Question Guns and heros in a superhero world

In the Whateley universe you have your gun ranges, and characters like Deadeye who's power lends itself to being a sniper, but on the whole I don't think I've seen a hero type character who's principal offensive weapon is some form of gun.

I grew up when Western's were still huge, and Marvel had four or five western titles. In westerns skill with a gun was the super power of the day. Followed by two good fists.

in modern comics gun use seems to be restricted to the bad guys, and they are universally awful shots. Hero either never get hit, or can't be harmed by something as mundane as a regular gun.

This brings me up to a pet peeve of mine that goes back a long way. Characters in the comics lecturing on the immorality of guns, and how a hero does not use them because they are better than the criminal scum.
This is just a sort of simmering thing with me, but I'm watching the new "Batman: Bad Blood" video movie, and it was really rubbed in my face.

The opening sequence has the Batwoman attacking a group of what she calls C list badguys, and using a classic .45 auto as her main weapon.

Batman bursts in, throwing explosive batarangs and planting shaped charge explosives on armored badguys, all the while ducking and dodging bullets.

In one sequence he knocks Batwoman's aim off by pushing her arm off target, and tells her that we don't use guns because we are better than them.

Made me want to punch him in the face.

Opinions on the evils of using a gun as a offensive/defensive weapon? Keeping in mind that in a super hero world the skill level would mean you your gun toting hero could likely shoot quarters out of the air at fifty feet.

TvTropes links:

Superhero Packing Heat

Doesn't Like Guns

In a world where you have people who have powers that revolve around technology, guns are to be expected, technically speaking, even though the weapons are built into the armor, Iron Man has at least 3 "guns" on him in the basic variant of the armor, one in each hand and a bigger one in the chest, the limiting factor in Whateley, is that you have a lot of blasters and bricks, a lot of situations where anything short of a BFG in ranged options is too small, defensive technologies are way above conventional firearms, also remember, Whateley has a LARGE character pool, which can counter "Stormtrooper Aim" syndrome

mhalpern wrote: In a world where you have people who have powers that revolve around technology, guns are to be expected, technically speaking, even though the weapons are built into the armor, Iron Man has at least 3 "guns" on him in the basic variant of the armor, one in each hand and a bigger one in the chest, the limiting factor in Whateley, is that you have a lot of blasters and bricks, a lot of situations where anything short of a BFG in ranged options is too small, defensive technologies are way above conventional firearms, also remember, Whateley has a LARGE character pool, which can counter "Stormtrooper Aim" syndrome

In my view Whateley mostly gets it right. They treat guns as useful, but very dangerous, tools. the negatives don't come from the guns, but the people holding them.

One place I think they don't consider the potential is actually in regards to bricks. A serious limitation on the usefulness of a hand gun is the ability to actually control it when you fire it, and not ending up with a shattered arm. Think about the gun Hellboy uses. Anyone else who tried to fire it would likely destroy their arm, but in his hands it's a very effective anti-monster weapon.

Imagine a weapon that had to use Adamantine ammunition because anything less durable would evaporate in the muzzle blast?

An invulnerable brick should be able to use a hand-held weapon that would punch right through Lancer's shield, or another brick. We've seen Gadgeteers and devisers using insanely powerful energy weapons, but no one has really extrapolated the potential of what someone like Hippy could handle. I can get where she'd think using a gun takes away from the personal touch of ripping someone's spleen out with your bare hands, but Sensei Ito likely would disapprove of that attitude. If the situation requires lethal force, then the most effective direct application of that force should be applied.

But, to get back to my original point, which is not so much that the hero does not believe in using guns, but that the creators of said hero use him as a platform to push the point that no one should use guns. That they are not necessary.

My first real encounter with this was in a Spiderman comic where a young mutant who's power had run out of control and who was a clear and present danger was shot by a police officer before Spiderman could stop him. No effort at all was made to deal with the terrible choice the police officer had to make, he and his fellow officers were depicted as trigger happy idiots who if they had just let the super hero do his job could have avoided an unnecessary death.

...

Game of Thrones, Whateley Edition.

well consider, most bricks have range options of their own, and then consider basic physics, the energy of a projectile is the mass x velocity^2, an adamantine bullet wouldn't be very useful at the velocities it would entail, for 1 its ridiculously expensive, 2 why not just use heavier ammunition? that's why Phase's "canonballs" are so effective, it isn't so much the velocity they travel, its the MASS they have when she goes heavy and throws them. also consider, the size of and shape of a gun carries 2 functions 1 firepower, 2 aim, if its too big no matter how light it is, it will be a bitch to aim. Also consider power, there's a reason why its mainly Devisors and SOME gadgeteers that use BFGs, its because they have access to far superior power supplies, in comparison, Phase's GDI combat maser which is enough for SOME force fields, is only a single shot, and has to be recharged outside of combat, as it doesn't have a reality bending power supply. Even with the strength to withstand the recoil (which at such speeds where super-strength would be needed you would need a larger than legal gauge barrel or an alternative propulsion method as there's a limit to how fast a gas fired round can travel, you're still talking lots of bulk for just a few shots, at that point it makes more sense to use smarter, more specialized ammunition, as we see in Whateley. All the varrious grenades and ammunition types, make sense, gas grenades and gas cloud ammo- perfect against air permeable force-fields, webshot, great against bricks, even if you barely feel it, its a mess to get out of, electric shock works against the warpers who can ignore webs, after a certain point, its less about hitting the target harder, and more about hitting them with something that works.


Using media to push political views is nothing new, however one thing to remember in the Whateley Universe gun laws and views on them are VASTLY different than they are IRL, which reflects the fact you have people who by natural and supernatural forces have lethal weapons built in to them in ways the general populous does not, and they act as an "equalizer factor"

Light wrote: While comics often couch the issue in morality(the guns are bad stuff you complain about) that's not actually the reason why guns aren't more common in comics. A firearm is a very real world thing and as such brings a lot of expectations with its use. Namely, it's very good at killing people, but comics are not about killing people. A lot of heroes have moral compunctions against it(it's sorta superman and batman's thing that they don't kill ever), but more importantly, it's just not very useful for storytelling. Sure, batman could just shoot the Joker, but then there's no Joker. Good villains have a lot of cache, and are not easy to just toss aside, especially in a medium that requires you to constantly write stories for decades on end. Toward this end, you generally see a lot of mutants have powers that 'seem lethal', but typically just knock people out. Cyclops blaster vision from x-men is a good example, as are Iron Man's pulse weapons. These are all basically guns, but are done in a way to remove the lethality from them, which serves to both preserve villains, and allow them to work against a wider range of villain power sets. Cyclops's vision mysterious hurts bullet proof mutants just about as well as it does normal people, even though, that is patently absurd from a physics standpoint. Note that when you do see true guns in comics, they are typically wielded by characters that are edgy or don't fight humans. Punisher kills people. Hellboy fights demons. If Whateley was more interested in killing people off, there would probably be more gun use(short of regen and very high end exemplar even normal firearms are great at killing just about any mutant), but given how upset people get when characters they like die, I doubt people would prefer that version of the world.

I will always say, if they aren't title characters and we don't see their future selves, they ain't got a safety net, the thing is with Whateley, many of the characters are main protags themselves and haven't reached a "passing of the torch" ark, and likely wont until Gen 3 future stuff, but that can change and I can be wrong, but theres a LOT of "mentor" characters, and in my books mentor characters tend to be high on the list of characters whom are "most likely to die"

Rather reminds me of the climax of the old movie "Wizards".

Light wrote: While comics often couch the issue in morality(the guns are bad stuff you complain about) that's not actually the reason why guns aren't more common in comics. A firearm is a very real world thing and as such brings a lot of expectations with its use. Namely, it's very good at killing people, but comics are not about killing people.

Marvel once had several western comics. "Two Gun Kid" "Kid Colt" "Rawhide Kid", who was rebooted as a gay character a few years ago.

They did not leave a body count despite their primary offensive weapon being guns. They tended to shoot guns out of hands and heels off of boots. They used their guns as precision instruments to effect long range effects.

totally unrealistic, but no more so than a character who can knock a bad guy out with a single punch, if he's a minion, and not cause brain damage.

I suppose it gets into the Three Stooges argument. If you show that sort of stuff that is not so far removed from things that can be done in real life, kids will think its real. I'd say bull to that, but on recent comment boards about some police shootings I've read many, many, commenter criticizing the police officer involved with being killers because they did not shoot the gun out of the guy's hand, or didn't just shoot to disable instead of aiming at center mass.

So maybe our population has already been brainwashed into thinking gun skills of that magnitude are a real life thing, at least among people who've never fired one in their life.

joreymay wrote: Rather reminds me of the climax of the old movie "Wizards".

Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ] [ Click to hide ]

"Good guy" (more or less) Wizard is battling his bad guy brother. Winds up for a Really Big Spell, which bad guy prepares to countern whips a BFG out of his sleeve and shoots him VERY dead.

Man, that takes me back. Right up with the first Indiana Jones movie where he shoots the showoff swordsman for visceral satisfaction.

...

Guns and Whateley.

Loophole carries a gun at all times, and uses it regularly.
Murphy carries a gun.
Generator carries a WU gun.
Phase carries a WU energy gun.
Bronze Lady carries a Devisor Gun.
The Grunts are all carrying guns.
Mahren used all sorts of guns.
Jericho has gun he uses.

These are just from memory.

actually doesn't Phase carry 2 guns, a cobra and a GDI combat maser?
J-team caries guns,

mhalpern wrote: actually doesn't Phase carry 2 guns, a cobra and a GDI combat maser?
J-team caries guns,

He has some kind of gun, Loophole customized it for him.

yeah the Cobra 320, 2 shot linear induction pistol

Valentine wrote: Guns and Whateley.

Loophole carries a gun at all times, and uses it regularly.
Murphy carries a gun.
Generator carries a WU gun.
Phase carries a WU energy gun.
Bronze Lady carries a Devisor Gun.
The Grunts are all carrying guns.
Mahren used all sorts of guns.
Jericho has gun he uses.

These are just from memory.

all of which is one of many reasons I'm hooked on Whateley when I gave up on Main Stream American comics years ago. I wish I could win a mega lottery so I could finance a Whateley comic universe. On line of course. Girl Genius is a heck of a business model.

....wait.

Nagrij wrote: ....wait.

Dude. Cruel.

This thread has given me an idea. I'm making a character with a .50 caliber handgun, and a clip from Mobius that can hold several hundred rounds of ammunition.

Makes me think of a warper I theorized. They subconsciously teleport projectiles along their initial vector. I call them "Hitscan".

Domoviye wrote: This thread has given me an idea. I'm making a character with a .50 caliber handgun, and a clip from Mobius that can hold several hundred rounds of ammunition.

Bottomless Magazines FTW! ...

Now I'm imagining Tink with that, storing the gun and firing the gun with the recoil going into a Mobius Bag, and... how do Mobius bags work if the recoil goes inside the bag... does the bag move?

... Now I've got an image of Tink tumbling into the bag from the recoil. But given nose-hitting accidents from .50 cal if I remember right, it wouldn't be that funny, having all those g-forces ... Or would it be evenly distributed to not be so bad?

... ... And now I've got an image of Page with "Do you feel lucky, punk", written on herself, if she's the gunslinger...

... Or is it yet another character that's the gunslinger? Who would it be... Most likely someone new... They've got to be pretty inventive or something to come up with Mobius Magazines... Or just a burst of sudden inspiration? Hmm...

Tink never really struck me as a gun bunny. She prefers to get up close and personal.

Malady wrote:

Domoviye wrote: This thread has given me an idea. I'm making a character with a .50 caliber handgun, and a clip from Mobius that can hold several hundred rounds of ammunition.

Bottomless Magazines FTW! ...

Now I'm imagining Tink with that, storing the gun and firing the gun with the recoil going into a Mobius Bag, and... how do Mobius bags work if the recoil goes inside the bag... does the bag move?

... Now I've got an image of Tink tumbling into the bag from the recoil. But given nose-hitting accidents from .50 cal if I remember right, it wouldn't be that funny, having all those g-forces ... Or would it be evenly distributed to not be so bad?

... ... And now I've got an image of Page with "Do you feel lucky, punk", written on herself, if she's the gunslinger...

... Or is it yet another character that's the gunslinger? Who would it be... Most likely someone new... They've got to be pretty inventive or something to come up with Mobius Magazines... Or just a burst of sudden inspiration? Hmm...

just so you know

even today we have weapons that have inertia damping on them look at the Kriss Vector super "V" in .45

it has almost no 'kick' or 'flip' in full auto even in that BIG caliber!

OK. Guns.

First, regarding limitless ammo... I think it's canon that there's already a devise that does something like it. I can't offhand remember its name, though.

Second, regarding Ridiculously Humongous F*ing Guns that it takes someone like Lancer to carry and aim...
1. Consider that these sorts of things are WAY overpowered for most scenarios. It's something that a supergroup might have in their armory for special situations, but it's not something they would carry day-to-day.
2. We have a small versions of that, of sorts: Hive's sniper gun, which she can shoot one-handed. WAY smaller than the sort of the Lancer-gun that has been talked about, and... Hive does not carry it around, because it's *fucking too overpowered for most scenarios.*

Now, regarding the preference in comics for sci-fi "weapons" such as Iron Man's repulsors... the nice thing about those, from the writer's standpoint, is that their power is adjustable, so it can fit a wide range of situations. Sort of like Star Trek hand phasers -- they go from "stun" all the way up to "disintegrate" in a convenient, easy-to-carry form factor.

I did the gun thing with my Legacy Universe character Harbinger. She's a sniper, who uses a rail gun that fires anti-tank rounds. It's a lot of fun doing a character like that, but it makes it hard to continue any long term grudges with enemies, when she is so efficient at eliminating them permanently.

peter wrote:

Nagrij wrote: ....wait.

Dude. Cruel.

I really wasn't trying to be cruel there. Patience is a virtue.

Malady wrote:

Domoviye wrote: This thread has given me an idea. I'm making a character with a .50 caliber handgun, and a clip from Mobius that can hold several hundred rounds of ammunition.

Bottomless Magazines FTW! ...

Now I'm imagining Tink with that, storing the gun and firing the gun with the recoil going into a Mobius Bag, and... how do Mobius bags work if the recoil goes inside the bag... does the bag move?

... Now I've got an image of Tink tumbling into the bag from the recoil. But given nose-hitting accidents from .50 cal if I remember right, it wouldn't be that funny, having all those g-forces ... Or would it be evenly distributed to not be so bad?

... ... And now I've got an image of Page with "Do you feel lucky, punk", written on herself, if she's the gunslinger...

... Or is it yet another character that's the gunslinger? Who would it be... Most likely someone new... They've got to be pretty inventive or something to come up with Mobius Magazines... Or just a burst of sudden inspiration? Hmm...

If you want to read a well done case of "Bottomless Magazines" read Confessions of a D-List Supervillain and it's sequels.

peter wrote:

Valentine wrote: Guns and Whateley.

Loophole carries a gun at all times, and uses it regularly.
Murphy carries a gun.
Generator carries a WU gun.
Phase carries a WU energy gun.
Bronze Lady carries a Devisor Gun.
The Grunts are all carrying guns.
Mahren used all sorts of guns.
Jericho has gun he uses.

These are just from memory.

all of which is one of many reasons I'm hooked on Whateley when I gave up on Main Stream American comics years ago. I wish I could win a mega lottery so I could finance a Whateley comic universe. On line of course. Girl Genius is a heck of a business model.

There is also the question of scale. WU is a very low powered "superworld," most characters are vulnerable to real world guns.
Marvel and DC worlds are in general very high powered "superworlds" many characters are nigh invulnerable to real world guns and other weapons, but they themselves wield powers that can destroy Main Battle Tanks, and other heavily armored vehicles, bunkers, etc.

...

Domoviye wrote: This thread has given me an idea. I'm making a character with a .50 caliber handgun, and a clip from Mobius that can hold several hundred rounds of ammunition.

The Cowboy: Slim, I ain't never seen a handgun that big before.
Frank Dooley: Yeah, it's a 50 caliber. They used to use it to hunt buffalo with... up close! It's only legal in two states. And this isn't one of them.
The Cowboy: You're somthin' else, Slim.

In a world like Whateley, I have to believe that packing the right ammo for the job is more important than having more powerful rounds, seriously though, under the assumption that Cobra Linear Induction rounds are say about the size of a marble, then a revolver style Cobra where each slot of the loading drum is 4 specialty rounds, would probably be more useful than a hand cannon that can hurt Lancer, forcefields 101, it's easier to find a weakness and exploit it than it is to over power the forcefield, Lady Havoc built a gun specifically for Pinnacle's forcefield for that reason.

joreymay wrote: Game of Thrones, Whateley Edition.

Yay!!
Moar Dragons!!!