Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Long Live the Legion! Legion Outpost do-over Question#3

(ed note: the third installment of the "Kurpis Poll" was not published)

..and this might as well apply to the newly un-rebooted or "Johnsboot" or Lightning Saga or neo-Adventure or whatevertheheckthey'regonnabecalled Legionnaires. Lots and lots of redesigns for Lo3W and beyond!

What do you think?

I think I prefer Dawnstar's original costume over her Johns/Lightning Saga version. It was more sleek in its design (with just a hint of aboriginal style), and sexier by far compared to the new Amer-Indian influenced one which seems more cumbersome and old-fashioned.
Dream Girl's Kitson design has to be one of the finest seen on that character in all the published history of the Legion.

Wow, that's a seperate answer for every Legionnaire, pretty much!

Star Boy - The new 'black Thom' looks awesome in the Kitson design, and I wouldn't change it at all, but I'm not sure that 'bearded honkey Thom' would look good in it. Bearded Thom's best look, IMO, has been his starfield costume.

Dream Girl - Kitson wins that one, hands down, and prove that Legion ladies can be smoking hot and still wear pants instead of bikinis.

Lightning Lad - either Kitson's, with the glowy lightning elements or the one it was based off of without the glowy elements. Sleek one piece.

Saturn Girl - the uniform, with collar, crisp and efficient looking, and definitely the red and white interpretation, not one of the pink and white versions.

Cosmic Boy - Abstain. I haven't really liked any of his outfits, although one of the lavenderish uniform-looking ones would be one I hate least.

Shadow Lass - one of the ones that had metal armor bits. Perhaps the one she had during the Baxter years, alternately. I liked the full-black-bodysuit one that showed off her figure without showing off her skin.

Triplicate Girl - The purple and orange one-piece bodysuits she wore as Duo Damsel after her retirement. She looked like a colorful pair of Emma Peels! (And I would have loved to see a third one in white.)

White Witch - I think she's only had the one costume, barring the purple robe she wore as 'The Hag,' so I'd be stuck voting for that one, which had a nice 'sorcerer's robe' effect when she was stationary, and parted all over the place so that it didn't prevent her from taking swift action when she needed to. Practical and mysterious. Totally cool.

Superboy/man - Conner's jeans and t-shirt look, or one of the 'ultimate superman' looks, or even the 'Krypton Man' look with the all black outfit with frilly white stuff running up the sleeves. Any of them look much, much better than his traditional look. But only the 'Conner look' has ever made it into the 30-31st century...

Mon-El - just about the only exception I'd made to the 'no trunks over tights' rule, and he's got a long shirt that mostly hides the offense. His classic look is better, IMO, than his Valor look, but it's a near thing (the starfield bits makes it too busy, IMO, and rips off from Star Boy/Starman).

Phantom Girl - Toss up. I love the outfit she's got in the last issue (48), and yet I also like her classic cape, which would not go with that at all.

Element Lad - The dark blue outfit with the green arrow pointing up for 'classic Jan.' Putting him in a busier outfit draws away from his curly hair, which is something rare enough in comic-books to warrant being highlighted. The new dude with the chin-beard look fine in his red and yellow cape-and-collar deal. It makes him look pretentious and 'serious' and just a little bit like a kid playing dress-up as an adult, which fits his personality.

Chameleon Boy - add to the list of people whose costumes I've never liked.

Karate Kid - the brown and tan / yellow suit he wore back in the day. The white shirt / black pants might have worked, if not for that darn collar sticking up in his field of vision. I'm having trouble with the visual, and perhaps confusing him with Iron Fist in his slippers, but I'm pretty sure his shoes bugged me, too...

Projectra - Her old school Cockrum costume was a classic, but her Kitson outfit was amazingly cool. Regal and classy. As Sensor, she looked too much like she was wearing one of Saturn Girl's old costumes, with the crisp look, and I think I like that look better on Ironbutt.

Shrinking Violet - Cockrums green and black, with the plunging neckline and curlicue designs. Very cool.

Sun Boy - The new costume by Manapul in 48 is the best ever, IMO.

Some new costume ideas have been a great improvement - others not so much. I would encourage artists to come up with variations that would 'suit' the character.

Thumbs up to the following:
Manapul Costumes - Colossal Boy, Light Lass, Atom Girl/Violet
Kitson - Ultra Boy, Shadow Lass, Light Lass
Frank - Dawnstar, Cosmic Boy, Polar Boy, Brainiac 5
Lightle - Blok, Timber Wolf, Tellus, Quislet, Sensor Girl
Giffen - Element Lad ('80s), Invisible Kid 2 ('80s), Dream Girl ('80's), White Witch ('80's)
Cockrum - Phantom Girl, Lightning Lad, Princess Projectra, Star Boy, Chemical King, Duo Damsel, Wildfire
Traditional - Ferro Lad, Sun Boy, Saturn Girl, Bouncing Boy, M-E Lad, Invisible Kid I, Karate Kid, Chameleon Boy, Mon-El

No vote for Monstress, Tyroc, XS, Thunder or Gates

Invisible Kid's original costume managed to be both dull and clashing. Anything would be an improvement. The black-and-white look was simple, but it at least worked.

I never liked Shrinking Violet's original apple green minidress, and I can't understand why she went back to a version of it in the 80s. However, unlike most people, I don't like her 70s look. The reboot improved her look. I love the narrowing of the centerstripe. It took me a long time to recognize that for what it meant, and then I almost laughed. But it works. The flower in her hair was a bit much, though.

Ultra Boy wasn't helped by the requirement to adhere to a centerstripe. I can't see why Manapul based his version on this, when there was no attempt at a uniform look.

Kitson's Element Lad is one of the worst redesigns ever. It isn't recognizable as Element Lad (but what would be? He didn't have a consistent look before). Worse, it strongly resembles Burnout from Gen13. Even before I recognized that, I still thought, "That's a fire-powered character... but wait, Sun Boy's over there."

Cosmic Boy hasn't been helped by the modern efforts to remove pink. The Legion traditionally violated costuming rules, with guys in pink and heroes in green and purple. I want that retained.

Kitson's Dream Girl - Like the gauntlets, but "You thought those pants were a good idea, too."

Saturn Girl - Tossup between reboot and Kitson's version. The space bikini was a definite misstep, and trying to echo it on a full bodysuit is just wrong.

Projectra's 70s outfit made the character unrecognizable.

Star Boy - Purple, yellow and white. Needed a fix. As everyone says, only his costumes containing starfields have worked. The reboot white and black one was so boring.

Triplicate Girl. Well, Duo Damsel's disco purple, orange and yellow design clashed. Her blotchy orange and purple number was also strange. Maybe if I'd seen it drawn by artists I like more, I'd grow to like it. Love Triad, but it splits wrong. The correct splitting is the animated version, which I also like, though it's a little too 60s-cool-sexy.

Light(ning) Lass - A cloud was a bad logo, a feather not much better. For those power's, Gossamer's pair of wings was better, but I love Kitson's use of up arrows. (Random up arrows on the back? Genius.) For electricity, the strange neckline in the back makes her 80s outfit interesting, but I'll have to go with Spark here. Lightning Lad's outfit works just as well on a girl. Which leads to...

Lightning Lad. 60s outfit was quite bad. 70s design was so ahead of its time that it's consistently been the basis for newer versions. Everyone agrees it works.

I'm going to keep it short and say, in general, I liked the Moy look that tied everyone's costumes together visually without actually making them all wear one uniform. It also kept the amount of exposed skin at a minimum.

Speaking of which, in general I liked the designs used for the animated series. A fortunate side effect of a cartoon shown during the kiddie hour was that there wasn't Cosmo Girl cleavage all over the place. Especially loved the B&W look of PG's costume.

If women have to run around with 7/8th of our epidermis visible, let's at least bring back Grell so a few of the men are subjected to the same thing. Nyah.

Always liked: Brainiac 5's fatigues (especially when drawn by somebody who could, y'know, draw drapery, and not just a leotard that got baggy at the wrists and shins).

Always hated: Those horrible elven shoulder things Cham wore. I know. Cockrum. Blasphemy to complain. Too bad. I'd hate to be the person standing next to anyone wearing those things when they turned around without warning. You could lose an eye. Which, given the horrible color combos they stuck the poor guy with so many times, might have been serendipitous.

Always liked: The attempts to have less humanoid members in major roles. Period. Sorry it's been discarded.

Always hated: (Customarily) Female characters with huge flowing manes of hair who never seemed to find it an impediment during battle. Even a little. Cut it or tie it back. Yeesh.

I also liked the not-quite uniform look from Legionnaires series. But three of my favorites were the ones designed by that fill in artist (Taylor?) during End of an Era, when Bouncing Boy, Dream Girl, and Star Boy blinked into existence. That was easily the best Bouncing Boy costume ever, but the Dream Girl costume may have been too sexy (especially when drawn by AH!). They used a duller version of the Star Boy costume for years, but the original with the purple and starfield may have been the coolest costume I have ever seen.

So far, everyone has named off which costumes they liked and which ones they didn't. I don't think that's the point of the question.

Was it a good idea to update the Legion's costumes at the time that C0ckrum was drawing Legion?

I think it was. The Legion had been banished to obscurity, only appearing occasionally in short backup tales in Superboy. They needed a new stylistic direction to put them back on the map and to attract new readers. C0ckrum's designs were dynamic, colorful and modern/futuristic looking. Not that every new design was a hit. Imho, Princess Projectra's was the worst of the bunch. It was too busy, the colors clashed, and it was completely out of character for her. No way would a princess from a mideival world wear a neckline down to her navel--under C0ckrum--her crotch under Grell.

He was also smart in not redesigning every member's costume. That made a large percentage of the team recognizable to returning fans, and kept many of them true to their characters (unlike Projectra). It would never occur to Brainiac 5, Mon-El, Invisible Kid, Ultra Boy, etc. etc. to change costumes. They have more serious things on their minds than what to wear.

Is it a good idea to update the costumes every time the book gets rebooted or a new artist comes on board? Absolutely not, imho. The Legion's costumes have now been changed so many times, nobody but the most devout Legion fans has any hope of recognizing them or telling them apart.

Part of what makes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America et al. comic icons is the fact that their costumes have remained virtually unchanged for decades. There have been tweaks made, and artistic licenses taken, even a temporary costume from time to time, but the basic costumes have remained the same. This keeps them recognizable and helps make them household names and faces. The Legion will never come close to this level, if nobody recognizes them from one rebooted series to the next.

My favourite costume for Saturn Girl was one we never saw in a story. It was from that bit of fan suggestions, with Shady in a gold bikini and Karate Kid in white (ugh!) - but I thought Saturn Girl's costume was great for her. Very formal, with a removable jacket, red and white. No skin.

Brainy has had the fewest costume changes over the years and I think both the Frank and Manapul versions are good. I really like the Manapul look, with its intimations of dictator, best. The Frank costume has more of a mad scientist feel, which suits that Brainy's character.

Element Lad's costumes have never clicked with me either. If I had to choose, I'd put him in the non-costume of 5YL, when he was camped out on Trom.

So many others... but it's particularly interesting to consider whether the original, Adventure-era costumes could have been kept with some minor modifications (and changes to hairstyles) and how that might have affected the book. I welcomed the costume changes that Cockrum brought in - it invigorated the series for me, made the Legionnaires look sexy, cool and more grown up.

I find myself so disheartened by the mess of continuity and inability of DC to express to us in no uncertain terms what they are doing with the Legion that unfortunately, I just can't muster an iota of enthusiasm these days for things like the Legion's costumes, which is days of yore I could blabber on about for threads without end.

Hopefully that will change with the New Year :sad:

Aw!

And, to add insult to injury, I like Cobie's red and black costume better than this new blue number. :>

And notice that some of the 70s updates set the pattern for the future (Lightning Lad, Phantom Girl) while others didn't (Projectra, Chameleon Boy). Unfortunately, it's probably too late to set standards of recognizability for characters that don't yet have established looks. For the recognition factor, more Legionnaires (and more superheroes in general) need emblems.

What I like about this question is that it reminds everyone that back when Dave redesigned the costumes, not everyone liked it. A lot of people that grew up on the Papp/Mooney/Swan/Shooter designs liked them just fine, thank you very much, and didn't see a need for a change.

This attitude was mirrored by Legion fans of later generations that grew up on the Cockrum designs. Basically, it's human nature to think that the way the world was when you first experienced it is right, and anything that deviates from it is wrong. It seems incomprehensible today to think that Cockrum's designs weren't welcomed with open arms, but there were lots of people that favored the original designs. I wish the last installment of The Kurpis Poll existed, for history's sake if nothing else, to hear what those people had to say as proof that they actually existed.

Good point, Glen.

I remember being disheartened by the loss of Lightning Lad's cape--and the fact that, under Cockrum, no other male Legionnaire (apart from Superboy) continued to wear a cape except for Mon-El. That almost seemed to make his costume "girlish" as the only other Legionnaires left with capes were Duo Damsel, Shadow Lass, and Projectra.

In retrospect, there weren't that many Legion capes to begin with, so only LL, Star Boy, and (anomalously) Phantom Girl lost theirs. Furthermore, nearly all of new costume were dynamic, eye-catching, and not too impractical, as far as super-hero costumes go (that is, until Grell made them even skimpier). But, as a 10-year-old who had discovered the Legion only eight months earlier, I was pretty attached to Lightning Lad's cape! Fortunately, it didn't take me long to get used to his new look.


In the end, I agree with Jim G's insightful analysis, above. It was definitely the smart thing to do for Cockrum to change the costumes of some (not all) Legionnaires, and to do so in ways that preserved each character's basic identity. Those outward changes reflected the bold and dynamic new direction the stories were taking.

Thanks, HWW. I always thought Star Boy's and Lightning Lad's Cockrum costumes would've looked great with capes.

Yeah. I want to see Garth in a cape sOo bad!

I have to disagree with Triplicate Kid on this one.

I always thought Projectra of the olden days looked like Tippi Hedren from "The Birds."



Whereas in the 70's when my hormones were just starting, whoa, momma!


You don't think those two round, bulbous contacts were symbolism for something else with KK?

See, I don't see the sex appeal in those missile breasts, or in that costume. I usually don't find costumes that look like they're going to fall off attractive. I don't subscribe to the Theiss Theory of Titillation. Unfortunately for me, Cockrum and Grell did.