The Essential Bad Iron Age

[nexus]

IYO, what would be a good selection of comics to read to get a hook on the worst of the Iron Age. The drek, the quarter bin stuff.


Also, IYO, what would be the important genre cliches for a campaign based on such? The things you'd really have to play up.

[Vorsch]

Defences only provide 1/2 Pd/Ed vs body damage both killing and normal.

You gotta be able to cave superheads in.

( have been considering this rule anyway, Grond cant kill my 20pd MA by hitting him/squashing him )

[winterhawk]

Read anything by Rob Liefeld...especially X-Force and Youngblood

As to genre conventions:

Oversize everything: Shoulderpads, ammo belts, guns (esp guns)

Misspell everything: esp 'y' instead of 'i' (white becomes whyte)

All women should have perfect bods and show them off

All superpowered characters should have a shadowy past that they have no idea about

Definately stress style over substance...McFairlane once stated in an interview that he drew everything out, arranged the pages as to what 'looked cool', and wrote the dialog around that.

[Force]

IYO, what would be a good selection of comics to read to get a hook on the worst of the Iron Age. The drek, the quarter bin stuff.


Also, IYO, what would be the important genre cliches for a campaign based on such? The things you'd really have to play up.

Anyone of the multiple of titles started just because they wanted to start another title. Especially spin-offs. It almost killed the comic industry.

For Marvel, that would be the billions of x-titles. For DC, that would be the billions of bat-titles.

All the women having plastic surgery done to make their bodies all look exactly like Pam Anderson.

[Lord Mhoram]

Titles - take a look at most of the image titles from the 90s, expecially anything that isn't still running.
Spawn.
As mentioned anything done by Liefeld.
The Authority in any version, but espeically after the intial creative team left.

[NeoSamurai]

All solutions deal with violence brought about by a hero's angst imposed by an insanely sadistic villain who hates puppies.

Women are all about seducing the male lead for the heck of it.

Missions start with friends/associates from getting killed or attacked.

Monolithic government agencies that use superheroes for special ops.

Shoulderpads, guns, impossible to use knives, swords, etc.

Cybernetics. Scarred Eyes. Over-developed musclemen. Insane deus ex machina powers that result in violence. Lots of smarmy repartee.

Villains that can take out an entire planet but only your heroes can deal with them despite the vast number of other supers in the world.

Extremely scantily clad women with costumes that offer both little modesty and protection from elements and combat.

[GestaltBennie]

When I think of bad Iron Age books, I think less of Image and more of comics that attempt to parrot Alan Moore's Watchmen in tone and inevitably come across as pretentious twaddle.

There's a number of these in the graveyard of bad comics of the late 8os and early 90s, mercifully forgotten.

[Lord Mhoram]

When I think of bad Iron Age books, I think less of Image and more of comics that attempt to parrot Alan Moore's Watchmen in tone and inevitably come across as pretentious twaddle.


Ah.

I see things like a lot of Image titles (most were just bad ripoffs of the Xmen of the day), Lady Death and the stuff that Avatar puts out now, and that is what I think of as bad Iron Age- or as I personaly refer to that subset of comics - "The Blood and Boobies era"

[NeoSamurai]

Key thing is to read Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns. Notice the violent elements. Notice the sex. Notice the use of humor.

Completely ignore the attempt of Moore and Miller to bring the characters out of the muck that is reality to create an idealized archetype. Forget character development and emhasize the ends justify the means.

[Brandi]

This review at QuarterBin (http://www.quarterbin.net/trulyawf/tac01.html) seemed to distill the essence of bad Iron Age stuff, and the comic at the center of the review can probably be had cheaply as well.

[lemming]

Hey Nexus, if you're on the route between Portland & Utah, I can dump some bad comics on you. Can't say they're all of the iron style (heck, I think my walt simonson thors are still left...), but there are some pretty bad ones in there.

[BNakagawa]

Fight Man.

[nexus]

Fight Man.

Fight Man? Sounds like a Boss in the Megaman games. :)


Lemming: Thanks for the offer but I'm pretty far away from you locale.

[AlHazred]

This review at QuarterBin (http://www.quarterbin.net/trulyawf/tac01.html) seemed to distill the essence of bad Iron Age stuff, and the comic at the center of the review can probably be had cheaply as well.
Nice find! The past columns (http://www.quarterbin.net/trulyawf/tamaster.html) have some real gems. It's inspired me to look through my comic book detritus when I get home.

[lemming]

Fight Man.
Heh. I found that in my collection. ew.

For $10 I could send as many comics as possible that could be stuffed into a flat-rate box Quick estimate shows 80 comics are feasible in a 12x3x14 box. (Allows a $2.30 profit margin to be eaten up by time at post office and possible paypal fee...)

I'd have to go for random sampling, but you'd get whole chunks. I did stop collecting in '93 so most of the real dreck came afterwards.

Send a PM nexus and I can arrange that way. :D

Anybody else want a chunk of comics? 14 boxes! Going fast! Probably more like 10. A friend is grabbing some of them this weekend, but they're going for semi-quality. :D

[AlHazred]

Sure! Where do I send the $10?

[lemming]

Sure! Where do I send the $10?
Shoot me a PM and we'll work out the details.

[David Blue]

Bloodstrike #5

I wanted to see what the new comics were all about. It was extreme, gaudy, and cheap. I should have kept it as a perfect bad example.

It always gives me a little jolt when people talk about Supreme being a good character. Not on what I've seen of him - and I don't want to see any more.

Hey, the Quarter Bin guy knows that one too!

OK, I'll contribute something else.

Pergatori: The Dracula Gambit #1

Vampire sex and slaughter porn.

I was surprised to find this still in my comics when I went through them recently. It can stand for a lot of similar trash. I think I'm glad I kept it, but it's not Bloodstrike #5.

That's about what you need to know about generic, bottom-quality male and female protagonists in the Iron Age.

[lemming]

I think the first few issues of Supreme weren't too bad. I'll have to check and see if I've got those in the midst. I dropped collecting long before bloodstrike came onto the scene.

[assault]

Bloodstrike #5

Even the title is a winner!

I'm appalled Keith Giffen was involved in it though.

[Eyendasky80]

Definately stress style over substance...McFairlane once stated in an interview that he drew everything out, arranged the pages as to what 'looked cool', and wrote the dialog around that.

So did Stan Lee, except someone else was drawing then he added the dialog.

[FenrisUlf]

This review at QuarterBin (http://www.quarterbin.net/trulyawf/tac01.html) seemed to distill the essence of bad Iron Age stuff, and the comic at the center of the review can probably be had cheaply as well.

Dear lord, it sounds like a total atrocity.

[Beetle]

Oversize everything: Shoulderpads, ammo belts, guns (esp guns)Ammo belts! God, those pouches were everywhere. People who didn't use ammo wore them. Why? Because somebody thought they looked cool. And they didn't just wear them around the waist, they had them strapped around thighs (cyclops) and biceps. Sheesh!

[Battlestaff]

The attitude that no one but the main character could solve the problem, that ge was the only one that could solve the problem/save the world/do what needed to be done. No one else was as capable as he.

Basically, sociopathic control freaks.

Oh, and bodycounts were kept. You were a poser if you didn't have a huge body count of dead agents after a fight. And to show how bad@$$ he was the main character we either 1) completely unharmed (though female supers had strategic tears in their uniforms), or 2) badly cut up, but still was able to do what needed to be done (even though the wounds would have killed an elephant).

[Vanguard00]

I miss those days... *sniffle*

[Brandi]

Pergatori: The Dracula Gambit #1

Vampire sex and slaughter porn.


Actually, using Quarterbin again, Crimson Plague (http://www.quarterbin.net/trulyawf/tac13.html) might be even better.

[AlHazred]

Shoot me a PM and we'll work out the details.
Just wanted to say, I got the comic books from lemming.

They're pretty bad. Stereotypical characters, casual violence, poorly thought-out plots.

On the other hand, now I know where modern television writers get their material...

[lemming]

Just wanted to say, I got the comic books from lemming.

They're pretty bad. Stereotypical characters, casual violence, poorly thought-out plots.

On the other hand, now I know where modern television writers get their material...
Woo hoo! :D I think I shot a decent comic over as well though. (I don't remember now... my brain hurts)

I should of found the "Nth Man, the Ultimate Ninja" for your set. :sick:

[Andrea]

What about Ninjak ?? I thought was really stereotyped !!! ( with the perennial Marial arts - Ninja elements so cool back then).

I think that basically anything from Liefeld should be mentioned...but don't forget also the Strikeforce and the Force Works by Marvel ( following the abused thread: "Now it's time that the heroes strike before the evil...." )

I'd dig in my collection and I'll tell you if I find something else...I love these kind of threads.
Ciao

[Supreme Serpent]

Actually, using Quarterbin again, Crimson Plague (http://www.quarterbin.net/trulyawf/tac13.html) might be even better.

Perhaps the saddest thing about things like that is all the time involved that he could have been doing stories with good authors and characters. Every side project is a Perez Avengers or Justice League, etc. story that he didn't do. :weep:

[Brandi]

This sig is just six words long.

Actually, it's seven-- or is that the joke?

[Nucleon]

What amazes me about that age are the head-to-hand proportionnal ratios; Often the character had a head the size of his thumb. Smallish, wide, pointy faces, lost amidst a heap of shoulder pads and muscles.

Heroes/Vilains whitout any concepts; Thinly-related suits of powers, with a generic names and guns, and katanas, and then some more guns.

And the attitude. Oh man, the attitude.

One un-necessary gem from my "please steal me" pile: Black Flag no2, by Dan Fraga, Maximum Press (a creature of Rob Liefeld). Everything's there; aformentionned archetype with arm hair, white eyes, and Mr Fraga's signature, shredded clothing. I mean, shredded a lot, at the very start of a mission.

The team is made out of Raiden, about which I have seen little, Rascal, an agile guy with guns, Geisha (Jee, what a concept, eh?), the mandatory, scantily-clad chick with swords and stuff, and Sniper, the bad-ass, stoned face no-bullshit stoic leader with humongous (and ridiculous) guns. Fraga, however, was full of energy and one could feel that he just loved his (crappy) art, you've got to give him that...