Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Top 5: Variant (Avengers) Costumes You'll Never See Made In The Marvel Legends Line

Happy Hump Day People



I know its been a while since I updated you guys on the swag I've acquired since my vacation, specifically the new addtions to my action figure shelf.

-Bought the new Daredevil and Anti-Venom figures from the Hobgoblin BAF wave from Amazon.
It sucks for me now that I don't have a comic shop near by, when it comes to buying figures from waves like these, because it usually mwans I have to go out of town to hopefully find them at a Target or ToysRUs.
So, I do what everybody else already does, and buy online. That's where these boys came from.
I've been wanting the new DD figure since it came out, and now that I got him, I'm not disappointed. Well, except for the overly soft, rubbery billy clubs and loose billy club holder on his leg. Otherwise, fucking awesome figure.
Anti-Venom is also a pretty cool figure. Googum really sold him for me, even though I was already interested. But you know how it is; sometimes getting a good/great reviews and endorsement from a friend further sells you.

-Also from the ML line, I bought Bulldozer, the Grim Reaper(yay), Giant Man(From Avengers Academy), and Tiger Shark(yay) from the recent AoU Ultron BAF wave.
Truly, truly happen to be able to scratch Grim Reaper and Tiger Shark off my ML Wish-List, and man they really looks fucking sweet. You'll be seeing all of them very, very soon.

Next Tuesday's my birthday, so I'll be celebrating by going out of town and going on an old-fashioned Comic Shop/Toy Shop run. Its like a Pub Crawl, but with comics and action figures instead(although why leave alcohol totally out of the mix though right?;)

Speaking of toys, with some many cool and exciting waves of figures coming out this year, and man what an extremely frutiful and productive year its been so far action figure-wise, I figured I'd make a short list of the figures you more than likely WON'T be seeing anytime soon. And when I say that, I'm talking specifically about certain costumes and looks that many popular characters have had put on them over the years.

Here's the best of the worst in my opinion.....


5). Hank Pym's Wasp Costume:

Sure his intentions were good; he was simply honoring the memory of his dead(or so he and the rest of the MU thought) ex-wife, but in the end it just wasn't one of his finer looks.
It's not that its super horrible; its not that bad actually, it just tends to look really, really redonkulous on him.
Maybe if it wasn't associated with the Wasp and was allowed to stand on its own it might not be so bad. But regardless, it is what it is, and what it is ain't pretty.


I did run across some customs, and they clearly show it could work, but I still highly doubt this one will ever become officially made.


4). Wonder Man's christmas-colored outfit:

Can you guess which legendary writer/artist is responsible for this ugly little gem?

Yeah, George Perez. As in THE George Perez.
Apparently when he finished designing the outfit, the outfit's fate was ultimately in the hands of the colorist, who decided to use christmas colors and yellow for it. Perez didn't care for the colors used either, but since it was out of his hands, that's what we got.


The in-story origin for the costume is that the Beast designed it for Simon in an attempt to update his orignal green and red look. Which btw, I'd actually love to see made as an official ML figure, but I doubt that'll happen either.


As you can see here, this outfit isn' the only bad choice Simon's made over the years, but damn if this one isn't the god-awful-iest.


-Hmmm. Starting to see a pattern here; Most of these, hell all of them, are mostly about the Avengers. I guess I un/subconciously decided to go with an Avengers theme with this one.
I guess I'll have to include the other teams from the MU as well then later.....

3). 90's Thor:


Yeah, the 90's were not a particualrly good era for Thor, both costume-wise and story-wise.
But costume-wise, yeaaaaahhh, defintiely not a good time in that department.
It started when Roy Thomas took over for a little while in the early 90's with the weird yellow shapes in the middle, than changed again when Thor lost his powers and went shirtless. Methinks somebody was really channeling Fabio back then.


After that, he got himself covered up a bit more, but that one just looked plain redonkulous. Blame it on the 90's if you want, but poor Thor was a hot mess. After that abortion of an outfit, he changed yet again when he and most of the Avengers and FF were shunted over to the Heroes Reborn universe.

Now personally I didn't, and still don't mind Liefield's redesign. But it is Liefield, and its still a bit cringe-worthy, which if you're at all familar with most of Liefield's costume designs, that's hardly surprising.
Still, I just don't honestly see any of these 90's looks being made as official Thor figures.And for the sake of us all, I hope it stays that way.

2). Maximum Security U.S. Agent:


U.S. Agent is probably one of those polarizing characters that you either really love, or really hate.
Regardless of how you feel about him though, he never deserved to be stuck with a horrible costume like this.

Seriously, this reeks of blatantly stealing from Judge Dredd's closet. I wonder who was sleeping at the wheel when they let this one slip out. He's U.S. Agent, not Judge Dredd. This 2001 redesign came about because nobody was really doing anything with Agent after the 90's were done. So, why not make him a warden of a super-jail, and while you're at it, make him look like Judge Dredd as much as humanly possible without getting sued. SMH. I'm pretty sure I'm safe in asuming this particular look will never be made, so I hope it stays that way.

1). Mecha Captain America:
Captain America, well Steve Rogers, really hasn't changed up his classic look all that much during his 70 years of service. And when he has, its been really temporary. Take this god awful monstrosity for example:

Cap was forced to wear this weird ode to SuperPro when he lost the super-soldier serum for the upteeth million time. Without it, he's just a regualr guy like you and me. But that's never been something to keep Cap from being Cap. Soooooo, he had his buddy Tony Stark build him a suit that let him still be Cap during this transitional period.


















Obviously Stark likes to prank people, especially his oldest and dearest friends, because how else do you explain why he would allow Cap to dress like this. I don't know, maybe he was drunk at the time. That'd be my excuse probably.
I don't know what the artist who desgined this was thinking, other than maybe possible getting some toy royalties, because this suit has toy marketing written all over it.
While there's been some variations on this for various Cap toys across different toy lines, hopefully we'll never have to see this in ML form.

(Dis)Honorable Mentions:

5). U.S. Agent's Force Works costume:

This should really cover the entire team's look, but yeah, not a good look at all for Agent. I guess this is where things started to go sour for the ol' boy.
Interestingly enough, he was going to have an action figure made with this look; apparently it would've happened in the Iron man animated toy line. Thankfully the line was cancelled before it happened, and thus we all dodged a huge bullet there.

4). Cap's Nomad Outfit:


I like the name, I just no likie the outfit. Its since been updated and adopted by his adopted son Ian, but thankfully the cape and all-around generic look stayed in the 70's.
This is definitely one of Cap's past looks I don't think we'll have to worry about showing up in the ML line anytime soon.

3). Black Widow's 1st Appearence Look:

Widow may sure be hella easy on the eyes, but her first outfit sure wasn't.
Just one look at her outfit from her first appearence; she looks more like a B/C-List movie villainess than the hot-ass spy we've all come to know and love. I think its safe to say that maybe, MAYBE outside of a possible Heroclix or Marvel Universe 3-inch lines, we won't be seeing this version of her anytime soon.

2).The Wasp's Crossing Era Look:

Yeah I know. What the hell, right? The 90's, specifically the mid-to-late 90's(before Busiek and Perez) were not kind to the Avengers. Either thir outfits were horrid, or they were killed off in bad storylines.
Wasp almost got both, but got spared that death sentence only to be given a fashion death sentence instead.

During the Crossing storyline where Iron Man betrays the team to Kang, The Wasp got critcially injured in a fight, and was almost dead. Hank tried as hard as he could to save her, the cost being that while she did indeed survive, she became mutated.



Thankfully that particular look didn't last long, and she returned to normal after Heroes Reborn.
Believe it or not, there is actually an actual figure of her Toy Biz made back in the 90's. I think its safe to say we don't have to suffer having to look at that version of her anymore or anytime soon.

1). Hawkeye's Purple Skirt Costume:

I honest to God have no idea why the hell a macho guy like Clint would ever wear a gay-ass outfit like this at all. It's like a glorified toga! Maybe he got hit in the head too many time a la' Hal Jordan; maybe he was suffering some side-effects from the growth-changing gas he used as Goliath. Either way, he should be as ashamed to admit wearing this, as I would be if it ever became an action figure.














2 comments:

googum said...

There's an old What The--!? where game show losers--including the Beast!--had to wear "some of the worst designed super-hero costumes ever!" Somehow there was only one Wonder Man outfit in that mess...

And that Cap-armor! There's a cover or splash page or two where it looks alright. But drawn for 80 or 90 panels, from a bunch of different angles, it usually looked like too much work to draw on the regular.

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

@Googum: Only one!? Because honestly, 4, 5 if you count his old Force Works costume, should've been included.

What costumed look would you personally hate to see made for the ML line?
The best I've seen that horrible Cap armor look, was probably when Angel Medina drew it. Other than that.....Goddamn that was a horrible look;(

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