Editing DOGFACES Rule Alterations (section)

==PLAYING THE ROLES==
===WORLD WAR II===
The central and defining event is the Second World War. Following the declaration of war, their prime adversaries were Nazi and Japanese super-soldiers (as well as fifth-columnists and saboteurs). The presence of super-powered champions on both the Axis and Allied sides of the war accounts for the fact that the war follows much the same course as in our world. The usual assumption is Allied and Axis super-soldiers counter each other, so the war follows pretty close to the real world.

===IRON AGE===
The Iron Age or “Dark Age” of comics began sometime in the 1980s. It’s characterized by a shift away from the bright colors and simple themes of the Silver Age toward more mature, often violent and explicit, stories and characters. In particular, the Iron Age features a rise in vigilante heroes far more willing (if not eager) to kill their opponents. It finds echoes in Hollywood action-adventure films featuring exaggerated gunplay, violence, and sexuality.

===SHADES OF GRAY===
A key element is the often morally ambiguous nature of heroes and villains. Sometimes it’s difficult to draw a clear line between the two. For example, in the Silver Age, a hero whose family is murdered devotes himself to bringing criminals to justice, and is sworn never to kill, since that makes him no better than the scum he fights. In the Iron Age, the same origin creates a vigilante hero who swears to wreck bloody vengeance against all criminals. He does what the law cannot, because the system is flawed and corrupt, gunning down criminals and fighting villains to the death. The moral ambiguity extends beyond just violence. It touches upon other issues like drug use, sexuality, personal problems, and heroes making money off their powers. Some heroes are mercenaries, doing their job for pay. Others are ruthless businesspeople, cashing in on their costumed identities with licensing deals and personal appearances. The setting should reflect these more complex and adult issues.

===LONE WOLVES===
The heroes of the Iron Age were often solo acts, lone avengers on a personal quest. Since most Mutants & Masterminds games are group experiences, you may need to play down this aspect of the Iron Age. Fortunately, Iron Age heroes did occasionally band together into teams, albeit more loosely organized than the superhero teams of the Silver Age. Iron Age teams were often modeled on police or military special operations units rather than a crime-fighting “league.” Team members still occasionally struck out on their own, especially when dealing with personal matters they preferred to keep to themselves.

===BLACK OPS===
Many characters and stories adopted a paramilitary style. Instead of superheroes, characters were “special operatives” often working for a government, corporation, or organization. Elements of the espionage and action-adventure genres seeped into the comics. Costumes tended to be less flashy, more body armor and camouflage, military-style jumpsuits. Characters often adopted military attitudes, ranks, and backgrounds.
Iron Age villains also took on a more practical and political tone. Terrorists of various stripes became common, along with gangsters and druglords (reflecting the 1980s “War on Drugs”). Villains were more likely to be found in boardrooms and they controlled international networks of influence. Solo villains were often psychotic serial killers and similar monsters.

===GUNS, GUNS, GUNS!===
Heroes like guns, and lots of them. Even some heroes who didn’t particularly need guns carried and used them. These were real guns, too, not Silver Age “blasters,” guns loaded with “mercy bullets,” or similar science-fiction weapons, but guns firing live ammo (preferably armor-piercing and at full-auto). In addition to guns, other lethal weapons are common, including swords, knives, and various martial arts weapons, especially shuriken, sais, katana, and nunchaku. Some characters have high-tech or magical versions of these weapons, but more often they are simply mundane tools of bloody violence wielded by expert hands.

===HUMAN HEROES===
The heroes have feet of clay. While many Silver Age heroes were given foibles, they truly come to the fore. Rather than just heroes who bicker amongst themselves, for example, there are heroes dealing with serious problems like alcoholism, drug use, and racism. Heroes are portrayed as people, who sometimes make mistakes or have flaws they need to overcome. This creates plenty of opportunities for complications (see Complications, page 122). Heroes can have martial and relationship problems, dark personal secrets, struggles between their heroic and super identities, and battles between conscience and duty. A particular issue for patriotic heroes is increasing cynicism toward patriotism and national loyalty in general.

===SOCIAL ISSUES===
Comics began to deal with some of the issues forbidden by the Comics Code by handling them in what was considered a helpful way, offering positive role-models for young readers. For example, the comics addressed the issue of drug abuse by clearly portraying it as something bad. So long as it wasn’t glorified, the Code didn’t pose any problems (particularly since it was largely self-enforced anyway). The major social issues of the 1970s and ‘80s all showed up in the comics to one degree or another. Among the most popular were:
*  Women’s Rights: Feminist heroines and empowered women became more common. Female heroes made it clear they weren’t going to serve solely as “secretaries” to hero teams and they were just as capable as any male hero, if not more so. Female villains often had enough of male-domination and were prepared to serve it up in spades. Stories ranged from serious issues of discrimination to campy “battles of the sexes” where empowered heroines who’d had enough fought it out with their male counterparts (usually under some sort of villainous influence).
*  Black Power: Minority heroes—notably black heroes—become more common, although it was all but required for such heroes to have the word “Black” in their names. Such heroes were often angry crusaders for equal rights as well as justice for all. 
*  Substance Abuse: Drug and alcohol abuse, previously forbidden by the Comics Code, became issues. Heroes fell victim to the “demon in a bottle,” and were forced to deal with the consequences, or discovered their young wards were addicts, much as unsuspecting parents were forced to deal with children on drugs. In later years, the “War on Drugs” became a common theme, and drug-dealers common foes for street-level heroes. Some heroes even gained their powers from accidents involving designer drugs, echoing some of the deliberate “super-serum” heroes of the Golden Age, some of whom discovered they had a drug problem stemming from the source of their powers.
*  Youth Empowerment: From the flower children of the 1960s to the “Me Generation” of the 1980s, comics featured more young people who weren’t just loyal sidekicks of older mentors, but full-fledged heroes in their own right. Often, the younger generation had a new way of doing things, and they were looking for independence from their elders.
*  Multinationalism: Following the trends of minority-rights, comics in the later years began to introduce more heroes and villains from nations outside North America. Often they were simply guest-stars, but some comics included regular foreign characters, with different cultural backgrounds. Comics also took place outside of North American cities and went to other places on Earth.

===LEATHER & LATEX===
Just as guns became fashion accessories for the well-dressed hero or villain, costumes in the Iron Age took on a more “mature” appearance. Tight-fitting leather, with as many straps and buckles as possible, or formfitting latex or spandex became common. Various sorts of body armor showed up (to protect against all those guns) and costumes had a paramilitary style to them: jumpsuits, bandoliers, web-belts, combat boots, and so forth, were common elements. Sunglasses, goggles, and helmets often replaced masks, and heroes as well as villains sport tattoos, piercings, and other body-art.

===NINJA!===
The Iron Age of comics saw a fascination with martial arts, ninja in particular: dark clad assassins wielding almost mystical powers of stealth. Rogue ninjas became vigilante heroes while villains often sent ninja minions or lieutenants against the heroes. A common archetype was the westerner trained in the secret ninja arts (who then almost always turns against ninja tradition to become a hero). Rivalries between student and teacher or former fellow students provided conflict for heroes and villains. Any Iron Age team worth its salt had at least one ninja-like member (if not several). 

===FANTASTIC FRONTIERS===
Many heroes are explorers by nature, blazing trails into new frontiers. These exotic places often hold danger, for the heroes and the world. 
*  Lost Worlds include isolated plateaus where dinosaurs still roam (and maybe hunt primitive tribes of humans). Living examples of dead civilizations like ancient Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, or Mayans may still exist, and could have technology (or magic) in advance of their ancestors, or even the modern world.
*  Hidden Civilizations are sources of heroes and villains. Cities hidden in isolated places like the Himalayas, Antarctica, or the bottom of the ocean are home to offshoots of the human race. Sunken cities like Atlantis and Lemuria are common in the comics, inhabited by aquatic or mer-people. Perhaps legendary cities like Shangri-La, El Dorado, Lyonesse, and Brigadoon exist in one form or another. You can decide just how well hidden these civilizations are, what the inhabitants are like, and what adventure possibilities they offer. 
*  Fantastic Dimensions range from abstract places like the astral plane and the dimension of darkness (or similar conceptual dimensions) to parallel Earths where history took a different course. Heroes can use Dimensional Movement to reach these dimensions, while their inhabitants might do the same to reach Earth.

===REALISTIC POWERS===
Super-powers in the Iron Age were often treated more realistically than before. Writers sought to power-down many characters and offer at least somewhat reasonable explanations for the fantastic powers of others. More importantly, they explored many of the consequences of such powers, beyond using them to fight crime and injustice. What did it really mean to be a god among mortals, an alien among humans? Generally, the realistic implications of powers made them more lethal. After all, strength sufficient to lift tons should easily smash flesh and bone. Laser beams able to melt steel inflict horrible burns, and so forth. Gamemasters looking to capture an Iron Age feel should ratchet up the realism and lethality of the campaign in general.