That's fair, but it's often hard to draw a hard line between those two.

(Also, very little is "just in the cartoons," if only because the comics tend to adopt whatever's popular in the shows.)

I think the one rule I use is "do they eat a bunch of things as a joke or is plot-relevant?"

The survey just defines it as "Ability to eat massive quantities without ill effect. i.e. Killer Croc." I'm hard pressed to think of an example where Croc's super-eating was actually something that affected his agency in a situation.

Which basically narrows it down to Matter Eating Lad.

And I included Superman because of that period in like the 60s or 70s when he just prepended "Super" to everything he did.

Like Super Knitting.

@Yuuki Still gotta put Orange Lanterns, Blob, Deadpool, Galactus, Unicron, and Scooby-Doo on that list for sure.

"Matter Eating Lad" is still one of those names I find incredibly funny even though there's nothing inherently funny about it.

Matter Eater Lad, apparently.

It's definitely weird as one's only power.

Even Galactus, who is defined by his epic and unusual appetite, doesn't have it as a power. It's his fatal flaw.

@Ash My apologies, it's Super Weaving.

Man, old out of context Superman just leaves room for questions.

That era was full of deliberate self-parody. Looking at those stories through the lens of super-serious post-1985 Big Two comics is kind of surreal.

The Silver Age was weird.

Apparently Superman's flight wasn't clearly established until the first time he was animated?

@BESW I'm not sure if it's "deliberate self-parody". It definitely didn't take itself as seriously as modern comics do, but I can't really call it parody.

@Maximillian Because flying is easier to animate than jumping really far.

Same reason vampires only got pretty and couldn't go into the sun when they moved to film.

Huh, apparently there was a radio serial before the animation stuff that had Superman flying instead of leaping.

Superman is clearly a GMNPC. He can solve any issue for you.

When listing Silver Age Weirdness, don't forget The Idol-Head of Diabolu.

It's a gateway to another world that releases a new threat every time the comic's due for another issue.

It's the 1960s version of "Dawn's in trouble again. Must be Tuesday."

Doing some reading on Matter Eater Lad, he married Saturn Queen? What?

I wonder what Superman's Outlook calendar looks like.

@Maximillian Have you read Astro City? The first issue deals with the Ethics of Superman question.

Not familiar with it, no.

Astro City is a comics series independent of any other setting or franchise. It's not about a particular person or group, it's about the place Astro City, which is filled with superheroes and supervillains. The first issue has a Superman-like character explaining how he decides what's the most ethical use of his powers, and why that includes keeping a day job and stopping to give interviews even though there are more people to save.

You have to be able to sympathize with the common man to be a super man.

@Maximillian Something something Superior Spider-Man.

Another issue is about an ordinary woman who grew up in the "haunted supers" section of the city, and is trying to decide if she'll take a job that means moving to the shinier, more Justice-League-y central part of the city.

Justice League raises some interesting questions. At what point are there so many super powers around, that their very action on any major issue decides the fate of various world economies?

Marvel's explored that a bit in the movies by making the aftermath of GIANT SPACEMAN BATTLE that leveled the city a continuing theme with people impacted by it.

Yeah, that's another problem with stories that never end, and with buying up everyone else's stories and mashing them together and never letting them end.

You wind up with characters and assumptions that don't make much sense in the new shared context.

That's what reboots are for!

urrrrgh.

@Maximillian Still think "Department of Damage Control" is a dumb name.

Astro City started out as kind of an "optimistic serialized Watchmen" sort of thing, in that it's an examination and rebuttal of Big Two supers conventions but it's much more even-handed and less cynical about the whole thing as it examines the impact of the superpowered on individuals and as part of the wider community, and on themselves and each other.

It got noticeably lamer after DC bought it and put it under the Vertigo imprint. Gasp, shock.

Vertigo. Reminds me to actually finish reading Sandman at some point.

@BESW whaaat? if i didn't know any better i'd think you were trying to suggest DC doesn't handle very well the concept of superpowered individuals as thinking, feeling human beings (or equivalent) interacting with other human beings (or equivalent) who don't just solve their problems by sufficient amounts of correctly applied violence. But that couldn't be it...

Violence sells issues! Not interpersonal drama and ethical/moral dilemmas!

@Maximillian I wish I'd read more Sandman before I'd experienced a lot of other Gaiman stories.

Some of it's a little dry. Some of it is just artsy, but there's some great story arcs in there.

The one where Dream explains how A Midsummer Night's Dream really happened is a great one.

I dunno, after a certain point all of Gaiman's work started feeling samey to me?

The dark themes tend to be similar around him. I can recommend Good Omens though. his dynamic with Pratchett in writing that is amazing.

A copy with the afterthoughts from both authors is recommended.

He tells a good story, sure, but it often feels like he's re-arranging the same pieces over and over again. Whatever stories you read first are going to feel fresher.

Sandman feels like a journey of otherworldly beings, tasked with maintaining key parts of humanity, while ultimately failing to understand why they have their motivations and machinations that they come up with.

I still really enjoy his version of Death.

I've read Good Omens. I've consumed a decent stack of Gaiman stuff, in various mediums. I've read least five Sandman novels, Good Omens, Batman, American Gods, Anansi Boys, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neverwhere. I've seen his scriptwork on Babylon 5, Neverwhere, Doctor Who, and MirrorMask.

And probably a handful of others that escape me at the moment.

Haven't done American Gods. Heard they made a series out of it.

The TV series is probably better than the novel.

@BESW My one issue with that Doctor Who episode is that the character design felt very Nightmare Before Christmas-esque.

And I have visceral reactions to that aesthetic due to my adolescence.

@Yuuki Neil Gaiman is definitely the "thinking man's" Tim Burton.

Sandman taught me an important thing. Even as an immortal, nearly godlike being, you still have family issues, and you still gotta love them.

The ʻOhana of the Endless.

Hmm... could a necromancer re-animate his own skeleton?

While he's using it?

@Yuuki would depend on the system

but in most I'd guess no

I mean, if you've got the receipt and can prove it's yours, nobody's gonna stop you.

Can you cast Animate Dead on yourself to cure your own depression?

In most settings, there'd be a quibble about one's internal skeleton not being dead and thus not really being a quality target for re-animation as it's already on its first animation.

Necromancy's fine with double-dipping, but it's not very good at two-timing.

@BESW But what if I'm dead inside?

Generally in D&D flavor stuff you go from living to lich if you're a self made undead man.

Just put your soul in a safe-deposit box. You won't be needing it but it needs to be kept somewhere safe.

I'm just imagining a lich who manages to stay immortal despite having his phylactery's location noted through publicly available information because adventurers are insistent on solving inane riddles.

"Your phylactery is a bitcoin wallet? Are you telling me you're some kind of digital lich?"

@Maximillian "Oh man, you don't want to hear what happened to the value..."

New quest: Lich goes on a rampage because his bitcoin wallet phylactery is worthless after mass devaluation.

"I am fire, I am death!" "Yeah.. um.. you're currently valued at less than a dollar. Sorry guy, we can't really afford to fight you."

Main plot: Lich attempts to bring about the apocalypse to raise the value of his Bitcoin wallet.

"And with my final action.." beep lich checks phone "Okay, guys? Calling off the apocalypse. Yeah. I'm back over 35k a coin, we're good."

"You see just the threat of annihilation was good enough for the market.."

"Really need to diversify my soul more in alt coins.."

I need to play more humor-centric campaigns.

Dogecoin lich.

Lichcoin.

@Yuuki [takes notes for InSpectres game]

hey there @Yuuki

hey as well @Maximillian