The 10 Worst Marvel Character Redesigns, Ranked

Unlike its distinguished competition, Marvel’s universe has remained in the same continuity since the beginning, undergoing no reboots. As such, it’s a bit of an uphill battle to keep characters fresh—yet one of the many ways the House of Ideas battles stagnation is by revamping the looks of its iconic characters.

Marvel has succeeded with this idea, introducing iconic looks like Spider-Man’s black suit and scrapping the yellow from Daredevil’s suit to produce a more hellish appearance. But the company has also produced plenty of duds over the years, some more apparent failures than others.

The idea of Captain America losing faith in his nation has been explored repeatedly throughout various runs and other mediums. Strangely enough, Cap’s disillusionment has rarely been paired with a costume removing his superficial American ties, except when the Star-Spangled Man became Nomad.

Following the discovery that a high-ranking government official— implied to be then-president Richard Nixon— was part of a shadowy terrorist organization, Captain America laid down his title, becoming Nomad. The Nomad costume was extremely boring, sporting a generic spandex suit— with a criminally ugly V-neck— and a bright yellow cape. The MCU loosely adapted this story in Avengers: Infinity War, with their rendition of the costume being a much better concept. This continuity’s Cap kept his blue suit— with the Stars and Stripes torn off.

9 Sal Buscema’s Battle Armor Thor Was Way Too Busy

As a Norse God of Thunder and a noble warrior, it’s no secret Thor frequently dons some heavy, metal armor with various designs beloved by fans. His original design by Jack Kirby mixed a metal helmet and platelets with blue tights, his modern design by Nic Klein gave him thick, heavy boots and a Norse rune across his chest, and Sal Buscema’s 1987 design was noteworthy for some other reasons.

Following a battle with Hela in which Thor’s bones were made glass-like, the God of Thunder needed something to hold him together in a fight— and he did so by donning bright blue and yellow battle armor. Fans have often criticized this design for its garish colors, strange eye mask, and comically huge rims around the top of the boots. Luckily, the artist on Thor at the time, Sal Buscema, was able to salvage some of the odd design through his creative paneling, snappy sequences, and dynamic action.

8 Ultimate Fantastic Four Stripped Thanos Of His Armor

One of Marvel’s most iconic villains is, without a doubt, Thanos, the main antagonist in the MCU’s Infinity Saga. Debuting in an issue of Iron Man of all places, Thanos’s iconic design stuck out to readers, with his fandom eventually leading to the Mad Titan being the star antagonist of the comic event “The Infinity Gauntlet.”

Part of the aforementioned iconic design that makes Thanos as unique and striking as he is was Thanos’ bright purple skin and golden armor. However, when the time came for the Ultimate Universe’s rendition of the Mad Titan, Thanos had neither, now adopting pale gray skin and skintight spandex. This design was boring, and it’s no surprise that this version of Thanos has quickly left fans’ minds after his death in Ultimate Fantastic Four #53.

7 X-Factor’s Beast Returned Him To His Normal Human Form

The X-Factor team has had countless iterations ever since its first appearance on 1985’s X-Factor #1, though their original roster is one of the most iconic. The original X-Factor roster brought the original five X-Men— Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel, and Beast— back together, with Beast returning in more ways than one.

In X-Factor #2, Beast was injected with a “mutant cure” that reverted his furry, blue skin to its original hairless state. Slap on a rather bland, red spandex jumpsuit, and there was Hank’s design for the next two years, a definite downgrade from the striking, cool, and, most importantly, openly mutant look he had rocked for about a decade until then. The change also impacted his intelligence, sending him into an identity crisis.

6 Spider-Man’s Threats And Menaces Suit Was Doing Too Much

Spider-Man has had many alternate looks over the years, with his iconic black suit possibly being the greatest major redesign in comics history. One trend of the last few years is incorporating technology into Peter Parker’s costumes, from the “Big Time” stealth suit to the Iron Spider and one of the most recent, the “Threats and Menaces” suit.

In Nick Spencer’s run on Amazing Spider-Man, the Webhead encountered Threats & Menaces, a tabloid news site that gave him a job offer: in exchange for compensation, Spider-Man has to put on a flashy new suit that live streams his heroism. The problem is that the costume looked pretty bad. The suit featured a white base with gray/blue panels and glowing orange accouterments that made up his eyes, seams, and logo. Fans were thrilled, to say the least, once that story arc wrapped up and Peter went back to his red and blue.

5 The Original Ultimate Universe “Grounded” Giant-Man

While there’s much to be said about the tragic and storied history of Hank Pym— creator of Ultron, part-time villain, and one-time cyborg genocidal maniac— a particular blemish on the character’s legacy is Ultimates, a miniseries that originated from the mind of Mark Millar.

Ultimates aimed to ground the Avengers in a 2000s, politically-charged America by making various heroes worse, exaggerated versions of themselves. Giant-Man suffered the worst from this, becoming an almost comically worse version of his 616 counterpart. This included the costume department. Hank swapped out his red and blue jumpsuit with a silver insectoid helmet for a brown, rubber and leather jumpsuit, making him look more like Cockroach-Man than Ant-Man.

Not many heroes have extensive catalogs of legendary runs like Daredevil, with very few stories featuring the Man Without Fear actually being widely disliked. That is to say, very few except the controversial D.G. Chichester era, which brought with it a choice some fans are still confused about: Daredevil’s black armor.

After Matt had an extreme identity crisis and mental breakdown— including briefly calling himself “Jack Murdock” and taking the boxing scene by story— Daredevil got a new look. The 90s-edge black armor with silver armor plating perfectly matched this era of Matt’s personality: gruff, mean, edgy, and overall disliked by fans. Thankfully, Daredevil got his red spandex back quickly, just in time for his life to get terrible once again.

3 Wolverine’s Feral Era Was Just Weird

Earlier this year, the hit series X-Men ‘97 adapted some iconic parts of X-Men comics, including the story where Magneto set off an EMP and ripped the metal off Wolverine’s skeleton. Just like in the show’s rendition of this event, the comics left Wolverine with bare, bone claws following this tragic event, but the comic story was even weirder, leading to something far more drastic.

Wolverine quickly discovered that the metal in his skeleton was actually holding it in place, with his appearance slowly shifting over time. As Logan lived in the woods—due to fleeing the X-Men after a brutal encounter with Sabretooth—his bone structure morphed, reshaping his face to look more animalistic and certainly uglier, a gross and odd departure from his usual, already a little gross (though charming) self.

2 Sandman Started Wearing Armor But Didn’t Really Need Armor

For a character like Sandman A.K.A. William Baker— or Flint Marko if one watches almost any adaptation— one would think durability wasn’t much of an issue, seeing as he’s made out of sand, which can’t really get hurt or take damage. There’s a reason he’s stuck to a cozy green sweater for so many years. However, Baker would disagree, as in an issue of Fantastic Four, Sandman cobbled together a suit of green armor.

Following a prison break with The Wizard, the Fantastic Four locked up Sandman in one of Reed’s labs, where he finds a bunch of old gear that he shaped into armor. In one of Jack Kirby’s rare missteps as a character designer, the green armor featured strange features, such as a utility belt on a character with no gadgets, a reverse Mohawk, and giant shoulder pads. Does it need to be reiterated that Sandman wouldn’t get hurt in the first place?

1 Invisible Woman’s “Empowering Costume” Was Egregious

It’s not really a secret that female superheroes don’t have the most modest of costumes at times. From spandex costumes often described as “vacuum-sealed” or even “painted on” by critics to skimpy outfits with little protection, heroines have had it rough with their looks— and Susan Storm of the Fantastic Four has had it rougher than most. In an effort to modernize and empower Sue, Writer Tom DeFalco worked with artist Paul Ryan to give the Invisible Woman some new threads— or rather, take away most of the ones she already had on.

Sue’s new costume featured no sleeves, elbow-high gloves, thigh-high boots, and most infamously, a boob window in the shape of a ‘4’— a design choice to rival Power Girl’s— were the components of this egregious and just downright ugly “modernization” of Sue’s costume. Thankfully, this went away just as quickly as it was introduced, and Susan was revealed to have been controlled by the demonic entity Malice that made her wear it.