Other Dicks.

That's the image that artist Mikel Janin's created for the cover of Grayson #4, which offers a pretty decent view of the costume that Dick Grayson wore throughout the title, which will soon be coming to an end. I wasn't terribly fond of the costume, particularly the weird, almost random-looking arrangements of straps and the fact that Grayson wore a big blue "G" sigil (Of course, the bar for quality costuming was set pretty low in the post-Flashpoint Bat-family; as much as I disliked the above ensemble, it was still 700 times better than one Dick's fellow former Robin Jason Todd wore, and at least 1,000 times better than poor Tim Drake's Red Robin get-up).

Because the super-spy agency he worked for, Sypral, employed some kinda high-tech perception warping thingamajigs they called "hypnos," it didn't really matter that Dick didn't wear a mask, as no one would be able to "make" him even when looking directly at him, and his clothing was pretty much irrelevant in terms of an in-story rationale.

I recently picked up the first collection of Grayson (having previously read the individual issues it contained), and was surprised by the back-matter, which included co-writer Tim Seeley's five-paragraph pitch for the series and several designs, which show what Dik Grayson might have worn instead of the costume above.

The first image, labeled as an early character design by Seeley, was paired with this pitch:

It's actually not too far removed from his final look, and is an all-around much simpler and straightforward design (which is an attribute when it comes to superhero costume design, if you ask me).

Like the one he ended up wearing, it more closely reflects his original Nightwing color scheme rather than the green, red and yellow of his Robin days or the black and red and of his post-Flashpoing Nightwing costume. And, unlike the final costume, it has a Spyral logo on the chest, which makes more sense than a big blue G, given that he's an agent of Sypral and all.

The pitch is somewhat noteworthy in that it refers to Spyral's head as Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman, rather than Helena Bertinelli, who was the "Matron" of Spyral in the version of Grayson that eventually saw print. I'm not entirely sure why DC would have preferred a new character whose name was the secret identity of the post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint Huntress instead of Kane, who appeared as an agent of Spyral during Grant Morrison's run on Batman Incorporated.

Bertinelli is also drawn in an alternate costume, a black and purple version of the costumes the girls at St. Hadrian's Finishing School wore in Batman Inc which were themselves derived from Kathy Kane's Batwoman costume. She ended up just wearing a very tight T shirt with the white cross on black design of The Huntress' costume and a pair of functional pants, like Grayson is wearing in the image at the top of the post.

Here's Seeley's apparent next pass at a costume for Grayson:

I actually like this one a whole lot, despite how busy it is.

He still retains a Spyral logo instead of a big, blue G, and it radiates a hypnotic spiral costume that covers his entire torso; it's a "hynpotic suggestion shirt," according to the notes. It's a very striking design, and one that would stand out in pretty much any crowd of superheroes.

I really like the fact that the pattern suggests that of the old Steranko Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD covers (SHIELD being a pretty obvious inspiration for Spyral, and Steranko's iteration of SHIELD being the most influential one). This version of Dick keeps a mask, which seems like it would be a good idea to have whether you're concerned about a "secret identity" or not. Even as a super-spy, such a mask could and would have some functionality, like particular lenses or communications capabilities. Plus, it looks cooler (I would have preferred a domino mask to such a big one, actually). The pants and boots look more para-military than what he ultimately ends up with, or the pair of super-tight jeans Seeley gave him in the first design.

Next up is series artist Janin's sketch:

At this point, Dick is pretty close to where he would end up; he's even got the dumb straps that don't seem to do anything. The chief differences between this design and the final one is the color scheme and the mask, and it's easy to see why they switched to blue and ditched the mask, as this basically looks like the post-Flashpoint Nightwing wearing short sleeves and a pair of business casual pants over his tights; if the idea was to leave the Nightwing identity behind, this is a pretty poor choice for the outfit Dick would rock in Grayson...even if it does look more like what a superhero-turned-super-spy might wear.

This series was a real surprise, as the set-up doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or stand up to a few minutes worth of scrutiny, but what Seeley and co-writer Tom King managed to do with that extremely forced and unnatural-feeling premise turned out to be incredibly solid.  Once you got over the conceptual hump and managed to suspend your disbelief long enough to make it through the first issue or so, Grayson was one of the better-written and often better-looking (although Janin's particularly style isn't one I'm personally drawn to) DC books of the last few years.

Grayson Vol. 1: Agents of Spyral contains another surprise: Dick Grayson almost had a totally awesome costume with a hypnotic suggestion shirt.

Wonder Woman's new direction: Clothes

In addition to launching all of those new titles as part of their "DC You" publishing initiative, DC also attempted to make the June issues all of their pre-existing titles good jumping-on points, by starting new story arcs and launching new directions for the titles. In the case of the bigger characters, those new directions were rather radical.

Superman's secret identity was revealed to the world, he was greatly de-powered, he got a haircut and started wearing a more casual costume of jeans and a Superman t-shirt again. Batman is presumed dead, and so former police commissioner James Gordon is taking over the role of Batman, wearing a huge suit of robotic armor. Even Aquaman and Green Lantern Hal Jordan received pretty dramatic new costume changes and shifts to their status quo (with both being labeled fugitives).

And as for Wonder Woman? Well, she basically just changed clothes.

June's issue of Wonder Woman, which is still being written by Meredith Finch and still being penciled by David Finch, includes a scene where Wonder Woman visits her half-brother Smith/Hephaestus to pick up her new outfit. It's mean to be a reflction of everything she is now, she says, "god, queen, warrior for justice."

I suppose some in-story rationale was needed, but it's not really apparent from looking at the costume how it reflects any of that, and does so better than her "old" costume (which is only about four years old at this point). Well, the bigger, pointier wristbands and shoulder armor perhaps suggests "warrior" in a way her old costume didn't. And maybe replacing all of the silver bits with gold is meant to denote a promotion from princess to queen, and from demi-god to god...? She already wore a tiara at all times, which already suggested royalty.

In the back of the $3.99, 20-page Wonder Woman #41, there's a two-page feature labeled "Warrior Wear" which features a half-dozen preliminary sketches–including one which looks an awful lot like a Donna Troy/Wonder Girl costume, and another that looks like the final version with a cape attached–and a sheet of the final costume from three different views.

There's a block quote from Finch, and six short paragraphs about the design process.

"Meredith has been in my ear for a while about the costume, and how it's not in keeping with what any of the men wear, or really, what a woman in the real world would wear to fight crime," he says.

Meredith Finch is quoted saying basically what Wonder Woman does in the script: I really wanted her new costume to reflect all of her roles: old–as in, member of the Justice League; and new–as in, God of War and Queen of Themyscira."

By "what any of the men wear," I assume Finch was referring to what the other Justice Leaguers wear, and that, of course, means showing less skin. In that regard, pants are usually what gets added whenever someone tries to improve upon Wonder Woman's costume (in fact, New 52 Wonder Woman was going to wear pants instead of shorts, until fandom collectively freaked out). Covering her bare arms as well is a more unusual move (Jim Lee's infamous pre-Flashpoint redesign included a jacket though). Interestingly, "the men" are showing a bit more skin now than they did when they last had makeovers: Superman's wearing short-sleeves, and Aquaman's wearing no sleeves.

I always find it a little silly when someone tries to articulate practicality and what a superhero costume should look like in "the real world," especially for a fantastic character like Wonder Woman. Like, what would "a woman in the real world" wear to fight crime? A police uniform. And...that's about the only option, really.

What would a super-powered demi-goddess from an ancient, immortal race of warrior women wear to fight crime in the real world...? Who cares? The real world is not one in which a super-powered demi-goddes from an ancient, immortal race of warrior women exist at all, full-stop.

I don't care for the costume at all. It's a worse one than the original New 52 redesign (which was just her New 52 costume, but with black pants instead of shorts) and Jim Lee's redesign from J. Michael Stracynski's ill-fated run on Wonder Woman. It's basically just her current costume worn over a black unitard, with a pointy loincloth and shoulder-pads and thigh-high boots. As for how her knife-bracelets work, she doesn't use them at all in this issue, but I've never really understood outfitting Wonder Woman with edged weapons. A "warrior for peace" doesn't really need anything to stab with, you know?

Ideally, Wonder Woman would just change clothes when she was fulfilling the different roles in her life: Wearing her superhero costume when being a superhero, adding Bronze Age accessories like bits of armor and a battle-skirt when being an Amazonian warrior, putting on a nice clean toga when being a queen, and putting on War/Ares' helm and cape when god of warring. It's not like anyone has one outfit they wear in all occasions, designed to reflect every aspect of themselves, you know?

But then, this costume change is really just a change for change's sake, something to give Wonder Woman a hook to potentially draw in new readers, and it shouldn't last all that long.

Wonder Woman's costume changes in Wonder Woman: Futures End #1 and Superman/Wonder Woman: Futures End #1:

That's gotta be about as many as your average female pop singer during the course of a concert, right? The first two panels are penciled by Rags Morales, and rest by Bart Sears.

New 52 vs. DC Super-Pets: Batgirl

Carmine Infantino's cover for 1967's Detective Comics #359

While Sheldon Moldoff and Bill Finger introduced a Bat-Girl, with a hyphen, in 1961, the character Batgirl (without a hyphen) was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino at the direction of editor Julius Schwartz in 1967.

When she first appeared, she was waring the costume above, and it changed little over the 20 years between her debut and her 1988 retirement.

Mike Mignola and Karl Kesel's cover for 1988's Batgirl Special #1. I bought this comic from a back-issue bin specifically for the cover, and all I remember about it was that its insides were not as good as the cover. 

A few more Batgirls eventually followed in the comics. In 1999's Batman: Shadow of the Bat #83, part of the "No Man's Land" storyline, a mysterious new Batgirl in a new, all-black costume that hides her entire face appears. She's eventually revealed to be The Huntress, having adopted a bat-costume in an attempt to fill the void left by Batman, who was MIA from Gotham at the start of the story.

Damion Scott

She's soon forced to relinquish the name and costume, which both go to Cassandra Cain, who would be Batgirl for the next 11 years, wearing that costume throughout her tenure, with little to no alteration.

Phil Noto

In 2009, Stephanie Brown, formerly The Spoiler (and formerly the fourth Robin, albeit only for about the length of a single storyline), became Batgirl, and she had her own Batgirl costume, a black, yellow, and purple get-up with a utility belt and matching utility garter. The less said of this costume, the better. She proved to have the shortest tenure of any Batgirl, save for The Huntress, as the September 2011 New 52 reboot of the DC Universe excised Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown from continuity, now making it so that the de-aged Barbara Gordon never retired from being Batgirl.

Here's what her new, New 52 costume looks like.

Adam Hughes

From afar, it looks like it's basically her original costume, but the closer one looks, the more new and changed details one finds. Like most of the New 52 costumes, it isn't a simple body-stocking or spandex suit, but looks like something a Hollywood costuming department might put together for a superhero movie. It's a suit of armor more than a costume, complete with plates and seams and segments. There are more breathable, flexible areas where she needs to bend. And check out the palms of her gauntlets—I don't know why, but the grips on those give me the willies.

The inside of her cape is also purple now, and, on that first cover at least, she seems to have her cape affixed with some sort of bat-brooch...that, or she's just wearing a bat-pin on her cape.

It seems that the design has ben finessed a little big already, as the underside of her cape eventually became yellow, rather than purple.

Ed Benes

Either way, I don't like it much, and would prefer something closer to her original costume, or the one that appeared in the 2004-2008 animated series The Batman.

Here's how artist Art Baltazar dresses Batgirl, in the pages of the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia:

Batgirl was a recurring character in Baltazar's Tiny Titans comic, and the version of her that appears in this encyclopedia is basically a grown-up version of the Tiny Titan, wearing a pretty similar costume. She's got a fairly traditional Batgirl color scheme of blue (and blue-black), yellow and purple, which looks like a blending of her coloring from the live-action TV show and the comic books of the 1960s (where her bodysuit was most often colored gray).

Baltazar's main innovation here is that he changes her tunic into a dress—that, or she's wearing a skirt and a tunic. Baltazar's artwork is so simple and flat that it doesn't really suggest textures, so it's difficult to say exactly what material she might be wearing or how thick it might be, and therefore I can't tell if she's wearing tights or leggings under the skirt (good), or wearing pants under her skirt (bad...and weird).

As un-Batgirly as the skirt or dress might be, I actually kind of like it in the way it evokes the original Bat-Girl costume, and the way it differentiates this look from the original Batgirl costume (The costume from The Batman that I like is actually a dress over tights).

I don't think this is the best possible Batgirl costume, and I don't think the design is quite the home run that Baltazar's Animal Man costume is, but I don't like it any less than I like The New 52 design and, with some tweaks, I think Baltazar's basic design could make for a far superior costume than The New 52 costume.

***********************

Baltazar is apparently quite enamored of the skirt/dress design when it comes to superheroines and supervillainesses. In addition to Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Aquagirl, Green Lantern Katma Tui, Black Canary, Zatanna, Hawkwoman, Raven, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Star Sapphire and Circe all wear dresses or skirts in the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia...as does Batwoman, a relatively short-lived character who has only been around long enough to have one costume design so far (Unless you count the Golden Age Batwoman, which I'm not counting).

The evolution of Evil Star

Golden Age villain Evil Star, a criminal with a star-shaped mask that tried to sabotage a Hollywood film.

The Silver Age Evil Star, who had as much to do with his Golden Age predecessor as the Silver Age Green Lantern did the Golden Age GL, drawn by co-creator Gil Kane.

A more modern drawing of the same essential version of the character, drawn by Travis Charest.

And the new, New 52 version, introduced in Green Lantern Corps Annual #2, in the above passage drawn by Tom Derenick (and written by Van Jensen and Robert Venditti).

Notice the difference?

He's still evil (or at least a pathologically selfish coward), and he still has a star symbol on his person, but, purely in terms of appearance, he's less colorful, less dramatic, less recognizable and all-around less interesting.

The bland redesign is, like so many of the the New 52, counterintuitive of the stated goals of the line-wide reboot and redesign—to make DC's comics more accessible and appealing to a bigger, broader audience—when one considers that, as goofy as the costume the guy wore for 35 years was, it did show up in a couple of cartoons, meaning it was seen by hundreds of thousands of more people than Green Lantern Corps Annual #2 will ever be seen by (A coupla episodes of Justice League Unlimited, one of Batman: The Brave and The Bold and an old Green Lantern short of sub-Super Friends quality from long, long ago).

The new look does seem to meet what seems to be the actual goal of the reboot-born redesigns: Creating more "realistic" characters and costumes that could be more easily adapted into live-action films, television or Arkham-style video-games.

Chris Bachalo did not give up on that one costume design

I've been catching up on some recent-ish X-Men comics via trade lately, and saw the above image in a trade paperback collection of Wolverine and The X-Men Vol. 1. The back of the book contains about three pages of character and costume designs by primary artist Chris Bachalo, including the above variations on costume designs for the character Idie (In the issues contained within this collection though, she's never shown in a superhero outfit, just the Jean Grey School's school uniform, so I'm not yet sure what her superhero costume will end up looking like).

Note the design on the far right. Wolverine and The X-Men launched in late 2011, so these were drawn sometime that year, or perhaps even a little before.

So does that costume look at all familiar?

It's the costume that new mutant Tempus from Bachalo and Brian Michael Bendis' Uncanny X-Men, seen on the far left of this image from the cover page of Uncanny X-Men Vol. 1, is now wearing. Only the slightest adjustments (the straps are a different color, and Tempus is usually wearing war paint) differentiate the costume Tempus started wearing in 2013 from the one Bachalo designed for Idie a few years previous. (It's also perhaps worth noting that Tempus is the third female mutant to join Cyclops team in Uncanny X-Men and, like Magik and The White Queen, she also wears tiny black shorts, often partially concealed under the little white skirt there, rather than pants. The ladies on Cyclops' team are forbidden from wearing pants, apparently, while Cyke and Magneto keep their legs covered at all times).

New 52 Vs. DC Super-Pets: Animal Man

Carmine Infantino's Animal Man from the pages of Strange Adventures

Created by writer Dave Wood and artist Carmine Infantino for a one-off feature in 1965's Strange Adventure's #180, Buddy Baker was a man temporarily gifted with the power to borrow the abilities of animals in his vicinity (See Brian Cronin's post on Comics Should Be Good here for a scan-filled history of the character in the Silver Age).

He proved popular enough to return a handful of times, eventually earning a proper superhero name and costume, although he remained an extremely minor, even obscure character until writer Grant Morrison and company's late-eighties revival of the character.

The original costume featured an orange, blue and black color combination, which wasn't exactly popular among superheroes, but that was probably what helped generate it: By the late 1960s, they were running out of color combinations for new superheroes.

In the Superman tradition, Animal Man had the first letter of his name emblazoned on his chest, but it's pretty fully integrated into the design, rather than being a logo that looks hung there. He wore goggles and an unusual, head-hugging half-cowl that allowed his hair to breathe (The goggles were no doubt functional as well as identity-concealing, and it looks like he's got some ear-protection built in).  Note the scale-like texture of the costume, and the shape of his gloves and boots.

Brian Bolland's cover for 1990's Animal Man #19

In 1988, DC awarded Animal Man his own title, by writer Grant Morrison and pencil artist Chas Truog. His costume was little changed, the major innovation being the addition of a leather jacket over his costume. Well, given Animal Man's vegetarianism and support of animal rights, it was more likely a pleather jacket. The material of the costume gradually gave way to your more standard superhero spandex as well.

And that was pretty much what Animal Man looked like from then on, save for a few story-specific costume changes, as when he became a "dark" version of himself near the end of Morrison's run, or when he assumed a chimerical form during Jamie Delano's run and finally quit wearing his costume and grew his hair long and white near the end of the first volume of his series in the mid-1990s. In all of his subsequent appearances, he'd look like the version from the Morrison run, sometimes wearing the jacket and sometimes not.

Steve Pugh's cover for 2012's Animal Man #0

Animal Man earned a second, ongoing series when DC relaunched their line under "The New 52" banner in September 2011. The character saw one of the more drastic character redesigns, keeping only the large A design element and the partial cowl. His colors were now blue and white, he no longer wore goggles and rather than having a glove-like element to his costume, the white arms were more sleeve-like, extending up to his torso.

I personally don't like it much, mostly because of how far divorced it is from the original costume that it makes him look like an entirely different character. He looks rather like an X-Man to me ("A" aside), and while orange, blue and black might not have been the best color combination in the world, Animal Man did sort of own blue and orange, whereas blue and white is a color combination that a lot of super-characters use (particularly villains and characters with cold powers).

I don't think the change makes very good business/character evangelization sense, either (The same goes for most of the New 52 redesigns). I understand the idea of signaling the drastic change by so thoroughly redesigning everything—costume tweaks and changes have long been a way to call attention to an old character or a new storyline—but in this case, Animal Man no longer looks like the character that appears in the critically-acclaimed Grant Morrison-written graphic novels (or any of the other Animal Man trades, or in the collections of 52, which featured him among its cast). Nor does he look like the Animal Man in the DC Nation shorts, Animal Man's only real appearance outside the comics medium.

Personally, I prefer the following design.

Art Baltazar's Animal Man from the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia

Animal Man makes an appearance in the DC Super-Pets Character Encyclopedia, as the "Superhero Owner" of Super-Pet King (a lion).

Baltazar keeps the basic color combo—orange suit, blue A, black accessories—as well as the half-cowl and goggles. He streamlines it quite a bit though, so those amoeba-like tendrils at the borders of the boots and gloves that Infantino gave his costume are gone, replaced by straight edges or triangular shapes.

I especially like the little animal touches he adds, like the big, rounded goggles (suggesting an insect's eyes), the leopard or cheetah-like spots near the gloves and boots, and even the little lines suggesting a paw-like boot. There all just little flourishes, but each signal "new" and "different" without actually radically changing the costume (They're more like adding a yellow circle behind Batman's bat-symbol, or taking that yellow circle away, rather than, say, giving Wonder Woman a pair of black pants or Hawkman a suit of golden armor).

I also really like the torn vest, which replaces the problematic leather/pleather jacket (even if it's fake leather, it looks like leather), and might have different connotations to different viewers. With the vest, Animal Man's got a cool accessory to wear over his costume to signal he's a little more hip than the characters who just wear their spandex costumes.

Maybe the next Animal Man series will see Animal Man wearing a costume more like this than his blue and white, New 52 togs. Not much point in re-dressing the current Animal Man in the cooler, Baltazar-designed costume. From what I've read, the new, New 52 Animal Man isn't a very good comic, and seems to be repeating plot lines from the original series (and Swamp Thing), and doing the sorts of things Morrison parodied and criticized in superhero comics during his Animal Man run, without a trace of irony or understanding.

This is, by the way, Example #1 for why Art Baltazar should be the next person DC calls to redesign all their characters, rather than Jim Lee and company.

Stephanie Brown coming to the New 52U, convention questions about Cassandra Cain expected to double.

News from New York Comic Con! Stephanie Brown, aka The Spoiler, aka Robin IV, aka Batgirl III, is making her New 52 debut in the rather goofily-entitled, Scott Snyder-showran Batman Eternal! If you like the character, this is either great news (she is no longer non-existent in The New 52U) or terrible news (I know when I've seen some favorite DC characters of mine re-introduced into The New 52 so far, my thought process has generally been something along the lines of, "Oh cool, it' s Captain Marv---AAAAH!").

There's been no revelation of what, exactly, Stephanie Brown will be wearing or what she'll look like, but the few articles I've read have said she'll most likely be appearing in her Spoiler identity (although with Damian Wayne dead and Robin III Tim Drake's superheroic identity retconned so that he was always "Red Robin" and never [just] Robin, there does seem to be an opening for a new Robin).

As for the costume, I assume it will look a lot like her original duds, maybe with more black or a darker purple, and certainly with visible seams, armor plating, treads on her boots and fussily detailed gloves. You know, New 52 (If she's first appearing in issue #3, and Jason Fabok is drawing the first story arc, he'll be the first to draw her in a story, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be designing her).

So why did I post the above picture, of a Spoiler costume designed by the great Dean Trippe a few years back? Oh, just because I love that costume, and the way it cleverly yet organically blends her Spoiler and Robin costumes together (Her Batgirl costume was fairly awful, her Spoiler costume not so great unless Damion Scott or Jeff Parker were drawing it and her Robin costume was just Tim Drake's with a longer shirt to act as a mini-dress; that Trippe costume is the best she's ever looked, if you ask me. And you didn't. But I'm answering anyway).

I've said this before—long before the New 52 was announced—but Trippe is such a good designer, and so adept at designing costumes for DC's teen superheroes, that I wish DC would have hired him in some Re-Design All Our Teen Heroes capacity.

Now, they obviously went with Jim Lee, a handful of his WildStorm cohorts and/or whatever artists happened to be drawing whatever title was in question when they redesigned the costumes of their entire universe. If I were in charge, I probably would have went to Darwyn Cooke* and asked him to re-design much of the DC Universe, coming up with costumes that were instantly recognizable to anyone who had ever heard of heroes like Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, but more streamlined, and taking this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-tweak them into "ultimate" costumes. And then I would have looked to folks with similar abilities and sensibilities to design different corners of the DCU, asking Trippe to take on the younger heroes, from Nightwing own down (It goes without saying that I would not have condensed the entire history of the DC Universe into five years, so there would actually still be a bunch of different superheroes of various ages running around).


*And if I were the Boss of All DC and was in charge of the New 52-boot, and Cooke said no, I probably would have next asked Bruce Timm, and then maybe Frank Miller (Shut up there are some totally awesome costumes in Dark Knight Strikes Again I don't care what you say!) and/or Alex Ross. I'm actually surprised they didn't ask Alex Ross, given how much everyone, the current DCU regime included, have loved so many of his designs from Kingdom Come, importing the likes of Red Robin, Zatara, Offspring, Wildcat, Gog and others into the DCU in the years between Infinite Crisis and The New 52-boot. I suspect there's some hard feelings somewhere, as Ross has been notably absent from DC for so long, but who knows. 

Let's talk at far too great length about Suicide Squad #1 (2011), and what its characters look like

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