Ape-Man #3

“The Ape-Man’s Secret!”

by Scott Casper, thanks to Lieber and Kirby for Tales to Astonish #37

Poe Park, South Bronx
November 3, 1962

Polka music wafted from the gazebo in the park. The children dancing were warm, but for everyone else it was chilly and they needed their sweaters or jackets.

Detective Martin Webster was not there for the music (he did not care for polka) and he did not have a child at the free concert (though he and his wife had tried to have one); Martin Webster was there to talk to Jacob Stern. Stern, a Jewish man of about 30 years of age, had been standing a short distance away from the festivities, smoking a cigarette, which had made it easy to approach him. Martin had in fact already identified himself and started asking some casual questions, to put Stern at ease.

“No, I don’t have any kids,” Jacob said. “But that girl over there? She’s my niece.”

“Ever take her to see the apes at the zoo, Mr. Stern?”

Jacob gave Martin a quizzical look. “What’s this about, officer?”

“Ape sightings, Mr. Stern. Four reports of them on my desk back at the office. You know what I don’t have on my desk? Any reports of apes going missing from the zoo.”

“There’s a good explanation for that.”

“Which is?”

“None of our apes have gone missing. It was just Halloween, you know. Maybe someone had rented an ape costume and was trying it out.”

“I see. An ape costume. Yes, that could explain it. Do you think that’s the explanation for the Ape-Man?  A man in a costume?”  

Jacob shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

Martin seemed to mull that over a bit, then changed direction. “On the first, you saw the costumed vigilante people were calling the Bronze Defender, yes?  The one who had publicly proclaimed he was going to clean the protection rackets out of the Bronx last month. You called in to the police, in fact, from the zoo, when the Bronze Defender appeared there.”

“Yeah, that was me. So…?”

“So witnesses say an ape appeared out of nowhere and attacked this Bronze Defender. Then the ape ran off and, when people came to help him, they found incriminating photographs next to him that linked the Bronze Defender to the very protection racket this man had been claiming he was fighting. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?”

“I guess I do. You’re wondering where the photos came from? I would guess that the Bronze Defender was carrying them himself, and when the man in the ape costume attacked him, they just…fell out.”

“No, that’s not where I was going with that, Mr. Stern. What I wanted to ask was…you called the police before the attack. Before anyone suspected the Bronze Defender of anything. So, why did you call?”

Jacob just stared at him for about 30 seconds. Then he responded indignantly, “Officer, I have never approved of these so-called superheroes and their vigilantism!”

Bronx Zoo
Meanwhile

Back at the zoo, in Dr. Raymond Carter’s office, Bernie Spengler hung up the phone. “That was Jacob,” Bernie said. “That Detective Webster followed him and questioned him, like we hoped. That should give you plenty of time to finally give me some straight answers.”

“I guess you deserve it,” Raymond said. He collapsed into his chair, in total surrender. “What do you want to know first?”

“Are you, are you serious? Who is the Ape-Man?  One of the apes, or–”

“It’s me.  It’s me!” Raymond said, rolling his head from side to side as if it pained him to say it. “When that burglar broke in here months ago, the only way I could stop him was to try our experiment on myself — imprint Johnson’s gorilla characteristics onto myself, so I could scare or fight the burglar off.”

“Raymond…” Bernie said, pacing around the desk and behind Raymond’s chair. “This seemed like a good idea to you at the time?”

“Yes — I don’t know. It all seemed to happen so fast.” Raymond leaned forward, pushed the glasses up on his forehead, and covered his eyes with his hands.

“But then you did it again?”

Raymond sat up straight again, having composed himself. “You were there that day. Those goons from H.E….”

“Yes. Heterodyne Electronic, the big conglomerate.” Bernie came around the side of the desk, leaned forward, and planted his knuckles on the desk. “Did they know about the Ape-Man?”

“Not yet, but they’d known about my research. B.R.A.D.–”

“Their Biological Research Advanced Division?”

“No, that branch was shut down and restructured into Biology & Radiology Augmentation Development. My research was right up their alley, but they were making no headway on their own so they wanted mine. When I wouldn’t sell it to them, they sent some men in to just take it.”

“So you turned into Ape-Man again to stop them.”

“I never planned to become Ape-Man again!” Raymond looked up into Bernie’s eyes, frustration etched in his face. “But…I had used the machine on Johnson again, this time without activating the imprinting matrix, so that information would be saved for future study. In fact, I was reviewing some readouts in the lab that day when they snuck in and overpowered me. I was strapped to the receiving table. They thought the ray could hurt me and threatened to use it on me if I didn’t cooperate. I let them, so it would turn me into Ape-Man again, so I could stop them.”

Bernie stood up and stepped back. “But you’ve become Ape-Man again since then.”

“It’s true…when someone left that sign in the zoo demanding that Ape-Man meet him, it turned out to be a hired gun calling himself W.”

“What does that stand for?”

“Oh…I don’t know,” Raymond said with a shrug. “Probably just his middle initial.  Anyway, I don’t have proof, but I believe H.E. hired him to get me.”

“And this last time, when you caught the Bronze Defender — was he working for H.E. too?”

“Oh, no. He was just a criminal.  I did find I could reactivate the matrix with saved data, transforming me back into Ape-Man, without putting Johnson at further risk. And I’ve…been, well, using it to try to make life better around here ever since, whenever Ape-Man could do it better than I could.  Now…do you think I’m crazy?”

Bernie seemed to pause and think about that for a moment. “No. I’ve never thought you were crazy. When you told me we could harness the strength of a gorilla in a human body, I didn’t tell you you were crazy. I think you’re a good man, and I’m behind you in this.  I’ll keep your secret.”

They both paused, perhaps thinking about the same thing. Finally, Raymond asked the question. “Jacob doesn’t know everything yet. Do you think he’ll still help me?”

“Yes. Maybe….Probably.”

But will Jacob? Find out in upcoming issues of Ape-Man!

Ape-Man #2

“Ape-Man, I know your secret! Meet me at the Wallace Ave. Warehouse tonight! –W.” was all the sign read.  Why did it strike such fear in the heart of Ape-Man? Find out in —

“The Challenge of W!”

by Scott Casper, thanks to Lieber and Kirby for Tales to Astonish #36

Mattie was a small female gibbon, an “escapee” from the Bronx Zoo’s collection, as the other apes were. Mattie chattered a little, then sped to the wall, leapt up, and found the bars on the warehouse windows more than adequate for scaling up the side of the building. In moments, Mattie was inside; tense minutes after that, Mattie was hanging off the door handle of the back door as it swung open.

“Nice work, Mattie!” Ape-Man said. “Mattie, you stay here. Faben, you’re with me!” he said to the chimpanzee with him. He had some more instructions for Faben which he gave the excited chimp before heading inside.

Ape-Man could not even see the third floor windows when he entered; there was a partial roof over him and partition walls blocking his view of the whole floor of the warehouse. The partition walls extended out from the side walls to support columns that rose through the second floor. It was a little scary how good a burglar Mattie was, having found her way down here so fast.  

Ape-Man moved cautiously into the dark interior of the warehouse. He had expected to find more cover, but the warehouse was disturbingly free of good hiding places, like stacks of boxes and crates. Multiple staircases ascended to the partial second floor of the place and, as Ape-Man moved into the middle of the warehouse, he could finally see all the way up to the roof.

A button was pushed somewhere up above him and the lights began to flicker on all over the warehouse. Looking up, Ape-Man spotted a figure who had been standing quietly on a catwalk connecting sections of the second floor positioned almost directly above him. The figure was a thin, slight man dressed like a cowboy, complete with ten-gallon hat and twin pistols holstered at his waist. The figure was casually posed, leaning on the rail of the catwalk, but had an old-fashioned Winchester bolt-action rifle cradled in his arms that lent him menace.

“Well, slap my knee and caaaalll me crazy!” the cowboy shouted excitedly. “If that don’t beat all, my trap’s done caught me an ape with some curious fashion sense! Now, the big money question is, is you a talkin’ ape, or am I just wastin’ my time not pullin’ this trigger…” the cowboy said, still sounding comical, but drawing the rifle up to his shoulder and pointing it right at Ape-Man with frightening speed.

Ape-Man raised his hands and spoke in a deep, growly, but still human-like voice. “You must be ‘W’.  You can’t be surprised, if you know my secret…” Ape-Man said.

“W” laughed. The rifle jiggled a little, but was still aimed at Ape-Man. “For a talkin’ ape, you’ll be feelin’ mighty stoopid’ in a minute. ‘Cuz I never knew any secrets. I jus’ make up thangs’ when I need to get wut’ I want.”

“And what is that, Mr…?”

“Just call me W — most people do,” W said. “Mostly I aim ta’ get paid for shootin’ ya, but first…I’m wondering if there’s anything to be gained from keepin’ ya’ alive a little longer. Like that thingee you’re wearin’ on your noggin. Does that have somethin’ to do with you bein’ able to talk? Cuz that might be worth somethin’ to me…like shootin’ you so you’ll die quick instead a’ slow…”

“Wait, let me take this off…” Ape-Man said, reaching up for his headset. Instead of taking it off, though, he carefully increased the volume on his mic and shouted “Faben, now!”

The chimpanzee had found the circuit breaker box near the rear of the building, as per his instructions, and on command threw the biggest switch in the box. The warehouse was immediately plunged into darkness.

W, instead of shooting right away, fumbled for the control box for the lights he had meticulously strung out to the catwalk on an extension cord and wrapped around the railing. He pressed the button a few times, but could not get the lights to come back on.  Frustrated, he growled. “My Pappy always told me not to trust a smooth-talker — even if he is a gorilla!”  W had both hands on his rifle again and scanned the darkness below for some movement he might observe by moonlight. Something moved on the far staircase — he took quick aim and fired. The echo of the gunshot reverberated through the warehouse and a single shell casing clattered to the floor. The partial silhouette disappeared and W was left with nothing to look at again.

Ape-Man had been able to ascend the staircase quickly by swinging upwards from the railing. While the ground floor had been largely empty, the second floor had long crates stacked four feet high, cardboard boxes just as tall mounted on wooden pallets, and metal shelves that stood against the columns that rose up from the lower floor.

“Ah’ know you’re up here, Ape-Man…” W called out into the darkness. “I suppose you think this makes things even, but ah’m still the one with the gun here…” W talked tough, but he was prepared to take fewer chances; he switched his rifle from single shot to automatic fire.

Ape-Man heard the catwalk rattle; W was moving too. He could lose himself in the darkness quickly, the same as Ape-Man had, if he did not move fast. Ape-Man rested his hand on a shelving unit and realized that it was actually standing on a long, wheeled dolly.

W was about to move off the catwalk when he heard, and then saw, a wobbling metal shelving unit careening towards him on a runaway dolly. Figuring Ape-Man might be pushing it, W took the time to spray bullets between the shelves. As the dolly hit the uneven floor of the catwalk, the tall shelves began to tilt W’s way. W walked backwards, watching the shelves topple towards him as he dodged — and then saw Ape-Man bound out of the darkness onto the top shelf, riding it as it fell towards him!

Ape-Man let the falling shelves’ momentum catapult him towards W. He reached the gunman before W could raise the rifle again and swatted it out of his hands. The rifle clattered on the floor below, but hardly anyone heard it, for Ape-Man then slammed bodily into W and they both tumbled end over end across the catwalk until they landed on the other side, with Ape-Man on top. During the tumbling, Ape-Man had dextrously drawn the six-guns slung in holsters on each of W’s hips and held the guns pointed at W’s face.

W, for his part, calmly laid there underneath, smiling up into the face of an angry gorilla. In his hand was a flare, which W had pulled off his belt instead of going for his guns. W closed his eyes and flicked the flare on. Ape-Man, reacting a moment slower, was blinded. Ape-Man backed off, still well-armed, but not willing to shoot wildly. He had no intention of shooting anyway, but had merely hoped to force W’s surrender. Now Ape-Man could only struggle to see past the spots in front of his eyes as he heard W running to the stairs.

“You were smart, Ape-Man, but ah’m a mite bit smarter! Harvard-educamucated’ and everythin’!  See ya’ in the rematch, Ape!”  

Oh, I’ll be waiting! Ape-Man thought to himself.

And so Ape-Man’s secret was still safe — but what is his secret? The end — for now!

Ape-Man #0

The Ape-Man — who is he? What is he? The startling answers to these questions could be found, one night, in the laboratory of Dr. Raymond Carter.
On this fateful day, Dr. Carter stood alone in the office, brooding, his long shadow cast over the room as he faced the twilight outside his window. In his hand, he clutched a letter from the administration of the zoo that housed his lab. The zoo wants to see results! Raymond thought. My funding depends on it. The future of my research depends on it! If I am to save both, then I must succeed tonight!

Raymond Carter carelessly tossed the letter towards his desk and exited the room, bound for the test subject cages that lined the corridor outside his private lab. The familiar tread of his shoes on the tile floor signaled a chorus of chattering from the caged animals.

“Plato,” Raymond said, touching the bars of the cage holding his prized orangutan. Plato was suffering from hepatitis. “Johnson,” he said, reaching over to the cage of the strong, healthy, but troublesome gorilla in the next cage over. “Let’s see if my newest adjustments produce any results.”

Circling the cages to the entrance to the lab, Raymond unlocked this inner door, turned on the lights inside, and opened the back gate to Plato’s cage. He coaxed Plato with a banana onto the titled gurney that would be the receiving end of the ray. Plato was conditioned not to resist when being strapped down by being rewarded with food before and after. Johnson was more problematic; instead of being strapped down, Raymond had needed to devise a smaller cage that could hold Johnson in place while the ray was passing through him.

Unbeknownst to Dr. Raymond Carter, a man was at the back door to his lab — a man with sinister intent. He wore a jacket similar to the ones many employees of the zoo wore, similar enough to fool anyone who did not look too closely. He wore a cap on his head. Despite being a Caucasian male in just his 30s, this man had lived hard and his features were hard and deeply lined in his face.

Perfect, no one around, the Burglar thought to himself. The zoo must keep a lot of valuable stuff locked away in this lab. It’s late enough that no one should be inside, but not so late that I’ll arouse too much suspicion if I’m seen loading stuff into my truck by the loading bay. I’ll be outta here before anyone thinks to question me. He allowed himself a smile as he produced the lockpicks he would need to get inside.

Raymond began recording. “Experiment number 114…I have corrected the wavelength of the ray to compensate for the specific ratio of difference in body densities between my test subjects, which I am hoping is the missing component that has kept the ray from working so far. If successful, the ray will copy the physical traits from the first recipient of the ray and map, or overlay, these same traits onto the second recipient of the ray. In this way, a stronger animal might make a weaker animal stronger, a healthier animal make a sickly animal healthier…if I can someday adjust for specific traits, I can eliminate disease by mapping disease resistance, or perhaps even the absence of the disease, onto the second recipient. It is now…5:43 pm and I am activating the ray.”

A switch was thrown and electrodes crackled with fresh power. The ray projector hummed gradually louder. It was a necessarily large instrument, mounted to the floor on a heavy column that also held a large canister of radioactive chemical “soup”. The projector emitted pulsed charged particles in a beam, particles that had altered in the soup of Raymond’s devising. The beam, barely visible to the eye, was weak enough that it only irritated Johnson and made him rattle his cage bars, but the radioactive particles imprinted now with Johnson’s physical traits as passed through him and moved on to their next target, Plato. The particles should cause benign mutations immediately that would mimic Johnson’s physiology.  Only–

Nothing. Raymond checked and triple-checked his figures and the results of the machines monitoring all of Plato’s vital functions. Not even a fluctuation. He would draw blood to test still, plus tissue taken from other parts of the body, but it seemed like the results were exactly the same. The DNA was just too smart for him; it was not fooled into accepting the changes it was being offered.

Raymond was taking a blood sample from Plato when he heard noise from out in the hallway; something was upsetting the other animals. Curious, he walked with the syringe to the door as soon as he was done and opened it for a look. He was startled to see the shadow of a man moving towards him in the corridor, coming from the reception area! Raymond closed the door and listened through it, as he heard the man speak out loud.

“Shut up, you stupid monkeys!” the intruder shouted at the chattering animals. “If I can’t find something of value to grab in here, I’m taking all of you! Maybe there’s a black market for zoo animals…”

Raymond’s mind raced. He didn’t hear the door! Not over the apes in their cages. There was still a chance if he hurried, so he dropped the syringe and fumbled for his keys, then hurriedly put them in the door and locked himself in. Raymond stepped away from the door as he heard the doorknob jiggled from the other side. He held his breath, waiting to see if the intruder would try to break the door down, or shoot his way in, or…

There were footsteps barely audible in the corridor of the intruder walking away. Apparently he had decided to search elsewhere for easier loot, but would be back eventually for the valuable scientific equipment locked here in the lab. Raymond put his keys away and deeply regretted never having a telephone installed in the lab. He’ll be back soon, and I’ve no way to fight back as he takes everything I’ve worked for! The only one strong enough in this room to stop him is Johnson, but he has no intelligence to guide him. If–

That was when a crazy, desperate plan entered Raymond’s panicked brain. There was still time to try the ray one more time, but not on Plato…

In the minutes that followed — the Ape-Man was born! But was he a man made more like an ape, or an ape made more like a man? Follow the astonishing tales of his monthly adventures to find out!

Ape-Man #1

(I understand the fiction site, Brave New 'Verse, which was hosting my Ape-Man stories is going away. So I'm moving them here to my blog. This is an original pastiche hero and an ode to the Silver Age of Marvel Comics. Enjoy!)

“The Ape-Man!”

by Scott Casper, thanks to Lee and Kirby for Tales to Astonish #35

180th Street & Daly Avenue, The Bronx
September 5, 1962
Bernie Spengler stood at his favorite newsstand and plucked a 12-cent comic book off the rack, right out from under the big sign that read ‘cigarettes’. The last time he’d bought a comic book, they were only 10 cents. Bernie did not balk about the price increase, though; he had a lot of free time on his hands today and much to take his mind off of.

“You read that stuff?” a familiar voice asked. Bernie looked up at Jacob Stern, his coworker as of yesterday. Wearing his gray suit and matching Fedora with his customary red tie, Jacob looked just like he was heading into work — which Bernie, supposed, he did too, just out of habit.

The newsstand was at the corner where the two men would meet every day before heading to Dr. Carter’s office in the Bronx Zoo, where they had worked as assistants, at least until Carter had dismissed them. They had letters of recommendation from Carter and his promise to help them land jobs at any zoo in the world — but their jobs were “no longer required” here.

Jacob was buying a pack of cigarettes. “So where are you gonna’ work?” he asked nonchalantly to Bernie.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it yet,” Bernie said truthfully. He had felt in a daze since coming home yesterday early.

“Did you keep that letter from Carter?” Jacob asked. “Like it’s going to do us much good. ‘Fired’ still means fired, no matter how he dresses it up.”

“Excuse me,” a mustachioed man in a nice blue suit and tan Fedora said. A man in a similarly nice suit was standing behind him, listening, as if they were together. “Did I hear you say Carter? Did you two gentlemen work for Dr. Raymond Carter?”

“What if we did?” Jacob retorted in Jacob’s typical, confrontational style.

“We understood he had just let his two most trusted assistants go, while he’s been working for months on some top secret project.”

“What if he has?”

The two strangers glanced at each other. “It just seems strange that Dr. Carter would let his assistants go, unless he’s finished whatever he was working on. Or doesn’t want to share credit?”

“Are you two journalists…?” Bernie asked. He had been only half-listening at first, but now he was curious why these men were asking these strangers, or seemed to have known to find them here.

“Go one, beat it!” Jacob said. “How do we know you’re not commie spies? We ain’t tellin’ you anything.”

The mustachioed man looked like he was going to respond, but the other man touched his jacket and gave him a look that told him to let it go. They both tipped their hats and walked away.

“If that don’t beat all,” Jacob said. “If they’d offered me a good bribe, I might have told ‘em everything I know! Well…see ya’ in the funny papers, Bernie. It was great workin’ with ‘ya.”

Jacob lit a cigarette and walked away. Bernie rolled up his new purchase and tucked it under his arm. He watched Jacob walk away, wondering if they would ever work together again. Then he watched the two strange men walking away, and wondered where they were going.

It wasn’t any of his business now, Bernie told himself as he strolled away in another direction. He had always known Dr. Carter to be an eccentric research biologist, so maybe firing his assistants was just par for the course with these eccentric scientist types. They had made such huge strides lately, though, with the transfer ray for combining human and gorilla physical traits. The potential for making stronger children, or smarter gorillas, was staggering in its implications — as well as its potential for profit. Bernie never would have thought Dr. Carter the type, but perhaps the temptation to sell out had been too great for him.

An hour of walking later, Bernie had changed his mind. Those two men with the questions had been suspicious. Maybe suspicious enough that Raymond should know about them. Maybe suspicious enough that Raymond would be so appreciative for hearing about them that he would hire Bernie back.

Dr. Raymond Carter’s lab was in a new building, built with a research grant, adjoining at the rear of the 51-year old Monkey House in the zoo. There was a back door for entering the lab directly, right next to the loading dock, but since Bernie had handed in his key to it already, it seemed more appropriate to come up to the “front” door at the rear of the Monkey House and wait to be admitted.

It was a Wednesday morning and the Monkey House was open. A mother was trying to get her two awful little boys to pay attention to Ginger, the orangutan. Ginger was not in a particularly playful mood that morning, though, and was just lazily swinging from a rope. Bernie handed one of the boys his recently purchased comic book. The boys shrieked with wild abandon as they tore into it; Bernie did not even bother to look back to see if the mother was appreciative. He was already on his way to the front door.

The aforementioned door, however, was ajar and opened even wider when Bernie knocked on it. “Hello?” he asked as he peaked inside. The reception room was dark and empty. Around the corner, to the left, he could hear the chatter of apes, upset about something, coming from the research cages. In this room, there was an alcove off to the right with a door to a restroom in it and Bernie thought he saw movement there in the shadows.

Bernie was startled at first, for it was odd to see the door left unlocked, but the reception room left dark. He steeled himself as the figure stepped forward from the dark alcove — and turned out to be Jacob Stern.

“What are you doing back here?” Bernie asked.

“Same as you?” Jacob asked back. “Figured Ray would want to know about those two men who were asking us questions?”

“Is he here?”

“Beats me, I had to go as soon as I got here,” Jacob said, checking his fly.

At that, there was more sound, the screeching of apes and crashing sounds, like crates toppling over. And was that a man shouting? Raymond? As one, Bernie and Jacob raced to investigate. Around the corner were the test subject cages, but they all stood empty. The noises were coming from up ahead, on the left, in the loading bay area. Just before Jacob could round the corner to peek in, two men came bolting out of room and into the corridor. They were scruffy men, one young and thin, the other a big bruiser, like a boxer, both wearing torn jackets and shoving Jacob and Bernie out of their way to escape.

“Lemme’ outta’ here!” the bruiser shouted.

Two gunshots rang out from inside the loading bay area. Suddenly, running away seemed like a good idea. Bernie and Jacob both high-tailed it back to the reception room, but Bernie stopped at the desk and picked up the phone.

“Really?” Jacob said testily. He had stopped in his tracks, halfway to pursuing the two other men out the door into the Monkey House, when he noticed what Bernie was doing.

“Someone needs to call the police,” Bernie said as he dialed.

A third man, a Hispanic man whose clothes were even more tattered, came running from the corridor and through the reception room, but this time he was being pursued — and pummeled — by Bobo the Chimp and Johnson the Gorilla, on either side of him. The man just kept yelling, in a mixture of English and Spanish, for them to stop.

There was more noise from the corridor, someone being hit by something heavy, and then two more men stumbled into Reception. These two Bernie and Jacob recognized — the men from the newsstand. They turned and recognized Bernie and Jacob at once. One of them had a gun in his hand and looked like he was thinking about using it. Both men hesitated, turned, and only backed slowly towards the exit into the Monkey House.

What followed them was the biggest surprise to Bernie and Jacob of all. It was a 200 lb. gorilla, built like a male gorilla, but small for a full-grown one — but one dressed in a matching red- and black-striped short sleeved shirt and short pants, as well as some sort of headset over its ears and in front of the side of its face.

The man with the gun was waving it back and forth, as if unsure if he should shoot at the ape, Bernie and Jacob as witnesses, or all three, but it became a moot point when the ape yanked a filing cabinet drawer out and flung it at the gunman with uncanny accuracy. The gunman went off-balance and lost his gun, and probably would have wound up sprawled on the floor if the other man had not been there to catch him.

“Come on, let’s get out of here!” the other man said. And they did.

The ape ran into the middle of the room, stood erect, and roared out words as it shook its fists over its head. “Tell H.E. — they’ll never get it!”

It was only then that the ape seemed to notice Bernie and Jacob. It looked at them with intelligent recognition and…embarrassment? Then it turned and fled the way it had come.

Only when it was gone did Bernie notice he had someone on the phone asking if someone was there. He just looked at Jacob instead, dumbfounded, and Jacob looked back. They were both thinking the same thing.

“Dr. Carter, he’s…created an Ape-Man!”

H&H Rpol Campaign - the Lost Chapters, pt. 1

I haven't posted about this since 2013, but the very first time I ever ran a Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign online (back in 2009!) was on rpol.net. I had some issues with the site over the years I ran the game there, but trusted that it was a forever archive that would save my game for future reference. I used the archive three years ago when I wrote up what happened in the first chapter/scenario of the campaign there.

But Rpol.net is not, apparently, a forever archive. Last year, I was dismayed to find it had been removed for sitting idle too long, and was gone forever. And for the most part, it still is. I have, however, found some pages I printed out in the past that I will add here.

This page is from the second chapter/scenario. It sadly, does not have all the players who were playing then represented on it.

Watching the 20th Century, 1911-1912

Dante’s Inferno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M9e6jxA9tA

This was a difficult movie to get through for several reasons. One was time constraints -- at just over an hour, this is the longest movie by far that I’ve watched for this project. I now can no longer get in a quick movie over a single breakfast. There’s also the reason that the subject matter is -- albeit appropriate for where this story takes place -- depressing stuff. But the biggest reason for me is that the film dutifully recreates the visuals of Gustave Doré’s illustrations, complete with lots -- LOTS -- of male nudity (or almost full nudity). Dangly bits are always concealed, but there is only so much naked man butt I can look at before it throws me off my cereal.

That said, this film is pretty remarkable. It accomplishes a lot without CGI that would be totally CGI’ed today. People float around with impressive wire work. Beatrice’s scintillating halo looks like it’s achieved by shining a bright light through a big fan positioned behind her head. When you see Geryon and he’s obviously a model, it’s more of a “I want a Geryon action figure right now!” moment than a “wow, is that cheesy” moment. The demon costumes are pretty impressive. Forced perspective and split screens make some of the monsters, like Lucifer and Antaeus, appear to be giants. Everything else is achieved by using extreme long shots. Is that a tiger threatening Dante, or a guy crouching in a costume? At this distance it’s impossible to say.

Most of Dante’s Inferno is Dante walking around and getting to hear the life stories of the sinners being tortured. Most of these are only summarized in single title cards -- but two stories are acted out for us to see. One occurs in the middle of the movie, serving as an intermission of sorts, to break up the movie, but the second one comes, puzzlingly, almost right at the end.

Anyway, the Italians set the bar pretty high with this production. Now back to American movies of 1911 to see what they were getting done!

Fighting Blood https://archive.org/details/FightingBlood

*Sighs*...yeah, this is what American movies were doing at the time. D. W. Griffith churned out a Western here with a little family drama mixed in. By our modern perspective, we understand that Tuttle is a crazed militiaman squatting on Indian lands, and the fact that he punches his son in the face doesn’t make him any more likeable. It’s only the cute little kids you root for when the Indians attack.

The real interesting thing here is the aerial footage of the attack. It’s filmed from a stationary position, so it’s not a flyby. Is the cameraman leaning over a cliff to takes these shots?

The Indian Brothers https://archive.org/details/TheIndianBrothers

If I follow this short D.W. Griffith film, then...an Indian refugee comes and asks the chief of a tribe if he can join them, gets mocked for wearing a skirt and is given a dress to wear, goes berserk, turns into Gollum (he starts crawling around like Gollum, anyway), and kills the chief. The chief’s brother (they’re both dressed as chiefs, so they must have been co-leaders) says “This time, it’s personal!” and chases after the killer. The chase moves from on foot to on horseback, and some Indians the killer stole his horse from get into the chase. The chief’s brother has a territorial dispute with the horse owners, wins it with a knife fight, and then drags the killer back home to kill him in front of his brother’s funeral pyre. I’m ...60% sure that all happens, and probably made it sound better than it was.

Lady Godiva https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLIJloSHiaU

Spoilers - you don’t see her naked. Instead, the movie follows the drunken pervert who tries to invent the peep show, but gets so excited he dies from a heart attack (or God smotes him down, or something). I cheated for this one, watching it even though it was nine minutes (by my rules, it should be at least eleven).

His Trust and His Trust Fulfilled https://archive.org/details/HisTrustAndHisTrustFullfilled

Essentially a remake of “Swords and Hearts”, which I’d reviewed before, but D.W. Griffith starts to double down on the racism here. While I had praised Swords and Hearts for putting a black character in a heroic action role, I can’t praise the same thing here because a) while it was more ambivalent in the previous film, the blacks are clearly slave labor in this one, ) the blackface makeup, more convincing in the previous film, looks cartoonish here, c) George’s (the slave butler) motivations are not clearly paternal enough -- I would have been perfectly fine with George sacrificing his life to raise a white girl if she was like a daughter to him, but the title makes it pretty clear that we’re supposed to accept this is the black man’s burden to serve a white man even after his death, d) instead of raising the girl himself, George has to turn the girl over to a white couple he pays to raise her -- it seems REALLY weird, looking back, that it was considered too taboo for audiences to see a black man raise a white girl, but it’s okay later when her cousin shows up to woo her once she’s an adult. And e) there’s no payoff to this movie! George just goes home to die and the girl never finds out about all she did for him.

1912

The Invaders https://archive.org/details/the_invaders_1912

This movie tries, and almost succeeds, at being a war epic. Two pairs of lovers, a lieutenant and a colonel’s daughter and a white assayer and an Indian chief’s daughter, are caught in the struggle of federal government vs. native Americans. The movie is as ambivalent towards who the true invaders are as the title suggests. It gets its history pretty much right, showing the feds making treaties to give the natives some sovereign land, and then casually ignoring those treaties later. The Sioux seem pretty wimpy at first, as it takes them over an hour to beat five white men. After that, I thought there would be no suspense to this film. But then the Sioux team up with a bigger tribe and wipe out most of the nearby Army garrison. There is a powerful climax as the besieged fort colonel has to decide how to use his last bullet.

I’m unsure if this movie used all authentic Indian actors, or a combination of Indians and whites in make-up. There’s one brave who had a dark face but suspiciously white arms. Ethel Grandin, then just 18, really rocked the corset look, and her father the colonel is none other than Francis Ford, then already 31 and directing films, as well as being a charismatic presence on screen.

The Copper Beeches https://archive.org/details/TheCopperBeeches

This is one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories, and the Jeremy Brett TV adaptation was a masterpiece, so it was both disappointing and baffling that this 1912 adaptation -- supposedly done under the direct supervision of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself -- is so awful. Perhaps assuming that everyone had already read spoilers, the story is presented in chronological order, giving away the story’s big reveal right at the beginning. Worse, when Holmes does show up, he is shown right to the door where the missing girl is right away -- and incredibly, instead of opening it -- ignores the door and proceeds to look for clues as to the motive for why the girl is locked in there. And then,instead of arresting the father for abusing his daughter, Holmes waits until Rucastle tries to murder the boyfriend and only then has Rucastle arrested. The rest of this original 1912 series of Holmes adaptations are all missing; one can only presume they were all as terrible.

CodConXXII Report

It had been years since I last tried CodCon, but this year I decided to give it a go. Getting there was super easy, since the College of DuPage campus is about a 30-minute drive from my house. I did park at the wrong end of the building, but that only afforded me the chance to walk past the LARP area and artist booths that I wouldn't have time to get back to the rest of the day.  There was a little mix-up when I arrived because I was being told the game I was running was in the next room over, when my table was in fact two doors down. But I luckily ran into my two signed up players before they gave up trying to find me.

The reason I had stopped attending CodCon because there was such a small number of Old School players who show up there. Having only two people signed up to play Swords & Wizardry (the OD&D retroclone) only reinforced that nothing had changed. My players were a father and son pair and it was going to just be us until the father went over and recruited a board gamer who was sitting all alone.

I was running my Frog God Games module Jungle Ruins of Madaro-Shanti, which would have been challenging with five players -- but for three players? They spent a lot of time running from any encounter tougher than giant centipedes, while trying to piece together the source of the magical curse plaguing the land from safe distances. The father renamed the borsin (a S&W monster) "gorillalopes" -- a name I much prefer. They didn't figure out the well at all (they didn't go down), but spent a good deal of time around the palace.

I had a great time with this other S&W monster called ghoul monkeys. I allowed Speak with Animals to work on them (ghoul monkeys don't seem to be fully undead) and the players seemed intimidated by the monkeys' ghoulish talk ("We are dead!  We are dead!").  After that, the players ran from the ghoul monkeys every time, unaware that their fighter could sweep attack these little guys. All this running away only ended after they figured out they had a Pipe of the Sewers with them -- after that, they went into every battle with an army of giant rats.

After four hours that I thought went very well -- all things considered -- we wrapped up and I explained to them that they had actually stumbled onto a room under the palace one room away from the monster responsible for the curse, but couldn't figure out how to get through the door to that room.

The best part of the game, though, if not the whole day, was learning who the father was -- this guy, Steve, once worked with my mother!  She had told us about each other years ago, but this was our first time actually meeting and gaming together.

After that, I bought lunch from the con food vendor while enjoying a concert from Dan the Bard. I even bought my second CD from him (Bard Camp) and got it signed.  That was the second best part of the day.

After that, I played in round one of a two-round Munchkin tournament. The con staffer who was supposed to judge this tournament made us all wait for nearly a half-hour for him to show up, and then he still didn't have the playing cards organized and shuffled for us!  I volunteered to help, as did some others, so we could finally get playing. Unlike S&W, we had enough players for Munchkin for two tables.

My table had a nice group of players who played much as I do -- go easy on each other until level 6 and then start going after each other. Almost the whole table was tied at level 9 at the end. We just went around the table blocking each other until we ran out of cards to stop someone, just before my next turn. It was pretty epic.

The next round wasn't so much fun. Two-thirds of the players who advanced all knew each other and were more interested in attacking each other right off the bat than letting the game move forward. When I saw Steve was trying to start up a game, but didn't have enough players, I dropped out of Munchkin and joined his two players.

Steve was running Dungeon Crawl Classics, which I'd never played before. We were playing higher-level characters, so I didn't try the "character funnel" approach at 1st level. It was a puzzle-heavy scenario I like to think I was doing pretty well at ... but I had promised my family I would be home by 8:30, so after an hour I knew he was going to have to kill my character or I was going to have to suicide run him. Actually, the way I was playing my thief, it made perfect sense for him to drop his defenses around the succubus, so it all worked out.

Will I go again next year?  Possibly. It's certainly worth it for the money. I hope I can get more Old School gamers to attend next year, though.