Early Marvel Age x Silver Age

[Eyendasky80]

Hey, I'm a superhero, how about that.

[Rene]

I thought as much. I remember that mini-series, never picked it up though.

I thought it quite good, but somewhat disturbing in some levels. Same thing I felt when I've read Warren Ellis's "Ruins" (that is the Alternate Earth Marvel Universe where everything goes horribly wrong). Except Ruins was much more shocking.

While I don't mind (and even get worked up about) darker reconstructions of classical heroes like "the Ultimates", this particular kind of story where they get a superhero and then they do a story where he never became superpowered at all and lived a somewhat depressing life to boot is just too disturbing.

I still read them and still enjoy them though. I'm weird that way.

BTW, Marvel will do another story of this kind, with guys like Peter Parker, Matt Murdock, Logan, and probably others, as ordinary joes in the real world. But I heard this one will be much more hopeful, more in the vein of "they don't have powers, but they're still heroic."

[CynthiaCM]

One thing really surprised me though. I've always heard old timers saying how, in the Silver Age, heroes were pure paragons of virtue. Some RPG books also have this oppinion (Champions, SAS), Champions says Silver Age games should be harmless, the heroes should be straight-arrows on the path of justice, etc.

I've found this NOT true of those 60 first Fantastic Four issues! That came as a shock to me. Not necessarily a bad one.

Marvel was indeed a totally different beast than DC titles of the era. The difference was like night and day.

In Omlevex, we leaned more toward the Marvel end of the spectrum, though a few DC-esque trappings were thrown in for good measure.

Even in the "players" section and "GMs" section of the book, we pointed out that the Silver Age was when heroes began to develop faults and stopped being cardboard cut-outs. We did this to clear up some of the misconceptions of that era. So many people tend to think that the Silver Age style was nearly identical to the Golden Age style, which couldn't be further from the truth.

DC, though, still held more of the Golden Age flavor than Marvel did.

There are other differences between the comics and the "Silver Age" I thought I knew. For instance, villains aren't any less threatening than in the early 80s. There isn't much in the way of explicit bloody murder scenes, but people DO die. It's not completelly harmless play with goofy villains like is implied in the Champions rulebook.

Well said. Many of the Silver Age villains (particularly the Marvel ones) were downright menacing -- Dr. Doom, Ultron, Kraven, the Owl and their ilk. To be sure, the era brought forth some rather campy villains too, but most of them were pretty serious.

And anyone here ever played or GMed a Early Marvel Campaign, as opposed to a "Silver Age" campaign?

You bet! In fact, that's how I run Omlevex. While a few of the villains (Man-Cactus, King Cockroach, etc.) are slightly silly, most of them are vile bad guys who can't be taken lightly. And, heck, even the campier ones are legit threats.

[assault]

I just took a quick look at my small collection of Silver Age material. While it's a rather eclectic bunch of reprints, it's striking how many DC stories didn't feature supervillains. This seems much more common than most Marvel titles.

Of course, this appears to vary from title to title. The Flash seemed to spend more time fighting his Rogues' Gallery than Superman did, for example.

More generally, though, the "Senses-Shattering Slugfest" between relatively evenly matched opponents seems to be more a Marvel than a DC thing. DC heroes seemed to spend more time dealing with "mysteries", even if these "mysteries" were often rather silly. Even where these cases involved combat, this combat was often portrayed in a rather off-hand manner.

I can't say that I don't find this "DC" style rather attractive. I'm a bit over set-piece combat scenarios, and I would be perfectly happy to play a character who only comparatively rarely had to engage supervillains. Apart from anything else, combat between equals tends to interrupt the power-fantasy - "what do you mean my incredibly cool ultra-guy is lying in a stunned heap on the ground?"

This is a bit different from "Pink Neonite! My only weakness! My incredibly cool ultra-guy crumples into a stunned heap on the ground!".

Obviously, a good campaign would have a bit of both, but I'm inclining towards a more "DC" balance at the moment.

[Rene]

I just took a quick look at my small collection of Silver Age material. While it's a rather eclectic bunch of reprints, it's striking how many DC stories didn't feature supervillains. This seems much more common than most Marvel titles.

Interesting observation. And it agrees with what CynthiaCM wrote too. DC's Silver Age is much more of a "continuation" of the Golden Age than Marvel ever was. After all, the Golden Age was the period when supervillains were pratically absent.

More generally, though, the "Senses-Shattering Slugfest" between relatively evenly matched opponents seems to be more a Marvel than a DC thing. DC heroes seemed to spend more time dealing with "mysteries", even if these "mysteries" were often rather silly. Even where these cases involved combat, this combat was often portrayed in a rather off-hand manner.

Marvel heroes often got beaten up pretty badly. Punches hurt and left bruises but the heroes always came back for more. I think Marvel was more physical. This was a part of Stan Lee's "grand drama" style. This physical aspect matched perfectly the way the heroes behaved, somewhat like hotheaded godlings.

I've read few DC from that time, but in DC I always got the idea that the heroes either weren't ever hurt, or when they were hit, they usually went down rather quickly, so the story could proceed to the next dramatic point (the elaborate trap, the hero discovering how to finally outsmart his opponent, the hero showing how he was faking just to get the villain off-balance, etc.)

OTOH, it would be unfair to say Marvel heroes never used their brains to solve problems. Marvel actually has more scientist characters than DC. But in general terms I agree with your analysis. We may just disagree over the merits of the different styles.

I think this also explains why DC villains were, by and large, tricksters with sly personalities. While Marvel villains were destructive and ruthless.

I can't say that I don't find this "DC" style rather attractive. I'm a bit over set-piece combat scenarios, and I would be perfectly happy to play a character who only comparatively rarely had to engage supervillains. Apart from anything else, combat between equals tends to interrupt the power-fantasy - "what do you mean my incredibly cool ultra-guy is lying in a stunned heap on the ground?"

Well, of course playing a hero and reading about one are two very different things. I could even agree with you here, but just because I think a surprising number of GMs and players just don't know how to do good combat. They're all dice rolls and no dramatic posturing, and for some of us this eventually devolves into boredom. I believe a good fight has to be one of the high points of role-playing your character.

Now, when we're talking about *reading* I think I prefer old Marvel over Silver Age DC when we're talking conventional superheroes (even though I enjoy the Silver Age re-construction thing, like "Supreme", as much as the next person. But this I consider "unconventional" or post-modern heroes).

I think I only really got into DC in the first 4 or 5 years of the post-Crisis period, the most "Marvel-like" time DC ever had.

[assault]

DC's Silver Age is much more of a "continuation" of the Golden Age than Marvel ever was. After all, the Golden Age was the period when supervillains were pratically absent.

...

I think Marvel was more physical. This was a part of Stan Lee's "grand drama" style.

Both of these comments are spot-on, IMHO.

There was no discontinuity in DC's publishing of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Marvel, on the other hand, completely left the superheroic field, and had to relearn how to do it when they came back to it.

DC's style had been influenced by a whole lot of things, including their successes in the 50s at developing Superman as a movie and television character. It had definitely evolved since the 40s, but the level of continuity was higher.

And yes, Lee's style was more physical.

But this isn't why I am writing this post.

I've been looking at the early editions of Champions recently. There is a definite "Marvel" flavour to them.

It's most obvious when you look at the sample characters given in the books. There's also very little guidance in scenario design, which tends to encourage a slant towards very combat heavy "tactical situation" scenarios.

In other words, the combat heavy school of campaign design was encouraged right from the start.

It might be time to start putting in a bit of balance to that. Maybe what we need is for a few people to consider how to "DC" their games a little. How _do_ you write decent mystery plots? How _do_ you balance them to ensure they are challenging, without being too difficult?

There's very little fun about sitting around going "well, I don't know", when the genre you are trying to simulate is one where your character gets to be the one to come up with the answer when everyone else is stumped.

Presumably, of course, a lot of these techniques could be lifted from the Pulp genre, which is the most similar to Silver Age mystery superheroics. Of course, there is also present day action/adventure stuff, but that has its own conventions.

[Supreme]

Supreme got confused by a mini-series called "Unstable Molecules", written and drawn by independent comic book artist James Sturm. Sturm creates a very convincing, you-almost-had-me-there-for-a-moment, "real life" counterpart to the Fantastic Four, explaining the comic book FF as being inspire by these real people.

I was fooled myself for a moment, until my excitement was dispelled by reading some interviews with Sturm and discovering that he really based his "real" FF on the superhero versions, and not the other way around. A pity.

It's quite similar to several books by, for instance, Philip José Farmer, where the writer mantains the pretense that there was a real Tarzan and Burroughs created something based on him, and now the writer is finally showing to us the "man behing the myth", etc.

I think "fooled" is more like it. That was FAKE?!? The author went to some length in the back of the book about where and how he dug up which details and which ones he had to interpret and such. That was an elaborate ruse. I am Embarrassed Supreme!

[loraxxx]

I think "fooled" is more like it. That was FAKE?!? The author went to some length in the back of the book about where and how he dug up which details and which ones he had to interpret and such. That was an elaborate ruse. I am Embarrassed Supreme!

i felt the same way about "the sentinel" gag marvel pulled a few years back....b@$+@rd$!

[Doug McCrae]

Both of these comments are spot-on, IMHO.

There was no discontinuity in DC's publishing of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Marvel, on the other hand, completely left the superheroic field, and had to relearn how to do it when they came back to it.

DC's style had been influenced by a whole lot of things, including their successes in the 50s at developing Superman as a movie and television character. It had definitely evolved since the 40s, but the level of continuity was higher.

And yes, Lee's style was more physical.

Lee did come up with some new ideas for SA Marvel - continuity/shared universe, ugly heroes, bickering team mates, heroes with problems: social and real-world physical (lame, blind, heart condition) - but in many respects SA Marvel was a continuation of GA Marvel, just as SA DC was a continuation of GA DC.

The GA Human Torch was originally 'feared and hated', Namor was at war with humanity, hero battled hero. Marvel was quicker to have their heroes fight Nazis (pre-war) while DC was more conservative. In the same way, in the SA, Marvel characters battled Reds long before DC's did.

[zornwil]

I really like Supreme's take on it with hte "Atomic Age", that's both clever and accurate.

In any event, though, these are ideal types and as such you have to realize even "Silver Age" or "Gold Age" and the various attributed characteristics can be misleading. Personally, as I think said here, I tend to agree that Marvel of the 60s was really the bridge from Silver to Bronze, characters with conflict but still an extremely rosey end-result too a way higher degree than would come in the so-called Bronze era.

Then again, I also kind of (but only kind of) resent these classifications as it's all so recent history and our perspective is of course clouded at least relative to what it wil be a 100 years hence (though one could argue we also have a more immediate and vivid sense o fthings then can be had in the far future).

[David Blue]

I think a lot of how we see the Silver Age is the backward vision of the Iron Age (which seems to me to persist in being influential), and to a lesser extent Retro-Silver.

Late in the Bronze Age, as part of the general trend to psychological self-defeat, heroic codes of self-restraint were hardened, exaggerated, malformed. They generally weren't like that earlier on.

From an Iron Age perspective, Iron Age killers are superior, because they can do things their inferior predecessors couldn't do. Hey, baby, I can Kill! The Casual Killer type can kill without hesitation or mercy. Rad cool! "What If?" scenarios were dominated by the Punisher and Wolverine, because they could affect the world in a way other characters could not.

For contrast, the smart heroes with the wild new power of being able to kill need some baseline to be radically different from as far as a capability to kill when needed is concerned. An imagined, or half-imagined, Silver Age fills that role.

If you took Iron Age characters back to the Silver Age, where nobody was capable of more than harmless goofy fun, the super-killers of tomorrow would be able to do as they pleased. In Iron Age dreams that is.

But if you look at early Silver Age Comics, particularly Lee-Kirby stuff, which I think was strongly influenced by the pugnacious character of Jack Kirby, this is all nonsense. These characters were tough, violent, effective winners. Many of them, like Kirby, were World War II veterans. They hit hard without hesitation. They had their problems, sure, but paralysed by pathologically exaggerated self-restraint is absolutely the last thing they were.

[ShinDangaioh]

Let's see if I can recall off hand some of the DC silver/bronze-age moments.

The first appearance of the Plutonium Man. Even if they didn't show the corpses, you knew he was killing huge amounts of people. The Metal Men themselves definitley had personalities. I'd say their introduction started the process of getting DC heroes non-cookie cutter personalities.

The Qwardian invasion of Oa. Uh. Green Lantern power rings aren't supposed to be able to kill right? Then what's with all the Qwardian corpses?

The Spectre turning a person into wood and then running him through a buzzsaw.

What most people are really referring to when they say Silver Age is the campy era of DC, due to the influence of the Batman televison show(starring Adam West) and the Comics Code Authority. It prevaded anything that Batman and Superman had a present day tie to. Of course the SuperFirends cartoon didn't help matters. Some of those super-hero cartoons were very bizzare. Thing ring do your thing!

The Marvel Family at the time appealed to children, much like the Archie comics did.

[Mike W]

Well,I think part of it might be that DC Comics defined the Silver Age more, if for no other reason than the fact that most of Marvel's signature characters were just being created. But I also think that a large part of it is the typical nostalgia phenomenon, kinda of like that line we all heard as kids that "high school is the best years of your life". Twenty or thirty years down the road, the grass is always greener and it is almost always the "good old days". For all of the brashness they exhibited from time to time(or sometimes more often than that) - you didn't have villains like Catwoman and Deadpool getting books, and borderline psychotic killers like the Punisher and Venom getting books, and so on...

[ShinDangaioh]

Are you sure about that?

Kobra: The Deadliest Man Alive
Society of Super-Villians

DC did produce two comics with villians as the main characters.

Then there is the entire Eclipso nonsense. Is he a man or is he a villlian? That finally ended in the pages of Metal Men with the battle against Umbra.

Although borderline psychos(unless you count the Spectre) didn't have any comics.


The Silver Age did have a few comics that were just fun. Super-heroes and super-villians going at each other by playing a BASEBALLL GAME!

[Hugh Neilson]

Let's see if I can recall off hand some of the DC silver/bronze-age moments.

The first appearance of the Plutonium Man. Even if they didn't show the corpses, you knew he was killing huge amounts of people. The Metal Men themselves definitley had personalities. I'd say their introduction started the process of getting DC heroes non-cookie cutter personalities.

I think you'll find a lot of weirdness in the 70's Metal Men. It was never a great seller, so the writers coud pretty much do what they wanted and no one called them on it. [Dr. Strangeglove??]

The Spectre turning a person into wood and then running him through a buzzsaw.

That short-lived series was pretty controversial at the time. I view it as being well ahead of its time, a bronze/iron age precursor a good 10 eyars before its time.