This weekend I again attended the Saturday morning Dragon*Con parade, about the only annual self-created tradition that I have. With the 'Con, it's about all I do. It's all about seeing the homemade costumes that folks come up with... that, and seeing the couple hundred Stromtroopers walking in tight formation (the fightin' 501st) bringing up the rear of the parade.
(Before you ask, no, the images of me above are not from the parade... they're from fifteen years ago, but I added them due to the subject of what I'm writing about tonight.)
For me, though, the one thing I want to see is the superhero section... and, the one portion of the parade I sort of regret looking at every year. Many of the costumes are done very, very well... most of these folks focus a great deal of time and energy into the outfits and it shows. This year, for the first time that I've seen, someone did the Alan Scott Green Lantern (which is at the same time the worst and coolest costume in the whole history of comics with its nonsensical combination of colors and high-collared cape) and a couple of guys did their version of Dr. Midnite.
These two are what are called 'Golden Age' heroes, both from the early forties when superhero exploits were still new to publishing. It was a great time... good guys were self-made men, knew instinctively what to do, and had no qualms about doing it (this was about thirty or forty years before the Batman became the angst filled psychopath that everyone sees him as being today... yeah, his parents were shot in front of him still, but he seemed to deal with it better).
I've had a great affinity for the Golden Age heroes since I was young, particularly due to my oldest brother's influence. When he shipped off to the Navy, he'd left me all of the comics he had gathered over the years and in many of the Justice League issues there would be reprints of these old stories, or in some cases, current-day 'team-ups' as one group of heroes would cross worlds to fight crime or some world-shattering events with these old characters. For some reason the older heroes did something for me... maybe because they'd only show up now and then, maybe because of the simplicity of the stories, maybe because they were all, for the most part, just above average men... not aliens, not mutants, not gods... just guys who decided to put on garish outfits and take down mobsters.
The Alan Scott Green Lantern and Dr. Midnight were two of my favorites and I'd always intended that if I were to actually go to a 'con in costume, it'd be as one of those two. What has kept me from doing it for YEARS isn't that I don't particularly sew very well (although I do well enough when I need to), but my physique. I'm not in too bad a shape, better than most American forty year olds, I believe, but nowhere NEAR what I'd need to be in to pull off any of these outfits. Unfortunately, few others really seem to hold to that standard. Yes, they spend weeks making the perfect costume, but unfortunately don't spend that much time, apparently, dealing with what's underneath the outfit. Maybe it's pride... no, definitely, it's pride... but I can't do that. Dr. Midnight should not have chubby cheeks squeezed in by his cowl, which would be the case if I were to don the black headdress. Superman should not have a soft pudginess, the effect of me wearing the red underpants. So, I don't.
There was an awesome Hawkman this year, though. Handmade, from what I could tell, and the guy, while not 6'-3" and built like a rock, at least didn't have the results of too many pizzas bulging over his belt. Another good one was a Power Girl (the Marilyn Monroe of superheroines... in the world of buxom female crimefighters, she's the buxom-est). What images I have above were ripped from someone else's photobucket site I came across tonight, and fortunately they'd taken pictures of the two costumes I mention here. Sadly, none of the GL or Dr. Midnite, but maybe it's just as well.
Also, along with the images above, you'll see the last (and only, in my adult life) superhero outfit I did for a Halloween party in 1992. I've never had the chiseled jawline or high cheekbones for Superman, but I've always thought that my roundish features would make for a decent Captain Marvel...
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