Fashion Nightmares: Who's Who Vol.2

Time to open another closet, perhaps to decide what to wear for St. Valentine's tomorrow. Hot dates anyone?

One color that is absolutely not in season, I'm afraid, is canary yellow. Especially with pink. And orange. Especially on men. And especially on facially scarred Nazi supervillains.
It's not necessarily appropriate on the gals either. While the original Batwoman sports a very practical utility purse, her colors don't exactly say "stealth".
Maybe that's why Batman never wanted her to come along. (The brightly colored Robin had... other uses, I guess.) Kathy Kane wore something inappropriate to her motif, and that was her downfall. That, and she didn't make out with hot chicks. Thank god that has all been remedied. Another character with the same exact problems, but no remedy as yet is this guy:A techno-wand that hurts Green Lantern... an upside down triangle on his chest... an arrow motif on his forehead... a dark navy blue uniform... what do we call this guy? Black Hand. BLACK. HAND. I don't get it either. The real fashion faux-pas, however, is letting his pasty ears stick out of his hood.

But at least he has a hood. Baron Bedlam doesn't, and while his costume is perfectly ok for a Balkan tyrant (if stolen from Virmin Vunderbarr's closet), the haircut has got to go.No amount of scarage or military medals can un-gay Baron Bedlam with that hairdo. Sorry. (Is it me or did the Outsiders have the worst villains of any superteam?)

BONUS: PRETTY WOMAN

There are plenty of well-dressed boys and girls in Who's Who vol.2, and I could have readily chosen any of a host of classic looks: Batman, Blackhawk (classy white gloves and all), the original Black Canary...

Small side-note: Who's Who actually premiered the second Black Canary's new costume before it ever appeared in a story. Wow. NOT an improvement. I neglected to scan the page, so here are the two costumes side by side thanks to the fine (if slightly crazy) folks who make Micro-Heroes:

Everything that was good about the costume, gone. Flowing wig, now wet look + bandana. Fishnets, now white boots and Olivia Newton John leotard. Leather jacket, now poofy sleaves. Cleavage, now ridiculous ribbed shoulder/chest pad thingamagig. Just terrible. Thanks, 1980s!

There's a lot of Jack Kirby in this issue, and it's weird to think that Big Barda's tarp of a headpiece works, Beautiful Dreamer's ripped pink bodice works, Big Bear's fur tank top works... but Canary's updated 80s (current) design does not. If I'm not mistaken, John Byrne was responsible, which isn't surprising given that he also gave us Invisible Girl's mullet. They can't all be Kirby.

End segue. Where was I? Oh yeah, while I could have picked any of a number of classic costumes, I'm handing out this award to Jinal, the main character in the Barren Earth strip that got me to buy all those issues of Warlord I would never have bought otherwise. She's frickin' HOT!

The short underpiece fluttering in the breeze is what does it for me.

BONUS: I DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' CLOTHES!

A robot doesn't really have to wear anything. It's not sallacious because they aren't inherently sexy... OR ARE THEY? That fembot seems to be enjoying her peek at his Auto-heiney.Hey, remember the totally unrelated Automan tv show? Yeah... I bet seeing that again would be a letdown...

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