Musing on Superman

The new Superman movie is coming out, and given some of the hullbaloo surrounding it, I thought I’d give my two cents about one of my favorite comic book characters. In truth, there aren’t many good stories about Superman. This is largely due to the fact that modern writers do not understand the character, his context, or what he symbolizes.

The Character

This is probably one of the most difficult comic book characters to write because moderns do not understand the fact that Superman isn’t really Superman. He isn’t even Kal El. He is Clark Kent. The fact that Superman so strongly identifies with the Everyman and wants to live a normal life as a human being is the reason he is a hero. Clark Kent understands what the Everyman desires, needs, and fears because he tries so hard to be the Everyman, despite the fact he can never truly be Everyman. At the heart of this character is a level of humility that most people today do not comprehend. Rather, they look to his power and fantasize about what they would do if they were Superman. In so doing, they reveal themselves to be monsters, because Clark Kent would give up his powers in a heart beat if it meant he could live a peaceful, normal life.

The Context

Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster. Importantly, both were Jews at a time when the nation-state of Israel did not exist and Europe was not a safe place for Jews to live. One can speculate about the fact that “Superman” is an English translation of the German “Übermensch;” however, that leads us back to the power fantasies of monsters. In truth, the Jewishness of Siegel, Shuster, and Superman say less about being Jewish and more about being American in the first decades of the 20th century. While living as a Jew in the rest of the world was difficult at best, America provided a place where Jews could not only thrive, but be accepted as Americans. Take a look at these celebrated American artists of the early 20th century:

• Jack Benny

• Irving Berlin

• Leonard Bernstein

• George Burns

• Aaron Copeland

• Will Eisner

• George Gershwin

• The Marx Brothers

• Mae West

And I could go on and on…ever single one of them is a Jew, but we don’t think of them as Jewish-Americans. Every one of them is embraced simply as American.

The Symbol

Thus, Clark Kent and his hope to be Everyman, and Superman’s acceptance as a hero all hinge on the Jewish experience of the United States in the early 20th century. In other words, Superman symbolizes America at her best. This is why Superman landed in Kansas at a farm raised by a good Christian family. There is nothing more American.

So, modern writers who attempt to make Superman a hero of the world, a man who uses his power to make the earth a better place are doomed to fail. Superman isn’t an all-earth hero. If he were, he wouldn’t be a hero. He would be a villain: a demi-god with enough power to force the world and its people to bend to his will and his vision of the “good.” This is why so many superman clones end up as villains. Without the Kents, without the Jewish experience of America, without the Christian values that gird the American experiment, Superman is not Clark Kent. Superman is not a hero. Superman is a monster. Clark Kent and his humility, his desire to be the Everyman, and his American-ness is the hero.

I live in hope that someone, somewhere understands these things and writes the stories this wonderful character deserves. Unfortunately, my cynical self denies this possibility anytime soon. It is neither cool nor politically correct to celebrate the best of America or the Christian values that make that best version possible.

Towards a Supers RPG

One of the most challenging things about doing a superhero game within the mechanical structure of D&D is the radically different assumptions about combat. Where D&D grew out of a medieval war game where the consequence of combat is death, the superhero genre rarely deals out death, just incapacitation.

5e spells suggest a way to mechanically differentiate what Champions calls Killing Attacks from Normal Attacks. The 5e spell Sacred Flame auto-hits but allows the target a saving throw to avoid damage. Fire Bolt requires a to-hit roll that determines whether or not the target takes damage. Since the latter is the normal D&D mechanic for determining death of a target, that will model the Killing Attack, and the auto-hit/saving throw will emulate the normal superhero combat mechanic.

This allows for an interesting mechanical smorgasbord in terms of attack and defense. Each attack power gets to specify which attribute is used for a saving throw:

• Strength
• Dexterity
• Constitution
• Intelligence
• Wisdom
• Charisma

It also gets to designated what type of damage it does:

• Acid
• Bludgeoning
• Cold
• Fire
• Force
• Lightning
• Necrotic
• Piercing
• Poison
• Psychic
• Radiant
• Slashing
• Thunder

Defense would include Resistance to the various types of damage, Damage Reduction for various types of damage, and the good ‘ol Armor Class.

This leaves a huge (maybe even too big?) amount of space for players to come up with all kinds of weird ways to explain why a Lightning attack targets Charisma.

Alternatively, the type of damage could pre-determine what kind of saving throw is required:

Strength: Cold, Fire
Dexterity: Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing
Constitution: Acid, Poison
Intelligence: Lightning, Thunder
Wisdom: Force, Psychic
Charisma: Necrotic, Radiant

Note how the latter limits choices on how special effects function and how arguments can be made why one type of damage also belongs with another type of saving throw...which is why I hesitate even though it would make things "easier" mechanically.

RPG Dreamin': Re-thinking 5e Skills

Have you ever had a dream where you are in a game shop and you find a really interesting game that you want to buy but then wake up and realize that the game actually doesn’t exist? I have.

Recently, I had this very vivd dream of seeing a stack of RPG supplements in the form of cheap comic books printed on newspaper quality stock. Each supplement promised invaluable information on how to add various cheesy 80s cartoon characters and worlds to the RPG experience: He-Man, Space Ghost, Thunder the Barbarian, etc. They cost two bucks each and I was really interested. When I found the actual ruleset, it was also a comic book, also two dollars, but someone had ripped pages out of it. Then I woke up.

In my half-awake haze of coming out of a dream state, it occurred to me that what I had dreamt about was not something all that new: Basic Roleplaying, Fudge, and GURPS have gone down this path for decades now. The big difference is that while the main rule-books of these three games are tomes of hundreds of pages, my dream envisioned a comic-book sized rulebook of maybe 32-64 pages. While I don’t think this is practical or even possible, I can’t help but think someone could get close.

Then my hazy brain started to have a conversation with itself that went along these lines:

You know, I just finished up a pretty good game that is under 64 pages…

Yeah, but that’s a fantasy RPG what about modern stuff like guns? Or superhero stuff?

Yeah, a lot of those 80s cartoons were riffs off of superhero concepts.

So, if this comic-book sized game could do superheroes, it could do exactly what you wanted in your dream, right?

Yeah…

So let’s see if the 5e SRD could do superheroes!

Yeah! This could work!

Back when I was playing RPGs with my high school buddies, those words, “This could work” were dreaded words. It meant that our party was about to push the limits of both our characters and the DMs ability to accommodate whatever outlandish idea we had come up with. It either broke the campaign or it was awesome.

So, in order to test these dangerous waters, I decided to start with my least favorite part of any universal system: skills. I dislike them because they are rules-heavy and tend to tell players what they cannot do rather than what they can. Unfortunately, they come with the territory with RPG settings like cyber-punk, space, and even superheroes.

Since I have had the idea of stripping down the SRD to its mechanical core, I remembered something rather interesting about Champions: it has a bunch of skills that are not tied to any ability. In other words, it doesn’t matter how smart, dumb, strong or weak you are, this skill is going to work or not work because of skill. While interesting, this still informs players that they can’t do stuff unless they have that skill on their character sheet. So, what if I took the spirit of this idea — skills are not tied to a specific ability score — and went the opposite direction. What if a player could use any ability score with a skill?

Here is the basic premise: Skills should be cinematic rather than mechanical. In other words, rather than having dice rolling being the primary reason why a character succeeds or not, have the player’s creativity be the primary mover in any given situation. Let me illustrate by taking a few skills from the SRD and applying non-traditional ability scores to them:

Stealth

Strength: Use the angles of the ceiling to hang from an otherwise impossible place where no one would think to look.

Constitution: Hold really still in a small place until no one is looking.

Intelligence: Analyze the position of the surveillance cameras and/or guards to determine where all the blindspots are.

Wisdom: Read the guards and determine what kind of distraction would create the most confusion.

Charisma: Walk through like I’m supposed to be there.

History

Strength: Intimidate the librarian until she tells you the information you need.

Constitution: Find a place where people talk and hold-out until I overhear something important.

Dexterity: Climb that tree/lamp post/building that will get me the vantage point to figure out who is in that painting.

Wisdom: Who is the most likely person to know the information I need?

Charisma: Charm the information out of the professor over a coffee.

Not every situation is going to allow for every ability score to be used. I can’t think of a way Wisdom or Charisma could help to climb a sheer wall when running away from some monsters, for example. What I love about this idea, though, is that it gives players the freedom to try. What I also love about this idea is that it frees up the Referee to simply allow the PCs to succeed when they come up with good cinematic ways to use skills, or to levy what they see as reasonable DCs for ideas that are just outside the box.

I will also grant that some of the above descriptions better fit other skills; however, that is an exercise in telling players what they can't do, and that is exactly what I don't want a skill system to do.

Proficiency then, rather than being simply a bonus to a roll, is permission to be truly heroic in the ways that that skill gets used. Think Jeff Goldblum’s character in Independence Day. There is no way anyone should be able to write a virus that crashes the alien’s computer system. Yet, he does and we go along for the ride because it is so much fun.

Captain America: Civil War is a Christian Movie!?

Please note: I have been meaning to write this post for awhile but never seem to get around to it, but JB’s comment to my meditations on Dune has finally got the ball rolling.

Let me be brutally honest: I have never really liked Marvel in any of its incarnations. Back when I collected comic books, most of the titles I bought came from the independent scene or were from some of the more experimental titles from DC (e.g. their Vertigo line). I enjoy the genre and the fact that we now have the ability to put these characters on film in all their glory, but the MCU has never been something that I ever got excited about. I have enjoyed watching the odd MCU film, but the only one that I had seen more than once was the first Iron Man movie and that was because it allowed me the rare opportunity to watch a movie with my wife, not because I went out of my way to see it again.

Therefore, when Captain America: Civil War came out, I was wholly uninterested. When people began to impose upon it a political message of Libertarianism (embodied by Cap) vs. Authoritarianism (embodied by Iron Man) I was even less interested. Not only do I find that politics in movies get too preachy and harm the artistry of the film, but I believed they had got the politics all wrong. Iron Man should have been the libertarian, having stood up to the government in Iron Man 2 to defend his property rights. Cap should have been more amenable to authoritarianism because the government he fought for not only had authoritarian leanings (FDR was all about government control) but was the very source of his power. If you disagree with my assessment of FDR, compare his policies to those of Hitler (minus all the racist/superior race crap) and you will find a shocking amount of similarity.

Thus, I didn’t see the movie for a long time. When I finally did, I realized just how wrong I was about the movie. Not only is it really good, not only have I watched it multiple times, not only is it not really about politics, but it is the most Christian movie to come out of Hollywood in a long time.

Let me explain:

This movie has three main characters:

• Captain America who represents Christianity (remember his line from Avengers, “There is only one God, ma’am, and I am pretty sure He doesn’t dress like that.”)
• Iron Man who represents the man of science who has successfully replaced God with man-made miracles and is in full control of his life and his environment.
• Black Panther who represents the non-Western man for whom age-old tradition is still important.

In the first act of the movie, each man must face tragedy. Each reacts in a different way:

• Iron Man is confronted by the fact that despite all his miraculous technology and all of his scientific genius, he is not in control. Out of desperation he tries to seize that control through government power.
• Black Panther falls back on one of humankind’s most primal reactions to tragedy, one that we have turned to since the beginning of time: revenge.
• Captain America insists on liberty and forgiveness. Thus, he insists that every human being is made according to the image and likeness of God and therefore has value. He is also willing to die to prove that point, even for those who are accused of heinous crimes.

As the movie progresses and lines are drawn and sides are taken, each of these men’s approaches to tragedy begins to play out:

• Iron man begins to lose his freedom and his people begin to lose their value. Superheroes are treated as a faceless category of people rather than unique individuals.
• Black Panther becomes more and more isolated and ends up fighting with everybody.
• Captain America and those who choose his path become martyrs. Their sacrifices begin to affect those around them to the point where people begin to see that Cap may very well have a point.

In the end it is Captain America’s Christian approach that allows these men to not only move through and past tragedy, but become stronger for it.

• Black Panther understands that his revenge will only beget more revenge in an unending cycle. As a result, he ends up saving the life of the man who killed his father.
• Those that followed Captain America are freed from their imprisonment.
• Despite being trapped in the dehumanizing government machine he created, Iron Man knows that Captain America will always be there for him, personifying Christ’s words to His disciples in Matthew 28:20, “and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

So, this really took me by surprise because I am not used to having such big blockbuster movies being so open to Christian themes and ideas. I was doubly shocked when those ideas prevailed. So, I invite you to watch Captain America: Civil War again and see it through the lens of Christ.

Saintly Saturday: Sts. Comas and Damian the Unmercenary Healers

Today is the Feast of Sts. Cosmas and Damian the Unmercenary Healers. These brothers were from a pious family in Rome and were physicians by trade. They became renowned for miraculously healing people through prayer. The brothers told the sick, “It is not by our own power that we treat you, but by the power of Christ, the true God. Believe in Him and be healed.” They accepted no payment for their treatments and so earned the title “Unmercenary Healers.” They were martyred the year A.D. 284, under the Emperors Carinus and Numerian.

Interestingly, these are one of three pairs of Unmercenary Healers with these names celebrated in the Orthodox Church today. On November 1st we celebrate Cosmas and Damian from Asia Minor and on October 17 we celebrate Cosmas and Damian from Arabia. Some have speculated that not all of these saints had the names Cosmas and Damian in life, but became known as Cosmas and Damian because of the fame and piety associated with those names.

It is also reminiscent of the superhero trope of the mantle most explicitly expressed (in my mind) by the Phantom: the Ghost Who Walks. The whole mystique of the Phantom is that he never dies and this illusion is accomplished by the mantle being passed down from generation to generation.

Sts. Cosmas and Damian, however, suggest a different kind of mantle. Whereas superheroes like the Phantom defend a place and/or fight injustice as vigilantes, Cosmas and Damian largely ignored the powers that be and simply healed those in need. Of course, this resulted in many believing in Christ which was perceived as a threat to Roman rule.

In context of an FRPG, this suggests an interesting twist on the whole “my character got bit by a giant rat and needs a Cure Disease spell” experience. What if practicing divine magic were illegal or tightly controlled by the the powers that be or was otherwise restricted to the rich and powerful? In response there could be a mantle for various healers to pick up in order to protect their own identity and still be able to help those in need. Such a mantle could even eventually be picked up by a cleric PC.

For an example of a campaign style where such a mantle could exist, check out this.