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What many current costume "designers" miss is that the suits of yore are most certainly not "dated". Often, the style of the artist is very dated -- Golden Age looks like Golden Age, Silver Age like Silver Age, etc -- but the uniforms themselves, until very recently, have been timeless.

The odd -- ironic? -- part here is that something like Superman's original costume, to name but one, looks "dated" only because it doesn't have all the flanges and pouches and other impractical elements that have come into popularity in the last couple of decades. But NOT looking like it was "designed" last week by Jim Lee does NOT make an older costume look "dated". This is another word "fans" toss around without any understanding of what they're saying.

The new one, the latest in an ever lengthening line of messing with perfection, looks "now" -- which means in a year it will look "last year".

Party like it's 1995

The costume would be perfect for a wannabe Havok sidekick who made his own outfit from things he found at second-hand and army surplus stores.

Transforming the three radiating loops from Adams' costume into badly placed stripes in the antithesis of good design work. "How can I take what's unique about this and make it pedestrian? If I can make it flat and ugly as well, that will be a bonus..."

Maybe the idea is that they will "flare" when he uses his powers...

The thing about Superboy's costume that Neil posted,is that if you strip the excess 90's gear(the belts,thigh strap,jacket and shades),underneath I think is a really nice design.

Allan - indeed! That's the fundamental difference between the '90s stuff and the more modern 'civilian clothes' look - ultimately, most of the '90s redesigns were pretty good superhero outfits cut along traditional lines, just with a bunch of superfluous, 'trendy' doodads cluttering it up. Easy enough to get rid of, and more a case of bad taste getting in the way than a fundamental attitude problem towards the characters and concepts.

Conversely, the idea of going with the 'plain clothes' look comes as part and parcel of a larger problem - writers/artists (...sorry, forgot - everyone's a 'creator' now, regardless of whether or not they actually 'create' anything...) who don't want to write these characters as SUPERHEROES. It's no doubt a mix of embarrassment and pretension - traditional takes on superheroes are simplistic 'kids' stuff'' after all, so by the same 'logic', going for a bland, 'realistic' look, treating the stories like fan-fiction-cum-soap-opera and so forth is shorthand for 'maturity' and 'sophistication'.


When I see something like THIS:





...with the accompanying 'mission statement' that the writer is trying to treat the 'X' as a brand icon like the McDonalds' 'Golden Arches', I don't need to read a single panel of said comic to know "this writer doesn't get it". Sad to see that this kind of 'deliberately missing the point' is now not just the rule (not the exception), but practically Standard Operating Procedure in the industry (thankfully not everywhere!), and even as far as the movies and other spin-offs (raise your hand, Mr. Nolan!).


/soapbox