What qualifies as a Golden/Silver/Bronze Age Hero?

Hey, all, I come to you with a bit of a question. Not that this matters in the end, nor is it important in the LEAST, but it's been nagging at the back of my skull for a few days, and I'm curious as to the answer.

Meet Scordatura. She's a lovely lass, and the entire reason I bought this game, back when she was named Shaelther and SUCKED TOTAL [censored]. A remake, reroll, and complete rewrite later, she has once again occupied the forefront of my mind as a favorite char.

An MA/SR Scrapper, she's a throwback to the henshin genre, when people would spit out cheesy lines, have a colorful transformation sequence into brightly-colored costumes, and then have corny fight scenes against generically-dressed bad guys and eye-roll-inducing villains (one of her more persistent foes is Squid Hitler) while upbeat music plays in the background. All she needs is a giant robot.
Spouting off one-liners with a thick Scottish accent as fast as she kicks and punches, Scordatura is valiant and determined, having a firm ideal of justice and right implanted in her mind and more than willing to act out upon it. She has no martial arts experience of her own, though, and relies on a hodgepodge fighting style she made up by mixing together things she's seen from crappy action films, martial arts manga/comics, and cheap fighting games. All of her abilities are mediocre, but the armor she wears (grafted onto her with a cry of TRANSFOOOORM-O, of course) amplifies her abilities to superhuman levels so that she can go toe-to-toe with martial artists.

She prefers to work at night, when most of the citizens and civilians are sleeping, and when many heroes are hitting the hay as well. She likes to work by herself or with as little company as possible, so that nobody gets in the way of her work or interrupts her, but she has nothing against working in large teams if absolutely needed. She's also utterly secretive and paranoid about her identity and ANYTHING relating to who she really is, and many people have given up in sheer frustration in attempts to learn about who she truly is.
Any failure with any mission she takes very personally, and sometimes she becomes quiet and disenchanted for a few minutes (up to half an hour) after any lost cause as she angst and emos and cries about it (to herself, of course, she doesn't believe in putting her burdens on others). After this, though, she quickly returns to her loud, brash self, kicking and punching people left and right while joking around as usual, confident and cocky in her abilities and telling all dangers to "Bring it OOOOON!".

All in all, how would you qualify Scordatura? What age would you put her in, if she was a comic-book char, and why?

Well, I don't have a very good understanding of golden/silver/bronze heroes...but I know I like Scordatura. XD

...It seems you have dropped your hero into my pond. Did you drop this Golden hero, this Silver hero, or this plain hero?

If anyone gets that reference they win an Essexcookie. XD

Anyway.

Since I think Silver Age is more along the lines of the OMG MASKED CRUSADORZ timeline....I don't know. Scord seems to me like she's more modern than that. I really like the mix of cultures you put in her - the Japanese style of 'henshin' (The word literally translates to 'transformation' for readers who don't know - I assume Term does), along with her Scottish accent and her (taking liberties for the purpose of humor here) Soviet Russia sense of personal privacy.

So I guess, despite this rant, I'm really not a good person to ask. D: But I am very interested in the answer.

Can anyone define the terms used?

My guess for the Essexcookie: /.hack

But, on topic: Finally that time I spent working in a comic book store has come to some sort of use (Other than the lousy paychecks)! The way you describe Scordatura most aptly fits her into the Golden Age comic hero.

First, the Modern Age. Home of the brooding anti-hero. Uhm... This is just plain not it. Any character who's sense of right and wrong extends beyond themself (ie: does actual heroic deeds) is not going to be characterized by the "all about me" mentality that typifies characters from this age.

Traveling back in time we come to the Silver Age. Typified by the internalization of conflict and the defiance of socially accepted norms. A lot of people will cite the X-Men as the cornerstone of the Silver Age, but I prefer examples like Spiderman and the Hulk. These characters are people trying against all odds to live normal lives amidst the oft-times double edged burden of their extraordinary abilities. Admittedly paranoia, one-liners and angsting all fit well into the Silver Age archetype, but (and this may be becaue I'm not reading you right) I don't get the feel that Scordatura is inheirantly tormented by her abilities.

Our time travel continues backwards, and we reach the Golden Age. Golden Age Heroes generally tend towards having a very clearly defined sense of right and wrong, a strong moral compass, and are (by todays standards) a little corny. Superman and Captain America (of the 1940's) are the quintessential Golden Age heros. Granted, Scor will fit in this category very nicely from a purely external viewpoint (training by watching videos, tranforming by shouting a word of power (it's still all about SHAZAM!) and her obligation to see things through on her own) the one-liners and angsting would seem to diverge sharply from the Golden Age core. That's not to say there's no room for self-reproach in the Golden Age hero, just that the times in which they do feel "angsty" would not be frequent or pronounced enough to use it as a criteria for character quantification.

However that's the beauty of character development. It gives you plenty of wiggle-room. You don't have to be a cookie-cutter character, and a lot of people (myself included) prefer it if your not.

So, in conclusion, it is my opinion that, based on the information provided, Scordatura is a Golden Age style Hero.

I disagree with mechagogue. Whether I'm right or wrong, I think my description may be simpler to understand:

Silver Age
1950s/1960s@. Heroes have a a Leave-it-to-Beaver mentality. The nuclear family is believed to be the pinnacle of mankind's existence. (Can't have superman without superboy, supergirl and krypto the super dog.) Comics from this period are helped defined by the witch-hunt/gov't hearings against 'tales from the crypt', 'creepshow' and other comics. DC makes internal decision that their heroes will never kill anyone (in part to stay in business.) See JLA, Green Lantern, Flash, Shazam, Wonder Woman, Superman, etc. Called the Silver Age because these comics are believed to be good but bar wasn't high as super-heroes are pretty new so nothing to compare it to.

Golden Age
@70s/80s. Heroes take on a 2nd dimension. While they are here to protect us, this becomes not their sole mission as self-identity, SG-infighting, and pay-backs rear their realistic heads. See (late 70s) X-Men, Spider-Man, Punisher, Adam Warlock, etc. Called the Golden Age because many comic readers felt these stepped-up storylines better reflected their own lives and thus are not only comics but literary serials (w/pretty colors!)

Bronze Age (late 80s/early 90s)
Because of the success of the Golden Age, comic publishers go crazy. They crank out double-sized comics, give us a million X-Men offshoot titles, call every other comic a collector's item even though there are tons in circulation, and worst of all perhaps: told us Peter Parker isn't really Spider-Man but a clone of Ben Grimm! (The comic industry nearly dies with the exception of Manga which is now attracting female reader. It's no accident manga got introduced as costume options because these comix sell.) Examples are the Scarlet Spider, Canonball, (new lightning-powered) Superman, and Deadpool (who people love but he is from that period.)

My two cents on your character. She sounds like a golden age char (being a Scottish martial-artist) who fights silver age villains (as you mentioned they some times spit corny lines it sounds like.)

I'm going to disagree with your Silver/Gold/Bronze breakdown Fire_Wa11, generally - the 'golden age' comes first, and in typical comic histories refers to the Superman #1 (late 30s) to HUAC era in the early 50s. The Silver Age is generally considered to start with the restructured Flash (which beat Fantastic Four #1 out by a couple years) in the very late 50s or the early 60s Fantastic Four #1 and the birth of the Marvel era - and its characteristicly more 'human' and flawed characters (X-men in a world hating and fearing them, Peter Parker, etc.)

When the Silver Age ends is a bit more debatable. I'm fond of the scheme, myself, that puts it at the death of Gwen Stacey and the beginning of a decade with more 'horror' comics and more gritty issues.

But pretensious contribution to the discussion aside... I'd say the character sounds pretty Silver Age - engaged in the fight fantastic - while having to deal with emotional issues.

Hum. All right, thank you very much for the input, all.