Invincible’s Costume – New vs Classic
February 9th, 2010
In an upcoming one-shot called Invincible Returns that is coming out this spring the creators are going to return Invincible to his original yellow, blue, and black costume. I don’t think this merits its own book. I think the costume should be left in the past. In fact, the pages of Invincible are crammed with so many great costumes it’s criminal that the hero of the book runs around looking a fool. Today we are going to look at some of the costume successes and failures of Mark Grayson (Invincible) as well as his friends and foes.
Coming this Spring Invincible will be returning to his original costume featuring the yellow bits and the fingerless gloves and the knee pads. I don’t know who is demanding this. Is it not ridiculous enough that Images premier book features a title character that basically wears a costume version of the company’s logo? It’s testament to Kirkman that I actually picked up this book with this terrible, terrible costume. I’ll call this version one.
Invincible has a tailor. He has this guy, Art, who makes costumes for supers. After a while Art designs a new costume for Invincible that is minus all the silly crap from version one. Full gloves, no yellow, no kneepads. Things that should be a given. Yellow is for cowards and urine. I’ll call this black and blue suit version two, and really it’s not that bad. It still has bug eyes for some reason, but ok. This is what Invincible wears now.
But let’s step back a bit. When Invincible wasn’t even named Invincible yet he was just running around fighting crime in a costume he made himself. And you know what? It’s still better than ‘version one’. It’s got that Grifter vibe.
Before Invincible settled on ‘version one’ Art set him up in this outfit. Which, if you took those disks off, isn’t that bad. Later on in the series another hero named Bulletproof would wear this costume. Again with the yellow, but still, this is better than ‘version one’.
Not content having one member of Invincible’s family look like a jackass Art designs a costume for Mark’s little brother, Oliver. Oliver’s name is Kid Omni-Man. His costume has biker shorts and pixie boots. C’mon!
One of Invincible’s earliest allies was the boy known as Rex Splode. Rex like most characters in the Image universe has a cooler costume than Invincible. Much cooler, in fact. No exposed hair, a cool jacket, no bug eyes. Ditch the utility belt candy and I could see Invincible in a get up like this.
This is Science Dog. He is a character in one of Mark’s favorite comic books. His outfit is awesome. Invincible probably doesn’t need a backpack but it does look cool. It’s a bit 90’s but c’mon this is an Image book after all. Science Dog does really remind me of a character named Dingo that used to show up in Backlash all the time. Anybody remember Dingo?
The following six panels are from The Invincible War issue where Invincibles from many different dimensions come to pillage Mark’s Earth. Some of the designs of these other Invincibles are very sharp. Specifically the third one below, the one with the stupid mohawk, is simple, powerful, and iconic. No mask might not work for the writing but I like no masks.
Again, the third example here, the one with the full face mask is a great costume. I guess you run into the problem of being non expressive but this is light years better than version one or two.
Got an opinion? Am I wrong? Is his original suit as iconic as Kirkman thinks it is? Sound off on the comments or be heard on twitter. Follow me: @paneloftheweek!