Comic Book Monday Continued To Tuesday

Here I go again.

Cowls:
Great for hiding faces, bad for movement, it's just that simple. The cowl can put broad strokes over features of the head watering down the details of a face, but it, by definition, is attached to something else, a cape or the suit itself are the most obvious examples, and that makes it hard to turn the head. It's a bad choice.

Capes:
They may look good, but they'd only get in the way. Heavy material would be a drag on a hero and light material is harder to control and is more likely to get caught on things. Capes can not serve any purpose that's it's worth getting tangled and strangled over.

Masks:
The only way a mask would be a good idea is if it were made to have eyeholes large enough to allow full range of vision with the eyes, with or without goggles. Goggles could cause a problem due to smudging, scratching, cracking, and possibly warping vision, but those problems are acceptable because they'd provide so much extra protection they'd add to the eyes. Personally, I'd go for goggles since they could be made to my prescription as well.

Gloves:
The standard reason for a superhero to wear gloves is so they don't leave finger prints so they can protect their identities, right? I get that. The problem is, though, that gloves dull the sensations to fingertips and that makes it harder to do certain things. To cope I suppose a hero could find some ultra thin material to allow more feeling, but any material will smooth out the hands and make them slicker than they usually are, I don't want to see Nightwing jump off the roof of one building grab the fire escape on the one he aimed for only to slip off and fall to his death, or severe back trauma, because of his gloves. Some sort of grips could be added to the gloves, but that interferes with fingers being able to feel anything. I've worn gloves with little rubber grippers on them, all I could feel were the grippers pressing into my palms and finger tips. And then there are the heroes, Batman and Captain America come to mind, who look like they have leather gloves on, leather gloves do not allow for much movement of the fingers, even with lots of use. I don't think that, in the real world, gloves would be useful for superheroes, except when it's cold, but that's just common sense.

Shoes:
We all know the problem with female characters wearing high heels, right? We know it's stupid to expect someone, in real or fictional life, in those things to jump off of buildings, land perfectly, and chase after someone, right? (Frankly, I think heels are stupid in general and high heels in particular. It's just unfortunate that they make people appear taller which usually gives them confidence.) So, on a real life hero, no high heels. (Although I do like that American Maid, from The Tick cartoon, used hers as weapons. That was awesome.) No boots, either. It's insane that Robin wears things that look like boots. Those are not the sort of things that anyone should wear boots while performing acrobatic stunts and running across narrow walk ways. Some sort of soft, high lacing slipper thing that has a soft rubber soul would make more sense, it just wouldn't last long being treated that brutally on hard, rough surfaces. And then there's the problem with the runners. There are tons of different kinds of shoes built for runners, but how many of them can stand up to running thousands of miles a day at speeds faster than 700 MPH? Going barefoot wouldn't work for a runner either because it would just tear up the soles of their feet because their moving too fast on surfaces that too rough for calluses to build and any calluses that were built would probably be ripped off after the third step because there's just so much force the skin couldn't hold up (unless the person is (nigh-)invulnerable, I guess).

Utility Belt:
Nope, bad idea. To be of any use the belt needs pouches large enough to carry the equipment the hero needs, but strapping those around the waist limits movement. It must be so uncomfortable for Batman to sit down with his belt on. I have no idea what would be good for a hero to carry, but the best I could come up with was the pouch Jack-in-the-Box carries, but it seem like there'd be too many opportunities for it to get snagged or lost, and no one who depends on equipment wants to be without it. The best idea is not to be a superhero without superpowers, if you depend on equipment too much, expect it to get lost, stolen, and broken, with or without a utility belt.

Armor:
Heavy, limits movement, requires lots of upkeep. Unless you're a hero who's going to stand there and hope the criminal runs over to you and surrender, you're screwed. Even super strong heroes would have trouble with armor because they wouldn't want to be so rough that they rip the armor apart. Electronic armor, like Iron Man's, would be even worse because it depends too much on power to keep it running, cut off its power supply and the person inside is screwed, he or she can't even lift a leg and may not even be able to get out of the armor. Avoid armor at all cost.