TEXT: -startling tales of super-weirdness presents
  - by kenneth hite -
  H.P. Lovecraft,s superheroic horror!
  $9.95
  
  - 1 -
  By Kenneth Hite
  Book Layout and Design   by Hal Mangold
  Art by Thad Doria, Ben Hossi, Octographics.net,  
  and the original Nedor artists
  Cover Art by Toren “Macbin” Atkinson
  More than most of my work, this book is dedicated:
  To H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Harold A. Hite (1937-2006)
  Startling Tales of Super-Weirdness Presents:
  PDQ System Design by Chad Underkoffler, Atomic Sock Monkey
  The Prose Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) System has been designed for evocative simplicity, speed, and flexibility in 
  play. Three levels of resolution, suitable for any type of situation.
  The PDQ System is used under license from Chad Underkoffler; the following materials are not necessarily endorsed in 
  any way by Chad Underkoffler, nor is he in any way responsible for the content of these materials unless specifically 
  credited. PDQ System and Truth & Justice  2005 Chad Underkoffler. All rights reserved.
  The Truth & Justice statistics are by Kenneth Hite.
  Many thanks to Phil Reed for saying “you should do a supers book next,”  
  and to Hal Mangold for making the artwork—and the whole book, in fact—look considerably better.
  As always, feel free to follow the eldritch fun, read my half-baked opinions about film,  
  tell me what you thought of this book, plead for sequels, and suggest more projects for me  
  at my LiveJournal: http://princeofcairo.livejournal.com.
  The original Better/Standard/Thrilling/Nedor Comics stories, and the heroes as presented in them, are in the public domain.  
  This work refers to and builds on those heroes only, and is not intended to infringe on any copyright or trademark governing  
  any later version of those heroes. Their creators were largely anonymous, or have become so with the passage of time,  
  but among them were Al Carny (Kara, Jungle Princess), Sam Cooper (The Cavalier), Will Eisner (Mystico),  
  G.T. Fleming-Roberts (The Ghost), Richard Hughes (American Eagle, Black Terror, Doc Strange, Fighting Yank, Pyroman),  
  Kin Platt (Captain Future), and Raymond Thayer (The Mask).
  All of the titles and prices in the “Issue Listing and Price Guide” are completely fictional.  
  Do not base any transaction on them.
  Adventures Into Darkness is copyright  2008 by Kenneth Hite. All rights reserved.  
  If you pirate this book, I don’t envy you your nightmares when the Dream Master finds out.
  
  - 2 -
  — Table of ConTenTs/InTroduCTIon —
  “What is art but a matter of impressions, of pictures, emotions, and 
  symmetrical sensations? It must have poignancy and beauty, but nothing 
  else counts. It may or may not have coherence.”
   
  — H.P. Lovecraft, “In the Editor’s Study,” The ConservaTIve (July 1923)
  Table of ConTenTs
  InTroduCTIon
  W
  elcome to the first ever Startling Tale of Super-
  Weirdness! Future titles in this series will explore 
  other strange frontiers of superheroic adventure. 
  But this issue, Adventures Into Darkness, presents for 
  the first time anywhere a roleplaying game adaptation of 
  H.P. Lovecraft’s superheroic stories, torn from the pages 
  of the Golden Age of Comics!
  The first section, “H.P. Lovecraft and the Nedor 
  Comics Lines” is, strangely enough, the first essay 
  ever dedicated solely to Lovecraft’s comics work. 
  Although space forbids anything like completeness, 
  hopefully it will serve as a useful summary of this 
  interesting interlude in HPL’s brilliant career.
  The next sections—“Heroes” and “Villains”—give 
  descriptions and brief publishing histories of 17 Nedor 
  heroes and 11 Nedor villains, with special focus on 
  their treatment in Lovecraft’s Nedor titles Dream Master 
  Comics and Adventures Into Darkness. Data on their 
  sidekicks, familiars, and typical Lovecraftian minions 
  from ghouls to Yithian agents round out these sec-
  tions. (Immediately after this, I’ve provided an Issue 
  Listing and Price Guide for the Lovecraft Nedor titles as 
  complete as I could make it. Prices, of course, derive 
  from standard references and searches on eBay. They 
  shouldn’t be taken as anything more than a rough 
  snapshot.)
  “Write Comics the Nedor-Lovecraft Way!” gives role-
  playing and campaign advice on blending the Golden 
  Age comics feel with the flavors of H.P. Lovecraft. It 
  specifically differentiates between superhero games 
  accenting the horrific frisson of Lovecraft’s core Yog-
  Sothoth Cycle stories of “cosmic indifferentism” and 
  those aiming for the more free-flowing fantasy color-
  ation of Lovecraft’s “Dunsanian” works.
  The last sections, “Afterword for the Perplexed” and 
  “Actual Bibliography,” should be fairly self-explanatory.
  A final note—Lovecraft’s publisher, Ned Pines, pro-
  duced comic books under a dizzying array of imprints, 
  including Standard, Thrilling, Better, and Nedor. For 
  simplicity’s sake, I refer to Pines’ lines as “Nedor 
  Comics” throughout.
  And so, as the Cloaked Clairvoyant himself would say, 
  “Dream On!”
  INTrODuCTION............. 2
  HErOES................... 8
  The American Eagle ...... 8
  Ace Buckley ............ 9
  Captain Future ......... 9
  The Cavalier .......... 10
  “Doc” Strange ......... 10
  The Dream Master ....... 11
  The Fighting Yank ...... 12
  The Ghost ............. 13
  Kara, Jungle Princess .. 14
  The Liberator ......... 15
  The Mask .............. 16
  Mystico, the Wonder Man . 16
  The Night Terror ....... 17
  Nodens ................ 18
  The Oracle ............ 19
  Pyroman ............... 20
  The Scarab ............ 21
  VILLAINS................ 22
  Asenath, the  
  Body Snatcher ........ 22
  Baron von Junzt,  
  the Black Scholar .... 23
  Blitz ................. 24
  Dagon ................. 24
  The Devilfish ......... 25
  Professor Fenton ...... 26
  “Henry Akeley” ........ 27
  Keziah the Witch ....... 28
  Outer Ones ............ 28
  Lucifuge .............. 29
  The Ooze .............. 31
  The Yellow Lama ........ 31
  ISSuE LISTING  
  AND PrICE GuIDE ........ 33
  WrITE COMICS THE NEDOr-
  LOVECrAFT WAY! ........ 34
  AFTErWOrD FOr  
  THE PErPLExED ......... 41
  (ACTuAL) BIBLIOGrAPHY ... 44
  
  —         —
  h.P. loveCrafT & The  
  nedor ComICs lIne
  - 3 -
  H
  .P. Lovecraft’s work with 
  Nedor Comics tends to 
  be unfairly minimized by 
  his devotees and scholars alike. 
  Both primarily concentrate on 
  his fiction (with one exception, 
  restricted to the years before 
  1937) or his work at RKO in 
  Hollywood, by which time he 
  had completely abandoned what 
  he called (in a letter to Ben 
  Hecht) his “crudely coloured 
  convalescence.” As a result, 
  many of the specific details of 
  Lovecraft’s comics writing career 
  (which, after all, spanned 
  almost a decade) remain murky 
  or distorted by fannish legend 
  and his own (not inconsider-
  able) embarrassment.
  “InsTruCTIons In  
  Case of deCease”
  Although Lovecraft didn’t actually script a single iden-
  tifiable comics page until (at the earliest) December 
  of 1939, the chain of events that led to his “donning 
  the cape and bells” began with his serious illness in 
  the winter of 1937. As most of HPL’s biographers note, 
  by March of 1937 his life was generally despaired of, 
  not least by himself. S.T. Joshi has discovered medi-
  cal records from Jane Brown Memorial Hospital in 
  Providence demonstrating that such concern was far 
  from the “overblown hypochon-
  dria” that de Camp’s biography 
  calls it. In fact, after an emer-
  gency edema drain on March 14, 
  Lovecraft fell into a coma for 
  three days, and was barely con-
  scious for the next two weeks. 
  His remarkable recovery began 
  only on the 28th, well after his 
  aunt Annie Gamwell had already 
  opened his “Instructions in Case 
  of Decease.” In accordance with 
  that document, she had sum-
  moned his young friend Robert 
  H. Barlow (who Lovecraft had 
  named his literary executor) to 
  Providence to begin the sorting 
  of HPL’s papers. Barlow (not even 
  20 years old at the time) stayed 
  on through most of the spring 
  as a kind of factotum. He helped 
  the convalescing Lovecraft with 
  reading and letter-writing (and 
  served as errand boy for aunt Annie) but also found 
  the time to dig through Lovecraft’s immense rat’s nest 
  of papers—which included many as-then-unpublished 
  stories—with fannish glee.
  The delight was tempered by the necessity of earn-
  ing some money for Lovecraft’s household. HPL had 
  economized to the breaking point already, and although 
  Barlow’s parents were quite generous in sending him 
  spending money (much of which went for food for 
  the household), the young fan took his responsibili-
  “repugnance—and a certain lack of natural cleverness and 
  adaptability,definitely debars me from the popular ‘action’ field, so all I 
  can do is to try honestly to write really better stories or give up the whole 
  mess as a bad job—though possibly pulling off consciously mediocre yarns now 
  and then for sheer amusement.”
   
  — H.P. Lovecraft, letter to Clark Ashton Smith, Nov. 20, 1931  
  (seleCTed leTTers III, p. 436)
  h.P. loveCrafT and The  
  nedor ComICs lInes
  h.P. loveCrafT
  
  —         —
  h.P. loveCrafT & The  
  nedor ComICs lIne
  - 4 -
  ties as “near-executor” (in HPL’s standard epistolary 
  phrase through the balance of 1937) seriously. 
  Fortunately, Lovecraft’s correspondence circle soon 
  turned up the name of a science fiction fan and liter-
  ary agent who had already sold two Lovecraft stories to 
  Astounding—Julius Schwartz. Schwartz and Barlow hit 
  it off immediately, and Schwartz proved his worth by 
  selling Lovecraft’s neglected 1927 manuscript The Case 
  of Charles Dexter Ward twice, first to Weird Tales as a 
  serial and then to William Morrow & Co. for hardcover 
  publication. It received good reviews (Philip Van Doren 
  Stern referred to it as “an able work of regional fic-
  tion, told after the manner of Poe” and Mencken called 
  it “pleasingly athwart the modern aesophagus”) and 
  better sales. Encouraged, Morrow published The Dream-
  Quest of Unknown Kadath (from Barlow’s typescript—by 
  now, transcribing HPL’s handwriting and hunting down 
  missing stories or chapters in the Lovecraft circle of cor-
  respondents was the young man’s full-time job) in the 
  summer of 1939.
  The dream masTer arrIves
  The lush, Dunsanian Dream-Quest didn’t do as well, but 
  Schwartz had already figured out an angle—he sold the 
  serial rights to the novel to Ned Pines, a pulp publisher 
  whose newly founded Thrilling Wonder Stories was try-
  ing to compete with both Astounding and Weird Tales. 
  Lovecraft’s name sold a lot of issues of Thrilling Wonder 
  (starting with the October 1939 number), but by then 
  Pines had moved on to a new target—Superman. The 
  Man of Steel’s debut had blown into a huge fad of epic 
  proportions, and comic books were driving pulps off the 
  front racks all across America. Pines decided to adapt 
  his existing pulp heroes such as the Black Bat and 
  Captain Future to comics, and Schwartz got Randolph 
  Carter onto the schedule as well. A last-minute printing 
  snafu brought on by HPL’s terrible handwriting changed 
  the name from Dream Quester Comics, and Pines refused 
  to confuse the audience by changing it back. So it was 
  Dream Master Comics that bowed in February of 1940, 
  along with Thrilling Comics, which featured (as it hap-
  pened) an all-new character, Doc Strange, ripped off 
  from an existing pulp hero. The first issue of Dream 
  Master Comics credited H.P. Lovecraft as the writer, on 
  the cover—an unusual move for comics, but normal by 
  then for the pulps.
  How much, exactly, of the comics work published under 
  his byline Lovecraft actually wrote is one of the great 
  controversies in comics (and horror) fandom and schol-
  arship. Lovecraft was never very happy with “writing 
  for puerile and drooling mental infants” (from a let-
  ter to Derleth in 1943) and constantly denigrated the 
  product as “hash and hackery” in his later letters and 
  his autobiography Further Notes on a Non-Entity. But 
  he was literally in no condition to argue. HPL knew he 
  lacked the strength to compose new fiction (although 
  his letters blamed his comics writing for “poisoning 
  Hippocrene with red-and-blue ink”) and he also knew 
  that he couldn’t risk a relapse into malnutrition, since 
  another spell of kidney disease could well kill him. 
  Schwartz made sure the checks kept coming in, and 
  that scripts kept going out.
  The first twelve issues of Dream Master Comics 
  essentially adapted the novel to comics form, with 
  remarkably few changes given the constraints of print-
  ing and lettering. Barlow may well have written the 
  first issue himself (or extensively re-written an ill-
  natured adaptation attempt by HPL), but eventually 
  farmed the job out to E. Hoffman Price, who had collab-
  orated with Lovecraft on a Randolph Carter short story, 
  “Through the Gates of the Silver Key.”
  The advenTures begIn
  By the end of Dream Master’s first novel-inspired story 
  line in early 1941, Pines had launched two other pulpy 
  superhero titles, Startling Comics and Exciting Comics, 
  with more than modest success. Schwartz sold Pines on 
  another anthology title, one that would combine the 
  Lovecraft sensibility with the superheroes who were 
  rapidly becoming comics’ overwhelming subject mat-
  ter. (Even Randolph Carter had become more and more 
  superheroic as the year went on, adding a cape and 
  officially using the alias “Dream Master” in issue #4 of 
  his comic.) Pines and Schwartz decided to deliberately 
  model the new book on DC Comics’ very successful 
  All-Star Comics, with the various Nedor superheroes 
  interacting in addition to various solo features.
  Adventures Into Darkness #1 debuted with a cover 
  date of August 1941, even including a “Society of 
  Sorcerers” meeting between Nodens and three Nedor 
  superheroes intended to replicate All-Star’s success-
  ful “Justice Society of America” stories. With this new 
  comic book Schwartz needed many more scripts than 
  the irritably convalescent Lovecraft could (or would) 
  provide, especially once it went monthly with issue #7. 
  (Dream Master dropped to bimonthly with the May/
  
  —         —
  h.P. loveCrafT & The  
  nedor ComICs lIne
  - 5 -
  June 1942 issue, and began featuring the other Nedor 
  superheroes as well, probably Schwartz’ idea to help 
  keep sales up.) Barlow took up the typewriter again, 
  and also recruited as many of Lovecraft’s old pen pals 
  as he could to help out. Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, and 
  Henry Kuttner were happy to try their hands at comics, 
  E. Hoffman Price continued to soldier away, and Frank 
  Belknap Long wrote a number of stories based on his 
  own work. Lovecraft’s younger fans took to superhe-
  roes rapidly: James Blish and Willis Conover (both 20 
  years old in 1941) wrote the most Nedor hero-tales for 
  Adventures Into Darkness and Dream Master, followed 
  closely by Bloch, who could churn out amazing wordage 
  in a pinch. Not everyone was eager to join: Clark Ashton 
  Smith declined politely, citing his own “limitations 
  as an artist,” and August Derleth wrote a particularly 
  snide and condescending letter to Barlow (and a more 
  collegial one to Lovecraft) in March of 1940 decrying 
  the whole project as “prostitution.” After Lovecraft 
  died, Derleth did everything he could to denigrate the 
  comics work, repeatedly denying any involvement by 
  the old master in such tawdry affairs and blaming the 
  whole thing on Barlow and Schwartz. Film scholars 
  and students of the American horror novel, perhaps 
  nervous at how recently their own fields have become 
  respectable academic subjects, have generally conspired 
  with Derleth to deprecate, ignore, or at least minimize 
  Lovecraft’s comics writing.
  “ZombIe TIme”
  Certainly, of the approximately 400-odd individual sto-
  ries in the seven-year run of Dream Master Comics and 
  the eight-year run of Adventures Into Darkness, many—
  likely the majority—were scripted “by divers hands” 
  other than Lovecraft’s. An unknown number may even 
  have been the product of the established Nedor stable; 
  of the “mainstream” Nedor writers, only Richard Hughes 
  deliberately kept himself aloof from “the Providence 
  gang” (as Pines and Schwartz called them) and “the 
  Zombies” (as they called themselves in their letters). 
  Others—Lovecraft fans, friends of Blish or Bloch, or 
  simply comics freelancers interested in a check instead 
  of credit—wrote pages and pages of material, in their 
  best HPL pastiche. What Schwartz (and Barlow) had 
  done was do for comics writing what Will Eisner had 
  done for comics art—create a studio capable of turning 
  out reliable (if not always inspired) work in the style 
  of a single master. Hence, August Derleth and Darrell 
  Schweitzer eagerly (and L. Sprague de Camp and Jules 
  Feiffer, reluctantly) dismiss the entire “Lovecraft” prod-
  uct of the Nedor era as derivative, pseudo-canonical 
  ghost-writing, rejecting any real role for Lovecraft aside 
  from “cashing the checks” (de Camp) or “nodding over 
  the pages as he dreamed of his new novel” (Feiffer). 
  Derleth was especially cutting in his descriptions of 
  “legions of ghouls who feast from the sickbed of a great 
  author, draping his cerements about them and daring to 
  pass off their dreams as his.”
  But later scholarship—led by S.T. Joshi, whose dis-
  tate for the Nedor material remains as palpable as 
  Derleth’s—has essentially proven that Lovecraft took 
  an increasingly active, even playful, part in story dis-
  cussions (both by letter and in person as his health 
  recovered and he resumed his traveling habits) and 
  actual scripting when a particularly juicy idea struck 
  him. In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith (August 12, 
  
  —         —
  h.P. loveCrafT & The  
  nedor ComICs lIne
  - 6 -
  1944, reprinted in Selected Letters VIII) Lovecraft 
  wrote:
  Barlow and Gaius [an HPL nickname for Schwartz] have 
  some new notion for poor Randolph Carter or one of his 
  costumed cohorts, and have dragooned Grandpa into 
  looking up the necessary grotesques in Cotton Mather 
  to be patriotically dispatch’d. In paging through the 
  old Puritan’s Book, I found myself writing notes for 
  four or five more such adventures that might scare the 
  news-boy into fits if he can tear his eyes from Captain 
  Marvel…. ‘Tis queerly liberating to write trash that 
  one knows is destined for the trash, that makes the 
  old Farnie-stead [Weird Tales] seem like Parnassus by 
  comparison! Everything can be sacrificed for sensation 
  and effect, and one can always console oneself on the 
  atrocious contortions of the comic-book language with 
  the reflection that the mongrel letterer simply couldn’t 
  shape his paw around true writing if you bothered with 
  it!! … [W]riting this nonsense seems—though never 
  Art—an occasionally enjoyable mechanical process. 
  It’s rather like Hawthorne or Melville working as mere 
  scribal functionaries while dreaming up Seven Gables 
  or Moby-Dick—perhaps I should consider drafting the 
  adventures of the Fighting Yank or the Night Terror to be 
  the equivalent of Hawthorne composing passport appli-
  cations!
  This sounds less like the violated aesthete of Derleth’s 
  imagination, or even Andrew Sarris’ detached “merce-
  nary hack,” and more like the good-natured, mellow 
  patriarch of HPL’s own self-perception, willing to 
  parody Robert Bloch in “The Haunter of the Dark” 
  or compose farcical family trees of Yog-Sothoth and 
  Cthulhu for the amusement of his correspondents. 
  Given the vehement insistence by (among other con-
  temporaries) Barlow and Long on HPL’s role in the 
  scripting process (and Julius Schwartz’ many jok-
  ing references over the years to having to rewrite 
  Lovecraft “so that Ned Pines or any other ten-year-old 
  could read his stuff”), it seems undeniable that HPL 
  wrote at least some of the work published by Nedor 
  Comics under his name. Also indicative, none of the 
  “Zombies” ever complained, in letters, memoirs, or 
  later convention appearances, that Lovecraft stole 
  credit that was not his. (To the contrary, Fritz Leiber 
  wrote in 1973 that he was “happy that someone else’s 
  name went on some of my super-stories, though it’s 
  a shame it had to be Lovecraft’s.” This, of course, was 
  before he came back to write Hawkman for Julius 
  Schwartz at DC.) Nor has any hint of dissatisfaction 
  with Lovecraft’s share of the Nedor checks come to 
  light, despite later insinuations by Derleth (mostly at 
  Barlow’s expense). Although the modern scholarly con-
  sensus doesn’t follow Lin Carter’s enthusiastic estimate 
  (“easily half to two-thirds of the comics work shows at 
  least occasionally the true Lovecraft touch”), Joshi’s 
  figure of “almost fifty certain, perhaps eighty likely” 
  scripts can be considered the low end of the probable 
  proportion.
  Colours fade
  During the flood tide of the Golden Age superhero, 
  then, things went about as well for Lovecraft and his 
  Zombies as could be expected. They were hampered 
  by Nedor’s less-than-stellar art, which often reduced 
  the spooks and monsters to literally “indescribable” 
  blobs. (The art significantly improved after 1946 with 
  the hiring of Ralph Mayo as art director.) Far more 
  irritating to Lovecraft were the too-frequent ham-
  fisted editing attempts as the bewildered Nedor staff 
  attempted to jam his (or his acolytes’) multisyllabic 
  prose into a speech balloon or caption box. It’s likely 
  that some of the cuts and changes HPL blamed on 
  the Nedor editors and letterers came from Schwartz or 
  Barlow, retyping a typically prolix Lovecraft script to 
  make deadline.
  As Lovecraft’s health improved, he became less and 
  less interested in preparing even “malformed calves 
  for the inexpert butcher,” beginning serious work 
  instead on his final novel, The House of the Worm. He 
  still answered letters from the Zombies, suggesting 
  plot points or incidents as they occurred to him, but 
  seldom bothered to put together even story outlines. 
  The last two or three years of the Nedor-Lovecraft col-
  laboration come far closer to the Derleth-promulgated 
  image of a disdainful artist allowing less-talented 
  friends to shine with reflected creative glory.
  Ironically, this new distance was partly a product 
  of Schwartz’ ongoing and increasing success in sell-
  ing Lovecraft’s earlier fiction. In 1941, Schwartz had 
  placed “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (originally 
  published in a shoddy small-press edition) and twelve 
  other short stories with Knopf, as The Shadow Over 
  Innsmouth and Other Weird Stories. It did well enough 
  to support The Shadow Out of Time and Further Weird 
  Stories the next year, and both books drew increas-
  ing critical attention. Two different collections (of 
  the same stories) appeared in Editions for the Armed 
  Services; both were very popular with servicemen 
  
  —         —
  h.P. loveCrafT & The  
  nedor ComICs lIne
  - 7 -
  already familiar with Lovecraft’s work from the comics. 
  Avon released a domestic paperback (The Lurking Fear 
  and Other Tales) in 1947, the same year that Nedor 
  finally pulled the plug on Dream Master. Since late 
  1946, Lovecraft had been making enough money from 
  such editions, from increasing numbers of antholo-
  gized reprints, and most of all from his movie work, 
  to be able to do without his Nedor stipend, which he 
  began to turn over to Barlow to distribute to the writ-
  ers in addition to their piece-rate.
  advenTures’ end
  Perhaps not coincidentally, 1947 was also the year 
  that Julius Schwartz left Nedor for National Periodicals 
  (the future DC Comics), having been head-hunted 
  since 1944. With Schwartz gone and Lovecraft barely 
  interested, the stories edged into steadily wilder 
  adventures driven mostly by the imaginations of Blish 
  and Conover. Nedor was also pushing Barlow (since 
  1944 officially drawing a salary as a Nedor editor) to 
  include more science fiction content, as superheroes 
  were losing steam in the marketplace. This sparked 
  a rash of interplanetary and time-travel stories in 
  1948. But Blish began to sell more of his own fiction, 
  and Conover became increasingly interested in writ-
  ing music criticism. By the summer of 1949, Nedor 
  canceled the last of its superhero comics—including 
  Adventures Into Darkness, which ended its run with 
  #77 in July 1949—leaving only “funny animals,” 
  crime, and romance.
  Schwartz, of course, had sold Charles Dexter Ward 
  to RKO by then, and HPL had gone on to his second 
  career in Hollywood working with Val Lewton, Orson 
  Welles, and Jacques Tourneur, to eventually die in Los 
  Angeles of intestinal cancer on May 5, 1959. (Other 
  sources cover Lovecraft’s film work more than fully; 
  see the Bibliography.) That same year, Julius Schwartz 
  got a second bite at the apple once Ned Pines left the 
  comics business for good and DC Comics purchased the 
  rights to the Nedor superheroes. Schwartz put Captain 
  Future into Mystery in Space (which became Captain 
  Future Adventures in 1962) and added Gardner Fox’s 
  revamped Fighting Yank to the JLA in Justice League 
  of America #4. In the 1990s, the Arkham Files TV series 
  sparked a further Lovecraft revival in comics. Dream 
  Master, furiously scripted by Rick Veitch, came roaring 
  back to anchor DC’s Vertigo line. Alan Moore’s epochal 
  work on Nodens caused many fans to seek out the 
  original Nedor stories, either in the 1970s “100 Page 
  Giant” reprints or from back issue dealers and eBay. DC 
  plans to release the first volume of the Adventures Into 
  Darkness Archives in hardback next year. Murky art, 
  hacked-up editing, and Lovecraftian reluctance aside, 
  it’s undeniable that HPL and his Zombies changed 
  comics forever—and it’s impossible to imagine super-
  heroic horror without them.
  bIblIograPhy
  Barlow, Robert H. Zombie Time (Fantagraphics Books, 
  2002 repr.)
  Bogdanovich, Peter. Shadows Over RKO (Random House, 
  1990)
  Carter, Lin. Lovecraft: A Look Behind the “Yog-Sothoth 
  Cycle” (Ballantine Books, 1972)
  Conover, Willis. Lovecraft at Length (Carrollton Clark, 
  1976)
  De Camp, L. Sprague. Lovecraft: A Biography 
  (Doubleday, 1975)
  Derleth, August. Outsiders: Literary Biographies 
  (Scribner’s, 1967)
  Evanier, Mark. “Fritz Leiber” in Comics Interview #36 
  (Fall 1989)
  Feiffer, Jules. The Great Comic Book Heroes (Dial, 1977)
  Joshi, S.T. H.P. Lovecraft: A Life Observed 1937-1959 
  (Ohio University Press, 1996)
  Joshi, S.T. ed. Lovecraft: The First Two Decades of 
  Criticism (Ohio University Press, 1980)
  Long, Frank Belknap. Howard Philips Lovecraft: 
  Dreamer on the Nightside (Gollancz, 1975)
  Lovecraft, H.P. Further Notes on a Non-Entity (Knopf, 
  1955)
  Lovecraft, H.P. The House of the Worm (Norton Second 
  Critical Edition, 1993)
  Lowder, James. Captain Future: A Four-Color Biography 
  (Monkeybrain Books, 2004).
  Nevins, Jess. The Nedor Heroes 1939-2005 (McFarland 
  Press, 2006)
  Sarris, Andrew. Shudders in the Dark: American Postwar 
  Horror Film (Pantheon, 2000 repr.)
  Schweitzer, Darrell. Uncovering Lovecraft (Three Rivers 
  Press, 1987)
  Schweitzer, Darrell, ed. Clash of the Titans: The H.P. 
  Lovecraft-John W. Campbell Correspondence (NESFA 
  Press, 1990)
  Wandrei, Donald, and Turner, James, ed. Selected 
  Letters of H.P. Lovecraft (14 vols.) (Brown 
  University Press, 1965-1982)
  
  - 8 -
  — heroes —
  “Only the cosmic framework itself—or such individuals as symbolise principles 
  (or defiances of principles) of the cosmic framework—can gain a deep grip on my 
  imagination and set it to work creating. In other words, the only ‘heroes’ I can 
  write about are phenomena.”
   
  — H.P. Lovecraft, letter to E. Hoffman Price,  
  Aug. 15, 1934 (seleCTed leTTers v, p. 19)
  heroes
  F
  or each hero, the first paragraph gives a quick 
  summary of their origin and pow-
  ers, and briefly discusses their 
  mainstream Nedor Comics career. The 
  second paragraph focuses on their 
  appearance in the Lovecraft lines: 
  Dream Master and Adventures Into 
  Darkness. (For the Dream Master and Nodens, 
  two heroes essentially restricted to the Lovecraft 
  lines, the first paragraph simply discusses their pow-
  ers and origins.) It covers some of their particularly 
  popular or iconic adventures, nemeses, etc. in those 
  books, but is obviously far from complete.
  The amerICan eagle
  A strange “black light ray” struck government sci-
  entist Tom Standish and his youthful assistant Bud 
  Pierce, granting them both the ability to fly and fight 
  like true American eagles. As the American Eagle 
  and Eaglet, they battled the Axis, starting in Exciting 
  Comics #22 (October 1942). The American Eagle 
  debuted alone the month before, in America’s Best 
  Comics #2. The American Eagle’s flight can easily keep 
  pace with a car, and he is strong enough to lift and 
  throw a heavy construction crane.
  Lovecraft borrowed the American Eagle for a guest 
  appearance in Adventures Into Darkness #35, in which 
  he fought “shantak-birds” summoned by Lucifuge. 
  In a longer story (issues #40-44) the American Eagle 
  explored “the Sargasso of the Skies,” battling not just 
  shantak-birds but giant vampiric moths, the fungoid 
  Outer Ones, rogue night-gaunts, and all manner of 
  other winged monstrosities. At the climax, the Eagle 
  discovered his old nemesis the Little Führer at the 
  center of the phenomenon. This villain, originally 
  from America’s Best Comics #12 (January 1945), was 
  a midget super-genius who controlled a super-strong 
  The amerICan eagle
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Athlete, Expert [+4] Keen Eyes, Good [+2] 
  Patriot, Good [+2] Scientist, and Poor [-2] Resistance 
  to Head Blows.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Flight, Good [+2] Super-Sidekick (Eaglet), 
  and Good [+2] Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Aerobatic Dodge (Flight Shifty Business; 1 HP; 
  Average [0] speed and Expert [+4] maneuvering)
  Flying Fist (Flight and Super-Strength Signature; 
  Good [+2]; 2 HP; adds to Flight and Super-Strength 
  when combined to punch opponents while zooming 
  past them, for a total of +6 to the dice).
  
  — heroes —
  - 9 -
  aCe buCkley
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Engineer, Good [+2] Explorer, Expert [+4] 
  Historian, Expert [+4] Lucky, Good [+2] Natural 
  Linguist, Expert [+4] Pistol Shot, Good [+2] Sidekick 
  (Toni), Good [+2] Scrapper, and Poor [-2] Temporally 
  Unfixed.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Super-Gadget (Time Machine).
  stuNts
  None.
  minion named Hans. Most fans recall this story not for 
  the writing, but for artist Sheldon Moldoff’s rendering 
  of the Little Führer’s zeppelin headquarters.
  aCe buCkley
  Ace Buckley invented a time machine in October of 
  1940 (debuting in Startling Comics #3), and with his 
  lovely assistant Toni got into the usual scrapes. Among 
  his historical adventures are the Battle of Marathon, 
  the Crusades, the Spanish Armada, the Jamestown 
  colony, the Revolutionary War, and the struggles of 
  Simon Bolivar. He has only the powers of a standard 
  pulp adventurer, and his trusty gun.
  Beginning in Adventures Into Darkness #24 (November 
  1943), Lovecraft used Ace to set up various adventures 
  in archaic settings, especially Atlantis (where he met 
  Haldor, a Conan ripoff from Thrilling Comics #26) and 
  colonial-era America. In a number of stories set in 
  the 1690s, Ace crossed paths with Edmund Carter, the 
  sorcerous ancestor of both Randolph Carter and the 
  Fighting Yank. Ace Buckley also helped the magician-
  scientist Roger Bacon defeat Professor Fenton in a 
  memorable tale in Adventures Into Darkness #61 that 
  some fans believe was actually scripted by Alfred Bester.
  CaPTaIn fuTure
  Mild-mannered scientist Dr. Andrew Bryant discovered 
  a unique interference pattern created by “gamma 
  and infrared waves” that enabled him to “throw off 
  his normal meekness.” Like later heroes exposed to 
  gamma radiation, Bryant gained immense strength, 
  in his case accompanied by flight, and the ability 
  to shoot “energy bolts” from his hands. The gamma 
  radiation suffusing his skin projects a micro-thin 
  force field that resembles invulnerability. He must 
  occasionally recharge his powers with his machine. 
  Like many Nedor heroes, Captain Future is not totally 
  invulnerable—a blow to the head can still render him 
  unconscious, perhaps because coshes move slowly 
  enough that they don’t trigger the field. As Captain 
  Future, Bryant fights the Axis menace and all other 
  threats to the world. His girlfriend Grace Adams, who 
  works for her Aunt Agatha’s detective agency, keeps 
  him alerted to crimes and mysteries.
  Captain Future debuted in Startling Comics #1 (June 
  1940), and starred there for forty issues. Lovecraft 
  sent the Dream Master into Captain Future’s dreams 
  in Dream Master #25. This tale proved very popular, 
  though not popular enough to keep Dream Master 
  a monthly in the face of wartime paper rationing. 
  But Lovecraft did write a sequel in which the two 
  heroes teamed up to travel “by etheric translation” 
  to the planet Yaddith, where they helped friendly 
  and advanced aliens named the Yug-Soth battle giant 
  worms. Captain Future was too powerful for the gen-
  eral run of villains and monsters in Adventures Into 
  Darkness, and his appearances were concomitantly 
  rare. His most notable guest role is his fight against 
  CaPTaIn fuTure
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Charismatic Leader, Good [+2] Memory, 
  Good [+2] Pilot, Expert [+4] Scientist, Good [+2] 
  Sidekick (Grace Adams), and Poor [-2] Decent.
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Gamma Bolt, Expert [+4] Invulnerability 
  (Limitation: Head Blows), Master [+6] Flight, Expert 
  [+4] Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Hover Immovably (Flight Spin-off; Good [+2]; 0 HP), 
  Radiant Light (Gamma Bolt Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  HP; can dazzle foes or dispel shadows)
  Stunning Bolt (Gamma Bolt Shifty Business; 1 HP; 
  Good [+2] range and Master [+6] non-lethal damage)
  Wide-Angle Bolt (Gamma Bolt Shifty Business; 1 HP; 
  Good [+2] range and Master [+6] damage against 
  multiple mooks).
  Notes
  All of Captain Future’s Powers suffer the Limitation: 
  Must Occasionally Be Recharged.
  
  - 10 -
  — heroes —
  Dagon in 
  Adventures 
  Into Darkness 
  #48.
  (This Captain Future 
  is not to be confused 
  with the pulp hero Captain 
  Future, created by Edmond F. 
  Hamilton, who starred in Nedor’s 
  Captain Future pulp magazine serial.)
  The CavalIer
  “Strange but true—when the Duc de Chantrey’s 
  portrait changes its expression to a grim frown, then 
  gallant, two-fisted Rance Raleigh forsakes his workaday 
  role to become … the Cavalier!” So says the splash page 
  from Thrilling Comics #53 (April 1946), which goes on to 
  describe how the “curio shop owner” dresses up 
  in costume and fights crime with a sword.
  The Cavalier only appeared two other times in 
  the straight Nedor lines, and would probably have 
  dropped into total obscurity if the combination of a 
  Douglas Fairbanks-style swashbuckler and a magical 
  ancestral portrait hadn’t caught Lovecraft’s fancy. 
  The Cavalier became a mainstay of Adventures Into 
  Darkness, appearing in almost every issue from #45 
  on. Lovecraft repeatedly used the Duc de Chantrey’s 
  portrait for plot exposition, setting eight stories in 
  de Chantrey’s historical 17th century, includ-
  ing one crossover each with Ace Buckley and 
  Professor Fenton. The Duc de Chantrey was, 
  of course, a magician, and his sword (which 
  the Cavalier had either inherited or discovered—
  continuity differed) proved to be capable of killing 
  ghosts in “The Terror of Azderac” (Adventures Into 
  Darkness #58). In later years, many of the Cavalier’s 
  adventures were thinly disguised rewrites of clas-
  sic ghost stories by William Hope Hodgson or M.R. 
  James, probably “ghosted” by Willis Conover 
  or other youthful members of the 
  Lovecraft correspondence circle.
  “doC” sTrange
  This is not Doctor Steven Strange, the Marvel 
  Universe’s master of magic. Nor is it Dr. Hugo 
  Strange, the DC Batman villain. This Hugo Strange, 
  who goes by the familiar “Doc,” is a brilliant scientist 
  and crime-fighter, like his model, Doc Savage. And 
  indeed, in his Thrilling Comics #1 (February 1940) 
  debut, he had only human, albeit pulp-heroic, abili-
  ties. But in August 1940 (Thrilling Comics #7), he 
  invented the serum Alosun, “a secret distillate of liq-
  uid sun atoms,” which gives him super-strength (he 
  can throw tractors at airplanes, or kick over trucks) 
  and super-endurance. Since he routinely jumps 
  from the ground to airplanes traveling hundreds of 
  feet above him, he most likely has some measure 
  of super-speed (he can swim at 80 knots), super-
  aim, and concomitant agility. Doc has a girlfriend, 
  Virginia, but (again like Doc Savage) no secret iden-
  tity. His sidekick, the orphan Mike Ellis, showed up 
  in January 1942 (Thrilling Comics #24). Mike was too 
  young to take Alosun, but helped out with his fists. 
  Continued exposure to Alosun increased Doc’s powers; 
  by 1946 he could actually fly for short periods (or 
  The CavalIer
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Antiquarian, Expert [+4] Brawler, Good 
  [+2] Escape Artist, Master [+6] Gymnast, Good [+2] 
  Wealth, and Poor [-2] Chivalrous.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Super-Fencing (Limitation; only with De 
  Chantrey Sword, otherwise it is merely Master [+6] 
  Fencing).
  stuNts
  Acrobatic Dodge (Gymnast Signature;1 HP; Expert 
  [+4]; adds to defensive rolls when used)
  Disarming Strike (Super-Fencing Signature; 1 HP; 
  Expert [+4]; applies Failure Ranks to weapon or rel-
  evant Qualities if foe is armed)
  Swingline Travel (Gymnast Spin-off; Good [+2]; 0 HP).
  
  — heroes —
  - 11 -
  perhaps leap for very long ones) and was seemingly 
  unconcerned about bullets or grenades, though still 
  not truly invulnerable.
  Lovecraft tended to use Doc Strange as a source of 
  scientific exposition, when he used him at all. Doc 
  became by turns an expert geologist, physicist, archae-
  ologist, or astronomer depending on the needs of the 
  plot, but usually only took an active part in adven-
  tures when the villain was exceptionally dangerous. 
  He did fight the “Killer Plants of the Mad Botanist” 
  (an old American Crusader villain) in Adventures Into 
  Darkness #52, and show up in #59 to help combat his 
  own old foe from Thrilling Comics, the villainous mas-
  termind Satani. However, in Adventures Into Darkness 
  #63, Doc injects a variant of Alosun “distilled from the 
  demon star Algol” and turns into quite a dangerous 
  villain himself.
  The dream masTer
  The Dream Master was Lovecraft’s first superhero, 
  although he only began calling himself that in Dream 
  Master Comics #4 (May 1940). For the first three issues, 
  he was plain Randolph Carter, although he is described 
  as “a master dreamer” in 
  issue #1 (February 1940). 
  Randolph Carter is an expert in all 
  occult arts, but his greatest power comes 
  when he enters the Dreamlands. Here—
  although he can be menaced by such foes as 
  gugs 
  and galley slavers—he is recognized as a mighty king 
  and scholar. In his first appearances, closely adapted 
  from Lovecraft’s novel The Dream-Quest of Unknown 
  “doC” sTrange
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Criminologist, Master [+6] Gadgeteer, 
  Master [+6] Scientist, Expert [+4] Sidekick 
  (Mike Ellis), Expert [+4] Throwing, and Poor [-2] 
  Resistance to Head Blows.
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Super-Endurance, Good [+2] Super-
  Intelligence, Good [+2] Super-Speed, and Expert [+4] 
  Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Super-Aim (Super-Intelligence Spin-off; Good [+2]; 2 
  HP; adds to aimed shots or leaps)
  Super-Leaping (Super-Strength Signature; Good [+2]; 
  1 HP; includes super-agility).
  Notes
  Super-Endurance lets “Doc” resist physical damage 
  as Armor, and deal with dangerous environments as 
  Adaptation, but does not include those Powers’ other 
  effects. All of “Doc’s” Powers suffer the Limitation: 
  Depends on Regular Injections of Alosun.
  The dream masTer
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Antiquarian, Master [+6] Dreamer, 
  Expert [+4] Occultist, Good [+2] Veteran, and Poor 
  [-2] Subject to Ennui.
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Cat Control (Limitation: cannot actu-
  ally command cats, but they will respond well to his 
  requests), Master [+6] Dream Travel, and Expert [+4] 
  Sorcery (Meta-Power).
  stuNts
  Dream Awareness (Dream Travel Spin-off; Good [+2]; 
  0 HP; tracking and detection of threats or powerful 
  magics within dreams or Dreamland)
  Sign of Koth (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 HP; 
  Power Neutralization against magic-based Powers)
  Voorish Sign (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 HP; 
  paralyzes target, beat a TN of 9 to shake off).
  Notes
  Dream Travel is the power to enter the dreams of 
  others, and to move around within them.
  
  - 12 -
  — heroes —
  Kadath, Carter had only the magic of the Sign of Koth 
  and his reputation to defend him. But soon he gained 
  a nebulous “power within dreams” that allowed him to 
  enter the dreams of others (sometimes criminals, but 
  usually dreams of madmen that threatened to release 
  one or another demon) and use magic there. In the 
  waking world, Carter tends to rely on his knowledge 
  of the occult, and on the ever-useful Sign of Koth. 
  Both awake and dreaming, Carter can speak with cats. 
  Later, the Dream Master added the Voorish Sign to his 
  repertoire, but like the Sign of Koth its effects varied 
  depending on the story requirements.
  In Adventures Into Darkness #4 (February 1942), 
  Lovecraft revealed that Randolph Carter was related 
  to Bruce Carter III, better known as the Fighting 
  Yank. Both were descended from Edmund Carter, who 
  “was nearly hanged as a witch at Salem.” For the 
  duration of WWII in his own title, the Dream Master 
  would occasionally help the Fighting Yank preserve 
  “the American Dream” from its enemies in stories 
  almost certainly scripted by Willis Conover or Frank 
  Belknap Long.
  The fIghTIng yank
  Wealthy playboy Bruce Carter III became the 
  Fighting Yank after a visit from the ghost of his 
  Revolutionary War hero ancestor, Bruce Carter I. 
  The spirit showed Bruce III where to find a magic 
  cloak that his grandfather had worn during the 
  Revolution. (It was hidden in his hometown of 
  Granger, Massachusetts.) When he put it on, Bruce 
  III gained magical strength (he can lift tanks), 
  flight, and invulnerability to gunfire. (Like most 
  Nedor heroes, however, the Fighting Yank is 
  still susceptible to a knock on the head.) 
  As the Fighting Yank, he battled crime 
  and Nazis with the help of his ghostly 
  ancestor, who rescued Bruce III when 
  things looked dire. The Fighting Yank 
  also uses a pistol when he needs to. 
  Only his girlfriend Joan Farwell knows 
  his secret identity.
  From his debut in Startling Comics #10 
  (September 1941), the Fighting Yank 
  proved instantly popular, getting his 
  own title a year later, and publisher Ned 
  Pines encouraged Lovecraft to use the 
  Fighting Yank in Adventures Into Darkness as a sales 
  The fIghTIng yank
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Commando, Expert [+4] Escape Artist, 
  Expert [+4] Fisticuffs, Master [+6] Patriotic Symbol, 
  Master [+6] Wealth, and Poor [-2] Loyal.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Flight, Expert [+4] Invulnerability 
  (Limitation: Head Blows), and Expert [+4] Super-
  Strength.
  stuNts
  Inspire (Patriotic Symbol Signature; Good [+2]; 0 HP; 
  provides Upshift for all Americans who see the Yank 
  fight)
  Right Cross (Super-Strength Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  HP; combines with Fisticuffs for net +10 to dice).
  Notes
  All the Yank’s Powers suffer the 
  Limitation: Only While Wearing 
  Magic Cloak.
  
  — heroes —
  - 13 -
  booster. Lovecraft’s inspired blending of Bruce Carter 
  III’s family tree with Randolph Carter’s (established 
  in Adventures Into Darkness #4) provided ample mate-
  rial for such crossover stories, many of which ran in 
  the Fighting Yank’s backup feature in Dream Master, 
  beginning with issue #22. The Fighting Yank’s own 
  stories could get plenty weird—he battled Dr. Fantom, 
  who turned people to wolves in Startling Comics #18 
  (December 1942), and Mojo, the leader of an invad-
  ing army of insect-sized Japanese in Fighting Yank #9 
  (August 1944)—but resisted too much actual magic. 
  Not so in Adventures Into Darkness, where he battled 
  all manner of horrors taken from Lovecraft’s bottom-
  less stock of New England lore, usually summoned up 
  by Baron von Junzt. In the Lovecraft version, it was 
  Randolph and Bruce Carter’s sorcerer ancestor Edmund 
  who originally enchanted the cloak they wore, and 
  who cast the spell to keep Bruce Carter I alive 
  after death. Lovecraft also enjoyed giving the 
  ghostly Bruce Carter I more of the spotlight 
  in various spectral adventures—especially 
  after WWII ended, the Fighting Yank was 
  often reduced to a cameo appearance in 
  his own guest-starring role!
  bruCe CarTer I
  Bruce Carter I’s ghost usually just 
  shows up to help untie or other-
  wise rescue his descendant, or 
  merely to give ghostly ancestral 
  advice. He does have his own 
  powers—like the Spectre, he 
  can grow to giant size, walk 
  through walls, and grab 
  cars or swat planes out of 
  the air.
  The ghosT
  Raised in India by his 
  immortal yogi foster 
  father, George Chance 
  learned the arts of Eastern 
  magic from a youthful age. He 
  can levitate and fly at the speed 
  of light, animate statues or other 
  inanimate objects, and (of course) 
  take on his astral form to become 
  a ghost. While astral, he is invis-
  ible and can walk through walls at will, 
  but he can affect (and can be affected by) 
  people and other material objects. The 
  Ghost does have a few weaknesses. Like most 
  Nedor heroes, he can be knocked out by a 
  strong blow to the head, and he 
  must have his hands free 
  to work his magic. 
  (That said, if the 
  Ghost is in India, his 
  yogi father can come untie his 
  hands with a call.) His girlfriend 
  Betty comes along on many of his 
  adventures as a suitable hostage, although 
  he can turn her invisible as well.
  The Ghost first appeared in Thrilling Comics #3 
  (April 1940) and became very popular. Like Captain 
  Future and other Nedor heroes, he had a pulp version 
  published simultaneously. The pulp Ghost (who spo-
  radically became the Green Ghost starting in 1941) was 
  the son of a trapeze artist and animal trainer, raised 
  in the circus. He used such circus skills as contortion, 
  tumbling, ventriloquism (handy for “the hundreds of 
  voices of the Ghost”), stage magic, and his parents’ 
  skills to fight crime in skull-faced makeup (including 
  wires in his nostrils to narrow them and horrifying 
  bruCe CarTer I
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Patriot, Expert [+4] Soldier, and Poor 
  [-2] Devotion to Descendants.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Ghost (Meta-Power).
  stuNts
  (all Ghost Spin-off; Good [+2]; 0 HP) 
  Flight, Growth
  Immortality
  Invisibility (Limitation: Can Be Sensed By Animals), 
  Invulnerability (Limitation: Non-Magical Attacks Only)
  Phasing
  Regeneration
  Telekinesis
  Telepathy (Limitation: Only With Fighting Yank) 
  Terrifying Presence (causes Failure Ranks from fear, 
  beat a TN of 9 to recover).
  
  - 14 -
  — heroes —
  Some of the Ghost’s early tales were likely writ-
  ten by Lovecraft’s Theosophical enthusiast friend E. 
  Hoffman Price, who drew little distinction between 
  the pulp and comics Ghosts. As a result, the Ghost 
  in Adventures Into Darkness could “throw on a skull-
  like pallor” to frighten criminals, tame animals with 
  a word, and throw the magical daggers that appeared 
  in virtually every story with great accuracy. Lovecraft 
  (more probably, either Henry Kuttner or Frank Belknap 
  Long) adapted Long’s India-flavored story “The Horror 
  From the Hills” for Adventures Into Darkness #67, pit-
  ting the Ghost and Doc Strange against “Chaugnar 
  Faugn, the elephant-headed demon composed of solid-
  ified Time itself.”
  kara, Jungle PrInCess
  “There are some distances neither planes nor radio 
  waves can span—the chasms in time that have pro-
  duced many of the secret wonders of the world! Arohiti 
  is one of these—the ancient citadel set like a gem in 
  the tropical wilderness—and guarded by immortal war-
  riors! Cast among the Arohitans by a plane crash, Kara 
  rules an amazing realm—with Major Kit leading the 
  royal guard against the deadly threats of the outcast—
  Targala!” Kara, Jungle Princess, is actually Jane Howell, 
  deposited in Arohita by a plane crash. Her powers, like 
  those of most “jungle girls,” consist of sheer indomi-
  tability, swinging on vines, and fighting skill; she also 
  partakes of Arohitan “immortality,” which is essentially 
  invulnerability (to leopards at least). Her pistol-packing 
  male sidekick Kit is somewhat less useless than the 
  normal jungle girl boyfriend. Her rule is opposed by the 
  evil priest Targala and his Lumu people, and by Venomo, 
  leader of the snake-like Subterrons of the underground 
  city Subterris.
  After Will Eisner invented Sheena, the first “jungle 
  girl” in comics, other publishers jumped on the 
  bandwagon. Nedor had several—not just Kara, but 
  Judy of the Jungle, Tygra, and Princess Pantha—but 
  Kara was the first, debuting in Exciting Comics #39 
  (June 1945). And she was the one Lovecraft put 
  (not without vociferous protest, according to later 
  recollection) into Adventures Into Darkness. As it 
  happened, he first put her into Dream Master #55, 
  implying that Arohiti might also (or only) exist in 
  the Dreamlands. Arohiti’s lost-city, quasi-Egyptian 
  or Babylonian feel (Kara wears a gauzy harem out-
  fit, rather than the standard fur bikini) blended 
  well with Sarnath, Ulthar, Celephais, and the other 
  The ghosT
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Circus Performer, Expert [+4] 
  Intimidating, Expert [+4] South Asian Lore and 
  Languages, Expert [+4] Stealth, Master [+6] Yogi 
  Training, and Poor [-2] Show-off.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Astral Form (Meta-Power), and Expert 
  [+4] Sorcery (Meta-Power).
  stuNts
  Acrobat (Circus Performer Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 
  HP; adds to defense rolls against attacks that can be 
  dodged)
  Air-Walking (Astral Form Signature; Good [+2]; 0 HP; 
  form of Flight, includes walking on water, feather-
  fall, walking without tracks, etc.)
  Animal Control (Sorcery Spin-off; Good [+2]; 1 HP)
  Animate Objects (Sorcery Spin-off; Good [+2]; 1 HP; 
  animate up to 1.5 tons of matter, more with more HP)
  Escape Artist (Circus Performer Signature; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP)
  FTL Travel (Astral Form Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 1 HP; 
  Limitation: Light-speed only)
  Invisibility (Astral Form Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 
  HP; also inaudible; Limitation: Can Be Sensed By 
  Animals)
  Knife Throwing (Circus Performer Signature; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP)
  Phasing (Astral Form Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP)
  Skull-Like Pallor (Circus Performer Signature; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP; stacks with Intimidating against criminals),
  Telepathy (Astral Form Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP; 
  Limitation: Only with people he knows).
  Notes
  All of the Ghost’s Powers have the Limitation: Must 
  Have Hands Free.
  false teeth “the color of old ivory”). Lovecraft brought 
  the Ghost over to Adventures Into Darkness early (in 
  #7, June 1942), for a rematch with his time-travelling 
  nemesis Professor Fenton, and made him and his 
  “Indian magic” a recurring staple of the title for essen-
  tially its entire run. 
  
  — heroes —
  - 15 -
  Dreamlands countries. 
  When Dream 
  Master’s run 
  ended, Kara 
  moved into 
  Adventures 
  Into 
  Darkness 
  beginning with 
  #57 for meetups (in the 
  waking world) with the 
  Ghost, Mystico, and the 
  Fighting Yank. Rumors per-
  sist of a lost Kara adventure 
  that re-told Lovecraft’s story 
  “Arthur Jermyn” from the ape 
  perspective, but if anyone in 
  Lovecraft’s shop had written such 
  a daring tale, Nedor would certainly 
  have ash-canned it.
  The lIberaTor
  “Bookworm professor” Nelson Drew of Claflin 
  University discovers the ancient Egyptian for-
  mula known as Lamesis. Drinking it unleashes a 
  wave of force and grants him super-strength (he can 
  break trees, bend gun barrels, and punch through 
  walls) and super-speed (he can outrun a fast speed-
  boat or grab a pistol away from a Japanese saboteur 
  before it can fire). Although he can launch a plane 
  by leaping into the air with it, he doesn’t have true 
  flight powers. He does have the unfortunate Nedor 
  heroic susceptibility to being hit on the head. To 
  distract attention from his career as the Liberator, 
  Professor Drew pretends to cowardice, even in 
  front of his girlfriend Annabel Evans.
  Were it not for the ancient Egyptian con-
  nection, Lovecraft would probably have 
  left the Liberator in the pages of 
  Exciting Comics where he debuted 
  in December 1941 (issue #15). 
  Instead, Professor Drew 
  occasionally served as 
  an academic along for 
  the ride who discovers 
  occult Nazi plots or buried 
  The lIberaTor
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Chemist, Expert [+4] Egyptologist, Good 
  [+2] Eidetic Memory, Master [+6] Fearless, and Poor 
  [-2] Dual Identity.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Super-Armor (Limitation: Except Head 
  Blows), Good [+2] Super-Charisma, Good [+2] Super-
  Speed, and Good [+2] Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Disarming Blow (Super-Speed Shifty Business; 1 HP; 
  running speed drops to Average [+0] while reaction 
  time jumps to Expert [+4]; all Failure Ranks apply to 
  weapon or relevant Qualities if foe is armed)
  Power Punch (Super-Strength Haymaker; 1 HP; 
  Upshift damage to walls, cannon, and other non-
  sentient targets)
  Super-Leaping (Super-Strength Signature; Good [+2]; 
  1 HP; up to 500 feet).
  Notes
  The Liberator’s Super-Armor is actually super-tough 
                                  skin; his Super-Charisma  
                                  is alchemically enhanced 
                                 presence. All of the Liberator’s 
  Powers have the Limitation: Only After Drinking 
  Lamesis.
  kara, Jungle PrInCess
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Beautiful, Master [+6] Gymnast, Expert 
  [+4] Hunter, Master [+6] Jungle Survival, Good [+2] 
  Princess, Expert [+4] Sidekick (Major Kit), Master 
  [+6] Sure-Footed, and Poor [-2] Responsible for 
  Arohiti.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Immortality and Expert [+4] Regeneration.
  stuNts
  Acrobatic Dodge (Gymnast Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 
  HP; adds to defensive rolls when used)
  Friend to Animals (Jungle Survival Signature; Good 
  [+2]; 0 HP)
  Keen Hearing (Jungle Survival Signature; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP)
  Vine Swinging (Gymnast Signature; Good [+2]; 0 HP; 
  12 yards per Turn movement).
  
  - 16 -
  — heroes —
  Darkness #37 (November 1944), two years after the 
  character had vanished from the mainstream Nedor 
  lines. Lovecraft’s (or Schwartz’s) version of Colby had 
  gained “ultra-violet vision,” and could not only see in 
  total darkness but through “all but the densest metals” 
  and occasionally “into the astral plane” or “alien dimen-
  sions.” This ability to see ghosts and invisible demons 
  came in handy on the Mask’s adventures, especially in 
  his battles against Horla, the Invisible Monster.
  mysTICo,  
  The Wonder man
  The mad scientist Dr. Slade decided to test his vita-ray 
  on a stolen Egyptian mummy named Mystico. However, 
  the vita-ray proved too powerful. It exploded, kill-
  ing Dr. Slade and destroying his laboratory—but it 
  restored the mummy to full human flesh and life. 
  Mystico, who as it turned out had been a wizard in 
  ancient Egypt, took the name Wonder Man and used 
  his magic to fight crime. (Apparently, to an ancient 
  Egyptian mummy wizard, 1940s street clothes are a 
  wild enough costume; Mystico looks almost disori-
  entingly normal, except for a slight widow’s peak.) 
  Originally, Mystico used magic in a classically arbitrary 
  Golden Age style: in one story alone he gets a pre-
  monition of danger, turns a car into a soap-box derby 
  racer, changes guns into lilies and molten steel into 
  high explosive, summons a pterodactyl to ride on, and 
  enlarges a house cat into a giant predator. Although 
  he had his share of Axis spies to defeat, Mystico’s 
  archenemy was the alluring Lilith, “the Regent of 
  Darkness, Princess of Pluto, Supreme Ruler of the uni-
  versal Realm.” She was assisted by her chief scientist 
  and adviser Dr. Voodoo (who resembled a white Fu 
  Manchu with pointed ears and two Satanic wisps of 
  hair on his head).
  Mystico ran for 17 issues of Startling Comics, begin-
  ning with #1 in June 1940. A revived Egyptian wizard 
  mummy hero was a natural for Lovecraft’s new book, 
  and Mystico also appeared in Adventures Into Darkness 
  #1. In that first issue, Mystico, the Ghost, Nodens, and 
  the Scarab formed the “Society of Sorcerers,” intended 
  as a magical Nedor version of the increasingly popular 
  Justice Society of America. Later issues mostly ignored 
  the Society, or treated it as a framing device, and 
  most of Mystico’s later adventures in the book were 
  solo tales, likely often scripted by Robert Bloch. In 
  those adventures, Lilith came back in Adventures Into 
  The mask
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Brawler, Expert [+4] District Attorney, 
  Master [+6] Keen Senses, and Poor [-2] Obsessed 
  With Justice.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Ultra-Violet Vision (Limitation: Blocked 
  By Lead).
  stuNts
  Combat Sense (Keen Senses Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 
  HP; adds to physical attacks and defenses)
  Danger Sense (Keen Senses Signature; Good [+2]; 0 
  HP; adds on rolls to avoid surprise, traps, etc.) 
  Lockpicking (Keen Senses Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 1 HP)
  Stealthy (Keen Senses Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 1 HP).
  monsters, or both, in remote corners of the world. The 
  Egyptophile (and Nazi-hating) Robert Bloch was prob-
  ably the uncredited writer of most Liberator appearances 
  in Adventures Into Darkness. However, Lovecraft may 
  very well have storyboarded Adventures Into Darkness 
  #31 (May 1944), in which Lamesis is discovered to be 
  the blood of a monstrous and inhuman “living mummy” 
  trapped beneath “the Red Pyramid of Abyssinia.” With 
  the help of the Ghost, the Liberator manages to destroy 
  the creature even though it has “gallons of Lamesis ooz-
  ing through its pulsing veins.”
  The mask
  The Mask began as a reworking of the Thrilling 
  Publications pulp hero the Black Bat, a crusading dis-
  trict attorney named Anthony Quinn who was blinded 
  by criminals. In the pulps, the Black Bat honed his 
  other senses to the keenest level before regaining his 
  sight in an eye transplant. But his new eyes were able 
  to see “even in the inkiest blackness” and he continued 
  to pose as a blind lawyer in his civilian identity during 
  his covert fight against crime. The Mask, who debuted 
  in Exciting Comics #1 (April 1940), was the similarly 
  blinded fighting D.A., Anthony Colby. He regained his 
  sight early, but had no special powers, fighting crime 
  as a vigilante in a purple cowl and packing a pistol. His 
  run in Exciting lasted only 20 issues.
  It was probably Julius Schwartz who inspired Lovecraft 
  to add the Mask to the lineup in Adventures Into 
  
  — heroes —
  - 17 -
  Highsmith scripted some Black Terror stories.
  Nobody is quite sure why the Black Terror never appeared 
  in Adventures Into Darkness. Julius Schwartz hinted that 
  Ned Pines got cold feet at the last minute, while Frank 
  Belknap Long always claimed that Nedor writer (and 
  the Black Terror’s creator) Richard Hughes was jealous of 
  HPL and threatened to quit if his best title was “dragged 
  into all that monster stuff.” As it was, in Adventures Into 
  Darkness #10, Lovecraft (or possibly Schwartz) simply 
  invented a heretofore unknown twin brother to Bob 
  Benton, the gravedigger Rob Benton. He inhaled his own 
  “formic ether vapors” from a mysterious embalmed corpse 
  in a colonial-era mausoleum and got the same powers as 
  the Black Terror. Rob Benton added a black hood to his 
  brother’s black-and-gold costume and became the Night 
  Terror. His signature stunt was using a wrestling hold 
  (and his immensely strong arms) to crush the life out of 
  some hapless Nazi. Given the number of walking corpses, 
  living skeletons, and other undead that the Night Terror 
  fought, that move wasn’t always foolproof. The Night 
  Darkness #9, this time tricking Mystico into fighting 
  her war against the Outer Ones “from the dark side of 
  Pluto.” In his penultimate appearance, in Adventures 
  Into Darkness #64, he teamed up with Kara, Jungle 
  Princess to fight her old Exciting Comics nemesis Esh-
  Kar, the Ape God of Evil.
  The nIghT Terror
  The Black Terror, who debuted in Exciting Comics #9 
  (May 1941), was one of Nedor’s most popular heroes. 
  In civilian life the druggist Bob Benton, he gained 
  super-strength and bulletproof skin by inhaling “for-
  mic ether vapors” and fought crime and the Axis with 
  his sidekick Tim. Together, “the Terror Twins” romped 
  through sixty issues of Exciting and all 31 issues of 
  America’s Best Comics, and the Black Terror was one 
  of only three Nedor heroes (along with the Fighting 
  Yank and Dream Master) to have his own title. Before 
  becoming a best-selling crime novelist, Patricia 
  mysTICo
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Ancient Egyptian Wizard, Good [+2] 
  Intimidation, and Poor [-2] Fish Out of Water.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Mummy (Meta-Power), and Master [+6] 
  Sorcery (Meta-Power; Limitation: Only When Able To 
  Speak or Gesture).
  stuNts
  Animate Objects (Sorcery Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 1 HP; 
  animate up to 75 tons of matter)
  Immortality (Mummy Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP) 
  Mental Invulnerability (Mummy Spin-off; Good [+2]; 
  0 HP; acts as Invulnerability against mental and 
  psionic attacks)
  Precognition (Sorcery Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 1 HP)
  Regeneration (Mummy Spin-off; Good [+2]; 0 HP)
  Summon Servitor (Sorcery Signature; Expert [+4]; 
  1 HP; summons animals, elementals, etc. subject to 
  Control as Power)
  Transformation (Sorcery Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP).
  Notes
  Mystico’s Sorcery Stunts will vary widely by adven-
  ture.
  The nIghT Terror
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Acrobat, Master [+6] Fisticuffs, Good [+2] 
  Mortician, Expert [+4] Scary, Expert [+4] Shadowing, 
  Master [+6] Urban Movement, Master [+6] Wrestling, 
  and Poor [-2] Resistance to Head Blows.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Ghoul Control, Average [+0] 
  Invulnerability, Good [+2] Regeneration, and 
  Average [+0] Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Acrobatic Dodge (Acrobat Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  HP; adds to defensive rolls when used)
  Crushing Hold (Wrestling Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 
  HP; combines with Super-Strength for super-scale 
  damage)
  Swingline Travel (Urban Movement Spin-off; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP)
  Terrific Punch (Fisticuffs Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP).
  Notes
  The Night Terror’s Urban Movement Quality is the 
  parkour-like ability, exhibited by other comic-book 
  grim avengers of the night, to shinny up buildings, 
  chimney down alleys, dodge across roofs, etc.
  
  - 18 -
  — heroes —
  Terror also fought some of the Black Terror’s more colorful 
  villains, including Dr. Eptil and the Spider, Caleb Ketchum 
  (the inventor of a spray that can grow insects to 
  enormous size), the Voice (a hooded master chemist spe-
  cializing in gases), and the hypnotic Lady Serpent (who 
  perhaps inevitably became a cultist of Yig). In Lovecraft’s 
  stories, the Night Terror dispensed with his twin brother’s 
  occasional habit of packing machine guns.
  ghouls
  Dr. Ghoul, another Black Terror villain, showed up 
  in Dream Master #51 as the leader of a pack of evil 
  ghouls, humans given a horrible debased immortality 
  by eating fresh corpses. When Dr. Ghoul returned in 
  Adventures Into Darkness #28, the Night Terror had the 
  ability to command ghouls.
  nodens
  The god Nodens made his comics debut in Dream Master 
  Comics #9 (October 1940) as a deus ex machina. He 
  appears with his nightgaunts and saves the Dream 
  Master from the Veiled Priest. In future issues of Dream 
  Master, in a clear attempt to compete with DC’s wiz-
  ard hero Dr. Fate, Nodens is not a god but a human 
  scholar (an Oxford professor named Ronald Williams) 
  who discovered the Trident of Nodens in an ancient 
  barrow. Holding the trident and reading the runes on 
  its shaft transforms his right hand into the “sorcerous 
  silver hand of the god,” and essentially makes Professor 
  Williams an avatar of that ancient British deity. Nodens 
  can fly, hurl his trident at his foes or Nazi airplanes, 
  and cast the general sort of plot-device magic in the 
  comics. He can use a pool of water to see clairvoyantly 
  or to reveal the past, and his silver hand is completely 
  invulnerable and can pass through walls or smash them 
  down. His head, of course, is as vulnerable as that of 
  any Nedor hero, and if his hand is bound with “cold 
  iron” then he cannot do magic with it.
  According to Dream Master #17, Nodens supposedly 
  trained Randolph Carter in magic after World War One. 
  Nodens appeared in the first issue of Adventures Into 
  Darkness as a member of the Society of Sorcerers, 
  but spent most of his time either fighting demons 
  or getting clonked on the head by Nazi saboteurs 
  attempting to steal Excalibur or destroy Stonehenge. 
  In a rare mostly-straight crime story in Adventures 
  Into Darkness #61, Nodens battles Doc Strange’s old 
  archenemy the Eye (a gangster Moriarty wearing an 
  ghouls
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Claws, Good [+2] Ghoul, Expert [+4] 
  Strong Arms, Good [+2] Thick Rubbery Hide, and 
  Poor [-2] Horrible.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Immortality.
  stuNts
  None.
  Notes
  In some campaigns, ghouls may have the Unearthly 
  Quality (see p. 36) at Average [+0]. The Ghoul 
  Quality includes darkvision.
  
  — heroes —
  - 19 -
  eye-patch) who has stolen books and idols to establish 
  a cult of Mormo the Moon Goddess.
  nIghTgaunTs
  Nightgaunts are the servitors of Nodens in the 
  Dreamlands, and occasionally followed him into the 
  waking world and Adventures Into Darkness. These 
  hunting beasts are entirely black, bat-winged faceless 
  creatures with long fingers and barbed prehensile tails. 
  They do not speak, but restrain Nodens’ enemies or 
  carry them off into the sky never to return.
  The oraCle
  Bob Paxton gained the power of precognition—though 
  only while asleep or unconscious—after being exposed 
  to poison gas. As the Oracle, he thwarted crimes and 
  Axis plots, beginning with Startling Comics #20 (March 
  1943). Other than foreseeing the future, Paxton has 
  no other powers, although he can take care of himself 
  with his fists and packs a gun like most Nedor crime-
  busters.
  Although the Oracle’s visions would often kick off the 
  action in Adventures Into Darkness, his only real “star-
  ring” story was in Adventures Into Darkness #31, in 
  which he and the Ghost battled Professor Fenton, pur-
  suing him into the distant past. In that story, it turned 
  out that the Oracle’s powers came not from the gas but 
  nodens
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Eye for Detail, Good [+2] Imposing, 
  Expert [+4] Professor, and Poor [-2] Resistance to 
  Head Blows.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Godlike Wisdom, Master [+6] Invulnerable 
  (Limitation: Right Hand Only), Expert [+4] Phasing 
  (Limitations: Right Hand Only), Expert [+4] 
  Sorcery (Meta-Power), Master [+6] Super-Sidekick 
  (Nightgaunts), and Expert [+4] Trident.
  stuNts
  Deflect (Invulnerable Spin-off; Good [+2]; 0 HP)
  Flight (Sorcery Spin-off; Good [+2]; 1 HP)
  Gigantic Form (Sorcery Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 2 HP) 
  Godlike Aura (Godlike Wisdom Signature; Good [+2] 
  ; 2 HP; combines with Imposing for +6 to presence-
  attack dice)
  Scrying (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 HP; 
  Limitation: requires pool of water or mirror).
  Notes
  Nodens’ Trident Power can be a Bolt (when hurled, 
  requires one action to return to Nodens’ hand) or the 
  equivalent of a Super-Strength blow. Nodens’ Godlike 
  Wisdom is mystical Super-Intelligence, and counts 
  as resistance against Unearthly or Super-Unearthly 
  beings (see p. 36-37). All of Nodens’ Powers have the 
  Limitation: Only When Wielding the Trident of Nodens. 
  Sorcery and Phasing also have the Limitation: Except 
  When Right Hand Bound in Cold Iron. In some cam-
  paigns, Nodens may also have the Super-Unearthly 
  Power at Average [+0]; he may or may not be able to 
  turn it off.
  nIghTgaunTs
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Nightgaunt, Expert [+4] Flight, Expert 
  [+4] Prehensile Tail, Expert [+4] Tickle, Poor [-2] 
  Deaf, and Poor [-2] Mute.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation, Good [+2] Regeneration, and 
  Good [+2] Super-Senses (blindsight, darkvision, 
  direction sense, tracking).
  stuNts
  Restrain (Prehensile Tail Signature; Good [+2]; 1 HP 
  from Nodens; adds +6 to immobilize foes caught in 
  tail).
  Notes
  In some campaigns, nightgaunts may have the 
  Unearthly Quality (see p. 36) at Good [+2].
  The oraCle
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Determined, Good [+2] Physique, Good 
  [+2] Pistol, Good [+2] Shadowing, Expert [+4] Two-
  Fisted, and Poor [-2] Do-Gooder.
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Precognition (Limitation: Only While 
  Unconscious or Asleep).
  stuNts
  None.
  
  - 20 -
  — heroes —
  from an attempted possession by a dying member of the 
  Great Race of Yith. Believing itself to be possessing a 
  dying man (since Paxton was choking on the gas at the 
  time), it fled “into no-time,” leaving Paxton’s uncon-
  scious mind sensitized to “temporal waves.” Of course, 
  during the story, the Oracle kills the Yithian in the past, 
  creating a closed time loop.
  Pyroman
  According to Startling Comics #18 (December 1942), 
  a German agent named Dizaster used “a sonic 
  transmitter” for serial arson, framing a gang 
  of toughs for the crimes. Their friend, the 
  graduate student Dick Martin, was sentenced 
  to the electric chair as the putative head 
  of the sabotage ring. Fortunately for Dick, 
  previous high-voltage experiments had made 
  him immune to electricity and his electrocu-
  tion instead gave him amazing control over 
  electromagnetism. Taking the 
  (misleading) name Pyroman, Dick 
  fights crime and fascism with the 
  help of his mentor Professor 
  Clark. His girlfriend, Joyce 
  Clark (the Professor’s daughter) knows nothing of his 
  secret identity. Pyroman can draw himself to large 
  metal objects, or magnetically attract smaller ones. 
  (A similar use of that power lets him repel bullets.) 
  He can shoot electric bolts through any conductive 
  medium, and if his own bolts aren’t strong enough, he 
  can draw more power from other electrical sources like 
  high-tension lines. Pyroman can create an electrical 
  field to protect himself from energy blasts or help him 
  smash his way through walls. In some stories, he has 
  the ability to travel through the air on Earth’s mag-
  netic field. Pyroman often fought technological foes 
  like Dizaster, the Tyrant King (who invented not only 
  the Electrosorber but the “voltogun”), the Steel Nazi, 
  or German invaders using the Subterron, a huge dig-
  ging machine similar to an underground U-boat.
  Pyroman’s technology-centered stories apparently 
  didn’t interest the Lovecraft circle, although he did 
  help Doc Strange and Captain Future defeat one of the 
  Outer Ones’ mining machines in Alaska in Adventures 
  Into Darkness #72. His villains proved more adapt-
  able; the Unseen, a hulking figure whose long hair 
  covered his face, searched for “the phagoment,” a 
  substance that could destroy all matter, in Adventures 
  Pyroman
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Electrical Engineer, Good [+2] Physique, 
  Good [+2] Presence, Expert [+4] Sidekick (Professor 
  Clark), and Poor [-2] Resistance to Head Blows.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Electromagnetism Control, Expert [+4] 
  Lightning Bolt, and Expert [+4] Magnetic Beam.
  stuNts
  Disintegrate (Lightning Bolt Shifty Business; 2 HP; 
  range drops to Good [+2], damage increases to +15 
  against non-living normal targets)
  Flight (Electromagnetism Control Signature; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP)
  Power Tap (Electromagnetism Control Signature; 
  Expert [+4]; 1 HP; adds +4 to any of his Powers while 
  able to drain other electrical power sources)
  Repel (Electromagnetism Control Signature; Expert 
  [+4]; 1 HP; acts as Super-Armor to metallic projectiles).
  Notes
  All of Pyroman’s Powers have the Limitation: Except 
  When Fully Grounded.
  
  — heroes —
  - 21 -
  Into Darkness #60 and #67. Pyroman’s villain 
  Schnubel, a cadaverous Nazi scientist with 
  a machine that could “transpose Martian 
  conditions to Earth” (among other 
  things) proved more popular in 
  Adventures Into Darkness than 
  Pyroman did, appearing six 
  times to the hero’s four. This 
  despite seemingly dying in 
  every adventure, a tradition 
  begun in Schnubel’s debut, 
  America’s Best Comics #3 
  (November 1942). Schnubel 
  was actually described as 
  a “half-rat, half-corpse” 
  in his final appear-
  ance in Adventures Into 
  Darkness #76, which 
  would explain how he 
  kept coming back to life 
  despite having no appar-
  ent super-powers.
  The sCarab
  Egyptologist Peter Ward has 
  only to rub his scarab ring to 
  become the Scarab! Akh-Tu-Men, 
  the high priest of the Egyptian sun god Amen-Ra, 
  granted Ward super-strength, invulnerability to bul-
  lets, and flight. Better still, reincarnated as 
  a black cat, Akh-Tu-Men accompanies the 
  Scarab on his adventures to help out with 
  magic or ancient lore where needed. In 
  addition to standard foes like Axis agents 
  and gangland toughs, the Scarab fought 
  tomb-robbers like Aton, leader of the 
  Masked Marauders (stock Arab ban-
  dits) and similarly quirky villains.
  The Scarab bowed in Startling 
  Comics #34 (July 1945), but 
  had a short run in the main 
  Nedor lines. However, the 
  combination of Egyptology 
  and reincarnated cats 
  made him a natural 
  for Adventures Into 
  Darkness, beginning 
  with #49 and running 
  through most of the book’s 
  remaining issues. Like 
  the Liberator, most of the 
  Scarab’s tales were prob-
  ably Robert Bloch scripts. 
  Lovecraft most likely had 
  a larger hand in the Scarab’s 
  appearance in Dream Master 
  #48, in which Peter Ward and Akh-
  Tu-Men predictably went to 
  Ulthar and the Moon.
  akh-Tu-men
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Cat, Expert [+4] Egyptian Priest, and 
  Poor [-2] Small.
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Sorcery (Meta-Power).
  stuNts
  Catfall (Cat Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP)
  Feline Elusiveness (Cat Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 HP; 
  adds +10 to dodge and stealth rolls)
  Telepathy (Sorcery Spin-off; Average [+0]; 0 HP). 
  Akh-Tu-Men will also have a number of other magi-
  cal spin-off stunts for Sorcery.
  The sCarab
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Bazaar Hand, Expert [+4] Brawler, Good 
  [+2] Desert Surival, Expert [+4] Egyptologist, Good 
  [+2] Legerdemain, and Poor [-2] Resistance to Head 
  Blows.
  PoWers
  Average [+0] Flight, Good [+2] Invulnerability, 
  Expert [+4] Super-Sidekick (Akh-Tu-Men), and Good 
  [+2] Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Wade Right In (Brawler Signature; Good [+2]; 2 HP; 
  combines with Super-Strength and Invulnerability 
  for total of 10 ranks to split up in solo fights against 
  multiple normal-scale thugs).
  Notes
  All of the Scarab’s Powers have the Limitation: Must 
  Rub Ring to Activate.
  
  - 22 -
  — vIllaIns —
  A
  lthough Lovecraft and his Zombies provided an 
  endless supply of villains and monsters over the 
  comics’ multi-year runs, this section highlights 
  the fan favorites and most characteristic nemeses. This 
  selection concentrates on villains familiar to fans of 
  Lovecraft’s fiction and film work. 
  vIllaIns
  “We have no business calling in such things from outside, and 
  only very wicked people and very wicked cults ever try to.”
  H.P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror”
  asenaTh
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Arcane Lore, Expert [+4] Fascinating, 
  Expert [+4] Fearless, Good [+2] Lithe, and Poor [-2] 
  Cruel.
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Astral Projection, Expert [+4] 
  Air Control, and Master [+6] Mind-Switching 
  (Limitation: Must Eat or Drink With Target).
  stuNts
  Clairvoyance (Astral Projection Signature; Good [+2]; 
  1 VP)
  Suffocate (Air Control Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP)
  Telepathy (Mind-Switching Spin-off; Good [+2]; 0 VP; 
  Limitation: Only with people she has possessed)
  Thickening Air (Air Control Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  VP; ensnares victims, slows down bullets, etc.).
  asenaTh,  
  The body snaTCher
  The body-snatching astral projector Asenath Waite 
  in Lovecraft’s story “The Thing on the Doorstep” 
  may have been either her own father or one of the 
  Innsmouth fish-folk. When she appeared in Adventures 
  Into Darkness #14 to bedevil the Sphinx (an unpow-
  ered crime-busting detective who debuted in Exciting 
  Comics #2 (May 1940)) she was a sorceress who could 
  jump into other people’s bodies. Cleverly, the stories 
  never made clear exactly how long the process took, 
  although they implied that Asenath at least had to eat 
  or drink with her target. Probably the best Asenath 
  story is Adventures Into Darkness #34, in which she 
  engages in a taut cat-and-mouse game with Spectro 
  
  — vIllaIns —
  - 23 -
  the Mind-Reader, an obscure Nedor hero who debuted 
  in Wonder Comics #1 (March 1944).
  baron von JunZT,  
  The blaCk sCholar
  The Baron von Junzt was the “top Nazi specialist in the 
  black arts,” “the man who trained Hitler in mesmerism,” 
  and “the most evil magician in the world.” Unfailingly 
  dressed in dapper evening clothes, complete with mon-
  ocle, the Baron always has some evil tome or eldritch 
  artifact to use for the Third Reich’s benefit. In some 
  stories, he is seeking such a thing when he draws the 
  heroes’ attention, and in a number of Adventures Into 
  Darkness tales he is racing archaeologist heroes like the 
  Liberator or the Scarab to find the Yekubian Cube or the 
  Glass of Leng before they do. His own powers are appar-
  ently restricted to mesmerism, but he wears a “Ring of 
  Set” that protects him from bullets or fire. He usually 
  has other abilities derived from whichever artifact or 
  book he carries in any given story. In Adventures Into 
  Darkness #16-17, the Baron teams up with Vurmann, a 
  Doc Strange villain and specialist in androids to build 
  “the perfect body” in order to contain “the resplendent 
  energies of Yog-Sothoth,” but he usually sticks to magi-
  cal artifacts rather than super-technology. Even in that 
  story, von Junzt uses the “suppressed journals of Dr. 
  Frankenstein” and leaves the machines to Vurmann.
  baron von JunZT
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Aristocrat, Expert [+4] Charismatic, 
  Expert [+4] Minions (Nazi Cultists), Master [+6] 
  Occultist, Master [+6] Perceptive, and Poor [-2] 
  Arrogant Nazi.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Etheric Vision, Expert [+4] Invulnerability, 
  Expert [+4] Mind Control, and Expert [+4] Sorcery 
  (Meta-Power; Limitation: Requires a book or dark 
  artifact).
  stuNts
  Mesmerism (Mind Control Signature; Expert [+4]; 2 
  VP; stacks with Charismatic for +12 to sway weak or 
  trusting minds); Others vary depending on the tome 
  or item he uses in the current adventure.
  Notes
  The Baron’s Invulnerability comes from the Ring of 
  Set, a magical Super-Gadget that can only be used 
  by those who can read its hieroglyphs, and can 
  only be removed from his finger while helpless. The 
  Baron’s Aristocrat Quality gives him connections and 
  pull with powerful figures even in Allied countries.
  naZI CulTIsTs
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Cultist, Good [+2] Soldier, and Poor [-2] 
  Obedient.
  PoWers
  None.
  stuNts
  None.
  
  - 24 -
  — vIllaIns —
  naZI CulTIsTs
  These stats are for standard Nazi cultists “from the 
  Gestapo’s Black School” of the sort assigned to Baron 
  von Junzt. They are essentially competent machine-gun 
  toting goons with a splash of occult lore.
  blITZ
  In 1943, a team of Nazi commandos practicing demoli-
  tions work in the Alps blew open a hidden glacier cave. 
  Within its depths they discovered the body of a primor-
  dial blond Aryan giant from the prehistoric Stone Age. 
  The giant had been frozen in the ice for millennia, and 
  the lengthy exposure to the ice altered his biochemistry. 
  He was not merely immune to sub-zero temperatures, he 
  could radiate intense cold at will. Either as a result of his 
  freezing, or of his ancient caveman muscles, the giant 
  was super-strong. Taken under the wing of Glunken, 
  the Nazi commando, the giant (now code-named Blitz) 
  became one of the Reich’s most feared super-saboteurs.
  Although he sounds like the product of a Robert E. 
  Howard (or Heinrich Himmler) fever dream, Blitz was 
  actually invented by the creator of the Fighting Yank, 
  blITZ
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Hunter, Expert [+4] Massive Build, 
  Master [+6] Physical Specimen, Good [+2] Thule 
  Lord, and Poor [-2] Primitive.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation, Expert [+4] Cold Control, 
  Good [+2] Polar Vision, Good [+2] Regeneration, and 
  Good [+2] Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Cold Fog (Cold Control Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP; 
  creates obscuring fog)
  Cold Wave (Cold Control Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP; 
  acts as Cold Blast)
  Ice Cage (Cold Control Spin-Off; Expert [+4]; 2 VP)
  Sapping Chill (Cold Control Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  VP; saps foes’ strength or Super-Strength as Power 
  Neutralization).
  Notes
  Blitz’ Polar Vision power gives him direction sense 
  and infravision.
  Richard Hughes, in Fighting Yank #5 (September 1943). 
  The Yank knocked Blitz into a sinkhole, seemingly to 
  boil to death, but a giant primordial Aryan with cold-
  powers was far too juicy for Lovecraft to ignore. Blitz 
  appeared repeatedly in Adventures Into Darkness, often 
  as “muscle” to some other Nazi menace. In a time-travel 
  story (in Adventures Into Darkness #53), the Ghost 
  and the Cavalier fought Blitz in his native “Ancient 
  Thule,” where for some unknown reason he already 
  had his cold-powers despite the story being set before 
  his long freezing. In his last appearance, in Adventures 
  Into Darkness #68, Blitz and the Ooze teamed up in 
  Antarctica to fight the Outer Ones (and eventually 
  Captain Future and Mystico) over Hitler’s brain-case.
  dagon
  Dagon is a demon-god worshipped by the Devilfish 
  and his Frog-Men, first mentioned as such in 
  Adventures Into Darkness #4. He battled Mystico and 
  
  — vIllaIns —
  - 25 -
  Nodens “on the astral plane,” where he had 
  the sort of magical powers one would expect 
  of a demonic god. In a huge, sprawling story 
  in Adventures Into Darkness #46-48 he took 
  physical form and attacked America, battling vir-
  tually every Nedor hero in turn until he was finally 
  defeated by Captain Future. For his invasion, Dagon 
  took the form of a huge (30 feet tall) humanoid 
  frog-creature with a long, tentacled beard and scaly 
  tentacle arms.
  The devIlfIsh
  The Devilfish has more in common with a Dick Tracy 
  villain than with the standard gangland boss in 
  Nedor Comics. Horribly disfigured and resembling an 
  uncanny frog-fish hybrid of vaguely humanoid shape, 
  the Devilfish is the ruler of an undersea city off the 
  Massachusetts coast. He usually wears either a capa-
  cious rain slicker and wide-brimmed hat or a sailor’s 
  cap, peacoat, and scarf when on land. He and his Frog-
  Men commit crimes in coastal areas and assist Nazi 
  and Japanese saboteurs and U-boats. Although he is a 
  strong swimmer and can breathe underwater, only his 
  prodigious strength and “thick, rubbery hide” (which 
  stops fists, clubs, and knives) could be considered 
  super-powers. However, in Adventures Into Darkness 
  #28, he has the power to command fish and aquatic 
  beings to do his will. In #39, he commanded a shog-
  dagon
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Ancient Demi-God, Master [+6] Frog-
  Man, Master [+6] Terrifying, and Poor [-2] Unsubtle.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation (Limitation: Undersea 
  Conditions and Aging Only), Master [+6] Growth, 
  Average [+0] Minions (Frog-Men), Expert [+4] 
  Regeneration, Master [+6] Sorcery (Meta-Power), 
  Expert [+4] Super-Armor, Good [+2] Super-Strength, 
  Average [+0] Super-Swimming.
  stuNts
  Coils of Dagon (Sorcery Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 VP; 
  creates mystical coils of force, TN 17 to break) 
  Control Sea-Life (Sorcery Spin-Off; Expert [+4]; 1 VP)
  Control Water (Sorcery Spin-Off; Expert [+4]; 1 VP), 
  Control Weather (Sorcery Spin-Off; Expert [+4]; 1 VP)
  Fist of Dagon (Sorcery Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 VP; 
  acts as Water Blast; Limitation: Must Use Existing 
  Body of Water)
  Impervious Hide (Growth Signature; Expert [+4]; 2 
  VP; stacks with Super-Armor for net +14; Limitation: 
  Only While In Giant Form)
  Titanic Strength (Growth Signature; Expert [+4]; 
  2 VP; stacks with Super-Strength for net +12; 
  Limitation: Only While In Giant Form)
  Notes
  In some campaigns, Dagon may have the Super-
  Unearthly Power (see p. 36) at Good [+2]. The 
  Frog-Man Quality includes low-light vision and 
  underwater pressure-senses.
  
  - 26 -
  — vIllaIns —
  with #2, in which they battled the Ghost. The Devilfish 
  would often seemingly be killed in a fire or explosion, 
  but returned more evil than ever in a few issues.
  frog-men
  The Frog-Men are simply weaker versions of the 
  Devilfish, fish-frog hybrid humanoids who go around 
  in all-concealing trench-coats while on the surface. 
  They usually use either tridents and spear-guns or 
  some sort of advanced ray gun.
  Professor fenTon
  Professor Fenton was a pre-existing villain of the 
  Ghost, appearing in Thrilling Comics #18 (July 1941) 
  as the inventor of a time machine. In Adventures Into 
  Darkness #7, Lovecraft gave him a new origin story. 
  It turned out that Professor Giles Fenton was actually 
  possessed by a member of the Great Race of Yith, a 
  species of cone-shaped aliens from the “immemori-
  ally distant past” who had mastered psychic time 
  Professor fenTon
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Amoral Scientist, Good [+2] Arcane Lore, 
  Master [+6] Meta-Historian, Expert [+4] Minions, 
  Good [+2] Yithian, and Poor [-2] Social Affect.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Psychic Stun Blast, Expert [+4] Psychic 
  Super-Armor (Limitation: Defends Only Against 
  Mental Attacks or Unconsciousness), Master [+6] 
  Super-Gadget (Time Machine/Viewer), Good [+2] 
  Super-Gadgeteer, Master [+6] Super-Intelligence, 
  Good [+2] Telepathy, Good [+2] Vulnerability (to 
  psychic exorcism of his Yithian possessor).
  stuNts
  Breath Control (Super-Intelligence Spin-Off; Good 
  [+2]; 0 VP)
  Hysterical Strength (Super-Intelligence Spin-Off; 
  Good [+2]; 0 VP; Limitation: Only once per Scene).
  Notes
  Professor Fenton’s Meta-Historian Quality covers the 
  entire span of the Earth’s inhabitation, from 2 bil-
  lion B.C. to at least 50 million A.D. In the remote 
  past, he has access to a Master [+6] Mind-Switching 
  Super-Gadget.
  goth (a sort of oozing blob of protoplasm created by a 
  long-dead Antarctic race), and he played a key role in 
  the ritual to summon Dagon in issues #46-48.
  Lovecraft of course based the Devilfish and his Frog-Men 
  on the Marsh patriarchs and Deep Ones from his novella 
  “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” They appeared repeat-
  edly throughout Adventures Into Darkness, beginning 
  The devIlfIsh
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Criminal Mastermind, Master [+6] Frog-
  Man, Expert [+4] Minions (Frog-Men), Good [+2] 
  Occultist, Good [+2] Speargun, Expert [+4] Talons, 
  Expert [+4] Thick Scaly Hide, and Poor [-2] Misshapen.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation (Limitation: Undersea 
  Conditions and Aging Only), Good [+2] Control 
  Sea-Life, Good [+2] Regeneration, Average [+0] 
  Super-Strength.
  stuNts
  Swimming (Frog-Man Signature; Expert [+4]; 1 VP; 
  12 yards per Turn).
  Notes
  In some campaigns, the Devilfish may have the 
  Unearthly Quality (see p. 36) at Good [+2]. The 
  Frog-Man Quality includes low-light vision and 
  underwater pressure-senses.
  frog-men
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Frog-Man, Good [+2] Talons, Good [+2] 
  Thick Scaly Hide, Good [+2] Trident (or Speargun), 
  and Poor [-2] Misshapen.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation (Limitation: Undersea 
  Conditions and Aging Only).
  stuNts
  Swimming (Frog-Man Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP; 10 
  yards per Turn).
  Notes
  In some campaigns, frog-men may have the 
  Unearthly Quality (see p. 36) at Good [+2]. The 
  Frog-Man Quality includes low-light vision and 
  underwater pressure-senses.
  
  — vIllaIns —
  - 27 -
  travel. This not only explained Fenton’s advanced 
  technological skills but gave Lovecraft (or more likely 
  Henry Kuttner) the opportunity to give Fenton 
  other psychic powers, mostly “mind blasts” which 
  can stun people in Fenton’s sightline and “mind 
  probes” which let him read the minds of help-
  less or unsuspecting victims. Fenton also shows 
  “complete mental control over his body,” enabling 
  feats of “hysterical strength” and allowing him to 
  hold his breath for hours. Professor Fenton’s mental 
  strength is such that he may be the single hardest 
  person in the Nedor universe to knock unconscious 
  with a blow to the head. In Adventures Into Darkness 
  #66, which retold Lovecraft’s tale “Beyond the Wall 
  of Sleep,” Professor Fenton (retconned to be the same 
  as the character Fenton from that story) was revealed 
  to have other connections with aliens from the star 
  Algol.
  yIThIan agenT
  The Yithians maintain a network of un-possessed 
  human agents in their future (our present) to help 
  them blend into their new surroundings, supply them 
  with machinery and money, and otherwise ease their 
  journey through time. The Yithians reward such agents 
  with advanced technologies; these are spy-type mooks 
  with at least one or two such amazing gadgets.
  “henry akeley”
  Lovecraft adapted his story “The Whisperer in Darkness” 
  as a Fighting Yank tale for Adventures Into Darkness 
  #20. In this version, it remains unclear whether the 
  folklorist Henry Akeley was ever a real human, or was 
  always one of the Outer Ones (the winged Plutonian 
  crustaceans in the story) trying to lure the Yank into 
  a trap. The Outer One who the Yank drove off returned 
  repeatedly, most often in human disguise and some-
  “henry akeley”
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Armor (Bio-Web Gadget), Master [+6] 
  Outer One, Expert [+4] Occultist, Expert [+4] 
  Stealthy, and Poor [-2] Compulsive Manipulator.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation (Limitation: Except Against 
  Drowning), Average [+0] Invulnerability, Expert 
  [+4] Shapeshifting (Super-Gadget human disguise; 
  Limitation: For Specific Humans Only), Expert 
  [+4] Super-Gadgets (Various, depending on the 
  adventure), Expert [+4] Telepathy, and Good [+2] 
  Wide-Spectrum Vision.
  stuNts
  Summon Alien or Demonic Being (Telepathy 
  Signature; Expert [+4]; 2 VP; summons an alien or 
  demonic Super-Sidekick with 14 points of Qualities 
  and 8 points of Powers).
  Notes
  Although Outer Ones can fly, “Akeley” cannot do 
  so while in human form. The Outer One Quality 
  includes blindsight and darkvision.
  yIThIan agenT
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Conspirator, Good [+2] Occultist, Good 
  [+2] Technician, and Poor [-2] Brainwashed by Yith.
  PoWers
  Average [+0] Super-Gadget (varies).
  stuNts
  None.
  
  - 28 -
  — vIllaIns —
  ouTer ones
  Also called “Plutonians,” 
  “flying fungi,” and—in 
  one Mystico tale—“Mi-
  Gou,” the Outer Ones 
  are alien monstrosi-
  ties from the planet 
  Pluto, which they call 
  Yuggoth. They enjoy 
  removing human 
  brains for study, 
  and in addition to 
  their other goals, 
  want to mine vari-
  ous strange metals 
  from the Earth. They 
  resemble a kind 
  of cross between 
  scorpions and crabs 
  with bloated, brain-
  like heads. Their 
  wings resemble those 
  of enormous moths, 
  most probably because 
  the artist didn’t read 
  Lovecraft’s typically verbose 
  and ornate descriptions.
  ouTer ones
  QuALities
  Good [+2] Armor (Bio-Web Gadget),  
  Good [+2] Outer One, Good [+2]  
  Scientist, Expert [+4] Stealthy, and  
  Poor [-2] Alien Monstrosity.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Adaptation (Limitation:  
  Except Against Drowning), Average [+0]  
  Invulnerability, Good [+2] Super- 
  Gadgets, and Average [+0]  
  Telepathy.
  stuNts
  None.
  Notes
  In some campaigns, Outer Ones  
  may have the Unearthly Quality  
  (see p. 36) at Expert [+4]. The  
  Outer Ones’ arsenal of Super- 
  Gadgets include an electro- 
  projector (Good [+2] Electrical Blast) and  
  a mist gun (Good [+2] Cold Beam). The  
  Outer One Quality includes blindsight  
  and darkvision.
  times using Akeley’s name. The Akeley Outer One has 
  the abilities of all Outer Ones (see sidebar), and a 
  good deal of magical skill, as well as access to weird, 
  advanced alien technology. “Akeley,” at least, also has 
  the power to sense any sort of metal or radiation as part 
  of his “wide-spectrum vision.”
  The crab-aliens from Pluto were also given retroac-
  tive responsibility for the Fighting Yank villain the 
  Brain, who on his initial appearance in Fighting Yank 
  #9 (August 1944) was just a brain in a jar who com-
  manded a U-boat. In Adventures Into Darkness #38, 
  the Brain was revealed as the Third Reich’s ambassador 
  to Pluto, and although the Fighting Yank destroyed his 
  “cerebro-plane,” the Brain (of course) returned.
  keZIah The WITCh
  Keziah Mason, the witch from Lovecraft’s story “The 
  Dreams in the Witch-House,” appeared as “Keziah 
  the Witch” in Dream Master #22 and later in a num-
  ber of Adventures Into Darkness tales. In addition to 
  her powerful witchcraft, she has the ability to draw 
  “hyperspace runes” on walls and walk through them. 
  This also lets her escape into other dimensions, enter 
  locked chambers, and so forth. Her runes can also 
  imprison people or ghosts inside “hyper-pentacles,” as 
  the Ghost discovered in Adventures Into Darkness #36. 
  Her other great advantage is her familiar, the human-
  oid rat Brown Jenkin.
  broWn JenkIn
  Brown Jenkin resembles a brown rat with tiny human 
  hands and a human (though rat-toothed) face. Like 
  traditional familiars, he runs errands and translates 
  for Keziah (he speaks and reads all languages), and 
  acts as a subtle tempter of others. In the comics, he 
  casts illusions and bites heroes’ girlfriends, the better 
  to bait his mistress’ traps.
  
  — vIllaIns —
  - 29 -
  black when they emerge 
  from his sleeves. He claims 
  to be a “dark god,” and 
  “more than a devil,” but he uses 
  arcane technology almost as often 
  as he does weird magic rituals or 
  spells. He speaks all languages. In ancient 
  Egypt, he was known as Nyarlathotep, 
  which is how he appeared in Dream 
  Master #12. Most likely, someone 
  in Nedor’s editorial office (or pos-
  sibly Julius Schwartz) thought the 
  name “Nyarlathotep” a bit too much for 
  a comic book villain, not to men-
  tion the trouble it made for the 
  letterer. For whatever reason, 
  then, he is Lucifuge on his first 
  broWn JenkIn
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Rat-Familiar, Good [+2] Small, Expert 
  [+4] Verminous Bite, and Poor [-2] Malevolent. 
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Sorcery (Meta-Power).
  stuNts
  Dimensional Travel (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  VP; can also function as Phasing)
  Enochian (Sorcery Spin-Off; Average [+0]; 0 VP; as a 
  master of the secret language of the planes, Brown 
  Jenkin can read and speak all humanoid languages)
  Phantasms (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP)
  Vile Whispers (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP; 
  acts as evil and seductive Mind Control; Limitation: 
  Takes at least one full Scene)
  Witch Link (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP; men-
  tal link with Keziah).
  Notes
  In some campaigns, Rat-Familiars may have the  
                                                 Unearthly Quality 
                                                (see p. 36) at Good 
                                               [+2]. The Rat- 
                                                 Familiar Quality  
                                              includes the ability  
                                                 to speak with rats, 
                                               low-light vision, and 
                                           keen scent and hearing.
  keZIah The WITCh
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Evil Eye, Good [+2] Knife, Expert [+4] 
  Skulking, Expert [+4] Witch, and Poor [-2] Fears the 
  Cross.
  PoWers
  Average [+0] Darkvision, Expert [+4] Sorcery (Meta-
  Power; Limitation: must be able to chant or draw 
  runes) and Expert [+4] Super-Sidekick (Brown 
  Jenkin).
  stuNts
  Cosmic Sound (Sorcery Spin-Off; Expert [+4]; 2 VP; 
  acts as Sonic Beam)
  Dimensional Travel (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  VP; can also function as Phasing)
  Hyper-Pentacle (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP; 
  TN 13 to escape)
  Raise Demon (Sorcery Signature; Expert [+4]; 2 VP; 
  summons a demon with 14 points of Qualities and 8 
  points of Powers; Limitation: Only In Demon-Tainted 
  Location)
  Seal Away (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP;  
  TN 13 to beat Power Neutralization; Limitation:  
  Magical Powers Only) 
  Spirit Gate (Sorcery Signature;  
  Expert [+4]; 2 VP; summons  
  11 “named” entities and a  
  horde of lesser Minion entities;  
  Limitation: Only In Hyper- 
  spatially Weak Location),
  Notes
  Keziah’s Witch Quality includes  
  herbalism, poisons, and other  
  arcane lore.
  luCIfuge
  Lucifuge is a mysterious 
  figure clad in a flowing 
  scarlet robe and hood. 
  Inside the hood is 
  only blackness—
  his face is never 
  revealed. His 
  hands are also 
  
  - 30 -
  — vIllaIns —
  luCIfuge
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Arcane Manipulator, Master [+6] Dark 
  Technologist, Expert [+4] Stage Presence, and Poor [-2] 
  Boastful.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Immortality, Expert [+4] Sorcery (Meta-
  Power), Expert [+4] Super-Communication, and Expert 
  [+4] Super-Gadgeteer.
  stuNts
  Control Wild Beasts (Super-Communication Spin-off; 
  Good [+2]; 1 VP)
  Create Darkness (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 VP)
  Dimensional Travel (Sorcery Signature; Good [+2]; 1 
  VP; can also function as Phasing)
  Discern Weakness (Arcane Manipulator Signature; 
  Expert [+4]; 1 VP)
  Fascinate (Arcane Manipulator Signature;  
  Expert [+4]; 1 VP; overcome TN 17 to tear  
  one’s gaze away)
  Hellfire Blast (Sorcery Spin-off;  
  Good [+2]; 1 VP)
  Phantasms (Sorcery Signature;  
  Good [+2]; 1 VP; can stack with  
  Discern Weakness if Lucifuge  
  can tailor the Phantasm to  
  his target’s fear or desire)
  Stupefy (Super- 
  Communication Spin- 
  off; Good [+2]; 2 VP;  
  stacks with Arcane  
  Manipulator for +8 to leave targets blank and unre-
  sisting; Limitation: Target must hear  
  Lucifuge speak for one Turn)
  Summon Demon (Sorcery Signature;  
  Expert [+4]; 2 VP; summons a demon  
  with 14 points of Qualities and 8  
  points of Powers). Lucifuge will likely also have 
  either another major sorcerous Stunt or a Super-
  Gadget in any given adventure.
  Notes
  Lucifuge’s Super-Communication  
  Power is the ability to speak  
  with all beasts, demons, machines, and men.
  The dark haunTer
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Dark Haunter, Good [+2] Enormous, 
  Good [+2] Needle-Sharp Teeth, Good [+2] Silent, 
  Expert [+4] Terrifying, and Poor [-2] Servitor.
  PoWers
  Good [+2] Flight, Good [+2] Invulnerability, Good 
  [+2] Smoke Form, Good [+2] Super-Strength, and 
  Expert [+4] Vulnerability (to light).
  stuNts
  None.
  Notes
  In some campaigns, the Dark Haunter may have the 
  Unearthly Quality (see p. 36) at Master [+6], or even 
  the Super-Unearthly Power (see p. 37) at Average  
      [+0]. The Dark Haunter Quality includes blind 
        sight, darkvision, and tracking.
  appearance in Adventures Into Darkness #6, 
  when he fought his “ancient foe Nodens.” 
  Lucifuge became a kind of universal arch-
  villain for the series, battling not just 
  Nodens and Dream Master but Mystico, 
  the Liberator, the Scarab, the Night 
  Terror, and in a particularly strange 
  tale in Adventures Into Darkness 
  #66 (loosely based on Lovecraft’s 
  prose poem “Nyarlathotep”), 
  Pyroman. Lovecraft’s stable 
  wrote Lucifuge 
  into a number of 
  other Nedor back-
  stories—for example, 
  Adventures Into 
  Darkness #62 revealed that 
  he was the real source of the Ghost vil-
  lain Mendezzi the Magician’s powers. 
  (In original Thrilling Comics continu-
  ity, the second-rate stage conjurer 
  Mendezzi sold his soul to Satan.)
  The dark haunTer
  Lucifuge commanded or con-
  trolled a startling variety of 
  demons over his years in the 
  comics, but one of his favorites 
  
  — vIllaIns —
  - 31 -
  was the Dark Haunter, derived from the “titan blur” in 
  Lovecraft’s short story “The Haunter of the Dark.” The 
  Dark Haunter was a sort of huge winged flying worm 
  made up of black smoky tendrils; this horrific hunter’s 
  mouth is full of needle-sharp teeth. Intense light 
  drives the Dark Haunter away.
  The ooZe
  In Adventures Into Darkness #27, the Night Terror 
  traced a series of murders to “Dr. Lake,” the myste-
  rious survivor of an Antarctic expedition. In their 
  climactic struggle, Dr. Lake turns out to be “a shog-
  goth aping human germ-plasm.” The last panel shows 
  a thin film of goo on the ground after a titanic 
  explosion has seemingly destroyed Dr. Lake, thinking 
  “You haven’t heard the last of me … of the Ooze!” 
  And indeed the Ooze returned in several later issues, 
  battling the American Eagle, the Liberator, Doc 
  Strange, and the Scarab, among others. The Ooze usu-
  ally wanted to kill people with some great talent (a 
  circus strong-man, an acrobat, an opera singer, etc.) 
  in order to “absorb their germ-plasm” and take on 
  their powers. (The Ooze can also absorb powers from 
  animals.) Of course, this urge led the Ooze to try to 
  The ooZe
  QuALities
  Master [+6] Mimic, Good [+2] Poker Face, Expert [+4] 
  Stealthy, and Poor [-2] Obsessed (with increasing its 
  powers).
  PoWers
  Expert [+4] Adaptation, Expert [+4] Liquid Form, Good 
  [+2] Power Theft (Limitation: Must kill and absorb tar-
  get), Good [+2] Quality Theft (Limitation: Must kill and 
  absorb target), Master [+6] Regeneration, and Master 
  [+6] Shapeshifting. The Ooze will almost certainly be 
  manifesting stolen combat Powers beyond this when 
  encountered.
  stuNts
  Elongation (Liquid Form Spin-off; Average [+0]; 0 
  VP; can extend limbs or tendrils up to 10 yards) 
  Flow Up Walls (Liquid Form Spin-off; Average [+0]; 0 VP)
  Super-Senses (Shapeshifting Spin-off; Expert [+4]; 1 VP).
  Notes
  In its “native” shoggoth-form, the Ooze may have 
  the Unearthly Quality (see p. 36) at Master [+6].
  kill and absorb the various Nedor heroes. The Ooze 
  has the innate powers of shapeshifting—not only 
  can it take on any human (or organic) form, but it 
  can flow through cracks, make its body super-dense 
  to resist bullets (or liquid to let bullets pass harm-
  lessly through it), and stretch out its arms to grab 
  enemies. Also, the Ooze usually has whatever powers 
  it has managed to absorb in a given story—common 
  ones include extraordinary agility, elite combat skills, 
  “catlike vision,” and flight.
  The yelloW lama
  “Trained in the remote monasteries of the distant plateau 
  of Leng, the Yellow Lama has mastered the secret pow-
  ers of the Orient!” Wearing Chinese-looking robes and a 
  yellow silk mask at all times, the Yellow Lama opposed 
  
  - 32 -
  — vIllaIns —
  first Nodens (in Dream Master #18), 
  then Mystico and the Ghost with his 
  magic and psychic powers. The Yellow 
  Lama’s greatest power was his “anni-
  hilating gaze,” which “erased its 
  victim’s personality” and allowed 
  the Yellow Lama to con-
  trol them remotely. 
  (He pulls back his 
  mask—always drawn 
  from behind—and the victim looks appro-
  The yelloW lama
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Artist, Expert [+4] Captivating, Master 
  [+6] Lama, Expert [+4] Minions (Tcho-Tchos or 
  Japanese soldiers), Expert [+4] Ventriloquism, and 
  Poor [-2] Hatred of Caucasians.
  PoWers
  Master [+6] Adept of Leng (Meta-Power), and Expert 
  [+4] Mind Control. The Yellow Lama also occasionally 
  may possess magical artifacts (functionally, Super-
  Gadgets) in any given adventure.
  stuNts
  Annihilating Gaze (Mind Control Signature; Expert [+4]; 
  2 VP; Limitation: Can be reversed by true love’s kiss, 
  and requires the target to gaze into the Lama’s face)
  Bilocation (Adept of Leng Signature; Good [+2]; 0 VP)
  Biofeedback (Adept of Leng Signature; Good [+2]; 0 
  VP; can function as Regeneration)
  Breath Control (Adept of Leng Signature; Good [+2]; 
  0 VP)
  Inner Heat (Adept of Leng Signature;  
  Good [+2]; 0 VP; resistance to cold and  
  melting non-living objects)
  Levitation (Adept of Leng Spin-off;  
  Expert [+4]; 1 VP)
  Telepathy (Mind Control Spin-off;  
  Good [+2]; 1 VP)
  Teleportation (Adept of Leng Spin-off; Expert  
  [+4]; 1 VP)
  Notes
  The Yellow Lama’s Adept Power has the  
  Limitation: Requires free movement for  
  mudras and the chanting of mantras.
  priately terrified, then blank and zombie-like.) Magic 
  (or occasionally the kiss of a true love) can reverse this 
  effect. The Yellow Lama also has various magic powers 
  like levitation, ventriloquism, astral projection, teleporta-
  tion, and seeming immunity to cold or gas. He can also 
  bilocate, appearing in two places at once. Finally, like 
  most Golden Age magicians, he can use various one-off 
  spells and artifacts for any powers the plot particularly 
  requires. Predictably, this “Oriental mastermind” spent 
  most of his early career helping the Japanese 
  war and sabotage efforts, although in later 
  Adventures Into Darkness issues he took 
  on more cosmic projects. His motives 
  were always unsavory; in a particu-
  larly unsettling Fighting Yank tale in 
  Adventures Into Darkness #65, the 
  Yellow Lama started a wave of suicides in 
  Hollywood “to drown America in despair.”
  TCho-TChos
  The Yellow Lama is also “the lord of the 
  primitive Tcho-Tcho people of Inner Asia, 
  ruling them with fear and magic!” Nedor 
  artists depicted Tcho-Tchos as skin-
  wearing cannibal pygmy savages 
  with strongly stereotyped “non-
  white” features. The Tcho-Tchos 
  carry blowguns, slings, bows, 
  and other such weapons, always 
  firing missiles “tipped with an 
  exotic poison!” When Tcho-Tchos 
  visit New York or other cities, 
  nobody (except occasionally 
  their frightened target) ever 
  seems to notice their bizarre 
  appearance, although that may 
  just be artistic convention.
  TCho-TChos
  QuALities
  Expert [+4] Poison Dart, Good [+2] Stalker, Good 
  [+2] Tribesman, Poor [+2] Cannibal, and Poor [-2] 
  Primitive.
  PoWers
  None.
  stuNts
  None.
  
  — Issue lIsTIng & PrICe guIde —
  - 33 -
  DreAM MAster CoMiCs: Feb, 1940-No. 57, May, 1947, Better Publications (Nedor)
  Good
  Fine
  N-Mint
  1-Intro & 1st app. Dream Master (in costume splash panel only)
  425.00
  1260.00
  6000.00
  2-3
  225.00
  625.00
  3000.00
  4-Dream Master in costume
  275.00
  725.00
  3250.00
  5-8
  135.00
  400.00
  1900.00
  9-Nodens 1st app.
  200.00
  500.00
  2350.00
  10-14: 12-Dream-Quest story line concludes. 13-Origin Dream Master; Early Tales story line begins
  130.00
  350.00
  1400.00
  15-Nodens app.
  175.00
  450.00
  2000.00
  16-Silver Key story line begins
  110.00
  350.00
  1350.00
  17-19: Nodens app. 18-Yellow Lama 1st app.
  70.00
  210.00
  1000.00
  20-24: 22-Fighting Yank begins
  60.00
  175.00
  950.00
  25-Captain Future app.
  65.00
  190.00
  1000.00
  26-36: 26-Grim Reaper app. 27-(5/42)-First bimonthly issue; 28-Fighting Yank team-up w. Dream Master; 
  34-Hirohito c.
  55.00
  150.00
  700.00
  37-38-Captain Future app.
  70.00
  210.00
  1000.00
  39-54: 48-Scarab app. 51-Dr. Ghoul app.; Tuska-a
  50.00
  125.00
  600.00
  55-57: 55-Kara the Jungle Princess begins
  60.00
  200.00
  750.00
  ADVeNtures iNto DArKNess: Aug, 1941-No. 77, Jul, 1949, Better Publ./Nedor/Standard
  Good
  Fine
  N-Mint
  1-Nodens, Ghost, Mystico, Scarab app.
  590.00
  1800.00
  6500.00
  2-Nodens, Ghost, Dream Master, Doc Strange app.
  510.00
  1500.00
  6000.00
  3-Origin Nodens
  480.00
  1400.00
  5750.00
  4-6: 4-Dream Master, Fighting Yank app. 5- Mystico app. 6-Nodens app.
  240.00
  750.00
  2350.00
  7-(6/42)-First monthly issue; The Ghost app.
  175.00
  600.00
  1400.00
  8-9-Mystico app.
  132.00
  390.00
  1350.00
  10-Origin & 1st app. Night Terror
  480.00
  1500.00
  5000.00
  11-15: 13-Hitler-c. 14-The Sphinx app.
  135.00
  400.00
  1350.00
  16-17-Frankenstein story; Fighting Yank app.
  80.00
  240.00
  1000.00
  18-29: 20-Fighting Yank app. 24-Ace Buckley app. 27-Night Terror app. 29-Liberator app.
  70.00
  230.00
  970.00
  30-Bondage-c
  80.00
  250.00
  1000.00
  31-39: 31-Ghost begins, Oracle app. 33-Hitler-c. 34-Spectro app. 35-American Eagle app. 37-The 
  Mask app. 38-Fighting Yank app. 39-Night Terror app.
  70.00
  220.00
  950.00
  40-44-Sargasso of the Skies; Moldoff-a
  85.00
  270.00
  1100.00
  45-Cavalier begins; not in #57, 63, 68, 72
  48.00
  155.00
  950.00
  46-48(8/46)-The Call of Dagon: 48-Captain Future app.
  150.00
  500.00
  1650.00
  49-Scarab begins; not in #56, 68, 77
  66.00
  210.00
  850.00
  50-56: 52-Doc Strange app. 55-Night Terror app. 56-Doc Strange, Mystico app.
  45.00
  140.00
  1050.00
  57-Bondage-c., Kara the Jungle Princess app.
  50.00
  180.00
  1200.00
  58-Terror of Azderac; Frazetta-a
  45.00
  135.00
  1000.00
  59-62: 59-Doc Strange app. 60-Pyroman app. 61-Ace Buckley, Professor Fenton app.
  33.00
  100.00
  800.00
  63-Demon Star story; Doc Strange app.
  48.00
  150.00
  850.00
  64-Mystico, Kara the Jungle Princess app. Frazetta-c
  54.00
  180.00
  1600.00
  65-67: 65-Fighting Yank app. 66-Pyroman, Professor Fenton app. 67-Doc Strange app.
  36.00
  150.00
  950.00
  68-Hitler-c.; Captain Future, Mystico app.
  66.00
  200.00
  2350.00
  69-Nodens app.; Ghost ends
  60.00
  180.00
  1650.00
  70-71 Ingels-a
  48.00
  165.00
  1000.00
  72-Pyroman, Doc Strange, Captain Future app.
  36.00
  110.00
  950.00
  73-77: 76-Pyroman app.
  33.00
  100.00
  850.00
  Issue lIsTIng and PrICe guIde
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 34 -
  T
  he world of Adventures Into Darkness is 
  one of two things: fundamentally horrific 
  or fundamentally fantastic. Both, it should 
  be emphasized, spring equally from the pen of H.P. 
  Lovecraft. Both are cosmic—each stretches far beyond 
  the fields we know in time, space, and dimension. But 
  the first is a soul-crushing, terrifying vastness, and 
  the second is rather an endless jungle of variation 
  dwarfing even the capacity of human imagination.
  The horrIfIC World
  This is the world of “Call of Cthulhu” and “At the 
  Mountains of Madness” and “The Colour Out of 
  Space”—as bleak, indifferent, and fatal as stomach can-
  cer. Knowledge is death, and madness, and futility; the 
  true world is old and uncaring and cruel. Human inter-
  ests, and human goals, are vanishingly unimportant; 
  superheroism is irrelevant at best, and misunderstood 
  evidence of human insignificance at worst. The horrific 
  world exemplifies cosmic horror in purest “indifferent-
  ist” style, viewed through four colors perhaps, but still 
  a realm of stark hopelessness at its core.
  This makes conventional superhero storytelling dif-
  ficult, if not impossible. The core theme of Lovecraft’s 
  “cosmic indifferentism” is human powerlessness and 
  irrelevance, while the core theme of the superhero 
  myth is the complete power and relevance of one man 
  (or super-man) at the right place, at the right time, 
  usually with a right hook. Following from that, super-
  heroics privilege the physical solution—even Batman’s 
  mind is usually no more than a targeting system for 
  his fists—while most of Lovecraft’s cosmic terrors are 
  immune to conventional weapons, in the long term at 
  least. However, there are a few common elements avail-
  able for the GM desperate to run a purist blend of H.P. 
  Lovecraft and Gardner Fox. Firstly, of course, Lovecraft’s 
  fiction and the Golden Age of Comics share a common 
  setting, at least in our 21st-century eyes: the Pulp Era 
  of the 1920s through the 1940s. All the setting assump-
  tions for the one hold true for the other—or are broken 
  (superheroes exist, scholars know about books that 
  drive people insane) solely to juice the narrative. This 
  lets certain props and elements—Packard coupes, fedo-
  ras, tommy guns, newsboys, the Empire State Building, 
  propeller planes—unify the two with every scene wipe.
  fIsTs, fears, and fuTIlITy
  Both sets of stories revel in the physical—fistfights 
  in the one, dripping slime in the other. Both likewise 
  accentuate the grotesque: supervillains and gang 
  bosses are almost as “twisted and malformed” as 
  ghouls or shambling monsters. (Similarly, both the 
  Golden Age comics and Lovecraft’s stories fear and dis-
  trust other races, especially Asians in the former case. 
  This is probably not material suitable for modern-day 
  roleplayers, though.) Both genres are fundamentally 
  stories of loners. The dark guardian of the city and the 
  orphan with a secret he can tell nobody are as isolated 
  in their way as the scholar who cannot publish the 
  truth about Antarctica or the artist who communes 
  with ghouls. Likewise, both genres highlight questions 
  of identity: Who am I, really? Who is anyone? Identity 
  is fragile. Who else might be possessed by a Yithian, or 
  secretly worshipping Cthulhu? Is Starman a scientist 
  disguised as a vigilante, or a vigilante disguised as a 
  scientist? Where does Charles Dexter Ward leave off 
  and Joseph Curwen begin, or Carter Hall and Prince 
  Khufu? The “secret identities” of Kent Nelson, Jim 
  Corrigan, and even Billy Batson (Dr. Fate, the Spectre, 
  and Captain Marvel) are more godlike than human—a 
  sentiment Wilbur Whateley could sympathize with, 
  as could Kal-El. The narrator of “The Shadow Over 
  Innsmouth” feels the tug of his alien heritage no more 
  than the Martian Manhunter does.
  “[W]e can revel in the … Arcadia of an author who will play with the old ideas, 
  atmospheres, types, situations, and lighting effects in a deft pictorial 
  way; a way tinged with affectionate remembrance as for fallen gods…”
   
  — H.P. Lovecraft, “Lord Dunsany and His Work” (1922)
  WrITe ComICs  
  The nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 35 -
  Finally, although Lovecraft highlights it rather than 
  muting it, he shares a certain message of futility with 
  long-running superhero comics. No matter how many 
  Nazi spies you capture, there’s another Axis plot to foil 
  next issue. No matter how many murders you solve, 
  gangsters will kill more people next month. Especially 
  in the Silver Age, it becomes personal, as supervillains 
  always survive and return, just as the Deep Ones survive 
  the destruction of Innsmouth, and Cthulhu survives 
  being discorporated when rammed by the Alert. GMs who 
  are willing to highlight these aspects of their two sources 
  can potentially bridge the gap in theme between them, 
  perhaps leaving the true nature of the world indistinct. 
  In some campaigns, this tension could become the ongo-
  ing theme: Is it good sense, or surrender, to act like the 
  world is like it seems to be, whether from a rooftop in 
  Gotham City or a hilltop in Arkham?
  sTrange vIsITors fallen from 
  anoTher World
  From tension as creative ambiguity, of course, the next 
  step is resolution as creative subversion. Adding the 
  bleak vision of Lovecraft can make a Golden Age com-
  ics world feel more like the Iron Age (or “Dark Age”) 
  of comics, becoming a window for the ironic re-exam-
  ination or even denaturing of the superhero ethos. The 
  heroes become mere epiphenomena, victims, or pawns 
  of aeon-spanning forces. At best, superheroism is acci-
  dental, unjust, and arbitrary—perhaps the American 
  Eagle’s “black light ray” was just a glint reflecting from 
  the Shining Trapezohedron, or Kara’s jungle immortal-
  ity a side-effect of an eons-old Elder Thing toxic waste 
  dump. More disturbingly, superheroic powers might 
  merely offer another avenue for contamination by the 
  true Lovecraftian reality as superheroes become supervic-
  tims. The Fighting Yank becomes increasingly possessed, 
  Curwen-style, by his undead ancestor (or the Cavalier 
  by his sword), and the Mask slowly goes mad as he sees 
  further and further into the “ultra-violet.” Ace Buckley 
  travels back to before the dinosaurs and discovers the 
  true nature of the Earth’s history. Pyroman survived 
  death and returned—surely something else changed for 
  him besides his voltmeter reading.
  From victim to voluntary madman: Nedor heroes could 
  easily come to resemble the overreaching Crawford 
  Tillinghast from “From Beyond,” becoming unhinged 
  not by the vision of a resonator but by the ingestion 
  of unknown chemicals and alien gases. (Doc Strange, 
  the Liberator, the Black Terror, and the Oracle are all 
  essentially vulnerable to this kind of reinterpreta-
  tion.) This approach also leaves the door open for you 
  to transform—or retcon—superhuman heroes into 
  inhuman villains. Any of the other Nedor mystics—
  the Ghost, Mystico, the Scarab, and of course Dream 
  Master or Nodens—might see too much and go mad, or 
  be revealed as the heirs to dark gods and worse cults, 
  or both. In Terra Obscura, Alan Moore thusly recast 
  Mystico as the god Set, but the Wonder-Man might 
  also have been one of the mummified servitors of 
  Ghatanothoa, or the Black Pharaoh Nephren-Ka him-
  self. Captain Future can easily become a self-conscious 
  superman who sees himself as the harbinger of a 
  greater race, more kin to the crinoid Elder Things or 
  the fungoid Outer Ones than to mere mortal humanity.
  The ThIng In The CoWl
  This sort of world, although fascinating to 
  explore as a reader or GM, can 
  be an uncomfortable place to 
  play, especially immersively. 
  One way to gain some 
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 36 -
  mInd-blasTIng horrors for TruTh & JusTICe
  Humans react poorly to creatures, gods, and even energies from outside the normally experienced four-
  dimensional universe. In fact, the human sensorium and mindset is so parochial and limited (which is to say, 
  evolutionarily specialized to our local conditions) that seeing some sorts of extraterrestrials can trigger such 
  overreaction. The attempt to perceive the normally indescribable (which may, in truth, be humanly un-perceiv-
  able on both physical and neurological levels) sets up a feedback loop in the human brain and nervous system 
  that closely resembles insanity, and can trigger it.
  In game terms, this is represented by either the Unearthly Quality or the even more intense version of the same 
  effect, the Super-Unearthly Power.
  In some campaigns, idols, artifacts, primordial ruins, or even books may possess the Unearthly Quality or even 
  the Super-Unearthly Power, like a trap or gadget.
  GMs will usually want to distinguish between “impossible” sights like “normal” superpowers and “horrifically 
  impossible” sights like dread Yog-Sothoth materializing above Drakesville. Of course, in some games, any super-
  powers at all may be unearthly and inhuman, and all supers (hero and villain alike) must take the Unearthly 
  Quality or even the Super-Unearthly Power!
  unearThly (neW QualITy)
  Something about this creature or being radiates wrongness on a fundamental level. At the beginning of the Scene, 
  an Unearthly creature immediately “attacks” all those who can perceive it with its Unearthly Quality; characters 
  with specific Qualities like Fearless, Unfazeable, or Insane can use them to resist as with a normal conflict situation. 
  Other characters must merely toss their 2d6 and hope for the best. Once this first exchange is completed, and the 
  horrified witnesses have checked off their Failure Ranks, the Unearthly Quality does not come into play again unless 
  the GM rules that it stacks with a specific fear attack, magical spell, etc.
  GMs may or may not count ranks in Unearthly against a creature or being’s total for purposes of calculating the 
  values for Sidekick, Minion, etc.
  unearThlIness guIdelInes:
  Average [+0]
   Unpleasant but actually from the Earth (serpent-men such as the Subterrons), or extraterres-
  trial but not hostile or unpleasant (one of the friendly Nug-Soth of Yaddith).
  Good [+2]
   Loathsome and/or supernatural but not utterly inhuman (ghouls, frog-men), or utterly 
  inhuman but potentially non-threatening (nightgaunts), or loathsome, supernatural, and 
  threatening, but relatively small (rat-familiars).
  expert [+4]
   Clearly alien and inhuman, as well as threatening (Outer Ones).
  Master [+6]
   Utterly inhuman; the Liveliest Awfulnesse (shoggoths), or major demonic entities (the Dark 
  Haunter as monster).
  distance is literally to gain some distance. The player 
  characters in this case aren’t the Golden Age Nedor 
  heroes but their modern descendants or successors. 
  Perhaps they travel back in time and slowly discover 
  the horrible truth about the Golden Age past, while 
  simultaneously discovering, perhaps, its less attractive 
  conventional aspects. After all, for some superheroes, 
  the realization that their beloved mentor routinely shot 
  and killed people might be even more horrifying that 
  the discovery that his “Atlantean” heritage actually 
  came from a different sunken continent. Alternately, 
  the horrific Golden Age past can erupt into the modern 
  age, as in Alan Moore’s Terra Obscura or Warren Ellis’ 
  Planetary. Which modern icons are contaminated with 
  the Mythos? Which legendary avenging figures continue 
  its poisonous work? Do they do so knowingly? What 
  other lies have been left buried, from the pre-Golden 
  pulps or the sunny Silver Age? A game pitting superhe-
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 37 -
  suPer-unearThly (neW PoWer)
  Gods and immense monstrosities such as Dagon possess this, the “super-version” of Unearthly, much like Super-
  Strength instead of Strong. It ignores Quality-level defenses; only Powers like Mental Shield or Godlike provide 
  a defense against it. Like other Super-attacks, if the sight of a Super-Unearthly being penetrates, it does super-
  scale sanity damage: a number of extra ranks of damage equal to the Target Number of the Super-Unearthly Power 
  is added to the normal-scale damage.
  suPer-unearThlIness guIdelInes:
  Average [+0]
   Basically humaniform, or not immediately malevolent (Nodens), or merely enormous (the Dark 
  Haunter as avatar).
  Good [+2]
   Titanic but not sheerly incomprehensible (Dagon).
  expert [+4]
   “A mountain walked or stumbled.” (Cthulhu).
  Master [+6]
   “Roiling nuclear chaos.” (Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth).
  Obviously, the GM can vary these values at her whim or to suit her conceptions of the gods and titans of the 
  Lovecraftian universe. In some campaigns, all ultraterrestrial beings will have the Super-Unearthly Power, as there 
  is no mere human (Quality-level) defense against such horrific sights.
  sanITy damage
  In most Golden Age games, seeing Unearthly, or even Super-Unearthly creatures does Failure Ranks instead of 
  Damage Ranks, but in harder-edged campaigns, Damage Ranks can be justified as actual mental trauma instead of 
  shock and terror.
  In either case, being zeroed out from Unearthliness means the character is completely panicked. This might result 
  in total shock, blind panic, berserk frenzy, mindless catatonia, etc., depending on the specific stimuli and the 
  psychological makeup of the witness.
  In some campaigns, intended to closely model the works of H.P. Lovecraft and his school, recovery from shocks 
  to the fundamental nature of human thought is not as simple as merely allowing the passage of time. In those 
  campaigns, sanity (and hence, ranks in human concerns such as Qualities) drop dangerously or even permanently, 
  leached away by exposure to Things Outside.
  For every instance of being so zeroed out, the character may either lose one rank in a Quality reflecting human 
  concerns (such as jobs, NPCs, etc.), or add another Weakness at Poor [-2] such as Fear of the Dark or Twitchy. 
  To prevent a character from accumulating a horde of Weaknesses, the GM might try this optional rule: Treat 
  mental or character Weaknesses as Motivations in addition to their normal effects. Thus, a character with Fear 
  of the Dark will have to spend 1 HP to enter a dark room; each additional zeroing-out adds 1 HP to that cost. 
  (Characters do not, however, receive Hero Points for giving in to such Weaknesses, unless the GM decides that a 
  dark room counts as a Limitation.) Once a character is out of Quality ranks, or if overcoming a Weakness costs 
  more than 5 HP, the character has gone insane. Recovery is impossible under normal circumstances, requiring a 
  story development or superpowers (at least). The witness has seen and learned too much of the real nature of 
  the universe.
  Regaining lost Qualities, or removing Weaknesses, requires not merely the spending of MAX but a specific process. 
  The player should describe their process ahead of time, and it should remain constant for that character. It may 
  be treatment by a psychiatrist, prayer to the witness’ God or gods, time spent in one’s secret identity with normal 
  folks, or the mental disciplines of the hero’s original Tibetan monastery. (In some games, it may require killing 
  the creature that caused the shock, or saving its would-be victims.) In any case, it takes a matter of weeks or 
  even months.
  Again, the GM can vary the severity of this loss, the ease of recovery, and the effect (or lack thereof) of Hero 
  Points to create any specific feel for her game.
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 38 -
  roes against the terrible legacy that they cannot reveal 
  to the outside world (or even, perhaps, to their fellow 
  heroes) could interestingly square the circle between 
  H.P. Lovecraft and Jack Kirby.
  The other method of distancing the player characters 
  from the bleak, horrific truth behind Lovecraftian 
  superheroics is literally alienation—the PCs aren’t 
  superheroes in the first place. In this kind of game, 
  superpowers are likely all caused by some sort of 
  Lovecraftian effect: Nyarlathotep as the source of 
  telepathy, Yog-Sothoth as the key to teleportation or 
  super-speed, Hastur or Ithaqua for flight or astral pro-
  jection. Superpowers—like the magic in “The Dreams 
  in the Witch House”—might merely be misunderstood 
  manipulation of the dimensional matrix, derived from 
  tapping into hyperspace in ritual patterns such as the 
  recital of an oath or saying a single Name of Power. 
  Shoggoth ichor might grant shape-
  shifting, super-stretching, or any other sort of bodily 
  alteration from invulnerability to shrinking. Perhaps 
  the “metagene” or “mutant gene” is yet another legacy 
  of Old One tinkering, or of Yithian psychic alterations 
  to certain bloodlines. Needless to say, any super-arti-
  facts from green rings to scarab amulets to mysterious 
  helmets could be derived from alien technology—or, 
  like the Shining Trapezohedron, left over from the 
  primordial rulers of the Earth. In rules terms, such pow-
  ers might also come with limitations on their use or 
  activation, such as “attracts ghosts,” or “must pray to 
  Azathoth,” or “opens user to possession while sleep-
  ing” … or “must consume human spinal fluid.” What, 
  exactly, goes into Alosun, or Lamesis, or Miraclo? This 
  sort of game doesn’t so much square the circle as go 
  completely around the other side. The true heroes aren’t 
  the freaks and mutants unleashed by Mythos entities 
  (or by an American government desperate to defeat the 
  Axis) but the normal scholars, authors, and adventurers 
  who armor up with “experimental Crookes tubes” and 
  flame-throwers and stand with humanity’s best against 
  some alien world’s finest.
  The fanTasTIC World
  This leads us naturally into the second sort of 
  Nedor-Lovecraft world, the fantastic world. This is 
  the world of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and 
  “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”—and even “The 
  Dunwich Horror” and “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” 
  and “The Shunned House.” Lovecraft has no shortage 
  of heroes who fight evil and win, from Dr. Armitage of 
  Miskatonic University to the anonymous sailors and 
  G-men who destroyed the shadow over Innsmouth (at 
  least for the time being). The world can be scary, even 
  terrifying, but it is somehow containable within the 
  realms of dreams or the restricted shelves at the 
  University library. It can even be controllable with 
  the right incantation or with flamethrowers and 
  super-science. Knowledge is weird, and surpris-
  ing, and occasionally grim; the true world is 
  strange and wonderful and dangerous. This 
  is not a world of cosmic indifference, or cold 
  materialism, or helpless shrinking before the 
  ineffable vastness of existence. No, it is a 
  Golden Age superhero world, a world obsessed 
  with decency and fairness at home—and with 
  mercilessly smashing America’s enemies abroad—
  where evil can, and should, be vanquished. Lovecraft’s 
  cosmic dreams work on the existing Golden Age 
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 39 -
  assumptions like spices in a stew. They don’t change 
  the “meat and potatoes” experience of fighting Nazis, 
  gangsters, and demons, but they bring out new flavor 
  possibilities and accentuate certain elements.
  four Colors of darkness
  The first element is an almost surprising level of 
  darkness—Superman idly threatens to kill a man in his 
  first-ever adventure, and Batman packs a gun through 
  most of 1939. Doctor Fate routinely kills sorcerers and 
  others that “the law cannot touch,” when they don’t 
  just commit suicide. On the battlefields of Europe and 
  the Pacific, between jaunty wisecracks superheroes kill 
  the enemy like any other soldier would. These aren’t 
  the post-Comics Code stories of the shiny Silver Age, 
  in other words. And if the heroes are a little darker, 
  the villains are worse—common murderers, thieves 
  and racketeers, corrupt officials, and insensitive mil-
  lionaires. There aren’t a lot of quip-trading gentleman 
  jewel thieves or brightly garbed rogues yet. The “Golden 
  Age of Comics,” remember, begins in the tenth year of 
  the Great Depression, and crime and death (and the 
  threat of poverty represented by all those bank robbers) 
  aren’t abstractions to either the comics creators or the 
  comics audience. And that’s just the home front—after 
  1941, comics villains get really evil, from Adolf Hitler 
  on down. Although the Nazis have become almost camp 
  figures in our own day (and to be sure, they mounted 
  their share of seemingly ludicrous capers both in real 
  life and in the comics of the 1940s), they represent 
  something far nastier, and far more worthy of hate and 
  revulsion, than any supervillain. Indeed, although rac-
  ism meant the Japanese were usually drawn even uglier, 
  the stock Golden Age Nazi was a brutish, almost micro-
  cephalic, troll-like thug or a weaselly, rat-like sadist.
  All of these dark threads, of course, find natural echoes 
  in horror, even in fantastic horror like that of Robert E. 
  Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. But although it’s dark, it’s 
  not soul-freezingly so. First of all, the existence of such 
  darkness makes the brightness of the heroes seem more 
  obvious. The comics of the 1940s took some surpris-
  ingly nuanced looks at questions of intervention, public 
  duty, ethics, and so forth, but with self-confidence 
  worthy of FDR they played things as they saw them and 
  stuck by their play. Heroes were the good guys, and 
  not always just because they were smacking the bad 
  guys around—but that was good enough for wartime. 
  That Rooseveltian self-confidence stayed with them, 
  too: aside from the occasional “if only” moment, the 
  heroes do very little agonizing about their choices or 
  their experiences after the fact. Life, and superheroism, 
  goes on. Shocks to sanity can be overcome, in the fan-
  tastic world, about as easily as ordinary fear, panic, or 
  other emotional conditions. At least superheroes (and 
  their sidekicks and girlfriends) can overcome them, 
  anyhow—different rules apply to them.
  an arbITrary unIverse
  The rules, or perhaps the lack of them, are another 
  common feature of both Lovecraftian fantasy and 
  Golden Age superhero comics. Lovecraft deliberately 
  highlights the malleability and inconsistency of 
  Randolph Carter’s various realms and adventures as a 
  means of conveying wonder and mystery. Both Carter 
  and his environment shift seemingly at random—in 
  “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” he even takes 
  on the body of an alien, and the disjointed Dream-
  Quest of Unknown Kadath shows a world where cats 
  are feared warriors and ghouls are chatty tour guides, 
  at least sometimes. In “Dreams in the Witch House” a 
  crucifix stops a Nyarlathotep cultist; in “Nyarlathotep” 
  he’s an electrical showman as well as a god. Likewise, 
  the heroes in the early comics could go anywhere and 
  do anything the plot demanded, except when they 
  couldn’t. Golden Age magical heroes such as the Ghost 
  and Mystico (or Dr. Fate and Ibis the Invincible) had 
  essentially arbitrary spells and powers, and their goals 
  and tactics seemed almost as arbitrary. One minute 
  the Spectre is hopping from planet to planet wrestling 
  demons, the next he’s turning a mugger into ash on 
  a random street corner. The super-strong, bulletproof 
  hero who drops like a toddler when clonked on the 
  head with a two-by-four is a distressingly common 
  phenomenon, in Nedor comics especially. The Black 
  Terror’s powers shifted from a mere Batman-like “peak 
  of human accomplishment” to full-blown super-
  strength and bulletproof skin from issue to issue.
  The Golden Age writers refused to be a prisoner of last 
  month’s issue, much less of “continuity.” Partly this is 
  because some of the writers just didn’t care that much 
  about product they saw as throwaway kid stuff. The 
  better part of it is the sheer effervescence involved in 
  inventing a new kind of storytelling. Jack Kirby had to 
  wait twenty years to break all the rules of superhero 
  comics in the 1960s—when he started out in the 1940s, 
  there weren’t any rules to break yet! GMs interested in 
  
  —         —
  WrITIng ComICs The 
  nedor-loveCrafT Way!
  - 40 -
  this feel should avoid getting hung up (or letting the 
  players get hung up) on minutiae and “but last week 
  my robot couldn’t fly,” although the constraints of 
  serial roleplaying (and insistent geek obsessive-compul-
  sion) may keep things straight regardless. Still, maybe 
  just once, change things for no reason, and refuse to 
  explain it. If your players recover from the shock, who 
  knows? Maybe they’ll enjoy it—even enjoy being infuri-
  ated by the dropped options or vaulted plot holes—as 
  much as the comics-reading kids of the Golden Age did.
  sTrange Tales
  The third common territory shared by Lovecraft’s fan-
  tasy work and Golden Age comics is pure strangeness. 
  The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath resembles noth-
  ing so much as a demented Dr. Seuss book, with zoogs 
  and gugs and bholes and voonith ramping about the 
  place. Even the more straight-faced material in this 
  subgenre, such as “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” or 
  “The Dunwich Horror” has its odd aspect or two—the 
  strong hint that Willett has accidentally re-animated 
  Merlin (or something even weirder), the whippoor-
  wills who catch sorcerers’ souls, and so on. When he 
  wasn’t rigorously building his more despairing science-
  fictional tales, Lovecraft let his imagination—and his 
  sense of whimsy—take over. Like the Golden Age com-
  ics writers, he plundered names and “origin stories” 
  from anywhere and everywhere, with extreme preju-
  dice for romantic and evocative locations like Egypt 
  and Tibet. (Gardner Fox plundered Lovecraft on occa-
  sion himself, such as the “fish-men of Nyarl-Amen” 
  who battled Doctor Fate.) His fantasies excitedly rush 
  from the Great Cypress Swamp to the Congo to New 
  York City to ill-defined other dimensions just as the 
  Ghost might visit Ceylon one issue, while the Fighting 
  Yank shows up in North Africa to battle Nazis. The 
  world is a big, gorgeous canvas for the Golden Age, 
  and Lovecraft simply extends it into dreams and up to 
  the Plateau of Leng. But like the Golden Age heroes, 
  Lovecraft’s heroes often found themselves battling 
  against the extraordinarily strange and evil right in 
  their hometown. Be it Providence or Metropolis, there’s 
  always a moon-demon or a sinister Chinese cult wait-
  ing around the next corner.
  As an iconic example of all that was utterly bizarre 
  about the Golden Age, consider one of its most popular 
  characters—and one of the few Golden Age “supervil-
  lains” to not just return, but be the star of his own 
  series—Silver Streak’s the Claw. Admittedly, the Claw 
  was created by Jack Cole, the protean genius who also 
  invented Plastic Man. But even a guy made out of living 
  rubber pales before the Claw! This mad yellow monster-
  god had pointed ears, enormous fangs and bony talons, 
  and a skull-like cavity where his nose should be. He 
  lived in a hollow mountain near Tibet, or maybe on a 
  Pacific Island, where Chinese coolies, tribesmen, sci-
  entists, and soldiers alike worshipped him as “the god 
  of hate.” He shot electricity from his fingers, could 
  grow to be a hundred feet tall, and was occasionally 
  super-strong and bulletproof when he wasn’t invent-
  ing tunneling machines or sneaking off to the planet 
  Zylmarx to plot his revenge. He teamed up with Hitler 
  to fight the original Daredevil in April of 1941 (in the 
  wonderfully titled Charles Biro masterpiece Daredevil 
  Battles Hitler #1). Now consider this—if they hadn’t 
  survived into mainstream modern times, wouldn’t 
  Captain Marvel, Green Lantern, or the Sub-Mariner 
  (what’s with the little wings?) seem kind of weird to 
  you, too? Speaking of iconic Golden Age weird heroes, 
  it’s worth keeping in mind that the Spectre was Jerry 
  Siegel’s other creation. Behind every Superman, in other 
  words, lurks a whole raft of half-forgotten weirdness.
  The Lovecraftian slew of other dimensions, magical 
  dream cities, ghoul tunnels leading from Boston to the 
  Vale of Pnath, sunken continents, and demon-spawn-
  ing stars and planets grows almost seamlessly out of 
  (or into) the Golden Age world of Japanese submarine 
  fortresses in Lake Michigan and Luftwaffe comet-ships 
  behind Mars and lost white tribes in darkest Jungly 
  Somewhere. Here, at least, the GM can feel completely 
  justified in yielding to her Silver Age instincts—the 
  “lovely and pointless” imaginings of the Silver Age 
  writers, and the travelogue super-battles made famous 
  in Justice League of America stories, fit perfectly 
  into this world as well. One good way to slide such 
  things in is to look at them through a Lovecraftian 
  lens. What does Flash’s Gorilla City look like so much 
  as a time-lost Yithian outpost with a strong dash of 
  “Arthur Jermyn”? How much more fun is M.O.D.O.K. 
  if you assume that the Fungi from Yuggoth built him 
  while experimenting with their collection of human 
  brains? Keep it planted firmly in the 1930s or the 
  1940s—a mad Nazi science angle is always good—and 
  keep your tongue planted firmly in cheek. This kind 
  of joyous freedom to explore and create can also help 
  cut (or highlight, if you want) some of the undeniable 
  Lovecraftian grimness that pervades even light-hearted 
  fantasies like “The Cats of Ulthar.”
  
  — afTerWard for The PerPlexed —
  - 41 -
  “[T]he only conflict which has any deep emotional significance to me is that 
  of the principle of freedom or irregularity or adventurous opportunity 
  against the eternal and maddening rigidity of cosmic law… especially the 
  laws of time!”
   
  — H.P. Lovecraft, letter to E. Hoffman Price,  
  Aug. 15, 1934 (seleCTed leTTers v, p. 19)
  T
  he traditional answer to the question “what 
  would you do if you could take one trip in a 
  time machine and change history” is “shoot 
  Hitler.” That’s a hard answer to rebut, but I will say 
  that if I get to take two trips, my second answer is 
  “get H.P. Lovecraft a typist.” Someone who could 
  have saved Lovecraft the torture of two-finger hunt-
  and-peck could at the very least have given him more 
  time and leisure to write more letters. A slightly more 
  interested typist—an appreciative horror reader, 
  perhaps—might very well have goosed him into pro-
  ducing one or two or ten more stories—maybe even 
  the long-rumored “last Lovecraft novel,” The House 
  of the Worm. A horror-savvy typist who knew a good 
  agent—or who knew a New York editor—could have 
  gotten HPL into hardcover in his lifetime, and not 
  from some near-vanity press like Arkham House. And 
  that would have brought in some more money, pre-
  venting the malnutrition that brought on his Bright’s 
  disease and at the very least aggravated Lovecraft’s 
  fatal intestinal cancer. Another decade or two of 
  Lovecraft’s fiction, increasingly noticed by the New 
  York literary world or by the burgeoning SF commu-
  nity, or both, perhaps changing the entire course of 
  American genre fiction, and with his own brilliant 
  critical writing making it all appear “worthy” of elite 
  criticism. Now, that’s an alternate history worth risk-
  ing the wrath of the Morlocks for.
  And it almost happened. Lovecraft had at least four 
  near-misses with New York publishers, including Alfred 
  A. Knopf and G.P. Putnam’s Sons. In the third instance, 
  in 1932, Vanguard Books tried to get a novel from HPL, 
  and he claimed not to have one to sell them—this, with 
  “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” The Dream-Quest of 
  Unknown Kadath, and “At the Mountains of Madness” sit-
  ting in manuscript in his files! (In 1936, a similar offer 
  from William Morrow & Co. came to nothing.) His 1933 
  cover letter to Knopf, which consists of nothing but dep-
  recatory comments about his own fiction, certainly cost 
  him a book contract, and may have cost him his life. (His 
  cancer most probably onset the following year.) Lovecraft 
  had young, eager, gifted fans—not least of them Robert 
  H. Barlow and Robert Bloch—who would have jumped 
  at the chance to work for the Old Gentleman if he could 
  have unbent enough to offer. And he really, honestly and 
  for true, met and befriended a young Julius Schwartz, 
  the future father of the Silver Age of comics. Schwartz, 
  at the time working as a literary agent, sold “At the 
  Mountains of Madness” (and maybe “The Shadow Out of 
  Time”) to Astounding Stories for HPL, and probably saved 
  Lovecraft’s life for a while with that check. But it was too 
  little, too late. Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937, just fif-
  teen months before Superman was born.
  WhaT ThIs book Is  
  and hoW IT Came To be
  This book was always intended to be a guide to mashing 
  up Lovecraft with the Golden Age of comics. The paral-
  lels are both so obvious to me and so little remarked 
  upon by most people that I figured it would be a slam 
  dunk to write. But while I was doing a little research 
  (and re-reading a few histories of the Golden Age) I 
  stumbled across a fact I somehow hadn’t known before. 
  Namely, that there were honest-to-Biro Golden Age 
  superheroes just lying around out there for the tak-
  ing. A gaggle of comic book companies dropped their 
  superhero lines or otherwise left the business in the 
  late 1940s and early 1950s, as the superhero fad (and 
  to a lesser extent, the comics market) faded. And by no 
  means all of them bothered to renew their copyrights. 
  Ha-ha, I thought—the perfect NPCs for my Golden Age 
  project! Looking through lists of public domain char-
  acters, I recognized some of them—the Fighting Yank, 
  afTerWord for The PerPlexed
  
  - 42 -
  — afTerWard for The PerPlexed —
  the Liberator, Mystico, the Magnet—from Alan Moore’s 
  “Terra Obscura” storyline and dug further.
  It seems that in 1999 Moore named his comics imprint 
  (at that time part of Image/Wildstorm) “America’s Best 
  Comics,” and sometime thereafter learned that he wasn’t 
  the first to use that title. In 1942, Ned Pines had named 
  one of his own Nedor Comics superhero anthology series 
  America’s Best Comics, as a knock at DC’s World’s Finest 
  Comics. Moore found out that the Nedor heroes were in 
  the public domain, and promptly revived them in the 
  pages of Tom Strong, as the heroes of the counter-Earth, 
  Terra Obscura. (In a nod to DC’s 
  Silver Age “Earth-2” stories, the 
  heroes of Terra Obscura were fic-
  tional comic book characters on 
  Tom Strong’s Earth.) He tweaked 
  the original “Doc” Strange into 
  “Tom Strange,” and another glo-
  rious Alan Moore story arc flared 
  into existence.
  Well, I wasn’t going to pass up 
  a chance to rip off—er, pay 
  homage to—Alan Moore and 
  H.P. Lovecraft simultaneously 
  now, was I? This book became 
  explicitly a Nedor-Lovecraft 
  crossover project, and like Moore 
  in reverse, I borrowed a Nedor 
  title for my own book. The 
  real Adventures Into Darkness 
  was Nedor’s attempt at a horror 
  anthology series, when Pines was getting off the sink-
  ing superhero ship and moving into the booming horror 
  comics field. (It ran 14 issues, from 1952 to 1954.) My 
  book now had a name: Adventures Into Darkness. And 
  right about then, I realized what I was actually writing. 
  It was an RPG sourcebook from an alternate history, one 
  where H.P. Lovecraft somehow survived long enough to 
  write comic-book superheroes for Nedor Comics. Hence, 
  this Afterword.
  The loveCrafT of TWo Worlds
  My alternate history diverges with H.P. Lovecraft’s last 
  coma, on March 14, 1937. In the real world, he died 
  early the next morning. In my world, he survives—
  his cancer somehow goes into remission. (This really 
  happens sometimes, though not nearly often enough. 
  And to be perfectly honest, it probably never hap-
  pens in cases as advanced as Lovecraft’s was by 1937.) 
  Everything after that is my invention or extrapolation, 
  except the actual Nedor heroes and villains and their 
  histories. (Ned Pines, for example, really did adapt 
  some of his early comics heroes from the main char-
  acters in his pulp lines.) Among the heroes, I adapted 
  only Dream Master (Randolph Carter) and Nodens from 
  Lovecraft tales, basing the superhero versions of Dream 
  Master roughly on Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s (Silver 
  Age) Sandman and Nodens on Gardner Fox’s Doctor Fate 
  with a hint of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Thor. The Night 
  Terror is somewhere between invention and adapta-
  tion. He’s very closely based (all 
  except for the ghoul control) on 
  the original Nedor Black Terror, who 
  passed into the public domain along 
  with the rest of the Nedor heroes 
  in 1968-1974. But … Beau Smith 
  revived the Black Terror (with an 
  entirely different secret identity, 
  back story, and power set) in 1989 
  for Eclipse Comics, which means 
  that the Smith version quite pos-
  sibly belongs to Todd McFarlane. 
  As I wanted to avoid that morass if 
  possible, I had HPL create a “twin 
  brother” for the character. (Alan 
  Moore apparently agrees with my 
  reasoning, since he renamed his 
  Terra Obscura version of the Black 
  Terror “the Terror.”) That said, if 
  you just want to use the stat box for the Night Terror 
  as a stat box for the Black Terror (minus the ghoul con-
  trol, plus submachine guns), I don’t see how even Todd 
  McFarlane can stop you.
  Among the statted-up villains, the Blitz and Professor 
  Fenton (sans Yithian) are real Nedor baddies; all the 
  rest are my Lovecraftian mashups. All the various other 
  heroes, sidekicks, and villains mentioned in the Heroes 
  and Villains sections are real Nedor characters. The rule 
  of thumb is, if a character is mentioned in any other 
  context besides (or in addition to) Dream Master Comics 
  or Adventures Into Darkness, he (or she) is a Nedor orig-
  inal. In my history, those two titles ran about as long 
  as Nedor’s other flagship titles, Thrilling, Exciting, and 
  Startling, ending their runs in 1947 and 1949, around 
  when the Nedor superhero series did historically.
  But back to Lovecraft. His connection with Julius 
  Schwartz is, as I mentioned above, historical fact. (As 
  
  — afTerWard for The PerPlexed —
  - 43 -
  are all the HPL quotes in this book, except for those 
  in the body of the alternate-historical essay that fol-
  lows the Introduction.) Robert Barlow was on the 
  verge of getting on a train to Providence on March 
  15 in real history, but got Annie Gamwell’s telegram 
  telling him of Lovecraft’s death before he did. In my 
  history, he arrives, and becomes the typist, factotum, 
  and cheering section that HPL deserves. Nothing about 
  Julius Schwartz, in my version of history, is any less 
  plausible than his actual career in comics. (In the real 
  world, Schwartz went to work for National Periodicals 
  in 1944, three years earlier than in my alternate.) 
  Lovecraft really did have James Blish, Fritz Leiber, 
  Henry Kuttner, and Robert Bloch (among others) pay-
  ing court to him by mail. Once he hit the big time at 
  DC, Schwartz really did throw a lot of comics work 
  to his old SF writer clients—Alfred Bester wrote Hal 
  Jordan’s Green Lantern oath, for example. Combining 
  Lovecraft’s correspondence circle with Julius Schwartz 
  produces “the Zombies” and HPL’s comics scripting 
  studio, which I modeled (with some variations) on 
  Will Eisner’s historical Eisner & Iger studio. Aside from 
  the novel sales, the anthology that should have hap-
  pened from Knopf, and of course the sales to Thrilling 
  and Nedor, my fictional Schwartz doesn’t actually do 
  much better than the historical, dead HPL did. August 
  Derleth (in real history) did manage to sell a lot of 
  HPL’s unpublished work to Weird Tales after 1937, 
  and the Arkham House editions of Lovecraft did get 
  respectful reviews from mainstream critics. (And a vit-
  riolic savaging from Edmund Wilson, to be sure.) Philip 
  Van Doren Stern, a prominent New York editor and 
  critic, got HPL into the Editions for the Armed Services 
  in our history, and Avon really did put Lovecraft into 
  domestic paperback in 1947.
  The TransITIon  
  of h.P. loveCrafT
  The final objection is that Lovecraft probably really 
  would have rather died than write for comic books. 
  He would have thought them to be utter trash, worse 
  even than the movies. I can only plead guilty to any 
  and all such accusations, and even in my alternate, 
  HPL has to be badgered incessantly into lending his 
  name and talents to such things. But I do have a few 
  thin arrows in my quiver.
  First, of course, is the fact that Lovecraft was a gentle-
  man almost as much as he was an artist. If Julius 
  Schwartz had gotten him committed to something, he 
  would have tried his utmost to fulfill that commitment. 
  His complete inability to let down the most pathetic of 
  his revision clients, or to politely extricate himself from 
  the amateur press circles that (mostly) failed to appre-
  ciate his work while taking up his increasingly valuable 
  creative time, indicates that he might well have sol-
  diered on in comics if Barlow or Schwartz could insulate 
  him from enough of the misery involved. He would also 
  not have been insensitive to the financial argument—
  that regardless of his own finer feelings, his elderly 
  aunt needed an income to live on—as distasteful as he 
  would have found the discussion.
  Second, HPL really did have a sense of fun about 
  his “Yog-Sothothery,” for all that it also epitomized 
  his most serious philosophical beliefs. He loved to 
  joke around with his gods and monsters, especially 
  for his younger fans. It’s not difficult at all to imag-
  ine Lovecraft convalescing, reading a copy of Action 
  Comics left around by Barlow, and firing off a jolly 
  letter to Fritz Leiber or someone, speculating on what 
  would have happened if Superman had been rock-
  eted from “the lurid smaragd star Xoth, fleeing the 
  unspeakable antecedents of Great Cthulhu, instead of 
  from the inoffensive red sun of Krypton.”
  Third, surviving cancer can change people in unpre-
  dictable ways. Things you thought were absolutely 
  permanent take on new shapes. Formerly serious things 
  can seem trivial, and the transient passage of every 
  day—even a humdrum one—seems like headline news. 
  Hanging around with James Blish, Willis Conover, 
  Robert Barlow, Fritz Leiber, and Robert Bloch to write 
  superhero comic books—or anything—would not be a 
  humdrum day. It would seem like very heaven to almost 
  anyone with an imagination. And if they all worship the 
  Old Gentleman, well, it would be hard for him to tell 
  them no, that they were keeping him alive with trash 
  and poison, especially on a warm August night in 1943, 
  with letters piled on his desk from servicemen overseas 
  thanking him for his comics. No, he’d lean back in his 
  chair, settle a cat on his lap away from the dish of ice 
  cream, and say something like: “Some geologists report 
  that the shafts of Mayan temples go all the way down 
  to the great sea of groundwater underlying the whole 
  of our continent. Perhaps one of Dagon’s spawn lurks 
  down there, eh, Barlovius, plotting with a prowling 
  U-boat that entered the aquifer by a secret channel, 
  as in Verne’s tale? It seems a suitable hazard for ‘Doc’ 
  Strange to me….”
  
  - 44 -
  — (aCTual) bIblIograPhy —
  T
  he Bibliography on page 9 is, of course, almost 
  entirely fictional, although the authors all 
  exist, and most of them have written books 
  similar (or almost precisely equivalent, in some cases) 
  to the ones I assigned them. Feiffer’s book and the De 
  Camp biography are cited exactly as they are in our 
  world, for example, and I’ve changed only the pub-
  lisher of Long’s book to a suitably prestigious house 
  in the alternate world. I should add a special mention 
  of Willis Conover’s fictional book, Lovecraft at Length. 
  It’s based on his real labor of love, Lovecraft at Last 
  (Carrollton Clark, 1975). Lovecraft at Last is one of the 
  most haunting memoirs of HPL—of any friendship—
  ever written, and invaluable for its personal look at 
  the kindly, tolerant, jocular H.P. Lovecraft that far too 
  few fans or scholars know. The book is also just plain 
  gorgeous.
  Speaking of just plain gorgeous, Alan Moore’s Terra 
  Obscura stories appeared in Tom Strong #11-12. With 
  Peter Hogan, Moore plotted two Terra Obscura six-issue 
  miniseries, both now available in a trade paperback 
  compilation. Moore’s take on the Nedor heroes isn’t 
  mine, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t an influence. 
  The “SMASH” webpage by ‘Herowatcher’ at <www.
  geocities.com/herowatcher/index.html> and Michael 
  Norwitz’ “Terra Obscura Timeline” at <blaklion.best.
  vwh.net/timelineBSN.html> both cover Moore’s ver-
  sion as the default, but Norwitz especially has some 
  excellent information on the Nedor originals.
  More information on the Nedor originals, and the real 
  kernel of my research, came from “The Nedor Heroes 
  … From A to Z” in Men of Mystery Spotlight Special: 
  The Nedor Heroes! (AC Comics, 2001). AC Comics pub-
  lishes their own versions of some Nedor heroes as 
  well as reprints of various Golden Age stories. The 
  “Pure Excitement Comics” webpages had more good 
  information, as well as scans of a few Nedor stories 
  online. It seems like the site is no longer active, but 
  “Pure Excitement #8,” a whole issue devoted to Nedor, 
  (aCTual) bIblIograPhy
  was still up at <www.fortunecity.com/victorian/
  hartford/103/8excitement.html> as of this morn-
  ing. There are more scanned Nedor stories featuring 
  the Black Terror, Doc Strange, the Fighting Yank, Kara 
  Jungle Princess, and the Liberator here at Comic Art 
  Pro: <www.comicartpro.com/comics/index.html>. And 
  although I haven’t tried it myself (I still have dial-up), 
  there are apparently free downloads of scanned Nedor 
  stories at Golden Age Comics: <goldenagecomics.co.uk/
  index.php?cid=74>. Don Markstein’s Toonopedia at 
  <http://www.toonopedia.com/index.htm> has good, 
  mostly solid entries on the Black Terror, Doc Strange, 
  and the Fighting Yank (the original “America’s Best 
  Heroes”). Further Nedor info came from Cash Gorman’s 
  amazing “Golden Age Villains Encyclopedia” at <www.
  geocities.com/cash_gorman/index.html>, Jess Nevins’ 
  excellent and comprehensive “Golden Age Heroes 
  Directory” at <ratmmjess.tripod.com/ga/goldintro.
  html>, and Jeff Rovin’s really quite impressive The 
  Encyclopedia of Superheroes (Facts on File Publications, 
  1985), which batted cleanup for me when the Internet 
  failed. Hail, print!
  For even geekier levels of data, I relied on The 
  Standard Catalog of Comic Books, 3rd Edition (Krause 
  Publications, 2004) by John Jackson Miller, Maggie 
  Thompson, Peter Bickford, and Brent Frankenhoff. 
  This massive compendium of comics publication info 
  includes all the Nedor titles, and it’s pretty much 
  unsurpassed, by Overstreet or anyone else. On the 
  more general history of the Golden Age of Comics, the 
  first stop is always Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson’s 
  All in Color For a Dime (Arlington House, 1970) and 
  The Comic-Book Book (Arlington House, 1973), both 
  available in reprint editions from Krause. Jules Feiffer’s 
  The Great Comic Book Heroes (Dial, 1977) is great in 
  both worlds. But the current gold standard in our 
  timeline is Gerard Jones’ Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, 
  Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book (Basic 
  Books, 2005). Along with Michael Chabon’s novel The 
  “How many of these things survive, I’m sure I have no idea; for I make no 
  attempt to keep track of them.”
  — H.P. Lovecraft, letter to Clark Ashton Smith,  
  January, 1931 (seleCTed leTTers III, p. 247)
  
  — (aCTual) bIblIograPhy —
  - 45 -
  Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Picador, 2001), 
  it gives a crystalline, human picture of what it was 
  like to be present at the creation of America’s third 
  great original art form.
  For Lovecraft, the source of ultimate recourse 
  remains S.T. Joshi’s magisterial H.P. Lovecraft: A Life 
  (Necronomicon Press, 1996). I’m very sorry there can’t 
  be a second volume covering HPL’s life after 1937. I also 
  utilized my brand-new copy of Lovecraft’s Tales (Library 
  of America, 2005) because quite frankly the notion of 
  H.P. Lovecraft being published in the Library of America 
  still seems like an alternate history to me. Of course I 
  drew much joy and only slightly less inspiration from 
  Peter Cannon’s own “alternate Lovecraft typist” novel 
  The Lovecraft Chronicles (Mythos Books, 2004), but 
  Cannon’s sense of humor is both dark and sly in this 
  one, so you’ve been warned. Will Murray’s seminal 
  article “Julius Schwartz on Lovecraft” (Crypt of Cthulhu 
  #76: Hallowmass 1990) contains the Official Word on 
  the Schwartz-Lovecraft relationship that saved “At the 
  Mountains of Madness” but sadly didn’t change comics.
  In the realm of “prior art,” I acknowledge Joshua 
  Marquart and Chad Underkoffler’s “Lovecraftian 
  Supers: Using the Mythos to Power Your Metahumans” 
  (Pyramid, November 22, 2002), which does a fine job 
  of laying out the potential for the Cthulhu Mythos 
  as a “secret history” of a Silver Age superhero world. 
  Both Big Finger Games’ Adepts of the Arcane (by 
  John Polojac, Johnathan Wright, David Solon Phillips, 
  and Jeremy Forbing) and Blackwyrm Games’ The Fires 
  of War (by Aaron Sullivan, Ben Davis, Rob Hall, and 
  Dave Mattingly) present horror (and in the former 
  case, Lovecraftian) crossovers with superheroic (and 
  in the latter case, Golden Age) villainy. Mike Mignola’s 
  Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics series (both published 
  by Dark Horse Comics) are likewise great examples of 
  blending superheroics and horror, and Phil Masters 
  and Jonathan Woodward’s Hellboy Sourcebook and 
  Roleplaying Game (Steve Jackson Games, 2002) is 
  an excellent guide to adapting that blend for games. 
  Plus, it has Nazi war apes. Paul Grist’s Jack Staff (under 
  his own Dancing Elephant imprint) is another terrific 
  comic book exploration of a Golden Age legacy and its 
  secrets, as is (albeit for the Silver Age) Alan Moore’s 
  (him again!) Albion (DC/Wildstorm) and, of course, his 
  Watchmen (DC Comics, 1987 coll.).
  But for Golden Age gaming inspiration, there’s no 
  better source than Golden Age comics. I’ve already 
  mentioned the AC Comics reprints, which are a mixed 
  bag creatively speaking, but a good way to get a 
  handle on the underlying tropes of Golden Age sto-
  rytelling. Marvel reprints concentrate more on that 
  company’s proud Silver Age legacy, although some 
  of the Essentials and Masterworks lines veer into the 
  Golden Age. DC has far more extensively mined its 
  Golden Age, both creatively and financially. Currently, 
  DC has a tremendous swathe of Archive Editions—
  around half of them Golden Age reprints—available for 
  only the cost of a small developing nation. For that 
  Adventures Into Darkness feeling, I recommend The 
  Golden Age Spectre Archives, the Golden Age Doctor 
  Fate Archives, and (for a more general Golden Age 
  taste) the All-Star Comics Archives, which collects the 
  original stories that introduced the Justice Society 
  and the “team-up book.”
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Truth & Justice (PDQ)/Truth & Justice.-.Adventures into Darkness.pdf