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My mistake. I thought we were talking about SUPERHEROES.

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JB, was it just a mix up due to the X-Men's reprint status that had them in their school uniforms in this 1974 issue of Captain America?

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Yup. Consistency of policy has never been one of Marvel's strong suits.

Incidentally, this was going to figure in HIDDEN YEARS. In fact, I'd already started sowing the seeds!

QUOTE: Incidentally, this was going to figure in HIDDEN YEARS. In fact, I'd already started sowing the seeds!

Dang it!  Now we'll never know.

All of this sounds very simple and straight forward but it seems alot of current comic creators get it wrong wrong wrong.

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This is a road down which I have traveled many times.

FAN: Batman isn't a superhero! He doesn't have SUPER POWERS!

ME: No, he doesn't. But he has all the distinctive TRAPPINGS of a superhero, doesn't he? Costume, secret identity, distinctive villains, etc. Even, in his case, certain "powers and abilities" -- honed by years of training -- beyond those of most men.

It used to be that civilian garb was a pretty easy way to make a distinction. The Phantom Stranger wasn't a superhero. Not quite so easy to define what he WAS, but, then, that was kind of the point, with him!

Flavio, I agree the trunks outside the trousers business is one of the main things non-comics fans seem to pick up on, and is the biggest subject of ridicule.

I can just imagine these people going to the circus:

'Look! Those trapeze artists are wearing underpants outside their tights!' 

That doesn't mean there haven't been a number of character designs over the years that didn't incorporate trunks. The Golden and Silver Age versions of the Flash. The Golden Age Green Lantern. Captain Marvel.

Some characters have costumes that suggest trunks, without actually incorporating them -- Spider-Man, the Silver Age Green Lantern, the Golden Age Atom, Dr. Fate, Thor.

Then there are those who wear trunks the same color as their leggings, so they blend together. The FF. Captain America.

Kirby also had a fondness for characters in short "skirts" -- Doctor Doom, Galactus, the original Iron Man.

The important element in this discussion, tho, is that when the trunks are there to start with, the costumes look WRONG without them. DC took Batman out of his trunks for a while, a couple of decades back, and the effect was that Bruce had dressed in a hurry and forgotten to put his trunks on. Basically, costumes that were designed with trunks have to be altered much more than just leaving the trunks off in order for the change to work. And that means much more than adding a few seams here and there.

You know, I think my eyes or brain just don't go to negetive space. I didn't see the arrow in the FDEX sign, I didn't see the C in the Carfour sign and I couldn't do those flipping 3D defocus and go cross eyed pictures that were all the rage a few years ago.

But I chalk all this up to having double astigmatism.

QUOTE: I didn't see the arrow in the FDEX sign

See it now?