To evolve the discussion of @AndyC... what about your favourite Villain looks? I know they don't change as much over the years, but for me there can only be one.
Doom's a solid choice, but I think there's one that really stands head and shoulders above the rest....
Kidding, I'm kidding, please don't kill me.
In all seriousness, though, I'd say it's a toss-up between classic-era Magneto....
WELL, THIS IS PRETTY EMBARRASSING, ISN'T IT? THE FAT IDIOT GOT HIMSELF ALL WORKED UP FOR A BIG CRAZY TEAM-UP, AND WHILE HE'S TRYING TO GET THE BOY SCOUT ON A TRAIN TO WHERE ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE, HIS DANCE PARTNER GOT STUCK IN A SNOWBALL FIGHT! NOW THE PRESENT IS COMPRESSING WHILE IT TRIES TO CATCH UP WITH ITSELF, AND OUR BOY HERE IS ALL DRESSED UP WITH NO-WHEN TO GO!
THIS HAPPENS A LOT MORE FREQUENTLY THAN YOU'D THINK. EVER WATCH A MOVIE A THOUSAND TIMES, ONLY TO REALIZE THAT ONE SCENE IS JUST A LITTLE BIT OFF FROM HOW YOU REMEMBER IT? OR I'M SURE YOU'VE HEARD THE WHOLE THEORY ABOUT THOSE CHILDREN'S BOOKS WITH THE CARTOON BEARS AND EVERYONE KNOWS THEIR NAMES ARE SPELLED 'BERENSTEIN' AND THEN YOU LOOK AT IT AGAIN AND IT'S 'BERENSTAIN?' TIME IS MESSY, IT STRETCHES AND BENDS AND SQUASHES AND LEAKS, AND EVERY TIME IT DOES IT HAS TO WRITE OVER ITSELF, HISTORY NEVER QUITE FITTING TOGETHER THE WAY IT DID BEFORE. THE MANDELLA EFFECT, DEJA VU, REPRESSED MEMORIES. YOU EXPERIENCE THESE THINGS BECAUSE TIME IS CONSTANTLY CHURNING AND SLOSHING AROUND, AND YOU HAVE NO WAY OF EVER SENSING IT FROM YOUR PLANE OF EXISTENCE.
HA! NAH, I'M MESSING WITH YOU-- YOU EXPERIENCE THESE THINGS BECAUSE YOUR BRAINS ARE UNRELIABLE TANGLES OF CHEMICAL RECEPTORS THAT STORE AND PROCESS MEMORIES BY SQUIRTING VARIOUS JUICES AROUND INSIDE YOUR SKULLS! THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU EVOLVE FROM OVERACHIEVING POND SCUM AND REPRODUCE BY SLINGING GOOP AT EACH OTHER AND HOPING FOR THE BEST! I'D SAY IT'S DEPRAVED, BUT MY BABY GSPTLSNZ CAN DO THINGS THAT WOULD MAKE YOU TEAR YOUR OWN SKIN OFF IN A FATAL BOUT OF HORRIFIED ECSTACY, SO AT BEST I'D SAY YOU'RE UNSANITARY.
ANYWAY, ERM, WHERE WAS I GOING WITH THIS......OH! RIGHT! TIME!
SO IF YOU'RE A GUY LIKE ME WHO CAN EXPERIENCE TIME AS SOMETHING OTHER THAN A WAY TO MONITOR THE AMOUNT OF LIFE YOU'VE WASTED DOING MEANINGLESS NONSENSE AS YOUR MEAT-FORMS CONTINUALLY DECAY, YOU CAN SKIP BACK AND FORTH THROUGH CHAINS OF EVENTS ALL YOU WANT. THE PAST, THE FUTURE, ANY AND ALL PARALLEL SETS OF TIMESPACE YOU THINK OF AS A 'UNIVERSE,' LIKE SKIPPING AROUND THROUGH SCENES ON A DVD, OR MAYBE MORE LIKE A VIDEO PLAYLIST. IT'S THE COSMIC EQUIVALENT OF SPACING OUT ON YOUTUBE WHEN YOU SHOULD BE WORKING-- I'M SURE SOME OF YOU SLOBS CAN RELATE!
ANYWAY, SINCE THIS ITERATION STARTED IN MEDIAS RES, I FIGURED NOW MIGHT AS WELL BE AS GOOD A TIME AS ANY TO REWIND A BIT AND SEE HOW OUR BOY MET HIS GIRL! EVERYONE LOVES SHIPPING, RIGHT?
SO, LET'S SEE.....PLANE CRASH? NO, THAT'S NOT IT......FALLING OFF A ROOF? NAH, THAT'S THE OTHER ONE.......SHOWING UP IN HIS HOMETOWN AND HANGING AROUND FOR WAY TOO LONG BEFORE--.....WAIT, NO, HERE IT IS!
AND AWAYYYY WEEEEE GO!
Nairomi, Africa The Village of Asase Ya 30 Miles West of the capital city Nyame
One Year Ago
"<A Hansa, please,>" I say to the bartender over the beat of dance music playing on a beaten-up jukebox in the far corner of the village bar. Even at sundown, the heat hammers down here. The paint on the walls faded and cracked a long time ago, patches of bare plaster just as numerous as the pictures hanging from it.
Pictures of smiling men and women, children, family members, friends. All people who were killed in the fighting during the past year.
The bartender, a rail-thin old man with thick beads of sweat rolling down his scalp, places a bottle of beer on the bar in front of me. I nod, and start to drink.
Here, the water is scarce, and most of what can be found isn't clean. Filtered water goes for a high price, so most of the locals just drink beer instead. I'm not a big drinker myself--mostly because alcohol doesn't seem to affect me much, if at all-- but I figure it'd be best to leave the water to the people who actually need it.
Besides, I think I'm entitled to treat myself to a little refreshment after a hard day's work.
"<Did you hear, news-man?>" the bartender says, striking up a conversation. "<General Amajagh surrendered, turned himself in at the capital. He said a red-eyed demon attacked his camp and told him to give up.>"
"<A demon?" I ask. "<I interviewed Amajagh back when he and Minister Asuru were trying to negotiate a peace treaty. He didn't seem like the kind of person who believed in demons.>"
The bartender chuckles, but his laugh is bitter, without a trace of mirth.
"<No,>" he says, "<the only demons around here were the ones in his army.>"
"Hm," I give a sombre nod and take another sip of beer.
I've been traveling the world for about eight years, seen dozens of different cultures with vastly different ways of life. There's one thing that every culture I've seen has had in common: division. Sometimes that division is based on race, sometimes on economic class, sometimes on religion. Everywhere I've gone, I've seen people who believe truly and deeply that their particular group is superior in some way to another, and use that to justify terrible things.
General Kwaku Amajagh is a militant extremist of the Ghuri tribe, a people who had been oppressed for centuries by their neighboring tribe, the Turaabas. Over the past few years, the Ghuri had been more and more vocal about breaking free from their position as subservient to the Turaabas, beginning at first with peaceful demonstrations and petitions to the local government. This more peaceful movement, led by a brilliant man named Kobe Asuru, was unfortunately largely ignored by the Nairomi Senate, until Amajagh gathered a militia of Ghuri fighters, declared himself General, and began a series of violent attacks against Turaaba-dominant towns and villages.
Asuru and Amajagh found themselves at odds with each other, the one believing the two tribes could live together peacefully, the other believing their oppressors had to be destroyed. Eventually, Asuru began working with the government and the local military to rein his more violent counterpart in, and was appointed as a Minister of the Ghuri tribe in the Nairomi Senate. This appeared to be a major victory, as the Ghuri were finally getting representation, a major step to them being treated as equals.
Tragically, on what was to be the day of his swearing in, Kobe Asuru was assassinated in front of the capitol building. After that, an increasingly paranoid Amajagh began butchering civilians, Ghuri and Turaaba alike.
Today, he had amassed his forces to overrun the village of Asase Ya, home to about a thousand people, with the goal of wiping out everyone there. He had hundreds of men in his camp, armed with machine guns, flamethrowers, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery cannons, armored trucks, and a pair of light tanks. The villagers would have been slaughtered, down to the last child.
At least, until a "red-eyed demon" stepped in.
It was bitter work, but the tanks and heavy weapons were destroyed, the army scattered to the wind, and Amajagh chose to turn himself in. The Nairomi Army is picking over the remains of his camp now. In addition to the heavy weaponry Amajagh was going to use today, they'll also find missiles with biological warheads, which he had planned to use on the capital.
The whole situation is a sad one, but at least the fighting's stopped now. I saved hundreds of lives today, and including the planned attack on the capital, upwards of a million. Still, I wish I had gotten involved sooner, stopped things before they got out of hand.
"<This red-eyed demon,>" I say to the bartender, "<did anyone get a look at him?>"
"Not one's left a description yet," I hear a woman's voice from the doorway, answering me in English, "but I've got a pretty good idea of what he might look like."
Standing in the doorway is a caucasian woman, another American like myself. She's wearing a purple button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, khakis tucked into her boots, and a considerable layer of dirt and dust. Her raven-black hair is pulled back in a ponytail, barring a few stray strands that drape down across her face.
Most striking, though, are her eyes. They're a deep violet, which is extraordinarily rare. I've met thousands of people in my years on the road, and I've seen probably millions of faces at this point. But I've never met anyone with violet eyes. At first I think she's wearing colored contacts, but I squint a bit, quickly focusing my vision to 'zoom in' like a telescope, and I can see it's the real deal.
It's not just the eye color that catches me, but the fire in them. She's here with a purpose, and apparently that purpose is me. I stand up as she approaches, and she doesn't so much as flinch.
"I just got back from what's left of Amajagh's camp," she says. "The military's saying it was probably a counterattack from another cell. But they haven't explained why one of the holes in a tank's armor has marks that look like hands pulling apart Play-Dough. Similar to something I saw a few months ago when an oil tanker in the Bering Strait ran aground, and then the spill somehow mysteriously managed to contain itself."
She takes a few more steps, circling me like she's going to pounce.
"They also said the 'demon' was so fast they could barely see him, and that fire shot from his eyes," she continues. "Which sounds like the 'blur' who allegedly pulled people to safety during that earthquake in Sokovia last year, or those trapped construction workers in Rhelaysia who said their rescuer burned through steel beams with an 'invisible cutting torch.' I could rattle off about a dozen more, each of which could be brushed off as easily as seeing Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. But I started noticing a pattern in all of them."
"And what's that?" I ask, my arms folded as I try to get a read on her.
"There's always someone in the background of these stories, a friend of a friend, a new guy on the job, a quiet type who minds his own business. He shows up right around when the trouble starts, but then when it's done I can never seem to reach him for comment. Usually the same description. White male, six-foot-three or so, maybe two hundred twenty pounds, dark hair, slouches, a nice enough guy but doesn't talk much. Maybe he's a firefighter named John Clark. Or a greenhorn trucker named Archie Clayton. Or a deckhand named Joe Siegel...."
She looks me dead in the eye, giving me a satisfied grin.
"....or an itinerant junior reporter named Clark Kent."
She's got me. And she knows she's got me. I could do what I always do when people get too close, disappear and show up on the other side of the world with a new name, but sooner or later, I'd have to step in and help someone in danger, and she'd find me all over again.
Better to confront it now than to just prolong the inevitable.
"I don't know who you are," I say, in as calm and measured a tone as I can, "but if you're trying to threaten me...."
She blinks, her 'gotcha' composure breaking.
"Threaten you? Nononono, you've got the wrong idea," she says. "Look, I've been tracking this story for ages now, trying to put together pieces that didn't make any sense. Nobody I talked to about it believed me, they thought I was crazy. I thought I was going crazy for a bit! But I was finally able to catch up to you, and you're here and you're real and you're....a lot to take in, so I just thought I should make a moment of it."
"Why have you been following me, then?"
"Because," she says, regaining her composure. "Because I'm someone like you....."
My eyes go wide.
".....like me?"
She smiles.
"Yeah," he says. "I'm a reporter."
YOU KNOW WHAT, THIS GOES ON FOR A GOOD BIT. LET'S SKIP AHEAD TO SOME OF THE MORE JUICY STUFF. LET'S SEE.....
"Because I think you can change things, Clark, really change things! You've seen the state of the world, what powerful people do to the powerless. Wouldn't it be great if the little guy knew there was finally someone on his side?"
OKAY, THIS IS A PRETTY FUN MOMENT, LET'S--
"Actually, now that I'm thinking about it......what about a cape?"
WAIT, NO, I SKIPPED AHEAD TOO MUCH, LEMME JUST--
"--scoop of the century, Perry! To quote my least favorite German philosopher, 'Behold! I reveal unto you....the Superman!"
NO, THAT'S TOO FAR AHEAD, HOW DO I--
"--don't know what Luthor's hiding in there, but if I don't come back, I want you to--"
OKAY, PAY NO ATTENTION, PEOPLE, SPOILERS CAN REALLY MESS WITH YOUR--
"Clark, oh God, don't stop, Clark! Don't stop!"
--WHOAH, THAT ONE YOU'RE DEFINITELY NOT SUPPOSED TO--
"--in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish--"
SEE, NOTHING BUT GOOD AND WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT FROM HERE ON--
"--not going to let him take our son! How could you even think of--"
JEEZ, HOW FAR AHEAD ARE WE NOW? HOW DO I GET BACK TO
"--has to be this way, Lois. I'm sorry. Just know that I love you. Until the end of--"
AHHH, SCREW IT, I'M GONNA JUST LET TIME SORT ITSELF OUT. YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO FEND FOR YOURSELVES UNTIL IT DOES. JUST REMEMBER, IN MOMENTS LIKE THIS WHEN THE FOURTH-DIMENSIONAL MEMBRANE IS IN FLUX, THE ONE THING YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NEVER DO IS--
The only thing I don’t like about the Batman Begins costume is the weird rubber neck. It just looks so goofy and uncomfortable. Even the fight scenes kind of suffer because the dude literally can’t turn his head. The armored look from the later movies is a lot less Batman-y, but I can appreciate that they got rid of that.
I go back and forth on the thick neck. On the one hand, it's goofy that he can't turn his head. On the other hand, the smaller neck on the TDK and DKR costumes make his head look weirdly huge.
Also, I think the fight scenes suffer a lot more from all the goddamn shaky-cam and quick cuts so you can't see what the hell is going on. The Bourne Identity series ruined fight scenes for like a decade.
My only issue with it is when artists -- including Churchill, whom I'm praising here -- exaggerate the proportions such that the crop top begins one nanometer below the breasts and the skirt is literally only wide enough to cover a bikini bottom. There is a difference between attractive young woman shows off toit abs and something that looks like an outfit from the sort of media that Greg Land likes to trace.
I can see that, yeah. As much as I like the old-school one-piece on Wonder Woman, I do find it a little ridiculous when it's drawn so that her shorts are practically a thong. There's titilation, and then there's borderline porn.
Even then, though, I don't find it all that galling, especially when you compare the relatively tame cheesecake in comics to the outright shamelessness in your average anime. If it's a live-action thing and there's an actual person who might not be all that comfortable with nerds drooling over their bodies, then yeah, the costume should be as modest or as risque as the actress is okay with wearing. But if it's just a drawing of a fictional character, then meh, at the very worst I just find it amusing what some writers think will be hot.
And she's bulletproof. It's not like Batgirl is running around with her navel poking out.
Huntress on the other hand...
Yeah. As much as I'll advocate for cheesecake (like I've said, I think comics need to get back to their pulpy roots, and that includes sex appeal), Huntress's costume is just awkward. With Kara's midriff and mini-skirt, it's at least somewhat familiar looking since the traditional Supergirl costume is basically a cheerleader outfit with an 'S' logo, so it's similar to something we see actual people wearing. I've never seen anyone cut out a rectangle in their shirt just to show off their belly-button. All arguments about practicality aside, it's just goofy.
Plus, I don't like any mask that has big pointy Wolverine ears on anyone who isn't Wolverine.
I'm gonna get raked over the coals for this one, but I don't even care. Look, I'm not going to defend the midriff costume: It's silly, it's pandering, it's cheesecake. But fuck it, it's the Supergirl I was introduced to, and I just love Ian Churchill's pencils. @ me if you want, idgaf.
That's honestly a very close second-place for me. I'm honestly getting pretty tired of this weirdly Puritanical attitude when it comes to costume design-- I can see her belly-button and her limbs, oh Heavens to Betsy! I don't particularly want to see Kara flying around dressed like Vampirella, but I don't think it's out of character for an attractive young woman to wear a costume that accentuates the fact that she's an attractive young woman.
To start my own discussion, who is your favourtie underrated villain? Someone that never really grows (but has the potential to do so), or someone that just gets isnta-knocked out. Why are they you're favourite?
MB and I were talking about Killer Croc last night, and I think the guy definitely gets a bad rep. Guy used to be a genuine threat, but now he's treated as either a side-arc or a lackey for more important villains. It doesn't help that nobody can agree on whether he's supposed to be just a buff guy with a skin condition or a full-on kaiju. For that matter, pretty much all of Batman's "monster" villains get treated like total jobbers these days.
Also, I've said it before, but I think the Atomic Skull should be a much more prominent villain in Superman's lineup, purely on how great his name is. If it were up to me, he'd have replaced Metallo a long time ago. "Metallo" sounds like a brand of aluminum siding for your house. "Superman Versus The Atomic Skull," on the other hand, that sounds like the main event of Wrestlemania.
I'll go ahead and put the rest of my picks in as well. You've already seen my pick for Batman, so let's go with a few more:
The Classic costume spent an awfully long time without any significant overhauls, and for good reason: it's the superhero costume. Sometimes the S is a little different, sometimes the blue is a little darker or a little lighter, sometimes the cape is a different length, but those are pretty minor quibbles, and it served him well for about three quarters of a century. Of my favorite takes on the Classic costume, I've gotta give it up to one of the absolute definitive Superman artists, Dan Jurgens.
If we're gonna spice it up and go with the more modern no-trunks look, though, I've gotta go with the Rebirth 2.0 design by--oh, it's also Dan Jurgens. How about that.
I also really liked the costume they made for him in the Smallville Season 11 comic, at least when they drew him to look like a classic Superman instead of trying to draw Tom Welling's face:
I know, I know, the DCEU fanboy likes the DCEU costume, what a shocker. But seriously, I love this costume. She looks like a fighter without the need to cover her head-to-toe in plates and blades and shit. She looks sexy without the need to have her boobs and butt on display. Most importantly, she looks like a goddamn superhero, which is something tons of artists completely fail to convey.
And while it's not canonical, I really liked this more simplified fan design as well:
To anyone and everyone out there aspiring to design a costume for the Scarlet Speedster: please, for the love of all that is holy, KEEP IT SIMPLE. This is the absolute last character in the world that needs to have armor plates or Tron lines or little fiddly bits all over his costume. In comic books especially, since you can only really simulate motion and speed. Therefore, in my opinion anyway, the best way to simulate speed with the Flash is to streamline his design to the point where the eye takes in everything you need to know as quickly as possible. And DCAU Flash does that perfectly, particularly with that semi-permanent smirk that lets you know his attitude right off the bat.
Kyle Rayner's pretty much the only Lantern that doesn't either put me to sleep or get on my nerves, and on top of that, he's got the biggest wardrobe to choose from. Sadly, most of his costumes are kind of lame (why do they keep giving him that mask with no nose?!), but I really like this one. Cool minimalist logo, a few glowy bits here and there to make him look appropriately sci-fi, but still immediately recognizable.
While the Sword of Atlantis book itself never really did it for me, I really liked the costume design, which I thought really brought home the whole "King Arthur, but, y'know, underwater" angle.
Close second goes to his underwater camouflage costume from the 80s. I mean, if you want to convey that the guy spends all his time in the deep blue sea, how about putting some actual blue on his costume?
Is Bruce Timm a dirty old man who draws all of his women like something you'd see sprayed on the nose-cone of an old B-17? That argument can certainly be made. Do I mind? NOPE!
Might be a bit of a surprise given that I hate-- hate with a capital HATE-- everything they've done with Barbara Gordon since the launch of the New 52. But I gotta admit, I do kinda really like this costume, especially when it's got that purple hue to more clearly differentiate her from the other Bats. In my own personal head-canon, Babs should still be Oracle, but in any flashback sequences to her days as Batgirl, she'd be wearing this suit.
Switching over to Red Team:
Not a good movie. But an absolutely fantastic costume.
I always wished that the first Captain America movie was less of an Indiana Jones adventure sort of affair and more like an episode of Band of Brothers. And this costume is pretty much what I'd want. And hey, in the first movie he did wear a costume pretty similar to this for a bit, so points there.
I don't really have a long or thought-out reasoning for this one, I just think the Bleeding Edge Armor is cool.
Man, the God of Thunder series was so friggin' good. And a big reason I was so drawn to it was the cover art, which looked like something from a trashy fantasy pulp novel. Dude looks like what every D&D Paladin dreams about being, and Old King Thor and Young Idiot Thor compliment him really well.
Frank Miller absolutely defined Daredevil's tone, but it's only half-finished without Mazzuchelli giving him the look. If it's not drenched in film-noir lighting, it's not Daredevil.
Screw you, Carol, I'm not calling him Shazam.
Rather than go through each of them one by one, I'm just gonna pick my 'definitive' X-Men lineup and my favorite takes on their costumes:
While I'm thinking about it, have we ever done just a straight-up "what's your favorite design" talk yet? Not necessarily your favorite era of a character, just your favorite look that they've had. Outfit and/or artist.
For example, Batman's had a godjillion different takes on the Bat-suit, but to me it's always gonna be the Bronze Age Neal Adams look. The blue-and-gray, the yellow circle, the utility belt with capsule-things instead of pockets, ears at just the right length so they're not little stubby bumps or giant devil-horns, and a build that's designed more for swashbuckling than for brutality. In much the same way that most people can't say 'Superman' without immediately conjuring an image of Christopher Reeve, this is the immediate Batman that comes to my mind:
Retired,
Half Pint,
Hound55,
Cyberlad,
mickilennial,
Ezekiel,
Master Bruce,
PrinceAlexus,
Pilatus,
Chronic
