I’m having a hard time reviewing this title, because I was so excited to run my players through it, but then toward the end, things fell apart—and I’m not sure whether it’s the fault of our ignorance, or of product writing. I am a huge fan of heroic pulp adventure. I even have an actual-play podcast called Monkeys Took My Jetpack. So as soon as I saw the title, I *knew I’d be running this for my players. And I love the adventure itself; I love the pre-gens given for the job. But things got choppy in the climax, which uses the Mass Batle rules from SWADE. My group is fairly new to Savage Worlds, and had never used these Mass Battle rules before. From reading them, they looked pretty hand-wavy when it came to PCs’ actions within the battle; basically, describe what they’re doing, make a roll, consult a table, modify battle results accordingly. Same for the villains, as far as we could tell. But all the villains are fully statted in the adventure. There’s even a point where a group of bad guys goes after our heroes while the battle is going on. But at this point, our heroes were (as far as we understood from the adventure text) the only opposing people in the battle so far. So were we supposed to handle this as part of the MB, or as a separate, standard, combat? We got through it with a lot of shrugging and improv, and we had fun, and I suppose that’s all that really matters. Still, I felt like this should’ve been a much more satisfying experience. I’m just not sure whether it wasn’t so due to our ignorance of how mass battles work, or due to unclear writing, or some combination. I favor taking responsibility for my own GMing, which is why I only docked a star from my rating. I just wish I knew what I missed, to prevent similar unsatisfying experiences in the future. Still, great adventure ideas, and great pre-gens—which may find their way into other adventures of ours. So for those things, I do highly recommend this product. I just give a slight caveat, in the form of our group experience playing through it.

This is a wonderful mini-setting. What is there, is great. Fraught with cool story potential, and leaving me hoping to read more. And that's why I can't give this a fifth star. Why is this only a mini-setting? It just sort of ended abruptly. There was supposed to be a list of inspirational media. None is in my PDF. No introductory adventure, much less any sort of plot-point campaign. As I said, what _is included is wonderful. I do wish there'd been a few examples of mutant characters; I'm still not sure how I'd handle a character who had, say, a third arm or something.

For a post-pulp setting, this has a gargantuan amount of pulp in it. And I mean that in the most complimentary fashion. DESPITE no fifth star, I do highly recommend this product. I just wish there were more of it! This setting definitely deserves a full treatment!

This is, quite possibly, the game which finally gets my seal of approval as my favorite supers RPG of all time. I say "possibly" because I haven't actually played it yet, but giving it a read-through, it absolutely ticks all my boxes. It tries to emulate comic books, rather than simulate the real world. I have never understood people's predilection for simluating the real world with supers. It quickly becomes silly. After all, we're dealing with people who can fly, pick up a plane with their bare hands, or all manner of things which just don't stand the test of real-life physics. Yet, lest I stray too much from my topic, let's put that bugaboo back in its stuffy closet and move on.

This game does everything it claims it does, and does it all well. It has a simple, elegant system which does its job and gets out of the way, without getting bogged down in fiddly bits and confusing dice-pool mechanics. However, if you are not fond of abstraction, this game is most definitely not for you. This game is the anathema to a Champions fanatic. The rules are straightforward and clear, and have numerous examples sprinkled throughout. And as if this wasn't enough, they do something which I would encourage every game designer to do: They present an extremely lengthy example of play, covering all sorts of options and showing how all the rules fit together in a cohesive play session. In a nutshell, if you like games like Truth and Justice or the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game but find them just a bit more crunchy than you prefer, this game will probably find your sweet spot. I'm more inspired to play this than I've been inspired by a game in a very long time, and it was enough to get me to write my first review here, for what that's worth. I can't recommend this game highly enough.