The Avengers did something very special for kids in the 1960s: it put all of their favorite heroes together in one book. For years, the Avengers became one of the greatest values in superhero comics, combining the best Marvel heroes. The Avengers were the ultimate superheroes and they definitely looked the part. The Avengers comics have boasted some of the best-dressed Marvel heroes of all time. Of course, this does make sense; Marvel has been leading the way with amazing superhero costumes for years now. The publisher has employed some of the greatest artists of all time, giving them many of the best-dressed heroes ever.
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The Avengers’ best costumes run the gamut of superhero costume design. Some of their best designs are venerable classics and others stem from more modern sensibilities, but the one thing they have in common is they all look amazing. These ten are the best of the best, showing off Avengers looks that fans have loved for decades.
Classic Hawkeye Costume
MCU fans never got to see a movie-accurate version of Hawkeye’s best costume. Clint Barton in the Marvel Universe was an orphan who ended up joining the circus. His classic costume speaks to that; it feels like the kind of showy costume that a circus marksman would wear. The blue and purple are great eye-catching colors, with the section around the neck and upper chest looking like the ringmail from Captain America’s costume. The tunic goes long in the front and the back, hanging down to his knees and cut at the sides. The pirate boots were a common superhero affectation of the time and they look sensational.
The mask is the best part. It’s exactly the kind of the mask that MCU would have never brought to the big screen back in the day. It just screams “comic book,” from the unique cut to the H on the head. It’s a classic and it’s one of the reasons this is the best Hawkeye look. It fits the personality of Clint Barton in the comics — a showman — like a glove. Artists like George Perez and Mark Bagley made it look like a million bucks, especially when they went with the all-purple look down the line.
Captain America’s Classic Costume
The Avengers have starred in some amazing stories, and one of the best is Avengers (Vol. 1) #4. This issue brought Captain America into the then-present day, drawn by co-creator Jack Kirby. Kirby is one of the best artists when it comes to costume designs, and his redesign of the Captain America for the 1960s is a superhero masterpiece. The red, white, and blue pop off the page, grabbing attention immediately, and Kirby keeps readers’ eyes on the costume with the little design elements. The scalloped top section — armored with chain mail for extra protection — is one of the best parts of the costume, with different artists putting different amounts of detail into it.
The mask is also another beautiful little piece of classic superhero design. The A is old school in the best possible way and lends itself very well to being a part of the headpiece. The little wings on the side of the head make no sense, and that’s why they’re so awesome. His gloves and boots, showy as the day is long, are perfect little windows into the world of old-school superhero designs. This is a masterpiece costume, and it was decades before it was changed for good reason.
Iron Man’s Silver Centurion Armor
Iron Man’s Silver Centurion armor is a fan favorite. The premiere Iron Man armor of the 1980s, the best era of Iron Man comics bar none, was a deviation from the Iron Man armor tropes that had been dominant throughout the ’60s and ’70s. There’s a sense of strength and size to it that the older red-and-gold armors didn’t really have. It was chunky and substantial, coming from a time when tech wasn’t all about sizing everything down. The face plate had the familiar eye and mouth designs, but the helmet itself felt much bigger, giving the helmet a much meaner look.
The Silver Centurion armor also showed that, as great as red and gold looked, silver and red looked even better. The red on the armor was a more reflective shade than before, and that combined with the silver gave the armor a much darker countenance. It definitely lives up to the centurion appellation, as it looks like armor made for combat. It’s recently been brought back in the new West Coast Avengers series with no changes whatsoever and fans are ecstatic.
Hank Pym’s First Giant Man Costume
Hank Pym is a founding Avenger, joining the team as Ant-Man with his girlfriend the Wasp. Pym, like every superhero scientist, was a tinkerer, and eventually he modified his Pym Particles so they would help him grow. This made him more useful in battle and led to him becoming Giant-Man. Pym had a lot of great costumes over the years, but his different Giant-Man costumes are all stellar. However, the first Giant-Man costume is still the best. Pym was able to design a costume that paid homage to his Ant-Man past, while also looking like a brand-new costume.
The red and blue are great colors; they showed up well on the old newsprint with the old coloring method. The black V on the chest breaks up the red, which is a nice effect. The blue gloves and boots stand out, as do the trunks, and the belt looks like it could hold many vials of Pym Particles. The mask and cowl are also great. It’s different from the Ant-Man helmet in every way, but the antennae remind everyone of Pym’s past. It’s a simple design that does a lot with a little bit.
The Black and Yellow ’00s Wasp Costume
The Wasp plays a huge role in Avengers history. Janet Van Dyne was the first woman on the team, and would eventually serve as Chairwoman. Janet was a wealthy socialite and worked as a fashion designer when she wasn’t a superhero. Janet has had a lot of costumes over the years. The vast majority of them have been pretty great, changing with the tides of superhero costume conventions. Her best design, though, came in the ’00s, when she went simple.
Janet had been through multiple colors over the years, with red being her dominant color over the years. This costume broke her normal color conventions. Around this time, Hank Pym was back in the Yellowjacket costume, one of his cooler looks, but also one that he wore when he caused a lot of pain in Wasp’s life. Maybe Janet wanted to show she was past that because she went to black and yellow with her simple bodysuit look. The yellow design on the front looked insectoid, fitting for someone named the Wasp. She wore this costume for years and it looked amazing.
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The Sentry’s Costume
The Sentry has one of the more interesting origin stories. As a gimmick to advertise the Sentry’s first book, Marvel claimed that the Sentry was a forgotten Stan Lee-created character from the 1960s that no one remembered and that Marvel only had sketches of. They decided to make a new series by modernizing these designs and the Sentry was born. Of course, none of this was the truth; writer Paul Jenkins and artist Jae Lee used this idea of a forgotten superhero to make a Marvel Superman. Instead of the perfect, all-powerful Man of Steel, they created a powerful hero with feet of clay, his mental issues leading to him becoming his own worst enemy literally.
The Sentry’s costume was perfect for the kind of hero he was. The yellow and blue colors were amazing, exactly the kind of eye-grabbing colors the costume needs. The stylized S-crest on the waist has the same effect as Superman’s big red S, but looks better in its position on the belt. The flowing cape is the finishing touch, giving the Golden Guardian of Good the kind of costume that would get him noticed. It also looked great in the reverse colors of the Void, the dark side of the Sentry, showing that it was just as good a villain costume as it was a hero one.
Ares’s Avengers Costume
Thor is usually the Avengers’ resident god, but around the time of Civil War, the God of Thunder had disappeared along with the rest of Asgard after a Ragnarok event. When Iron Man was putting together a new team of government-registered Avengers, he had to go with a god from another pantheon — the Greek God of War, Ares. Ares worked for Iron Man and later Norman Osborn on the Avengers, his love for fighting seeing him jumping headfirst into every fight, swinging his massive ax. Ares was a musclebound monster and he had an amazing costume.
Ares’s costume was topped off with a crested helmet that hid his face completely and gave him a very intimidating aura. The skull on his chest added to this; Ares looked like he wasn’t to be messed with. The chestplate had an armored look to it, adding to his image as a god of war. His right arm had a wrist bracer and his left was wrapped with leather, with elbow pads that sometimes had spikes and sometimes didn’t. Ares’s entire look was martial, and it made him the scariest Avenger on the battlefield.
Thor’s Marvel NOW! Costume
Thor has had some spectacular looks over the years, starting out with his original costume and going from there. His best costume came during the Marvel NOW! publishing initiative. This was around the time of the “God-Butcher” arc, Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers and New Avengers, and Thor joining the team in Uncanny Avengers. This new costume took some of the classic Thor costume motifs and dropped them, and was actually all the better for it. That’s not to say that the classic costume was bad, but this new look truly felt like the kind of costume a warrior god would wear.
Other Thor costumes were blue and this one went with black. It didn’t have the studded vest, going plain, and it works very well. The waist sashes are a nice touch and the legs have the studs that the chest is missing. The fingerless gloves connect to wrist bracers and look fantastic. The costume’s different elements all blend together to create a more martial look that makes Thor look even more intimidating than ever, which is saying something.
Ronin’s Costume
MCU fans are familiar with Ronin from Avengers: Endgame. Hawkeye took on the moniker during his five-year quest to kill everyone who he thought deserved to die in the Snap besides his family, but his costume wasn’t exactly great. In the comics, Ronin was a little different. Daredevil sent Echo to Japan in disguise as a ninja superhero known as Ronin to watch the Hand clan of ninjas for the New Avengers. Echo’s version of the costume was made in such a way that no one could tell it was her in it. She joined the Avengers and put the Ronin costume away. Clint Barton put it on after his return to life.
The Ronin costume has always been a top-notch costume. The black and yellow color combined the darkness of the ninja with the light of the superhero. It was meant to be intimidating, drawing enemies to it, and getting them to attack. It’s the perfect costume for someone who wants their prior identity to disappear.
Norman Osborn’s Iron Patriot Armor
Norman Osborn was made the head of the Thunderbolts by Iron Man while he was Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Osborn was able to get the kill shot on the Skrull Empress Veranke in Secret Invasion and was given control of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Superhero Initiative. Osborn got rid of S.H.I.E.L.D., rechristening it H.A.M.M.E.R., and created his own Avengers team of villains in the guises of familiar heroes like Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, and Wolverine. Osborn knew that the Avengers needed symbols like Captain America and Iron Man, so he came up with a fiendish way to take advantage of both’s iconography.
Osborn had command of Iron Man’s armors. While he couldn’t hack into the newer ones, he was able to get into some of the older, but still powerful, ones. He had one such suit repainted red, white, and blue and became the Iron Patriot. The Iron Patriot armor is one of the coolest pieces of StarkTech armor in Marvel history. It does a great job of smearing together Captain America and Iron Man, but it also has a sinister vibe to it. It’s the perfect costume for Osborn at this point in his life and looks amazing every time it’s on the page.
