Wearing a costume and running around fighting crime/causing crime is the most impractical thing EVER

Okay, after days of swearing at pieces of fabric and stabbing my fingers with pins, and spending half a day in a mask and headpiece, I've come to the conclusion that there is no practical value whatsoever in dressing up to fight crime or perpetrate villainy.  I couldn't blink with the mask on, I couldn't grab anything with gloves (let alone type), my little wrist cuffs kept on falling off, my sleeves rode up, the pants twisted around, and the headpiece got really, really annoying, and the white "face paint" (jerry-rigged white concealer stick, really), got on everything, so I couldn't even touch my face.  And even though I wasn't running around, I was wearing heels.  Argh!  Cosplay is not fun!  I can just imagine the joys of dressing up as Wonder Woman.

So that got me thinking who has the most practical costume?

The best I could come up with was The Question.  Just a man in a suit.  That's pretty easy to run around in, though maybe not the best for actual hand-to-hand combat.  The hat might fall off, too, but no big deal.

Any Green Lantern can generate his or her costume from their ring, so that's carte blanche to have whatever kind of costume your heart desires.  So Green Lantern costumes = practical.

Shapeshifters get a pass, too, considering that their clothes are a part of their body.  (I think.  No one's ever answered that question to my satisfaction.)

So, hooray for these guys.

Anyone want to add to the list?

Oh, here's a picture of Vril Dox.  His outfit is pretty practical because it's a military uniform.  And he's got jodphurs.  I like jodphurs.  And Vril Dox.

Clothes Make the Man. (Or Villain.)

Quick: think of three memorably-dressed villains who wear a suit.  Got them in mind?  Good.  I'll bet you a dollar that Two-Face is on your list.

Anyone read last week's Batman: Streets of Gotham?  If you didn't, who is this guy?:

C'mon, DC!  Have you no shame?  Putting Two-Face--a character with a wardrobe so iconic it's probably only second to the Joker--in a hoodie?  What exactly are you trying to communicate to the reader with a sweatshirt?  That the cost of dry cleaning really has gone up in recent months?

I guess I'm either a very visual person, or just a very superficial one, because I get hung up a lot on a character's appearance.  (I call it "design" and that make me feel better about myself.)  Maybe I'm wrong, but I put a lot of stock into a character's appearance, and I think a character's looks, and what a character chooses to wear (or not to wear), are a crucial point of reference to who the character is.  It's a visual medium, so I guess I'm allowed to be superficially judgmental.  Taking away the iconic two-tone suit is like taking away Two-Face's coin.  It's a part of who he is.  Just like giving Booster Gold a buzz cut was wrong.  He's a dandy.  He has to have ridiculously elaborate, never-out-of-place hair that takes hours to style because that's the kind of guy he is.  It says something about him.  Likewise, Two-Face needs to spend ridiculous amounts of time with two different colored suits, a seam ripper, and a sewing machine on a regular basis.

Sure, he can wear a hoodie if he wants to.  For a scene or two.  But for the whole book?  Nope.

I wasn't the only one who picked up on it, because a (positive) review of the issue at Panels on Pages mentioned it, too:

Gone is the dichotomy inspired wardrobe and villain lairs and in their place we have Harvey Dent in a hooded sweatshirt hiding out in a subway car full of silent, terrorized Gothamites.

They also mention the writing as "solid."  I wouldn't go that far.  It's not bad, but it's rather un-ambitious and shallow, just going through the motions.  It's too bad the writers eschewed Dent's point-of-view and internal motivations all together and instead took on an objective third person narration.  I like to see inside a villain's mind.  Maybe if they had done that, I'd know why he decided to wear that silly sweatshirt.

A Potential Problem For J'onn J'onzz?

We all know we here at CMMH! love J'onn J'onzz.  But there's one potential problem with his character that didn't hit me until literally thirty seconds ago.

Becuase hit counters have REALLY evolved since the days when I first got on the Internet, I can see what search keywords lead readers to my blog.  Some make me quite proud: "noir storytelling devices," for example, some are non-sequiturs, but make sense given my usage of certain words: "existential crisis comic," some make perfect sense: "adam strange covers," some are plain awesome: "comics bromance," some are funny: "superman is a jerk" and "happy martians," and others make hardly any sense at all: "make me comics."  Well, no, only if you pay me good money will I do that.

But this one gave me pause:

"green skin", "blue cape", "blue boots", comic

Someone was obviously looking for the Martian Manhunter and either couldn't remember or didn't know his name!

My first thought was "whoa."  My second thought: well, how many times does the Martian Manhunter introduce himself in comics, or is introduced by someone else, where, by the magic of comics, when someone speaks a superhero's name, the words are automatically rendered into that superhero's logo?  I can't think of any time when that happened with J'onn J'onzz.  And does he even have an official logo of his name anymore, or did DC forget about that?  And how often do other superheroes call him by his full name and not "J'onn" or "Manhunter?"

So, here's the question which is being begged:  Is "The Martian Manhunter" a catchy enough name?  I'd imagine that most fans from the cartoon don't even know him by his official moniker, only "J'onn J'onzz," becuase that's the only way they ever refer to him.  Smallville fans know him only as "John Jones," too, apparently, becuase when I mentioned how I love Smallville cameos by the Martian Manhunter, my Smallville-watching best friend said, "Oh, you mean John Jones?"  (She must've figured out who I was talking about through osmosis, I think.)  I can understand Smallville wanting to stay away from superhero names, becuase they do that with a lot of characters, but why the cartoon?  Is "Martian Manhunter" too hard for kids to pronounce?  Does Bruce Timm have something personal against the letter "M"?  Is it just too long?  Or--gasp!--is it not memorable enough?

Well, I wish I had the answer, but I don't, becuase I can remember his name.  (Though I still have trouble spelling "J'onn J'onzz" on occation.)  But I challenge you to find one member of the non-comics-reading-general-public who even recognizes the name "Martian Manhunter" and associates it with a superhero.  I'm a betting kind of gal, and I'd bet you good money that you can't find anyone who fits that criteria.

Honestly, I think "Martian Manhunter" is kind of a clunky-sounding nom de guerre, and it just doesn't roll off the tongue like "Superman!" or "The Flash!" or even "Green Lantern!" do, all of which sound like they automatically have exclamation points after them, which is why I put exclamation points after all of them.  Logistically, there's just too many syllables, and semantically, no one knows what a manhunter is anymore, so I wouldn't be too averse to a name change.  "John Jones" is way too plain.  "The Martian Detective" has some potential, but really doesn't sound like a superhero name, and probably wouldn't be any more memorable than "Martian Manhunter" is.  I'm at a loss, because I suck at naming things, and I come from a long line of people who suck at naming things, because every time my grandparents got a new dog they named it the same thing as the previous one.  (Yes, really.)  Talking about dogs in my family made it sound like you were talking about royalty becuase "the Second" or "the Third" was always appended after pets' names for the sake of clarity.)

So, what do you think, fair citizens?  Could J'onn J'onzz use a new superhero name?  Is there no improving the old one?  Could you offer a few suggestions?

Oh, and a side note: the fine folks at the Dow Chemical Company are workin' hard or hardly workin', becuase somebody was surfing for the Brightest Day Teaser Poster and stopped on over for a visit.  Chemists do need their comics, too, I suppose.

Wonder Woman's New Costume, Part II

I meant to write this down earlier, but oh well.  Procrastinators of the world unite tomorrow and all that.

Anyway, since Wonder Woman's new costume actually hit the national news I decided I finally had a chance to talk to a non-comics reader about comics, which happens very rarely.  I like hearing the outside perspective, and there's nothing better than mother-daughter bonding over comics.  So I asked my mother, "Hey, did you see Wonder Woman has a new costume?"

"Oh, I saw it and IT'S AWFUL!" was the response I got.  So then I thought I'd try to defend the new costume a little bit (or at least the reason why the new costume came to be) via a little feminist logic: why do male comic book heroes get to run around fully clothed while female comic book heroines have to run around half-clothed?

"Oh, please!  They changed her outfit because it offends women like you.  I want the Wonder Woman I know!  I used to watch Lynda Carter ever week!  Why did women baseball players have to wear a skirt in World War II?  So what about Batman!  Batman doesn't fight crime half-naked: he's overdressed!  Do you want her to dress like a man?"

So I gave up on the feminist angle and said that Wonder Woman's traditional costume just isn't practial.  You know...things can fall out.

"Nothing fell out when Lynda Carter was running around!  It's just like a bathing suit!"

To which I replied, "They would air a scene if something fell out of Lynda Carter's costume!!  And who fights crime in a bathing suit?!"

"Maybe she'll confuse criminals with her good looks!"

"But what about the high heels?"

"Hey, you get kicked with a high heel and you know it."

So, there you have it.  Two things I learned from this exchange: I never knew my mother watched the Wonder Woman TV show that avidly, and two, I'm one step closer to going to work in my bathing suit just to see what Momma Lissbirds has to say about THAT, when wearing a high-slitted formal dress apparently "gives the boys a show."  Honestly, as a kid, I never could understand why it was okay to wear a bathing suit at the beach but not at the mall, but then again, I was a weird child.

Apparently, in the eyes of the general public (and one generation removed), a second thought isn't given to men and women dressing differently, and as long as it's somewhat similar to a bathing suit, heroines can run around in whatever they want.  I'm guessing that along with my mother, the general public hates Wonder Woman's new duds, because it's boring and ugly and doesn't signify anything.  In my opinion,  design-wise, the new costume is kind of lazy, like car companies who just use the model name on a car in lieu of an emblem or hood ornament.

So, in conclusion, Wonder Woman should just change back, but I'm glad she did try on a new outfit because it made for one heck of an argument conversation.

Ta-Da! (Or, The Results of Loopiness Brought On By Sleep Deprivation!) Now with Updates!!

(Update: A third version now appears at the bottom of this post.)

I just had a revelation.

Well, it's 3 a.m. and I got lots of revelations this time of night, but anyway...

Regarding that bright red in J'onn J'onzz's costume.  Let's take out that red and replace it with a color more analogous to green, shall we?

Ignore the purple halos around the medallions, please...that was an accident.

Yeah, that's right.  Purple is green's analogue.  And if any male hero gets to wear purple, it's J'onn.  I think I'd darken the cape and boots a bit and then I'd be happy.

Compare with the original:

Ow!  My eyes!

Okay, so I darkened the cape a little and tried the make the medallions silver (gray, really), just to see how that would look:

Now he matches my blog's color scheme!

I'll probably start playing around with the Black Lantern costume, but for that I'll have to bust out the pencil and paper, so that'll actually take some effort....

Fashion Friday: Adam Strange

Okay, it's not Friday, and this entry is not about fashion.  In the effort of full disclosure, that's two lies right there.  I caught Olympics Fever and I've been too occupied watching people shoot a gun while skiing to blog.  (Really, biathlon amuses me to no end.)

Anyway, I digress.

In what I'm hoping will be a CMMH regular column, I'm going to examine (i.e. tear apart) the character designs of various superheroes and villains, both recent and past.  Today we're going to look at Adam Strange and the changes he's undergone within the past decade.

I believe that costumes should be as iconic as their characters: they should transmit instantly to the reader what the character's all about.  Without knowing a thing about a character, his costume should give you an idea of who he is.

Let's look at Silver Age Adam Strange.  He'd gone through one revision at this point since his debut in Showcase, but this is the design that stuck with him for decades:

Now, what have we got?  The lines are pretty clean and awfully sharp, overall a very elegant.  The white stripe down the leg cuts a really sharp figure and adds a military flair to Adam's uniform and contrasts nicely with the white cross straps.  There's also a hidden dynamic quality to this design: look at how the top of his boots and gloves terminate in a triangle shape.  It adds an edginess that's complimented by the strong contrasting colors of yellow and red.  With the epaulets and the stars on his collar, it seems Adam Strange is wearing a military uniform of sorts.  What's he a soldier of?  What's he fighting?  At first glance, we don't know.  Adam also wears a helmet (with an insignia), so he's obviously engaged in some sort of dangerous activity.  The fin on the helmet is futuristic, so we know there's a sci-fi element to what Adam does.  He's wearing a black belt with white rolled trim, and if you've seen any sci-fi space exploration movies from the late 50's or early 60's you'll recognize that design element.  What you can't see in this photo is Adam's gun holster hanging from his belt, and that he occasionally wears a space helmet over his regular helmet when he needs to venture into space.  Physically speaking, Adam is rather lithe: this doesn't look like a guy who could take you down with his fists, and yet he's still a superhero, so he must be pretty resourceful.

When we boil it down, what we've really got is a guy in a rocket pack with some sort of ray gun.

Okay, now the current design for Adam Strange:

Wow.  Who's this guy?

This look debuted in Planet Heist, which was actually a really fun, quintessential Adam Strange story.  His uniform, however, couldn't be further from what Adam Strange should be.  You'll see why in the end.

Let's look at this new uniform.  First off, there's all sorts of extraneous pieces here and there which add bulk and heaviness to Adam's look: the pure yellow of the boots is broken up with white soles and white cuffs.  The angled boot tops are gone.  He's sporting some sort of lumpy red wrist bands.  Further breaking up his figure are T-shaped yellow patches on his shoulders, and his gloves, like the boots, are broken into two colors: white and yellow.  The simple, dynamic white cross straps are replaced with a bulky chest piece, which holds his rocket pack to his body.  The belt with the rolled trim is gone and his holster is placed--awkwardly--up by his shoulder.  The stripes down his leg are sort of there, but in later appearances they've been eliminated completely and replaced by some boxy rectangle outline.  His helmet is considerably heftier, and it's his only helmet now, and functions as his oxygen source in space.  (Previously, a space helmet was optional for Adam.)  The overall design is boxy, disjointed, and bulky.  He's also gained a lot of muscle.

What does this new design say about the new Adam Strange?

If you saw him for the first time, what would you think this guy does?  Is he an astronaut?  A super space soldier?  Some kind of intergalactic spy?  A robot?  His costume is high tech.  It's got all sorts of gizmos that help him navigate through space.  His helmet is high tech now, and gives him HUD targeting displays and helps him out of tight situations.  Wow, that make him cool, right?

Wrong.

This takes all the adventure out of Adam Strange.  What made Adam Strange cool was that, with no more than a rocket pack, a gun, and his wits, he got through all sorts of scrapes and became the champion of an entire planet.  Adding technology to his arsenal weakens the very premise of the character.  Adam is the Indiana Jones of the DCU (he's even an archaeologist): an adventurer as well as a hero, who used his wits when he had nothing else to fall back on.  When his luck ran out, he made his own, and danger meant nothing to him.  There was no fancy technology to get him out of a scrape--only his own skill and intelligence, which is why he came to be known as the "thinking man's hero."

Now, Adam wears his space helmet when he's not even in space!  What a wimp!  Back in the Silver Age, half the time he was out in space without his space helmet.  I mean, this guy is so resourceful he doesn't even need oxygen half the time.

Now he's just a guy in a space suit.  How exciting.

Let's go back to the original, shall we?