Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Legion costumes - rants!

With all of the rumours out there that the current run of Legion is ending with issue 50 and a relaunch of the Adventure/Levitz Legion on the horizon I would like to make the case for the Legion to return to their classic, iconic costumes of the 70's 80's and 90's. I know we have all discussed this at different times over the years but the time is NOW.
1. Just think how the Legion would be better known if their costumes stayed with maybe a little updating to the general public.
2. Alex Ross when drawing/painting the Legion makes the point on how dynamic the Legion looks in those costumes.
3. Dave Cockrum was...the best..super hero costume designer.. he just got it perfect or near perfect with The Legion and The Xmen. In memory of him if not anything else, the Legion should return to the look they had for many many years!
4. Some characters have never looked better than in their costumes of the Cockrum era.. you can't improve on profection. Adding pockets, bags, Legion belts..etc.. distracts from the icon.

So Mr. Johns...please consider this and let's complete the rebirth of everyones favorite Legion with their Iconic visual so wonderfully done by COckrum/Grell.

I agree. They keep calling the Action Comics Legion the "real" legion, but the Gary Frank designs don't really scream "the real Legion" to me. They seem more like "alternate future dystopian Legion." The lineup of statues in Superman's Fortress of solitude on the other hand makes me think of the "real" Legion. They should just go back to that for the most part.

While I can't argue with you both about the costumes/ uniforms, I will say that I still don't beleive that the Action legion is the real legion exactly. Just more like a close approximation. However since they are also the same legion that appaered in lightning saga who knows..tho' I wish that the'd kept the same uniforms >_<;

"close approximation" is a good term.

I myself have taken up the term "Neoclassic Legion."

Any era has its 'classic iconic' costumes. In the 70s, some gfans called the then-new costumes by all sorts of bad names. the Levitz era only escaped that by often returning to 60s motifs and updating them.

The Frank costumes are not perfect, but there is no reason an updated version of the Preboot team *has* to stay with any single era.

I wouldn't say no to some updated/redesigned costumes by Alex Ross - the ones he did for Kingdom Come were awesome.
A little tweak here and there of some of the classic costumes would be good, just to take the 50s edge off a little. (as much as I love a good briefs-over-the-leggings look, I still don't *quite* get it... )

I think one of the reasons why Superman, Spider-Man, etc. are iconic is that they've established a look and maintained it. They always revert back to it even when a change occurs. Why this isn't done with every character, I'll never understand.

There was no good reason to change the costumes after the Lightning Saga. I see it as a huge Editorial blunder to allow Frank to make these changes which are compounded by making Perez draw them in L3W. The Cockrum/Grell/Perez (he designed a few back then too, see here )/Giffen/Lightle designs should be the ones to use with the "classic/neoclassic" Legion.

It also doesn't help that Frank's designs are more dated and dreadful than the reboot or 3boot version combined. But, that could just be me.

Classics are nice but some plausible mention should be made of where they store their stuff. Spray-on glow-in-the-dark condoms don't just stuff into the sock.

boo hiss !! i know you guys love cockrum et al but... man those designs LOOK like the period they were made in. in fact, all of them do.

when i see a comic where the costume designs look old timey, i avoid it like the plague, because it means "i will not understand this, it is SO OLD"

i like the new costumes because they LOOK LIKE FABRIC. they look like jackets and belts and boots with depth and dimension.

you guys might have nostalgic feelings for those costumes, but all they scream to new/younger readers is "GIANT FASHION NO-NO, THESE PEOPLE LOOK WEIRD".

i have the same feeling towards jack kirby clothing designs. they always look a little bit old and kirby-esque. i, personally, know a kirby costume but my kid brother would just see a bunch of weirdos. to me, there's almost no way that those old costumes could translate into a modern drawing style without look heinous.


god, every time i hear this i think "poor gary frank". do you have any idea what kind of task it must have been to go "here, redesign all of these. no matter what you do, everyone will hate it." and you know, comic book artists DO NOT GET PAID for the time they have to spend doing character and set design ! just imagine spending days pulling out your hair over designs that NO ONE will like. and hey you're a comic book artist, not a fashion designer! you know about telling a story, not nice clothes! it also makes you into a future-theorist, trying to guess what future-fashion looks like. i'm sure he would have LOVED to have just been given diagrams of their costumes and told to use them and move along.

one of my favorite scenes in LO3W is where prime mimics fans by saying "i like their old costumes better". johns knows. and i'm sure he weeps inside.

your realize that A LOT of costume design back in the day was not based on any coherent understand of how clothing works, practicality, or fashion sense? those images NC just linked to? a majority of them look like naked bodies with paint on them, with like, a pair of boots and a belt. most design was based on "make this character look different from all the others". these were old dudes going "what do the young people wear?". imagine your grandfather or even your DAD trying to draw what he thinks people will wear in the future. *hence tinya's horrible bell bottoms, eh?)

if it was up to me, they'd all look like they were from a cute japanese game, but it's not up to me! i can't have everyone in ruffles and bows and cute hair accessories with a matching belt and shoes, and a tiny cute pet animal that follows them around!! *shake fist* so be grateful that I'M not in charge or you'd really be upset.

if you want "original costumes", then you have to go back to the first issue where cos sports a bubble on his head, and imra wears a track suit top with horrible long green skirt. i bet there's some billion year old fan that still gets angry that cosmic boy lost his head-bubble. where is your fury over the lost head bubble?! why doesn't imra look like she just got back from a sock hop?!! why is no one crying over that, eh? because it LOOKED WEIRD AND OLD.

okay. after that horrifically long post...


a legion redesign thread

I hardly think age has anything to do with any of this.

Superman's costume has been around for generations. You may think it looks old, but I guarantee that people YOUR age feel that it's iconic as well as I do.

I actually DO like Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Cosmic Boy's original costumes, even though they were designed and appeared 13 or so years before I was even born.

I appreciate more than the fad of the week when it comes to a costume. I actually prefer the Silver Age original costumes for the Legionnaires, but since the "classic/neoclassics" were re-introduced in the later costumes, why not stick with them. Gary Frank was not asked to re-design anything. He took it upon himself according to interviews and even George wishes he could draw the more iconic designs. If anything looks dated it's Frank's designs. They pale in comparison to what's been done before.

"You're old and only like old stuff." is a weak argument. Eventually what you like will also be replaced by a newer fad, doesn't mean that what is new will be or look better.

EXACTLY!!!!

We need costumes in which the pants' tops lay two inches above the knee, the butt cracks "swelp" whenever the hero gets out of a chair and the three layers of t's are two sizes too big.

We need more Jamm!

reppin the four one nine, yo.

superman is a WHOLE NOTHER ANIMAL, dude. totally different. consider, how many clothing changes has lois lane done? or how about lex luthor? he went form mad scientist to slick professional suit.

we're not talking about one iconic main character, we're talking about an entire CREW of people, a TEAM BOOK. so lets think about something more appropriate. consider how many clothing redesigns the X-MEN have gone through. the more SINGULAR a character is, the more ABLE TO STAND ON THEIR OWN, the more likely they are to maintain an iconic look. wolverine might look basically the same, since he's a character that has gained enough popularity to stand on his own, but what about storm? what about phoenix? you'll notice mon-el has gotten some of that singularity (possibly from only SORT OF being a legionnaire i nthe forst place), therefore his costume doesn't change that much.

the x-men maintain freshness by seamlessly reinventing the team every few years. the legion reinvents itself too, why it's never as effective as the x-men? i'll never know, perhaps because the backstory is much more impenetrable for a new reader? i think the x-men had the advantage of being set "now" so in order to make them current, they just needed to start making them wear whatever they saw on tv that day. then again, cockrum did redesigns for both, eh? i think the xmen have had MORE costume revisions than the legion, haven't they? i feel like they wear something different every time there's an artist switch but i'm not a big xmen follower...

oh and furthermore, i see the costume design changes as EVOLUTIONS, as something you can't really stop because you have to make the book appealing and appropriate for your target audience. old looking outfits just don't appeal to current readers, especially if they're sitting next to books that look modern and current. people tend to gravitate to whatever was there when they picked up the book because that's just how you know them, what's familiar. that's fine but overall would that be good or bad for the book? to have dated looking costumes that turn away new readers?

I've been thinking on this for a bit today while I was out. Each time there's been a uniform change there's been a character \or complete team transition or growth. Some would even call it a transformation depending on how drastic the change/ reboot, or whathave you is\was. With Gary's Redesigns it was to show that time had past and that they aged and adapted with the changes. To an extent, that's just what Gary Frank did. It's whatevery artist does, and with every re design there are changes that we won't like and some that we will. Ya work / deal with what ya get and be happy your team is in someway still in comics.

On a side note, Lydda and Tasmia..and for that matter Lar and Dirk didn't change suits..sort of their way of not adapting to the changes? wanting to stay as they were as much as they can?

uniform change:

Yo, yo step-off dat. Jo, SG frontin the crunk ay janky but dat 'B" dope in her chav and bling.

ECKO dat FUBU!

Word.

I agree completely, Nightly. And I know each individual Legionnaire isn't as iconic as Superman, but the Fantastic 4 have kept their same basic suits forever, as have most of the Justice League and Avengers. If each new artist that came along didn't find it necessary to redesign the entire Legion, they might be more recognizable and accessible to the casual reader, which might help boost their sales, which MIGHT prevent the DC bozos from rebooting them every few years. grumble grumble grumble

I agree 100 percent,the Dave Cockrum costumes as this picture by Alex Ross proves are still the best The Legion ever wore.

Eh hem

icons and all that aside, wasn't one of the reasons Legion became so popular that fans actually had input into costume design?

That's tradition too.

Cos would look good in argyle socks, and we KNOW that would predate a visit by one of comicdoms most revered characters.

The artists in the Lightning Saga did a fine job with the Cockrum era costumes. They were pretty polished and commercial looking. I thought they looked timeless.

BB, you have me picturing Rokk in argyle socks. I mean nothing but argyle socks. Yeah, he looks good.

The only costumes I know of that fans designed were Saturn Girl's, Duo Damsel's, and maybe Light Lass's. Dave C. took the basic designs for DD's and LL's from fan designs and modified them. SG's predated Cockrum.

The only other ones I know of are those godawful ones Princess P, Shadow Lass, and K Kid wore in that one backup story in Superboy. Luckily we never saw them again.

I liked Cockrum's designs overall, except for Princess P's. The colors clashed and the costume was too gaudy with too many details. Plus, Grell perverted the design by extending the neckline from the navel all the way down to the crotch, which was very tacky imho. Sensor Girl's costume was just as gaudy though... Not to mention the 80's shoulder pads.

They should drop the costumes, in my opinion, and go for something more interesting. Something else else more 31st Century.

I love Dave Cockrum's designs, but I can't say that I find all of them to be classic. I actually prefer many of Giffen's updates, right around Crisis.

are you suggesting nude legionniares? because that would be AMAZING. i vote for this x100. how freaked out would villains be if a swarm of naked people came hurtling at them?

I think they'd be more distracted rather than freaked out xD. It'd make capturing villians ( and attention) alot easier for one thing.

That's the way the ancient Greeks did it. It could come back. Ya never know.