Recent forays into the comics of the eighties have had me reading back issues of “Batman and The Outsiders,” enjoying the art of a veteran Jim Aparo, and a very young Alan Davis. The stories are pretty awesome across the board, and the excellent (but wildly divergent) art styles make for a lot of incredible panels, but for some reason, all I can think about is the people who mock Looker’s hip-bow. Her pink and black costume with the powder-blue cape is pure New Romantic couture, but for some reason, that bow bugs people. Personally, I love it, but that’s because I want to see more superheroes dressed like bridesmaids and fewer in crappy black body armor, leading to today’s haute couture query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) reminds Faithful Spoilerites that Batman’s horned cowl is just as silly and just as useless, but somehow always gets a pass, asking: Looker’s Hip-Bow: Fashionable, or Faux Pas?
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Hip bows can look cool and fashionable. Looker’s costume definitely wasn’t the most impractical or gaudy costume of the 80s by any stretch. Though technically not a bow, the “knot/dangly fabric” motif at the hip that Phoenix or Captain/Ms. Marvel had shows us that as long as it matches with an outfit, why not. And to piggyback off a previous QOTD, if so many characters (everybody from Cyclops to Shazam/Captain Marvel) can have big floppy impractical buccaneer boots folded over at the ankles, or indeed, Batman’s useless ear/horns that definitely don’t house some radio receiver tech in them, why not a hip bow?
The bow is simultaneously neither fashionable nor the least fashionable part of her costume. Offset bare arm/leg with a single flared boot and glove mix-matched to full arm glove and legging with built-in high heel; big white pasties on the chest; baby blanket cape — the bow just ties it all together, TBH. It’s like saying a sundae with extra fudge, caramel, sprinkles, and whipped cream is too sweet because of that cherry on top.
Well-said!