What do you call "Four Color"?

[bubba smith]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Which of A-C particularly makes it boring for you? What changes do you need to make before it's fun to play in?

 

(Not getting at you, just curious.)

maybe he's more of an iron age type comics fan

[The Main Man]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

To me, "four-color" is like the childhood of superhero comics: immature but innocent; unrefined and unquestioning; not philosophical and not ironic; in all it wants to have fun regardless of the consequences.

 

All this and more in an abstract sense.

[Poison]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Whenever I think of 4-Color Comics, I think of Justice Society of America or Justice League of America...

[Katherine]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

I'm working on "six color"--4 color with shades of gray, and the occasional touch of the absurd(my opening run had sharks with laser beams attached to their heads).

 

Or "Justice League meets Adult Swim, as shown on HBO"

 

I, for one, am intrigued. Tell us more?

 

You're forgetting one key point. Although it may not entirely be well known, but Superman was originally designed to be a villain.

 

Now this is new to me. I remember reading that he was very much not the big blue Boy Scout originally and more of a vigilante and proactive doing things like forcing crooked contractors to build up to code housing by demolishing substandard buildings personally and dangling wife beaters off roofs by their ankles until they had a change of heart. But I didn't know he was meant to be a villain originally.

 

And finally D) which is a TOTALLY PERSONAL AND SUBJECTIVE OPINION: Utterly, utterly boring to play in.

 

I didn't like the style at all for awhile but we tried a four color game and it was a nice change of pace after a very grim campaign (in which we basically drove the human race off planet/exterminated it). And we still revisit that one from time to time but generally our group prefers the darker toned style for supers.

[Nagisawa Takumi]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Which of A-C particularly makes it boring for you? What changes do you need to make before it's fun to play in?

 

(Not getting at you, just curious.)

 

maybe he's more of an iron age type comics fan

 

This. I am an Iron Age fan, but I prefer a more... Thoughtful? approach to it. People will die when building levelling power blasts are thrown about, or strong men are strong enough to level small bridges.

 

One one hand, I have no problem with Punisher types, but at the same time, it's when the character starts to see killing as the ONLY option do I feel he's gone into 'villain' territory.

 

Four Colour makes everything safe and harmless to me, taking a lot of the potential pathos/angst/feeling out of it. It turns the game into an 80's cartoon, and although I have great memories of Transformers, G.I.Joe, Thundercats and He-man, I remember thinking back then on how 'fake' it felt when the villains, even minions, never really got hurt. And that kills any sort of fun for me.

 

Now, CvK's has the same place in an 'Iron Age' style game as a four colour one, I think but, it's worth MORE in an Iron Age because sometimes, you just can't help or even fix the situation while adhering to a CvK...

[Nagisawa Takumi]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Now this is new to me. I remember reading that he was very much not the big blue Boy Scout originally and more of a vigilante and proactive doing things like forcing crooked contractors to build up to code housing by demolishing substandard buildings personally and dangling wife beaters off roofs by their ankles until they had a change of heart. But I didn't know he was meant to be a villain originally.

 

That's something I heard on a TV special about the History of Superheroes. And both he AND the Batman were killers in the early years, before the Comic Code. They used to kill crooks and Nazis (Remember the era they were created in.)

[Clonus]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

That's something I heard on a TV special about the History of Superheroes. And both he AND the Batman were killers in the early years' date=' before the Comic Code. [/quote']

 

I'd look for confirmation before going with it. It isn't particularly believable. As for being killers, it would be more accurate to say "year". 1939 was the transitional period between pulp and comic book hero. The no-killing editorial edict started after the first issue of Batman in 1940, although there was some fudging involving indirect killing, things like shooting down a plane with a bad guy in it or dropping off a bad guy on a ledge from which he could kill himself trying to climb down.

[assault]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

I'd look for confirmation before going with it. It isn't particularly believable.

 

The "Superman as villain" thing is a reference to Reign of the Superman, which wasn't really about the same character.

 

To some extent the Ultra-Humanite, Superman's original (pre-Luthor) arch-nemesis could be considered as something of a successor to that character, although without the mental powers.

 

Reign of the Superman used to be online, but the site where it was located was taken down. It might still be around somewhere. Then again, it wasn't particularly good, so you're not really missing anything by only reading the synopsis I linked to above.

[Katherine]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

That's something I heard on a TV special about the History of Superheroes. And both he AND the Batman were killers in the early years' date=' before the Comic Code. They used to kill crooks and Nazis (Remember the era they were created in.)[/quote']

 

Oh, okay, that I have heard about. That both Superman and Batman did kill and use lethal force is they felt the situation warranted it early in their career. IIRC, Batman carried a gun at one point.

[AnotherSkip]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

In the first few years of the Golden Age superheroes were not cliched, they were an original concept. While individual elements may have been done before, to combine those elements was something new. After all, all new ideas are merely never before seen combinations of old ones.

 

These elements had never been combined together in the same package before:

Superhuman powers

Colourful tight-fitting costumes

Codenames (pretty original in-and-of themselves this one)

Secret IDs

Crimefighting

Kid sidekicks (Also stand-alone original I think. Heroes in adventure fiction seem to always have adult sidekicks prior to this)

 

The Spirit Had a kid Sidekick before WWII, and No, the Spirit isn't (and by the authors own indications and desires) a Superhero more of a pulp detective with only a few 'super' touches added to make the publisher happy (and a mask so thin you can see the Encephalic folds of his eyes!). Potentially arguable that he is a superhero however the whole thing is very very borderline at best.

[AnotherSkip]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Oh' date=' okay, that I have heard about. That both Superman and Batman did kill and use lethal force is they felt the situation warranted it early in their career. IIRC, Batman carried a gun at one point.[/quote']

 

Batman, so the story goes killed one criminal and then they got a letter from a housewife asking them to not do that anymore.

 

Housewives more dangerous than you know, capable of changing your character before it even gets fully developed.

[The Main Man]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Original GA Batman was like DKR Batman without the age and cynical world when ya think about it.

[assault]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Batman' date=' so the story goes killed one criminal and then they got a letter from a housewife asking them to not do that anymore.[/quote']

 

"The story" is wrong.

 

The Killer Batman phase didn't end until after the introduction of Robin. Robin avenged his parents rather messily.

 

Come to think of it, the idea of a kid throwing people off skyscrapers is a bit icky. The code against killing bit doesn't sound so wrong in that context.

[Spence]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

I don't have any cool links or written documents to prove things, but early comics had the same moral and ethical codes as the times. They were just like the popular westerns and detective serials and movies. I remember watching The Lone Ranger and other ones 'unedited' and the movies. The heroes shot bad guys and the bad guys died on a regular basis. The early comics were the same. When people decided the 'funny papers' and comic books were for kids only, the established comic code to 'protect' them. Just like all the other well meant but idiotic attempts to force moral behavior (or at least a small segments version of morality). The difference here was that 'kids' had no political power. Prohibition failed because any time one group of adults tries to force their version of morality on another they will fail. In the end they all do. If comics would have been widely read by adults the comic code wouldn't have lasted near as long and may have never happened. Not likely, but possible. I can clearly remember Batman (in the serial) shooting bad guys. But when I finally tracked down the serial on DVD, it had been 'edited for format' and those scenes were gone. Did the early superheros kill? They certainly did. But back then killing a criminal was considered 'just deserts' and no one blinked an eye. The only major concession was they only killed the evil criminals. This was easy to do because the script was written that way. Or story.

[Nagisawa Takumi]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

"The story" is wrong.

 

The Killer Batman phase didn't end until after the introduction of Robin. Robin avenged his parents rather messily.

 

Come to think of it, the idea of a kid throwing people off skyscrapers is a bit icky. The code against killing bit doesn't sound so wrong in that context.

But killing parents in from of several hundred people is perfectly fine.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Fortunately, the concept that a game must have a body count in order to be interesting or compelling is a bit of Iron Age tripe that has passed me by completely.

[Clonus]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

But killing parents in from of several hundred people is perfectly fine.

 

Whose parents did Robin kill?

[Katherine]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Fortunately' date=' the concept that a game must have a body count in order to be interesting or compelling is a bit of Iron Age tripe that has passed me by completely.[/quote']

 

That's seems unnecessarily harsh. Not everyone wants to read about or roleplay in a four color world where no one ever dies, there is no such thing as sex, the world has a clear cut and black and white morality or other similar tropes. They just don't find it interesting and such games are boring to them just like some people don't like superhero stories or gaming at all. It doesn't make them wrong. The people that have said they preferred more "Iron Age" stories in this thread have been good about saying it's their opinion and not a denouncement of everything else. It's just different from yours.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

That's seems unnecessarily harsh. Not everyone wants to read about or roleplay in a four color world where no one ever dies' date=' there is no such thing as sex, the world has a clear cut and black and white morality or other similar tropes. They just don't find it interesting and such games are boring to them just like some people don't like superhero stories or gaming at all. It doesn't make them wrong. The people that have said they preferred more "Iron Age" stories in this thread have been good about saying it's their opinion and not a denouncement of everything else. It's just different from yours.[/quote']

 

It seems like this thread has morphed into "what does Iron Age mean to you". I think "four color means no one ever dies, there is no such thing as sex, and the world has a clear cut and black and white morality" is about as reasonable a definition as "iron age means a high body counts, frequent character rapes and the heroes are as bad as or worse than the villains". Both make broad-based assumptions taking the described subgenre to its extremes.

 

As an example where both definitions fail, it's quasi-Iron Age Captain America that brought Bucky back - four colour kept him dead.

[Spence]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Iron Age never existed,

 

nope,

 

it didn't.

 

Never happened

 

 

 

 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.....

[Katherine]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

It seems like this thread has morphed into "what does Iron Age mean to you". I think "four color means no one ever dies, there is no such thing as sex, and the world has a clear cut and black and white morality" is about as reasonable a definition as "iron age means a high body counts, frequent character rapes and the heroes are as bad as or worse than the villains". Both make broad-based assumptions taking the described subgenre to its extremes.

 

In replying to Collie, I was using what seems to be description most agreed on in this thread, essentially the one I have heard most often even from fans of the subgenre and that he appears to espouse particularly when it comes to death/lethal force.

 

But whatever you call it is beside the my point which was that there isn't a wrong style to enjoy. Everyone has their own tastes. "Tripe" seemed an unnecessarily harsh and somewhat inflammatory word choice when there were other ways to say the same thing and others were being careful to put their statements in terms of opinion.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

Iron Age never existed,

 

nope,

 

it didn't.

 

Never happened

 

 

 

 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.....

 

What he said.

[Clonus]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

It seems like this thread has morphed into "what does Iron Age mean to you". I think "four color means no one ever dies, there is no such thing as sex, and the world has a clear cut and black and white morality" is about as reasonable a definition as "iron age means a high body counts, frequent character rapes and the heroes are as bad as or worse than the villains". Both make broad-based assumptions taking the described subgenre to its extremes.

 

As an example where both definitions fail, it's quasi-Iron Age Captain America that brought Bucky back - four colour kept him dead.

 

Captain America was revived in the 60s with Bucky already in the past tense. That is part of why he stayed dead for so long, because during Cap's modern run he was never alive and Status Quo is God. He was the same as Jor-El or Matt Murdock's dad or the Flying Graysons or Uncle Ben in that regard. Because continuity began with them dead or with their deaths, they had to stay dead. Origin stories play by different rules.

 

And of course it's an overstatement to say that four-colour precludes all killing. It precludes the heroes killing, but doesn't totally prevent villains killing. Four colour is not synonymous with "Silver Age".

[Kenn]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

To me, four colour means the comic book was printed using four colours of ink: yellow, magenta, cyan and black. Every other colour was generated by mixing the inks to varying degree.

 

(Cyan and magenta are close enough to blue and red that this had led to the myth that red, blue and yellow are the "Primary Colours")

 

I'd have to check at Quebecor to be sure, but I'm reasonably certain that colour comics are still printed using those four inks. What has changed is that it is no longer necessary to have four different printing plates for every page and to have each sheet of paper sent through the press four times. This change occurred sometime in the early 1990s.

 

That said, I think the term "four-colour campaign" is a misnomer, as it refers to a magazine production process that was in use for over 50 years. As such, it could cover a lot of ground.

[Spence]

Re: What do you call "Four Color"?

 

To me, four colour means the comic book was printed using four colours of ink: yellow, magenta, cyan and black. Every other colour was generated by mixing the inks to varying degree.

 

(Cyan and magenta are close enough to blue and red that this had led to the myth that red, blue and yellow are the "Primary Colours")

 

I'd have to check at Quebecor to be sure, but I'm reasonably certain that colour comics are still printed using those four inks. What has changed is that it is no longer necessary to have four different printing plates for every page and to have each sheet of paper sent through the press four times. This change occurred sometime in the early 1990s.

 

That said, I think the term "four-colour campaign" is a misnomer, as it refers to a magazine production process that was in use for over 50 years. As such, it could cover a lot of ground.

 

spoilsport