The downsides of the Iron Age

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Iron age moments only exist in my game to be reviled by PC and NPC alike and to be righted by the actions of REAL heroes. My players have no patience for the moralistic relavism and wishy washy wimpiness of iron age heroes. My wife's character literally spit on my batman clone in my swiped tower of babel adventure. The iron age pretty much ruined everything I liked about comics. I also truely pity anyone who finds the characters or relationships realistic. I can't imgine anyone having a use for a Superman who is less decisive and morally inferior to most people I know. ( no, i"m not opinionated at all, why do you ask?)

[Doug McCrae]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

The very worst comics ever published are Iron Age. I don't think a GA or SA editor would've allowed stuff as badly drawn and written as Youngblood #1 to go out. Marvel and DC's output took a huge downturn in quality in the late 80s/early 90s. There was virtually nothing I was buying back then, superhero comics were just awful with a few exceptions like Peter David's Hulk.

 

Some writers, all of them British - Garth Ennis, Mark Millar - are guilty of going for grotesque shock value. Even Alan Moore has overdone the rape scenes imo (and I'm not including From Hell).

 

Millar in particular is a very poor writer. He's not all bad, he's a good ideas man but he can't tell a story that makes any sense, his political biases come out strongly in his work and all his characters speak in the same bombastic voice, which I'm guessing is Millar's own voice.

 

Strangely, from a roleplaying point of view I rather like the hordes of faceless mutant cyborgs with guns. They're kind of like orcs. Bad comics don't necessarily make for bad gaming material.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Personally I have no problem with selfish or cowardly protagonists even in adventure fiction. I really enjoyed the bit in Zenith Book III where the heroes get scared and run away. You just don't see superheroes beating a disorderly retreat like that.

 

I quite like the PCs to be fairly non-heroic types in rpgs too.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Personally I have no problem with selfish or cowardly protagonists even in adventure fiction. I really enjoyed the bit in Zenith Book III where the heroes get scared and run away. You just don't see superheroes beating a disorderly retreat like that.

 

I quite like the PCs to be fairly non-heroic types in rpgs too.

 

 

No player could long survive the disdain my wife would give them for not being able to have courage even in an RPG. Lost a few players that way.

Our best friend loves to torment her by player Ninjas that tread that thin line.

[assault]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

The very worst comics ever published are Iron Age. I don't think a GA or SA editor would've allowed stuff as badly drawn and written as Youngblood #1 to go out.

 

I think this is a slight exaggeration. There was some truly dreadful GA and SA stuff. The only difference is that they tend to have camp value these days.

 

Marvel and DC's output took a huge downturn in quality in the late 80s/early 90s. There was virtually nothing I was buying back then, superhero comics were just awful with a few exceptions like Peter David's Hulk.

 

More early 90s, IMHO. DC in particular was humming along nicely up until about 92-94. This was the period when they were producing a range of titles that extended from the Bwa-ha-ha Justice League to the Sandman, with everything you could possibly want in between.

 

In fact, that's my pet hate of the (late, rusty razorblade) Iron Age - characters can't be lighthearted. Everything has to be a single boring shade of grey. Well, aside from the blood and bits of gratuitously exposed anatomy.

 

It's like the Comics Code has come back to haunt us in a new "kewl" form.

[nexus]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

No player could long survive the disdain my wife would give them for not being able to have courage even in an RPG. Lost a few players that way.

Our best friend loves to torment her by player Ninjas that tread that thin line.

 

Well, it depends. There are other means to be heroic than making a flat, full frontal charge at everything. Discretion, planning and caution don't equal cowardice at least IMO. Sometimes its better to back up, regroup and come up with a plan that might work than get killed in a display of ultimately futile valor.

[Kali Magdalene]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

The fact that some Iron Age writers seem to hold the idea of heroes in contempt or enjoy smearing them dirt, some even apparently find the idea of superheroes actively offensive and go out of their way to paint that as fascist goons, sexual deviants and sociopaths, especially if they can “parody” a classic or icon character in the process.

 

I agree with pretty much all of your points. Too much deconstruction mired quite a few comic book characters down in postmodern satire.

 

However, I was wondering just how many superheroes were painted as sexual deviants. Except for a bit where Warren Ellis spoofed Miracle/Marvelman in Planetary, I can't think of anything like that.

[nexus]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

The Millar versions of the Authority definitely had their kinks (and before anyone gets offended I don't mean Apollo and Midnighter. They're actually a stable, close couple) then there was Maximortal and Brat Back, being an Ultimate universe character seems to require having at least one deviation (and I like the Ultimate line). Those are some examples that pop immediately to mind.

 

Deviant in this case is things along the lines of: rapist, violent sadist, pedophile, paraphillias taken to an unhealthy extreme not just kinky or amorous.

[Kali Magdalene]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Oh, I assumed you did not mean gay characters.

 

I just hadn't seen any necrophiles or pederasts running around, so I was a bit surprised to see that comment. Of course, I have not read Maximortal or Brat Pack.

[input.jack]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

My complaint with the Iron Age is this:

 

I dont want my Superheroes to show me who I AM.

 

I want my Superheroes to show me who I COULD be.

 

Who I SHOULD be.

 

I want them to be HEROES.

[McCoy]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

That's pretty much true but I can think of a couple of exceptions. In very early Superman' date=' the rich and powerful are often presented as corrupt and immoral. I think there's a corrupt congressman or senator in Action Comics #1. Also what about General Thunderbolt Ross in the Incredible Hulk?[/quote']

Possibly an occasional corrupt politician in the Golden Age pre Pearl Harbor, doubt you found many, if any, during the War.

 

And what about General Ross? While fanatical, I never saw that he was corupt (back in the Lee-Kirby days). He reminded ma a lot of Curtis LeMay, first commander of SAC and one of the architects of the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine. Tell the story without Rick Jones as the point-of-view character, and Ross becomes the hero, the soldier trying to protect America from a nuclear menace in human form.

 

As time goes by and we got closer to Bronze age, he went rogue, rather than following orders he had become Ahab with the Hulk as his own White Whale, pursueing his own agenda rather than following orders. He became Bronze age before Bronze age was cool.

[Wanderer]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Ummm... just to be completely clear since text is such a horrible way of expressing the nuances of discussion' date=' I'd like to say that I wasn't [b']trying[/b] to be offensive, though my bitterness might have come out there a bit... and I'm going to assume you're speaking in a comically sarcastic tone rather than being actually hostile. =)

 

Yes, I understand the super-punches and all that... but it just strikes me as kind of silly to dress like a hooker to fight crime. If nothing else, just out of some sense of utility. Don't get me wrong, I fall prey to cheesecake as well, but does EVERYONE need to dress that way? *shrug* In any case, I'll digress before this becomes a women's issues argument. =)

 

Yes, of course I was making sarcastic humor, sorry if I forgot the emoticon. Yes, I'm basically trying to find lame excuses for the fact I love cheesecake, but... if you are as individually powerful as top-end superheroines that love the cheesecake outfit (e.g. WW, Ms. Marvel), who's going to dare criticize them ? Remember the old gorilla joke. After all, such heroines (but in many ways the argument could be enlarged to male heroes, too, with their skintight spandex or leather outfits) have typically near-perfect athletic bodies, captivating longeve beauty, aggressive self-confidence and some of an exibitionist streak (as psychologically implied by their career choice of showoff crusaders), and no reasonable fear of bodily harm from 99% of mankind. Why shouldn't they, amongst all, flaunt it ? The kind of conservative morality that would taboo it is, as others have pointed out, often the ideology of the enemy in such comics. Actually, I would expect it that to a degree, use by high-profile celebrity hero(ines) would glamorize such clothing styles. In a realistic society, super-heroes and -heroines would be the absolute celebrities and role models, in ways unsurpassed even by our celebrity-obsessed society. In so many ways, they would become ideals: undreamed-of personal power, heroic, glamourous lifestyle, popularity, physical beauty, who's going to daresay them ? It wouldn't be "superheroines dressed like hookers" anymore, it would be "hookers dressed like superheroines". It would become a kink, like nurses. Yep, conservatives and traditional organized religion would still howl, but they are the implied or acknowledged enemy anyway, and I would daresay that in a realistic society full of godlike mutants, aliens, not to mention the apparent return of mythological gods, the appeal of traditional organized religion would be seriously diminished anyway.

 

Anyway, I can picture hordes of teenage girls and young women fantasize to be, and dress like, the superheroines. It wouldn't be demeaning because it would become empowering. If the 800-pound gorilla fancies a pink tie, wearing a pink tie is cool.

 

I understand the continuity thing, but they showed little regard for it before, don't see why its a big deal after. And the down-side to that is that they wiped out a lot of continuity, and didn't they start over again after that and put things back the way they were? I'm talking about the era where Wolverine lost a hand and was married to Jean Grey comics and stuff like that. I understand a certain amount of cleaning up, and really, if the stories were good afterwards I might have stuck around... but they were getting worse, and the multiple foil/hologram/raised/alternate art covers drove me nuts along with the price tags... and I was just a poor college kid at the time. =)

 

You're absolutely right. I'm not trying to justify their carss greed, I was just pointing out an additonal reason why they have done it. Sometimes they have done it basically right (Ultimate Universe), sometimes less right (Onslaught, the myriad confusing DC Crises).

[Trebuchet]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Note that this flaw of the Iron Age has been there since the beginning of Grimly "Realistic" Superheroes ... including the moment in 1930' date=' when Philip Wylie's Hugo Danner learned that his power wouldn't allow one man to directly change the world. [snip']

Superman (and to a lesser extent Batman) were successful because they were more than just men - they were symbols. Hugo Danner was just an extraordinary "ordinary guy." It was extraordinariness combined with a costume that made a superhero; not simply powers and/or gadgets. Danner often seemed less a superhero than a n'er-do-well with powers.

 

Ideally a costume should constitute more than just a disguise or "work duds" for a superhero; it becomes a banner to rally around.

[David Johnston]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

That's pretty much true but I can think of a couple of exceptions. In very early Superman' date=' the rich and powerful are often presented as corrupt and immoral. I think there's a corrupt congressman or senator in Action Comics #1. Also what about General Thunderbolt Ross in the Incredible Hulk?[/quote']

 

Sure there was Action Comics 1, but how much really after that? As for General Ross, is trying to hunt down the Hulk really so unreasonable a thing for the government to do?

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Well' date=' it depends. There are other means to be heroic than making a flat, full frontal charge at everything. Discretion, planning and caution don't equal cowardice at least IMO. Sometimes its better to back up, regroup and come up with a plan that might work than get killed in a display of ultimately futile valor.[/quote']

 

 

Thats typical PC activity, A well executed plan is lots of fun as long as its remembers these are Superheroes, We have other campaigns where you can play Steven Seigal if wished. Descretion as you put it in moderate amounts is OK. Acting like assassins and fleeing any direct confrontation is another and really is superhero inappropiate IMO. In the example above. The NPC got another PC( because he was upright and she was more likely to accept) to ask my wife's character to paticipate in a dangerous plan that involved her capture( by one of her hunteds) and later he was revealed to keep a database on the other Superheroes "just in case". It was pretty much agreed this made it a guttless wonder no matter how much personal danger he faced. The database ( exactly like iron age bats) wasa decided a villian thing to do and he is completely untrusted. All the PCs mow turn to asignifcantly inferior darknight detective now and constantly belittle him whenever he shows up. My players always have a plan but Champions should NOT look like black opps. I freely admit a really hate the iron age and, in my opinion, its smaller than life heroes ( You got to work REALLY hard to make someone like Superman seem smaller than life.) ruin what I enjoy the genre for.

[Wanderer]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

My complaint with the Iron Age is this:

 

I dont want my Superheroes to show me who I AM.

 

I want my Superheroes to show me who I COULD be.

 

Who I SHOULD be.

 

I want them to be HEROES.

 

You see, there is a fatal flaw in your argument: the lack of an universally agreed upon definition of heroes and heroism. To a degree, some Iron Age characters fall outside any minimally decent definition of heroism, you are right about them, but in other cases, they just fulfill a different concept of heroism. To make a typical example, the Authority characters fulfill my personal ideal of heroism in ways that traditional superheroes never did nor probably could.

 

It's OK to desire an idealistic streak in superheroes, but let's remember that ideals may definitely differ. The hero of some is a villain to others and viceversa.

 

I hope I didn't sound polemic, I just wanted to highlight an obvious counterargument.

[assault]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Sure there was Action Comics 1' date=' but how much really after that? [/quote']

 

I haven't made a huge study, but corrupt business people, particularly war profiteers, don't seem to have been uncommon opponents in Golden Age comics up until the US entered WWII. Then all of a sudden all these saboteurs start becoming a problem...

 

I'll obviously have to keep reading Golden Age material, just to check my facts.

[Wanderer]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

The Millar versions of the Authority definitely had their kinks (and before anyone gets offended I don't mean Apollo and Midnighter. They're actually a stable, close couple) then there was Maximortal and Brat Back, being an Ultimate universe character seems to require having at least one deviation (and I like the Ultimate line). Those are some examples that pop immediately to mind.

 

Deviant in this case is things along the lines of: rapist, violent sadist, pedophile, paraphillias taken to an unhealthy extreme not just kinky or amorous.

 

As it concerns the Millar Authority, I'm perplexed about what kinks you are referring to. True, all of them are definitely oversexed and amorous and often promiscous, and they make a point of aggressively flaunting it like a "pride" ideological bit, but... Jenny Sparks is quite promiscous, ditto for the old doctor (he had serious psych problems but it wasn't about sex at all), Jenny Quantum a teen (yep a magically aged little girl, but again she made it by her own will and she seems to have developed a teen mind with the body) who's eagerly about her first time, the Engineer and Jack Hawksmoor are pursuing an "open couple" romantic relationship, Apollo and Midnighter are a long-term monogamous gay married (and divorced, and proabably back together) couple, the new Doctor seems to have a (proabably mutual) crush on Swift, Swift lives the life of the promiscous celebrity, where are those kinks you speak of ? The infamous diesel-powered dildo wasn't about sex, was revenge torture. Desplicable, but no more sexual than killing someone by impaling. They are hyper-violent, but it isn't sexual.

 

As for Ultimate Universe, I can't pretend to have a detailed mental picture of all the characters, so please what are the seemingly obvious examples you had in mind ? I can think of just one example, Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne sharing a sadomasochistic mutually abusive relationship. I don't know if they can be defined kinky, they don't seem to be about a sexual thrill, they just seem to be two psychologically troubled people into mutual sponsal abuse. They seem to genuinally care for each other, though.

[McCoy]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

You see, there is a fatal flaw in your argument: the lack of an universally agreed upon definition of heroes and heroism. To a degree, some Iron Age characters fall outside any minimally decent definition of heroism, you are right about them, but in other cases, they just fulfill a different concept of heroism. To make a typical example, the Authority characters fulfill my personal ideal of heroism in ways that traditional superheroes never did nor probably could.

 

It's OK to desire an idealistic streak in superheroes, but let's remember that ideals may definitely differ. The hero of some is a villain to others and viceversa.

 

I hope I didn't sound polemic, I just wanted to highlight an obvious counterargument.

I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about personal taste and preferences, not debating objective criteria.

[assault]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

It's OK to desire an idealistic streak in superheroes' date=' but let's remember that ideals may definitely differ. The hero of some is a villain to others and viceversa.[/quote']

 

I disagree with Wanderer on a lot of things, but he is absolutely right here.

 

Extreme examples:

Captain America during his "Commie Smasher" phase in the 50s.

Green Arrow and Green Lantern during their "relevance" period in the early 70s.

 

There are two diametrically opposed notions of right and wrong right there. Both, of course, reflect the political landscape at their respective times. But the fact is that if superheroes actually existed, it is likely that both schools would co-exist. And they would fight like cats and dogs.

 

That's superheroic realism for you.

 

I hope this helps make it obvious why I wouldn't touch "superheroic realism" with a stick.

[OddHat]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Superman (and to a lesser extent Batman) were successful because they were more than just men - they were symbols. Hugo Danner was just an extraordinary "ordinary guy." It was extraordinariness combined with a costume that made a superhero; not simply powers and/or gadgets. Danner often seemed less a superhero than a n'er-do-well with powers.

 

Ideally a costume should constitute more than just a disguise or "work duds" for a superhero; it becomes a banner to rally around.

 

Completely agreed. That's one of the things my version of Danner learned from Doc Savage and the Shadow; how to stop being a thug and become an inspiration.

[Wanderer]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

I hope this helps make it obvious why I wouldn't touch "superheroic realism" with a stick.

 

Why not ? if anything else, it is the motivation for a never-ending streak of both recurring fights, long-term struggle, and "my enemy, my love" soap-opera entanglements. All very good fodder for classical superheroic stuff. After all, what is X-Men, to the core, if not a stretched out contest to prove who's right about the destiny of the mutant race, Xavier or Magneto ?? Now picture that in addition to the integrationist vs. supremacist mutant ideological divide, you have all kinds of mutually opposite ideological subfactions in the superhuman community duking it out. In such a universe, WWII, Cold War, the War on Terror are also (if not principally) a contest and drwan-out fight between the respective superteams. It seems good superheroic fare to me. E.g. cfr. the postmodern Golden Age comics pitting Allies supers vs. Axis supers. The main problem is that you have to take care they don't accidentally blow up the Earth in the struggle.

[Wanderer]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

I'm sorry' date=' I thought we were talking about personal taste and preferences, not debating objective criteria.[/quote']

 

You're obviosuly right, you just sounded like you were appealing to a mutually agreed ideal, which isn't, and I couldn't resist poking out the fallacy.

 

On a more general note (but mind, this is not absolutely about you), fans of Silver Age sometimes speak of their ideal of heroism like it was universal, and that annoys me. While I agree Iron Age is full of self-serving characters that only in a very generous way could deserve the label of anti-heroes, there are many others that fulfill my ideals of heroism in much more full and satisfying way than four-color icons.

[assault]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

It seems good superheroic fare to me. E.g. cfr. the postmodern Golden Age comics pitting Allies supers vs. Axis supers.

 

You don't need to engage in all this drama to rationalise punching a Captain America clone in the face. That's just something that happens any time two superhero teams meet for the first time.

 

The rest of it is all posturing.

 

I take politics seriously in the real world. I don't feel the need to fantasise about it in a game. Particularly since there are things that genuinely make me angry.

 

I don't need this. It's not fun.

 

I also dislike postmodernism, but that's another story.

[Mister E]

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

 

Do kids even read comics anymore? The whole industry is aimed at adults; and it stinks of desperation. Huh... weird...