Rene

Re: Looking for HERO stats for: "Bullseye"

But Bullseye's attacks *can* be deflected and dodged. Personally I'd avoid the Area of Effect thing and just buy lots of Levels to go with RKA, OIF: Objects of Opportunity, Range Based on STR. And maybe I'd add some other kinds of attacks built with TK, Drain, Transform...

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Batman has this super-obvious thing of being one of the few superheroes to keep several younger boy partners and all that Seduction of the Innocent stuff, so I don't know. And the Bruce Wayne persona sometimes comes off as effete.

Wolverine, OTOH, don't look gay to me, no matter which way I look at the character. He started to wear leather clothes fairly recently (together with all the other X-Men) and leather clothes more readly suggest S&M than homosexuality to me. Logan's ultra-violence and his "getting hurt and always coming back for more thing" also suggests this sado-masochist thing, not necessarily homosexuality.

Otherwise, Wolverine seems pretty much a all-around macho man. And not the "I'm compensating for something" kind of macho guy but the real, "connected with my primal nature" material that seems to have some ladies sighing (lots of women dig the X-Men movie for Hugh Jackman alone). I'm not surprised that many gays would sigh for him too (the web is packed full of Wolverine slash fan fic). Now that isn't the same thing as the character being gay.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

I think the Characteristics House Rules are just fine if you want a "realistic" superhero game in the vein of "he can fly and shoot plasma bolts, but otherwise is a pretty ordinary guy."

Sure it's at odds with comic book heroes. In the comics (even the more realistic ones) "I am a superhero" is reason enough for having at least 23 in all Primary Characteristics. But then again, not all campaigns must follow comic book conventions.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

This is lousy evidence for claiming Bruce is smart. His plans for bringing down the rest of the JLA were shown to suck tomatoes through crazy straws. He has kryptonite' date=' but rather than use kryptonite to takedown big blue he develops an untested synthetic kryptonite for his plan (which by making Clark's skin transparent ultimately increased his powers); he made the same mistake as Jonnzz's readers and thought MM's vulnerability to fire was physical, but it turned out to be a phobia so that when JJ's skin caught fire he went berserk and pretty much took out Wally and Diana; he "neutralized" Arthur by making him afraid of water (isn't this a recycled [i']Superfriends[/i] episode?). If Bruce is so smart why couldn't he come with contingency plans that actually worked?

I'm not sure if the above proves that Batman isn't so smart, but it certainly proves that Mark Waid wasn't in a good day when he wrote that.

Re: How do you get players to role play the genre?

My apologies. Let me rephrase and say that D and D lends itself better to that hack and slash mentality. Good role players can certainly overcome this to be sure.

 

Rob

They pretty much *admit* in the Dungeon Master Guide that D&D's "default" style of play is "dungeon crawling", i.e. kill the monsters, avoid the traps, get the loot. Of course, "default" don't mean all D&D groups play like that.

To Dr. Mid-Nite: Man, I feel your pain! I've been in very similar situations before. Mostly with anime/WoD/Image fans. Really, I think you only have two options. Try to meet them half-way, crafting a hybrid game between what you like and what they like, or simply give up.

You won't turn them into Bronze/Silver Age players, I just know. Guys with the kinds of attitudes you're describing are all but incurable. The Silver/Bronze Age superhero genre is a acquired taste, you had to be there to really enjoy it. Yes, sometimes it's possible to teach someone mostly ignorant of superheroes (who starts from a position of neutrality) but someone who actively thinks such stuff is silly is very hard to change.

Im my old group, I just gave up on most players, and retained a few I thought had potential if shielded from the other players' influences.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome

The Endurance cost of a power is not increased by the application of Reduced Endurance. The active cost of the power is increased as normal.

This is a official rule now. It was a little unclear in 4th edition, but in 5th it's clarified that this is the way Reduced END should work.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

This whole discussion is very interesting and I have many points I wish to make' date=' but here and now I only have time to correct this overgeneralisation. Have you forgotten the scene in which the Midnighter (of all people) saves his skin by empathising with the supervillain who's about to kill him. I'll admit that this is the exception, but perhaps "always shied from" is a bit strong? [/quote']

 

That was a very fun scene, but to me it was more like the Midnigther showing off how he don't need his fists to defeat someone. Also, it shows how the Authority (or the Midnighter at least), can deal with someone who isn't a threat anymore, someone who genuinely surrenders to them and isn't on the scale of the renegade Doctor, for instance (who even "redeemed" had killed too many million innocents to be forgiven).

 

My question was more like: What happens when they meet someone who is determined to antagonize them, and make the group look bad, etc. out of more or less genuine grievances? How would they deal with it? Surely, with the controversial nature of the group and the amount of people they killed it's not hard to imagine people against them that aren't necessarily sadistic villains.

 

The Planetary/Authority crossover almost touched on this, but the two groups never really met. I always wondered what the Authority would to to poor Elijah Snow and his group when they discovered the Carrier had been invaded ("We're here to investigate you guys because we're worried you're too powerful and uncontrolable" How would the Authority answer that?)

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

i don't think he actually sent it into space just sort of sunk it like atlantis.

but the sliding albion crowd are seriously seriously unpleasent people. kind of like what would have happend if the nazis and those responbsible for the atrocities in bosnia got together and set up a reich that did actually last a coupel of thousand years and then planed to invade you. can you say turning china into one giant rape camp eeeek. oh not to mention trying to kill britain in the 1960s with poison gas. basically you dont want them coming back later there scary.

Yes, yes. I don't really care if they exterminate the Blues, they're worse than Nazis. But was everybody there a Blue, a descendant, or a willing accomplice? What if the Blue had innocent human slaves in Italy? That is the kind of question that no one in the Authority seemed to bother asking. Not even a "well, maybe we killed some innocents to make sure many more wouldn't suffer." Instead, stuff like that isn't even acknowledged.

Re: Authority, we just need a few good men.

Green Arrow kills if it's necessary' date=' or at least he did in the early '90s. But there is no way in the world that he would join a cowboy deathsquad like the Authority. In fact, he would be a likely suspect for leader of the heroes who oppose them.[/quote']

 

Huh? Granted, I'm not familiar with Green Arrow's current incarnation, but the way he was in the 70s and the 80s, I thought Oliver Queen and the Authority had identical (or at least very similar) ideologies?

 

All that left-wingey, "down with the big guys, down with corporations and corrupt, opressive government that violates human rights" stuff? Champion of the oppressed masses thing?

 

In "Dark Knight Returns", for instance, he is neutralized by a corrupt conservative government, the same thing that happens to the Authority (at least temporarily).

 

The possible difference I see between them is in how far Ollie would be willing to go. If Ollie operated in a universe where superhero interventionism were the norm, I think he'd just expose a corrupt government instead of outright removing it's leaders.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Again' date=' its not the fact they kill, but that they kill with glee and forethought. It is their first solution. Lethal force or the threat of lethal force. They kill in sadistic brutal ways, often joking about it as they do. The conceit of the of the book is that those they kill "deserve" it and we never see the repercussions of their violence. When they took over the govornment did they have to face the military? And if so did they slaughter the soliders sent to stop them as freely as they normally do?[/quote']

 

Pretty much what I think too.

 

This is what bother me most about the Authority, even though I confess to kinda like some aspects of the book. I'm fully prepared to accept a superhero killing in certain situations, but the way the Authority acts about it, making it appear cool and fun, it can be shocking.

 

The other point you raised is another of the book's flaws, to my eyes. The writers have refrained from dwelling on certain points. For instance, how the Authority would act when confronted with someone that may not deserve killing? What would happen if some relative or friend of someone killed by the Authority came to the group with their grievances? Would they try to explain themselves? Apologize? Kill their accuser? Would they kill him quickly, painlessly, and regretfully? Or would they joke about it? This is the kind of moral dilemma that the book always shied from.

 

I understand theu avoiding this kind of thing in a Punisher story, for instance. No one ever said the Punisher was deep or to be taken seriously. Now, people use to say the Authority is the mature, serious stuff, and that it's trying to make a serious point about morality and responsibility...

 

And something always bugged me. When the Doctor devastated Sliding Albion's Italy, was everyone there evil?

Re: Authority, we just need a few good men.

DC is putting out that new team JLA Elite, according to the local comic wiz around my town it's going to involve the similar "Let's stop letting the mass murderers get off the hook and just nail the bums."

 

There were two members of course that he couldn't agree with being on that team, Flash and Green Arrow.

Green Arrow, it could make sense for him to be in such a group. Short-tempered, impulsive, political radical who gets tired of seeing the big sharks go free while superheroes stop the muggers...

The Flash I don't know. Wally's prime motivation has been to honor Barry's legacy.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Rene has pretty much summed up my opinion of the Authority. There was, very breifly, a point during which I actually thought Ellis might be on to something, but he couldn't sustain it. Since then, it's mostly been pretty average, with the occasional intriguing idea or witty remark which is quickly buried in mediocrity again.

 

The Authority is neither as good as its ardent fans would have you believe, nor as bad as its most vehement detractors claim. The strongest emotion it has ever aroused in me was disappointment at opportunities squandered.

Glad you agree with me Haerandir.

The Authority was kinda fun, but I'm not sad to see the book go, it probably should have ended with issue 29 already. It had it's high points (I personaly am fond of the story where they battle that Cthullu thing they keep calling "God"), but it got old and I don't think there is much more that can be done with the concept.

Ultimately, the book wasn't this work of genius with deep things to say about politics and society that many of his fans think it is. IMO, the major merit of the book was to encapsulate many of the then-current trends of the genre into a single witty package. Now that is done, let's move on.

BTW, I think both Ellis and Millar have written better things. In "Planetary" Ellis has superheroes that still are cool and commited and stuff, but considerably more human and sympathetic than the Authority, not to mention that Planetary has a lot more original ideas and a lot less gore.

As for Millar, I think "Ultimates" is the best superhero thing he did. Yep, the heroes still all talk tough and witty (Millar seems unable to get rid of this, like a poster said) but there is more diversity and complexity in their personalities. And because they're often in conflict with each other and themselves, there isn't this thing of the writer siding too much with the characters that seemed to taint the Authority.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

There was such a splurge of ideas' date=' some great stuff, but he badly needed editing. I loved Dr. Kriegstein's manufactured superheroes, Quitely's artwork and everything to do with Seth was wonderful, except his defeat. In my universe Seth would've won. Rainbow Breath... C'mon how can you beat a guy with Rainbow Breath?[/quote']

 

You had me more or less agreeing with you until that last bit. Whoa, Seth was more of a cocky bastard and a complete asshole than all of the Authority combined (not to mention he was a child molester and lacked any human qualities).

 

But maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Maybe you're just saying he should have won because he was more powerful, and not that you were actually rooting for him? Anyway, I thought Seth's defeat was wonderful too. Had he won it would have cemented completely the book's descent into nihilism and ammorality.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

DR. Doom would approve of them.

Doom probably would be afraid of them. As a ruthless dictator, he'd be a prime target for "permanent removal" Authority style.

I agree with Nexus, BTW. The most disturbing trait in the Authority isn't the killing (you could say many killings in the book are justifiable) but the way they joke and have fun while killing.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

How true.For all the complaints from Authority fans' date='it seems fairly obvious to me that the Authority are not only supervillains,but SUCCESSFULL supervillains.[/quote']

 

Are they?

 

They defend mankind from threats and are willing to put their lives in danger to rescue and save people. They are moved by innocent people's suffering and they show compassion to most people. Those are not supervillain traits, I think. Unlike the Punisher, for instance, they're not primarily motivated by vengeance and they spend time and energy actively helping bystanders.

 

On the other hand, they mostly show no compuctions about killing those they judge to be deserving of this fate but (and it's true the writers contrive this shamelesly) those they kill are so uniformily inhuman, dangerous, and caricaturally immoral (be they aliens or corrupt human governments) that it becomes almost a black-and-white situation. Like I said before, the comic lacks any depth in how it portrays these situations.

 

They're also not bothered by human law. But again, there is not much depth to how this situation is depicted. Until the end of Millar's arc, their policy seems to be to step in and strong-arm rulers who commit unspeakable atrocities or try to conquer other countries, and afterwards they just step back and return to their HQ to have sex and take drugs. And that is it. The social consequences of their actions or how it affects the common man, this stuff is dealt very lightly or not at all.

 

In short, in it's own way their world is as simplistic and black-and-white as the world of Silver Age comics. And in this simpler world, the Authority seems to be superheroes, not supervillains.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

RE: Authority[/b]. I generally have a good nose for bad comics. That title struck me as being radioactively-bad from the beginning. So I'm not surprised that it has gone off the deep end.

Well, everyone is entitled to their oppinion.

When I first read an issue, my reaction was lukewarm. Everybody had been praising it as the best superhero series ever written, and I've found it to be just a fun and somewhat shallow super-action series with one or two more original touches.

But it grew on me slowly. What I like most about the Authority is the high-scale, almost-absurd extremes and mind-blowing ideas. It's like a crazy Silver Age comic, only with gore and paranoid political conspiracies throw in (and a gay superhero couple).

I don't think it's nearly as deep as many people think it is, and the personal character stuff is light (Millar run) to almost non-existent (Ellis run). With their level of power and the way they keep murdering ever more powerful threats, I agree they have a short shelf life.

I understand that many fans are turned off by the way they kill their enemies. I'm mostly neutral to that. I mean, in a fictional contest, of course. Many fans think the Authority are the only heroes who fight the good fight in the right way, many haters think they're moral monsters, I dunno. I don't think the book is as deep as that, I don't think they really explore these questions. It's a complete fantasy world, where everybody they kill is shown to the reader to be equivalent of sadistic child molesters or else faceless thugs in the employ of said sadistics. There aren't any real moral dilemmas to allow us to weight in one way or the other.

Re: Character Concept Question: Jack Hawksmore?

Several of the superhuman origins for characters written by Ellis, Morrison, Millar, etc. depend on the fact that the universe itself (and aspects of it) has much more sentience than rationalism would accord to it.

For instance, Jenny Sparks and the other Century Babies from "Planetary" seem to be defense mechanisms created by Earth itself.

I particularly like this kind of "post-Iron Age surrealism". Pure magic origins, OTOH, I'm not crazy about. I mean your simple "well, it's magic I gain from learning to tap these extra-dimensional beings" thing, like Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate. Swamp Thing is cool.

I would imagine that those advanced aliens that abducted Jack would know so much more about how the universe works that we could as well call it "magic". Or to put it another way, maybe their science wandered in fields that on Earth are still the domain of occultism alone.

Anyway, I like it because it's weird and half-unfathomable. Like I think aliens and magic should be. One of the things I dislike about old comics is the way this stuff is too familiar and pat.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Is Morrison's run where Batman picked up his Whatever Skill Needed Pool and Smarter Than The Rest of the JLA Combined powers?

Yes. Batman always was cut from the pulp hero mode, but Morrison took this to new extremes. Get Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Lee, Reed Richards, James Bond, and Captain America, multiply their talents tenfold and combine them, and perhaps you'd approach Batman as he sometimes been portrayed when there are other superheroes around.

And some Bat-fans still say he is "the only one human from the bunch"? Jeez, I find him the most unbelievable of them all. An unenhanced human being doing all that? Right.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

The means of choosing a monarch need not be hereditary . . .

Okay.

I was only saying something like this:

You get a ordinary guy and inject him with superpowers, chances are we could luck out and he'd be a more or less decent human being.

Now you get someone from a pool of high-power execs, career politicians, hot lawywers and other people likely to be presidential stuff, and I think chances are greater that you'll get someone rotten, someone raised in a diet of power jockeying and ambition.

Still, I don't think this oppinion make me a monarchist, because I still prefer the elected politician over the superhero king. Because if both prove to be really rotten, the elected politician would be easier to remove.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

A pal of mine (he who tipped me to the comic in the first place) made the perceptive point that the Authority are so powerful' date=' with powers not defined so that they can do essentially anything that is required of them in a given issue, that they break all the rules of comic book continuity and team development [/quote']

 

This is a problem that much predates the Authority, I think. Even though Millar's version of the group is perhaps the worst offender in this respect. Martian Manhunter, the X-Men's telepaths and their enemies, Batman by Grant Morrison, Green Lantern and Flash (depending on the writer) all of them in some versions have been portrayed as able to do anything required of them.

 

Heck, this is an OLD problem that dates from the Silver Age. Stan Lee in the very early Marvel Universe, for instance, used to run wild with the way the characters could use their powers. The Human Torch was horrible in that he could do *anything* with his flame, including creating city-wide radar effects, hypnosis, telekinetic ropes, anything. He got more restrained after the 2nd or 3rd year of the Marvel Universe.

 

In some senses, I see the Authority and Morrison's JLA as throwbacks to the Silver Age in terms of power and attempts to elicit a science-fictional sense of wonder. Actually, the only ones in the group that have undefined powers seems to be the Doctor and Hawksmoor, and only the first is all-powerful (20d6 Transform Anything into Anything?). The others are versatile, but still very limited in their "special effects".

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

The view of a monarchist. . .

Another thing I just thought. A superhero also would be different from a king in that he/she starts as a ordinary person who gained powers by accident, while the other was raised from an earlier age into his role, probably resulting in a quite different mindset. Another reason why I wouldn't equate my oppinions to monarchism.

Of course, if a setup like the Authority goes on for more than one generation, then we could really have hereditary superhero rulers. The opponents of the group at least can rest asured that two of them aren't likely to breed. BTW, the gay marriage of Apollo and the Midnighter was the cutest happy ending I've ever seen in comics.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

The view of a monarchist. A healthy democracy is one wherein disparate interests are pitted against each other and thus the best (as in least worst) course is achieved. It ain't pretty' date=' nor perfect but it's the best thing we've got (barring divine interventions). Now we haven't had a healthy democracy here in the US in something like seven decades, but that's another matter entirely . . .[/quote']

 

I've never thought of myself as monarchist, but I see from where you're coming from, since I've said I'd rather trust someone who got their power through "accident" (like the old kings) than personal ambition, this conclusion can be drawn.

 

Actually just because I'd trust the Authority a little more than some corrupt politician who got in there through power jockeing it don't mean I'd trust the Authority a great deal. And I'd rather have someone I do NOT trust but I can get rid off in the next election relatively easily than a corrupt king that we'd have to force out of power through force of arms. So yes, I quite agree with you that a democracy is preferable. It sucks, but it's the best we've got.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

I've just finished reading Millar's run on "the Authority". Funnier than I thought it would be. I have to admit, seeing them bully China out of Tibet and the Russians out of Chechenya was satisfying in a power trip, wish fulfillment kind of way. I still think it wouldn't work in continuity-heavy universes like Marvel and DC, though.

I'm not sure they portrayed the US government alone as eee-vil here. To be be exact, they portrayed ALL governments as eee-vil. I don't have much trouble with that, though I'd rather say governments, being primarily interested in self-perpetuation, are more *ammoral* than evil, in that they're highly capable of potentially evil acts to protect their interests.

The only thing that irks me is that, for some unfathomable reason, the UN alone is depicted as a noble organization, since the Authority trusted them enough to gift them with highly dangerous equipment they confiscated from a supervillain. That makes the Authority seems more like deluded liberals than the sexy cynical anarchists they seem to be most of the time. Why, oh why, when you collect several eee-vil governments in a worldwide organization they suddenly become noble? Maybe because they'd act as checks and balances on each other? That'd make them more inefficient, not necessarily nobler.

Oh yes, and it was fun to see how the Authority dealt with Seth in the end. The hillbilly's final fate was pretty wicked, but I'm damned if it didn't beat Batman escorting the Joker to Arkham Hotel after the clown mass murdering his monthly diet of innocents. No, I don't believe in "kill them all and let God sort them out", I just think heroes should think harder about how to deal with repeated offender mass murderers who've proven ridiculously immune to conventional incarceration.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

I guess so.

 

As for Marvel characters with moral authority: what about Captain America? When you get down to it, he is a personification of US nationalism/patriotism. Granted, he's much more subtle than in his earlier days, but his underlying nature hasn't changed. He would be a perfect vehicle for "we don't want to do this, but we have no other choice" messages.

Captain America is the closer thing Marvel has to Superman. But I think he is been portrayed as slightly less infallible than Supes over the years. And in lots of stories he is shown as more more indecisive and at a loss about what his role should be.

Still, yes, I'd prefer that they avoided using Captain America this way too.

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of?

I've read the first 3 or 4 issues of Top 10. Like I've said, I'm not much of a fan of comedy and satire, I'm bitter and depressed. And the "serious" stuff in the comic never really connected with me either, because I've found this mix of superhero satire and hyper-realistic police show just too weird. To top it all, I find the artist's style weird too.

I enjoy all the other ABC titles though and I'm a big fan of Alan Moore. I think Top 10 is the only stuff from him that I didn't loved (and the First American in Tomorrow Stories).

PS: One superhero meets cops comic I really like is Bendis's "Powers". But it treates the superhero elements more seriously and the cop part is more old noir than modern TV cop show. More to my tastes, I guess.