Hello and welcome to Comic Drake, where I
talk about comic books and my name is Drake. The 90s were all about making random changes
and marketing stunts for the sole purpose of selling more toys and more issues and what
better way to do both in one fell swoop than for random gratuitous costume changes? Not all of them worked. In fact most of them didn’t. So today, I want to take a look at SOME of
my least favorite costumes from the 90’s and maybe give you guys a little bit of trivia
while I’m at it! The Death and Return of Superman was a huge
marketing stunt. After all, this was the storyline that essentially
broke the concept of death in mainstream superhero comics. As big as the death of Superman was made out
to be, his return had to be equally huge and DC needed a new costume to help shake up the
status quo and show fans that things had changed. Oh things were different alright because Supes
was back! ...With a mullet… and in a black costume. A boring black onesie with a silver S. Look,
making fun of the mullet is easy. The hairstyle as a whole was definitely a
product of its time, but it’s still pretty goofy to see it on Superman, especially considering
that he kept it even AFTER returning to his iconic costume. With just one glance, you can easily tell
which era of Superman comics that you’re looking at. However, this wasn’t the only change in
appearance that Superman would get in the 90s. See, they already killed Superman and brought
him back to life so where do you go from there? Well, how about turning him into pure energy,
getting rid of his powers, and giving him a whole new powerset so he has to learn how
to be a hero from the ground up all over again? This was the era of Superman Blue and since
things would just phaze though his new energy form, Supes had to wear this containment suit
that held him together and helped channel his new lightning based powers. I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty dumb,
especially when he was split into two entities, giving birth to Superman Red. But hey, at least all this was a really nice
homage to a classic Superman story and led to that one episode of Justice League Action. In the famous storyline, Fatal Attractions,
Magneto stripped away the adamantium that laced Wolverine’s skeleton and because of
that, Logan got his bad ass bone claws but he also… started regressing into a feral
state. Except it wasn’t a regression, but rather
an intense mutation. You see to help explain this nonsense, Professor
X noted that the Adamantium bonded to his skeleton is what prevented Logan’s feral
state from taking hold before… not even accounting for his life before the
Weapon X project which… okay, fine whatever. What puts this stupid plot point on this list
was when a future character came back in time and tried rebonding the Adamantium which failed
and accelerated the feral process. Now, Logan was a gurgling monster without
a nose and adopted this new bandana look. While Wolverine did regain a lot of his humanity
over the next few issues, the bandana and the no nose over mutation look vanished for
no given reason at all. I mean sure, Logan kept the bone claws until
he eventually got his Adamantium back fully, but this completely nonsensical 90s nuisance
faded away entirely and that’s honestly fine by me. The original Nightwing disco suit costume
is ridiculous and I kind of love it. I mean it’s supposed to be reminiscent of
his time in the circus and it works really well! The costume was updated in The New Titans
#88 in 1992, but it doesn’t really work for me. In my opinion, you lose some of the charm
of the original suit in trying to modernize it and Nightwing goes from a character that
stands out to just a generic 90s superhero that looks like he was created by some indie
comic publisher as their pastiche of Batman. This redesign wouldn’t last for long since
a couple of years later, Dick Grayson temporarily filled in as Batman after the events of Knightfall
and he was donning the cape and cowl at the time. As soon as Bruce returned and became Batman
again, Nightwing got his first solo run in 1995, ditching his costume in the very first
issue after claiming to quit being a superhero. Just one issue later, he returns to the role
of Nightwing, but of course doesn’t have a costume anymore. That’s when he picked up his now iconic
costume, albeit with that obnoxiously long ponytail. This was obviously the best move since he’s
been in that outfit ever since with the only hiccup being that god awful red which the
less said, the better. But hey, speaking of Batman replacements,
you know who took over before Dick Grayson stepped in? Jean-Paul Valley A.K.A. Azrael. Lovingly referred to as AzBats, this design
made its first appearance in Detective Comics #667 in 1993 and is everything that you’d
expect in a 90s costume. It’s over designed, overly edgy both literally
AND figuratively, covered in spikes, and serves as a major departure from the status-quo just
for the sake of it. I personally do like the golden motifs on
this Batsuit as it pays tribute to Jean-Paul’s Azrael armor and the wrist mounted grappling
hook is pretty neat in a Spider-Man way, but this looks more like the Batman equivalent
of one of those special action figure exclusive outfits from something like the Ninja Turtles. Whenever you get a list like this one, the
glam rock Thor design almost always shows up and for good reason. I mean come on. The crop top, spikes, Gambit style head sock,
shoulder pads, straps upon straps upon straps, and a random chain on Mjolnir for absolutely
no reason makes Thor look like some random player character from an MMO. However, a lot of people don’t talk about
how this design… basically didn’t exist. Yeah, Thor was going shirtless for a pretty
decent while, but on the LAST ISSUE OF HIS SERIES, he adopted this new look for no reason
whatsoever! Sure, he wore this outfit when making some
crossover appearances including the DC vs. Marvel event, but I seriously can’t crap
on this design too much because while it was bland and unneeded, it’s not like it had
much of an impact on the story. Besides, isn’t a complete costume overhaul
done at random that leaves just as quickly as it came not the most 90s comic thing imaginable? Yes, yes it is. Wonder Woman has had some weird costume changes
over the years from her mod era to the jacket and jeans that I made an entire video about,
but in the 90s, things got a little weird. So Queen Hippolyta got a vision that Wonder
Woman was going to die and was pretty pissed off that Diana was choosing to work at a taco
shop instead of dedicating her time towards spreading peace and love so she forced Diana
to compete in a contest to earn the title of Wonder Woman back and… she lost. The mantle of Wonder Woman was given to a
new character named Artemis which forced Diana to adopt this new biker look of shorts, a
bra, and a leather jacket. This looks more like some evil alternate universe
Wonder Woman more than anything else and was a HUGE departure. Hell, this costume change was so drastic that
when Marvel and DC decided to smash their characters together in Amalgam comics, Diana’s
costume was… pretty much the same, with few changes. Anyway Queen Hippolyta’s vision came true
and a Wonder Woman did die alright, but since she was the one with the mantle now, it was
Artemis, With her dying words, Artemis gave the title and costume back to Diana making
this change last for only eight issues in total so the tagline of “Artemis is the
new Wonder Woman! Forever!” isn’t that accurate. Guy Gardner is one of my favorite Green Lanterns
and although he started his solo career in the 90s with Sinestro’s yellow ring and
a leather jacket, DC was trying to basically kill off the entire concept of ring slingers
so they could focus on Kyle Rayner. Enter the Water of the Warriors, a cocktail
that activated long dormant alien DNA inside of Guy’s body that allowed him to turn into...
this and gave him the ability to shapeshift. It was not a good look and lasted for about
TEN YEARS before Guy was brought back into the Green Lantern Corps when DC decided to
care about them again with Green Lantern: Rebirth. This change lasted the longest out of any
of the terrible designs featured on this list which speaks volumes about how confident DC
was in their decision. When it was decided that Guy would go back
to being a Green Lantern, the change happened quickly, dramatically, and basically wasn’t
mentioned ever again. If anything, this is a testament to how wrong
DC was in the first place and honestly, I'm fine with this concept never making a return
in the modern era of Green Lantern. The entirety of the Marvel Comics multiverse
spun out of the Fantastic Four series and Sue Storm, The Invisible Woman, was the original
super-mom. She didn’t need a costume change… at all. But despite this, Sue’s new outfit that
debuted in The Fantastic Four #371 in 1992 is arguably one of the worst superhero costume
redesigns of all time. It’s not so much a new design, but rather
more of just taking a pair of scissors to the old one. The lack of sleeves, exposed legs and back,
belly window, and that god awful four shaped boob window were bad enough, but that weird
ass collar and the random arm and leg bands just make the whole thing bafflingly stupid
and WAY out of character. You see that’s the biggest issue, Sue Storm
got a drastic personality shift along with the costume, acting colder and more irritable. Sure it was explained away, but it still led
to some stupid scenes like Sue making people’s clothes disappear whenever they criticized
her new wardrobe. Oh and as a quick aside, as Sue’s outfit
got smaller and smaller, The Thing got a new costume a few issues later that moved away
from his classic trunks to a onesie and helmet. A couple of years later, the Invisible Woman’s
outfit got a reworking that makes this design work a little bit better and look pretty great
in the process actually, but the boob window version will live on in infamy, mostly as
joke and reference material. Now, if you’ve been around my channel then
you know that Booster Gold is my all-time favorite superhero and I hate to admit that
even he succumbed to the pointless design changes of the 90’s, but what’s worse
than that is that it was for the dumbest trope of the era, power armor. Characters in the 90’s were constantly just
getting random suits of armor, even if it was just for like one issue and considering
that Booster’s suit already augments his strength and defensive capabilities, this
bulky armor wasn’t needed in the slightest and it completely ruins his sleek and easily
marketable aesthetic. There’s really not much to talk about here
since the armor is too bland to even stand out, but it hits me on such a personal level
that even my favorite boy had the cliche 90’s hiccups. Eh, at least it looks better than the bland
outfit that Booster got in the New 52 that kind of made him look like a City of Heroes
NPC. Wow, that might be like the most oddly specific
insult that I have ever given on this channel. Now don’t get me wrong, there are WAY more
terrible 90’s costumes out there and I do want to make a follow up video about them
sometime in the future so the ones you want me to touch on that I didn’t talk about
today, go ahead and leave them in the comments below! I also want to give a big shoutout to the
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not consider subscribing or even watching another one? In fact we have an entire playlist dedicated
to crazy 90’s nonsense, so you might want to take a look at that if you liked this. But anyway I hope you learned at least a little
something new and hopefully I’ll see you next time.
