Doug: In the immortal words of former Arizona Cardinals football coach Dennis Green, in reference to a Chicago Bears team that had just come from behind in incredible fashion to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat...
Well, Spidey and Batman are who we thought they were, too! So we crowned Spidey!
All kidding aside, this was a fun "tournament" with lots of great suggestions to start it off (and thank goodness I got HB to back off, or I would have been trying to find a 200-line bracket!). The completed brackets are below, and I guess today I'll throw it open to all-things-costume. I'd personally like to hear more love tossed the way of Ditko, Kirby, and that Cockrum fellow, and I'd also like to know where you feel characters who weren't on the bracket (Galactus, for example) would have finished. Were there key match-ups along the way that, if the draw had been different, you feel certain characters would have advanced further? Who was that monster that destroyed all comers, no matter who they were?
Thanks for your past participation -- still don't know why when we have over 500 visitors a day we can only muster 70 votes in a 3-day poll -- and thanks in advance for today's comments. You all are swell!
Doug: Periodically when I'm just chillin' on a Friday night, watching the baseball play-offs or whatever, I like to look ahead and see what sort of Bronze Age love could be coming my way via amazon.com. Well, kiddies, do I have news for you (unless you beat me to it...)! How about this?
My biggest regret coming into these brackets was not recognizing Kirby's finest artistic achievement..:
ReplyDeleteYes, none other than the dreaded TOMAZOOMA.
(Certainly worthy of a Halloween outfit this year..)
Doug, that Avengers vs Thanos Trade pub looks SPECTACULAR. Must pick that up immediately.
As for killer matchups, we had some iconic greats fall by the wayside, especially Yellowjacket, Ironman, Kid Flash, and Doc Strange, but they got up pretty far happy to say.
All things considered, I'd say the best costumed man won. Iconic, perfectly designed, and just plain cool; you can't go wrong with Spidey.
ReplyDeleteGood call on Tomazooma, david-b! May I add one other choice we missed? The Kingpin ( White suit jacket, black tie, stick pin; "every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man". Even if he wears an XXXXL...)!
Doug- also been following the playoffs. I'm still depressed about the Reds. May have to check out that Thanos trade so I can drown my sorrows in some good reading.
All in all, I think it turned out pretty well...I have no problem with Spidey winning; his costume is unique and certainly representative.
ReplyDeleteAs far as overlooked costumes/artists, Cockrum seems to be overlooked in general when it comes to art...people tend to forget him when listing great artists. And I'm sure we could all think of a few costumes that were left off the list, but isn't that alwways the way? You think of the perfect thing as soon as it's too late!
Mike W.
Not really related but I thought I'd mention it anyhow, last night I was hanging out with my friend Mike and he put in a 2002 French film called "Irreversible" which I'd never heard of before but is rather infamous for a really brutal rape scene and a resulting revenge-motivated murder scene in which a man's head is crushed with a fire extinguisher (in other words, definitely not a film for the faint of heart!). Anyhow, in one of the more gentle scenes I noticed a poster of the Kree borne hero, Captain Marvel, made from the cover of his first ever appearance, in Marvel Super-Heroes #12, drawn by Gene (the Dean) Colan! Looking it up I found an interview in which the director, Gaspar Noe, is asked about that "Captain Marvel movie poster" and Noe laughs and says he just liked the image. That old green and white costume may never win any "dressed for success" contests, but, yeah, that cover is still a pretty good image.
ReplyDeleteI have a dream, Doug-- a glorious dream: a 1,024-line costume tournament bracket.
ReplyDeleteDon't be afraid of success, Doug-
Live the Dream---LIVE it!!!
(Lordy, can you imagine? Would be mired down in hashing out the relative costume design merits of Ambush Bug vs. Paste Pot Pete. . . )
HB
Plus I'm still in the Denial stage about Mysterio's early exit. I had him PEGGED to TAKE THE WHOLE CHAMPIONSHIP!! RRRARRRGH! (Okay, now I'm in the Anger stage. . . )
ReplyDeleteHB
David_B: regarding Tomazooma, I was working on a report on energy and power earlier this week at work and one of the things mentioned was a Tokamak, a device used in fusion power, and I kept thinking of Tomazooma!Doesn't Tokamak sound like something you'd find in an old Lee-Kirby book?
ReplyDeleteI think Spidey is a worthy champion. Perhaps if poor Doug is ever up to running another set of brackets we can do one just for costumes created in the Bronze Age -however we care to define it - and we can see who comes out on top in that. That would give characters like Yellowjacket, Lightning Lad, Iron Fist, etc a real chance to win.
I agree with Mike, Cockrum doesn't get near the credit he deserves. The guy was a top-notch artist and designer. I love his Legion work as well as his early X-Men, and I wish we had seen more of him on Avengers, other than the GS stuff.
I wanted to echo Doug's "thank you" to all of you for participating so heartily in the polling! It was great fun.
Regarding your mention of how many people visit this site and how many ever comment...
ReplyDeleteOne thing that always irritates me about BAB is how long it takes to open. My computer isn't particularly ancient, but it takes a very long time to load, and when I click on it it says "Blogspot is not responding." I've learned to open your site and then go for another coffee, or to the bathroom, or do SOMETHING, while it loads.
Does this happen to others? Could this be why you get lots of visitors but they don't become regulars?
And now back to our costume discussion - -
I've seen no mention of a personal favorite, Keith Giffen's Zodiac from Defenders# 49-50. They were a very strange bunch created out of whole cloth, with some great oddball looks. I especially liked Leo and Sagittarius.
I'll give some love to Cockrum, but mainly for his superlative female costume designs. Shrinking Violet, Phoenix, Ms Marvel...all three would be in my top three costume designs of all time.
ReplyDeleteI think I mentioned in a previous thread that Spider-man is a pretty good outcome, since he really became a comic book superstar in the '70s - heck, he inspired a rock opera!.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Cockrum is concerned, I think I've been giving credit where credit is due: I stressed several times throughout these bracketology posts how much I love his costume designs, and nominated a bunch of them.
And Doug, thanks for the tips on those new trades. Nova -excellent! And I'm definitely interested in that first Guardians of the Galaxy volume; however, the second one puzzles me, in that most of it is the Korvac saga, which has been reprinted several times already.
Mark --
ReplyDeleteI notice when I use our desktop that this blog loads much slower than when on my laptop. So the age of the machine is one factor.
However, some of the widgets we have installed, like the Feedjit for user tracking, the spinning globe feature, and the blogspot polls all seem to be separate entities that have their own loading problems. That, and the graphics installed within the posts can all add to the load speed.
Apologies, but it's nice to know we give you that little extra time necessary to take care of life's particulars!
Edo -- The contents of the first volume of the new Guardians tpbs actually contains all of the material that was included in the first two Marvel Premiere Hardcovers. I would be more interested in the second volume, as I have those hardcovers I mentioned but do not have the Korvac Saga under one roof (I have the floppies and the DVD-ROM); additionally I used to have the Thor Annual but have never seen the other material included.
I've already pre-ordered the Nova and Thanos books.
Doug
It's amazing how my favorite artist created the WORST costume in history---
ReplyDeletethe Teen Titan's JERICHO--yuck!---
I like this post, interesting to read everyone's opinions
starfoxxx
Very fun vote, and I was happy to see Rocketeer get to to final 16.
ReplyDeleteIt could have been interesting to have separate votes for male costumes and female costumes, and end up with the best-dressed couple in comics!
The site does load a touch slowly on our home PC and a touch more slowly on my work laptop. . . but it's never debilitating. Worth it, IMO, just for the little spinning globe, alone. I love that thing! Seeing where on earth (literally) everyone's chiming in from is a total hoot. . . AND it creates a sense of a small, friendly community within an otherwise unbreachable chasm of distance.
ReplyDeleteI mean, edo, you could be chatting from the next cul de sac over, rather than from eastern europe. That aspect of internet communication still seems magical to me!
HB
This was fun, and even though I'm a Batmaniac I do concede that the best costume won. I would've really liked to see a playoff for third place between Iron Man and Dr. Doom. I say Doom all the way -- best villain with a cape.
ReplyDeleteOther future suggestions -- best dressed villains ... best-dressed side-kicks ... best dressed butlers (Alfred beats Jarvis hands down).
One last thing - after reading Doug's recent article, and as a red-blooded American Male, I must say that Red Sonja really should have beat Havok. If you can fight off wizards, demons, and barbarians with nothing but a sword and a chainmail bikini you definitely get my vote!
Hi Doug,
ReplyDeleteWhere you say “I'd personally like to hear more love tossed the way of Ditko, Kirby, and that Cockrum fellow”
Didn’t Ditko have 3 of the 4 finalists and actually win the whole thing? I’m not sure how much more love I can manage.
Anyways, thanks so much for doing the Bracketology. I know it's a pain, but it's great fun and it clearly inspires a lot of debate.
Thanks on behalf of all of us.
Richard
Hi, Richard --
ReplyDeleteCertainly Ditko had a presence on the brackets -- I wondered if people would get into the extended families of the books he worked on: the Vulture, Doc Ock, Clea, Dormammu, etc.
And Kirby... I originally had Galactus on the bracket, but pulled him in favor of another commenter's insistence on Power Girl (yeah, that worked out). We had some periphery discussion on other Kirby creations. Surprisingly, no love for Batroc the Leaper??? Ha!
Doug