Where to find Justice League Halloween Costumes?

There are still a couple of weeks until Halloween, but it’s about this time that I normally get e-mails from parents asking where they can find costumes for their kids. This year I thought I’d preempt the questions by putting together a short guide to the costumes of the animated Justice League. Important points first: guys please be safe — always double check your costumes with your parents and never ever go trick-or-treating without a responsible adult. Tips and ideas for a safe Halloween can be found on websites like the Halloween Safety Guide.

There are three real alternatives when looking for Justice League costumes: officially licenced costumes from the Rubies Costume Company, renting costumes, and the good old fashioned home-made costumes.

1. Licenced Costumes

When the Justice League cartoon started it was pretty hard to find costumes. However, there is now an almost full range of costumes to choose from. I say almost, J’onn J’onzz costumes are pretty hard to find (I have seen them at Costume Craze, but not many other places; tip try looking under the name Martian Manhunter). The Rubie website seems to be under a redesign at the moment, but most of their catalogue can be accessed via Amazon’s Halloween Boootique.

The sets of costumes are:

• Batman Costumes
• Flash Costumes
• Green Lantern Costumes
• Hawkgirl Costumes
• Superman Costumes
• Wonder Woman Costumes

Other related costumes

Robin Costumes

All of the above are available in children’s sizes – normally in sizes 4-6, 8-10 and 12-14. The smaller sizes seem to be selling out fast, particularly for the less well known characters. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman costumes are available in adult sizes. Other licenced adult sized costumes include Supergirl, Batgirl and Catwoman.

If Amazon doesn’t have your size then you could always try mes .Com or Wicked Cool Stuff.

2. Rented Costumes

Most medium sized towns/cities will have at least one rental shop. The easiest thing to do is to look in the phone directory and give them a call.

3. Home-made costumes

I don’t know a huge amount about making costumes, but I thought I’d try and put together some tips on how to simplify the costumes into generic components (these are only meant to be ideas). Look closely at the licenced costumes on the websites — they’re not that complex really.

Good views of the costumes can be seen here and here.

One important note about Batman – you’ll have a choice between blue or black for the cape, boots, gloves and trunks. Black was the original. In the really old comics blue was used to show a shiny highlight on a patch of solid black – that’s why Superman’s hair sometimes looks like it’s got blue in it. Somewhere along the line the people colouring Batman mistook the blue for the actual colour of the costume and it became the official colour. There has been a fashion over the last decade or so to go back to the black, but a lot of people still remember the blue cape and trunks from their childhood. I suspect the choice will come down to whatever materials you have to hand, but black is generally considered cooler.

Superman was the first superhero so almost all subsequent superhero costumes have some sort of ancestry to his. There are some really good guidelines for a Superman costume at Kids’ Domain. Their notes about the cape, boots and how to attach the emblem will prove useful.

The components for most classic male superhero costumes are actually very simple. The basis is normally a tight fitting bodysuit or two piece in a single colour and a pair of boots. Add the right chest symbol and you’re 90% of the way there. The real materials you use will depend on your budget, but your local thrift store or discount warehouse may be useful. The real superheroes wear skin-tight costumes, but that’s a matter of debate between you and your child. The colour depends on the character – red for the Flash, grey for Batman, blue for Superman, black for Green Lantern and green for the Martian Manhunter.

Batman, Superman and the Martian Manhunter all wear capes and trunks. For the trunks you could probably use swimming trunks. The cape doesn’t have to be that complex – a dyed sheet or piece of material would do. However, safely is really important with capes as they normally attach around the neck, don’t make them long enough for the child to step on (the licenced costumed capes are about knee length). The colours are blue for Batman and the Manhunter, and red for Superman.

For the girls, Hawkgirl has green leggings, yellow vest, and red trunks. Wonder Woman is a little more complex, but she essentially has blue shorts or trunks (the oldest comicbook version actually wore a skirt) and a red vest.

The last universal part of the superhero costume are the boots. How you create these will depend on the age of your child and what weather you’re expecting. Younger kids will probably be okay with painted rain boots. One trick some of the licenced costumes use is to create coloured sleeves that fit over the child’s own footwear. The colours will again depend on the character — blue for Batman and the Manhunter, red for Superman, Wonder Woman, and Hawkgirl, green for Green Lantern and yellow for the Flash. The Manhunter and Hawkgirl have slightly non-standard boots – J’onn has almost swashbuckler folds on his boots and Hawkgirl’s are more like pike boots. It probably not worth worrying about these details as the licenced Hawkgirl costume’s boots are nearly identical to Wonder Womans.

How the devil of the details:

• Batman – The cowl is really just a hood on the cape that comes down across the nose and has a couple of eye holes. Those things that stick up aren’t horns (you’ll occasionally get some trouble maker complaining they look satanic — these people should be regarded as automatic tricks), they are actually stylised bat-ears. Flat pieces of shaped card stuck to the side of the cowl should work. Getting them the same height is going to be more important that their overall height (which is normally taken as a matter of personal style). Batman wears gloves that are the same colour as his cape – you could probably get away with just colouring the forearms of the underlying costume. There are fins on the gloves, but you may want to conveniently ignore those. The last major detail for Batman is the utility belt, a wide yellow belt is quite good. Add pouches or compartments to it — they make a good place to carry candy and tricks. The chest insignia is the classic bat – some variants have the black bat against a yellow oval (apparently you can copyright a bat on a yellow oval, but not a bat on i ts own).
• Flash – The Flash has a lighting motif – a jagged yellow line – running around his forearms and in place of a belt. A simple yellow line glued or pinned to the costume should work. His mask is like Batman’s, but it has lightning things (I’ve never know who to call them) instead of ears. A couple of coloured cardboard pieces glued to the mask should work. His chest emblem is a yellow lightning bolt over a white circle with a yellow edge.
• Green Lantern – Green Lantern’s most important prop is his ring. It’s a green band with a little lantern on the top. Don’t go over the top with cost on the ring as it’s likely to get lost. The top of GL’s costume is green – from just above the armpits upwards – I’m not really sure how you’d do this, but it could just be something sewed over the black costume. His chest insignia is a white circle with a green stylised lantern on it.
• Hawkgirl – Hawkgirl has a black belt with a yellow buckle and a white line down her the front of her boots. She also has wings. You could use left over angel wings from the christmas party if you have them. Personally I’d leave making the wings as a fun project for the child. Same with her mask. It’s probably the hardest mask to make as paper mache will probably be necessary. Hawkgirl doesn’t have a chest emblem. Your more warlike child may like to carry a replica mace, but that’s a decision for the parent.
• J’onn J’onzz (aka the Martian Manhunter) – J’onn is green and bald so you can either make a traditional style mask or you can use face paint to give your kid temporary green skin. J’onn has a high collar on his cape – you could ignore this or create it separately from card covered with the same fabric as the cape. The belt buckle and cape clasps (just plain discs) are yellow. His belt and chest straps (two stapes that cross in a x) are red. J’onn doesn’t have a best emblem.
• Superman – There are not many details on Superman’s costume because other peoples details are there to stop them looking like Superman (the prototype of the superhero). He does have a yellow belt and if you really want to you could try creating the famous S-curl with hair gel (good luck). Superman’s chest emblem is the classic S-shield. It isn’t easy to draw, so again, good luck.
• Wonder Woman – The cartoon Diana has three white stars on the front of her blue shorts, but other versions often have more depending on the artist who is drawing her. The belt is a flared, yellow (gold) band that mimics her tiara. The chest insignia is two golden or yellow Ws. Older versions of the comicbook costume had an eagle on her chest, but that could be hard to make. Her boots have white edging. She’s often shown wearing small star like ear-rings and sometimes carries a golden lasso — these will depend on the child and parent’s wishes. She also wears a tiara with a red star on it. And importantly don’t forget the silver braces (foil covered card?) so she can deflect those bullets.

Never under-estimate good old fashioned cardboard covered with sticky backed plastic or metal foil. If anybody has any suggestions or comments I’d be happy to post them up or you can post them in the comments section of this post.

And finally remember these costumes are meant to be fun so don’t get too stressed out. Happy Candy Hunting.