This is the cover for Earth 2 #2, which should ship in June. It appears to be by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado (the signatures are kinda hard to make out, but that looks like their work, the signatures look like theirs, and they provided the art for a previously released cover for Earth 2 #1). And the subject of the cover is The Flash Jay Garrick, who used to look...different.
(Above: How The Flash Jay Garrick used to look)That Ivan Reis image of Garrick stumbling and shreiking through a sewer full of mutant rats is apparently the character's "New 52" redesign, which, in keeping with the theme of "New 52" redesigns, looks completely sarcastic, like a smart-ass artist ironically redesigning a classic comic book superhero costume into something they think an idiot might draw for other idiots to enjoy.
It is especially funny that the first image is supposed to be the updated version of Flash Jay Garrick's costume, since Flash Barry Allen's costume was itself an update of Flash Jay Garrick's costume, and that update is 56-years-old (In updating the update, Jim Lee basically just added a chin strap and some random lines strewn throughout it).
I am really excited to see how terrible Earth 2's Green Lantern Alan Scott and other Golden Age heroes' costumes will look!
Alan Scott's superhero costume was one of the worst of the Golden Age—seemingly thrown together with whatever he could find after he broke into a costume shop long after it closed, rifling through the nearest shelves in the dark—but it was also one of the first to be so bad it was actually kind of cool:
Red sweatshirt with iron-on logo, purple cape, domino mask, green pants, gladiator sandals over his red boots...despite having a color in his actual name, he didn't even settle on a color scheme.During the actual 90s (as opposed to our current era of 90s nostalgia), DC tried revamping the character into something less 1940s and more 1990s, and came up with this:
(Yes, that's Jim "Tarot, Witch of Black Rose" drawing Green Lantern Alan Scott!)Scott wore a variation of that for a while—they later replaced the Green Lantern logo with a green starburst symbol—but DC ultimately reverted to his original costume, thinking an updated, streamlined, "bad-ass" version of the costume was sorta silly, and didn't fit the character as well as his classic duds.
What will he look like on Earth 2...?
And I can't wait to see how they "modernize" (90s-ize?) the others.
In an interview, James Robinson specifically mentioned The Atom Al Pratt, whose Golden Age look was a blue face-mask with no eye-holes and a leather combination girdle/pair of shorts (later updated so he had a mask he could see and breathe in, with a fin on top).
What about Ted "Wildcat" Grant, who dressed like a cat?
Or Johnny Thunder, who dressed like a typical teenager—sportscoat, bow-tie and slacks—and who was always accompanied by a whimsical wish-granting genie shaped like an anthropomorphic bolt of lightning?
I have a good feeling that Earth 2 is going to be an awesome comic book! To look at. From far away.
