Wardrobe Dysfunction: Daredevil

Let’s look at the many–well not so many–costumes Marvel’s blind super hero Daredevil has worn into battle over the years. Matt Murdoch first donned his devil inspired costume in  April 1964’s Daredevil #1. He wore this red and yellow costume, which was designed by co-creator Bill Everett (of Namor creation fame) and Jack Kirby.

That costume only lasted for six issues. The Daredevil book was now being drawn by the great Wally Wood who switched him to his iconic all-red look. It works; Daredevil looks like a red devil, functional yet intimidating enough to evildoers in Hell’s Kitchen.

As a result of 1994’s “Fall From Grace” story line, Daredevil decided it was time to get a new more protective look. He came up with this black and red costume that features plate armor alongside over-sized shoulder and knee pads. It was the 1990s, what did you expect?

What I did like was that his billy clubs/attack poles condensed into his gauntlets. This look seems to get a lot of hate, but I thought it looked cool.

During last year’s “Shadowland” crossover, Daredevil was possessed by a devil, took over the Hand ninja clan and attempted to take over Manhattan. To show how evil he was, Daredevil took a cue from Darth Vader and went to an all black look. Either that, or it has a slimming effect on him. Once exorcised, he went back to his traditional look.

I kind of liked this for two reasons:

1. In the made for television movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil pretty much sported this look.
2. In 2004, I met Marvel legend John Romita at the Baltimore Comic Con and chatted with him about a few things. We discussed how he thought that the Daredevil costume should have been all black, but no one else agreed with him. That said, it was cool seeing how right he was once I found out about this.

Oh and let’s show a bonus Daredevil costume. The D-lister D-Man (a shortened version of his name Demolition Man) is a professional wrestler turned metahuman super hero.

His costume is an intentional knock-off of both Daredevil and Wolverine. And for whatever reason, I think Daredevil’s costume works better on him than on Murdock.

When I first started paying attention to comics, this confused the heck out of me due to him looking like two different characters. D-Man is still popping up in the Marvel Universe, currently taking up the role of the villain-murdering identity Scourge of the Underworld.

Wardrobe Dysfunction: Alan Scott, Green Lantern of Earth-2

With all the Alan Scott news and commentary, this installment of Wardrobe Dysfunction looks at the original Green Lantern. The character was created by Martin Nodell and debuted in All-American Comics #16. Would you believe that in 82 years of comic book appearances, this Green Lantern really hasn’t any costume changes?

For the most part, he’s how he’s picture above from the cover of his first appearance. He wore a red collared shirt and green slacks. Depending on the fashion trends and the artist drawing him at the time, sometimes the outfit was more form-fitting. His boots are always red, with some sort of gold accents. As for his cape, it’s usually two toned; the interior light green and the outside a dark grey, sometimes purple-ish. That was mostly to avoid having a whole black patch due to the printing at the time.

As far as his age, Alan Scott would get aged and de-aged from time to time, going back and forth from being a late 30s something to being an old man.

During the mid 1990s, Alan Scott started using the codename Sentinel and got a more modern look. It was a green and red body suit. The logo in the center changed from time to time, as he used the Green Lantern Corps insignia (as he was an honorary member), his classic old lantern, and even a star design (it turned out his power ring drew power from a cosmic force known as the Starheart and not the Oan Power Battery). He kept this look until the Justice Society had a revamp shortly after, and went back to his classic costume.

And as a trivia note, the woman in the background of the picture is Harlequin, a villain who based her life on Alan’s then wife Molly. Ultimately it was her goal to kill Molly and take her place as Alan’s wife.

The next new look for Alan was designed by Jim Ross for the alternate future story Kingdom Come. It was emerald knight armor.

Which brings us to his new look, which combines elements of the emerald armor with the standard Green Lantern costume. The color scheme is a lot simpler, just black and green. Alan looks now closer to being a member of the Green Lantern Corps then ever before.

Wardrobe Dysfunction: Ms. Marvel

Ms. Marvel by Jamie Fay and Danielle Alexis St. Pierre

This week we look at a character that I’ve grown quite fond of in recent years, Ms. Marvel. Carol Danvers is just such a great, complex character that is finally getting her due. She’s had a bunch of costumes over the years, so let’s examine what’s in her closet.

Carol Danvers wound up getting her super powers from Captain Marvel; an explosion wound up getting them from him, making her a Kree/Human hybrid of sorts. It’s only fitting that she would wind up taking a variation of his name for her codename as well as adopting a similar costume and color scheme.

What I find really interesting about this costume is that it has a built-in scarf instead of a cape. This is pretty much the only time I recall a scarf being incorporated into a super hero’s costume. Also notice the Farrah Fawcett like hairstyle. It was the late 1970s, after all.

 

Eventually, the costume gets tweaked slightly. Ms. Marvel loses the bare midriff and her belly button is covered up. It’s a bit more flattering of a look.

One of the things that I’ve really liked about  Ms. Marvel is that she is a strong female character. Her first ongoing series was an attempt to attract more female readers. Carol was a strong feminist character for the time, having been a high-ranked member of the US Air Force during her introduction. During this series, her career shifted to the editor of a woman’s magazine, conveniently owned by the Daily Bugle’s parent company. This allowed frequent cameos by J. Jonah Jameson and Peter Parker to drop by.

 

Ms. Marvel’s black outfit is her most iconic look. It also helps distinguish herself from Captain Marvel; she abandon’s his star insignia for a lightning bolt. Her red scarf is also switched out with a red sash belt. It’s a slight accent that adds a contrasting color to her outfit. In case you are wondering, she did keep the mask.

The black outfit became skimpier or more modest depending on who was drawing Ms. Marvel or whatever the trend at the time was. So you can pretty much imagine how it looked during the nineties during the whole bad girl phase.

 

Carol spent a lot of the 1980s hanging out with the X-Men (Chris Claremont was writing both her series and Uncanny X-Men, so he brought her into their book after her title finished). During this time, she was experimented on by the Brood and wound up being able to draw cosmic energy from white holes.

Carol assumed the new codename Binary during this phase. She was usually drawn with various flames and energy radiating off of her, because she was cosmic powered and all.

 

 

The next few years were a little rough for Ms. Marvel. She eventually lost her Binary powers, wound up becoming an alcoholic, and pretty much embarrassing herself in front of the rest of the Avengers.

Once she gets back on her feet, Carol winds up changing her name yet again to Warbird and gets a new costume to boot. It looks pretty bad-ass, fitting for a black ops type. She keeps the mask, which is pretty cool. But what were they thinking with those elbow pads?

Eventually she goes back to the black costume, which she wears for most of the 2000s through the New Avengers era.

 

This brings us to her newest look. Carol winds up taking the mantle of Captain Marvel in a new upcoming series. The costume is based on the original Captain Marvel, pretty much inverting the red and blue sections. She’s ditched the lightning bolt, taking up his star burst icon.

Carol does keep some of her own style and fashion sense, as she’s keeping her signature red sash belt. With the new look, she gets a shorter haircut.

The costume also has a neat feature; it generates a retractable helmet. I imagine it makes her look something like Mandora from the Thundercats cartoons.

 

 

But wait! That’s not all of the Ms. Marvel costumes! Here are three other’s have donned while they have assumed the codename.

Sharon Ventura (more commonly known as She-Thing) assumed the identity of Ms. Marvel for a while. Sharon uses a red yellow and blue color scheme that combines elements of Carol’s costumes. Sharon even keeps the sash belt, except her’s is blue.

This version of Ms. Marvel was immortalized in an action figure by Toy Biz in the late 1990s, during that phase where they were making all of the more obscure characters. The figure was a repainted Jean Grey/Phoenix, and for some reason came with a huge machine gun.

 

In recent times, there were even two evil Ms. Marvels that were members of Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers teams.

On the left we have Moonstone, who took the classic 1980s, covered belly button look. It’s kind of hard to tell, but she kept up the scarf. Next to her, we have Superia, who seems to have mashed up the first Ms. Marvel costume with Sharon’s.

That covers the history of Ms. Marvel’s fashion choices. So which look was your favorite?