Tor wrote:Nightmask wrote:The skull motif probably is used more often for villains than heroes. The only example I can think of of heroes having a skull motif is Roy Fokker's Skull Squadron from Robotech/Macross, where it represented an elite unit skilled at taking out the enemy.
Plus as mentioned before, IRL navy seals, Straw Hat Pirates, Skull Man, Cubone, Skull Knight. There's a bunch of stuff I don't know about so there's probably others.
I am not sure it is an official icon representing the navy seal(if I recall right the worn symbol for a seal is a eagle on top of a anchor and trident holding a flint lock pistol). I do not even know of it is an official patch worn by use military with a skull.(on research there is a cow head that could be a skull used on 1 patch in the army) Could be like the most of the art made by service members to represent the unit, not official but an artist trying to come up with a cool symbol for there unit, some may be seen around the unit but they are not an official symbol used by the military.
Skull man is what is called a anti hero, so lacks many of the common hero and may not be considered "good" by PB standards his dark nature was controversial at the time of his creation.
Cubone is a pokemon not the best choice for showing a hero with a skull. ( I seam to remember some one saying Pokémon was short for pocket monster not sure how accurate that is.)
Not familiar with skull knight to make a judgment, quick search shows he is part of the berserker universe.
Straw hat pirates use the skull and cross bones as a symbol of pirates(one of its traditional association), but tone it down by placing a hat on it. The odd part about the show is the crew claim to be pirates but are do not act like pirates so may be a misapplied symbol.
But if you look at traditional use in fantasy it almost always is used by the bad guys. Such as the skellatons used to fight the heroes in Greek mythology.
In roll playing games Death in rifts Africa. The night lords thown Litch and death knights in D&D. The wall of bones in hell. All tie the use off dark imagery with typically evil.
In comics Red Skull, Cross Bones and task master in Marvel (note ghost Rider is demon of vengeance and is often shown as a anti hero not a "good guy" by PB standards punisher is another anti-hero that goes around killing people and has in a few comics taken pleasure in killing.)
He man is a bit odd the bad guy is a man with a skull Skellator while the place they protect is a skull castle. so letting the skull man get the big skull is a bad thing.
Wow without even trying I found more than you without resorting to Japans cartoons.
From japans animation we have the hair monster from Inuasua. The skull staff from fairy tail.
So the questions was is it more commonly associated with bad guys in story telling than good guys?
The Clones are coming you shall all be replaced, but who is to say you have not been replaced already.
Master of Type-O and the obvios.
Soon my army oc clones and winged-monkies will rule the world but first, must .......
I may debate canon and RAW, but the games I run are highly house ruled. So I am not debating for how I play but about how the system works as written.
