Chat about the game...

Yep, Patricia Savage, Doc Savage's 1st cousin.  I think she first appeared in his 5th book and was in about 40 of his adventures out of the 150 or so issues.  I think that might make her the longest running Pulp heroine of the 30s and 40s.  Helene, Ki-Gor's mate - hero of the Jungle Stories pulp magazine, probably beats her by a dozen stories or so.  But I can't think of any other female character who appeared in more.  Even Margo Lane of Shadow fame didn't start out in his books but in the radio and was forced into the books but I don't think she was an active heroine as much as a foil who couldn't really fight like the other two could.

The lineup of Femforce has frequently changed over the decades of the team's existence but has included the following characters.

   Miss Victory: Real Name: Joan Wayne. Powers: Superhuman strength, flight and invulnerability. Based on the original Golden Age Miss Victory. Team leader.

   She Cat: Real name: Jessica Hunt. Powers: Enhanced strength with advanced agility and reflexes. Based on the Harvey Comics version of Black Cat.

   Nightveil:
Origin

Laura Wright was born on December 4, 1920. She began her crime-fighting as the masked Blue Bulleteer using a pair of revolvers as her main weapon. In the 1960's she became the pupil of the wizard Azagoth. He took her to another dimension called Limbo for her magic training. She later reappeared on earth as Nightveil, with her youth regained and ready to fight crime again.
Creation
The story of Nightveil's creation is a complicated one. In the early 1970's, AC Comics began using the Golden Age character of Phantom Lady (aka Sandra Knight) in their titles, believing that the character was now in the Public Domain. They starting out by reprinting her Fox Feature era issues from the 1950's, and eventually began featuring Phantom Lady in their own original stories. However, DC Comics had claimed ownership of the Phantom Lady, stating they had purchased the copyrights of Golden Age Quality Comics characters, including Phantom Lady, Human Bomb, Doll Man and others.
Not wanting to engage in a lawsuit with the larger publisher, AC rewrote their version of the Phantom Lady, changing her name to the Blue Bulleteer and giving her pistols as weapons. They further decided to modernize her character by placing her in the extra-dimensional plane of Limbo with a magical mentor named Azagoth, while decades passed in our world. Laura emerged from Limbo in modern times with new powers and a new identity, calling herself Nightveil, and has since adapted to the current time period.
As it turns out, the copyright to some of Phantom Lady's earlier appearances are now in the Public Domain, while DC continues to maintain that the original Golden Age version published by Quality Comics is owned by their company (this version can be easily distinguished from the Public Domain version since she wears a yellow and green costume, rather than red and blue).
Powers and Paraphernalia
Nightveil wields formidable magical powers including teleportation, levitation, and retrocognition, to name a few. Her powers are connected to her Cloak of Darkness, an inherently evil magical artifact. While this makes her arguably among the most powerful beings on earth, Laura must constantly struggle to keep the evil influence of her Cloak in check. She is at times insecure in her own ability to do so and is disturbed by the possibility that the Cloak may already be corrupting her in some way. Because of this, she has developed a brooding personality and her FemForce teammates often have difficulty relating to her. She spends much of her time in solitude in her private sanctum, located somewhere in the Everglades. She is responsible for bringing Thunderfox, originally a fictional character, to life.
Laura seems to maintain the athleticism and agility from her earlier days as the Blue Bulleteer, but now tends to avoid hand-to-hand combat. How much of her previous fighting proficiency remains is uncertain.

   Rio Rita: Real Name: Rita Farrar. A spy from Spain, she retired and was eventually succeeded by her granddaughter. She had no powers. Based on Fiction House's Senorita Rio.

   Synn:Origin  Originally called Synn, the Girl From L.S.D.
In the 1960s, Silva was a go-go dancer in Florida who was abducted by the Brotherhood of Purity, a group dedicated to the eradication of obscenity. The group abducted various supposedly immoral people and eradicated them one way or another. Several of their victims were sold to Dr. Dirk Farkas as human test subjects for his experiments.
His experimentation on Silva produced highly unusual results. Silva, a frequent acid user, had retained some LSD in her body chemistry. Under the impact of a high voltage,  the acid  triggered a reaction in her brain.  Her mind expanded to god-like levels and her body became effectively immortal and immune to aging and disease. Synn has the ability to do virtually what she wants by utilizing this power with her mind.
There were only two drawbacks to this situation, since LSD was unstable. First, when she had hallucinations, everyone had hallucinations. Second,  the feds were looking for deviant individuals and when they learned of Synn existence, they wanted to lock her up. She was finally taken into custody by government agent Atoman.  Due to her power being intermittent, she had to wait until he returned so she could escape  from a high security containment center in Denver,  Colorado.  It was a special program called Lifeforms Super-normal Development (LSD).  
Silva is constantly fluctuating between states of mind. At times her intelligence and behavior appear child-like. At others her intellect advances to genius level and allows her to produce solutions for various problems. There are various levels of intelligence in between. The fluctuations are not completely random. She can increase her own intelligence while focused on a particular problem or situation to solve. The intelligence is then decreased when she is unfocused or simply seeks to relax.  She joined the team FemForce in this state, through Nightveil, and was a member for several years.
As already mentioned, Silva was a former LSD user and her mutation subjects her to occasional acid trip-like hallucinations. The difference is that she projects the hallucinations to other minds in her vicinity, effectively causing shared illusions. Unfortunately the negative effect of LSD was getting worse and the powers of Silva became out of control. Judging its state too dangerous, after discussing with Miss Victory she decided to leave the team except for some occasional missions.  
But one day, then she had become dangerous to herself and to society, Nightveil has exiled her to a dimension beyond dimensions. At this place her mind could expand unhindered. Several years later, while Nightveil was in full possession of her powers, she decides to retrieve her and bring her into the rational world. She brought her back to the FemForce headquarters, with Jennifer Wayne-Burke (the new Ms. Victory) as leader.  Synn needed a few days to recover her spirits but she was in better control than before.
Powers
At first she used her power unconsciously and affected large groups of people without realizing it. With training she has learned to control this hallucination power, making her a powerful illusion caster. However she can still be affected by her own illusions. She can also cast powerful psychic blasts to incapacitate opponents. She has some degree of telekinesis and can create constructs out of pure mental energy.  
Synn can teleport to a limbo between dimensions and from there to locations in her own and other dimensions. However she is typically only able to teleport to locations she has known before. She can fly as well but to subsonic speeds.    

   Tara: Real name: Tara Fremont. Powers: Size changing, ability to communicate with animals. Inspired by a number of Jungle Girl characters of the 1940s and 1950s.

   Rayda: Real name: Dyna Morisi. Powers: Electricity manipulation, enhanced reflexes.

   Stardust: Real name: Dr. Mara. Powers: Flight, superhuman strength, energy bolts.

   Colt: Real name: Valencia Kirk. Powers: None, though she is an expert in espionage, weapons technology. Temporarily took over as team leader after the original Miss Victory became the villainess Rad; was later replaced as team leader when Joan Wayne's daughter, Jennifer, became the new Ms. Victory.

   Firebeam: The ghost of a woman killed in a house fire, whose spirit can now control fire.

   Ms. Victory: Real name: Jennifer (Wayne) Burke. Daughter of the original Miss Victory, Joan Wayne. Later became the anti-heroine Rad. Powers: Superhuman strength, flight and invulnerability.

   Dragonfly: Real name: Nancy Arazello. Powers: Superhuman strength, telekinesis and flight.

   Thunderfox: A fictional comic book character brought to life by Nightveil's magic. Later fades from existence when her comic is cancelled. Powers: Superhuman strength and invulnerability.

Other characters
Garganta: Real name: Carol Heisler. Powers: Size-changing, telepathy. Originally an enemy, later made an auxiliary Femforce member.

Yankee Girl: Real name: Lauren Mason. Powers: Flight, superhuman strength, invulnerability. Based on the original Golden Age Yankee Girl.

Buckaroo Betty
Character » Buckaroo Betty appears in 19 issues.
Origin  
Elizabeth Fury is a proficient horsewoman and sharp shooter, and eventually became the Sheriff of Apache, Texas after her husband, Sheriff Mike Bates was murdered.  She is nicknamed "Buckaroo" , and ends up joining FemForce after being pulled through time to help in their fight during the Shroud Wars. Buckaroo Betty is modeled after Bettie Page. She is reportedly the daughter of Haunted Horseman/Rex Fury, the original Ghost Rider.   And the original Ghost Rider is my costume inspiration for the Haunt.
Powers and Abilities  
Marksmanship  
Leader  
Intellect  
Horsemanship  
Latent Magical Powers  

General Roberta Strock
Character » General Roberta Strock appears in 10 issues.
The military liaison coordinator of the Femforce team.

Kitten
Kitten appears in 86 issues.
Kitten is a member of the woman group known as FemForce.
Holyoke
Kitten was an eleven-year-old girl whose parents were killed in a train wreck. She became the ward of David Merrywether (Cat-Man). Discovering his ward was a trained acrobat, David decided to train her as his crime-fighting sidekick. As the girl grew into a woman the relationship became more complex. She was already grown up by the time the original Cat-Man series ended.
AC
AC has reconned her history somewhat. Their versions of Cat-Man and Kitten did meet in World War II but Katie was already twenty-years-old at the time. The two married after years of courtship. They were among the heroes to enter the Vault, preserved in suspended animation until needed again. They went into their long sleep in the 1950s and emerged in the 1980s, youthful as ever but feeling out of place. At least one familiar face was waiting to greet them, Dr. Macabre. Their archenemy from their past had also been in suspended animation and emerged to continue their conflict.


Other characters that have seen action as members or allies of Femforce include Kitten, the female partner of Catman (Holyoke Publishing’s Golden Age hero, revived by Black), as well as such forgotten Golden Age (1938–1954) heroines as Yankee Girl, Miss Masque, and Jetgirl. Femforce’s ranks sometimes swell nearly to Avengers proportions, mainly because of a surfeit of eager and evocatively named villains, including Alizarin Crimson, the Black Shroud, Capricorn, Darkfire, the Fearforce, Fem-Paragon, Lady Luger, the Shimmerer, and Stella Stargaze, as well as ambiguous sometime-allies, who as often as not are foes, such as the antisocial Rad (actually Ms. Victory’s daughter) and the giantess Garganta. And let's not forget the Kronon race with their mighty girl, KRONE!!!!

Femforce, to my surprise, is still published and the title is approaching issue 200. I will admit to reading the 1st 100 or so issues of the series as well as most of the other books they had put out in the 80s and 90s.

Got to find some more shots of the various villainesses they have fought over the years.

Obviously femforce is rather tongue in cheek (hence all the characters wear less clothes than bikini models) but is it part of a larger universe? I know little of it other than what you've told me and the fact there was an RPG that is increasingly hard to get hold of for reasonable prices...

More Femforce foes you may want to make your own version of


Nazi villainess Lady Luger first appeared in Bizarre Thrills (AC Comics, 1977), but was unnamed until her first featured appearance as an enemy of the FemForce heroines in the first FF issue (1984). She was initially drawn by creators Bill Black and Mark Heike, with other artists to follow in the series. Ironically, she supposedly died at the end of the first issue, but she was so popular with readers, she was brought back many times (sometimes with her Nazi henchwoman "Panzer" who wore her blonde hair in a braid under a spiked stahlhelm). Also, many independent artists have drawn their versions of her and even action figures.

Her costume is a very form-fitting black "uniform" with trademark plunging neckline, SS hat and armed with one (and sometimes two) Luger pistols/holsters and a bullwhip. And boots, of course.

She acts with stereotypical Teutonic bravado until the tables are turned, then she cringes cowardly in the face of defeat by the FF heroines.

Fear Force, Femforce's female villain group.  Don't think they teamed up more than a couple of issues but still pretty nasty bunch.

https://read-comic.com/femforce-issue-74/ This is the free to read issue with the origin of Fear Force.

Valkyra
All Color!!! Reddevil's BH Industries is hosting a state dinner to honor a visiting... Norwegian?... super heroine, Valkyra. So, of course most of the AC universe paranormals are in attendance. As the evening winds on, and the wine begins to flow, old pet peeves crop up...and the super-types begin to squabble. Not without help, mind you, as "Valkyra" is not all she seems to be, and quietly spreads a seditious word wherever it will do the most harm. Once the good guys are feuding good and hot, the so-called "Norwegian" stands revealed as old nemesis Panzer, sent in under cover by Fritz Voltzman, who is manipulating the slow-witted Panzer this time, after years of being dominated by Lady Luger. Will our heroes and heroines team up again in time to stop the Nordic powerhouse? Not unless Jennifer and Jetgirl get back from their shopping trip in time to tip the balance. While everyone else parties, Colt takes a turn working "dirty tricks" for General Gordon, breaking into a government office to learn who stole the Garganta Formula. "V Is For Valkyra" is plotted and pencilled by Dave (Mantra)Roberts, scripted by Mark Heike and inkerd by Chris Allen. Guest starring Yankee Girl, Wayne Markley, Catman and Kitten, and Rocketman and Jetgirl. Roberts really cemented his reputation as a "good girl" artist with his spectacular work on this story, and inker Allen garnered a regular position with AC based on his slick rendering here. Lots of girl-fighting and glamor shots. Color cover by Dave Roberts and Mark Heike, all color throughout. Standard comic book format.

Stella Stargaze
Origin
Stella Thompson was a girl who was born in poverty and raised in Apopka, West Virginia. She was extremely beautiful and used this to get herself out of this poverty. She won a beauty pageant that led her to a job where she became the assistant of a stage magician.
The magician, The Great Leolani, was working on an item called the Hypnotic Eye that could plant post-hypnotic suggestions in women so he could take advantage of them. He tried the Hypnotic Eye only to find out that it worked only on men. Stella Thompson stole the Hypnotic Eye and used it to snag rich and handsome men around the world to gain their wealth.
Eventually, she started a company called Stargaze Enterprises at New-York, and became Stella Stargaze, talk show host. She used the Hypnotic Eye on her guests to reveal deep secrets on her show, which made her even more popular and rich.
Stella Stargaze eventually tried to seduce the father of FemForce team member Tara, T.C. Fremont. Tara and Stella have since been at odds.

Black Shroud - Black Shroud appears in 19 issues.
One of the greatest villains for the Femforce team.

From Femforce #32
Then, The Black Shroud has gathered the revived villains formerly housed in the Weir Asylum, and explains his master plan. He alone among living beings is aware of how reality was changed during The Armageddon Factor, and that Paragon no longer has the ability to evolve and match him. The Shroud and his minions will take over the Earth, and nothing can stop them!

"Gathering Of Evil", is written and drawn by Bill Black, and inked by Mark Heike. Guest starring Alizarin Crimson, Iron Jaw, Madame Boa, The Clown, Frankenstein, Singapore Sal and Gorganna, with cameos by Chromo, Ripjaw, The Vardax, Nightveil, Paragon and Stardust.


The Shroud Wars brought back all the Public Domain heroes and villains from the 30s to the 50s. It ran for a number of issues and introduced me to a number of heroes and villains I had never heard of.

Rip Jaw, AC's version of Crimebuster's foe Iron Jaw.




https://read-comic.com/femforce-issue-85/ Free comics to read.

Madame Boa
Origin
Born Amanda Bovier, daughter of a hunter, and younger sister to the character Umbra, she grew up in the bayous of Louisiana, where she developed an affinity for reptiles, especially snakes. She soon discovered she had the ability to communicate with snakes when she became older and, being alone, decides to surround herself with snakes, soon embarking on a life of crime using her slithering friends.

Umbra Origin
Older sister to Madame Boa, Umbra Bovier grew up in the bayous of Louisiana where she learned the ways of mysticism, utilizing "wax dolls" or voodoo dolls, and eventually branched out to using the undead aka Zombies. Her mystical prowess grew and she soon developed the ability to fire mystic bolts of energy. She has encountered Nightveil numerous times as well as the female super team, FemForce.




She and Madame Boa are probably the first black villainesses to be created not to fight a black hero. Something I never thought about until today.

Singapore Sal

Character » Singapore Sal appears in 14 issues.
Freelance sexy lady pirate

She originally appeared in the 40s fighting Don Winslow of the Navy and then Lance O'Casey, both comics published by Fawcett of Captain Marvel fame.  She was basically a rip-off of Terry and the Pirates' Dragon Lady.







Here's some sketch cards of various super folks of the Femforce universe http://www.collectablechris.com/femforce.html

Admin wrote:I wondered if anyone would spot the link to the LSH...

Back in the day (we're talking around 85-86) I concocted a team called the Chicago Champions which the PCs were inducted into and modelled them on the Legion with 'Kon El', 'Cosmos' 'Zapper' 'Grey Wolf' 'Solar Fury' and others, all built with 250HP (I think that was the starting amount back then before 2nd Edition and Factor Costs changed everything). There were around 20 NPCs and the PCs would go on missions with a random selection of the team. Others (not based on the LSH) included 'Ultimate Man' and were based on the JLA, again all with 250HP, loads of vulnerabilities and trying to squeeze most bang per buck out of the starting amount rather than 'cheat' with 500+ points.

The Mighty Flea! is based on a Champions/Hero system character for a Play By Post I ran called (funnily enough) 'The Mighty Flea' who was a 16 year old with super strength, agility and the ability to leap/cling as well as siphon blood to replenish him. Spent ages concocting up special moves, costume, background info and always cracked a joke with every post. I think the other players generally liked the way the character was played even though he was the annoying kid of the bunch. Then I logged in one day to find he'd been killed off by the GM and 'to make another character'. Anyway, that was that. If a character dies through bad rolls or whatever that's fine but when the GM decides at random to kill someone off I wonder what the heck I spent all the time/effort on so I left the game. The GM would quite often make us 'jump through hoops' with 'homework' like fan fiction and stories based on whatever the challenge was. Get it in on time? You get an XP bonus. Don't bother? You get practically nothing for the adventure and wasted months of RPing when the people who turned in homework saw their characters improve pretty much weekly.

At the time I was working 12+ hours a day every day and ran out of time more often than not so it was a bit of a blessing really. I don't hold grudges or bear hard feelings but I am mindful of putting characters in no win scenarios. If the player is stumped the character might come up with something.

An example was with Lionheart in the last couple of posts. Dave mentioned he was backed into a corner in the 'Prison of Death' and I rolled Lionhearts' Int 9 (which puts him pretty much at genius level) and hey presto, a clue presents itself. For Miss Victory she's been on the rack since she pretty much started but someone has turned up at every low point to help out in some way. Even now she's starting the basis for a new 'Femforce' to help her get through the prison to the bottom and the fight with the big bad guys. She might not know that yet mind...

Had a few players ask me to come back in the game with another character to replace Flea but by then I'd determined to run my own games and frequented a number of message boards. Eventually got round to starting this one and the rest, as they say, is history.

Dave/Frostbite will learn a little bit more as to why Flea calls himself Flea in the next few posts I expect...

Wow had no idea that you had such a pedigree in playing the game so far back. I'm not so good with DC heroes, I know the main ones, but grew up on Marvel, and dipped into the big three along the way DC wise, but I found that the fact that so many of the heroes were so unoriginally named, usually with ...man or ...Woman etc, (not that Marvel wasn't guilty of this but far less so) that it really put me off reading a lot of the stuff out there.

Thanks for all the suggestions for names Dave, depending on what Flea ends up revealing I'd still like to see his name change, but in character and as it fits with what is happening.

Sj

As to the New Old Lore Knights, we need a Sir or Lord Morningstar, as he would have been the one before or the two characters before my character, Ghost Knight, existed and would be the leader of the Lore Knights, since the base is under his castle.  This would be the Earl.  

Don't have time to work out the points for him but he would have a low level of superstrength [maybe 7-9 Str?], weapons skill - hand weapons, magic bullet-proof armor, magic hand weapon that can change its shape from morning-star [preferred shape], to lance that can extend a bit, to sword or other medieval weapon a knight might use.  

A magically armored horse that runs on air fast enough that they can run up to Nazi planes and be able to smash/slash/stab them - FW190 had an air speed of 405 MPH, and the horse would would also be able to turn itself and rider intangible and invisible - special effect that the horse could summon a cloud that would appear in front of them or any real cloud would do, they ride into it and turned invisible and/or intangible. Need a "cloud" [fog, smoke, ect.] to activate these two powers.  Also, special effect, you can hear the horse clopping through the air when they wanted you to hear them.  

Didn't plan on it being winged like the Shining Knight's Winged Victory since it appears to run on air but if you want ....

Wow quite some notalgia right there...

Sj

The nice thing about this game is being able to please that nostalgia bone in my body and hopefully in others as well. Also, it gets me back into reading about characters I may have heard of but never really read. For years and years I played in a couple of PBEM games based off the All Star Squadron. Most of the original players who actually read that series are gone and new players have come in and turned into something I don't really enjoy.

Now, if we ever get 6 players, maybe we could make our own Seven Soldiers of Victory and play a few games?
The Shining Knight and Green Arrow with sidekick Speedy, would probably be the most costly of the seven to make. Then again, DC's game has already stated these guys out. Too bad I don't have a scanner, I could just scan those stats out and away we go.

Reminds me, I still got to put up the Origin of Music Master from Regular Fella's Heroic Comics. Tried once before but for some reason the pages wouldn't load.

Can't find my The World at War Sourcebook which would have the stats for Shining Knight and Winged Victory to use as a base for Sir Morningstar.  I know I have it somewhere but got to get ready for work right now.  Maybe I can find it after I come home from my half day at the job.  

Got me working from home two days a week, half days and then home the rest two days a week and work at work all day on Fridays for the rest of this month.  We are in phase 1 of a 3 phase order to get back to normal.  Takes a minimum of 2 weeks with no rise in deaths or hospitalizations to get to the next phase.

I have no idea how this will look on screen. You'd have to scroll in or out or whatever to see all of it I expect.

The powers you are explaining remind me very much of Self Manipulation (forming bottom half of body into a winged horse, can 'vanish' at will, no one else can ride it and can look like an ordinary horse) and Omni Arm, turning into any kind of weapon, nobody else can use them and so on. Plus Fog as a power for the mysterious effect thing and self manipulation can also be made into a suit of armour (Skin Armour power) as well.

That seems familiar, but I just can't place it...



Bah. After about 10 attempts to resize, post in a different way, shrink, resize... I give up.

Try this:

The world at war sourcebook is pretty much the BEST supplement ever released for the DC Heroes game. I own them all (probably the only 'complete' RPG lines I ever managed to collect) and haven't read all of them admittedly but that captures the flavour, the feel, the time and is more than just stat book. Brilliant writing by Ray Winninger (who designed 2nd Edition DC if I recall) who is now in charge of D&D 5th edition. I jumped off the D&D train sometime around 2nd edition (own 1-4 but never much cared for it preferred Basic, Expert etc) but I think it's in good hands if he's allowed to shape/steer the ship.

Edit: looking at that picture it's clear the comics were firmly in the 'wearing underpants on the outside' era...

Yep and there was a reason for that. These characters wore outfits that were based off of circus/vaudeville strongmen outfits of the late 1800s/early 1900s. They wore tights to help show off their physiques without violating morality laws but had to wear shorts over them otherwise their man bits bulging would be seen and that would be immoral and they would get thrown into jail. Also circus acrobats for the same reason. And so the same kind of thing was carried over to costumed crimefighters because the public was familiar with that kind of costume.

And that sourcebook is great if you need some quick stats of skilled people, just grab a hero or villain who doesn't have powers and use that.

DavidMcMahon wrote:Yep and there was a reason for that.  These characters wore outfits that were based off of circus/vaudeville strongmen outfits of the late 1800s/early 1900s.  They wore tights to help show off their physiques without violating morality laws but had to wear shorts over them otherwise their man bits bulging would be seen and that would be immoral and they would get thrown into jail.  Also circus acrobats for the same reason.  And so the same kind of thing was carried over to costumed crimefighters because the public was familiar with that kind of costume.

And that sourcebook is great if you need some quick stats of skilled people, just grab a hero or villain who doesn't have powers and use that.

I only knew half of this, interesting. Love the old nostalgia trip, this is a new world to me, I came into comics in the mid to late 70's mainly through British weekly my favourite being 2000AD.

Sj

And I started in 1968 with the first story I ever read was Superman dying of Virus X and I thought that they had really killed him because the next few DC comics I read were 80 page giants that were all reprints - Superman, Justice League, Jimmy Olsen. Ah, the joys of being an innocent 8 year old.