Outgunned Superheroes
- Thread starter Whizbang Dustyboots
- Start date
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
A Superman expy list that fails to include Supreme during Moore's run on the book is sadly lacking to me. Best Silver Age Superman homage ever written.
You can leave Liefeld's lousy version off all you like, though.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Man, Alan Moore's run was so good. But like so much of his stuff, you could tell he came in with lots of ideas and then got bored at some point and then it was suddenly over.A Superman expy list that fails to include Supreme during Moore's run on the book is sadly lacking to me. Best Silver Age Superman homage ever written.
You can leave Liefeld's lousy version off all you like, though.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Personally, I only thought a couple of cases (not-Batman, not-Iron Man) that seemed more blatant than archetype art I've seen in a number of games.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Not-Batman feels like the one where I hope they know European copyright law well. I don't think a company publishing in America could get away with that.
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
That does tend to be a failing of his, but in that particular case it felt like he'd said what he most needed to say and wanted to move on rather than have to deal with Rob, who'd been showing signs of bitterness about having his character catch fire under another (much better) creator. There's a non-zero chance I was specifically mocking the Supreme situation when I wrote the metatextual comments on this character from Bad Nineties Week on my Sentinel Comics blog, substituting Hulk for Superman in that case.
On-topic, I intensely dislike seeing art of obvious expies of published characters (especially ones from the Big Two) appear in RPGs, and the more obvious it is the more it wrankles no matter how technically skilled the artist is. All Outgunned is accomplishing with it archetype illos is to make me wonder how much more interesting they'd have been if the artist had been given a free hand - while also making me question if the rest of the book is equally unoriginal.
And yes, I know this is hardly the worst case of the phenomenon and it's really quite common. Doesn't change my opinion.
Last edited:
Bae'zel
Hero
I'll make enemies by stating this, but I'm not really bothered by it, personally, because DC and Marvel aren't exactly struggling underdogs, and the creators of these characters are all super rich, famous and/or dead.
Similarly I wouldn't get offended if this company did a not-Mickey Mouse or not-Bugs Bunny (which they kind of did).
Similarly I wouldn't get offended if this company did a not-Mickey Mouse or not-Bugs Bunny (which they kind of did).
Thomas Shey
Legend
Yeah, that one was very striking; if I'd seen the artwork in another context, I'd have absolutely assumed it was supposed to be Batman.
To be clear, I'm not offended. It's just lazy and boring. One of the BEST things about comic book spheres is how wide open they are. And as I alluded to mentioning Astro City and Invincible, you can absolutely do archetypes while still being creative.
The artist is skilled. The art director should be fired.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I don't know if I'd say fired, but certainly a conversation should be had about Daniella taking off her gloves and going nuts in the superhero space would be good.
That said, their stretch goals all are riffing off of the Infinity War, so the MCU is clearly a big part of what is inspiring them with this. Which is probably pretty smart -- the MCU is vastly more popular than actual comics today and will inform what a lot of gamers want from their superhero RPGs.
Similar Threads
