Change is inevitable and this is especially prevalent in the comics industry, you can either change with the times or be left behind in a holding pattern. Sometimes change is good and sometimes change leaves you worse off, this is a list of the latter.
1. Sue Storm's stripper outfit
No, this is not from a storyline where Mr. Fantastic leaves the Invisible Woman and takes everything in the divorce, forcing her to become a stripper to pay the bills. Storm was possessed by an evil entity known as Malice, this entity must of been a horny teenager because Sue's possession caused her to switch to a costume complete with a PowerGirl boob window and thigh highs. This would be the first time that the Invisible Woman was over sexualized and it didn't last long, as Mr. Fantastic was able to exorcise the skank out of Sue and she'd go back to her blue jumpsuit.
2.Captain Punisher America
Since the creation of Marvel's MAX imprint, The Punisher seems kind of out of place in the regular universe. He works fine when going up against the more street level villains and heroes, but he's not the ideal guy to call when dealing with The Green Goblin or Doctor Doom. Frank's gameplan is simple: shoot the bad guy in the head with a high caliber gun.
Frank would find himself in the middle of the superhero world thanks to Marvel's Civil War and would form an unlikely alliance between himself and Captain America's Secret Avengers. Fast forward to the end of the war, Iron Man has won, Captain America is dead, and The Punisher dons one of the worst costumes in comic book history.
Combing his black and white skull motif with the red,white, and blue of Captain America, Frank becomes the star spangled man with a plan: shoot the bad guy in the head with a high caliber gun.
3. New 52 Harley Quinn
Just like Sue Storm, Harley favors a jumpsuit, that was until DC decided to reboot their universe for the 100th time. Just about everyone got a new costume, including Harley, and just like Sue Storm before her, it was time to skank it up. Short skirt, visible undies, and barely there corset that has a hard time containing her new big balloons, Harley seems like she's set for the next Gathering of the Juggalos. Whoop Whoop!
4. Armored heroes: Captain America, Daredevil, and Spider-Man
Power armor heroes are a dime a dozen and it's even worse when an established character gets tossed in an Ironman suit to try to spice up a story.
Being crippled as a side effect of the Super Soldier serum, Cap puts on the tin can till a cure was found.
Spider-Man become an iron spider on two occasions, the first was his steel-plated mess suit that looked liked he melted down a bunch of quarters.
The second and hopefully last time that Spider-Man jumped in the tin can was during Marvel's Civil War. Pete had become Tony Stark's new bff, a relationship that comes with a shiny new set of armor.
Daredevil, the Man Without Fear, became the Man with Fear, or the Man tired of getting his ass kicked when he switched from his all red suit to an armored and spiked affair.
The thing that makes power armor silly is that you take these acrobatic heroes with loads of agility and stick them in armor, usually complete with bells and whistles, taking away a little of what makes them a great hero.
5.Power Girl's European Vacation
Power Girl took her dynamic duo to the Justice League's European team, though I don't know who they were going up against, maybe the French Tickler? Who knows? A costume change came with this move, gone was the white cheeky leotard with boob window and in its place was a white and yellow full bodysuit with yellow boots and matching wrist gauntlets.
She'd have a second costume change while a member of Ligue de Justice Europe.
It was a mishmash of everything wrong: red,white, and blue color scheme, buccaneer boots, half cape, blue headband, and a butch haircut. The boob window returned, but in a diamond shape instead of the regular oval.
6. 90's Nomad
One of the comic industries favorite thing to do is take an old and obscure character, give them a fresh coat of paint, and try to sell that character like he/she is the hot new thing. Marvel decided to do this to the Nomad back in the 90's. He started with a colorful costume in the pages of Captain America, but this was the 90's and colorful didn't fly.
Let's see, Marvel mashed together Snake Plissken, The Punisher, DC's Hitman, and Lorenzo Lamas from Renegade. 90's badass checklist: big dark sunglasses, trench coat, pouches everywhere, big grungy hair, and the ever present stubble.
If it wasn't for the big yellow N belt buckle, Nomad would get lost in a sea of forgettable lookalike characters, he instead got lost in a sea of forgettable characters.
7. Mod Wonder Woman
Say you take a character and then strip everything that makes that character recognizable. Do you think this character could be accepted, and better yet, would this character still sell comics? DC put this idea to the test in 1968; Wonder Woman gave up her powers, costume, and title, pretty much everything that made her Wonder Woman. She would instead be Diana Prince, jumpsuit wearing, martial arts crime fighter.
8.Scarlet Spider
No, Miss O'Hara didn't get bit by a radioactive spider in Georgia during the 1800's, which might of made fore a better story than the origins of the Scarlet Spider. You can thank the 90's again for giving us this costume and one of the most convoluted stories in comic history, The Clone Saga.
Peter Parker has a clone, or is a clone, who knows? What we do know is that the spider in question chose an all red body suit with ratty cutoff blue sweatshirt and a big black spider on it. Visually boring and forgettable when compared to the original Spider-Man costume.
9. Deodato's Thor
Say you're an artist that's taken over one of the most well known superheroes in all of comics, naturally you'd want to put your own spin on the character, and sometimes that means you completely fuck it up. That's what Mike Deodato did with the God of Thunder; gone is the winged helmet and in it's place is some weird headgear that's part of his belly shirt. Mjolnir gets a chain attached to it, which is odd considering that Thor can summon it to come back to him. This redesign wouldn't be complete without gauntlets, pouches, and big shoulder pads.
10. Azrael Batman
Knightfall was a great storyline for Batman, what wasn't great was his successor's ultra 90's exxxxxxtreme batsuit. Bruce had just been broken by Bane and Jean Paul Valley, the former Azrael, took the mantle of the Batman. Valley wanted to distant himself from the image of the former Batman and created his own, what followed were signs that he was shithouse crazy. Spiky gauntlets, spiky boots,pouches, and worst of all, Valley's batsuit was nothing more than another piece of power armor.
11. Superman Red/Blue
The Man of Steel became Mr. Electric thanks to being deprived of the solar energy he needs. He gained electric based powers and had to wear a containment suit, later on, the Cyborg Superman trapped Superman and caused him to split into two beings; one blue, one red.
They were polar opposites and the story played out like a buddy cop film, but the Man of Steel would eventually become one again as Red and Blue merged.
12. Marvel's Heroes Reborn
After the events of the Onslaught Saga, Marvel decide to reboot their universe and update some of their characters. New creative teams were brought in, one team being Rob Liefeld and his horrible artwork, which is displayed above. This reboot failed miserably and Marvel quickly canned this idea and explained that it happened in a pocket universe.
