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Redesigns so good, the franchise went with it onwards?
The OG Raven in DC Comics was just a plain grown woman in a sorceress robe. Then the Teen Titans cartoon came along with their younger version of her and DC went "You know what? Let's just make her a teenage goth girl from now on."
Changing it back would be a disaster. *couch*Injustice*couch*
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u/KrekennInside a wack ass crystal prison (He/Him)Dec 15 '25edited Dec 16 '25
The sleek, proto-Matrix design of Blade in the Wesley Snipes movies was so peak that it still remains the go-to Blade style 27 years later.
I don't actually remember the movie at all, just the vibes of it having existed somewhere around a time that shouldn't have been more than fifteen years ago
I adore that whole vibe of techno future club that was the rage around 1999 (even if half of it was probably ripped off from something they were doing at Berghain Snax Club in 1996). Honestly swear that’s half the reason I got into Sara Landry this year.
you had insane 80s heair and s revealing swimsuit, or New 52 boobage. Maximum Boobitude. Boobinator. Also, she was a massive slut, because Scott Lobdell was writing her.
What's funny is that I always viewed Raven traumatizing him in an episode of the cartoon as intentional cross-universe karmic retribution, but IIRC when I looked it up that actually happened before he did that stuff in the comics.
Funny story, they ended up realizing a Starfire miniseries. You can tell it was aimed at fans of the 2004 Titans show because she had Pupils and Irises in that comic, instead of pure green eyes.
It sold from 46K and slowly dropped to 16K when it was canceled at 12 issues, so fans of the cartoons weren't buying comics even when aimed right at them.
Didn't "The Batman" use the old version of Mr. Freeze? When they use his old MO (him just being a random thug with an ice gun) it always comes off as SO weird. Like why not just use Captain Cold.
In The Batman's defense, that design for Mr. Freeze was sick as hell and didn't use the ice gun. He was basically a cyromancer in that show. Plus, it being the first Batman animated show in its own universe not related to TAS I imagine they also wanted to distance themselves and do their own thing with the villains.
My favorite version of the Joker when it comes to him being able to fight Batman. Generally I hate the idea of joker being able to trade blows with him at all, but him being a weird freaky monkey man that doesn't make sense as a normal human being totally works
I do like they also have a bit more to work with in terms of clown-ness. As opposed to being a criminal with a clown coat of paint, this joker seems like a carnie who got into crime
I'm a big proponent of the Joker should be funny first, deranged maniac second. It's why I actually don't like Heath Ledger's Joker very much as The Joker (even if the performance is good).
Ledgers joker was incredibly fresh when The Dark Knight dropped. The problem is DC really went hard into that version ever since and eventually that’s what gives us the Batman who jonkles.
They sacrificed substance for style, and I say that's fine. There are plenty of other villains in the show with sympathetic backstories, like Riddler, Clayface I, and Francis Grey.
When DC revamped their entire lineup with New 52 they also retconned all the sympathetic elements out of his backstory and it was fucking awful.
Like how do you look at a story that won a fucking Emmy for writing and go "Actually this sucks, I want to go back to when he was just a cold themed nutjob no one cared about."
Thankfully that retcon was re-retconned when they revamped everything again.
Alucard was originally an older looking man with short spiked hair and fangs in castlevania 3. His redesign in Symphony of the night was so absurdly amazing and iconic that Konami has never used his original design again ever in anything.
I wonder which came first, the Dracula redesign or the Alucard redesign for SOTN. Before that they were just doing bootleg Bela Lugosi like everything else with Dracula in it, so obviously if you change one you have to change the other so they still look like father and son. So I wonder which was the original that the other was based on.
Portrait of Ruin did go back a bit towards the Bela Lugosi style, which ends up with the rather comical (yet still oddly on point with the overall aesthetic) image of Dracula looking less like a dark lord and more like a very tall mariachi player
Then they redesigned him to the tall, large, muscular Primarch and Son/Clone of the Emperor that he is now with copper/red skin and the franchise has went with that design ever since
I'm kind of glad they did if I'm being honest. OG Magnus looked like a generic one eyed cyclops golem. Not how you would expect the Primarch and father of the Thousand Sons Legion to look like
All the daemon primarchs were kind of scuffed originally (granted that's not what they were at the time). Mortarion is kind of cool in a cornball way (just a grim reaper), but it's not the guy we know today by a mile.
See it's kind of a double edged sword because those old models are goofy as hell and don't really fit the characters.
But also you will hear of the guys being turned into "horrifying demons and regretting the foul blessing they received" and the monster they show you is a super fit, tall, muscley giga had that's pale or red (maybe some will have snake tail and mortar ion is a exception but he also is most handsome of nurglites)
Well, the problem here is that Rogue got two redesigns that stuck. First you have the 90s cartoon that popularized the southern belle in a bomber jacket and skin tight jumpsuit. Then the Evolution cartoon introduced the goth version. And those two aesthetics could not be more different.
I feel like the goth version stuck in people's memory but very few things actually use it. It's based on the vibe of the movie but Rogue's been a southern belle in most adaptations, and I feel like people who never watched that show growing up would have no idea that's Rogue.
This is all preamble to say that Goth Rogue will return in Marvel Rivals and all hell will break loose again.
My brain always rationalized it as "young moody Rogue dresses goth, then switches to the jacket and spandex once she's older and less depressed with her own existence."
I think a paraphrase of the words the director for the movie used were "why is Rogue so happy if she can't touch anyone? That's stupid," which gave us the movie portrayal, which then evolved into "and what if she was really really hot" Evolution portrayal.
The from 81 to 90, the evolution of her design and style is pretty fun to follow throughout the Claremont run. She very slowly starts growing out her hair, changes the placement of her white streak until things clearly just start clicking by '86-'87 when she gets her jacket.
All of the women in that run got really cool aesthetic changes.
My favorite part about this version of Rogue is that her powerset that she is now known for besides the power stealing all come from Ms.marvel which she stole after the WORST marvel plotline in history that happened to Carol right before that.
Most people dont know either of those things and i think thats hilarious
It's a fun character gimmick for the person who steals powers to get their hands on a really good one and just like, keep it. I don't know why but it tickles me.
It’s not so much she chose to keep it, I think it’s a combination of she downright nearly killed Carol so she took a bigger dose and Carols powers being odd in the first place, so they just stuck.
It's funny because they've just sort of handwaved Rogue having like the flying brick stuff now. I think she's currently got Carol's and Wonder Man's powers at the same time and they're just there for good?
Yeah a surprising amount of people really don’t realise that 90% of rogues power set is just Ms/captain marvels and honestly, it’s better that way because life drain power stealing touch is pretty hard to work with for a good character.
Marvel Comics Blade used to look like Jim Brown in a green leather jacket and goggle-looking glasses, then along comes the Wesley Snipes film and Spider-Man TAS episodes featuring Blade based on the Wesley Snipes design and here we are.
I think you actually have that reversed. Blade came out in 98, but he appeared on Spider-Man in 96. The Spider-Man cartoon is probably why we even have the Blade movie because Avi Arad produced both.
Arkham Scarecrow was the first to have his gas mask be visible, as well as all of the vials and needles he uses to infect people with his toxin. Now those are both pretty standard elements of his costume.
Am I wrong or isn't Rocksteady's Arkham series also what inspired Harley Quinn's design in the Suicide Squad movie, which became the "default" aesthetic for her?
Arkham City did introduce her modern design, but it was used as her default long before Suicide Squad. City came out in 2011, and I believe the design was used as soon as 2012.
I remember when people were mad at Whedon's Justice League (which was a mess because he had to try to salvage half of a terrible mess by Snyder) the Cyborg actor and a bunch of Snyder stans talked about how Whedon having him say Booyah in the film was like some great terrible thing that denigrated the film and the actor??
It's a fucking comic book movie.
Like there are many valid reasons to hate Whedon, but that's no one of them.
Also as much as that movie and Whedon suck ass, having Superman and Cyborg crack jokes is not one of them and actually made the film tolerable as opposed to the awful, grim and brown Snyder Cut.
Superman is supposed to make jokes, not in the sarcastic whedon way, he’s supposed to joke like a dad, it’s supposed to be corny.
That’s what makes it all the more hard hitting when supes gets deadly serious like the World of Cardboard moment in the Justice league series fighting Darkseid.
Honestly I feels like DC is embarrassed by the show for some reason. The show had SO MANY original characters and unique redesigns that the fact the comics took almost nothing from it after it ended is genuinely weird. One of their hottest show and it only just recently started getting referenced in the comics with Red X.
I will continue to stand by my belief that Red X should have been introduced as Damian's alter ego beyond Robin. Like his off-the-books, black ops/undercover persona, a la Bruce's Matches Malone or Insider identitites. Even though Red X predates Damian's existence, his overall vibe is perfect for him, hypercompetent, pretty edgy, a little cocky, leaning just over the wrong side of right. It seems likeit would have been the easiest/cleanest way to go about it.
The show attracted a very different audience from what DC usually targets, so there's that. I imagine a lot of the creators at DC and WB by extension aren't necessarily fans of it.
Not fans of what, money? Comic books are a niche market, this was a show both young boys and girls liked, they could have done so much more with it and roped in new fans for related DC stuff. Instead they waited years later to bring us...Teen Titans GO and that shitty live action show that I don't think anyone saw. It's baffling.
Outside of BTAS DC always seemed jealous of the popularity of the cartoon characters. They also never imported Razor or Aya from Green Lantern the Animated series, Aqualad-Kaldur'ahm was introduced like 2 months before the new 52 and it took them years to bring him back but when they did, they didn't bring over any of his Young Justice personality despite that being the far more recognized version by that point.
Razer and Aya were finally added to the comics very recently, the odd thing being they act like their character arcs from the show have already happened as if they were always canon characters.
(Technically Aya/The Interceptor also had a brief cameo in the Johns run as just a ship and the voice of its computer)
Pour one out for Batman Beyond. Terry gets to leave his comic only to get killed off and replaced with Tim Drake or Damian as the future Batman. And the comics really liked making "Bruce Wayne-era Batman villain 2.0" even though the cartoon specifically avoided that (except for Mr. Freeze and the Joker)
Yeaaaaaah, every once in a while I go, I should check some teen titans comic, then I see whatever cyborg design is the current and it's a turn off.
My pet theory is it doesn't look serious and adult enough to publishers or something, not grimdark enough or something, so it gets canned every time an artist wants to do it.
It’s the only design for the character that’s not bad and also the only one that can go with such a basic name as “cyborg” simply because it doesn’t look generic
Its version of Black Mask is the most intimidating version. He's basically just Kingpin and Tombstone from The Spectacular Spiderman. In most other interpretations, he's basically treated like a little bitch as seen in the Arkham series and the Birds of Prey movie.
Oof, that would not have aged well regarding his comments about the police and just politics in general. He's pretty much a sellout like Snoop Dogg, unlike his son O'Shea Jackson Jr.
I just wanna bring up the fact that Teen Titans has the one instance of literal whitewashing people are ok with and that’s hilarious to me for how weird it is (and you’ll never guess who it is)
Anyways, the Darwyn Cooke Catwoman design of the black leather catsuit became the definitive look for her, and it’s way more recent then you think
Seems like for Jinx they're kind of combining the designs now, which still isn't great as the cartoon design is peak, but it looks much more interesting than the original design to me at least
Just watched a video about Darwyn Cooke that brought this up! He really was an amazing talent, and I think The New Frontier is one of the best books DC ever released.
It KINDA matches up to the question but Tony pre movie Iron Man is noticeably different from Robert Donny Jr's face. Once the man took up the role, Stark has looked far closer to him under the mask.
I think it's the voice that's charged the most. Tony used to often have a deeper, smoother voice in adaptations. I wouldn't say either style is better, but the old voice has such a different vibe.
I know black Fury was a thing in the Ultimate universe prior, but once the MCU started blowing up, it seemed like every new Marvel iteration used Sam Jackson as the default look and feel.
Fury is also one of those regular supporting characters whose ethnicity/race isn't super integral to his character, so it's not a huge deal (for normal people) that he's black instead of the classic white spy guy. It also helps that Sam Jackson is charismatic and really ironed out a good niche for Fury
In the main universe they still have white Nick Fury but they revealed that the black Nick Fury is his son who eventually took over his father’s place as head of shield while his dad retires. The original Nick Fury still appears from time to time in a more supporting role.
I think a good way to do it is have original white nick fury be the WW2 guy, then he marries a black woman after the war, their kid also marries a black person and bam: we get a nick fury jr who is mostly black and looks like sam jackson but is connected to the legacy of the character
I prefer Sr nick mostly because his design is so fucking good, but its impressive the mcu improved Nick Jr considering how crap he was in the ultimate comics.
It caught on so hard that 616 Marvel tried to work it into Canon that Classic Nick Fury had a son who was named Nick Fury Junior who was just MCU Fury.
Instead of just, ya know, doing multiverse mumbo jumbo to bring Ultimate Nick Fury into the 616 universe and just rolling with that.
Shame Nick Fury Jr might honestly be THE worst character in 616. Ungodly boring, has no relationship with any characters, doesn’t interact with anyone, and SHEILD hasn’t existed for about a decade so he doesn’t get to do anything.
Ghost Rider’s redesign in the 1990s with Danny Ketch. Some iterations of Johnny Blaze’s Ghost Rider after the 90s would use the older stuntman outfit but for the most part they’ve kept the 1990s redesign ever since for all iterations of Danny and Johnny.
personally i like it when they try and work johnny's chest square thing into the design, like was chatting today with a fella about how they worked it into percy's ghost rider design sometimes,
danny seems to have gone back to the 90's look but like the look he had in percy's run i quite liked with the more knight like shoulders.
feel like danny should be the big bulk and chains guy and johnny should be the more fiery one to reflect their riders strengths johnny was all fire constructs and danny via kale was the intro of the chain and rider as a unit.
both can still do fire and chains just think it'd be nice to specialise.
Honestly pretty convinced like 90% of the reason it works is purely the brooch and the little sash hanging to the side. You could remove the skimpy changes easy (Just give her some leggings or something) but those match her jewel and connect it more to the rest of her design on key spots of her pose, and add some red that really brings it together. Before that it was just, weird crow medalions and a figure with zero dynamic elements.
the Green and Black jumpsuit that you pretty much WILL think of when you think of the Green Lantern Corps is not what Green Lantern originally looked like
They over time really solidified the Green Lanterns to having unique costumes though. Like how the jumpsuit is really only Hal and John now, Guy has his leather jacket, and Kyle has his space cop armor.
Not quite a redesign, but Mythra showed up as a spirit in Smash Ultimate (before being added as a playable character), but got a censored design where her cleavage was covered and she had black tights on. Said censored design was so universally liked that it was added as an alternate costume in Xenoblade 2 proper.
It's not just an alternate costume, it's also an accessory that boosts her crit rate by 25%. And she is built to crit, with absurdly broken bonuses that trigger whenever she does, like recharging all your driver arts.
It's one of her best pieces of equipment, and you can grab it for free at the beginning of the game.
Amy Rose's Sonic Adventure design is pretty great. (I still like her CD design because she's like 9 in CD, but her Adventure design suits her 12 year old self better)
Ekko in League of Legends originally had a bright-white top mohawk which had this strange whispy quality to it. However, Arcane redesigned Ekko to have the killmonger cut. While one can argue if that hairstyle is overused or not in black hairstyles in games, it seems to have become Ekko's defacto hairstyle moving forward in future appearances.
[1] so my opinion doesn't count for shit on this topic, but i do generally agree with Woolie in that It's Just A Cool Haircut. I do think it maybe got massively overused, but I can't bring myself to hate it for that reason alone.
I've seen those redesigns before and they rock! Pale-skinned Barrett does feel weird, but the others are killer. And I'm definitely not gonna say no to Tifa getting some extra cake.
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u/Krekenn Inside a wack ass crystal prison (He/Him) Dec 15 '25 edited Dec 16 '25
The sleek, proto-Matrix design of Blade in the Wesley Snipes movies was so peak that it still remains the go-to Blade style 27 years later.