I can't praise this product highly enough! It's just awesome.

It needs a bit of explanation as it is not a "standard" supplement for superhero games. It takes as its premise an alternate to our eath, where H P Lovecraft spent a lot of his career writing for the comics industry, and in particular for Nedor comics. Nedor characters are out of copyright, and not especially well-known, which makes them perfect for this product.

The first part of the book deals with the fictional history of Lovecraft's career as a comic book writer, and there is a helpful afterrword and (actual) bibliography, but the bulk of the book is imaginative write-ups of all the major (and a few minor) Nedor characters, as well as some Lovecraft character using T&J rules, but all with a distinctive Lovecraftian Twist.

For example The Dream Master is Randolph Carter, clearly taken form Lovecraft's tales, but turned into a superhero, with magical powers and the ability to enter the dreams of villains (as well as the Dream lands). The Liberator, who gains his superpowers from the ancient Egyptian serum/formula Lamesis, later discocers it is the blood of a monstrous and inhuman "living mummy" trapped beneath "the Red Pyramid of Abyssinia"!

Many of the villains are taken form Lovecraft's stories - Azenath the Body-Snatcher; Baron von Junzt, the Black Scholar; Dagon; Keziah the Witch and so on. They are all lovingly described and illustrated.

Finally there is a helpful section on how the write comics "the Nedor-Lovecraft way", and rules for sanity (or the loss of it!) with abilities such as Unearthly, and Super-Unearthly.

Its really well put together and highly imaginative, and for those wanting to run a campaign of this particular type, it is indispensable. The group I game with ran the whole of the epic Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign with the characters as superheroes - and it was great. I recommend this product wholeheartedly.

While engaging myself in Adventures in Darkness, by Atomic Overmind Press, I was often reminded of the old cliché that less is more.

Adventures in Darkness: An M&M Superlink is a supplement that contains writeups of heroes and villains from the Lovecraft comic series published in the early part of the 20th century. Despite its age, the flavor of Lovecraft really picks up in the books, despite his non-contribution to any of the comics or characters. As you can expect, its all Golden Age goodness here. Over the top heroes and villains that capture the feeling of that era. You won’t find too many things that you have not found in other golden age series, but there is that twinge of bizarre that can only be derived from the Lovecraft world.

The game stuff is solid, but the comic related stuff is just not interesting unless you actually have collected the comic, and were avid about it. Adventures in Darkness is unfortunately written for a very specific type of Mutants and Masterminds player. I thought myself to be the demographic, both a fan of Lovecraft and a fan of the Golden age of comics, but the supplement also seems to require that you be a fan of the comic book series as a good quarter of the 47-page book is geared towards the history of the comic and a price guide for collectors. The history is very well written, if not dry in many places and the price guide seems a bad choice considering that comic prices can change from month to month or any significant discovery.

Luckily the Mutants and Mastermind gaming stuff really stands strong with detailed writeups of the 17 heroes and 11 villians. The writer’s knowledge of the comic book shines in these parts as each has a brief history and power overview. The brevity of the writeups is refreshing and was missing from the earlier parts of the book. Each hero felt like I could pick them up and run them the way I wanted to without the writer imparting how the character should be played. I also liked how specific heroes had specific villains attached to them. The villains, both minor and major, are over the top like I expect a Golden Age Villain to be.

For the Player As with most Golden Age comics, most of the heroes seem to be a play on other heroes. Thankfully the writer is talented enough to make heroes like The Mask and Mystico more than cheap knockoffs.

For the Gamemaster Skipping towards the end of the book is a nice set of rule for tracking sanity in an Mutants and Masterminds game. Also pay attention to the villains as they can be used for non Golden Age games.

The Iron Word The comic book history may be a bit too much in the beginning, but plays a vital part in making these characters we have seen before seem like true new versions. Adventures in Darkness brings the Cthullu mythology to the Mutants and Mastermind world in a fun way.