15 Best Superhero Redesigns

Superheroes have been around almost as long as sliced bread, with the machine for cutting loaves invented in 1928, just 11 years before the debut of Superman. Because of this, most of them have undergone several redesigns over the years; some good, some bad, and some that are just... monstrously ugly.

In some cases, it’s just that certain suits were in dire need of modernisation. The outfits being changed weren’t horrible necessarily, but they’d just been designed with a different era in mind and therefore felt a little out of place. In other cases, there’s just a few accessories or minor features that, once shed, saw the costume become much sleeker.

In other cases though, the suits are transformed dramatically, either as part of a new arc or with someone else donning the hero’s name. In these examples, you can really see the artist wringing every piece of personality out of the new design, with some even going on to outrank the previous garb in terms of renown.

Keep in mind that these aren’t necessarily the best costumes ever, but instead the biggest, most successful or most important changes to a character’s existing get up. There are plenty out there from both Marvel and DC, but here are the absolute best...

The majority of the costumes here are from artists taking mediocre or even bad costumes and changing them to make them great, or else undergoing a stylistic shift more fitting of the character’s persona, narrative or situation. This change, however, is something rather different, but was something that couldn’t come soon enough.

The Invisible Woman, originally imagined by Stan Lee as Marvel’s answer to DC’s Wonder Woman, has always been strong, confident and independent. While her husband, Mister Fantastic, is the clear leader of the Four, Sue has always been much more level headed.

That’s what makes this short lived design, which she only wore for around a year, so strange. Her leggings became shorts, long sleeves were cut off at the shoulders, her toned stomach was on display and, most bizarrely, the silhouette of the number ‘4’ was cut out around her chest.

Not only was it out of character for her (something she admits after ditching it, calling it ‘too flashy’), it was such a terrible design with literally nothing going for it. Switching back to her regular uniform was definitely the right move.