Poll: Do Silver Age characters ever need to use the bathroom?

[OddHat]

So, a friend and I were having a 2 a.m. IM chat about a silver age CU game I may be co-GMing, when he mentioned that Silver Age characters have no private parts, and never need to go to the bathroom. He backed this up by asserting that the Baxter Building and Avenger’s Mansion had no bathrooms. Well, a quick google search shows that the Four Freedoms Plaza has plumbing, but I can’t find a map proving that it has toilets.

So, in the Silver Age, did toilets exist? Do Silver Age characters have private parts? And, do Silver Age characters ever need to use the bathroom?

Please discuss.

[JmOz]

All I'll say on this issue is this: Franklin Richards had to come from somewhere

[Lightray]

Yes, of course. Most of our adventures take place entirely in the bathroom.
Makes "To the Batcave, Robin!" take on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

[Silbeg]

While Silver Age characters do need to use the bathroom (they just have dramatic control, so they never lose control in critical situations), evidently Klingons do not. Early D7 Battlecruiser deck plans didn't have bathrooms, assumably because it made them even more ornery.

[Whitewings]

Definitely. In fact, the OHOTMU shows exactly where the bathrooms are in the buildings they provide blueprints for. The main characters just never need to use them when they're "on stage."

[OddHat]

Definitely. In fact, the OHOTMU shows exactly where the bathrooms are in the buildings they provide blueprints for. The main characters just never need to use them when they're "on stage."

Heh. My co-GM will be apalled at such Iron Age revisionism. :D

[nexus]

Silver Age characters do it offstage, they actually -can't- do it on panel.

Iron Age character have the ability, but only when they're urinating on something/someone, hurling feces, soiling themselves or something else shocking. :)

[Mutant for Hire]

All I'll say on this issue is this: Franklin Richards had to come from somewhere
The Celestials brought him in a little basket.

[Darren Watts]

It's not just superheroes. Nobody in the Silver Age went to the bathroom. That's how Superman could just pick up those buildings, which were flat on the bottom and sat on the street. No plumbing, no foundations, nothing. dw

[phydaux]

I would say no for Lois Lane, Gwen Stacy and Wonder Woman.

Yes but off camera for everyone else.

[CrosshairCollie]

On a slightly related note, did it ever occur to anybody else that since the Flash has a hyperactive metabolism that requires that he has massive food intakes, nobody's ever mentioned that this means he should have a similar, uh, waste output increase?

[mattingly]

On a related note...

http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=86 and http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=87

[Lightray]

On a slightly related note, did it ever occur to anybody else that since the Flash has a hyperactive metabolism that requires that he has massive food intakes, nobody's ever mentioned that this means he should have a similar, uh, waste output increase?
You're doing for bathroom humor using how fast the Flash is -- and you choose to mock the speed and frequency of his urination???

:stupid:

Oh, if only there were some other funny joke we could make using the Speed Force and Flash's wiener...

[JmOz]

The Celestials brought him in a little basket.

LOL, pos rep for you

[Mutant for Hire]

Oh, if only there were some other funny joke we could make using the Speed Force and Flash's wiener...
It's already been done here (http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06062003.shtml). Warning: the previous link contains extremely crude humor.

[Reneshat]

My favorite session had a titanic stuggle of wills. Hydroboy vs. the stubborn BM. There was drama, there was romance, there was action. MAN I LOVE BATHROOM SEQUENCES!!!!!

[Trebuchet]

The Comics Code requires that such activity be discreetly off camera. Besides, who wants to read two panels of Wolverine grunting on the loo? :D

[SKJAM!]

I seem to recall that the Baxter Building definitely had a bathroom--that was used for bathing. Johnny used to heat up Ben's bathwater as a joke.

[Lightray]

You know, thinking of the Thing in el baño made me realize that I once had a character that was somewhat germaine to this thread.

Steele was "living steel", all of the time (not turning back and forth like that chump, Colossus). He was a multimillionaire businessman, who'd taken up superheroics to advertise his business (basically).

See, he started a company that made living accomodations for super-powers. Fuermacher having problems, always burning down his bed? Steele Products supplied him with asbestos bedding. Wolverpreen upset because his regeneration causes his hair to grow too fast? Steele Products sold him hair gel to keep that tres chic hairdo going.

One of their biggest product offerings was "hazardous waste removal." One of the first things Steele did when joining the super-team was to pay to have the bathrooms upgraded.

Because, really. The Thing is in the bathroom... do you think a little plunger is going to handle what's going to happen next?

[lemming]

The Comics Code requires that such activity be discreetly off camera. Besides, who wants to read two panels of Wolverine grunting on the loo? :D
What he does best.

[Cheiro]

Insert obligatory "Hulk taking an atomic dump" joke here.

[Hermit]

I don't know if Superman had a bathroom or not, but I understand he used to write his name in concrete when wussy terrans were using snow.
Spider-Man has, in the past, compared his entire life to a toilet more or less... no trouble there.
Fantastic Four? Reed can build one, either that, or Sue has decorated the bathroom in transparent.
Where Captain America's bathroom is on a need to know basis citizen, and you don't need to know!

;)

[JMcL63]

There is always the possibilty that an appropriate form of life support was an intrinsic part of the package for all Silver Age characters, exactly as it is for celebrities and royals. ;)

[BlackSword]

Insert obligatory "Hulk taking an atomic dump" joke here.
"What have you done to Doom's hot-tub"

(or something to that effect from Twisted Toyfare)

Well, the spandex uniforms would make going to the bathroom an concerted effort. So perhaps they just wear piddle packs like the combat pilots wear during long flights.

[Supreme]

I've never seen an issue where they give you a diagram of a base, that showed a bathroom. Early issues of the FF had base diagrams almost every issue, but I never saw a bathroom.

[bcholmes]

Fantastic Four? Reed can build one, either that, or Sue has decorated the bathroom in transparent.

There was a John Byrne <cite>Fantastic Four</cite> story in which the team goes into the Negative Zone, and The Thing comments that there are no bathrooms in their space-capsule-like ship. Reed tells him that he's developed special food that their bodies can digest perfectly, and therefore they won't produce waste.

[nexus]

There was a John Byrne <cite>Fantastic Four</cite> story in which the team goes into the Negative Zone, and The Thing comments that there are no bathrooms in their space-capsule-like ship. Reed tells him that he's developed special food that their bodies can digest perfectly, and therefore they won't produce waste.

What about urine and excess fluids?

[CrosshairCollie]

Suddenly, I'm recalling an issue of Secret Wars II where Peter Parker had a conversation similar to this with the Beyonder:

B: "What's this strange pressure I feel in my lower abdomen?"
P: "Sounds like you have to go to the bathroom."
B: "Intriguing. How do I do this?"
P: "Uh ..."

Several months, if not years, later, this is paid homage to in an issue of What The--?!, where an author thinking about involving the 'Behinder' in a plot decides against it. "Nah ... I'm not gonna use someone who claims to be omniscient but has to be told how to go to the bathroom!"