Rene

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

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

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? Aren't superhumans (not necessarily superheroes) wearing more conventional clothes pretty much standard procedure by now in comics? They're at least as common as spandex types, I think. Not to mention heroes who "oficially" are spandex types but go hundreds of issues without ever wearing them? Particularly I don't care strongly either way. I *DO* care about the set of traits that usually go hand-in-hand with the clothing.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? Characters taking political stances don't necessarily equate propagandism. It's all up to the writer and how he depicts the results and consequences of the character's actions, and wheter or not he also highlights the bad that comes with the good. There are writers whose political sympathies become obvious in their writing; they either set out to send a message or their political convictions are so strong that they inevitably show. And then there are writers that tackle political themes while trying not to proselytize, or they happen to have a political position that isn't strong or easy or simple to summarize. I would feel safer letting a writer of the second type doing this kind of story.

Re: Early Marvel Age x Silver Age

Re: The Authority:What the heck? It must be pointed out that the main reason for superheroes not interfering in real world business is pratical (and apolitical). I think Marvel and DC just want to keep the "real" portion of their universes recognizable to avoid greater editorial work and further confusion for new readers and adaptations in other media. Furthermore, heroes interfering in real events would mess with the continuity in other ways... if the Avengers had helped the US win the Vietnam War, that would tie the Avengers to the Vietnam Era, making it harder for Marvel to keep them forever young, since you'd had to reference those old stories to explain why Marvel Universe Vietnam is "capitalistic". Left-wing writers like Warren Ellis have used (sometimes very effectively) superhero "non-interference" as a symbol of harmful apathy, egotism, hypocrisy, or even "fascist" protection of the status quo. But I would also point out that "complacent" superheroes might have nobler reasons for not interfering. You topple the old boss, you become the new boss. And most times the new boss ends up becoming not that different from the old boss, heh? Maybe superhero interference inevitably leads, in the long term, to a superhuman aristocracy ruling the world? Would it be worse than what we have now? Maybe not. Sincerely, I think I prefer to trust people who got their power in weird accidents than people who achieved power through (sometimes quite unhealthy) personal ambition. I'm not sure power corrupts, but I'm damn sure that corruption empowers, in our nice little world. People who are accidentaly powerful are less likely to be corrupt, IMO. Still, it's not a clear-cut issue, morally speaking. I no longer disdain the position of "political non-interference" of your usual superhero. Maybe they know what they're doing.

Re: The Authority:What the heck?

Re: Early Marvel Age x Silver Age

Re: The Authority:What the heck? I'm not so sure heroes "never kill" or "never maim". I sincerely believe that in some occasions the most heroic solution is to kill (no, I'll never forgive Batman for letting a monster like the Joker to live to kill hundreds of innocents next month in the same Bat-Channel, same Bat-Time, that is just plain immoral). What sometimes disturbed me about the Authority wasn't the fact that they killed to stop ruthless conquerors, but the fact that they seemed to enjoy doing so and even cracked jokes while doing it. For me, that crosses the line from regrettable but "necessary" killing to psychopathic tendencies. But I never got past Ellis's run.

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? Steeljack so totally ruled! He had all those issues and emotional charge, and I don't know why, it's kinda rare nowadays to see bricks with such emotional depth or even some old-fashioned angst (except the done-to-death, "I'm a ugly monster and I want to be human again", Steeljack had only a little of that). Yep, Aberrant really supported mental and social supercharacters. And not only as "guys who win superfights in alternate ways", but really building careers using their powers as you thought they'd logically be more useful. Aberrant had many flaws, but one of the good things in the game was this.

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing? Heh, can't say I never thought about it. Now I remember, there was one genuine Brazilian superhero comic story I once read. The writing was kinda good, a pity the art was in the dreadful Image style. We had a right-wing military dictatorship here in Brazil from 1964-1985. So this story dealt with a 60s supergroup having to deal with it. Some heroes supported the government, others didn't. Kind of "Dark Night Returns" situation, only here it had true historical basis. I remember that the protagonist was a energy projector with left-wing sympathies who had spent almost 3 decades in a kind of a limbo, after being betrayed by one of his teammates, and had recently been let loose in modern times.

Re: The Authority:What the heck? For good or for evil, I'm not sure I'd classify Mark Millar as a political propaganda agent. The guy just likes to write stories that (to his fans) pack "punch" or (to his haters) are all about cheap shock. In his "Ultimates", several of the good guys are American agents. And several of them are really good guys by my book (Cap America, Iron Man, Nick Fury...). In his "Ultimate Fantastic Four", likewise the government is involved with benign scientific research.

Re: Early Marvel Age x Silver Age Supreme got confused by a mini-series called "Unstable Molecules", written and drawn by independent comic book artist James Sturm. Sturm creates a very convincing, you-almost-had-me-there-for-a-moment, "real life" counterpart to the Fantastic Four, explaining the comic book FF as being inspire by these real people. I was fooled myself for a moment, until my excitement was dispelled by reading some interviews with Sturm and discovering that he really based his "real" FF on the superhero versions, and not the other way around. A pity. It's quite similar to several books by, for instance, Philip José Farmer, where the writer mantains the pretense that there was a real Tarzan and Burroughs created something based on him, and now the writer is finally showing to us the "man behing the myth", etc.

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

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? Do you think we can blame the players for the dearth of non-combat superhumans? IMO, the blame mostly lays with GMs, comic book writers, and RPG book writers. The GMs are the ones who design adventures that usually revolve 90% around combat. The other 10% is stuff to help "us get into the combat scene". I play a game, I want to shine. I'll not design a "social" or "brainy" character if it's going to be wasted (except when the brainy character thinks up a way to win the combat, we can try as we might, but it *always* ends in combat). So those characters are condemned to supporting roles. Most people don't like to be supporting actors (I, for one, don't). And the GMs, in their turn, are mostly influenced by comic books and RPG systems. I'll not say superhero comics are only about combat, there is a lot of character stuff and drama going on too, but when there is an "adventure problem", it usually involves combat or something that will get us to the combat. In some fantasy worlds you can play a merchant, a seductress, a politician, a non-combat priest or magician, and a good GM will find you a niche. In superhero fiction usually there is no such niche. Plot problems just don't revolve around this stuff. Because conventional superhero fiction is about stopping the villain physically. Superheroes, due to their moral codes and genre conventions, are reactive. So superhero fiction can't be about using your good looks and social graces to build a career as a super-diplomat, or using your brains to solve scientific mysteries that don't involve discovering how to short-circuit the villain's powers. Superhero RPG systems usually follow this route too. There are exceptions. Aberrant, for one. The system (and the world) had lots of problems, but there was a good thing: they made a sincere effort to give more time to the social superhuman and the brainy superhuman in the background and the rules. The HERO System, even though it allows for the building of social or mental prodigies, is very combat-oriented. For instance, I think that in the real world a power like shapeshifting or invisibility would be much more useful than energy blast, still energy blast costs MORE. Because it's more combat-effective, and the system pays a lot of attention to it. I was one of the few people who liked the new Shape Shift rules, because I always saw the power as *very* useful (damn, you can take the world with Shape Shift!), while lots of superhero fans complained about the new costs, because they think Shape Shift is only good to distract the villain or sneak into his headquarters. And I don't blame them. In superhero fiction, usually Shape Shift is good only for that.

Re: What super hero concepts would you like to see more of? Both in fiction and in game? Okay. Bricks with complex personalities and pasts. Two of my all-time favorite supers characters fall in this category: Golden Boy from "Wild Cards" and Steeljack from "Astro City". But they're rare. Bricks usually are everymen, paragons, warriors, or rampaging brawlers. Characters who ARE willing to kill but only in extreme situations. As opposed to either casual killers or saints who will not kill the Joker as he is about to mass murder for the 576th time.

Re: Early Marvel Age x Silver Age No, of course I didn't thought Reed would really try to kill Namor. I only meant to say that the way he acted in the story, allowing himself to have a fit of savage jealousy, is a far cry from what I always thought a Silver Age paladin of justice would be like. I couldn't picture John Byrne's Richards, denizen of the "Bronze Age", acting in this manner. And yes, hero/hero rivalries were never lethal. Early Marvel heroes (and even most anti-heroes like the Hulk and Namor), don't kill. It's just that everything was very different from what I'm used to hear about "the Silver Age", and I got to wonder why, and specifically why RPG supplements (like the Champions book) and other "tribute stories" don't reference this.

When I was younger, I had all the arrogance of the adolescent. You know, thinking that only modern stuff could be good. My dumb teenage mind thought the Beatles sucked and loved last week's new band. Same with comics. I knew of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's importance for comics, but the occasional old Marvel comic book I've read seemed, to my teen tastes, crude and ludicrous. I eventually outgrew my teenage obsession with "coolness", and recently I've managed to find some "Essential Fantastic Four" volumes to read. I loved them. Fascinating to watch the MU beginning to develop, Lee & Kirby creating modern superhero tropes, and all those 60s things like the space race, the red menace, the pop thing, etc. One thing really surprised me though. I've always heard old timers saying how, in the Silver Age, heroes were pure paragons of virtue. Some RPG books also have this oppinion (Champions, SAS), Champions says Silver Age games should be harmless, the heroes should be straight-arrows on the path of justice, etc. I've found this NOT true of those 60 first Fantastic Four issues! That came as a shock to me. Not necessarily a bad one. Those issues had lots of crossovers, so I got to see how other Marvel Heroes behaved too, and it wasn't any better than the FF. Stan Lee's characters were *bombastic*, they had short tempers, they were impulsive and overconfident, they were more likely to treat other heroes as rivals than friends, they sometimes worried about fame (even though they were not obssessed with it), they had little patience with bothersome normals, they bickered endlessly, in short, they sometimes acted like brash godlings. Yes, they usually did the right thing eventually and standed by each other when it was really needed. But they're a far shot of my idea of Silver Age paragons. If anything, the Fantastic Four version I was more familiar with (John Byrne's, in the 80s) has heroes that are more responsible and mature, and even more "heroic". And I'm not talking about the temperamental heroes only, like the Thing, the Torch, and Spidey. Even the more level-headed characters are a bit like this. Reed Richards and Iron Man, for instance. The first two times the Avengers meet the FF, the two teams act like rivals, each one wanting to outdo the other. Reed himself is more short-tempered than I'm used to see him. Says several times he is going to *kill* Namor when the Sub-Mariner kidnaps Sue, even though Reed himself knows Namor would never hurt her. He is wont to snap at his teammates when he is irritated. He joins Johnny and Ben in boasting about how he'll defeat the Hulk in issue 12, etc, etc. There are other differences between the comics and the "Silver Age" I thought I knew. For instance, villains aren't any less threatening than in the early 80s. There isn't much in the way of explicit bloody murder scenes, but people DO die. It's not completelly harmless play with goofy villains like is implied in the Champions rulebook. So, I'm a little confused. When people talk of the "Silver Age", are they refering only to DC Comics's Silver Age? Or maybe their nostalgia (and disappointment with modern versions) makes them remember those characters as more heroic than they really were? And anyone here ever played or GMed a Early Marvel Campaign, as opposed to a "Silver Age" campaign?

Re: What superhero character concepts are you tired of seeing? Never meant to imply that. I was only commenting on what Von D-Man said. Actually I think we agree on the mutant background issue. I was actually saying being a mutant is NOT a excuse for these kinds of behaviours, not that players who propose mutant characters do this more often than players who like, say, altered humans or aliens. The player I mentioned was an altered human. I was really kinda defending the mutant origin, by saying I don't see it is intrinsically worse than any other origin.

Re: Cross-gender roleplaying

Re: What superhero character concepts are you tired of seeing? I don't let my players off the hook easily. Being a "mutant" is no excuse for poorly thought-out backgrounds and a collection of disconnected powers. Most X-Men actually have powers that make symbolical sense. Remember me of a player I had once who wanted to play a character with three powers: plant control, anti-gravity generation, and invisibility to machines. I kid you not. And he wasn't a mutant, he was something infinitely worse than that: the time traveler from the future suffering from amnesia.

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing? Brazil don't has much of a native superhero comic book industry. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, all that stuff is very marginal here too. Brazilian editorial market basically has two extremes: high-brow ("respectable" mainstream literature, kinda boring) and low-brow (self-help/new age books, mostly). Sadly, there is a big desert in between, with the rare oasis. Superhero comics you find here are some American and British ones, translated. There were some native superheroes in the 60s and 70s, I gather. I don't know much about this period. Extremelly hard to find today. There were some almost-superhero Brazilian comics in the 90s too, influenced by a big boom in the RPG industry, but the guys behind it were mostly deeply into the anime/x-files/white wolf/fantasy thing. It's not really "Brazilian", it's not really superheroes, and it never raised much above imitation of said fads. Yep, Al Rio and several other hot artists are Brazilians. But I gather they mostly work for American publishers. I'm not aware of any famous Brazilian comic book writers who work with supers, unfortunately.

Re: What superhero character concepts are you tired of seeing?

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing?

Re: What superhero world concept are you tired of seeing? The best explanation I've ever seen for why mutants are hated and other heroes are loved is the one Supreme has mentioned and is brilliantly dealt with in issue 2 of "Marvels". One issue of "Alias" also had a cool conversation between the heroine and her Dad where he explains to her why Spider-Man is hated and the FF are loved. Put it simply, the FF are a family and they don't hide. Spider-Man has a creepy mask, a creepy posture, and creepy powers. This "favoritism" on the public's part don't bother me, good writers can explain it away. What bothers me is *everybody* hating the X-Men no matter what they do. You can say what you want about Grant Morrison and his post-modern writting style (I happen to enjoy it), but if he ever did a good thing was to introduce more shades to the X-Men's reputation. C'mon, if the X-Men really existed, don't you think rebel teens everywhere would love them? Morrison captured this well.