This article is a re-posting of a piece that I did for my webcomic blog. It brought in almost 5,000 hits, so I thought, “Hell, why do more work when I can just re-hash an article and get thousands of cheap hits?” I swear, sometimes I amaze myself with my genius. And my laziness.

Enjoy.

10.) Elektra (from Daredevil, 2002): It was bad enough that vanilla, plain-jane Jennifer Garner was cast as the exotic, Greek assassin Elektra, but matters were made ten times worse with this abysmal excuse for a costume. Black leather pants and a black bustier? Really? Could this get up be any more pedestrian? Actually, it does have some nice white design accents that lend the outfit a certain Three Amigos quality. sigh…

9.) Fantastic Four (2005): There really isn’t anything wrong with these Fantastic Four jumpsuits per sé, but I just find them excruciatingly dull. They look exactly how you would imagine the Fantastic Four jumpsuits looking if the director set out to make a slick, modern, soulless Fantastic Four adaptation, and that’s exactly what we got. In the hands of a more competent or more visionary creative staff, we may have seen a cool, retro-60’s feel to the costumes or at least something that felt different from every other boring, modern superhero outfit. Oh, and I don’t care what anyone says, the Thing should have been a completely CGI creation. The latex costume is absolute crap.

8.) The Punisher (1990 version): On paper, the Punisher costume is almost impossible to screw up. Just throw a halfway decent tough-guy actor into a black suit with a giant white skull on the front, strap an arsenal of machine guns to it, and you’re done. Simple, right? Wrong. In 1990, a low budget Punisher flick went the straight-to-video route starring none other than Ivan Drago himself, Dolph Lundgren as the titular character.

Now in all fairness, with greasy black hair Dolph actually made a pretty imposing Punisher. However, the most iconic part of the character was inexplicably left by the wayside with this God-Awful excuse for a costume. It’s all there, but NO SKULL. Totally idiotic. Fifteen years later the Lions Gate version got the Punisher costume right, but the movie itself was lacking. Hopefully the upcoming sequel Punisher: War Zone will finally come through with a solid Punisher flick.

7.) Mr. Freeze (Batman & Robin, 1997): Ugh. Absolutely ludicrous. Let’s not even get into how horribly mis-cast the Governator is in this role. It’s probably the worst casting in the history of superhero movies period, so we’ll leave it at that. Aside from that fact, this costume is just utterly insane. A jumbled mass of chrome and neon blue lights, the darned thing weighed about 80 lbs. and looked like the hideous love-child of a 1950’s jukebox and an Imperial AT-AT walker. And let’s not leave out the metallic blue paint slathered generously all over Arnold’s bald noggin, transforming Conan the Barbarian into the world’s largest and scariest Smurf.

6.) Superman (Superman Returns, 2006): When it was announced that Bryan Singer, the director responsible for delivering two excellent X-Men adaptations was going to be bringing the Man of Steel back to the big screen, it was a day of celebration and relief for the geek community. Superman fans dodged numerous bullets, (Kevin Smith’s Superman Lives or Nicolas Cage as Superman, anyone?) and suffered through a 17-year wait to see their beloved big blue boy scout back on the big screen. With a track record of success in the costume department for the previous four Christopher Reeve Superman films, surely Bryan Singer’s production would carry on the tradition of flawless, iconic Superman costumes, right? Uhhh…not so much.

The first problem with this suit is the color scheme, it’s just way too dark. Superman’s costume should be a glorious primary blue and primary red, no excuses. I don’t care what lighting scheme or cinematography Singer was going for. Secondly, there should be a yellow “S” shield on the back of the cape. Putting it on the belt buckle was unnecessary. And speaking of the belt region, the shorts were just wayyy too skimpy. Superman is not a Calvin Klein model, for Pete’s sake! Finally, the front of the costume is all wrong. The neckline is much too high, and when you couple that with the tighty-whities (or tighty-reddies in this case), it elongated the torso a bit too much, making The Last Son of Krypton look much too thin and lanky. And the biggest problem of all? THE “S” SHIELD IS TOO SMALL!!! Way, way too small. I would have loved to see an epic, massive “S” Shield, revelaing Supes in all of his heroic grandeur. Something like this Alex Ross painting.

5.) Juggernaut (X-Men 3, 2006): Wow. I don’t know what’s worse here; the laughably bad painted foam helmet, or the Ricardo Montalban Wrath of Kahn-style fake rubber chest. The only thing worse than this costume is the painfully horrific acting performance by the usually awesome Vinnie Jones. X-Men 3 was a trainwreck on so many levels, but the script and Jones’ portrayal reduced a character rich in Marvel lore with family ties to Professor Xavier (completely ignored by the script), to a one-note thug spouting cringe-worthy one-liners. “I’m the Juggernaut, b**ch!” Ummm…no.

4.) Captain America (1990): Two words: Rubber Ears. Oh, and that guy Cap’s fighting in the pic? That’s the Red Skull after undergoing reconstructive surgery. No, I’m not making that up. That should tell you all you need to know about this movie.

3.) Batman (Batman & Robin, 1997): Pay attention kids. This is what happens when you care more about selling action figures than minor things like acting, plot, or character development. A multi-colored, rubber-nippled nightmare. Yikes.

2.) Green Goblin (Spider-Man, 2002): This one is really frustrating. Everything, and I mean everything in this production was near flawless. The cast, which included Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, J.K. Simmons, James Franco, and Willem Dafoe was outstanding. The script was well-written and perfectly balanced the action set pieces with the humor and the compelling human element. Sam Raimi was an inspired choice to direct Spider-Man, bringing a fresh energy and a unique shooting style to a big-budget superhero pic. Why then, when they had all this going for them, did they drop the ball so badly on the Green goblin suit? It’s truly perplexing.

The fatal flaw is the one piece mask/helmet, which completely removes any ability for the brilliant Willem Dafoe to emote. Why on Earth would you hide one of the most evil, expressive faces behind one stoic visage? This problem was compounded by the fact that Spider-Man’s mask also did not allow for facial expression, so you had two characters talking to each other on the screen through one piece masks and it produced some awkward scenes with some over-the-top head bobbing. I have seen several different unused concept masks and facial appliances for the Green Goblin and all of them were light years better than the final product. The completely green “high-tech military” jumpsuit was also really lame. In action, it looked like Spider-Man was battling with a cast-off from the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. One of the biggest mis-cues in comic book movie history and one that is really going to hurt this film as time goes on.

1.) Steel (1997): BWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh jeez…oh man…I’m sorry. -Ahem- I have a theory that this entire film was put together by a friend of Shaq’s that wanted to play the ultimate practical joke on him. If that was the case, bravo my friend. Bravo. You’re a genius. Honestly, there is just no way anyone involved with this movie thought this suit looked good, is there?

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