Superhero Aging

[Cassandra]

While Wonder Woman has the excuse that she's an immortal, most comic book superheroes are still active despite being created during World War Two. Superman in fact just turned seventy. So when creating Champions versions of our favorite heroes I have a couple of suggestions on how to deal with their current age.

 

First, take the age they were when they started. I recently did a Batgirl write up, so I'll use her as an example. She was roughly 22 years of age, a college graduate and working as a librarian. This was in 1967, the year of her first appearance in the comic book, and on Batman. While Yvonne Craig also played her as being 22, she was actually 30.

 

That would mean that Batgirl would be 63 years old today. I'm ignoring all post-Crisis changes because I consider Barbara Gordon the one true Batgirl and believe that someday DC will come to it's senses and bring her back.

 

Clearly while someone could be active in their 60s, would anyone really want to see them in a skin tight costume. Believing the answer to be no, I will then suggest the following. Superheroes age one year for every ten, plus one year for every 25 years of their existance.

 

Here are a few examples of Comic Book Superheroes' Age under this system. I've rounded to the nearst whole number.

 

Batgirl 27 (1 [25 Years]+4 [40 Years/10]+22 [starting Age(1939)]=27)

 

Superman 32 (3 [75 Years]+7 [70 Years/10]+22 [starting Age(1938)]= 32)

 

Supergirl 22 (2 [50 Years]+5 [50 Years/10]+15 [starting Age(1959)

 

Comments welcome.

[HawksmoorSD]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

Marvel uses the "sliding year scale" or something so that roughly every 4 years real time is a year of Marvel time. I looked up Spider-Man and he was first published in 1962. Since Spider-Man himself has stated hes been spinning webs since he was 16 you can figure hes almost 28 years old in Marvel time.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

All were born on Leap Years?

 

LOL

 

QM

[Certified]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

There is one possible exception to the magic of comic book aging and that is the magic man John Constantine:

 

(From the Wiki Article)

 

Constantine is unusual among comic book characters in that he has aged in real time since his creation. During the first year of his solo series, Constantine celebrated his 35th birthday. Five years later in 1993, he turned 40.

 

There have been no mentioned birthday celebrations since then, but nothing in the comics has stated a retcon of Constantine's age or the real time development of his comic. In fact, DC Vertigo published a timeline in their Rare Cuts TPB, which establishes birthdates of many characters. This is further supported by the use of dating in the comics themselves. For instance, "All His Engines" takes place at a specific date in 2004, and shows both Geraldine and Tricia Chandler as having aged roughly ten years since their first appearances in issue #84. It has since been calculated that John turned 55 on May 10th 2008.

 

I think he is there just to screw with all the other DC characters, that's why they had to kick him over to Vertigo. That and the content of Hellblazer's stories.

[Basil]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

While Wonder Woman has the excuse that she's an immortal, most comic book superheroes are still active despite being created during World War Two. Superman in fact just turned seventy. So when creating Champions versions of our favorite heroes I have a couple of suggestions on how to deal with their current age.

 

First, take the age they were when they started. I recently did a Batgirl write up, so I'll use her as an example. She was roughly 22 years of age, a college graduate and working as a librarian. This was in 1967, the year of her first appearance in the comic book, and on Batman. While Yvonne Craig also played her as being 22, she was actually 30.

 

That would mean that Batgirl would be 63 years old today. I'm ignoring all post-Crisis changes because I consider Barbara Gordon the one true Batgirl and believe that someday DC will come to it's senses and bring her back.

 

Clearly while someone could be active in their 60s, would anyone really want to see them in a skin tight costume. Believing the answer to be no, I will then suggest the following. Superheroes age one year for every ten, plus one year for every 25 years of their existance.

 

Here are a few examples of Comic Book Superheroes' Age under this system. I've rounded to the nearst whole number.

 

Batgirl 27 (1 [25 Years]+4 [40 Years/10]+22 [starting Age(1939)]=27)

 

Superman 32 (3 [75 Years]+7 [70 Years/10]+22 [starting Age(1938)]= 32)

 

Supergirl 22 (2 [50 Years]+5 [50 Years/10]+15 [starting Age(1959)

 

Comments welcome.

 

I've got a comment:

WHAAAAT?!??

 

Let's start with "Superheroes age one year for every ten, plus one year for every 25 years of their existance." One year for every ten what? Years, I assume, but years of what? Since "existance [sic]" has been specified in the other phrase, I could act base on the assumption that's ten years of something else, though I suspect not. Oh, and "existance [sic]" in what sense? Years passed within the game (excuse me, comic book) universe, or Real World years since the first comic book appearance?

 

How about this one; "Batgirl 27 (1 [25 Years]+4 [40 Years/10]+22 [starting Age(1939)]=27)". You said the first publication was in 1967, when the character was 22. Thus, she was supposedly born in 1945. Where, then, does 1939 come from? And, where's the "25 years" from? And how does it lead to "1" (OK, yes, 25/25 is one. But why isn't the division shown as in the next section?) And, why 40; if based on the time since the first publication, it would be much, much clearer to write "4 [41 Years/10]" and point out (at the beginning of the calculations) that you are rounding off.

 

Then there's "Superman 32 (3 [75 Years]+7 [70 Years/10]+22 [starting Age(1938)]= 32)". 75 years between when and when? If this is a reference to the 70 years the comic has existed then you should say "...(3 [70/25]..." and point out the rounding elsewhere (as I said above).

 

As for the last one (Supergirl); she was first published 49 years ago, not 50. Again, do the math and round it off.

 

Basically, you're figuring what the result should be---after rounding---and then multiplying the (rounded off) result by the divisor. Thus, 49 becomes 50, 41 becomes 40, 70 becomes 75, etc. This is going to confuse the **** out of the less mathematically agile, and serves no purpose. And even there you seem to have made an error: 41 divided by 25 is 1.64, rounds to 2, times 25 is 50.

 

Of course, the whole "divide X by 10, and by 25, and add" business is unnecessary:

X/10 + X/25 = 5X/50 + 2X/50 = 7X/50 = 14X/100 = 0.14X

So just multiply the number of years since the first appearance and add to the age at first appearance and then round off, (IF "existance [sic]" refers to the comic book AND the "...for every ten..." and "...every 25 years..." refer to the duration of the same thing.)

 

Since 0.14 is so close to 1/7, you could just divide by 7 and round off. Which means comic book supes age in dog years. :rofl:

[Comic]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I follow the generic "one week per issue, backdated from the date of the last issue."

 

So at issue #520, a superhero has seen a decade pass since their original appearance; specifically, the most recent decade.

 

All those inconvenient references to things that were current 40 years ago, therefore, are .. nostalgic decorations, out-of-date fashions, flashbacks, any-explanation-that-will fly or just gosh darn inaccuracies.

[Clonus]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I don't see the point. If I want a Batgirl in her twenties right now, then I'll set the start of her career about 8 years ago. If I want a Batgirl who started her career in the sixties then I'd have her looking like the Babs from Batman Beyond. There's no reason why she'd have in game retarded aging just because she wore the tights. Besides, the supporting cast age just as oddly as the primaries. Although I did once do a compressed Marvel timeline where the current era is in the 70s, but they have early 21st century technology thanks to the gadgeteers. I did some strange things with the sequence of presidents. A lot of two termers ended up with only one term and I think I skipped Carter and Bush Sr entirely.

[Karmakaze]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I can't recall the name of it, but DC did an Elseworlds where they left in "realtime" aging. They started most of the DC characters with their original publications dates and then ran along with the characters aging, retiring, being replaced by children or protegees, up to a little past present day. It mostly centered around the Batman and Superman dynasties, so I'd bet it's under Worlds Finest somehow.

[Kid Jurassic]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

All the original heroes were on Earth 2 (DC) weren't they?

 

my brain hurts

[Kenn]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I think it's interesting, but a variety of aspects make it unwieldy.

 

1) As Basil said, the equation is clumsy, and could be simplified to a single multiplication.

 

2) The interval of 0.14 years per year is too small, in my own opinion. I remember some 15 years ago when DC started doing timelines that started Superman's career "10 years ago". In the early 2000s, they were saying "12 years ago." There's room for debate. Personally, I think 0.2 years per year works better, but that's just me.

 

3) What do we do with characters that age semi-realistically (Jay Garrick, Alan Scott, etc.)? We'll have to exclude them.

 

4) How do we know a character's age at the beginning of their career? For example, I always thought in the early Batgirl stories, as originally published (i.e. before DC started trying to make things "fit") that Babs was at least 24. Why? Because she was a professional librarian, and knowing quite a few of those in real life, I know that it is a position that requires a Master's degree, hence an extra 2 years of school. But heroes who were established professionals when we first see them, like Barry Allen, Ray Palmer, and Hal Jordan, are very difficult to get ages for them even then.

 

Now, there are some fun exercises in all of this. Like explaining how come characters like Dick Grayson and Billy Batson who both seemed to be about 12 or 13 in 1940 could be so disparate in age now.

 

If Dick Grayson went off to Hudson University it would have been after nearly 6 years of adventuring (related to us in 1969, using my 0.2 years/year). His dropping out (established circa 1980) would have occurred just over 2 years later. Since he was still presumably a teen (since he was leading the New Teen Titans) then, I'll assume he started his Robin career at 11, and graduated high school early. He'd be 20 when he first became Nightwing. He'd be 24, nearly 25 today.

 

Billy Batson, I'm going to have to assume was just tall for his age in 1940. Billy being Captain Marvel for nearly 14 years (68 * 0.2 = 13.6) doesn't really work. Now, there are the 20 years between 1953 and 1973 when Billy didn't age at all. (Comics said he and his family and friends were trapped in Suspendium.) So we can knock 4 (20 * 0.2) years off there. That's still nearly a decade. If he wasn't 12 in 1940, just a tall and reasonably mature 8 year old, then him still being 17 today almost works.

 

How old was Wally West when he became Kid Flash? He looked kind of young. His debut was in 1959, 49 years ago. Or 9.8 comic years ago. We know he's close in age to Dick Grayson. However, his high school graduation wasn't shown until 1977 or '78, and he was still new to college in 1980. Using the 0.2 rule, this puts him finishing high school two comic years after Dick Grayson. Since I already concluded Dick finished high school a year early, this would make Wally a year his junior. This works out that Wally must have been 13 when he became Kid Flash and nearly 19 when he became the Flash. He's 23 today.

 

Roy Harper became Speedy shortly after Dick became Robin. He was still in his late teens when he developed his drug problem. He was a very young DEA agent. But mostly, I'm going to assume Roy and Dick are the same age. (After all Speedy was just robin with a bow and arrow, right?)

 

This is fun. If Bruce Wayne became Batman at 25, he'd be nearly 39 today. I can accept that. Clark Kent was 22 or 23 when he started working at the Daily Planet. So he'd be 36 or 37. (Lois Lane must be a few years older than him, or got her journalism degree faster.) Princess Diana, there's no way of knowing her age when Steve Trevor crashed near Paradise Island. I'd guess she was 19, and make her about 32 today (not that it matters.)

 

Black Canary is an odd one. She first appeared in 1947, so the 0.2 rule would make her adventuring career about 12 years. And she was fairly young, having just been turned down from the police academy, when she began. So she was only 18 or 19, which would make her 30 or 31 today. HOWEVER, all of this ignores the whole retcon that said from 1947-1969 it was one Black Canary, and from 1969 on it was her daughter. Using that, the younger Dinah's career would only be 7.8 years. And make her only 26 or so. Just a shade older than Ollie's ward...??? I think we'd best use the calculation minus the retcon, and relegate the "older Dinah" to the same category as Jay and Alan.

 

I think since Barry, Hal and Ray were shown to be contemporaries of Bruce and Clark, but began than adventuring careers 15-20+ years (real time later) I think that we can probably say that they're about the same age, but the 3 or 4 "comic year" difference in when they started just means they were older when they began. Which would handle the fact that they were established in their careers already when they debuted.

 

Peter Parker was 16 in 1962 right? So, using the 0.2 year rule, it would make him now 25. Which is slightly less than the 28 that Hawkmoor mentioned, but not by much. It does fit the "9 years ago" that I've seen marvel use though.

 

Barbara Gordon, as I said, I think didn't start until she was 24. And that would have been 8 years ago using the 0.2 rule. So she'd be 32 now. Since she's clearly younger than that today, we probably should include the retcons that said she finished high school and college early.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I can't recall the name of it' date=' but DC did an Elseworlds where they left in "realtime" aging. They started most of the DC characters with their original publications dates and then ran along with the characters aging, retiring, being replaced by children or protegees, up to a little past present day. It mostly centered around the Batman and Superman dynasties, so I'd bet it's under Worlds Finest somehow.[/quote']This was called Superman & Batman: Generations, written and illustrated by John Byrne. There have been three limited series under the title to date. Oh, and a few of the chapters (most of them in the third series) take place in the more distant future.

All the original heroes were on Earth 2 (DC) weren't they?

Funny that it took so long for anyone to remember this. The Superman we see now isn't the Golden Age Superman of the old Earth-Two, nor the Silver/Bronze Age Superman of the old Earth-One. The Superman we see now got his start in the post-Crisis period (or, I think, shortly before the Crisis on Infinite Earths). This Batman appeared at roughly the same time.

 

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, I think the main Marvel Universe has switched to a regular 1:1 time scale since the start of the millennium -- though I could be misinformed about that. Otherwise the 4:1 rate Hawksmoor cited is correct (though I think it was 2:1 for a while; at least, that's how I remember Kitty Pride aging from 13-16).

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I can't recall the name of it' date=' but DC did an Elseworlds where they left in "realtime" aging. They started most of the DC characters with their original publications dates and then ran along with the characters aging, retiring, being replaced by children or protegees, up to a little past present day. It mostly centered around the Batman and Superman dynasties, so I'd bet it's under Worlds Finest somehow.[/quote']

 

 

That was "Generations" by John Byrne

 

 

Opps just a little too late

[DusterBoy]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I have much simpler explanations for why superheroes don't age in real time:

 

The stories require the characters to be the ages they are depicted as being.

 

And I reckon Superman probably is immortal, although he'd age normally away from a yellow sun.

 

I did a little figuring once. Given a start date of 1963 and giving a base age of sixteen for Scott, Jean, Bobby and Hank that gives a common birth date of 1947.

 

Which means that the original X-Men would now all be 61.

 

Given that Erik Lensherr was fourteen when he was taken to Auschwitz in 1944, that gives us a birthdate of 1930 - and a current age of 78, nine years older than Sir Ian McKellen. A little old to be powering about in that natty purple outfit he wears.

 

And aren't Erik and Charles meant to be close to the same age? Xavier did fight in the Korean War, after all.

 

Mystique's powers mean that she ages more slowly than other people, but I think she's older than Magneto, given that she was active as a adult in the thirties as a detective named D Raven.

 

Personally, I think it would be interesting to have a one-shot story which deals with the X-Men being the ages they are, dealing with the loss of Professor Xavier and his funeral after a long and dedicated struggle for "mutant" rights and equality. No powers, no fights, just a quiet little story dealing with everyone's reactions. I envision Erik being there too, to say goodbye to an old friend.

 

But that could be just me.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I did a little figuring once. Given a start date of 1963 and giving a base age of sixteen for Scott, Jean, Bobby and Hank that gives a common birth date of 1947.

 

Which means that the original X-Men would now all be 61.

 

Given that Erik Lensherr was fourteen when he was taken to Auschwitz in 1944, that gives us a birthdate of 1930 - and a current age of 78, nine years older than Sir Ian McKellen. A little old to be powering about in that natty purple outfit he wears.

 

And aren't Erik and Charles meant to be close to the same age? Xavier did fight in the Korean War, after all.

 

Mystique's powers mean that she ages more slowly than other people, but I think she's older than Magneto, given that she was active as a adult in the thirties as a detective named D Raven.

 

Personally, I think it would be interesting to have a one-shot story which deals with the X-Men being the ages they are, dealing with the loss of Professor Xavier and his funeral after a long and dedicated struggle for "mutant" rights and equality. No powers, no fights, just a quiet little story dealing with everyone's reactions. I envision Erik being there too, to say goodbye to an old friend.

 

That's pretty much the whole idea behind the Marvel Bunnyverse, and that's pretty much the base description of the X-Men: The Next Generation game.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I remember reading a She-Hulk comic where this very issue comes up. It turns out that you don't age as long as you have your own comic. She-hulk ran into a couple of characters who used to costumed adventurers back in the '50s, but had gotten married, settled down, and stopped adventuring and therefore no longer had their own comic. They had been aging normally since that point and were now old.

 

Of course, this was the same issue where She-Hulk's underwear was indestructible because it was protected by the Comics Code Authority.

[Greywind]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

Given that Erik Lensherr was fourteen when he was taken to Auschwitz in 1944, that gives us a birthdate of 1930 - and a current age of 78, nine years older than Sir Ian McKellen. A little old to be powering about in that natty purple outfit he wears.

Magneto was de-aged in one story. His final age was considered to be thirty-ish. This was a point his defense made during his trial before the world court. The story occurred before he assumed leadership of the X-Men at Xavier's urging. Roughly around issue 200.

[Cassandra]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

Good comments everyone. I had no idea this would cause such a wide variety of opinions.

 

As for the characters in my universe, since it's been established that superhumans have been around for thousands of years, most people don't notice seventy year olds you look thirty five, or live to two hundred.

 

My universe operates under the "It just does" principle.

[OddHat]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

It's a matter of taste.

 

In my own homage-filled universe, some Supers age normally, but Slow Aging and (effective) Immortality are pretty common in the genes of Supers.

 

My Supergirl/Powergirl Homage is in her early 60s, but still looks about 20.

 

My Batgirl Homage retired in the late 60s, and is aging normally. Her successor retired in the early 80s.

 

My Superman Homage vanished in the 80s, but looked pretty much as he had since his first known public appearances in the 1930s.

 

I'm not dissing people who want to make the effort to simulate Comic Book Aging; I just prefer letting homage characters age, marry, have kids, retire, and pass on.

[Cassandra]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I originally intended to do that with my characters, Oddhat, but I feel the same way that the creators of mainstream comics feel about their characters, and never want them to go away.

 

Except DC with it's superheroines who I think treats them all rather badly.

[Wanderer]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I prefer to let setting time flow like real time, but to assume, whenever SFX makes it barely believable, that superpowers grant effective immortality. The innate powers of mutants and mutates activate the genes of the immortality complex. Sorcerers and martial arts masters do know spells and meditation regimens that stop aging. Scientific geniouses have perfected longevity pills. And so on.

[assault]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

Personally, I'm inclined to relatively short timelines, so my characters are rarely more than a decade or so older than they were when they started.

 

Even that tends to break down when PCs are involved. I rarely mix PCs and complex NPC filled backstories. When PCs exist, they are the stars. When they are absent, I'm writing fiction for my own amusement. These things are different, and tend to get in each other's way.

[wrestlinggeek]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I have long wanted to run a game set in a combined DC/Marvel Universe where all the (major) heroes first appeared in the same year as they debuted in real life, and aged in real time. This would give us multiple generations of supers, people retiring and passing on their mantles, and even certain superhero families merging (for some reason, I've long thought it would be cool to have Peter Parker's daughter marry Bruce Wayne's grandson. Don't ask me why). Of course, some heroes like Superman, Thor, and Wonder Woman don't age. And others age more slowly (Namor and Aquaman are Atlantean hybrids, Captain America has the Super-Soldier, etc.). And some are just really weird (Bruce Banner and Billy Batson age normally, The Hulk and Captain Marvel do not). And, of course, the game would be set in the modern day, with the PCs as decendants/successors of the original heroes. Players would have to give a general back-story from the character's first appearance to now, with any major overlap being agreed on by both players, and I as the GM being able to use anybody the players don't.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

In my campaigns we have time pass normally and characters age but there are a zillion age dodges. In both my supers and SF campaigns some form of anagathic treatments is very common and many mutants/supers etc have retarded aging. Some characters do retire and have their kids or students carry on though

My campaigns tend to last a very very long time and easily decades , sometimes centuries pass in game.

[OddHat]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

I have long wanted to run a game set in a combined DC/Marvel Universe where all the (major) heroes first appeared in the same year as they debuted in real life' date=' and aged in real time. This would give us multiple generations of supers, people retiring and passing on their mantles, and even certain superhero families merging (for some reason, I've long thought it would be cool to have Peter Parker's daughter marry Bruce Wayne's grandson. Don't ask me why). Of course, some heroes like Superman, Thor, and Wonder Woman don't age. And others age more slowly (Namor and Aquaman are Atlantean hybrids, Captain America has the Super-Soldier, etc.). And some are just really weird (Bruce Banner and Billy Batson age normally, The Hulk and Captain Marvel do not). And, of course, the game would be set in the modern day, with the PCs as decendants/successors of the original heroes. Players would have to give a general back-story from the character's first appearance to now, with any major overlap being agreed on by both players, and I as the GM being able to use anybody the players don't.[/quote']

 

I run a campaign like that. The timeline is here. So far, it has worked out well.

 

[/url]

[DusterBoy]

Re: Superhero Aging

 

Of course, quantity of life doesn't matter as much as quality of life. There's no point having a vastly extended lifespan if your active years are not also significantly increased. Otherwise, you wind up like Bilbo after he'd had the ring for so long: "I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean, like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right."

 

I happen to believe that our mortality, and our recognition of it, is a fundamental part of what makes us human. Life is to be seized because it is so brief.

 

Sgt Taura, in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is a transgenic wolf-human super-soldier. The people who created her thought that a short life would be more readily sacrificed so she ages more quickly than anyone else. However, that has translated into her living her life as a smash and grab. "Every day is a gift. Me, I rip open the package and wolf it down on the spot."

 

I only wish I had the bottle to do the same.