Superheroes: Then and Now

From: Eric Rowe <rowe_at_CSUA.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 01:03:32 -0700


Rule 1: Catching up on 50 digests full of bows and superheroes is painful.

Bryan Maloney saves me the trouble of quoting tales 7 on the subject of superheroes, but misses one fundamental thing. People change their minds.

Tales 7 basically pointed out that superhero was a superfluous definition and all this 5-wounds and bound-to-infinity rune chat is misdirected speculation. While I agree in general with this let me add two things.

  1. Back in the WBRM days Greg wrote an article called "In defense of superheroes." Back then Greg believed that "The superheroes of dragon pass are personages whose presence fills the needs of many divergent societies. Heroes tend to be more local in character, while superheroes are cross-cultural." So, if you wish, you can do all your idle speculation about characters based upon Greg's thoughts back when he made the game. (BTW, the article also points out that no chit (hero, super, bat) is an individual. ALL are groups of powerful beings.)
  2. Before telling everyone the Superhero definition was superfluous I asked Greg is this was still true. He replied "SuperHero=DemiGod, I think."

Go figure. Just make sure you realize that you can use any definitions that you feel like. No one is wrong. (Me, I'm in the continuum camp with Harald)

eric


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