The new DC Costumes

Not that anyone really needs to hear what I think, but several of the new costume designs for the DC icons look like pure sales death for those characters. I'm not so worried about the Batman Robot look because Snyder and Capullo have been SLAUGHTERING it on BATMAN, and I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as a result; and the Green Lantern with a hoodie look is terrible, but GL sales have already dropped to their lowest point in a decade or more, so there's not a lot of bottom to find there any longer.

But these two?

Here's the thing: to me, Superman should visually be a character that you would want to run TO, not run FROM.  Whether or not that's his ripped cape on his hands, and not blood, he does absolutely have splatters of blood all over his pants and boots.

I'm OK with the T-shirt look, but it's a signifier, to this reader, of looking back, not forward, which I think is a mistake.  The other real mistake is losing the spit curl in front (which, maybe you're dumb like I was for the longest time, but it, too, was an "S")

But, yeah, the main thing to me is that THIS guy looks angry and horrible, and not some one who is inspiring and heroic.  Grant Morrison once said his most fervent aim was to literally have the DC universe come to life.  I once thought that would be awesome, but I'd be petrified if TODAY's DCU were to do that.

Wonder Woman's costume is kind of more appalling.  I'm perfectly fine with "losing the skin" (though why oh why would they keep the "cheescake" artist on the book, if that's the direction?), but y'know, I think it would be better to not then give her a GIANT SCARLET "V" on her crotch with WHITE ARROWS POINTING TOWARDS IT.

The claws are pretty awful, and the pauldrons are pretty pointless -- the reason one HAS pauldrons is to protect the joints of your plate mail armor -- there are no joints involved here.  I also question those stars, because they look like such an after thought rather than a real design choice.

I just wish the entire costume didn't "read" so dark -- and that's, I think, the impact of replacing the skin with a dark navy blue.  That and, how on earth would would get into boots like that, and/or fight in them?

But, yeah, giant white arrows pointing at the scarlet V of her crotch. Ugh.

-B