Neither black nor knightly

Granted this is incredibly obscure, but I think it illustrates a fundamental principle of super-hero costuming that I had to bring it to your attention. One of the primary rules of designing an outfit for your character should be that your costume should have something -- anything -- to do with your name. Witness the debacle that occurs when you violate this simple rule with the Golden Age villain "The Black Knight":

Note that the costume is neither black nor knightly. At least, most knights I've seen wear metal armor instead of leather, don't sport a full-on executioner's hood (in cheery fire-engine red, no less!), and a cape. Plus, of course, they're not usually afraid of rats.

If you didn't know this guy's name, you'd never guess it from looking at him. And that's not a good thing in the iconic world of super-heroes, folks.

(In my infinite unorganizationalitudiness, I've lost the name of the alert reader who sent this in. Dan? Myro? My apologies and thanks all rolled into one for whoever it was!)

(The kind person who forwarded this on was Frevoli! Many many thanks, Frevoli!)