Silver Age Designer's Journal #3: We Can Be Heroes
By Christopher McGlothlin, M.Ed.
I'm Christopher McGlothlin. You may remember me from such Mutants & Masterminds publications as M&M Annual 1, M&M Annual 2, and M&M Annual 8 (due Holiday 2034). But enough crazy future-talk--let's rap some more about Silver Age.
Silver Age Chapter Three (Verse 16) is the all-important "What's in it for my character?" section of the book, and the eventual catalyst for the requisite "crunch vs. fluff" message board debate. Myself, I'm totally into "flunch," but whatever turns you on, this part of the book will be a beautiful, groovy, consciousness-expanding experience.
One of the governing rules of the M&M line has always been "Don't force people to buy every single book just to get all the basic game rules." Thus, we avoid putting new mechanics in every sourcebook simply to drive sales, or what I like to call "the Game Industry, 1991-2003." In keeping with this practice, the new character options in Silver Age are there primarily to make a Silver Age campaign more silver and a Bronze Age series bronze-ier.
Sure, we want you to buy Silver Age even if funny animal books or Hentai porn is your thing, but at Green Ronin we'd rather win you over with awesomeness rather than preying on gamers' completionist tendencies. Otherwise, we'd have done (say) The Book of Erotic M&M long before now.
So what does this Silver Age sourcebook have in it? Glad you asked, off-page rhetorical questioner. Any student (or, like me, professor emeritus) of comics history knows that Modern Age super-heroics are pretty much a redux of the Silver Age variety, as our sourcebook duly notes. Silver Age offers suggestions and new feats to make these familiar character types truer to the realities of their times. For example, the new Cult Hero feat simulates Bronze Age heroes who are products of their politically fractious eras. If you're playing a feminist heroine loved by your fellow "women's libbers" but loathed by the forces of Old and Evil, or an African-American hero cleaning up the ghetto to the chagrin of "the Man," Cult Hero is the feat you've been waiting for, baby.
Silver Age was also the perfect opportunity to do game statistics for some of comic books' best-loved gadgets. Once you've seen the M&M versions of Gimmick Arrows, Indestructible Shield, Spinnerette Gauntlets, Swingline Club, Winged Harness, and the ____mobile, you'll be breathlessly waiting for us to ask, "Now how much would you pay?" So get those credit cards ready, true believers!
Of course, no M&M book would be complete without new Hero Archetypes, but that's easy for you to say. You're not the one who had to come up with some new ones after eight years' worth of sourcebooks already covered all the obvious ones. Sure, I was bitter... for a time. Because the cupboard really did look bare there for a good while.
In the end, it was the Bronze Age to the rescue. While the more purely Silver Age archetypes had pretty much been covered, M&M never even scratched the surface of the aggressively relevant and relentlessly odd protagonists that debuted back in the ‛70s. So with a heady mixture of my affection for offbeat ‛70s comics and a spirit of "Where else would we ever get to do this character?" a list of potential candidates was eventually compiled. With that Disco Era mind-set in place, the archetypes in Silver Age wound up being:
Amphibian Warrior: This is the classic swimming hard-case soldier from Atlantis spouting Elizabethan dialogue. It's the most truly Silver Age archetype of the lot; one I couldn't believe someone hadn't thought of doing before. (Maybe because it sort of defines "lame hero" in the public mind?) At any rate, if you have a gamemaster who doesn't mind coming up with an excuse to have at least one major plot point underwater every week, this is the archetype that completes a truly Silver Age team.
Avenging Disco Godfather: When oh-so-earnest Bronze Age writers try to diversify the superhero genre but have only Shaft and Superfly as reference points, the Avenging Disco Godfather is the result. He's super-strong and bulletproof, but more importantly, he's funky and totally baadasssss. This archetype is accompanied by one of the most perfect pieces of art ever--trust me.
Bionic Hero: Between the Silver Age's adoration of technology and the Iron Age's abhorrence of its dehumanization is the Bionic Hero. He's ready for some two-fisted Commie-busting action like his 1960s forerunners, but with just a dash of Nixon-era paranoia thrown in. We children of the 1970s will appreciate the origins of this archetype on several levels.
Feminist Hero: In many ways, this is the distaff version of the Avenging Disco Godfather; proof that a writer can be fully committed to an issue (like women's rights) and still be utterly clueless about it. That said, it's still an archetype designed to beat male chauvinist pig villains into a fine paste, and that's fun for any gender.
Guitar Hero: It's only natural that Bronze Age writers and their generation's belief that rock 'n' roll really can save the world would eventually manifest as musicians with actual superpowers. Today, we share that faith undiminished or else gaze at it with eye-rolling mockery. Either way, there's fun to be had feeling the power of rock or gently sending it up.
Hard-Traveling Hero: This was a great opportunity to show how the Bronze Age Zeitgeist and its quest for new heroes led to the lionization of such unobvious subjects as truckers, and do M&M stats for a colorful piece of alien jewelry that bestows superpowers on the wearer. Look for my dog Buster making a cameo appearance in the piece of art accompanying this archetype.
Motorcycle Daredevil: Few things are as quintessentially Bronze Age as the formerly disreputable ownership of a motorcycle becoming shorthand for "This is our hero, gentle readers." The Motorcycle Daredevil has the skills and an attitude, and frankly that's all you needed in the ‛70s to headline your own funny book. It's an easily customizable archetype just in case you might want to--oh, I don't know--have him burst into flames while he rides. If that's how you roll, that is.
Psychic: In the seemingly pre-James Randi Bronze Age, when the likes of Uri Geller and Jeane Dixon roamed the land credulously and unridiculed, psychic powers were like, real, man. We knew it, too, despite "Tricky Dick" Nixon and the government trying to cover it all up. It was a time when people discussed ESP with a straight face, and naturally their superheroes followed suit. The Psychic allows you to relive the era's bulls (clap) hit (thank you, Penn Jillette) and bend crooks and spoons with equal ease using only the hidden potential of the human mind. (Please say that last part like Leonard Nimoy on In Search Of... for full effect.)
And... I'm spent. Please join us one last time, next time as our finale discusses Chapter Four and how to gamemaster the Silver Age genre in M&M. Until then, "Stay calm. Kiss your mom. Ban the bomb. Do the best you can. Remember God loves you, man."
