Thursday, July 11, 2013

Favorite Costumed Teams In Comics

The Metal Men
 
 
 
 
 

  
Are you kidding me? Heroes made of elements that can combine into any form they need to. They are the ultimate solution to a problem that require adaptation and teamwork. They are truly the LEAST dysfunctional of all super-teams. They know they are robots and are pretty okay with that. They don't PINE to humans and that, for me, that whining about not being human, is my LEAST favorite thing about robots. (Sorry Data)  I like the basic colors of the Metal Men. It all works in animation and on the printed page.
 
Legion Of Superheroes

 

 
 
With the Legion of Superheroes it's all about variety. Each member has a unique superpower not replicated by another other member of the group. Plus there is a girl character for every boy character and that is rare to see. The classic stories were some of my favorite comics as a kid. The Legion were the original teen superhero team.
 
The Doom Patrol
 

 
Tragedy and second chances seem to define the Doom Patrol. They seem to die as a group an awful lot but return soon in a slightly altered form. The comics from the 90s were some of the most avant guard around and attracted cutting edge artists and writers. Definitely a desired taste but for me it's the classic group and their sad sack adventures that I enjoy the most.
 

 
XAVIER'S SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNGSTERS
 

 
The Original Class. Classic look all round.
They feel and look like a team and that is the point.

 
 
The New Mutants
 
There was actually a time when we only knew about twenty mutants who existed in the Marvel Universe. Marvel Graphic Novel #4 introduced us to a whole new team of them, conveniently called The New Mutants. I loved this series and getting in on the ground floor like I did. This took the concept back to teenagers first discovering they had mutant powers and showed how valuable Xavier's school was to mutants as a whole. No group of students of Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters went through more than these characters did. All are still active throughout the mutant comics Marvel puts out but it was this original team in those Xavier School colors that I like the most. Anyone who has ever been a student of that school deserves to wear those colors or incorporate them into their individual costumes. It's an honor to wear those colors.

 
 
 
Bill Sienkiewicz did some fantastic art for the series early on that really caught my eye. He was at the peak of his talent and production at this time. Thor and the Thunder Frog would not be far away.
 
 

4 comments:

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

Ah! A clever entry for your continuing costume meme. Its rather timely too as I've been working on writing a post of my own on the best Power Ranger costumes, as they are rather well known for their "team uniforms". The difficultly has been deciding wether to talk about my favorites or just review each season by season.

I would love to learn more about the Legion simply because of their vast array of costumes. If you want to show those off all these unique looks in all their glory, you've got to include either Alex Ross's lithograph or Nate Stockman's production art for the animated series.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4tet3IfLt1qce9ueo1_1280.jpg

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs26/i/2008/184/5/4/lsh_animated_by_snareser.jpg

The Xaiver School Uniforms are probably the best "Team" uniform of the bunch (sorry Fantastic Four). The stark simplicity really works to the advantage of characters who are so diverse in body types and skin colors.

DrGoat said...

Metal Men and Doom patrol were some of my favorites. Nice to see these covers.

Kal said...

Their concepts allowed anything to happen, goofy usually but fun and colorful.

The Flying Dachshund said...

I grew an appreciation for the Doom Patrol back when they did that Batman: The Brave & the Bold episode... I was more or less indifferent to them before then... Now I think they're awesome!!