HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

When you’re building a super-hero costume, it’s very tempting to include bits and pieces just because they look cool, and not because they make any sense. Take, for instance, this outfit for Doctor Polaris from “Green Lantern #59”:

If your secret identity is as a carpet installer, you probably shouldn’t incorporate your knee protectors into your costume. I’m just sayin’.

I also have to say a word about Green Lantern’s pseudo-metallic gloves. What kind of metal is hard and shiny while still being able to stretch to accommodate the bending of a wrist? It’s been a while since my college geology course, but I’m pretty sure metal isn’t what you would call “stretchy”. I used to think maybe GL’s gloves (and mask and boots) were just poorly rendered, and weren’t actually metal. But no, in this issue he deflects a quarrel with one, resulting in a “splang”.

Yes, I know, it’s super-hero stuff, it doesn’t have to make sense. But every single time I see that particular GL uniform, I get brought up short, my brain wondering how in the heck those gloves actually work, and why that metal band connects the forearm piece with the hand piece. And where his nose goes under that mask. And why you would have all that metal protecting the front of your face instead of the back of your head where all of the, you know, valuable squishy bits of brain are. But then again, this particular GL was a comic book artist, so maybe he thought his eyes were more vital than his brains?

Then again, given the high-kneed design of GL’s boots, maybe he and Doctor Polaris are going to give up the super-powered game and open a carpet-laying business together, secure in the knowledge that at least they won’t have to deal with any OSHA violations for lack of protective knee-wear.

(Characters and images ©1995, DC Comics, Inc.)

I shouldn’t consider members of the Legion of Substitute Heroes as candidates for “Bad Costumes”, because the whole point of the group was to get laughs. But I dare you — nay, I double dog dare you! — to look at this costume for “Chlorophyll Kid” and not make some sort of “He’s got wood!” joke:

I know I’m going out on a limb here, barking up the wrong tree. And I ought to stem the tide of bad jokes, and just leaf him alone.I’d go on in this vein forever, without having to branch out too far, but UGO would probably make me petal my bad puns elsewhere if I did. And so I will quit in the full flower of my mockery, without being a complete sap, packing my trunk for home. I’ll give you a ring or two before long, from the safety of my arbor, and hope I get you on the vine. Line. Whichever.

(Image and character ©1985, DC Comics, Inc.)

From the pages of “Cyber Force Invades Freak Force” comes a character that sums up the “Image Era” perfectly:

Four total arms, all but one filled with a gun pumping lead into some faceless enemy. And such versatility — is this a Freak from Freak Force (the extra arms) or a Cyber from Cyber Force (the half-metal face)? Whichever, with all those guns he’s clearly a Force of some sort. Add in the impossibility of just how these limbs fit onto one side of his body and you’ve got a paragon of Image-ocity.

(Freak Force © and trademark 1994 Erik Larsen and Gary Carlson. Cyberforce and Stryker © and trademark Top Cow Productions, Inc.)