When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

[assault]

I've been looking through Champions Universe and Millenium City again, and noticed that there are references to the "Silver Age", "Bronze Age" and so on.

 

"Silver Age Champions" is supposedly going to be written in the indefinite future, (maybe, perhaps...). Presumably it would detail the CU's "Silver Age".

 

The question is: when was it? More precisely, when did it end? Or maybe that should be, less precisely, roughly when did it end?

 

For what it's worth, I can actually see a situation where the combination of all the other books are going to make Silver Age Champions seem a little redundant. A lot of relevant equipment would already be in either Golden Age Champions or Dark Champions. A bunch of relevant characters have already been published in Digital Hero or elsewhere. Hidden Lands would have already covered that particular Silver Age feature, while Galactic Champions has covered at least some aspects of the Science Fiction influences. There's the mutant stuff, of course, but that's not just, or even mainly Silver Age, these days.

 

All that seems really distinctive is the historical setting. OK, there's the Cold War aspect, which is interesting, and then there are the B-movies... Actually, it's probably the latter which really makes it interesting.

 

I guess we need some details on the Qularr and Selenites...

 

PS: I just had a look at the Hero Universe PDF from the Free Stuff. It describes Silver Age Champions as covering the period from 1965 to 1980. This seems a little odd, IMHO.

[Metaphysician]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

AFAIK, Silver Age Champions stretches from the formation of the Fabulous Five until the first conquest attempt by Dr Destroyer ( when Kid Chameleon of the F5 died ).

[paigeoliver]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

When is the "Silver Age" of comics supposed to be anyway?

 

If I ever play actual "Champions" again, then my campaign world will be set in 1989, mostly because I have all the old modules, old books, and old stuff, and all the technology and cultural references in them are from that era.

[Metaphysician]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

The silver age of comics is usually dated as starting at the first issue of the new Flash comic, and ending with the death of Gwen Stacy.

[paigeoliver]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Ok, any dates in there? I have an idea as to when Flash started, by I have no idea who Stacy is.

[TheImperialKhan]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Gwen Stacy was Spider-man's girlfriend at the time. The Green Goblin tossed her off the Brooklyn Bridge. Spidey grabbed her with his webbing but the sudden stop broke her neck. After which Spidey basically went berserk and nearly killed the Goblin. It went pretty much like the ending of the first Spider-man movie with the exceptions that the girl was killed and the Goblin was completely hammered by the Spider-man before he impaled himself on his own glider. As for a date that this happened I'm not positive but 1973 sticks out in my mind for this.

 

Can't help you with the Flash, I know it was in the 50s but that's it.

[ParitySoul]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Sortly after Peter's little fit we had the reimergence of themes once left buried since the days pre-comic code days. Albiet in a limited fashion. As we pulled into the 80's Miller did the revision of the Dark Knight and DC cleaned house with it's Crisis. Marvel seemed to get X-men fever...and well you should remember the rest.

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Something to remember is that the ages of the comic books were largely a comic book phenomena. The big question is whether or not having "ages" makes sense inside of the comic book world. It's not even enough to say "it's a genre thing" as we have the Silver Age revival that happened well after the ostensible silver age itself. The Comics Code Authority suddenly appearing and slamming down the comic books generally didn't have some internal justification in the comics book universe.

 

In my opinion, it's better on an aesthetic and internal consistancy level to avoid the concept of Gold to Silver to Bronze to Iron and start breaking things down by decade, the way that we tend to break down real life history. Every decade saw shifts to the superhero community reflecting the times.

 

In short you should look at the CU's real world cultural shifts if you set up Gold, Silver and Bronze Ages for the CU.

[ParitySoul]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Well ya, there was a lot more going on besides the comic code, but the code did define the birth of the Silver Era. Golden Age comics touched on themes a lot more adult than their Silver counterparts. The orignal Golden Batman murdered/crippled crooks, etc. His Silver age picked up a sidekick and got int he bandwagon of classic Golden Age heroes becoming 'father' figures.

 

Another thing that happend durng the end of the Silver era was alot of the social changes that heraled the end of the 60's and America's new modern era. That's why I consider the 'Bronze' era more the Modernist era.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

AFAIK' date=' Silver Age Champions stretches from the formation of the Fabulous Five until the first conquest attempt by Dr Destroyer ( when Kid Chameleon of the F5 died ).[/quote']

 

I thought it ran to the Battle of Detroit in '92; reading the superhero death toll I get the idea it basically cleaned house on all the old Silver Age heroes (like Spider-Man/Goblin, Vanguard/Supes, and so on).

[Chuckg]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

No, the CU sourcebook says specifically that the 'end of the innocence' was Dr. Destroyer's debut as a villain. He ushered in the Bronze Age.

 

Depending on your DM's preference, the Battle of Detroit might be considered the start of the Iron Age.

[Blue]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

I've always thought of Silver Age as less a time period than a "way" of running champions. I can run a campaign in 1860 or in 3021 and make it silver age.

[Chuckg]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

True -- the New Sentinels are Silver Age with touches of bronze, and we're set in 2004.

[assault]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Historical points:

The Silver Age Flash first appeared in 1956.

 

Robin appeared in 1940. Batman's (and Robin's) code against killing appeared a little later.

 

Generally:

It probably doesn't really make sense to have "ages" within a particular universe. They never happened in the real world... Of course you can have phenomena like the "superhero gap", and a second generation of supers, but that's not quite the same.

 

But still, there are those references, and Silver Age Champions is on the "to do" list.

 

Four Colour games are, of course, possible in any setting, but there is more to the Silver Age than just that. It's a matter of time period and flavour, as well as an emphasis on Science Fiction themes. For example, the Golden Age Green Lantern's power was mystical. The Silver Age Green Lantern's power was scientific. The Golden Age Hawkman was a reincarnation of an Ancient Egyptian Prince, while the Silver Age Hawkman was a cop from another planet. And, of course, the Fantastic Four fought atomic monsters and B-movie aliens like the Skrulls.

 

And then there were mutants, Commies!, Hidden Lands, and so on...

 

Metaphysician suggested:

"AFAIK, Silver Age Champions stretches from the formation of the Fabulous Five until the first conquest attempt by Dr Destroyer ( when Kid Chameleon of the F5 died )."

 

This seems fair enough. I might add the "superhero gap" to it as a kind of precursor period, featuring monster hunters and "plain clothes" supers. This would provide a vague parallel to the pulpish "mystery man" period at the start of the Golden Age.

 

So, I would treat it as being roughly 1950-1975, with the first decade being very low-key.

 

Well, it works for me, anyway. Thanks to everyone for your input.

[Powerhouse]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

I know that some people consider Wolverine's appearance as the very beginning of the Bronze Age (and thus ending the Silver Age) since he helped usher in both the anti-hero in comics as well as Claremont's X-men who put a great deal more pathos and realism in comics with a much greater emphasis on characters as well as dealing with topical issues.

[Metaphysician]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

That works, especially since the Miller DD run was right around that time, too.

[CBikle]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

With DC, I think the silver-age ended when all their characters with ill-defined job backgrounds started becoming politicians (Supergirl became a congresswoman I believe and I think Batgirl became a senator).

[Chuckg]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

Barbara Gordon became a Congresswoman -- which is actually not *that* ridiculous, as she's both brilliant, charismatic, and (via her father) politically connected to at least a moderate degree with Gotham's movers and shakers.

 

Hey, we've elected stupider. Mostly from my district.

[assault]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

DC were trying to do "relevant" stories in the early 70's. Sometimes they did them well, and sometimes laughably badly, but they were doing them.

 

The Green Arrow/Green Lantern "on the road" sequences were fairly well done. The "Supersons" stories about Batman and Superman's children and their generation gap problems with their parents were spectacularly bad. I, of course, love them, precisely for their badness.

 

I would still go with the early 70's start for the Bronze Age in comics terms.

 

I would go with Dr Destroyer's first appearance for the CU.

 

Having said that, Millenium City talks about Scarlet Shield dealing with "race riots" in Detroit during the CU "Silver Age". That's not a particularly "four colour" theme, and is a prime example of the kind of difficulty in mapping "four colour" superheroics onto the real world.

 

Oh well.

 

There's another interesting thing to consider: where could you set games in the 50s and 60s? It wouldn't be easy to try to reconstruct Detroit from Millenium City, so it's out. Vibora Bay would probably be OK, but it has the mystic emphasis which might clash with the Science Fiction elements in Silver Age material. I guess Hudson City would probably be the best bet amongst the published CU cities, which obviously runs against its "no superpowers" theme.

 

I guess it might be necessary to go to a real-world city like New York. Or, perhaps, grab something from some other game universe. Empire City from SAS sounds likely. But obviously we're not dealing with the "official" CU at this point.

[Metaphysician]

Re: When was the "Silver Age" in the CU?

 

NYC would be the best bet, IMHO. After all, it was home to ( IIRC ) three major superteams at the time.