By Andrew A. Smith

Tribune Content Agency

 

The "Big Three" at DC Comics -- Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman -- are getting new looks this month. But it's the Amazing Amazon who's getting all the attention.

Before the inevitable jokes about how women like to change their outfits, let's look at the boys first:

In this month's Superman books, the Metropolis Marvel is losing his super-powers for reasons unknown. He travels to his Arctic fortress for help, but the A.I. that runs the place doesn't recognize him any more -- and reclaims the Kryptonian super-suit. Left with few other options, the not-so-Superman begins fighting bad guys in jeans and a T-shirt.

That's quite a comedown. But don't worry -- it's inevitable that the Man of Steel's powers will return, at least before the next movie. In the meantime, though, what's really off-putting isn't the outfit -- it's the haircut. Supes has lopped off his spit-curl and adopted a buzz-cut. What, is he a Marine now?

Plus, it just doesn't look like Superman.

Meanwhile, over in Gotham, Batman and The Joker disappeared in final combat last month in the caves that honeycomb the city's foundation. With the Dark Knight presumed dead, the city has created its own Batman: Ex-Police Commissioner James Gordon, sporting a high-tech battle-suit that would make Iron Man envious.

Again, we know that at some point Bruce Wayne will return. This is comics; the status quo never changes for long. But again, it's not the idea that's bad -- it's the execution. Gordon's armor makes him look like a big, shiny, blue rabbit. The title of the book is Batman, not Robo-Bunny.

Plus, it just doesn't look like Batman.

You'd think these dramatic sartorial changes would result in howls of outrage. But the online reaction has ranged somewhere from "Ho-hum" to "Meh."

But, boy, if a superheroine changes her outfit, the Internet cracks in half!

Wonder Woman's new ensemble isn't terribly different from her old one. The biggest change is that it shows a lot less; there's a black body-suit that covers her from shoulders to boots, with a variation of her usual outfit over it, so that everywhere you used to see skin is covered in black. Oh, and she has pointy (and presumably retractable) metal things that jut out of her famous bracelets.

Naturally, fanboys went berserk on the Web, calling it everything from a crime against tradition to a personal insult. That's to be expected; there's a reason why "troll" has returned to the modern vocabulary.

Tradition really can't apply when Wonder Woman has gone through so many outfits in her 70-plus years of existence. Her first costume made little sense; a girl from an ancient Greek culture appeared on our shores decked out in essentially a red-white-and-blue swimsuit instead of, say, a toga or Spartan armor. The in-story reason was that she wanted to appear friendly by adopting our colors, but the real reason was that her debut was in the fall of 1941, and within months the U.S. would be embroiled in World War II. Patriotism was a must in comics in those days, no matter where you were from.

The star-spangled culottes in that initial outfit became shorts, short-shorts, bike-riding shorts, superhero briefs, hot pants and more over the years, while her boots and red bodice went through similar mutations. And in 1968 the Amazon Princess lost her powers, chucked the uniform altogether, and went through a "Diana Peel" phase, dressing mostly in white jumpsuits.

Tradition? Hah! Sure, Wonder Woman eventually returned to a variation of the original costume in the 1970s, but she has donned innumerable outfits since -- some recognizable, some not.

So the pearl-clutching from Internet posters wasn't really convincing or surprising. What was surprising were comments from some professional comics creators.

In a Facebook post, writer/artist J. Scott Campbell (Gen13, Danger Girl) criticized the new uniform's metal shoulder pads which he said "NEVER look good on women." He continued with, "No grace to this approach at all," and "on a side note, I find the continued knee-jerk reaction to Internet message board critics demands to keep female heroines covered from head to toe an overreaction."

Campbell also tweeted his idea of a new costume for Wonder Woman ... which to this fanboy looked a lot like the old one, only with a really cute, petite Wonder Woman in it who looked about high school age.

Now, Campbell has removed his post and tweets, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. He probably popped off, maybe semi-seriously, and then thought better of it. I only mention his comments here because A) they're easily found via Google, so they will never die, and B) a number of other artists responded with their own criticisms of the outfit, artists I won't name here (but again, the Internet is forever).

I was stunned that pros would put their names to criticism of the work of a fellow professional (in this case new Wonder Woman artist David Finch). It's equally surprising that they'd criticize a major publisher for whom they, presumably, would like to work for some day. Whether these comments will be overlooked I can't say, but I don't expect any will win "co-worker of the year" any time soon.

Worse yet are the ones who went beyond criticizing Princes Diana's fashion choice, and assumed the new costume was the result of pressure from a highly organized, sinister cabal of liberal feminists who are undermining their right to draw half-naked women with bodacious ta-tas. The fact that "fan service" -- as the depiction of scantily-clad girls is called -- is so important to these artists is pretty tacky all on its own. But to assume that someone is out to get them for their peculiar tastes -- with zero evidence -- tops this slutty sundae with a healthy dollop of paranoia.

That having been said, let me knock myself off my moral high horse by noting that I don't care for the new outfit either. No, I'm not lamenting the lack of nudity or cleavage. I just find it kinda cluttered. The layering effect would make sense if Diana was going to be hanging out in Chicago in winter, but she isn't, so it seems constricting and hot (in the temperature sense). And all the doodads -- the bracelet blades, the the shoulder pads, the seams everywhere -- looks busy and pointlessly complicated. It's like somebody took two or three outfits and threw them together ... or as some of the critics suggested, an outfit made by committee.

And it just doesn't look like Wonder Woman.

Still, no worries. Like with Batman and Superman, this too shall pass. Someday Wonder Woman will once again be squeezed back into the star-spangled swimsuit.

But at least for a little while, she gets to wear pants!

Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (comicsroundtable.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics)

 

 

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  • The first thing that I noticed about the Wonder Woman costume was the "V" for V*g*n*!  LOL.

    (Or perhaps V*lva!)

    Women are nothing if not problematic at DC.



  • Figserello said:

    The first thing that I noticed about the Wonder Woman costume was the "V" for V*g*n*!  LOL.

    I wanna read Alan Moore's "V" for "Vagina"....

  • You'll have to make do with Captain Hook perving over Wendy, and Dorothy indulging in her highly sexualised shoe-fetish.

  • Captain Hook wanted Wendy to be his mother.

  • Superman looks like all the jokes about wearing his underwear on the outside have finally gotten to him and he's trying to pretend he never dressed like that. He looks like he's copying Mage.

    Batman looks like he copied several comical anime from the 80s where the comedy relief's battlesuit had rabbit ears. One episode of Robotech ended with the goofy heroine having ears come out of her helmet and happily proclaim "Once again the day has been saved by the forces of Rabbitech!"

    And Wonder Woman's claws are an obvious attempt to get some of Wolverine's popularity. Do they make a "Snikt" sound when she uses them? Also a lot of people, both men and women, have made jokes about the days where women had big shoulder pads in their outfits and say they're glad that fad has passed. Looks like it's coming back.

  • Reading the name of this thread, I thought it first it was referring to the Lynda Carter transformations. While the stop motion was officially replaced by the explosions because the ball of fire was cheaper and they couldn't get the change in sync just right (today with computers neither should be a problem), Carter has said people told her it looked like she was doing a striptease.

    Looking at the unsold pilot for a new Wonder Woman series that didn't get the green light, it looked like it was going to be pretty violent. Diana would have attacked by throwing her lasso around her enemies' necks then throwing them into the air. In real life she would have broken their necks and the police would be hunting her.

  • ...Remember how , in the Nineties , all the " right " writers would complain about Big Blue's long hair/mullet-like tresses of that era , saying " It interferes with Superman's goofy all-American innocence " , or similar ?

      Superman ~ the hero who is always " Not like the old days " .

  • The writers that complained then must be shocked today. In comparison 90s Superman didn't look all that different from classic Superman.

  • I hadn't considered that the actual crisis was in the heads of DC editorial!

    Alexandra Kitty said:

    If Michael Jackson's red military costume mated with a priest's frock, Wonder Woman got their love child in her closet.

    Superman, sadly, blinked. I thought he was the kind of guy who flew his freak flag sky high by wearing it, and now he is just so common. No end to the confusion when people look for him and he looks just like every guy down the street wearing a Superman t-shirt.

    DC is not kidding when they talk about having an identity crisis and infinite crisis...they cannot make up their minds...

  • Alexandra Kitty said:

    If Michael Jackson's red military costume mated with a priest's frock, Wonder Woman got their love child in her closet.

    Superman, sadly, blinked. I thought he was the kind of guy who flew his freak flag sky high by wearing it, and now he is just so common. No end to the confusion when people look for him and he looks just like every guy down the street wearing a Superman t-shirt.

    DC is not kidding when they talk about having an identity crisis and infinite crisis...they cannot make up their minds...

    Very, very true ... anybody who walks around bearing the name "Superman" ought to have the self-confidence to wear whatever he bloody well pleases. 

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