Essence of the Golden Age

[Haven Walkur]

I'm about to start playing in a Golden Age Champions game, and I'm very concerned about keeping my character's attitudes and actions "in genre". So can anyone give me a simple litmus test for determining Golden Age-style conduct and characters? How do you define Golden Age (other than chronologically)?

[assault]

I'm about to start playing in a Golden Age Champions game, and I'm very concerned about keeping my character's attitudes and actions "in genre". So can anyone give me a simple litmus test for determining Golden Age-style conduct and characters? How do you define Golden Age (other than chronologically)?

Basic aspects: your character's attitudes will be "old-fashioned" by today's standards. I don't advise playing this up too much, for obvious reasons.

All characters are patriotic, although some are more interested in fighting "crime" or supernatural enemies than in flag waving. Even the Spectre or Dr Fate will defend America. Apparently it's part of the Spectre's divinely bestowed mission!

Characters are sure of their mission and righteousness. Some do, however, suffer from angst. For example, the Spectre can't have a relationship with his True Love, because he's dead, and she isn't. He actually takes the time out to mope about this - just not too much.

Historically, plots tended to be fairly straightforward, but that's often because a lot of uninteresting detective work and so on takes place offstage. Other times, however, plots were pretty well handed to characters on a plate. So, your character may be a ultimate skillmonger, or may just be a spoilt rich dilettante, and they are both likely to be able to solve mysteries! Talk to your GM and the other players about this kind of thing.

All characters are hand to hand combatants. Green Lantern and Starman are as likely to punch an opponent in the jaw as to zap them with their gizmoes.

Superpowers are optional. In game terms, many characters are built around "non-powered" special effects. This is not a disadvantage, given what I wrote in the previous paragraph.

Characters may be quite simple, or quite complex. Some characters can literally do anything. In reality, of course, they mainly rely on a regular set of powers, but pull something new or neat out fairly regularly. But, of course, these new things are often never seen again...

Technology is a bit clunkier. Yes, there are robots and cyborgs. There are technological "magic wands", and other stuff quite beyond even present day capabilities, but basically technology is seen through 1940s eyes. The only Golden Age power armoured characters I can think of are villains, and they may be Roy Thomas retcons. Heroes don't walk around in clanking robot suits. Unless they are cyborgs like Robotman, but he's a huge angst factory. ("Hey, I'm a brain in a jar!")

On the other hand, you can have characters in the 40s who use present day technology! Air Wave's main power was his ability to make telephone calls from anywhere. Yes, he had invented the mobile phone! This is a good trick, given the absence of the kind of infrastructure that supports present day mobile phone systems. He probably really had some kind of radio thing. Note that even a character with a lame "power" like this is viable, because, ultimately, in combat he is yet another guy who punches people, just like the Batman, Wildcat, or the Atom.

Another aspect to consider is that magic origins are rather common. First of all, mystical characters like Mandrake and Dr Occult were being published before Superman came along. Second, characters like Green Lantern and Hawkman, whose Silver Age equivalents had science oriented origins, were mystically derived in the Golden Age. Green Lantern had a magic ring. Hawkman was a reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian prince. Johnny Thunder had a pet genie. And so on...

I've been mainly talking about DC characters, because I'm more familiar with them than with Marvel or other characters. Some of the biases I've suggested may be more true of DC than of the other companies. Marvel, in particular, were a bit more prone to flagwave than DC. Unfortunately, of their rather large stable of characters, I'm really only familiar with a handful of the best known ones: Captain America, the Human Torch, the Submariner, the Whizzer, Miss America and so on... Just looking at this list, none of them have true magical origins, although Namor's Atlantean origin has supernatural overtones. You would probably find a bunch of magical origins among the second bananas, though.

Finally, on killing... Most Golden Age characters killed. Batman had a CVK imposed on him quite early on, but before that was happily littering the streets with corpses. The Spectre was an instrument of divine retribution, and his victims seldom lived to tell the tale. Superman would smash planes and submarines, with no obvious concern for their occupants. Captain America and Bucky would happily machinegun America's enemies.

Of course, none of them killed gratuitously. Only the Spectre would kill in any way that could really be called sadistically.

In general, when Good is Good and Evil is Evil, the minions of Evil have no rights, and can be casually swept out of the way.

This applies to other applications of violence as well. Evildoers and criminals have no rights.

In fact, even if you have a CVK, it's amazing how many of your opponents fall into pits of acid, get electrocuted, and so on.

And remember, Pay Your Taxes and Beat the Axis!

[SKJAM!]

Sidekicks were huge in the Golden Age. Not just kid sidekicks, but full-grown ones as well. Usually male adult sidekicks are comical in some way; dressing oddly, cracking jokes, not very bright, that sort of thing. Female adult sidekicks are almost always the hero's girlfriend. The majority of sidekicks did not wear costumes, which sometimes caused temporary Secret ID issues. (However, only the costumed sidekicks tended to stay active into the Silver Age, so those are the ones we usually think of.)

"Multi-ethnic" means four white American kids from different states, or one white American kid and three Western European kids.

Villains don't need much in the way of powers either--A concealable with effort Distinctive Feature will often suffice. ("Why is the Rattler in charge of this gang?" "He's got fangs, man! Isn't that enough?" "Are they poison fangs?" "No, just bad dental work. But hey, it's really scary bad dental work.") Like the heroes, it's often down to fisticuffs, or using a gun equivalent.

[Barton]

Also remember to have your heroes taunt the bad guys. I would not have them use all of the racial/country slurs that were common in the 1940's, as some are quite insulting. But remember that in WW2, it was a total war, and many people in the West thought (correctly IMO) that the Allies could lose the war.
Women's rights were not what they are today. Women in the US got the right to vote in 1920. Women were expected to defer to men, and were often not leaders.

[JmOz]

For that matter I STRONGLY SUGGEST Social limitations for non whites and females.

My current group of golden age characters may be of some help to you

Black Phantom, A succesful buisnessman hits the streets with a special gun he invented (Think a 1940's version of Judge Dredd's gun with a togle switch instead of voice rec), a good right hook, and aspecial a special suit (He is this world's inventor of "bullet-proof Spandex")

Americana: A patriotic woman, who is very interested in equality for woman, Fisticuff fighter, bulletproof for no apperent reason. Ohh what fun to have psyc lims opposite sovial norms...

The Shoud aka Mr Creepy: A Mortitioan with "Ghost Powers" (Desol, invisibility, a no range EB)

The Patriot: Mix Captain America and Captain Marvel, and you have a rough idea of what you are dealing with (Str 50, Def 25, 5" Flight)

Testement: A German Vampire creature who had a run in with some cultists who have removed some of his lims

White Witch: A Super Mage

The Golden Pharoh: An Archeolgist found a ancient artifact called the Staff of Ra (a crook actualy), grants flight, FF, EB, Blinding Rays, and creates light

[Haven Walkur]

Thanks for responding, people! This is _exactly_ what I was looking for. (Of course, my character's British, so brings a slightly different perspective to the War Effort...or were Golden Age heroes _always_ American?)

[Barton]

A favorite idea of mine would be an all Allied power force, with Free French, South African, Austrialian, New Zealanders, British, American, Canadian supers vs. the Nazi bad guys (maybe with a Italian super also).

[Siberian Tiger]

A favorite idea of mine would be an all Allied power force, with Free French, South African, Austrialian, New Zealanders, British, American, Canadian supers vs. the Nazi bad guys (maybe with a Italian super also).

Did that in one of my campaigns. The Paladins were the primary Allied superteam based in Europe and consisted of:

Guardsman - British Superman-esque team leader - later went mad under the influence of Cthullu

Howitzer - British patriotic brick

Claymore - Scottish swordsman

Greenstar - Irish energy-projector - joined the Allied cause even though Ireland was neutral

Windjammer - Dutch weather-manipulator and flyer

Gammadion - French radioactive hero - grandson of Mdme Curie

Innominato - Italian master of stealth and invisibility

White Dragon - Danish hero who was actually a dragon

Pax - Greek representative - ambassador of the Greek gods

Major Flag - American liaison - "captain America type clone"

Aurora - Canadian light manipulator


Also thought of developing a Pacific branch consisting of heroes from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, India etc

[JmOz]

I can think of at least one golden age character who was British, he did however live in america during his run (The Shining Knight)

[Bloodstone]

I was just about to mentiopn Spitfire and Union Jack, but I checked it out and they apparently didn't exist until 1976...

[assault]

I was just about to mentiopn Spitfire and Union Jack, but I checked it out and they apparently didn't exist until 1976...

Yeah. Good old Roy Thomas.

The truth is that the US comics industry pretty much only used American characters at the time. The Shining Knight is a partial exception. I suppose you could consider Wonder Woman as a partial exception too, and maybe a couple of others.

On the other hand, at least a few other countries had their own comics industries during the (US) Golden Age. Australia is one such case. Essentially, during WWII, non-essential imports were banned, leaving the Australian market open to local production, as well as local reprints of US material. The Australian production didn't include a great deal of superheroic material, and most of what there was was every bit as lame as the worst of the US material. But still, there was a bit of good work. See http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/a/ausgold.htm for further details. You might recognise my Avatar there. He actually first appeared in the early 50s, so he's very late Golden Age. He used to outsell Superman in Australia for almost a decade.

If I was going to put an Australian character on an international team, I would choose a "guy with wings", since a couple of such characters were published, and it's not an especially common character type. On the other hand, from early 1942 to, say, late 1944, you probably wouldn't expect to see Australian heroes too far away from Australia and the nearby combat zones. There would need to be a good reason for them to be in Europe or the US, for example.

I wouldn't create too many Australian supers during this period. Australia only had a population of about seven million during WWII. You wouldn't expect all that many supers to emerge from that small a population. Of course, you could easily find US, Dutch (from the Dutch East Indies), New Zealand or British supers hanging around or visiting, while Japanese and other Axis supers would be mucking about on the other side.

Then again, given that supers are extreme statistical flukes, it's entirely possible that the world's entire population of supers is concentrated in Australia.

[Hugh Neilson]

Mosdt (though not all) characters either had a good right hook and some skills, maybe a "super" power/focus like Air Wave's mobile phone of Cap's shield, or had some crippling overall weakness which came up fairly regularly (Green Lantern's ring was ineffective against wood; Starman was regularly blocked from the star power that fueled his focus, or it was taken from him; Hourman's powers only worked for an hour; Kryptonite for Superman; water for the Human Torcvh and lack of water for the Sub-Mariner or Aquaman).