We could be heroes
efbq has announced that she wants to run a game again, possibly Champions. This makes me all happy inside, but I haven't shown it much because: a) my free time is likely to be somewhere between none and positively none thanks to my damned sense of civic duty in running the Greens, and b) she's said that she wants to do one with a lot of control over characters, and I actually have some rather strong ideas for characters and settings right now.
I got to talking with the Mutant over bheers night before last about comics in general, along the lines of "WTF happened?" Why are our "heroes" now muscle-bound/impossibly-breasted lunatics who would as soon cap offenders for jaywalking as fight supervillains? Why is George Perez writing about heroines whose blood catches fire? Why did Gotham City become Escape from New York? Why are we expected to buy comics where Sue Dibny dies in a fire set by Booster Gold, and Elongated Man becomes dark and broody and jaywalker-capping as a result? Why does Cable exist at all, question mark, end of fucking sentence?
Mutie had the idea that their settings and plots had simply become static. Everything is midstory in a comic, after all, so you can't do anything truly drastic with a character; it'll end up getting reverted, "imaginary story"'d, or whatever the hell. This is of course true, but it's always been true with comics...so why in particular now have comics become T3H SuX0r? I had a different angle on it; I'm thinking that simply, comic book heroes have lost their values.
And no, I'm not bringing this up due to bleed-over from the Greens (though a Green superhero would just r0ck ass). Heroes always used to begin with a set of clearly defined values. Sure, they could be simple, maybe just a line or two, but they were always there, and they always set heroes apart from just a loopy guy in a funny suit - which the general public always assumed they were, anyway. But we knew better. Spider-Man had the memory of his Uncle Ben behind him...yes, he was a cut-up, and a bit of a nebbish, and he would frequently end up in some ludicrous situations (Stilt-Man. Paste-Pot Pete. Enough said.), but there was always that nobility behind what he was doing. The good writers knew that and would use that. Remember when Frank Miller wrote Daredevil? Remember when DD realized that he was actually scared - y'know, "The Man Withough Fear", scared - and that realization shocked him enough that he got up from an impossible situation and went after the bad guy? Bingo, right there. With the comic heroes of today, you can't write them that way.
Yes, there are exceptions. Kurt Busiek, he's one. But by and large, there needs to be something more heroic about heroes. So if I did any supah-hero stuff, I'd want to do it like that. Sure, it'd be a bit of a throwback, but then again...I'm a bit of a throwback.
In other news, interview yesterday went damned well. I have a very positive feeling about this one.
Spent the night at ednoria tonight, and that was a lovely time, too.
I got to talking with the Mutant over bheers night before last about comics in general, along the lines of "WTF happened?" Why are our "heroes" now muscle-bound/impossibly-breasted lunatics who would as soon cap offenders for jaywalking as fight supervillains? Why is George Perez writing about heroines whose blood catches fire? Why did Gotham City become Escape from New York? Why are we expected to buy comics where Sue Dibny dies in a fire set by Booster Gold, and Elongated Man becomes dark and broody and jaywalker-capping as a result? Why does Cable exist at all, question mark, end of fucking sentence?
Mutie had the idea that their settings and plots had simply become static. Everything is midstory in a comic, after all, so you can't do anything truly drastic with a character; it'll end up getting reverted, "imaginary story"'d, or whatever the hell. This is of course true, but it's always been true with comics...so why in particular now have comics become T3H SuX0r? I had a different angle on it; I'm thinking that simply, comic book heroes have lost their values.
And no, I'm not bringing this up due to bleed-over from the Greens (though a Green superhero would just r0ck ass). Heroes always used to begin with a set of clearly defined values. Sure, they could be simple, maybe just a line or two, but they were always there, and they always set heroes apart from just a loopy guy in a funny suit - which the general public always assumed they were, anyway. But we knew better. Spider-Man had the memory of his Uncle Ben behind him...yes, he was a cut-up, and a bit of a nebbish, and he would frequently end up in some ludicrous situations (Stilt-Man. Paste-Pot Pete. Enough said.), but there was always that nobility behind what he was doing. The good writers knew that and would use that. Remember when Frank Miller wrote Daredevil? Remember when DD realized that he was actually scared - y'know, "The Man Withough Fear", scared - and that realization shocked him enough that he got up from an impossible situation and went after the bad guy? Bingo, right there. With the comic heroes of today, you can't write them that way.
Yes, there are exceptions. Kurt Busiek, he's one. But by and large, there needs to be something more heroic about heroes. So if I did any supah-hero stuff, I'd want to do it like that. Sure, it'd be a bit of a throwback, but then again...I'm a bit of a throwback.
In other news, interview yesterday went damned well. I have a very positive feeling about this one.
Spent the night at ednoria tonight, and that was a lovely time, too.