Finn because it’s a big perfect robot that easily sees through secret identities, but she still doesn’t figure out what’s up and instead pretends to be Indira to help Trevor ‘escape from Ignition’ and at the end of the issue neither of them are aware of the other one somehow.
3 Likes