Reconstructing the Silver/Bronze Age

[massey]

Okay, so I've been kicking around this idea for a long time.  I'm not sure that I'll be able to accurately describe what I'm trying to do, but here goes.  I would like to get the board's thoughts on constructing a more realistic take on the Silver/Bronze Age of comics.  It's basically the opposite of an Alan Moore Watchmen/Miracleman deconstruction of the genre.  I'm looking for a reconstruction of classic comics of the 1960s through 1980s.  What sorts of things in the universe could explain why things happen the way they do in those old comic books, in a somewhat plausible fashion?

 

Let me explain.

 

In the early 1980s, esteemed writer/black wizard/Rasputin impersonator Alan Moore wrote several comic books that took classic characters and turned them on their head.  It was a "this is what would really happen if superpowers existed" view of the medium.  Villains didn't give grandiose speeches about how their evil plan would work -- not until after the plan was done.  "I did it 45 minutes ago," says the mastermind.  Villains with superpowers went on mass killing sprees, murdering tens of thousands of people when the heroes were out of town for the day.  Superhuman combat resulted in Man of Steel-level devastation.  He tackled topics of gruesome murder, rape, child abuse, adultery, and probably any other controversial subject you could dream of.

 

His stories were a huge success, and spawned legions of bad imitators.  This led us to the present "Iron Age" of comic books.  Writers mock the genre and stray far from the conventions of the original titles.  Graphic violence is the norm and the boundaries of good taste have been long ago left behind.  This culminates with Wanted, where the last page features the main character breaking the fourth wall and screaming about sodomizing the reader.  Thank you, Mark Millar.   

 

At this point, the Iron Age is no more "realistic" than the most idealistic and child-friendly comics from the '60s.  The world is always a crapsack place.  Heroes never actually save anyone, they just engage in superpowered slaughter and exchange snarky comments with each other.  It's a world where everything has gone wrong.  It's just as much a stylized fantasy piece, reliant on its own genre conventions, as the BIFF BAM POW era of Batman.

 

 

 

Sorry, got on my Iron Age rant there for a bit.

 

 

 

Anyway, I don't like the Iron Age at all.  The gritty ultra-violent stuff goes against everything I want to see in a comic, or in a game.  Unfortunately, too much of that has seeped into even mainstream comics.  This has basically led to me not enjoying anything that has been published in the last 10 years.  So what I'm looking to do is to set up a game world that functions in a classic Silver/Bronze age way, and have good in-universe justifications for why things happen the way they do.

 

-Characters can maintain secret identities

-They can have secret hideouts that aren't discovered by the government

-Villains can create advanced tech, but they use it to rob banks instead of patenting it

-Heroes and villains wear bright costumes

-Supers aren't drafted into the military

-Heroes follow a code of conduct, and generally don't kill or use guns

-Villains don't go on mass murdering sprees

-There are plenty of natural disasters/building fires/accidents for heroes to stop

-These things are accepted by the population as at least somewhat "normal"

-Villains plot to take over the world or get rich, not to run a child abuse ring

 

So... what sort of things would be necessary in the real world to create a plausible explanation for the above?  When a player says "why do people wear costumes?" or "why doesn't the villain patent his ice gun?" I want to have an explanation.

 

Thoughts?

[Hyper-Man]

I think there are a couple of issues going on here.

 

One is the idea that comic book universes are not too much different than the real world other than having individuals with superpowers.  The other is the long standing convention that the continued existence of superpowered individuals will not significantly change the world which is essentially a static-state without good explaination. Comparing Marvel and DC from that perspective explains a lot of the differences between those 2 universes.  SHIELD goes back to WWII and the original adventures of Captain America.  DC's primary world (what used to be referred to as Earth 1) has always used more of a sliding scale with Superman being the 1st modern superhero.  The first Crisis on Infinite Earths attempted to address this and other related issues but the powers that be have been unable to resist the allure that is the boost in sales from cross-over event stories.  Now rumor has it that even Marvel is having their own Crisis-like event of a sorts. 

[massey]

My original post was pretty confusing, I think.  Here's what I've been thinking of so far.  Maybe this will help clear things up:

 

 

 

Gadgets

 

Physics here is a little different

--Not just regarding powers, but inventions like a freeze ray or something are easier to build than they would be in the real world.  It is not that hard for a disgruntled genius to build a ray gun.

 

Lots of people probably send in crazy patent ideas

--Just like in the real world with perpetual motion machines, the stuffy patent office generally refuses to even look at "super" technologies, rejecting them out of hand.

 

It's hard to mass produce them

--These objects are finicky, and require personalized attention to make them work.  Plus if a company try to mass-produce them, the inventor tends to show up and shoot you with his freeze ray.

 

 

 

Supers as a stabilizer

 

Heroes protect the status quo

--Superman saving everyone in Metropolis has led to relatively lax fire codes.  Batman regularly stopping criminals has led to fewer advances in police investigative techniques.

 

Lack of disasters means a slowing of certain societal changes

--The 1972 Munich Massacre, DB Cooper's hijacking of an airline, the North Hollywood Shootout, 9/11, and other disasters all resulted in changes to the way the government responds to crises.  If superheroes stop them from occurring, there is little impetus to make major changes.  If Superman stops the 9/11 hijackers 10 minutes into the event, and then catches Osama bin Laden later that day, everyone forgets about it a week later.

 

 

Super-behavior

 

The first heroes were very trustworthy

--The first supers to appear were true blue, all-American types.  Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America type heroes created a huge amount of public goodwill.  Since these first heroes were the most prominent, the public and the government tend to trust them.

 

Wearing a costume is like a badge

--Newer heroes find that putting on a bright, colorful outfit make more people trust them by default.  Interactions with the police go easier, the mayor listens to you, etc.  It is almost socially expected that heroes will dress that way.

 

Secret identities

--Most heroes don't want to be on call all the time, and so maintain secret IDs.  Unless they are routinely breaking the law, police tend not to investigate "who they really are".  Most members of the public are not Lois Lane, and do not care who Amazing Man is in his private life.  Secret IDs are thus not that hard to keep.

 

Crazy people are different

--People with serious mental health issues are more likely to act like Two-Face or the Riddler.  Multiple personalities may be present.  Real life diseases such as schizophrenia are not present -- the name may be there, but it manifests far differently than the real world disease does.

 

 

Does any of that make sense?  I'm trying to justify a Silver Age type setting with some real world explanations.

[Hyper-Man]

I think its a great idea.  Reminds me somewhat of the idea behind the Wold Newton Universe*.

 

*http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Pulp.htm

[Lunatic Fringer]

Hmmm. Nitpicker alert (you have been warned).

 

The 1972 attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games wasn't really a disaster.  It was an act of terrorism.  Acts of terrorism would be thwarted by superheroes and super agents of the governments involved.  There are contingency plans in place, when a situation that matches the skills and assets arise.  A Silver Age scenario of this sort would be fundamentally different because whoever is engaging in the act of taking hostages is not actually interested in hurting or killing the victims, but rather, wants a crack at our heroes or wants them to look ineffectual or foolish or both.  A Bronze Age take would have the victims actually be in danger (and one or more of them would always be somebody both the hero and the audience care about), but not to the point where the villain(s) are actually inflicting harm or threatening something gruesome like carving out somebody's eyeballs, etc.  And any harm inflicted on the victims would not be of a permanent nature.

 

Examples of said scenario:

 

Silver Age - Superfriends [1973] - The hostages are held to keep them from running to the authorities or our heroes with details of the villain's plans.  In many cases, the villains actually reveal much about what their motives to the hostages while waiting for the hero to fall into their clever trap or play some wild goose chase game before the heroes thwart their plans.

 

Bronze Age - Batman: TAS - The hostages are menaced to some degree in such a way that the hero is forced to watch (usually via television or other means). The villain gloats, taunts and otherwise goads the hero into doing things he or she would not ordinarily do. The hero plays along while figuring out the location of the hostages and how to free them.  The villain then either springs his/her trap on the hero or fights him directly (hoping that the distractions and the heroes emotions will lead to him making a critical mistake).

 

Iron Age - Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The terrorists have no compunction about harming the hostages, hurtiing/maiming/killing a few to show that they mean business.  They have demands and a timeline that must be met or they will harm more hostages.  The heroes generally know where the villain are and must use tactics, gadgets and surprise to get the jump on the terrorists.

 

Real World - The terrorists know they are either on a suicide mission (to provoke fear since people who are willing to die for the cause are always very scary) or are prepared to be captured and make a big scene at their trial (to maximize media exposure of the group and its causes).  There are no heroes, no super powers and no genre conventions to follow.  The terrorists kill their hostages unless they can be convinced that the powers they are trying oppose have truly conceded to their demands.  Special agents of law enforcement or the military make a tactical strike to attempt a rescue - sometimes it works, but more often it isn't entirely successful with casualties all the way around.

 

We play superhero games because we want to be heroes with powers beyond human-ken, because we want to believe that good really does triumph over evil every time, and we want to escape the mundane existence we are forced to endure everyday (if only for a little while).  To that end, we suspend our disbelief in how this wonderful comic book world came to be and enjoy the fact that there is a place (if only in our imaginations) where it can all be true and share that love of a higher, more exciting ideal with those people who share our enthusiasm for the genre.  Explanations of the clockwork that makes a superhero universe tick are fun explorations of meta-genre, but not truly necessary for those of us who love the tropes, cliches and paradoxes of such places.

 

So yeah, if your players need these sorts of justifications to make the universe "real" for them, maybe they aren't into the genre like you are.  I run into that a lot when I'm behind the screen, since most of my players are somewhat younger than me and grew up with Iron Age comics.  There are some people that are all about the mission and not about the genre, and there are others who wallow in the genre and forget about the mission.  As a GM, you have to play to your audience somewhat.  But, you can always just talk with the players as say "Here's the way this universe works and here are some of the ground rules you'll have to abide by."  If they don't want to play in that world, it will become obvious in a hurry.  And nothing you can do will make them want to keep playing.  In which case, a lot of effort gets wasted and leaves you frustrated.

 

I know.  I've been there many times, unfortunately.

 

LF

[Lunatic Fringer]

Going on with your original topic...

 

I offered the explanation that superheroes actually drive "standard" crime rates down, even if supercrime activity goes up when they're around.  The overall cost of property and personal claims to insurance go down, reducing costs for cities and their residents.  Also, tourist revenue goes up in cities with superheroes.  Plus, corporations love associating with cities that have superheroes, since the city gets many more mentions nationally and internationally.  So, costumed and instantly recognizable superheroes (particularly if they're effective) have become part of the landscape.

 

Superheroes don't have many problems with the law because several legal cases in the past have favored heroes.  There are laws that require insurance companies to cover damages from superhero and supervillain activities (except in those cases where criminal negligence and/or excessive force is blatantly evident).  Heroes are allowed to fight crime, but only to thwart a criminal act in progress or prevent acts that could potentially cause loss of life, great amounts of damage or seriously disrupt everyday life.  Heroes who do investigations or obtain evidence on criminal cases are required to bring their finding to agencies of law enforcement.  Heroes may not preemptively punish suspected criminals based on any powers they possess, though they can apprehend fugitives.

 

Superheroes (and supervillains) wear very distinctive costumes, often copyrighting and trade-marking them to prevent unauthorized use by private parties.  (There are several private legal firms who do this to protect the identities of their clients.)  The legal system in general isn't the shark tank of opportunists we see in our own world.  Lawyers are more highly regarded as supporters of legal and moral standards exemplified by the costumed heroes.  With such paragons as role models, the entire world emulates the higher moral standards.  (This last is how the heroes change their world - by changing attitudes and setting examples that others truly wish to follow.)

 

In the real world, people laugh at the misfortunes of others and whip out their celphone cameras so they can post the other person's woes on the internet.  In a Silver-Age setting, people would drop what they were doing and try to help the others out of their predicament while offering sympathy or a heart-felt admonishment to be more careful.

 

So that's the heart of it.  In the Silver Age, the world is a better place because of the heroes.  In the Iron Age, nobody cares.

 

LF

[Lord Liaden]

In the Silver Age, and into the Bronze, there was clarity between "good" and "evil." While in the Bronze Age some grey often did creep in, for the most part it was clear who were the heroes and who were the villains. The biggest heroes were not the ones with the biggest guns who blew away the most "bad guys." They consciously tried to be better than the villains they fought, to hold themselves to a higher standard. They captured villains whenever possible, and turned them over to the legal system. And that system, and the government behind it -- while sometimes harboring corrupt "rogue elements" -- was by and large portrayed as just and responsible, worth supporting.

[IndianaJoe3]

I played around with some of these ideas about a year ago. I was aiming for a Bronze Age feel, but most of these ideas work just as well for Silver Age.

• Comic history started in the 1930s, but actual super powers were a relatively recent phenomenon (mid-90s). People had role models to follow.
• Because super powers were a recent development, they are not well understood and are hard to duplicate.
• It was a very low-powered game (225/50, although if I restarted it I might go to 300/60). This was enough to let the heroes and villains stand up to conventional civilian weaponry, but only the most powerful could stand up to the military. This gave them incentive to fly under the radar.

[assault]

The first thing: time and numbers.

 

When did the first supers appear?

How many supers are there? (Outside hidden lands, alien races, etc)

 

One possibility that could help in some ways: super-science has had the effect of retarding technological advancement. Science isn't as much of a collective activity as in our world, and instead relies on often eccentric and reclusive individuals. Basically, the alchemists are still in charge. Individual creations can be extraordinary, but overall technological advancement has languished.

 

Thus, for example, DNA testing isn't routinely used to solve crimes. Instead, it tends to be used to create monsters.

 

Making it easier to maintain a secret identity...

 

Honestly, though, I'd just go with a supers are rare and only relatively recently appeared. The tropes were adopted for reasons that made sense to them at the time.

 

Pick your supers carefully too: nobody is going to realise that the World's Mightiest Mortal is 'really' just a kid, especially if that magic lighting tends to knock out security cameras...

[massey]

I'm thinking supers probably appeared back in the 1960s (ala Earth 1 DC), but they've been somewhat rare over the decades.  A lot of villains may have been of the "touches weird glowing rock, gets powers for a few months" variety.  The present day has seen a population swell, with more heroes appearing than before.  This allows for a lengthy superhuman history without having the heroes fight the same 3 villains over and over again.

 

I have also thought about the "supertech retards scientific progress" angle.  I'm thinking that the smartest minds have been working on the weird stuff that generally can't be reproduced.  Int 35 Reed Richards may be able to invent a time machine, but in the real world Int 23 Reed would have spent his time at NASA working on the Apollo program.  Without guys like that working on projects the rest of us can understand, normal tech advanced more slowly.  I think military tech lags behind too.  There's little impetus for the Cold War arms race when guys like Superman are around.  The US government is comfortable with their native supers, and the Soviets likely embarked upon a series of supersoldier programs instead of a conventional arms buildup.  So we're looking at Vietnam era miltech today.

 

I like the idea that superheroes really enforce the status quo.  It's the "Must There Be A Superman" issue.  If Firestorm can transmute 10 years worth of smog above L.A. in an afternoon, why have better emissions standards?  The world itself is a nicer, safer place to live.  There's less crime, less disease, people are generally nicer, etc.  But a lot of that comes down to the actions of the heroes.  It would be a pretty old fashioned world.

 

I kind of want a Bronzey-Silver, or Silvery-Bronze.  Bad things do happen -- robbery, rape, and murder haven't gone away.  Racism would still exist to a degree.  But the game certainly wouldn't dwell on it, and the problems are less common and less severe than they are in the real world.

[csyphrett]

I think some of your ideas are covered in Astro City, Mass. Villains don't patent their weapons because they are always trying to get rich off one more score. They tend to be professional which limits what they do. Costumes are to protect identities and act as armor. Unprofessional villains are not wanted.

CES 

[megaplayboy]

--A secret agreement exists between major villains and heroes, ala the bylaws of the Guild of Calamitous Intent in Venture Bros. It basically puts a "cap" on tactics and retaliatory escalation, because some supers with foresight could see how catastrophic and costly that would become. Supervillains don't tend to get too deeply involved in organized crime for the reason that the level of violence required tends to violate this code.

--Some of the super-technology is derived from alien technology, and the governments of the world are reluctant to openly license it because they would have to acknowledge the existence of aliens, which might throw society into chaos/panic.

--The internet doesn't exist yet, so it's easier to maintain a secret identity. There's also a "gentlemen's understanding" between heroes and the media that they won't work too hard to expose a hero's identity, provided they continue to get inside scoops on super-doings.

--There just aren't enough superhumans to create large military units of battalion strength or greater, and at the same time the fear of a runaway super-soldier program or super-arms race has led to treaties between major powers either strictly banning supers or limiting the number in military service to no more than a dozen or three.

--The civilian population has become accustomed to masked adventurers since the 1920s, and to superhumans since the late 1930s, and takes many of these "miracle men(and women)" in stride. They are vaguely aware that supers have saved the city/nation/planet from destruction several times, but this awareness has almost always been after the fact, limiting panic and fear.

[DShomshak]

Hm. From the first post, I thought the desire was for quasi-"real world" excuses for how Silver/Bronze Age tropes could arise. But it seems to be more assuming those tropes by fiat, and speculating what effects they would then have.

 

I, however, will stick by my original reading.

 

Colorful Costumes: Dazzle camouflage. Decades back, an experiment was made to paint battleships with bright geometrical op-art designs. The usual goal of camouflage is to blend into the background -- but the paint broke up the ship's outline and made it hard to tell their speed and direction. One admiral declared it the best camouflage he'd ever seen.

 

Bright, multicolored costumes have the same effect. Fluttery capes further distract the eye. Even if they don't make a hero or villain harder to hit, they distract people from details of appearance that could reveal a true identity. Who pays attention to the shape of someone's jawline when they're looking a the big logo on the chest?

 

Why don't villains go on mad murderous rampages when they realize the heroes are out of town? Well as Massey points out, the Iron Age of maximum depravity is as artificial as any Silver Age worldview. People who exploit their super-powers through crime do not *have* to revel in pointless bloodshed. They may indeed be shocked by people who do. I've heard that IRL, sex offenders who prey on children tend to die in prison. Even hardened killers can have things they just won't allow.

 

So when some super-powered psycho goes on a rampage, or gets his jollies killing kids and eating their hearts, he'd better pray the heroes find him first. As in Fritz Lang's classic thriller M, the city's professionals might hunt him too -- if only because they don't like the extra heat the manhunt brings on the entire criminal community. The mad schemer is tasked to prove he's smarter than the cops and the heroes by finding the monster first; the petty street criminals feed reports through the gang leaders; and if they find the rampaging pervo killer, the hit men converge on him to take him down... permanently.

 

The corollary is that if the cops realize what's going on, they might not try too hard to capture the villains involved. The long-term result might be a kind of Darwinnowing in which the criminals who stick to a code and don't harm civilians too much live longer than those who are truly vile.

 

In an age that has seen mere mortals commit crazed massacres and fanatical terrorism, a villain who merely robs art museums and society parties might seem rather endearing. It's only crime, after all.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lucius]

"Darwinnowing??"

 

That's a brilliant neologism if you coined it yourself.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary declares it a darwinner

[assault]

OK, following Dean's post, I'll have another go.

 

-Characters can maintain secret identities

Depends on the character. Secret identities aren't impossible in the Real World. More care needs to be taken, but that's about it.

 

-They can have secret hideouts that aren't discovered by the government

Nothing implausible about this.

 

-Villains can create advanced tech, but they use it to rob banks instead of patenting it

Villains who can create advanced tech have something about them that makes them villains.

 

A lot of them don't so much create advanced tech as steal it. Or, they use tech that other people claim to own. In other cases their research is unethical or just plain illegal. Some of the most advanced tech comes from alien sources (but you shouldn't tell your players that, at least at first). Sometimes they are just nuts. And some patent most of their technology.

 

A lot of the most serious mastermind villains wear suits, not spandex.

 

-Heroes and villains wear bright costumes

Fashion. Founder effect. Whatever.

 

-Supers aren't drafted into the military

Supers are rare and unpredictable. While there are government (not just military) supers, they aren't the majority or the most powerful. The most powerful ones say "no thanks".

 

-Heroes follow a code of conduct, and generally don't kill or use guns

The ones who don't do this tend to get squeezed out by those who do.

 

-Villains don't go on mass murdering sprees

Actually they do, but only once.

 

-There are plenty of natural disasters/building fires/accidents for heroes to stop

It's a dangerous world. These things happen in our world. It's mainly a case of being able to get to them in time - and our heroes usually have super-movement abilities.

 

-These things are accepted by the population as at least somewhat "normal"

People get used to stuff.

 

-Villains plot to take over the world or get rich, not to run a child abuse ring

Villains have the power to take over the world or get rich. This tends to encourage ambition, and/or megalomania. Petty criminals with powers are basically just petty criminals.

[assault]

Another thing to do: don't have too many active superbeings.

 

There aren't a thousand superbeings each in China and India.

 

Why? Because.

 

Early alien contact was mainly with the US, and subsequent contact tends to continue that pattern.

 

The US still tends to have an overall edge in super-technology, except when it doesn't.

 

Magic tends to exist in a closed off world of its own, which is mostly self-regulating.

 

Mutant populations tend to exist in clusters, not evenly distributed around the world, and not even necessarily where you would expect them to be.

 

Etc.

[assault]

Many early heroes and villains are aliens, from strange cultures, other dimensions or whatever. They don't dress according to Earth norms.

 

Others dress in more or less normal clothing (eg Lex Luthor (scientist/billionaire), the Joker (suits, although with a disfigured face), Solomon Grundy(!)...)

 

Once some of the heroes start dressing as bats etc, a theme villain fad emerges. After a while it becomes relatively "normal" for criminals to start developing a gimmick.

 

Setbacks to organised crime mean that small gangs of bank robbers and the like become more prominent, often organised around themed criminals. Mundane criminals still exist, of course, and actually provide the bread and butter for costumed crimefighters. The themed ones draw the most attention - see the Public Enemies of the 1930s US.

 

Targeting the rich draws particular attention. Little drug/prostitution/gambling busts are barely noticed.

 

Theme villains tend to be attention seekers.

[Cassandra]

"What is real, and it that necessarily a good thing?"  Raquel Welch in "Myra Breckinridge"

 

"Realism" is a relative term in fiction.  The Golden Age are more violent then the Silver Age, but the morality was clear.  The heroes were always on the side of good, and obeyed a heroic code of conduct.  The Silver Age had more fantastic stories, and the heroes were still good, but it was far less violent.  The Bronze Age had heroes face situations that pushed their code of conduct to the limit, and gave them "real world problems" like drug addictions and racism, but they were still clearly on the side of good.  The Iron Age threw away the rules for some characters.  They became killers, and many popular characters were replaced with newer, and as it turns out far less popular versions.  The writers in the Iron Age seemed to have contempt for heroes. and women.  

 

Maybe that's why comic books have been losing popularity over the years.

[DShomshak]

I wish I could take credit for "Darwinnowing," but I learned it from a friend and Google says it's been around a while.

 

Governments drafting supers: Easier said than done if the supers don't want to be drafted. If the force that lets people become superhuman only links to people of strong and individualistic motivations (or the transition somehow drives people to develop such motivations), governments will have difficulty assembling armies of obedient super-soldiers. Even patriotic super-soldiers who serve willingly will do so from personal passions, rather than mere deference to authority.

 

Dean Shomshak