I don’t have anything bad to say about this costume, but I would pay cash money for his catch phrase to be “Watch out, boys, Mento the Fresh Maker is here!”

I hope Mento soon joins up with his villainous partners “Snicker the Satisfier”, muscle-bound “Altoid the Curiously Strong”, and the crazy-making mentalist “Almond Joy” (because sometimes you feel like a nut … ) at their secret lair, “The Candy Rack”.

(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc., “Who’s Who” Volume XV.)

While looking over the always-exquisite George Perez-style cover of DC’s “Who’s Who” (volume VIII), I was brought up short by this gentleman lurking in the background:

Aghast, I opened the book to discover that he’s actually one of Aquaman’s foes called — I kid you not — “Fisherman”. With a name like that, you’d expect to find him asleep in a boat with a line in the water and a six pack in the cooler, but apparently he’s a little more motivated than your average angler. More the pity for me, the unsuspecting viewer stunned by the character concept while innocently perusing a comic book cover.

Here’s a quick note to all of you future super-hero designers out there: never, ever, ever have a character with large pole sticking out of his crotch. And if for some reason you find yourself doing exactly that, by all that’s holy do not force him to grab that pole and jerk it towards his enemy to unleash his powers!

I will leave the content of the dialog balloon (undoubtedly filled with cheap innuendos) for this particular image as an exercise for the reader. Some of you will probably think up unbearably clever and inappropriate things he might be saying, and will post them in comments, which will force me to pretend I am dismayed while in reality I cackle with glee.

(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc. “Who’s Who”, Volume VIII.)

The French are famous for their fashion sense, which makes “Crimson Fox” a surprise inclusion in the “Bad Super Costumes” log with her ridiculous cape hat:

Is she a cobra or a fox? Maybe a fox in the process of getting eaten by a cobra? Either way, some villainous brick type character is eventually going to grab that irritating long hat tail and use it to smash her into a handy brick wall.

Stealth in the jungle can be achieved in many ways, from The Phantom’s dark purple to Tarzan’s flesh and simple loin cloth, but B’Wana Beast’s approach, which I call “exploded flight of parrots”, is certainly the most unique:

I sense the costume designer had an issue of National Geographic in front of him while watching Mexican wrestlers on TV and enjoying the company of Mister Jim Bean. Or, as I suggested above, his car was hit by the cargo of a jackknifed semi full of tropical parrots and he sketched the results.

I can’t decide which part of this costume I like best. Is it the bright red bullet helmet with the fabulous leopard-skin trim? The loincloth ripped directly from the table of the nearest Italian restaurant? Or the combination of Iron-Man boots with paw-print toppers? I just wish I could be there when the local tribe finally tells him that “B’Wana” in their language is not, in fact, “Revered White Hunter” but “Runs Around in Dishtowel”.

I probably ought to put Jimmy Olsen under the “Legion of Substitute Heroes” clause of the “Bad super costumes” by-laws considering the number of insane things he got involved with during the Golden Age of Superman, but I just can’t pass this up.

Look, if you’re so pathetically unknown as a super-powered individual (and have no reasonable hope of ever becoming famous) that you feel forced to write your entire name across your chest … well, that’s just sad. If you find yourself in that situation, do us all a favor and just hang up the tights before you embarrass yourself with a scene like:

“Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … ” (squints) “I can’t quite make out the name on the chest … Elephant something? Eloping Llama? Oh, there’s a sale at Macy’s on another plane’s banner, let’s go there instead!”

(Image and character©1985, DC Comics Inc., “Who’s Who” Volume III.)