We've had a bit of a running debate recently over the costume worn by the 1940's comic book hero, "The Green Mask":
Personally, I think that overall he's got a pretty sporty look. I dig the tied back Zorro-style mask, the piping on his legs, and the roll-top gloves. I admit the colors are a bit much -- green and yellow and red and light blue and dark blue -- but at least they're muted in value so they don't leap up and poke out your eyeballs.
However, I'm posting him here on "Bad Costume Wednesday" because of his belt, which is new to the "second edition" Green Mask that was more of a Captain Marvel rip-off instead of the earlier Batman rip-off. In this version, a young boy turns into Green Mask (I think they dropped the "The" from the name) when he a) gets angry and b) says the magic words, "EEEOW". I'm not making that up. Whereas Captain Marvel turns into the mighty Shazam by uttering a name made up of the first initials of the Greek pantheon of gods, Green Mask has to make like a cat with a harelip.
Getting back to the belt -- if you have to run around with your initials on your navel like an absent-minded school boy afraid of losing his coat, you've got yourself some trouble. And call me a traditionalist, but if you have a color in your name, you ought to use that color in your logo. He's not "The Red Initials", after all.
I also don't quite get the value of having piped trousers beneath your unitard. Pants go over your underwear, big guy -- even Billy Batson didn't make that mistake.
Jeff, I’ve been meaning to ask you this for awhile now, but just where do you find these obscure characters from? Do you actually own the comics they’re featured in or do you stumble upon them on your adventures on the Web? I dig it when you spring some oddity from the ’40s on us, but really…what’s the secret?
🙂
Joshua, I read digital scans of them from two sources, mostly: “Golden Age Comics” and the “Digital Comics Museum”. Both are enormous digital archives of these great comics from yesteryear.
Plus, it lets you use “yesteryear” in a sentence!
These esoteric trips down memory lane often leave me missing my old “Who’s Who” books from the 80’s…. 🙁
I love the “Who’s Who” series. I still have all of mine (as well as the Marvel Universe versions). I believe it was a litmus test for who was truly a Nerd/Geek. I give the edge to the Marvel Universe since they actually stated the tonnage that a hero could lift. I loved it for that alone.
Yeah, dblade, but that was ALSO when they decided that no one in the Marvel Universe could possibly lift more than 60 tons, no matter how often they had done so, previously!
@William A. Peterson (5): Actually they had the Class 100 level or something similar. Anyone who could lift more than 100 tons (Thor, Hulk, Gladiator, etc…) was in that class. Plus I recall Colossus was around 70 tons.
Ahh, the mention of Green Mask’s pants being on inside his unitard reminds me of one of Dennis Leary’s rants. “That’s one of the most basic rules we all know about: The underwear goes inside the pants… That’s why it’s called under-f****ing-wear!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQxgv4QtKM8 (Language definitely NSFW. Go to 4:30 to get to the rant on underwear)
Does “unitard” now surpass “retard” or “tard” as a derogatory term?
Sorry, that last post was supposed to humorously incorporate the word, “bleep”. It’s not as funny now…
The colors just don’t work for me. The green/blue combination might be soothing, but soothing isn’t what you want when dressing a superhero. Green and yellow, perhaps, or green and white.
And Green Mask is the laziest superidentity I’ve ever heard. It’s as if Batman called himself Horned Cowl or Spider-Man called himself Red and Blue Leotard. Couldn’t he call himself…oh, I don’t know, Screamer? EEEEYOOW, indeed.
I think the costume works well with his name. In fact the drawings from what I’ve seen is good. I would have taught this guy may had made it big if the wrighting would have been there.
Zoro called, he wanst his mask back. 🙂