Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake.
The 90s were all about making random changes and marketing stunts for the sole purpose
of selling more toys and more issues and what better way to do both in one fell swoop than
for random gratuitous costume changes?
Not all of them worked.
In fact most of them didn’t.
So today, I want to take a look at SOME of my least favorite costumes from the 90’s
and maybe give you guys a little bit of trivia while I’m at it!
The Death and Return of Superman was a huge marketing stunt.
After all, this was the storyline that essentially broke the concept of death in mainstream superhero
comics.
As big as the death of Superman was made out to be, his return had to be equally huge and
DC needed a new costume to help shake up the status quo and show fans that things had changed.
Oh things were different alright because Supes was back!
...With a mullet… and in a black costume.
A boring black onesie with a silver S. Look, making fun of the mullet is easy.
The hairstyle as a whole was definitely a product of its time, but it’s still pretty
goofy to see it on Superman, especially considering that he kept it even AFTER returning to his
iconic costume.
With just one glance, you can easily tell which era of Superman comics that you’re
looking at.
However, this wasn’t the only change in appearance that Superman would get in the
90s.
See, they already killed Superman and brought him back to life so where do you go from there?
Well, how about turning him into pure energy, getting rid of his powers, and giving him
a whole new powerset so he has to learn how to be a hero from the ground up all over again?
This was the era of Superman Blue and since things would just phaze though his new energy
form, Supes had to wear this containment suit that held him together and helped channel
his new lightning based powers.
I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty dumb, especially when he was split into two entities,
giving birth to Superman Red.
But hey, at least all this was a really nice homage to a classic Superman story and led
to that one episode of Justice League Action.
In the famous storyline, Fatal Attractions, Magneto stripped away the adamantium that
laced Wolverine’s skeleton and because of that, Logan got his bad ass bone claws but
he also… started regressing into a feral state.
Except it wasn’t a regression, but rather an intense mutation.
You see to help explain this nonsense, Professor X noted that the Adamantium bonded to his
skeleton is what prevented Logan’s feral state from taking hold before…
not even accounting for his life before the Weapon X project which… okay, fine whatever.
What puts this stupid plot point on this list was when a future character came back in time
and tried rebonding the Adamantium which failed and accelerated the feral process.
Now, Logan was a gurgling monster without a nose and adopted this new bandana look.
While Wolverine did regain a lot of his humanity over the next few issues, the bandana and
the no nose over mutation look vanished for no given reason at all.
I mean sure, Logan kept the bone claws until he eventually got his Adamantium back fully,
but this completely nonsensical 90s nuisance faded away entirely and that’s honestly
fine by me.
The original Nightwing disco suit costume is ridiculous and I kind of love it.
I mean it’s supposed to be reminiscent of his time in the circus and it works really
well!
The costume was updated in The New Titans #88 in 1992, but it doesn’t really work
for me.
In my opinion, you lose some of the charm of the original suit in trying to modernize
it and Nightwing goes from a character that stands out to just a generic 90s superhero
that looks like he was created by some indie comic publisher as their pastiche of Batman.
This redesign wouldn’t last for long since a couple of years later, Dick Grayson temporarily
filled in as Batman after the events of Knightfall and he was donning the cape and cowl at the
time.
As soon as Bruce returned and became Batman again, Nightwing got his first solo run in
1995, ditching his costume in the very first issue after claiming to quit being a superhero.
Just one issue later, he returns to the role of Nightwing, but of course doesn’t have
a costume anymore.
That’s when he picked up his now iconic costume, albeit with that obnoxiously long
ponytail.
This was obviously the best move since he’s been in that outfit ever since with the only
hiccup being that god awful red which the less said, the better.
But hey, speaking of Batman replacements, you know who took over before Dick Grayson
stepped in?
Jean-Paul Valley A.K.A.
Azrael.
Lovingly referred to as AzBats, this design made its first appearance in Detective Comics
#667 in 1993 and is everything that you’d expect in a 90s costume.
It’s over designed, overly edgy both literally AND figuratively, covered in spikes, and serves
as a major departure from the status-quo just for the sake of it.
I personally do like the golden motifs on this Batsuit as it pays tribute to Jean-Paul’s
Azrael armor and the wrist mounted grappling hook is pretty neat in a Spider-Man way, but
this looks more like the Batman equivalent of one of those special action figure exclusive
outfits from something like the Ninja Turtles.
Whenever you get a list like this one, the glam rock Thor design almost always shows
up and for good reason.
I mean come on.
The crop top, spikes, Gambit style head sock, shoulder pads, straps upon straps upon straps,
and a random chain on Mjolnir for absolutely no reason makes Thor look like some random
player character from an MMO.
However, a lot of people don’t talk about how this design… basically didn’t exist.
Yeah, Thor was going shirtless for a pretty decent while, but on the LAST ISSUE OF HIS
SERIES, he adopted this new look for no reason whatsoever!
Sure, he wore this outfit when making some crossover appearances including the DC vs.
Marvel event, but I seriously can’t crap on this design too much because while it was
bland and unneeded, it’s not like it had much of an impact on the story.
Besides, isn’t a complete costume overhaul done at random that leaves just as quickly
as it came not the most 90s comic thing imaginable?
Yes, yes it is.
Wonder Woman has had some weird costume changes over the years from her mod era to the jacket
and jeans that I made an entire video about, but in the 90s, things got a little weird.
So Queen Hippolyta got a vision that Wonder Woman was going to die and was pretty pissed
off that Diana was choosing to work at a taco shop instead of dedicating her time towards
spreading peace and love so she forced Diana to compete in a contest to earn the title
of Wonder Woman back and… she lost.
The mantle of Wonder Woman was given to a new character named Artemis which forced Diana
to adopt this new biker look of shorts, a bra, and a leather jacket.
This looks more like some evil alternate universe Wonder Woman more than anything else and was
a HUGE departure.
Hell, this costume change was so drastic that when Marvel and DC decided to smash their
characters together in Amalgam comics, Diana’s costume was… pretty much the same, with
few changes.
Anyway Queen Hippolyta’s vision came true and a Wonder Woman did die alright, but since
she was the one with the mantle now, it was Artemis, With her dying words, Artemis gave
the title and costume back to Diana making this change last for only eight issues in
total so the tagline of “Artemis is the new Wonder Woman!
Forever!” isn’t that accurate.
Guy Gardner is one of my favorite Green Lanterns and although he started his solo career in
the 90s with Sinestro’s yellow ring and a leather jacket, DC was trying to basically
kill off the entire concept of ring slingers so they could focus on Kyle Rayner.
Enter the Water of the Warriors, a cocktail that activated long dormant alien DNA inside
of Guy’s body that allowed him to turn into... this and gave him the ability to shapeshift.
It was not a good look and lasted for about TEN YEARS before Guy was brought back into
the Green Lantern Corps when DC decided to care about them again with Green Lantern:
Rebirth.
This change lasted the longest out of any of the terrible designs featured on this list
which speaks volumes about how confident DC was in their decision.
When it was decided that Guy would go back to being a Green Lantern, the change happened
quickly, dramatically, and basically wasn’t mentioned ever again.
If anything, this is a testament to how wrong DC was in the first place and honestly, I'm
fine with this concept never making a return in the modern era of Green Lantern.
The entirety of the Marvel Comics multiverse spun out of the Fantastic Four series and
Sue Storm, The Invisible Woman, was the original super-mom.
She didn’t need a costume change… at all.
But despite this, Sue’s new outfit that debuted in The Fantastic Four #371 in 1992
is arguably one of the worst superhero costume redesigns of all time.
It’s not so much a new design, but rather more of just taking a pair of scissors to
the old one.
The lack of sleeves, exposed legs and back, belly window, and that god awful four shaped
boob window were bad enough, but that weird ass collar and the random arm and leg bands
just make the whole thing bafflingly stupid and WAY out of character.
You see that’s the biggest issue, Sue Storm got a drastic personality shift along with
the costume, acting colder and more irritable.
Sure it was explained away, but it still led to some stupid scenes like Sue making people’s
clothes disappear whenever they criticized her new wardrobe.
Oh and as a quick aside, as Sue’s outfit got smaller and smaller, The Thing got a new
costume a few issues later that moved away from his classic trunks to a onesie and helmet.
A couple of years later, the Invisible Woman’s outfit got a reworking that makes this design
work a little bit better and look pretty great in the process actually, but the boob window
version will live on in infamy, mostly as joke and reference material.
Now, if you’ve been around my channel then you know that Booster Gold is my all-time
favorite superhero and I hate to admit that even he succumbed to the pointless design
changes of the 90’s, but what’s worse than that is that it was for the dumbest trope
of the era, power armor.
Characters in the 90’s were constantly just getting random suits of armor, even if it
was just for like one issue and considering that Booster’s suit already augments his
strength and defensive capabilities, this bulky armor wasn’t needed in the slightest
and it completely ruins his sleek and easily marketable aesthetic.
There’s really not much to talk about here since the armor is too bland to even stand
out, but it hits me on such a personal level that even my favorite boy had the cliche 90’s
hiccups.
Eh, at least it looks better than the bland outfit that Booster got in the New 52 that
kind of made him look like a City of Heroes NPC.
Wow, that might be like the most oddly specific insult that I have ever given on this channel.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are WAY more terrible 90’s costumes out there and I do
want to make a follow up video about them sometime in the future so the ones you want
me to touch on that I didn’t talk about today, go ahead and leave them in the comments
below!
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But hey, if you liked this video then why not consider subscribing or even watching
another one?
In fact we have an entire playlist dedicated to crazy 90’s nonsense, so you might want
to take a look at that if you liked this.
But anyway I hope you learned at least a little something new and hopefully I’ll see you
next time.