30 Worst Superhero Costumes

Mystery Men

The Crimefighters: Half-arsed superheroes with similarly half-arsed powers. They're called upon to save the day when a supervillain threatens to destroy the city.

The Costumes: A vivid array of zany hackjobs. They’re ridiculous, but they’re meant to be, and we’re fine with that.

Lamest Feature: Mr Furious (Ben Stiller) hasn’t really tried at all, has he? He’s gone down the easy route of a black ensemble and a moody stare. Douche.

Underdog

The Crimefighter: Police beagle Shoeshine, who’s kidnapped by Capitol City’s best geneticist and turned into a superdog.

The Costume: A red jumper with a blue cape. And lots of drool, no doubt.

Lamest Feature: Uh, the dog? Funny title aside, the whole premise stinks of cheesy family fun.

Kick-Ass

The Crimefighter: Comic-book fan Dave, who decides to become a real, live superhero after being inspired by the pages of his favourite comics.

The Costume: A scuba outfit paired with some rather natty batons.

Lamest Feature: It’s a scuba suit! Yeah, yeah, it’s all post-modern and fun, but how is that going to protect Kick-Ass from a beating. Oh right, it doesn’t…

The Commander

The Crimefighter: Patriarch to a family of superheroes, and married to slinky heroine Jetstream.

The Costume: Over-the-top masculine, all chunky and muscular. Which aren’t necessarily qualities we’d use to describe Kurt Russell on a normal day.

Lamest Feature: That chest logo looks strangely similar to the logo for the Transformers. Is that a lawsuit we spy?

Elektra

The Crimefighter: International assassin Elektra. Uses a pair of sai to slice and dice anybody who gets in her way. She’s revived after being killed by Bullseye in Daredevil .

The Costume: Red, boobylicious, shows off as much skin as physically possible.

Lamest Feature: The whole thing makes her look like an underwear model, albeit a very flippy, stunt-y one.

Black Scorpion

The Crimefighter: Police detective Darcy Walker is sick of the lack of justice in her city, so she decides to become a masked vigilante and deal out her own brand of crimefighting.

The Costume: S&M heaven. Fishnets paired with a very revealing corset, all in super-slick PVC. Feminism? What’s that?

Lamest Feature: This looks more like something Grace Jones would wear on tour than a superhero outfit. Except for the weird, ribbed headmask. What’s that all about?

The Specials

The Crimefighters: A group of superheroes. According to them, they rank around the sixth or seventh most popular superhero groups on the globe.

The Costumes: They spend most of their time in casual wear, but the costumes they do have are pretty much nothing more than t-shirt and jeans.

Lamest Feature: The Weevil’s the most popular member, but his outfit is rubbish – an eyemask and a blue t-shirt. Crudtastic.

Invisible Girl

The Crimefighter: Big-busted blonde who looks like a member of Fantastic Four but who’s somehow part of a school for mutants. No, Superhero Movie doesn’t make any sense.

The Costume: A plunging blue number that’s a riff on the original Fantastic Four get-up, with (mucho) added cleavage.

Lamest Feature: Depending on your personal appreciation of cleavage, this is either a dream or a nightmare. We’re going to go with the latter – some things should be left invisible for the imagination.

Sharkboy & Lavagirl

The Crimefighters: Superheroes on the planet Drool, and the creations of the over-active imagination of lonely kid Max.

The Costumes: Highly stylised with lots of padding. You can probably buy your own in WalMart.

Lamest Feature: We could be mean and call Taylor Lautner (yup, that's him) the lamest thing here, but we'll go with the fin instead, which is pretty much the only thing that makes this nipper a 'Sharkboy'.

The Shadow

The Crimefighter: Lamont Cranston, a bad guy who becomes a force for good thanks to a little Tulku magic.

The Costume: Little more than a natty hat, a coat that blows in the wind, and a red scarf to hide the face. Simple but effective?

Lamest Feature: It’s just all too simple. Half the point of superheroes is they have cool costumes that few of us dare to dream we could make (Cosplay aside). We could rustle this one up after a quick rummage through grandad's wardrobe.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.