Gender Reassignment Challenge: Black Canary To Black Eagle

In the Gender Reassignment Challenge, I take a superheroine with a very feminine look, and I redesign the costume for a male hero. My goal is to use as many elements of the original costume as possible without the hero looking like a man in woman's clothing. With fashion, the lines between "masculine" and "feminine" can be whisper-thin -- remember George Costanza and his Gloria Vanderbilt eyeglasses?

I've gotten a lot of requests to do a male version of Black Canary. She's a tough one, alright. Probably because she looks like a cocktail waitress. The bustier, the tight little jacket, those darned fishnet stockings--! It's a real puzzler. A few months ago, I did some sketches of a Man-Canary (and no, Scipio, I'm not calling him that!) but I never could come up with anything I liked. The closest was this godawful baggy hip-hop outfit with a lot of mesh. It sucked. And it would be a total cop-out for me to just draw a guy in a tuxedo. But I think I came up with a decent -- and very modern -- solution.



Here's a guy I call the Black Eagle. 'Cause that sounds manlier than "Canary." He's dressed like a pro wrestler. The jacket, trunks, and boots are all leather. (Down, boys.) I figure Stone Cold Steve Austin could get away with wearing black leather trunks out in public, so why not this guy? I approximated the shape of the Canary's bustier with an eagle tattoo. I also used tattoos in place of the fishnet. It's criss-crossing lines of barbed wire. Badass, am I right? I even kept the long blonde hair from the female version, only now it completes the look of a big, strapping Nordic dude. Lotta Viking blood in there.

Next: a "Rescue Me" design for Hellrazor!