Maybe Wertham was onto something

Our latest "Bad Super Costume" comes from the pages of 1943's "The Wizard", namely his super-sidekick "Roy the Super Boy". Witness the horror:

Beyond the pose and the granny-panties, the real trainwreck of this outfit is the standalone popped collar. It's so standalone that it looks more like an orphaned cape top, like maybe one time when Roy was forced to rush from the salon he got his cape caught in the door, yanking it off and leaving just this bit.

In the history of awkward relationships between grown men in tights and their underage male sidekicks, I think Roy is a real low point. I bet when Robin's starting to feel too picked on at school, he turns to his hidden autographed copy of this Roy photo to make himself feel better. Sadly, it's just as likely that Batman also has an autographed copy of this photo, also hidden away for the odd private moment ...

Maybe Dr. Wertham didn't do such a bad thing after all.

14 Responses to Maybe Wertham was onto something

  1. Joshua says:

    I wonder if he’s waiting by the docks…

  2. FRM says:

    oh my gosh! and this is a guy?!! no one wears shorts above their knees! and the pose is so girl!

  3. Doornik1142 says:

    I actually don’t think the costume is all that bad by 1940s standards. In those days people would look at a costume like this and think “circus performer” not “gay prostitute”. So the costume itself is not really too bad.

    The pose however is another matter. I don’t know how the artist could have drawn that pose and without realizing what it looked like.

  4. Myro says:

    I think it must be stand-alone, Jeff. If you look really close, it looks like there’s a second, unpopped collar underneath it.
    This guy hasn’t learned the tenets of true d-baggery. If he did, he’d pop that second collar as well.

  5. Laridian says:

    “Drink me in, folks, there’s no bad parts.”

  6. Dan says:

    Why do I get the feeling that “Roy the Super Boy” wasn’t so much his code name, as it was what he was called in certain circles.

  7. Shade2075 says:

    Apparently this is a case of pulled the nearest person into the room to pose for the artist, and they just happened to be female.

  8. spidercow2010 says:

    Roy Batty, the Early Years–
    Oh, the things he’s seen…

  9. skybandit says:

    Please don’t use the “W” word in front of comics fans. I find it extremely offensive. 🙂

  10. punkjay says:

    See the costume is not what screams gay prostitute, it’s the way he stands!

  11. Syntax says:

    The costume actually looks more like a bathing suit that someone put a collar on to me. Also—sloppy coloring. Seriously. I get that this is probably really old and they probably had to color it with paintbrushes instead of a computer, but seriously. At least try.

  12. Rich Willett says:

    Don’t show this to hollywood! They make Robin look like this in the next Batman reboot!

  13. spidercow2010 says:

    @Syntax: I hesitate to leap to the defense of these “artists,” but–despite the fact that these guys were probably cranking out a comic every day or two–it wasn’t sloppiness on the part of the artists. It was in the printing process. As I dimly understand it, each separate color required a separate run thru the inking plates or rollers or whatever they were (I’m old, but this was really before my time, too) and so it was important that the paper was in exactly the same place with each pass, and sometimes the mechanics got out of synch. And tossing out a large run of comics because the colors were off wasn’t affordable. And yes, paintbrushes; no computers.

  14. TheAmazingFrank7 says:

    I just don’t understand it!