My faves are the ones from the Silver Age versions Flash and Green Lantern, created by Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane.
Thor has a pretty cool costume. Silver Surfer looks cool too but i guess thats not a “costume”. Worst - Marvel age Giant Man.
Sublime from dV8. Hubba hubba… Anygirl who can go around in a bunch of leather belts and blue lipstick is o.k. in my book.
broccoli!
One of the more obscure super heros: Hawkman. Hell, the man’s got wings and a beak!
[ul]
[li]Captain Marvel (The one in Shazam!)[/li][li]Gem (DV8)[/li][li]Nightcrawler (X-Men)[/li][li]Wolverine (X-Men, specifically the version he wears in X-Men: Evolution.)[/li][li]Storm (See Wolverine)[/li][li]Shrinking Violet (Legion of Superheroes)[/li][li]Saturn Girl (LSH)[/li][li]Triad (Ditto)[/li][li]Nightwing (Batman, and probably a few other books)[/li][li]Supergirl (Animated version.)[/li][li]The Strikeman! (You’re Under Arrest (^__^))[/li][/ul]
I think I’m going to go with Thor. No reason other than I liked it better than the standard Spandex suite with optional cape of most other heroes.
And I must add that this thread remonded me of a great line from the movie X-men. Wolverine says “nice costumes” when he first gets his and Cyclops replies “What would you rather wear? Yellow Spandex?”. Hilarious.
I always liked Spider-Man’s black costume the best.
Batman
70’s Lightning Lad
Kid Flash
Mon El
I have to agree with Tengu’s first choice, the Golden Age costume of Captain Marvel. Pseudo-military, pseudo-Naval, and if he ever loses his superhero job he could get a gig as a doorman.
I always thought Supergirl looked pretty hot in the original costume she had back in the early-1960s comic books…basically a knockoff of her cousin Superman’s outfit, but with a blue micro-mini instead of the red briefs.
[hijack/query] If you pinched Supergirl’s ass, would she feel it? How about if you were wearing kryptonite gloves?
A more important question, Ike: If Supergirl did feel you pinch her ass, and she turned around and slapped you for being fresh, would your head be torn off and put into a low, synchronous orbit around Neptune?
Does anyone here beside me remember when Daredevil (The Man Without Fear)had a yellow costume? I know it was red in later versions, but it started out yellow. God, I feel so ancient.
D’oh! Can’t believe I forgot Mon-El/M’Onel/Valor. ^__^;; The universe’s favourite Daxamite has a real cool costume. Forgive me, Legionaire Lemon!
Actually, the Legion books have a lot of neat costumes.
I should start reading them again…
Others I forgot to mention:
Apparition (Also LSH…)
Ultra Boy (LSH again…this is getting fanboyish…) is neat in a cheezy way.
Superboy (The one introduced in Reign of the Supermen, at that time…I haven’t read it in a while, so if he’s changed…)
Vaguely. Ugly, ugly thing.
I was going to mention that. That was pretty ugly. That all red one with the blank eyes is definetly my favorite. Another thing about DD. In the 70’s he wore heeled boots. I could never understand how he could do all that he did, swinging and flipping all over the city, with those thing. Now they look like flat rubber soles.
[hijack]
This thread made me think of a character I saw once a looooong time ago. I believe it was Marvel, but may have been DC. The guy had a costume, or perchnace it was just his body, made up of four elements. Upper left quarter was iron, upper right quarter was wood, lower right and left quarters were something else I can’t remember. He’d morph his arm into a giant hammer, or his other arm into a paddle or something.
Is this ringing any bells with anyone? I figure it would have been mid to late 70’s. His name may have been some variation on the word “metamorphasis”, but I’m not sure.
[/hijack]
My favorite costumes are: Gil Kane’s Atom costume from the '60s, Sandman’s original costume with the gasmask and The Scarlet Witch’s costume (the mid-'60s version).
But ugly, awful costumes:
Karate Kid’s Action Comics outfit (White Pajamas with a big black hand karate chopping hand on the chest)
Princess Projectra’s during the same period (hair in a sort of jiffy pop style, a tube top with a crown between the breasts, a micro mini-skirt and knee high white boots.
Grell’s Legion Costumes are all pretty bad:
Saturn Girl’s mini-bikini (it’s an ok costume, but not for Saturn Girl)
Cosmic Boy’s S&M-looking leather(?) costume from the same period that shows his butt, chest and belly button.
and the all-time worst costume:
There was an…unfortunate period in the ‘60s, during the height of the Batman TV show craze where the Blackhawks decided to become super-heroes. All of the costumes/powers were lame, but one stands out as the gawdawful worst I’ve ever seen: Andre’ became “The Listener” or something like that. He had what amounted to a super-ear-trumpet thing as his power, but his costume…gah! A navy blue spandex jumpsuit with little pink ears printed all over it. Hundreds of 'em. It’s awful!
Fenris
Regarding Daredevil: His yellow and red costume wasn’t that bad, compared with the body armor he wore during a particularly bad period in the mid-90’s
The character you’re thinking of is Metamorpho, DC character introduced in the late '60s. (And, yes…it was his body)
And what’s weird is that he’s only one of two of DC’s quartered heroes: Ultra The Multi-Alien also has four different body parts (one arm, half his face and half his chest is a scale-y lizard like look, the other half of his face/chest and his other arm are a blue alien’s, etc…)
I don’t know why DC thought this was a good idea.
Fenris
Daredevil is my all-time favorite comic book superhero (yeah, I remember the yellow costume), but I just can’t get over how fruity those tiny little horns are.
Spiderman’s black costume was indeed a great one. I also always liked Moon Knight’s all-white costume and cloak. Iron Man’s red and silver armor was pretty cool.
Good female costume: Dagger, of Cloak and Dagger (all-white spandex bodysuit with large portions of the front cut out? Yes please!)
Bad costumes: anything with an ultra-collar (Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, The Vision), anything with a big pointy mask (Hawkeye and, yes, Wolverine), and anything with too much man-flesh (Namor, put on a shirt or something).
Yep, that’s the one. I could have sworn I had looked up that name before only to come up snake eyes. But I just found a cover on-line (here) and he’s exactly as I remember him, although I was a little off in the location of the elements (one wooden led, one iron leg, upper body I still can’t recall - possibly gas or something).
What a relief. You don’t know how long that has been plaguing me.
Erm…I think you maybe confusing two characters. The original costume of the Sandman was a trenchcoat, fedora and gas mask with green eye lenses. Inside was Wesley Dodd, WWI survivor and the prototypical mild-mannered alter egi, who would fight crime by spraying evil doers with a gas gun. The character fell into disuse until the late 80s, when…
Neil Gaimina created the modern-day Sandman, more properly known as Dream of Endless, a sort of archetype (along with his siblings Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Destiny and Delerium (formerly Delight)). Interestingly, Gaiman acknowledged the original Sandman, and Wesley Dodds was tied in as having suffered sleeping sickness when Dream was held captive for awhile. Dream was depicted variously as wearing mostly black, and usually in t-shirts and jeans with a long black flowing coat. Add in Robert Smith hair and a very pale complexion. Damn fine character.
Gaiman actually helped revive interest in the original Sandman character, and there was a good series of “Sandman Mystery Theatre” for a while.
Also, Wesley Dodds shows up as a dying visionary in the beginning of Mark Waid & Alex Ross’ “Kingdom Come,” ranting about the trials yet to come.
A) What about Cloak? Now that’s a bad-ass costume! I’d love it if someone like Kevin Smith or Grant Morrison, or maybe Warren Ellis (pipe dream, I know) did a mini-series of Cloak and Dagger. Huge potential in that duo.
B) Yeah, but the collar works for Strange. He is weird, after all. I always loved how it contrasted with his assistant’s (name?) very simple casual outfit. Of course, I loved his assistant’c cynical attitude (“Welcome to Casa de Strange”).
Favorites in no particular order:
Hourman - Rex Tyler NOT the new android, who has a cool book, but a terrible costume.
Batman - Probably the best costume of all time, IMHO
LSH (current)- Everyone looks cool in those costumes. ONe of the many things to love about the Biernbaum run.
Least Favorites as above:
Any “costume” that involves any combination of trenchcoats, dark glasses or street clothes. It ALMOST works for Jack Knight, but the rest of you get with the times. The 90’s are over, goddamnit. (And yes, I’m including The Midnighter from Authority in this one.)
Green Lantern - Alan Scott. Great character, hard on the eyes.
Gladiator - From the X-men’s Shi’ar Imperial Guard. Good lord. What were they on when they thought up the ‘Indestructible Mohawk What Fires Spines’. Echh.