Adam Hughes’s preliminary design sketches (A and B) for Fire’s 1990s costume have been shared online by their owner Mike Frigon. Note the reference to Keith Giffen wanting a “Madonna look.”

Beatriz DaCosta, Fire (previously the Green Fury/Flame), was introduced in the comic book that accompanied the Super Friends cartoon. She was a Brazilian superhero who had the ability to breathe green fire and, while she was never seen in the cartoon, she was patterned after international/ethnic heroes like Samurai or Black Vulcan. Fire and her best friend Ice (Tora) were brought into the Justice League during the Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis era.

The Invasion crossover was used to change her into Human Torch like living flame. At the same time JLA artist Adam Hughes updated Fire and Ice’s costumes. Fire’s original Super Friends costume was a full body yellow/green leotard, but when she came into the DCU she acquired a rather less conservative costume that was split down to her naval. Hughes updated that costume for a Madonna/Rock inspired ensemble. Since the end of the JLI era Fire has reverted to hero spy roots and has joined the Checkmate organisation as Black King’s Knight.

Last year the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s Costume Institute held an exhibition on Superhero costumes called Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy. There were fashion shows and exhibits that caught peoples attention.

The basic comparison between the two is described by the exhibitions curator:

When I first started working on the exhibition about 5 years ago my first impulse was to focus on clothing that quite literally transformed you into a superhero. So, clothing that enabled you to run faster, swim faster, and even fly, but as I developed the exhibition I became more interested in looking at the symbolic and metaphoric association between superheroes and fashion.

On the surface it might seem that fashion and superheroes have very little in common, but they actually share rather surprising similarities, both are reflections of the zeitgeist, so mirrors to our social, political, and even social realities and anxieties. At the core of both are issues of identity and transformation. Fashion and superheroes not only allow you to escape into your fantasies, but also to act out your fantasies, the idea of transforming yourself into anybody or anything.

The introduction from a lecture by Andrew Bolton (curator, The Costume Institute)

It is an interesting and compelling case and suggests that high fashion isn’t much more than what comic book fans would call cosplay. (I’ll leave aside the cynical comparison between the distorted representations of the female body in both superhero comic books and runway fashion.)

Nevertheless, there were some interesting talks and they’re all available on the internet. I’ve linked to a couple below.

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy – Curatorial Talk

Andrew Bolton delivers a fascinating talk on the parallels between superheroes and fashion and the themes of the exhibition.

Part Two | Part Three

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy – The Gods of Greece, Rome, and Egypt Still Exist

This may be the most interesting talk. Michael Uslan, the executive producer or the The Dark Knight, takes a longer look the superhero and compares him to the Gods of ancient worlds.

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

You can find more talks at the Metmuseum playlist on Youtube.

One particular costume that has been in demand is an adult Green Lantern costume. Well it looks like Rubies, the official producer of licensed costumes, have heard people’s requests and have added several new adult sized costumes. These include a ladies variant of the Flash costume ,

a ladies Green Lantern costume (based on Arisia I think),

and the long awaited man’s Green Lantern costume.

I’m a little disappointed that its being marketed as a Hal Jordan costume. From what I’ve seen, the demand was created by interest in the cartoon John Stewart. A GL costume is better than no GL costume, however, while the women’s costumes are relatively easy to find the male Green Lantern costume is in rather short supply. Every website I’ve seen lists it as arriving this year, but doesn’t have it in stock. The above image is from buy.com (I couldn’t find it at all on Amazon).

I also found it interesting that I saw no adults wearing Marvel costumes. In fact I don’t think I saw any adult Marvel costumes anywhere. Kids dress as Marvel superheroes, adults dress as DC superheroes. Yet, to be fair, there is a certain part of the Halloween theme that suits Batman and Batgirl costumes.

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.