It’s easy to pick out bad costumes. Real easy. What’s hard is actually picking out what you would feel is the best costume. Personally, I’ve found that I’m partial to costumes with a lack of color… Characters like Monica Rambeau (Former Avenger, current leader of Nextwave), Omega Sentinel (One of the few non-mutant members of the X-Men), Moonknight (Crazy Marvel Batman guy), and Storm (Wife of Black Panther, former leader of the X-Men) have costumes that are primarily white. And on the flip side of the spectrum, there are characters like who have a majority black costume that appeal to me, like Spider-Man (Jon mentioned this guy as having the best costumes), Black Adam (DC’s Captain Marvel/SHAZAM! evil-counterpart), Doctor Light (Teen Titan/Justice League villain), and Storm (Again). In doing research for this blog, I’ve learned that I tend to like the simple costumes over the more complex ones… Another fun costume thing for me are the inverse/twisted versions of established heroes. Characters like Reverse-Flash (Primarily Yellow, with a red secondary color), Bizzaro (Purple and Dark Blue Superman Costume with a reversed “S” Shield), and War Machine (Black and Silver Iron Man suit).

But, while I enjoy those costumes, they aren’t my top choices. However, these are:

10. Jubilee, formally of the X-Men, this de-powered mutant is one of those few characters that never really bothered to conform the the standards of the team she was on. While Jubilee has had at least 6 costumes, she’s really only remembered for not wearing one. Which is one of my biggest gripes with the X-Men; That team almost never has a consistent look between all of the members. Jubilee was a part of that problem. However, I’ve always forgiven it. The yellow coat, pink shirt, and blue shorts, with Bret Hart pink shades. That’s tacky, but I think its awesome though.

9. Doctor Doom, scourge of the Fantastic Four and the Marvel Universe, the monarch of Latveria dons an awesome suit of armor with a green tunic and hooded cape. To top it off, a metal mask that he almost never takes off… As a character, he was designed after the hooded interpretation of Death, The Grim Reaper. Replacing the skeleton for a suit of armor, Doom comes off as some sort of cold robot, and with no facial features exposed, he instills a sense of discomfort in his presence.

8. Vegito, the combined form of Goku and Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, is regarded as one of the most powerful characters in that series, personally, I feel he is number 1 within the series. His costume, consists of the combined costumes of both Goku and Vegeta. Goku’s Gi is inversed in color with Vegeta’s blue being the dominant color and Goku’s orange being the secondary color. This coupled with Vegeta’s gloves and boots, makes for a cool mixture of both characters. I don’t mind the earrings, either… They make sense within the storyline, and that’s all that really matters.

7. Spider-Man (Iron Spider), Spidey with Iron Man tech. That’s pretty much it. It’s just such a cool suit. Red and Gold with three golden spider legs attached to the back of the suit. A really sleek helmet/mask and a cool spin on the Spider-Symbol. This is one of the best Spider-Man suits, in my opinion.

6. Power Girl, cousin to Earth-2 Superman, this Supergirl counterpart’s costume has pretty much remained the same since her creation back in 1976. This is one of those simple costumes that I love so much, due to the lack of color, but, that’s only about a third of the reasoning. The other 2/3 comes from the boob window. Honestly. Sorry, but i like it, but despite it being cheesecake, it also serves a purpose within the comics. It’s really a distraction for the criminals she deals with. If I was a villain, I wouldn’t look away from the boob window. But I don’t do that now, either.

At least I was classy with the picture, right?

5. Black Lanterns, current scourge of the DC Universe, I think that just about every Black Lantern version of the various DC heroes and villains are awesome. Especially Earth-2 Superman and Aquaman. That’s right, Aquaman. What also helps it that they’re all zombies, but even then, the sleek design of the black lantern uniforms are pretty sweet.

4. Sabretooth, Wolverine’s lifetime nemesis, this guy had a truly awesome costume. Generally, when people think of a cool Brown and Yellow costume, they tend to think of Wolverine… Which isn’t a bad thing, that’s probably my favorite costume of Wolverine’s, but when I think of that Brown/Yellow color scheme, I think of Sabretooth. There aren’t too many characters out there that can wear the colors most associated with the bathroom, and pull it off. Wolverine does it, but Sabretooth does it better. Whether its the cool stripes on his legs and arms or the super-cool fur-collar mane, this costume puts most to shame. That’s just how it is.

3. Superman (Blue), the energy Superman, this is easily one of the greatest redesigns in the history of comics. As you may have read, Jon feels that this costume is one of THE worst costumes ever. I don’t get it. We got a cool redesign on the “S” shield, he didn’t look like he was wearing bad underwear, and he was way better at being covered in excess energy than Barry Allen (Flash) will ever hope to be. Hell, this is what got me back into reading Superman. I mean, let’s be honest, does anyone remember what Superman was doing before the events that led to him become more awesome? When I talk to people, usually it goes like this, “Superman died, he came back, kept his mullet, then he turned blue, then he was unblue.” But what happened between 1993 and 1997? I don’t know. But I do know what happened during his time as the blue guy. And it was awesome.

2. Red Lantern Guy Gardner, the hot-blooded Green Lantern, Guy Gardner experienced something pretty traumatic during the Blackest Night storyline. So awful, that his rage was so overwhelming, that a recently liberated red lantern ring flew straight to the hand of Guy. Now, before I go on, I need to state that I absolutely hate Guy Gardner’s Green Lantern outfit. His coat is so stupid to me. However, when he received a Rage Makeover, that coat suddenly became awesome. Just look at the picture below. Look at that ring. Just look it Guy. That’s awesome.

1. Spawn, the original demonic face of Image Comics, Al Simmons easily has one of the greatest costumes of all time. Again, just look at the picture below. Awesome cape, awesome Dracula cape collar, awesome gauntlets, awesome chains, awesome mask, awesome eyes, awesome belt buckle, awesome boots, awesome spikes. When I look at Spawn, I see the reason why there were so many bad costumes in the 90s. Spawn was extreme, but it worked. Everyone else was just boring when compared to Spawn. And it wasn’t just Spawn. It was everyone in that book. The angels, the demons, the killers… All of them just too cool. In my opinion, Spawn has the best costume in comics, hands down.

So, that’s that. But you might be asking, “Where’s Batman? Where’s Wolverine? Where’s Magneto?” Well here’s where they are: Batman’s ear-things are stupid and they completely kill the serious nature of the character. Wolverine wears stupid masks. Just like how I hate Jean Grey’s masks, I don’t like Wolverine’s masks either. Again, the ear things are the killers here. As for Magneto? Well, he was number 11 on my list. Cool costume, cool helmet. Nuff said. And with that, these are my top picks for the best costumes in comics.

-Fleet

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