"Better World" Costume Variants

[Emerald Archer]

Seems funny posting back on this board. This is the first forum I visited at Toonzone before I started living over on the Comics Forum. And it's been almost 2 years since I posted here..........


So here we are. I loved JL "Better World". Best JL ever. Now I'm wondering about the Costumes of the Justice Lords. Some are fairly obvious what the influence was:

1) Batman - Obvious a version of the Batman Beyond Costume. The symbol is straight form that, as is the utility belt.

2) Wonder Woman - Strange, but it's a version of Wonder Girls costume.

3) Hawkgirl - Harkens back to the Hawkworld costume from the early nineties series.

But the others I'm having a problem associating.

1) Martian Manhunter - No idea. It looks familiar but I can't place it.

2) Green Lantern - No idea. looks like a reject from the Village People. Again, no idea where it is coming from.

3) Superman - Not sure where this comes from. It seems to have a little bit of Ultraman and Superman from DC 1 Million.

Anyone want to help me figure where these variants came from. I'm sure that they have some basis in the lore of the comics.

EA

 

[Weibart]

they all share a uniform design, like around the shoulders and the straps on their forearms and calves.

superman's costume seems to be a bit of a riff off his bb jlu outfit, that's as much as i see. i'm not familiar with anyother influence though.

batman definately has some batman beyond-isms, the emblem, and especially at the ears. they bulged out a little like the bb mask.

j'onn's design is interesting. the red emblem on his chest looks similar to the belt buckle the comics version sports (and also resembles captain planet's emblem but certainly not on purpose).

and the other members, well, i don't have any particular thoughts on them.
again, each member shares similar design elements while retaining unique ones unto themselves. i'm glad that they didn't give one member a scar and another a gotee or any other cliched "star trek mirror version" element.

 

[Fernus]

j'onn's design is interesting. the red emblem on his chest looks similar to the belt buckle the comics version sports (and also resembles captain planet's emblem but certainly not on purpose).


I thought the belt buckle from the comics looked like the Eightfold Path. This new symbol has the same red cross, it's just small, and inside a red circle, which I assumed stood for Mars.

 

[The Detective]

Superman - Seems kind of a Ultraman/JLU combo to me.

Batman - As mentioned before Batman Beyond. Here's something I wondering if anyone noticed though, his ears seemed to bulge out to the sides while the ordinary one's go more to the back.

Wonder Woman - Obvious Wonder Girl influences. I preferred his costume much more actually. In actuallity I don't see anyone parading around in that thing she usually wears.

I've never seen anything like J'onn's before though the chest symbol seemed familiar. Hawkgirl's helmet reminded me of the JLU's Warhawk helmet though.

I was wonder, which costumes did you actually prefer? I know I preferre J'onn and Wonder Woman myself. Anyone else?

 

[Karkull]

I'm still working on it -- they're more intricate than they seem. Personally, I think that they all riff off of coventions of the 1990s. Let me explain:

Superman & Batman

I tackle these two as one entry for one reason: notice the general similarity between the two designs? This is clearly an homage to Apollo and The Midnighter, from The Authority.

Superman's costume definitely possesses an element of the JLU's Superman, but it also reminds me a little of Supreme's (from Rob Liefeld's Supreme comic, which featured a knock-off Superman that was later revitalized by Alan Moore).

As for Batman, his costume possesses elements of the futuristic costume from Batman Beyond, but I'm also convinced that I've seen a variant of that costume from one of the Hasbro Batman figures. It could be an in-joke about all the knock-off Bat-variants that Hasbro overproduced in the past decade.

Wonder Woman

Definitely a bit of Wonder Girl's old outfit, but the use of black reminds me of the costume that she wore for a time while Artemis was Wonder Woman in 1995, (and another one from a Superboy Annual in 1994). To see them, scroll down. Or maybe it's an homage to Wonder Girl's "Troia" outfit?

Green Lantern

His costume looks a bit like the "Ultimate DC" costume that Wizard Magazine did in issue #136 (has the shaved head, too).

Hawkgirl

I don't know about Hawkworld (could someone expand upon this?), but her costume possesses the mask shape and symbol of Warhawk from the JLU.

J'onn J'onzz

The only thing I'm getting here is that the symbol resembles the one that's on J'onn's chair in Grant Morrison's JLA series.

 

[Bubblegum Girl]

The Justice Lords' costumes kicked ass!

 

[metaphysician]

Superman's costume reminded me of Mr Majestic, another WSU Superman analogue.

Who, btw, is replacing Superman in his own comic for a couple months, or so I heard.

 

[BonyT]

2) Green Lantern - No idea. looks like a reject from the Village People. Again, no idea where it is coming from.

EA

The details are not really similar, but somehow it makes me think of Guy Gardner.

 

[Jade_GL]

About Superman:

As there are JLU influences that i can see, I would also propose that it looks similar to the uniform worn by Superman in the Elseworlds story Son of Superman.

The thing about the Justice League, in this story, is that they are an anti-terrorist strike force, basically, and all their uniforms had similar design elements. Though they aren't really like the Justice Lords, I would say that Superman's does look similar in that they both use white and black. I will try to find a picture. Unless you read Superman comics and actually dropped the bills for this in HC or SC form, you probably haven't seen this variation.

Hawkgirl:

When I saw this helmet, I immediately thought it was a nod to the Hawkworld comics. It's just what I thought of when I saw it, and nothing else really clicks with me, unless a similar variation has shown up in Elseworls books.

Martian Manhunter:

This one doesn't look familiar to me at all. It's playing with the high color and red symbol found in his normal costume, but I can't think of anything else it could be influenced by.

Wonder Woman

Looks like Wonder Girl's costume, especially since it's predominantly red.

Also, a similar take-off on an almost all red suit was seen in the Elseworlds book, Wonder Woman: Amazonia. A similar uniform, which is reversed so that it is mainly black with detailing in red, was in a recent Elseworlds called Wonder Woman: Blue Amazon. Variations on a jumpsuit theme, and I think that some could definitely be at least part of the inspiration for WW's Justice Lord uniform.

Green Lantern

I have no idea here. I need some time to go home and look through all of my Green Lantern comics, but so far, this isn't ringing any bells.

Batman:

Looks like it's supposed to look similar to the BB uniform. It has the same symbol, similar pointy ears, etc. Yet, This could also be found somewhere in the Batman books themselvs, It's too bad that Batman has 80 million comics and Elseworlds titles, or I might actually be able to find a few examples that look somewhat similar.

Anyway, those are a few of my ideas. I am going to look at some of my GL issues and see if I can find anything that looks similar.

 

[Cyber E.]

Green Lantern

His costume looks a bit like the "Ultimate DC" costume that Wizard Magazine did in issue #136 (has the shaved head, too).

I can definitely see a resemblance.

 

[Nick K.]

The only real associations i can make are as stated before,

Hawkgirl and Warhawk's helmet,

GL looke dlike Ultimate GL from wizard

and

Wonder Woman looked like wonder girl!

 

[Karkull]

If I may ask, where did you find that pic, Cyber E.?

BTW, happy birthday, buddy.

 

[Cyber E.]

I was curious on who did the images, so I did a quick search and found the company. You can check out the site here. Its got the sketchs and finished images on everything they used in Wizard #136.

And thank you.

 

[DarkLantern]

Why does alternate J'onn's chest symbol look familiar?

Two words:

Doctor.

Strange.

DL

 

[Steven C]

Superman and Batman's costume rocked!!!!!

 

[WillemJoker]

Hello Everyone! I live in Australia, where they played the first three Season 2 arcs and then went back to the Enemy Below, which they play every second week. Anyway, I haven't seen Better WOrld yet, but I'm dying for a look at the Justice Lords. Could someone please post a pic.

 

[Nick K.]

Checkout Zegrinch's spoiler pics thread there r picks of the JLords there Willem!

 

[shogunthethird]

now that I think of it, the batman costume seems to borrow a bit from "kingdom come" if I look at it compared to the DCUA bruce timm-style sketch of KC Batman, with a few BB elements added to it

 

[Kenny E. McCall]

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[Fernus]

No Manhunter? You left out the best re-make.