Marvel has employed some of the best artists in the history of the comic medium, which has definitely been a boon for the company. Comics are a visual medium, so the art is extremely important. It was even more important to Marvel because of the Marvel Method, where the artist did the vast majority of the work of creating stories. Artist Jack Kirby was the person who designed the vast majority of the Silver Age Marvel Universe, and he did an amazing job of creating eye-catching looks for those early Marvel characters. Since then, artists have taken the baton of amazing costume design that Kirby passed them and ran with it. There are some amazing superhero costumes in the Marvel Universe, and they deserve to be praised. However, there’s also a lot of terrible costumes in the history of the Marvel Universe.
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Costumes being best or worst is pretty subjective, honestly, but there are some costumes that are just terrible and that’s all there is to it. Superhero with bad costumes are a major bummer, honestly. A bad costume can make the difference between a character being popular and hated. A bad costume can drive away fans. Of course, a bad costume could also become ironically popular and have fans, but that doesn’t make it a good costume. These ten superhero costumes are the worst in Marvel history, and the only good thing about their existence is that we can still laugh at them.
10) Snowball Iceman
The X-Men have plenty of amazing costumes. In fact, I’d argue that the X-Men has the best collection of costumes in the history of Marvel. However, there’s going to be several X-Men costume on this list and the first is Iceman’s original look. Iceman is a character who seems to be hard to get wrong, but this first look is the definition of getting it wrong. Iceman looks like snowman, which is exactly how he shouldn’t look. Eventually, he would get his more icy look, which would evolve even more as the years gone on, and the character would become one of the most visually interesting Marvel characters ever. However, his original snowman look is unequivocally terrible, and it’s one of the few misses in Jack Kirby’s history of costume design.
9) Wonder Man’s Red Jacket Look
Wonder Man isn’t exactly known for great costumes, but there have been some good ones. His modern costumes are usually based on his ’90s costume, which itself is based on the lines of his original villainous costume (which is honestly terrible, but mostly because of the colors; it would have made the list, but he was a villain in his first appearance). However, in the late ’70s and the ’80s, Wonder Man got a completely different costume — a red jacket and pants. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the color scheme; there’s also nothing wrong if Simon Williams would have worn this outfit as a civilian. However, it’s just a terrible design for a superhero costume. It doesn’t really fit the vibe of superhero adventures, and it never looked right to me, especially because of the type of character that Wonder Man is. If he was some kind of powerless adventurer who used his large jacket to hold gadgets, it would be fine. However, Wonder Man is a bruiser, and it just doesn’t fit his personality at all.
8) Hulk’s Marvel NOW Costume
The Hulk isn’t a character who usually wears costume. There are some Hulk costumes — the jumpsuit that Professor Hulk wore and the Gladiator Hulk armor — but Hulk in a costume doesn’t really feel right. That’s why it was so strange when the Hulk was given techno-armor in the 2012 Marvel NOW! reboot. Look, I’m sure there was a reason for Hulk being put in armor in his book at the time, but much like Superman’s costume becoming Kryptonian battle armor in the New 52, armored Hulk just doesn’t look right. The biggest problem with it is its high tech look. Gladiator Hulk armor works because it looks cool and fit the story it debuted in — Hulk was weaker at the beginning of “Planet Hulk” and he needed it. However, high tech armor on the Hulk ain’t it. It just doesn’t fit the character. Banner wearing high tech armor? Sure, makes sense. Hulk wearing high tech armor just doesn’t work.
7) Bug Wasp
Janet Van Dyne is a wealthy socialite fashion designer, and has changed her costume numerous times over the years. The Wasp has had some amazing costumes over the years, but she’s also had some duds. However, there’s one that definitely is the worst and it’s the mutated bug look that she was given in Avengers (Vol. 1) #394. This was during that time when Marvel was desperately trying to make readers care about the Avengers again, so there were a lot of big costume changes to make the team’s characters look more modern. However, the vast majority of these changes were terrible actually, and the Wasp’s was one of the worst, which if you know about anything about this period of the Avengers is saying something. She even had long finger claws which were there because… I don’t know. reasons? It’s a mystifying design choice from a costume that is made completely of mystifying design choices.
6) Feral Wolverine
Wolverine’s feral mutation period in the ’90s is one of the more disliked periods in Wolverine’s history, which is honestly pretty unfortunate, because the run-up to it is one of the best-written periods in Wolverine’s history (Wolverine (Vol. 2) #75-100 is amazing and I will go to my grave saying so). After turning feral, Wolverine’s face was mutated — the character known for his sense of smell loses his nose — and he decides to wear a bandana over his face. This is a nonsensical design choice, because Wolverine already wore a mask. He started wearing torn up versions of his yellow and blue costume and the blue and yellow X-Men costume, and nothing about it worked. I get what they were trying to do, but much like the feral mutation itself, it was taken in some dumb directions. This look actually didn’t last all that long; only a year. I will say this for it — artist Adam Kubert could make this terrible costume work, despite it being a really bad costume. No other artist could though.
5) Mid ’90s Thor
Back to the Avengers of the mid ’90s and I present you to Thor. Thor’s original costume was great, and it basically stayed the same for years. There was a period where he had to wear armor and that definitely fit the character and the story being told, and honestly looked pretty cool. However, in the ’90s, everything old was “lame” and Marvel decided to change Thor’s look to match the decade of extreme. That’s where this over-designed piece of garbage comes from. The colors are fine, but everything else about it is terrible. The face piece is far inferior to the helmet, the shoulder pads don’t work, the codpiece makes no sense, and Thor having a variety of bandolier types make zero sense. Mjolnir was even given a massive chain for some reason that is beyond me. The ’90s were not a good time for comic costume design, and this was an example of this. It was so bad that eventually Thor just went around shirtless, which is better than this, but not by much.
4) ’90s Masked Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange’s costume has always been one of the stranger costumes in Marvel history, which is quite fitting, and it always worked. There have been modifications to it, and there was a period where he wore a mask. It was still mostly the same costume, just with a mask. This wasn’t terrible, but it also wasn’t great either. He lost the mask, and everything went back to normal. Then the ’90s happened and Doctor Strange needed to be made cool again. Spawn was popular, so Marvel decided to give Doctor Strange a taste of that Spawn flavor and ended up making this abomination. Doctor Strange’s classic costume has some charm, but this ’90s version of the costume doesn’t have any. It’s ugly, and that’s all there is to it. The mask is possibly the worst part; it doesn’t really fit Doctor Strange at all, and is made worse by the design on it. Strange would get another bad look in the ’90s — a Vertigo inspired one that is bad, but had potential — but this one is the cream of the bad costume crop.
3) The O5 X-Men Modern Costumes
Brian Michael Bendis’s time on the X-Men’s books is rightly maligned. It takes all of the problems with Bendis’s writing and intensifies them, all while bringing the original teen X-Men of the past to the present. This was a terrible idea, however, the old X-Men costumes looked fantastic when drawn by Stuart Immonen. Then, Marvel had to ruin the whole thing by giving them “modern” costumes. These are terrible costumes, and there’s really no way around it. They don’t really feel like X-Men costumes at all, and it would have been better if they would have stayed in the original costumes. Kirby’s original costumes were fantastic and looked better than ever colored and drawn by modern artists. These new costumes were just plain bad, and their existence is a stain on Immonen’s career; he’s usually a pretty great artist. These designs show that not every great artist can pull off costume design.
2) Captain America’s Nomad Costume
There have been multiple versions of Captain America, but a lot of fans don’t know that Captain America isn’t the only heroic identity that Steve Rogers has had. Rogers had become disillusioned with the United States after the whole thing with the Secret Empire, and left behind the Captain America identity. This led to him becoming Nomad and changing his costume to this number. There’s just something annoying about it. The cape and plunging V are such strange design choices, and there’s just nothing about this costume that fits Steve Rogers. There have been a few modifications on the costume — sometimes the red is replaced by yellow, which is slightly better — but none of the changes make this a good costume.
1) Kitty Pryde’s Self-Designed Sprite Costume
Kitty Pryde has changed her costume many times. Some of the designs are good, a few of them are legitimately great, and some of them are bad. However, there’s one that is completely and totally terrible, and that’s her self-designed Sprite costume. This costume was designed by an ’80s girl in her early teens, so that basically explains why it looks the way it does. There are some people who like this costume ironically, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s bad. A lot of bad costumes can be saved, but not this one. It’s the worst.
What do you think is the worst Marvel superhero costume? Sound off in the comments below.
