Batgirl’s redesigned costume (by Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr) has been incredibly accepted and applauded by the comics community. It’s one of the fresher redesigns I’ve seen in years. After years of Spandex hell, and just simply being a copycat of Batman’s outfit, we have an original take that lends itself more to a real-word Yvonne Craig-style costume. I couldn’t be happier with this.
On the heels of that costume's popularity, Marvel has decided to redesign the nearly perfect Spider-Woman costume. The’ve gone with a very real-world jacket, tight leather pants combo that Stewart and Tarr perfected. Here, though, it seems forced and copycat-ish. The logo looks great when the jacket is closed, but is unnoticeable when opened. On top of that her slouchy belt simply doesn’t work. This all led me to ask “Did Jessica Drew’s Spider-Woman really need a redesign?” I don’t think she did. Marvel took one of the more identifiable costumes in comics and simply genericized it in the guise of making it real-world. This was a big swing and a miss for me. —Luis
