Monster Monday: Reptisaurus the Terrible

For this weeks #MonsterMonday, I'm going to hit on a slightly different Kaiju of the Silver Age.  This isn't a monster that inhabited a mainstream superhero universe, but one that held down its own title for a while during the silver '60s:  Reptisaurus!

In 1961, Charlton published two issues of a comic based on the Danish/American kaiju film Reptilicus (there are apparently versions of the film in both Danish and English).

After losing the license, they turned him red and continued the series as Reptisaurus, where it lasted for another six issues and a special edition.  He even made an appearance in Charlton's comic series featuring the monster Gorgo (whose mother appeared here on a previous Monster Monday).

You can read a good summary of Reptisaurus's backstory over at the Public Domain Super Heroes wiki (yes, it seems that Reptisaurus has fallen into the public domain!) or in the first issue of the series that holds the title Reptisaurus.  To really summarize, an ice age sent a pair of Reptisauruses (or...Reptisauri, if you prefer) into a deep hibernation in a warm volcanic area.  And then...well...

Isn't that always the way?

Luckily, Reptisaurus seems to be a bit more helpful than his inspiration Reptilicus.  Instead of introducing himself by destroying Copenhagen, he helps to fight off an alien invasion.

I like to try to at least guesstimate a size on these big guys.  According to this wiki entry, Reptilicus was around 90 feet (27 m) long.  I initially thought the Reptisauruses were meant to be bigger than that.  Here's an establishing shot with what may be a blue whale...

...which would make me want to put it at well over 100 feet.  But...who knows?  That 90 feet may be a good guess, as we also get shots like this that make it seem pretty reasonable:

The perspectives I've seen just make it difficult to judge.  Could be a small plane and a small blue whale, after all.

If you're interested in reading more about the history of this beast, there's a very good writeup to be found at this link.

Thanks for checking this guy out!  I'm really enjoying covering these four-color monsters and hope you'll stop by again next week for another Kaiju of the Silver Age!

Monster Monday: That giant statue that fought the Challengers of the Unknown

It's #MonsterMonday.  Time for another Kaiju of the Silver Age...

Two weeks ago, I posted about Giganto, the first monstrous foe of the Fantastic Four.  Today, I'm going back in time a little, to a team that many fans think of as an obvious influence on the FF...the Challengers of the Unknown.  Similar to Reed Richards and crew, the Challs are a foursome of Kirby-created, jumpsuit-wearing adventurers who find themselves teaming up against drive-in movie villains after nearly dying in an accident.  They first appeared in 1957's Showcase #6, just two issues after Barry Allen ushered in the Silver Age of Comics.  And in their very fist recorded adventure, they encounter this guy:

You see, the Challs are offered a million dollars by a sorceror named Morelian to open an ancient box that he possesses.  The first thing they find is a big old egg...

The next morning, they find that the egg has hatched, but they don't know what emerged.  It doesn't take long to find a clue...

...and then, almost immediately, the monster itself...

Now, I was inclined to think this big guy was inspired by the bronze giant Talos as encountered by Jason and the Argonauts in the classic film.  The comic was about six years too early for that, though, so I guess it makes more sense for it to take inspiration from the Colossus of Rhodes.  Maybe...?  At any rate, it's really strong.  Like "nuke it and not even do any damage" strong...

The Challs do defeat it, of course, and it's one of those little Silver Age DC Comics resolutions that can either seem cheerfully clever or painfully anticlimactic, depending on how you're feeling that day.  I don't necessarily want to spoil it, but feel free to ask if you'd like to know how they take it out.  (Oh, and even after beating this monster, there are several pages of story for the heroes to work through.)

Pretty fun beginning for a fantastic Silver Age team...!

Brainstorming an OSR kaiju franken-game

With that thing known as "real life" looming larger than usual these days, I'm somewhat consciously allowing myself to only obsess about one gamer "project" at a time.  Luckily, I've been able to stick to that pretty well as I daydream about what I'm just referring to as an "OSR kaiju game"...that is, a game involving giant monster combat that's at least vaguely inspired by old school D&D-based RPGs.  And since that fits this blog pretty nicely, I might as well brainstorm here...

Scale (Part 1)

While pretty much any miniatures-based game can be shifted up or down in scale, I'd like to keep something specific in mind as I imagine and fiddle with minis-oriented aspects of these OSR kaiju rules.  (Isn't playing with toys half the reason to play a kaiju game, anyway?)  I played in a 6mm battle earlier this year and think it's time I gave the scale a much better look.  It's convenient for quickly visualizing the size of an element on the table, since it has an easy 1 foot = 1 mm conversion factor.  There's a fair amount of 6mm miniature stuff out there already.  And, most importantly, it seems like it'll hit a "sweet spot" where monsters really can be the most imposing forces on the battlefield without having to reduce everything else to unrecognizable bits and pieces.  A common tank should be about an inch long at this scale; that seems about right to me.

Scale (Part 2)

As far as managing battles among forces of different sizes, I think I'll go with something like the size categories I proposed a little while back.  Basically, the stats assigned to any being are presented as if it's a human-sized D&D character.  So, for example, a 150-foot giant monster with a Strength of 10 only has average strength if you're comparing it to other 150-foot monsters.  Damage, to-hit probabilities, and attribute tests can be further adjusted according to where an individual falls on the size scale.  In the previous entry, I threw this together:

----------
Size Category (sort-of-rounded average height in meters/feet)
Small (1/3)
Medium (2/6)
Large (4/12)
Optimus Prime (8/25)
King Kong (16/50)
Godzilla Junior (32/100)
Godzilla (64/200)
----------

I think I'll keep working within this framework.  I do want to extend the scale a bit in both directions (so garden gnomes can get in on the action, and to allow for even gianter giant monsters), and my working method eases up on the mechanical jump from one size category to another.  Right now, I'm trying to let each step on the size ladder represent a +/-1 to hit and a +/-1d8 damage.

So that's where I am.  More to come.

Monster Monday: The Creature That Couldn't Die

All right...how 'bout we take a few moments this #MonsterMonday to check out another Kaiju of the Silver Age?  This evening's entry encountered my favorite Silver Age hero (or...close, at least) in 1960's Showcase #24.  This would be Hal Jordan's final Showcase appearance before gaining his own title a few months later.  It's also the first time he shared a cover with a giant monster.  Which I think is pretty cool.  (It's something I've never done.)

Here is The Creature That Couldn't Die (hereafter TCTCD):

...got this image from here...

Unfortunately, I only own this story in black and white (in the GL Showcase trade), and I don't have access to a scanner at the moment (just an outdated digital camera), so there are probably going to be a couple of janky pics following.  I did find one nice color image on the web that gives a little idea of TCTCD's scale and general kaiju-ness...

...and got this one from here...

TCTCD started life as a blob in a test tube.  We don't really know anything more about what it's made of, as the scientist responsible for its creation literally says (as he sees it growing in the tube):  "Great stars!  What's happening to the blob I placed in the test tube?"  A natural reaction, I suppose...although understandable when your research is on...wait for it...cosmic rays!

So...blob placed in test tube...cosmic rays turn it into a giant monster...giant monster rampages.

In typical daikaiju fashion, the usual modes of defense just aren't helping:

As luck would have it, the scientists who witnessed the genesis of the monster happen upon GL, who heads off to halt the destruction.  There's a twofold challenge for Hal, though:  First, because every Silver Age GL story apparently required Hal to work around his ring's weakness, TCTCD fires yellow beams from its eyes.  More importantly, though, being powered by a constant bombardment of cosmic rays makes the beast too powerful for even a Green Lantern ring to defeat.

Except that...well, Hal has an idea.  Maybe if he can block off the monster's power source, he can weaken it.  For extra irony, why not block the cosmic rays with a GIANT test tube construct...?  The results are remarkable:

TCTCD shrinks to become a lifeless blob, revealing as he does that his path of destruction was only a result of his own clumsiness.  His final words:

Now at last...thanks to you...I am no longer a menace...to myself...or world...

I unfortunately didn't come upon this story while I was a kid, because I think that would have been one of those comic book moments that would have stuck with me.

It's also a bit unfortunate that, even with that result, GL's encounter with the creature is sort of anticlimactic.  Around half the story is devoted to Hal's interactions with Carol Ferris...all that she-only-loves-Green-Lantern-and-how-ironic-that-I'm-him-but-I-can't-tell-her stuff.  Sometimes, though, I guess that's half the charm of these old stories.

As with last week, I'm not gonna stat this guy(?) up (yet).  I've been doing a lot of daydreaming about an OSR-based kaiju game, so when I start brainstorming for that here on the blog, I'll work in the Silver Age monsters I've covered.  Stats aside, though, I would like to be able to give an idea of how big this thing is...but the scale is pretty tough to figure on this one.  Based on the number of floors in the buildings it's next to when Hal defeats it, you could argue that TCTCD should only be about 70 feet tall.  In some shots, though, it looks like it's towering over skyscrapers in the Coast City skyline.  Maybe it's variable due to the effects of the rays...?

For simplicity, when I stat it up, TCTCD will probably stand around 100 feet.  That seems like a nice basic size for metropolitan kaiju.

Hopefully, I'll get my #MonsterMonday post up a little earlier next week...and hopefully with another giant creature from the Silver Sixties...!

Monster Monday: Kaiju of the Silver Age

If there's one thing I'd like others to say about me, it's that I can appreciate a good giant monster.  (Actually, that'd be way down on the list, but please trust me, I can appreciate a good giant monster.)

I'm also a pretty big fan of the Silver Age of comics.  The era that gave us the Green Lantern Corps, the Fantastic Four, the Challengers of the Unknown, Adam Strange, Animal Man, Thanagarian police officers protecting the Earth, and so on (for days...) is always worth celebrating.

I'm a lucky man, because the two are pretty much inseparable!  There's probably a lot that could be written about this connection (by folks a lot more knowledgeable than I).  It's interesting that superhero comics as we know them today and Japanese tokusatsu were forged in the same post-atomic era, were informed by the same drive-in movie aesthetic, and followed many of the same themes.  While the giant monsters of Silver Age comics rarely reached Godzilla's stature (physically or culturally), American superheroes tangled with daikaiju in one form or another quite a bit.  (Check out this post by Hugh Fox III, where he gives a really cool overview of DC heroes' encounters with giant monsters in the Silver Age...and a great starting point for checking out Marvel's contributions!)

Here on Monstrous Matters...and especially on days like today when we celebrate a fine #MonsterMonday...I was thinking it'd be fun to take a look at some of the iconic, near-iconic, or should-be-iconic giant monsters from Silver Age comics.  I'll start things off with one of the most important of the era, because we see it on the cover of one of the most important books of the era:

By the time Marvel Comics entered the heroic era with FF#1 in 1961, the company (along with its very recent predecessor Atlas Comics) was already known for the monsters it was putting out.  And when you have Jack Kirby on board to draw these awesome creatures...well, why not?  I think there's something very fitting about the cover to Marvel's first Silver Age superhero comic featuring a hero in the Human Torch that followed the DC Comics recycle-a-Golden-Age-super method, a giant monster as the antagonist, and a hero that helped define the Marvel approach to supers by being a "monster" himself (the Thing, of course).

That guy the FF is fighting...that's Giganto, a resident of Monster Isle and servant to the Mole Man.  Here's how we're introduced to it in the story...

To be honest, we don't learn much about Giganto at the time.  We have an idea that it's subterranean in nature...and we know it's big and strong...but the issue's action actually ends pretty soon after his appearance, as (spoiler alert) the team escapes the Mole Man's underground lair, and Johnny creates a rock slide that seals off the beasts that have been enslaved by the villain.

Giganto would make more appearances in the Marvel Universe.  When possible, his role in that iconic Silver Age cover is referenced.  Like here...

...and here...

...and here...

...and here, the book where we're finally able to learn Giganto's name...

I normally like to stat up these creatures when I post about them on a #MonsterMonday, but I don't know that it's worth it in this case.  Giganto would basically be a big (60', apparently) beastie with enough hit dice to be a threat and the ability to dig and hold its breath underwater pretty well.  At the moment (which is getting pretty late on Monday), I'd rather just appreciate the huge (no pun intended) role Giganto has had in the history of comics, and give it a big hand (pun intended) for that.

Monster Monday: Gorgo's Mother

I'm switching things up a bit for today's #MonsterMonday entry.  No pitfighting elemental beast for me today, although Tim at The Other Side has posted a great monster for 5E that may find its way into battle against the likes of the Quadropod and the Ohmadillo.

Today, I'm letting my one-track mind keep me on the topic of daikaiju.  Here's Gorgo's mother, aka Ogra, from the 1961 British monster flick Gorgo (which was featured on MST3K for one big day before the rights expired to it...and which got some tie-in comics from Charlton that apparently are in the public domain to stay).  I'm building on the daikaiju as player character idea, so the stats here are from an imaginary giant monster RPG that plays a lot like the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game.

Gorgo's mother

Amphibious Reptile, Level 10 Brawler (360,000 XP)

9d12-7 (52) HP

STR 7(-1)  INT 11  WIS 10  DEX 10  CON 7(-1)  CHA 11

Height 70m/230ft

Size Code 10 (Godzilla-sized, +/-25 modifier vs. human-sized creatures)

Attacks:

2 punches (+6, d6-1 damage) + tail slap (+6, d8-1 damage) + bite (+6, d8-1 damage)

OR

Ram (+8, d12-1 damage)

Gorgo's mother (Ogra) is known for wreaking havoc on London in saving her son from his human captors.  As an amphibious reptile, Ogra can breathe underwater and gets +4 to saving throws vs. atomic energy or paralysis.  A Brawler, Ogra lacks any atomic or magical attacks but is able to apply her DEX modifier to all attack rolls.

An ancient monster, Ogra has been somewhat weakened by her years of slumber.  It is unknown how much strength she may gain after acclimation to survival in the modern world.

Saturday Evening Cartoon: Corporate Kaiju

Still got Godzilla on the brain.  This one's kinda weird.  I like it.

On Giant Monsters (and Scaling D&D)

Funny how random events can guide the idle activity of one's brain.  My wife is out of town for the week, so I've found myself watching things that wouldn't get much play on the Linneman television when we're both in on the decision.  Earlier this week, that meant a healthy dose of Ultraman.  Eventually, Rodan also worked its way onto the menu.  So, when Justin over at Halls of the Nephilim posted today about kaiju in RPGs, I was destined to spend more time than I should thinking about giant monsters on the tabletop.

I've played around with some daikaiju rules based on West End Games' D6 System (it's free and open, y'all!).  One of the things that I really like about D6 is the straightforward way it scales attacks and damage...for every size category larger one object is than another, it becomes 1d6 easier to hit (the "broad side of a barn" effect), but resists 1d6 more damage.  I like being able to think about huge monsters, or mecha, or whatever, as just bigger versions of characters.  There's something unwieldly about having to give every giant monster dozens of d20s as hit dice.  Maybe that's part of the appeal...?  Maybe some players and GMs love the idea of chipping away at 500+ HP...?  That's entirely possible.

Since D&D and its many derivatives already venture into the territory of size modifiers, I wonder if there's an across-the-board fix that we could use in such icosahedral systems.  I think it'd be awesome to be able to run a campaign where everyone gets to play a daikaiju, but all the numbers are set to a scale that we're used to for PCs.  And then, when you want that campaign to cross over with your 5E adventuring party, you still have tools to make them work together.  I'd like to do it something like this (cue the pump-up music)...

First, we'd have to designate the size categories.  How about these...not too far from RPG "standards," I don't think:

----------
Size Category (sort-of-rounded average height in meters/feet)
Small (1/3)
Medium (2/6)
Large (4/12)
Optimus Prime (8/25)
King Kong (16/50)
Godzilla Junior (32/100)
Godzilla (64/200)
----------

We can then think of giant monsters in the same terms as as humans of that size.  Godzilla doesn't have to have 50 Strength or whatever in order to simulate what he/she (hereafter simply "she") can do.  How strong is she compared to what a 200-foot human would be?  On the really strong end?  Okay, 18 Strength.  How about HP?  I guess we'd have to do that based on a monster's "level"...and Godzilla's pretty legendary, so I'll just go with a flat 20 hit dice.  "Average" HD is a d8, so assuming Godzilla's of a hardier "class" (and has a pretty good CON score), 20d10+80 would give 190 HP, on average, which is still a little unwieldly to me, but not out of the range of high-level characters (and this is a high-level character).

And now for the modifiers.  The difficulty classes of d20-based games (and the D6 system, for that matter) have nice increments of 5.  To my (fairly untrained) eye, +/-5 actually seems like a reasonable modifier, per size category, that could be used in a number of situations.  A human attacking Godzilla (5 size categories larger) would get +25 to hit (c'mon, it should be a piece of cake to hit that bigass lizard)...but then counter it by giving Godzilla damage reduction of 25.  (I know 5E has eschewed damage reduction in favor of resistance, but this seems like a situation where it'd work to bring it back!)

Conversely, if you arm King Kong with a King Kong-sized sword, he might get -10 difficulty trying to land a blow on a pesky little human (2 categories smaller), but every time he does, there's +10 damage.  You could probably even use the same modifiers for checks of Strength (easier when you're bigger) and Dexterity (easier when you're smaller).

I realize there's nothing revolutionary in this...I'm just a little surprised I haven't seen this used (or, used more...?).  I don't think there's anything absolutely game-breaking in the hands of a good GM, but maybe I'm missing something big.

Something big.  Haha.