Doug McCrae

Re: Top 10 List of the Lamest Superheroes of All Times

Good list, I'd not heard of Arm Fall Off Boy, a bit similar to the Split! Captain Marvel.

Red Bee is unbelievable. I'd read before that it sometimes wasn't a swarm but a single bee called Malcolm, which I thought must surely be a mistake. If it's true he has to be #1.

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

Do you feel differently about Iron Age non-supers as opposed to Iron Age supers?

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

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

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

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

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

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

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

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

Re: The downsides of the Iron Age

Corruption of Authority. In Gold and Silver Age' date=' the government was always right. Bronze age, there may be rouge agents within the government pursuing their own agenda. Iron Age, politicians and police are dirty, top to bottom.[/quote']That's pretty much true but I can think of a couple of exceptions. In very early Superman, the rich and powerful are often presented as corrupt and immoral. I think there's a corrupt congressman or senator in Action Comics #1. Also what about General Thunderbolt Ross in the Incredible Hulk?

Re: Super Origins

Some of the legacy stuff in comics, especially Marvel's radiation-spawned superheroes, wasn't silly at the time but has become so because we now know more about it. In the 50s and 60s atomic power was a relatively new, unknown and scary phenomenon that could potentially be capable of anything.

In fifty years time, nanotech using, genetically-modified cyborgs may look just as silly as Spider-Man does today.

Sparked off by assault saying he wouldn't allow nanotechnology in his game, here's a list of what origins/power sources I feel are acceptable in each era. I've probably missed a few but these seem to be most common. Some really dominate, the Silver Age is famous for its radioactive heroes and flying saucers for example while the Iron Age is very mutant heavy.

Golden Age

Special training in boxing and gymnastics

Chemicals, particularly a serum or formula

Scientific accident

Magic

Learning strange powers in Tibet

Given or built a special vehicle

Radiation

Raised by animals

Alien

Robot

Silver Age

Radiation

Alien

Gadgetry, especially alien gadgetry

Scientific accident

Cosmic rays

Struck by lightning

Mutant

Robot

God

Magic

Bronze Age

Alien or space god

Mystical

Horror monster – vampire, werewolf, demon etc.

Gadgetry

Mutant

Taught kung fu

Cyborg

Genetic engineering

Being the son or daughter of a superhero

Iron Age

Mutant

Genetic modification

Being the son or daughter of a superhero

Cyborg

Nanotechnology

Special drugs

Ninja training

Mystical, especially Satanic

Scientific accident

No explanation for powers whatsoever, or amnesia

Re: Calling all Archers

Golden Age archers:

The Arrow (the second costumed superhero, after Superman)

Golden Arrow

Scarlet Arrow

Marksman

Young Robin Hood

Alias The Spider

Green Arrow

Diana the Huntress

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency)

My biggest hate is nanotechnology. If I see the term in a character's origin' date=' I automatically crumple up the sheet and throw it at the player.[/quote']Why's that? I can see someone getting sick of mutant as an origin due to its overuse in the late 80s/early 90s (even Thor was a mutant I think) and it also being an easy way to justify a random collection of powers a la Nightcrawler.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency)

The problem is' date=' UNTIL does not make sense in a setting that isn't *pure* Silver Age fancy, or one that has it and at the same time tries to resemble our world as much as possible, or makes a nod to geopolitical realism.[/quote']It's perfectly workable for a fictional world to combine elements of the Silver and Iron Ages, or any other seemingly disconnected ideas, provided it's consistent about which elements conform to X and which to Y.

 

Astro City is a great example of this - a traditional superhero world combined with in depth modern psychologising.

 

Likewise the worlds of Marvel and DC have swarms of superheroes, supertech, alien invasions and so forth alongside a world more or less identical to our own. Obviously this makes no sense whatsoever. But provided a GM states up front that the world is like this, he shouldn't have a problem. It's my personally preferred solution as I love all the giant gorillas and flying women but I'm too lazy to do the work on how that might impact on our world. Plus it just doesn't interest me. Call me strange but I'm more interested in the flying women than in how much the cost of insurance in Manhattan has risen.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency)

Paradoxically, GestaltBennie and Von D-Man are both objecting to the exact same practice - applying different standards of suspension of disbelief to different aspects of the same universe.

GestaltBennie thinks it's wrong to have numerous alien invasions and benevolent billionaires while nations continue to squabble as they do in our world. Von D-Man thinks it's wrong for an idealistic UNTIL to exist alongside the real world UN.

Sadly I can't follow that up with some insightful reconciliation or proposal to move things forward. What do you think I am, the United Nations?

Re: If they get better, is it actually murder?

The laws against murder in our world don't really cover coming back from the dead so the legal question is impossible to answer.

On another note, as you pointed out this guy is an 80s style slasher flick monster so he's not appropriate for Silver Age in the sense of either comics era or genre.

Even more seriously his zombie minions are absolutely verboten by the 1954 Comics Code:

Scenes dealing with' date=' or instruments associated with walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.[/quote']

 

Thus I submit that he must be erased from existence for breaking the code, unable even to exist as a dream, hoax or imaginary story.

Re: why the UNITED NATIONS? (for global super-agency)

I regard internationalism as a more Bronze and Iron Age concept than Silver Age. The Justice League of America dropping the 'of America' in 1987 is highly significant in my opinion. There's also StormWatch which was a UN team. The Silver Age X-Men were all Americans, they only became a group of foreigners in the Bronze Age.

While it's right to point to UN organisations like THUNDER Agents and UNCLE, UNTIL was based on SHIELD and SHIELD was US-controlled at its inception in 1965. I'm not sure at what point the UN took over but I would guess it was a Bronze Age development.

Steve Long's UNTIL is very much a Bronze/Iron Age UNTIL, though maybe less appropriate for the post 9/11, post Iraq era.

It seems to me that hatred of the UN in the American psyche is a very recent development. In the 90s, I remember racist militia groups having bizarre conspiracy theories about the UN being a plot to install a world government and steal all their guns, which speaks toward it being the view of a tiny minority.

Re: How do you know if a character name is already being used?

And my second was The Callipygian

Re: How do you know if a character name is already being used?

It's pretty hard these days to come up with a single dictionary word name that's not been used.

Here's one I'm betting hasn't been - Theriomorph. It means having an animal form.

Re: The Iron Age

assault, I'd forgotten about LEGION . They were sort of space cops weren't they? A bit like a modernised Green Lantern Corps. I remember the few issues I got of it being pretty grim n'gritty, despite the superpowers and the space setting.

I enjoyed the JM DeMatteis Justice League. There have been humour titles in every era afaics such as Red Tornado in the GA, the Inferior Five in the SA, Captain Carrot in the BA, Byrne's She-Hulk and many more in the Iron Age. So I don't regard humour titles as being distinctive of any age.

For me the most interesting feature of that Justice League was the first appearance of Batgod, which I'm guessing was inspired by Dark Knight Returns. Strangely, I actually consider this version of Batman to be the most important for a history. Silver Age Batman is not representative of his era. Golden Age Batman is but you don't need him as there were so many other costumed vigilantes with no powers around. But there is no one else like the Iron Age Batgod.

I think my version of Batgod would have a number of superpowers to represent his omniscience and invincibility. He's clearly not human. In fact it might be funny to make him a genuine god.

Re: 7 heroes summoned through time: who are they?

Achilles, Lancelot, Robin Hood, Paul Bunyan, Muhammed Ali and Bruce Lee.

Re: 7 heroes summoned through time: who are they?

Jesus

Re: The Iron Age

Good point. I believe superheroes were also WMDs in The One which came out in 1985.

I’m working on a campaign backstory based on the Ages of Comics, using analogues and amalgams rather than actual comic book characters. I’m pretty pleased with my Golden and Silver Ages but my Iron Age, defined as 1985 to the present, is giving me a bit more trouble.

Have a look at my analysis and ideas so far, suggest changes and additions and tell me how you handle the Iron Age.

Overview

The central theme of the Iron Age is the conflict between deconstruction, as represented by Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and The Punisher and reconstruction as represented by Supreme and DC’s new All Star line. On the one hand is grim n’ gritty realism and cynicism, on the other a yearning for a return to the iconic heroes of the past and the fairytales of the Golden and Silver Age. The conflict takes physical form in Kingdom Come and has a more peaceful resolution in Astro City where silver age heroes have psychological depth.

It’s interesting to note that this approach takes a much more ‘black and white’ view of the Iron Age, which is supposedly painted in shades of grey.

Important features

The X-Men line – mutants, internationalism, ripoff teams such as Youngblood

The Wolverine line – ultraviolence

The Secret Wars line – yearly crossovers

The Dark Knight Returns line – deconstruction, grim n’ gritty, politics

The Supreme line – reconstruction, retro

New Universes – Crisis, Ultimates, Indie publishers, MC2, All Star

The Authority

Minor features

Changing the world – Squadron Supreme, Miracleman, Warren Ellis

Line between heroes and villains blurred

Vertigo

Proactive crimefighters – Force Works

Superheroes as celebrities – Booster Gold, Zenith, X-Statix, Authority

Superheroes as businessmen – Byrne’s Namor, Power Company

Detectives and secret archaeologists – Alias, Planetary

Legacy heroes – JSA, Alan Moore’s Youngblood

Environmentalism – Terrarists, Ultimate Thor

HR Giger aliens – The Brood, Bloodlines, StormWatch killers

Down-to-earth – In contrast with the space adventures of the Silver Age, superheroes are no longer explorers. Alien worlds are places threats come from, not places to go.

How to handle it

Compared to previous eras characters are cooler, more modern, darker, sexier and in black leather. There are two major kinds of hero, deconstructed and reconstructed with some synthesis. These are almost all different people from the Golden and Silver Age heroes though some have the same names and similar costumes. The deconstructed heroes predominate, especially in the ’85 to ’95 era. A horde of mutant cyborgs and killer vigilantes barely distinguishable from those they fight. Reconstructed heroes are modernised icons.

Since the mid-80s there have been exposes on the Golden and Silver Age heroes, revealing them to have feet of clay. In the mid-90s there was a reaction in the media against this.

Since the mid-80s, superheroes have become involved in politics, standing for office or attempting to influence things less directly. At one point they even took over the world though the old order as been restored.

Metahuman rights have been a major issue. There are several pressure groups. Registration has recently been introduced after several attempts and is highly controversial.

There are numerous parallel worlds with their own superheroes. In some all are members of a particular minority group. In many, superheroes only appeared a few years ago rather than having a lengthy history as this world does.

Reality has been majorly warped and fractured almost to breaking point on several occasions. Most inhabitants of Earth know nothing of this, experiencing the changes as recurring dreams or a feeling of wrongness. Who or what is responsible for this is open to question. Struggles between metahumans? Alien lifeforms? The CIA?

The major question is – can superheroes change the world? In previous eras they were too busy fighting nazis and supervillains or exploring the cosmos to do so. Now they try, but powerful forces invested in the status quo are ranged against them.

Re: The Wild Hunt

The cool thing about making the Hunt one entity is that they fight as one and they fall as one. When the PCs finally beat the entity as a whole' date=' all the warriors "dissipate".[/quote']You could write them up as individuals all with a physical limitation: dissipates when hunt has taken X damage.

Following on from Shaft's interesting thread on his campaign timeline I'd like to have a general thread about campaign backstories.

Are superheroes a new phenomenon? Have there been ‘ages of comics’ such as the Golden and Silver Age? Do the types of heroes and villains from those ages correspond to the changing styles in comic books? Do you directly use DC or Marvel characters such as Superman and the Fantastic Four or analogues thereof?

Did the first superhero appear in 1938 or have you done something a bit different? Perhaps taking inspiration from Neil Gaiman’s 1602 and having costumed do-gooders appear in that year. Or Ken Hite’s heroes from many historical eras in Suppressed Transmission 2.

Are the great heroes of the past gone or are they still around to interact with the PCs? For example in Golden Heroes most of the members of the EAGLES, a Silver Age team, were killed by a space horror. Does the public regard the heroes of earlier eras as being more noble or heroic than those of the present day?

Re: (worst ever)...reasons to be a supervillain

When Supergirl arrests me it will be a good opportunity to chat her up.

Re: (best ever)...reasons for becoming a supervillain!

Everyone's out for #1. It's a dog-eat-dog world. If I don't screw the other guy over, he'll do the same to me. So I have to get my screwjob in first.

Re: (best ever)...reasons for becoming a supervillain!

I don't think of myself as a supervillain. I'm a pragmatist.