Costumes, by Dennis O’Neil

Dennis O'Neil

Dennis O'Neil was born in 1939, the same year that Batman first appeared in Detective Comics. It was thus perhaps fated that he would be so closely associated with the character, writing and editing the Dark Knight for more than 30 years. He's been an editor at Marvel and DC Comics. In addition to Batman, he's worked on Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, the Question, The Shadow and more. O'Neil has won every major award in the industry. His prose novels have been New York Times bestsellers. Denny lives in Rockland County with his wife, Marifran.

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4 Responses

  1. Bryan Stroud says:

    Good point, Denny. Costumes have been the hallmark of heroes historically, though some were for dramatic impact while others were a bit more utilitarian. I’m thinking of Batman for the latter. A dark creature of the night who relies heavily on the psychological tool of fear to subdue lawbreakers, and yet a few years after his introduction we get a rather odd counterpoint with Robin, the Boy Wonder, whose costume is a traffic light ensemble of red, yellow and green. Hardly the inconspicuous stuff of shadow.

    I look forward to next week’s installment and I hope Marifran is doing well.

  2. Rick Taylor says:

    I've often found it more than odd that superheroes need a disguise to hide their identities yet chose to wear in most cases brightly colored garb to draw attention to themselves. Voyeurism at its best.The simple ones work the best for me, Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel. Or the ones with a motif, like the US flag, Wonder Woman, Captain America (the REAL one).Plus, they look great in four color. The ferret symndron, Bright and shiny.

  3. Elayne Riggs says:

    As long as artists like to draw characters essentially naked, which they seem to be doing more and more, then costumes will be popular. Most of the ones today are pretty much just "painted on" anyway.

  4. Michael Netzer says:

    It’s amusing how television and film make a pretense they know how to handle superheroes better than the comics. Historically, comics have proven to be the source of inspiration and leaders in the storytelling arena while film and television is all too happy to capitalize on their appeal, while pretending they know how to do it better. The more notable successes they’ve had in handling comics related ventures, are those which have more respected the original comics form.

    Superhero costumes appear to be an oddity but the superheroes themselves are oddities, and attempting to normalize them misses the point entirely. Based on this notion, I don’t believe that television and film will set any long-term standards, as comics have. These mediums are much more populist followers of trends than they are creative trend setters.

    The comics will remain a more low key cauldron of creative forces setting the tone for what film and television aspire to achieve.