Cool Characters Who Probably Flopped For Costume Design Reasons?

[Flash Gordon]

Telos, Signal, Shay Veratis in SUPERMAN (great character, awful look), Sideways

[Flash Gordon]

Jack Kirby is the only artist who pulled off the 4th World without making it look hokey.

The Fourth World is Jack Kirby, so that would explain it. It doesn't really exist without him.

Mike Mignola made them work visually, even if Cosmic Odyssey is not a good story or representation of the concepts.

[Jim Kelly]

Jack Kirby is the only artist who pulled off the 4th World without making it look hokey.

I'm not sure if the above image is supposed to be an illustration of a penciller doing good Kirby or bad Kirby. It's okay to me, but not the best ghosting of Kirby's style. I think that the inker and colourist undermined the intent. Kirby art needs strong blacks. The Kirby Krackle must be black. The outlines of characters should have thicker lines, so they pop out of the page. The colour effects overwhelm the image--almost as if the colourist wants to draw you away from noticing what the penciller has accomplished to stare at the fancy colour work instead.

[Sandy Hausler]

No, a character who sells when a market is booming and you can sell virtually anything is not a success. (Just look at the 90s and count all of the books that sold well but are virtually forgotten today.) Captain America was a Golden Age failure, but Captain America later succeeded with virtually the same design and origin he had in the Golden Age, which to me says he wasn't a creative flop, just a victim of the market. Alan was more than a victim of the market, he was a creative flop. Lots of great creative elements there, but something held him back.

This is getting way off topic (and you started the topic)! The issue is not whether Alan Scott/GL was a failure, which depends on how you define failure, but is whether he stopped being published in the late 1940s because he had a lousy costume. You've provided no proof of that assertion (other than that you personally don't like his costume)!

[married guy]

I always found Will Payton Starman costume pretty garish.

[married guy]

Jack Kirby is the only artist who pulled off the 4th World without making it look hokey.

This image just reminded me, does anyone know whatever happened to Takion??

[SecretWarrior]

This is getting way off topic (and you started the topic)! The issue is not whether Alan Scott/GL was a failure, which depends on how you define failure, but is whether he stopped being published in the late 1940s because he had a lousy costume. You've provided no proof of that assertion (other than that you personally don't like his costume)!

He stopped being published because he wasn't more popular. The only reason I can think of for him not being more popular at the time was his costume, which any artist trained in design will tell you is a bad costume.

[Lee Stone]

He stopped being published because he wasn't more popular. The only reason I can think of for him not being more popular at the time was his costume, which any artist trained in design will tell you is a bad costume.

He was popular enough to be appearing in four titles.
Most characters in the Golden Age appeared in only one.

When he finally stopped appearing, it wasn't because of his costume, it was because the audience shifted towards western, romance, crime and horror.
Superheroes were out of fashion and wouldn't make a comeback until the Comics Code was created, which put an end to the genres that had pushed them out.
After the Comics Code started, superheroes were considered 'safe' and DC started bringing them back.

It was almost 5 years since most of the heroes had disappeared, and without comic shops at the time DC figured no one would even remember the older characters. So they decided to remake them for the new audience.
However, they didn't realize that the old audience was still around.
Most comics publishers had figured that only kids read comics and they had assumed there was a 5 year turnaround on the audience as they grew out of comics.
But they were still there, and reading.
And asking for the old characters, including Green Lantern.

He was popular enough to be brought back, along with the rest of the JSA, because readers asked for them to return.
And then they appeared every year until 1985, like clockwork, in issues of JLA.

[Robanker]

Glad to see everyone dogpile on this thinly-veiled shade toss at Alan Scott. This feels like the kind of historical revisionism that is akin to "Batman was always more popular than Superman, that's why they named the company after his comic." Yeeeah, no. Alan was one of the more successful characters of the golden age. I'm not saying his costume isn't hokey at times. It's not the easiest to pull off. But flopped? Not so sure. He struggled a bit towards the end (even getting replaced by the Wonder Dog for a moment) but his entire genre was failing. DC mainstays like Doctor Fate, Hawkman, The Flash and so on were also failing at that time. It's unfair to pin failure on Alan and not on the entire genre save its outliers.

Superman was on another level. Batman was his closest contemporary that wasn't Captain Marvel. Wonder Woman had a specific contract and merchandising power that kept her going when sales weren't up to snuff. Everyone else ate it. Look at Jay Garrick. In most media he appears in (Young Justice, Injustice 2, The Flash CW) he is relatively unchanged. He was about at Alan's level, if not a little more recognized because his book launched self-titled.

[Jim Kelly]

If it was always the case that bad costumes doomed characters and good costumes saved them, then Doctor Fate, the Spectre and Sandman would have all outlasted Green Lantern in the 1940s but they didn't. They didn't even get their own solo titles and they all went through desperate revisions to try and save them before they disappeared from the comic book racks.

Green Lantern had red, green, brown, yellow, purple, black and sometimes blue--what? no orange, I guess that was his skin. Alan Scott clearly didn't think less was more. But probably the publishers thought more was more. Given the slogan, All in Colour for a Dime, they were giving their young readers every possible colour and I imagine little kids thought, yup, this is worth my ten cents because look at all the colours I'm getting!

I think two things drove Green Lantern away. One was the failure of most super-heroes which plagued every comic book publisher. The other was that the All-American line was the step-child of National Comics. It seems to me that Harry Donenfeld considered the Detective Comics/Superman line of comics as his own offspring and thus gave them pride of place at the table. The editors that had always worked for D.C. got the best assignments--Julie Schwartz and Bob Kanigher had to take table scraps. When National had to decide which super-heroes got the axe, they chose the All-Americans for slaughter over the Detective Supermen.

The only exception being Wonder Woman, who seems to have been a special case. It's telling that she survived (albeit with a reduced number of titles), which would seem to indicate her sales were strong enough that they wanted to keep her. And if they hadn't kept publishing her, the Marston estate could have taken the character elsewhere.

Other than the Amazing Amazon, it was the D.C. costumed characters that hung on longer. Johnny Quick outlasted the Flash. Green Arrow survived well after Green Lantern's light went out. Aquaman continued swimming long after Hawkman stopped flying. Congo Bill partied in the jungle for many years after the Atom had shrank from sight.

[SecretWarrior]

He was popular enough to be appearing in four titles.
Most characters in the Golden Age appeared in only one.

When he finally stopped appearing, it wasn't because of his costume, it was because the audience shifted towards western, romance, crime and horror.
Superheroes were out of fashion and wouldn't make a comeback until the Comics Code was created, which put an end to the genres that had pushed them out.
After the Comics Code started, superheroes were considered 'safe' and DC started bringing them back.

It was almost 5 years since most of the heroes had disappeared, and without comic shops at the time DC figured no one would even remember the older characters. So they decided to remake them for the new audience.
However, they didn't realize that the old audience was still around.
Most comics publishers had figured that only kids read comics and they had assumed there was a 5 year turnaround on the audience as they grew out of comics.
But they were still there, and reading.
And asking for the old characters, including Green Lantern.

He was popular enough to be brought back, along with the rest of the JSA, because readers asked for them to return.
And then they appeared every year until 1985, like clockwork, in issues of JLA.

Again, if he were actually popular, he would have remained in publication like the Trinity. A company doesn't turn away money. Why was he not as popular as Superman, Batman, or Captain Marvel?

[SecretWarrior]

If it was always the case that bad costumes doomed characters and good costumes saved them, then Doctor Fate, the Spectre and Sandman would have all outlasted Green Lantern in the 1940s but they didn't. They didn't even get their own solo titles and they all went through desperate revisions to try and save them before they disappeared from the comic book racks.

Green Lantern had red, green, brown, yellow, purple, black and sometimes blue--what? no orange, I guess that was his skin. Alan Scott clearly didn't think less was more. But probably the publishers thought more was more. Given the slogan, All in Colour for a Dime, they were giving their young readers every possible colour and I imagine little kids thought, yup, this is worth my ten cents because look at all the colours I'm getting!

I think two things drove Green Lantern away. One was the failure of most super-heroes which plagued every comic book publisher. The other was that the All-American line was the step-child of National Comics. It seems to me that Harry Donenfeld considered the Detective Comics/Superman line of comics as his own offspring and thus gave them pride of place at the table. The editors that had always worked for D.C. got the best assignments--Julie Schwartz and Bob Kanigher had to take table scraps. When National had to decide which super-heroes got the axe, they chose the All-Americans for slaughter over the Detective Supermen.

The only exception being Wonder Woman, who seems to have been a special case. It's telling that she survived (albeit with a reduced number of titles), which would seem to indicate her sales were strong enough that they wanted to keep her. And if they hadn't kept publishing her, the Marston estate could have taken the character elsewhere.

Other than the Amazing Amazon, it was the D.C. costumed characters that hung on longer. Johnny Quick outlasted the Flash. Green Arrow survived well after Green Lantern's light went out. Aquaman continued swimming long after Hawkman stopped flying. Congo Bill partied in the jungle for many years after the Atom had shrank from sight.

Green Lantern had better creative elements than the other golden age heroes you mentioned. Better powers, better origin, etc. Why was he not as popular as Batman, Superman, and Captain Marvel, if not his costume? The costume IS marketing, folks.

[SecretWarrior]

Glad to see everyone dogpile on this thinly-veiled shade toss at Alan Scott. This feels like the kind of historical revisionism that is akin to "Batman was always more popular than Superman, that's why they named the company after his comic." Yeeeah, no. Alan was one of the more successful characters of the golden age. I'm not saying his costume isn't hokey at times. It's not the easiest to pull off. But flopped? Not so sure. He struggled a bit towards the end (even getting replaced by the Wonder Dog for a moment) but his entire genre was failing. DC mainstays like Doctor Fate, Hawkman, The Flash and so on were also failing at that time. It's unfair to pin failure on Alan and not on the entire genre save its outliers.

Superman was on another level. Batman was his closest contemporary that wasn't Captain Marvel. Wonder Woman had a specific contract and merchandising power that kept her going when sales weren't up to snuff. Everyone else ate it. Look at Jay Garrick. In most media he appears in (Young Justice, Injustice 2, The Flash CW) he is relatively unchanged. He was about at Alan's level, if not a little more recognized because his book launched self-titled.

Okay, why do you think he wasn't as popular as Batman, Superman, or Captain Marvel, if not for his costume? What other creative or marketing element kept him from reaching those heights?

Doing well only when a market is doing well or doing better than other flops does not make you a success.

Alan was only supposed to serve as one example. I'm looking for others.

[Kai "the spy"]

We all know, James Cameron's "Titanic" was a huge flop, because while Cameron's "The Terminator" has sequels made to this day, "Titanic" didn't have a single one.

[phantom1592]

Okay, why do you think he wasn't as popular as Batman, Superman, or Captain Marvel, if not for his costume? What other creative or marketing element kept him from reaching those heights?

Doing well only when a market is doing well or doing better than other flops does not make you a success.

Alan was only supposed to serve as one example. I'm looking for others.

I see the silver age as a push away from magic and to embrace the space race Sci-fi aspects. Hence why Hal Jordan, Test Pilot and astronaut was picked over Magic wishing ring. Not a costume issue, but a concept issue. Add in the fact that the writers just wanted a clean slate after 10ish years without the characters.