Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Retro OSR Review & Commentary On MA1 Children of the Atom (Marvel Super Heroes RPG) By Kim Eastland For The Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Rpg

"Children of the Atom is a supplement for the Advanced Set describing all of Marvel Comics's mutant heroes and villains.[1] Children of the Atom is an encyclopedia of mutant-kind, detailing their friends, enemies, homes and equipment.[2] It includes a miniscenario, "Dreamchild."[1]"

Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Childen of The Atom Wiki entry 


 

 This retro review is going to pick right up from here on the blog  MA1 Children of the Atom (Marvel Super Heroes RPG) By Kim Eastland came out in 1986 right at the height of 'mutant fever' in Marvel comics. This book was the one that everyone in our group of players wanted! There are lot of mutants crammed into MA1! This is an incredibly useful book for Marvel Super Heroes Advanced. 
MA1 Children of the Atom (Marvel Super Heroes RPG) is also way, way, outta of date! That's alright because I view these Marvel Super Heroes Advanced rpg supplements as mini time capsules of the Eighties. This is a fascinating supplement that goes over the Xmen & the various other mutant teams members, NPC's, villains, equipment, locations and more. Other reviewers have also felt the same way Kevin Derby on Amazon from June 2016 sums up MA1 quite nicely in his review; "Kim Eastland's "Children of the Atom" was written for TSR's classic Marvel Super Heroes RPG some three decades ago but fans of the X-Men will enjoy this book as well, even if they don't play the game. This book offers a great overview of the leading characters on the X-Men, New Mutants, X-Factor and their adversaries and supporting casts. Be warned--this book is a product of its time, somewhere between XMen 200 when Magneto took over the team from Prof. X and before the Mutant Massacre storyline. As such, it's pretty dated. But despite that, it remains a great resource for old school comic fans as well as anyone playing the RPG after 30 years. Highly recommended." I most assuredly don't agree with Pete Tamlyn reviewed Children of the Atom for White Dwarf #84;"Pete Tamlyn reviewed Children of the Atom for White Dwarf #84.[2] He described the product as, in essence, "Project Wideawake re-done for MSH Advanced, though it is vastly more comprehensive. Nevertheless, as is the way with such things, it is already way out of date, Chris Claremont having sabotaged it by introducing wholesale changes in the X-Men comic whilst the book was in production. Nor is it fully comprehensive, no Power Pack, for example. There is an adventure at the end but it's not very impressive. If you look at it as an MSH Monster Manual you'll get the basic idea. X-Men fans and students of the Marvel Universe will love it, others may find it a complete waste of time, especially as original statistics have already been published for most of the characters listed."" 
This review is incredibly harsh considering those buying it would mostly be playing Marvel Super Heroes or other super hero rpg's. 



Photo stolen from Wayne's books who has an excellent Marvels Super Heroes section here. 

Our own heroes had deep connections to the Xmen as a reserve 'X' team that was cut loose due to budget concerns. This has to do with the formentioned 'Mutant Masscre' that cut a swath through the 'X' titles of comic books. We'd have a rather nasty encounter with 'X Factor' and there was bad blood between our two groups. 
Our own group of heroes were a mercenary outfit that mopped up asignments from the Avengers and even the Xmen. So this book was very handy! We'd later on go on to work for Damage Control and come face to face with the Maruaders. We barely survived that encounter.  In the early 90's we'd run square into a Mr.Sinister lair beneath the streets of Manhatten. But he was revealed in a much later supplement. So is MA1 Children of the Atom worth getting?!  Oh yes and it's available through the Classic Marvel Forver website under downloads advanced tab. 


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