Don't you think we could send the Santa one on Image Link instead? I think this one illustrate the trope more clearly. It certainly a 90's cover, while Santa I doubt it.
EDIT: Santa is rom 1996 and by Rob liefield. So okay, it's not very obvious, but I guess if fits very well in that case. Which it was more obvious, still
edited 2nd Nov '10 8:37:09 PM by collex
I think a poster of The Darkness would be more appropriate...
'''YOU SEE THIS DOG I'M PETTING? THAT WAS COURAGE WOLF.Cute, isn't he?I like the Nomad one best, myself. It's more illustrative of the trope, and more in-genre.
Jet-a-Reeno!
Yes, that's what I was trying to put my finger on. Pretty much nobody, not even Rob Liefeld, does "Santa the Barbarian" as a serious concept.
I like the Nomad cover, because even though he's not the most flagrant example of the trope one might find, the text and juxtaposition with Captain America draw more attention to the essence of the trope than a guy with a bigger gun and more random pouches would.
Jet-a-Reeno!I agree that the Nomad cover is better - as already stated, Santa the Barbarian is a spoof, not an actual '90s Anti-Hero.
"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.I actually like the idea of an established character who wasn't created specifically for this trope to be shown displaying '90s Anti-Hero characteristics on the page. Something like showing Superman—the absolute paragon of justice, fairness of the legal system, and the good of society—armed to the teeth and blowing bad guys away with machine guns would just be an interesting way to show how different the '90s Anti-Hero is from more traditional views of comic book protagonists.
If anything's wrong 'bout using Santa the Barbarian, it's not because it's a joke or parody but because Santa as a character was never a heroic character of any sort to begin with.
Not to be late to the conversation, but I think that the Santa picture, even as a parody, does a remarkable job of summing up the excesses of the '90s Anti-Hero genre. It takes something that pretty much everyone instantly recognizes and merges it with the Grimdark that ran rampant.
Although, I would be amused at the picture of the Punisher 2099 with a caption along the lines of "In his natural habitat, a Nineties Anti Hero has a deep, philosophical discussion about complex social issues". Sadly, people seem to have their panties in a twist about faces and captions these days.
Nomad actually is a pre-existing character, though not a particularly famous one. You can see his original look here
(curiously firing a gun, though he seldom if ever did in the actual stories.)

The one that is currently on the page is not bad, but it's a little weird, as it doesn't really seems to be from a comic book and isn't in the tradittional style of the 1990's I propose this one, either for replacement or image link. What do you think?