30 Worst Superhero Costumes

Orgazmo

The Crimefighter: Mormon missionary Joe Young, who finds himself playing Orgazmo in a porn movie. He fights crime using the Orgazmorator.

The Costume: Really pink, soft and cheap. (Easy.) This is a porn movie, after all.

Lamest Feature: The over-sized jock strap. Who is he kidding?

Crimson Bolt

The Crimefighter: Frank D’Arbo. His wife leaves him for a drug dealer. She’s hot, so he wants her back, which is when he decides to become the Crimson Bolt. Y’know, to impress her.

The Costume: A weird, patchwork red thing with a utility belt thrown in for good measure.

Lamest Feature: Said utility belt has definitely seen better days, but that mask is just horrible. A superhero basically depends on his mask for his cool factor, and this one has zero of that.

Superman

The Crimefighter: Alien from Krypton. The last survivor of his world. He comes to Earth as a baby and grows up to be a protector of mankind.

The Costume:
The unused super-suit that Nicolas Cage would have worn in Tim Burton’s aborted Superman project.

Lamest Feature:
It’s just so glowy and neon – frankly, it makes Joel Schumacher’s ill-advised, neon-heavy Batman films look positively restrained.

Captain America

The Crimefighter: Steve Rogers. He gets turned into a super-soldier during World War II and fights the villainous Red Skull.

The Costume: Rubber. Very patriotic in red, blue and white. Has wings on his head. And a big star on his chest.

Lamest Feature:
It’s another pyjama effort, though this one’s more kinky considering it’s made out of rubber. Also, his shield looks like a Frisbee…

The Fantastic Four

The Crimefighters: Four friends are hit by cosmic rays while cruising in an experimental space craft, and are gifted with extraordinary powers.

The Costumes: Tight, block-coloured atrocities with a horrible white neck and the number four stamped on the chest.

Lamest Feature: Holy lycra! Completely unforgiving material means every single bump and roll is accentuated in these horrible outfits. Far from fantastic, their wearers just look like oversized Smurfs.

Green Lantern

The Crimefighter: Hal Jordan, who becomes an Earth-protecting Green Lantern when he’s given a powerful ring.

The Costume: Green, sinewy, glowy.

Lamest Feature: It’s completely CGI. Director Martin Campbell clearly wanted to push the boundaries of technology, but he accomplishes nothing by denying Reynolds a suit to wear – it looks like a parody of itself.

Defendor

The Crimefighter: Arthur Poppington, a mentally ill dude who thinks he’s a superhero.

The Costume: It’s meant to be a bit lame, of course, being a put-together-from-scraps ensemble created by a mentally ill man.

Lamest Feature: The stuck-on D, which looks like a five-year-old did it.

The Phantom

The Crimefighter: Kit walker, who inherits his Phantom abilities from his murdered father.

The Costume: Purple. Has a very tie-dye effect going on across the chest. Tight. Must be a nightmare to put on in a hurry.

Lamest Feature: The skullcap. Who’s afraid of a guy wearing a purple skullcap? Nobody, that’s who.

Catwoman

The Crimefighter: Patience Phillips, graphic designer by day, prowling feline by night.

The Costume: A patchy, slashed leather ensemble that looks like Catwoman’s gone ten rounds with the local tomcats.

Lamest Feature: Um, all of it? The head’s bulbous and silly, the benailed-gloves tacky. Catwoman looks like she’s just slinked off page three of The Sun .

Batman

The Crimefighter: Also known as the Dark Knight. Skulks in shadows. Protects the city of Gotham. Is really richboy Bruce Wayne.

The Costume : Sheeny, sort of silver-y, looks like it’s really uncomfortable. A total departure from the costume Michael Keaton wore in Tim Burton’s Batman .

Lamest Feature: Just look at that ginormous cod piece. Not only is it ridiculously ambitious, it’s also spray-painted eye-catching silver. It's almost as bad as Clooney's other Bat costume - yes the one with the nipples. Gah!

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.