BLACK PHANTOM
Born on the blazing streets of Silverado City, Helena Holt made more than a few wrong turns in her life. The daughter of one of the oldest families in Silverado City, she resented growing up as the daughter of the Sheriff Andrew Holt and soon found herself involved in juvenile crimes of a fairly minor nature. An angry confrontation with her father convinced her it was time to leave home and join her boyfriend and his gang in committing a more serious crime.

The next day, while he was at work, she entered his room planning to abscond with some cash she knew was kept in his closet, and instead found a polished wooden box. The box contained two six shooters, embossed with silver tracery, and a collection of old letters. Delving into them, she discovered the secret family history of her great-grandparents (and her namesake), Tim and Helena Holt, better known in the Old West as Red Mask and Black Phantom. After a couple hours spent reading the letters, Helena realized she was meant for nobler things. From that day forward, she dedicated herself to study and practice. By the time she had graduated from the UNSC (University Nevada at Silverado City) with a degree in the forensic scientists, she was ready to wear the mask and carry the guns of the Black Phantom. Naturally, her father, now retired as sheriff, was aware of the true identity of Silverado City’s newest super heroine, and he couldn’t be happier.

Helena now works in SCPD’s CIS department and, when a case is more than the police can handle, she takes on the mantle of the Black Phantom. She is also a founding member of the Silver Sentinels, a group of super heroes with a rotating membership based in a secret mesa headquarters in the American Southwest and serving the Western U.S., Canada and Mexico. The Silver Sentinels include Commandette, the Conqueror, Fu Chang, the Great Defender, Jet Powers (leader and funder behind the team), Mighty Man, Super Ann, Captain Flash, Red Bee, Toreador and the heroic team of 13 and Jinx (man, they look familiar).

FASTER PUSSYCAT
Charlotte Munroe had grown up a poor woman with rich tastes. Working as a beautician in some of the finest resorts of Silverado City, she grew jealous of the wealthy, pointless women who spent their days lounging in spas while she worked and slaved to make them beautiful. On a night that found her particularly depressed, she went for a walk and witnessed something fall from the sky and land on the sidewalk a few yards in front of her without a sound. Coming closer, she discovered a coin or disk of black metal. Touching the disk, she heard a voice in her head urging her to sleep and dream, and she fell into a deep coma, the disc grasped tightly in her hand.

Two weeks later, she awoke in the hospital. The disk was gone, but a black circle was now in evidence on the palm of her hand. While in her coma, she was given to bizarre, frightening dreams of writhing oozes and toad-things of every color of the rainbow, and of herself possessed of wondrous powers. Rubbing the disk, she said the words “I wish it was all true” and found herself transformed by the Lord of Madness.

Set loose on an unsuspecting city, Charlotte, nicknamed Faster Pussycat by a wag in the local press, went on a crime spree in the resorts of Silverado City until the combined efforts of the Black Phantom and the Silver Sentinels finally brought her down. A brief stint in Iron Island in Shore City ended when Harletron 3000 pulled off a rare jail break from that facility, and the two Agents of Chaos are now on the loose.

You might want to check this out. Marcio Takara did these tiny illos of superheroes a while back, and though most are no longer posted individually, you can grab them en masse. Print them out, glue them to cardboard, cut them out and then affix them to some binder clips, download and print Mystery Men! and you’re ready to fight crime.

While you’re at it, browse Takara’s gallery – you won’t be disappointed.

PS – Just got my hard copy of Mystery Men! delivered from Lulu. Came out great – I opted for stapled binding this time so the book would be easier to lay flat on a table while playing the game. Should have it up for sale soon!

When Department Zero, a super-secret arm of the Secret Service, needed well-traveled agents that could act as couriers throughout the world, they naturally turned to fashion models. When those models became too old to compete at the highest level of the modelling world (like, 26 or so), Department Zero took their three most promising agents and trained them to become world class operatives codenamed the Danger Dolls. Through rigorous combat and espionage training and highly classified atomic spa treatments, Department Zero created the three most dangerous women on earth:

Delilah Delacroix, former pin-up queen and native of New Orleans. Delilah is trained in several martial arts and has proven to be a natural acrobat. Delilah is a hell raiser with a thirst for new experiences.

Debbie Dalton, former all-American swimsuit model and native of Los Angeles. Debbie has become a master of disguise and an expert marks-woman. Debbie has a laid back attitude about everything but her job.

Desiree Drake, former high fashion model and native of New York City. Desiree is an expert in electronics and explosives. Desiree is the epitome of grace and breeding, and an incredible snob.

What the Danger Dolls do not know, is that Department Zero is not what they think it is. Rather than being a super secret arm of the U.S. Secret Service, it is in fact an arm of SMASH. While their missions are usually “good”, they often contain the seeds of evil. There are some in the organization that believe Desiree has caught on to this and they fear what she might do next.

Vincent Price was born on this day 100 years ago. A century! If you’re from my generation, you grew up with Price being known for his spooky movies – I don’t know that they would be considered horror movies anymore, but they were at least spooky and weird. And speaking of weird, he also played one of Batman’s freakish foes – Egghead!

Enjoy the madness!

And with Egghead statted up, can Egg Fu be far behind? Robert Kanigher was like the Fiend Folio of comic book heroes and villains.

Just click the Mystery Men! cover to your right and you can download the game from Lulu.com for free. I’ll have the book available soon – looks like it will be in the $8 to $9 range. I want to order one myself first and get a look at it to make sure the color images look okay in black and white. If not, I’ll have to make a second PDF with the black and white images in place of the color images and re-upload it … and nobody cares about this but me.

So, this final version includes all the rules you need to create heroes and villains and run scenarios. It also includes the Shore City sample setting and a sample scenario you can run.

Enjoy the free e-book for now, and the book will be coming very soon. If you find anything amiss with the e-book, please let me know so I can fix it before the book goes live. Also – if you download it, please take a few minutes, make a character, and share it with us here.

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Edit: Already found an error! Apparently, an older draft of chapter 2 found its way into the game. Honestly, I have no idea how I managed to do it. Essentially, the only changes involved spelling, grammer and layout, so if you’ve downloaded it you could still play with chapter two as written, but I’m going to get that fixed as soon as possible – probably tomorrow morning sometime.