OSR Commentary On MSL-1 X Terminate by Dale 'Slade' Henson For The Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Rpg

 ""Dominus. Mister Sinister. Apocalypse. In the old days, these villains operated under the name "Factor Three." But those old days are gone, right?" 

Wrong! They're back, and they're every bit as formidable as before. Chaos is their middle name. This time, they're using the technology of the day against you: X-Factor. Can you defeat these three emissaries of evil, or will they X-Terminate you in the process?" 

The year is '91 and we'd just finished the Days of Future Past series of modules. Back in our Earth Dominus, Mister Sinister, &  Apocalypse reared thier heads! This wasn't a group of take lightly! The X teams had split up and we found ourselves in the middle of the events of X Terminate by Dale 'Slade' Henson.  We knew we were dealing with the fictious X Factor team after doing some investigation. My uncle tied in the plot hooks from Days of Future Past's series of modules to the awakening of Apocalpyse. 
Things got very vicious as we dealt with X Factor almost fatally. We mistook them for servants of Mr.Sinister. Remember back then not a lot was known in universe about Sinister. There was enough of a mix up that we almost killed Beast! There was some very nasty confusion of our two groups. We accidently exposed X Factor on national television or so we thought. This was actually the hand of Sinister. And what we knew about Sinister went back to the Mutant Masacre event with the Moorlocks. 

So we didn't take any chances, after dealing with Sentinels. And other dire threats our party didn't pull any punches. 

Our party did a forray into the Moorlock tunnels beneath New York City to find out the extent of Mr.Sinister's crew.  We looked deeper into X Factor and began to see the hand of Apocalpyse. X Terminate became far more then most of the module and led into us becoming involved with our Earth's Mutant Rail Road.  Our party filled in the X Men's role in several areas. But our party was far more under the radar and operated from the shadows along the lines of the Wild Pack and Silver Sable. We had zero time for some of the grand standing of the X teams. And clashed with them on a regular basis when they came back. 
We also clashed with Apocalpyse who played for keeps & had little time for the niceties of the super heroic grand standing. We killed the Maruaders with impunity anytime we ran across them. 
X Terminate became a stepping stone X module for our own player's PC's and campaign ideas that my uncle had. 

Retro Review On MA2: Avengers Coast-to-Coast By David "Zeb" Cook, & Edward G. Sollers For The Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Rpg

 " Now pit Captain America, Iron Man Thor and the rest of Earth's Mightiest Heroes against Ultron, Grimm Reaper, Thanos and more with this Marvel Super Heroes RPG Official Advanced Game Accessory. It features a history of the group and stats for the Avengers (East and West Coast members), their most trusted allies and their most hated and feared villains! Also includes an original adventure."

Appearing in 1986, MA2: Avengers Coast-to-Coast By David "Zeb" Cook, & Edward G. Sollers remains a favorite of mine because of the fact that we used this supplement extentively. This is a classic Marvel Super Heroes Advanced supplement going over all of the classic era Avengers and thier foes. MA2 is way, way, outta of date. That's not what this supplement is for instead MA2 covers the classic eras of the 60's through the 80's.These eras are what make an Avenger's campaign work in spades in my humble opinion. Pete Tamlyn reviewed Avengers Coast-to-Coast for White Dwarf #88 & he seems to share my opinion; ""As expected, TSR have taken the arrival of Advanced Marvel Super Heroes as a reason to issue new game statistics for the vast number of Marvel characters in the original rules. About the only thing that can be said in their favour is that they've done a much better job of it second time around."^[2] He called the sections on the Avengers' Charter and their relationship with the government "the most interesting parts of the book" and noted that they help "provide the basis for starting an Advanced MSH campaign based around a superhero group. However, it comprises only about half the book. The rest of it is taken up with vast numbers of descriptions of Marvel characters, many of whom have already been described in at least one of the various original Marvel Super Heroes products."
According to the Avengers Coast to Coast wiki entry; "Avengers Coast to Coast is a sourcebook intended for players to use characters from the Avengers. It has sections which detail the Avengers' Charter and focus on the group's relationship with the United States government. Also included are detailed plans of the bases the Avengers use, their transport and equipment, and descriptions of characters from Marvel Comics" 
MA2 and it's solid overview of the US government's relationship with the Avengers was key to our Eighties and Nineties campaign. This relationship with the American government would turn sour for our PC's as two events twisted our relationship. One would be the USA's reaction to the Mutant Fall by Mr.Sinister and Project Wide Awake. We had three mutants working on our team and two of them were slaughtered when we encountered the Mauraders. Our US liason was less then forth coming with information. 
Project Wideawake had us encountering both Avengers members and Sentinals. This put us at odds with both. We took over Avengers assets & left after we had members turn on us. Our group had been subcontracting on mission clean up for the Avengers. Suddenly we were facing down big guns like the Vision and other Avengers.  We'd later clear our names as it turned out to be a Hydra plot as the group had a vendetta against us. MA2 was key for my uncle running his campaign.
Is  MA2: Avengers Coast-to-Coast By David "Zeb" Cook, & Edward G. Sollers worth the download?! In a word yes because it's a great supplement for reference and for including classic Avengers elements within your own Marvel Super Heroes Advanced campaigns. 
You can download it for free from the Classic Marvel Super Heroes Forever site here. 

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."<sup>[1]"

Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Childen of The Atom Wiki entry</sup> 

 

 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.