Category Archives: Bad Super Costumes

Deciding on a color scheme for your super costume frightens many a would-be designer, but I think Marvel's Captain Ultra has hit upon the right approach here -- use all of them!

Oh sure, your classic heroes all have a three-color approach, like Superman's red, blue, and yellow, or Batman's gray, blue, and black, or Spiderman's black, blue, and red. But they're not ultra! When you're ultra, the world expects a bit more from you. You have to show up and not just match the other heroes, but surpass them. If they have three colors, you wear four. If they have four, you go for five.

So just to be safe, budding super-hero sidekick (dare you go with "Captain Ultri-mate"?), take a page from your mentor's book and go with blue and red and yellow and orange and green and black. Because Superman might have more powers, and Batman more balls, but nobody wears more colors than Captain Ultra!

And as you can see in the bottom illustration there, no matter what, remember -- Jazz Hands! Always, always Jazz Hands.

(Image and character ©1985, Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)

We all know Tim Burton was doing serious weed when he created "Edward Scissorhands", and we all remember what difficulties that lovely fictional character had just trying to perform everyday tasks. So why in the name of the dainty-footed Buddah would Image Comics make two blade-fingered dimwits in the same comic?

The first dashing young cutlery-digited "hero" there is Wolverine Ripclaw and the second is Wolverine Ripclaw Warblade. You can tell they're different because Warblade has a gigantic horse tail sticking out of the back of his skull and wears blue-green, while Ripclaw also has a giant horse's tail sticking out of the back of his skull, but he's wearing regular blue! A lesser audience would miss those subtle tell-tales, but Image knew even then it was attracting the cream of the crop.

The other thing they both have in common, of course, is that instead of fingers they have giant finger-ish metal claws. You might wonder how metal finger-claws bend at the joints to allow their owner to, you know, perform the kind of basic tool-manipulation that distinguishes us from our simian relatives, but you're missing the point -- you stab and slash and kill with finger claws, while regular fingers are only good for gouging out eyes! Duh. Clearly you do not have what it takes to be a creative Image genius.

Rest assured, though, that much gut-stabbing and flesh-rending occurs in this book. And it's always accompanied by a multi-toothed grimace of either pain or disgust at their own inability to wipe in a sanitary fashion because, hey, toilet paper and metal claws don't mix.

Maybe that's what the super-duper long pony-tails are for?

Great, now I wish I had giant metal finger-claws so I could gouge out my own eyes in an effort to get that mental image out of my head. Blech!

I have a suggestion -- the first guy this man ought to hunt down and kill is whoever designed his outfit:

You can tell DC put this out during the Image-imitating Nineties, with the atrocious sausage-thighs, spittle-teeth, and oversized shoulder pads, but I think they really accomplished something new here. Specifically, a new low.

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Sometimes, ideas should just stay in the editor's pitch room. Sadly that didn't happen in the case of Armored Spider-Man:

Spider-Man's actual costume is a classic, with bold simple colors, the eerie eyes, and of course the webbing that really clinches the deal. This armor redesign takes all of those great elements and spits on them. Without getting too fan-boi on you, let's just say that if the Michelin Man decided to go into the armored-insect-hero not actually based on a real armored insect business, this is the costume he'd design.

Is that metal, or padding? Why, if you're building armor, would you make the eyes that huge? How does Peter grip onto walls and ceilings with giant metal cleats on his feet? Many questions, but only one answer -- armor was hot in the Nineties, so they put it on everything.

What really irks me about this is that Spider-Man's whole thing is avoiding the big hit -- that's what his Spidey Senses are for. Given that, why would you weigh yourself down with dozens of pounds of metal? I can't imagine anyone being either nimble or quick in that getup, unless they're planning on hitting the bad guys while they're doubled over in laughter.

When you've got a classic, leave it alone. I'm looking at you New Coke, Armored Spider-Man, and Rob Liefeld's Captain America!

His name is "Dreamkiller", and apparently the way he kills the most dreams is to draw pointed attention -- literally -- to his enormous crotch:

I can't fathom any other reason for that giant arrow squiggling down his chest to nestle gently yet irresistibly at the entrance to Man Town. It's not even a printed pattern on a shirt, that's a solid metal doohickey, presumably to ensure that it cannot be damaged easily in battle.

Taking that into account with the sleeveless tunic shirt, the blue skull cap/long flowing pony-tail hair combination (like a mullet gone terribly, terribly wrong), the rippling musculature indicating waaaaay too many hours in the gym, and the enormous glistening veneers on those chompers, I'm betting "Dreamkiller" really means "Ladykiller", the kind of guy who spends most of his time trying to convince anyone who'll listen that "It's not just padding in that metal dream hammock, honestly!"

I also love the big ol' honking metal boots with the spikes on the sides. How the hell do you walk in those things without the inside bars bashing against each other with every step? Answer: "When you look THIS good you don't have to walk -- they come to you."

(Image and character ©1993, Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)

You rarely find a super-character who can inspire gales of hysterical laughter at both their costume and their name, but Dr. Bong has certainly managed it:

I must begin with the "helmet", which consists of a handbell complete with handle. For grasping. And ringing. You know, why not just tattoo "Grab my head and fling me about!" on your forehead? Because then you wouldn't be giving your enemy a convenient handle with which to do so, that's why, and from the looks of him, this guy is nothing if not detail-oriented. For instance, note the clever way he's embossed not just eyes and a mouth, but a nose on his bell-helment. Oh sure, he forgot to include eye HOLES to see out of, but at least he's avoided the grim specter of mockery at his lack of a full complement of facial features.

The cape is also a nice touch, because when you're staggering around after getting your head shaken like a prop in a bad Christmas Bells show and you can't see where you're going due to your lack of eye holes, it's a great idea to be enveloped in a thick, swirling, guaranteed-to-trip-you cloak. That way you're sure to fall, whereupon your ridiculously over-sized belt can actually jam itself into and through your diaphragm, saving you the embarrassment of living with everyone knowing what a bad fashion designer you are.

But the coup de grace of this ensemble is, beyond a shadow of doubt, his left hand. One possibility is that he's got a giant bell clapper for a glove, which is disturbing because it's built to slap a bell and the closest bell invariably is going to be his freaking head! I don't know, maybe he's into slapping himself around in a fight or something, and while I don't want to harsh on anyone's ability to get their jollies, couldn't he do that in the privacy of his own home? Or dungeon?

The second possibility is that the bell-themed accouterments are a distraction, and his name is actually code for an illegal bit of drug paraphernalia. I sure hope that's the case, because it would really do my heart good to see a super-hero pausing in the middle of a battle to toke up. "Fight's over, super-dudes, it's brownies-time at Doctor Bong's HQ!" If he were patrolling the city you can bet there'd be a huge spike in crime every day at 4:20.

I'd salute you, Doctor Bong, but I won't out of fear you might salute back and knock yourself silly. Well, sillier, anyway.

(Character and image ©Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)

Look, I get it, I really do -- men like breasts. As a man, I like breasts. It's one of those hard-wired, involuntary-parts-of-the-brain things, I can't help it. They bypass all the centers of higher reasoning and short-circuit the entire mind-body connection, like pulling the plug on a toaster. I consider myself a fairly enlightened member of the gender but nonetheless, breasts (and of course the wonderful female human beings they're attached to) are tremendously important in my life.

This is not, of course, revolutionary information, as anyone who's ever seen a magazine, movie, television show, or college campus is pretty much in on the secret. If sex sells, boobs seal the deal, it's just the way the world works. And since much of my life is now spent in comics, and in particular super-hero comics, they're pretty much being thrust from every spandex outfit in the multiverse. Add in that I also read a fair amount of fantasy and it's even worse.

But the abuse those poor oversized glands are subjected to is, frankly, appalling. Can you imagine wearing underwear strapped to your sensitive bits that's made out of chain mail? Cold, hard, ouchy metal rings, ready to snag and blister and pinch at every movement? And yet even so savage a woman as Red Sonja is forced to leap about so clad.

The biggest reason for this, of course, is that most comics are drawn by men who never quite made it out of adolescence (guilty as charged, your honor), and who thus don't really quite understand breasts. Not having them ourselves, that's understandable. So they get jammed into tights that would suffocate the woman trying to squeeze into them, revealed through gauzy silks, asked to defy gravity by not beating their bearers to death while flying at high speeds in a heavy head-wind, and much more. At this point I've pretty much just given up on expecting anything even vaguely realistic on the comic-book-boobs front.

And yet, sometimes I stumble upon an outfit so inane that I am brought up short and have to go whahunh?! Case in point, "Warlands" number 6, a 2002 production from DreamWave in Canada:

My question here is, just what in the name of all that's holy is holding those breast bands on? Take a closer look, they're basically rectangular boards unattached in any way to any other part of her outfit. They have two holes in them, with a rope running between them, which is the kind of thing you usually see when the top piece is tied to a bottom piece. Only there ain't no bottom piece here. Which leads me to the profoundly unsettling idea that those boards must be held on by being tied to her nipples.

Excuse me while several different sphincters contract in sympathetic horror upon thinking about that.

I've wracked my brain, but I can't figure out anything else. Magic, of course, or maybe some sort of Elfin Velcro, I dunno, but that just doesn't look comfortable. And what's the point of suspending two sheer Bounce tissues from the boards?

All in all, this is one of the more bizarre "Bad Costumes" I've seen in the course of writing this feature. I feel badly for the Elfin girl shown -- not only is she having to go out in wrapped thigh-boots, furry underwear, long ggloves, and a frankly painful looking set of earrings, but she's got very sensitive bits of her anatomy wrapped up in some kind of sick bondage scheme. Galadriel will not be pleased.

I can't decide if "Eighty-Five", the "Galaxy of the Guardians" villain shown here, is built to look like a 1985 disco reject or if that's just a coincidence:

You've got the long, wavy, probably-permed hair, the huge cheesy grin, and the "Magnum, PI" macho-man mustache. If he had a headband I'd know it was a deliberate put-on but there's just enough doubt ... tell you what, let's pull back a bit and consider the rest of his outfit, maybe that'll tell us for sure.

Whatever else you want to say about the guy, he's certainly polite. I hate being executed by someone who doesn't even have the courtesy to introduce themselves first, so big props for that. Back to the costume, though ...

The long bulky cape, beefy thighs, and gold medallion clasps certainly suggest that the artist is slyly pulling our leg, but not ultimately definitive.

And then you get to the chest.

Oh my, the chest. Plunging v-neck skin-tight shirt plus almost bear-like manful hair definitely means the designer was for reals on this one. Wow. I bet his motto is "Manly men doing manly things in a manly way."

What's most depressing about this whole thing is that even centuries in the future, we'll still have mullets. And that's just sad, y'all.

(Image and character ©Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc. "Guardians of the Galaxy" number 20.)