But looking at the new costume brought me back to the Nubile Nineties, when pretty much every one of the major superhero icons got spruced up in horrendous new duds at some point (and pretty much every one of them reverted back to their classic look soon after). The list which follows isn't anywhere near complete, but it does touch on some of the high points — or low points, if you'd rather — of mid-90's superhero couture. (As always, make sure to stop by Project: Rooftop for some far, far better attempts at updating the iconic looks!)
Armor-Plated Captain America — The last time Cap got a serious costume update, it wasn't by someone with the design sense of Alex Ross. In fact, I'm not sure it was someone with the design sense of my five-year-old. Here's the deal: Steve Rogers' body begins to break down because, I don't know, he's old or something. (Who paid attention to the details of any Marvel comic in the mid-90's, really?) Anyway, Steve-O's forced into wearing a star-spangled exoskeleton (read: armor) to keep his body from falling apart on him. (Ah, the 90's! Just look at all that needless over-rendering! Good times.) Obviously at some point he got himself fixed up so that he could go back to his regular duds, but I couldn't tell you how. And even if I could tell you, I honestly don't think I'd care to.
Armor-Plated Batman — Surely you know the basics of the near-interminable Knightfall story which overran the Batman titles in the early part of the 90s by now: 'roid-rager Bane snaps Batman's back; a crippled Bruce Wayne handles the mantle of the Bat to serious nutjob Azrael, who adopts a ludicrously over-the-top armored costume for his time as Batman. While the look of the costume certainly matched the mental state and background of the character wearing it, the design itself was terrible and nearly impossible to draw in any way that didn't look ridiculous, as you can see right over there on the laughable cover of Detective Comics #567 (drawn by Kelley "all humans have 300 ribs, right?" Jones).
Armor-Plated Daredevil — Why did Daredevil ditch his normal red togs for black-and-red armor? Because the 90s, that's why. (OK, it's because his secret identity became public knowledge and he, I dunno, thought that changing his costume would give the media something new to talk about during their next news cycle so they'd leave him the hell alone. How many times can this guy have his ID outed and deny it before the public stops believing him? Lindsay Lohan's "rehab was so good for me, I'm never ever going to party anymore!" claims have more credibility at this point.)
Armor-Plated Booster Gold — Are you starting to sense a theme here? Booster, much like Captain America, needed his armor to say alive after getting an arm hacked off and other internal injuries. Luckily, Booster's best friend was a super-genius and could cobble up some life-support armor for him that just happened to match the color scheme of his costume! (Yes, this was the start of the "darkening" of the Giffen-DeMatties Justice League that Dan DiDio has had such fun with over the last few years.)(A quick note: While researching these god-awful monstrosities, I discovered that Dave Campbell had much these same thoughts two years ago; please go read his blog for more armored shenanigans, including a couple of heave-worthy costumes I didn't even mention here.)
Bug-Girl Wasp — As part of the Avengers aptly-named mega-crossover "The Crossing," most of the team got spiffy new designs courtesy of then-series artist Mike Deodato. Some of the uniforms were fairly decent (like the Scarlet Witch's), some were just a little different (like Hawkeye's or Thor's) and some were... well, they turned the Wasp into a big orange-and-pink bug. [1] The design of Bug-Jan wasn't particularly appealing, and the treatment of the character seemed even less so. Luckily, something positive came out of the Heroes Reborn/Heroes Return hooey which followed shortly after: this move was wiped off the books.
Electro Superman — Honestly, I don't think I'd hate this costume or this power set... if it weren't supposed to be Superman. I mean, c'mon, DC. Changing Superman so completely (and yes, they tried to pull the "No, this is permanent, we swear!" routine) was done just to get the media to look their way for a few moments. Was it worth it, DC? Was it worth absolutely bastardizing your number-one asset, just to get some play on CNN? *sigh* This is why nobody likes you, y'know. Everyone's all cool to you to your face, but behind your back, they're all "That sumbitch DC don't got no respect, it's all 'Hey, look at us break Batman's back!' or 'Hey, look, Superman done stuck his finger in a light socket, ooooh!'"*ahem* Sorry. Moving on...
Noseless Wolverine — Does this count as a redesign, when it was really more of an obviously temporary state for the character? Well, I'm going to say yes, because if I don't, then I can't include this atrocity here. So something happened to Logan which regressed him to an even more animalistic state than normal (yes, again, I'm a bit fuzzy on the details), and apparently "more animalistic" when applied to Wolverines means "big fangs, poor posture and no nose." Yet for all of the oddness to his appearance, the loss of his ability to speak in more than grunt, the dragging his knuckles along the ground... Logan still felt the need to tie a flap of cloth with eyeholes in it around his head to wear as a "mask." Erm... wha huh?
Bike Shorts Wonder Woman — Don't get me wrong here: I actually love me some bike shorts. But that doesn't really say "Wonder Woman" to me, y'know? Neither does all the black. Also, another clue that we're in the 90s: the jacket. Not an absolute travesty as compared to some of the other designs on this list, but if it weren't for the "WW" motif, this design wouldn't even be recognizable as Wonder Woman. (This design also qualifies as part of the "Temporarily Replacing An Icon With An Unworthy Stand-In" trend, which hit most every major hero at some point during the decade, but that's for some later post. This one's long enough already.)
Torn Hoodie Spider-Man — Oh, look, another installment of "Temporarily Replacing An Icon With An Unworthy Stand-In," though I guess Spider-Man's clone would theoretically be just as worthy as he, right? Anyway, once Ben Reilly, the aforementioned clone of Spidey, decided to take on his own Spideriffic identity, he threw together a red bodysuit and a ratty blue spider-emblazoned sweatshirt which would do Bill Belichick proud. And thus was born: the embarrassingly-named Scarlet Spider! This one counts as a redesign to me as since Ben even took over the lead role in the main Spider-Man books for a little while. This costume? Uuuugly, especially in comparison to the other new Spidey costume we got for awhile in the 90's (the one now worn by Spider-Girl, Spider-Man's alternate-timeline future daughter. Clones taking over for the characters from which they were cloned? Potential-future offspring from alternate realties? Who says comics are hard to penetrate for new readers!)
Skinhead Hulk — Not technically a costume redesign, true, but the hairless Hulk just never looked right to me. He looked more ridiculous than scary, even under the pencils of John Romita, Jr. During the early part of writer Bruce Jones' run on The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner buzzed his dome in an attempt to hide from... well, everybody, since it seems that Banner-as-Hulk had done Something Bad. While we spent a lot of time with Baldie Bruce, we didn't actually see a full shot of the Hulk for several issues as Jones built the Hulk up using the "what you don't see is scarier" technique. And then, once we got a good look at Romita's Hulk... I snickered when I should've been shuddering. [1] While not strictly a "redesign" as much as a "reconceptualization," this event was also responsible for another of the biggest character goofups of the decade: the death of Tony Stark, who was immediately replaced by his teenage self, a character fandom snarkily referred to as "Iron Boy." Ah, the 90s! Good times. Thankfully, Adult Tony was reinstated at the same time Non-Bug-Jan was.
No comments:
Post a Comment