Legion of Substitute Costumes: Dynamo Kid

Hey, everybody? Come here. No, closer. Shh, shh... be cool! Be cool! Wait, don't-- Storm Boy's looking. Just act natural. ...Okay, he's gone. Listen, we have to keep the subject of this post under our collective hats. Why? Because today I'm designing a costume for Storm Boy's ex-husband.

Like Storm Boy, Dynamo Kid tried to con his way into Legion membership by hiding a special device on his person. He didn't count on the presence of Saturn Girl and her power of super-symbolic-emasculation!

And as Storm Boy told you, the Kid turned out to be a money-grubbing asswipe, so he probably never had it in him to be a proper hero. Still, it's not unheard of for that type of person to make a go of it. So if Dynamo Kid ever feels a whim to do something selfless, he can start on his heroic journey by purchasing this costume from me:

I took my design cue from that stupid girdle of his and repeated the cylindrical motif elsewhere on his uniform. That's not Pac-Man licking a light socket on his belt... that's the Interlac "D"... and it's about to get killed by a lightning bolt, I guess. Or else it has a really bad headache. I dunno. The belt, gloves, boots and mask all feature ribbing, which conceals the wiring for his electro-shock weaponry. (The mask shocks anybody else who tries to remove it.) Instead of a cape, I went with a scarf, just like one of my "Enchanter" designs, and just like the original version of Ms. Marvel. It's stuck to his shoulders using Colorforms technology, so nobody can cinch it tight and strangle him with it... no matter how much they might wish to! That said, the Kid can peel it off when necessary and use it as a weapon. When a special contact plate on the scarf touches another contact plate in Dynamo Kid's glove, it can be electrified for locker room towel-snapping action! And the scarf provides a loosey-goosey visual element to contrast with the rigidity of the rest of his costume. The colors are faded into one another, to keep him from looking like Marionette of "Micronauts" fame. And the horizontal shape of his punky haircut is mirrored by his sweet tailback goatee. By the way, don't worry about his ears being covered by the mask. Plenty of heroes have covered ears on their cowls, and they hear just fine. So back off, man. ...Sorry. I'm just a little wound-up lately. You understand.

Oh, and speaking of loosey-goosey, I'm experimenting with a freer, more calligraphic inking style. As you can see, I'm not quite there yet. Maybe next time!

Filibastard

Whenever Tony Stark speaks, you be certain of one thing: a deep, restful sleep. And Tony's smug baritone will always drown out the assembled congressmen's snores, teeth-grinding, and dream-induced muttering and gibbering ("Spiro... dearest Spiro... no, not here... what if my wife finds out, Spiro...?")

You'll note that Tony has decided to go with ironic self-effacement for his defense, co-opting the anti-establishment sentiment of the time. He was a real pioneer in that sense. Tony's aw-shucks routine might seem quaint to you Early 21st Centurians, what with massive soul-crushing corporations selling prepackaged "rebellion" and "liberalism" to the hipster masses on a daily basis. ("We're an oil company that cares about the environment!" No, if you really cared about the environment, then you wouldn't be an oil company.) But from my perspective (from the glorious 30th Century) the corporations still appear remarkably untangled from your other social institutions. For example, Storm Boy's and Dynamo Kid's wedding took place in beautiful Our Lady of General Electric Cathedral, and the ceremony was presided over by a guy in a Hamburgler costume (as is tradition).

Legion of Substitute Costumes: Storm Boy (by special guest columnist Storm Boy)

BLOCKADE BOY IS A BEAUTIFUL PERSON. Fact. I'm sorry if you don't "get" that. That's your problem. Myself? I didn't really "get" Blockade Boy either. At first. He's... how can I describe him? He's beautiful, but like a beautiful monster, a beautiful gargantuan gilded goblin gargoyle golem that could kill you with a flick of its tail. You know? And you shouldn't look at him. Not directly. Weight Wizard looked. And look what happened to him. He's like a puppy, that guy. Which? Was cute when he was seventeen but now that he's twenty-two? Is beginning to look a lot like madness. And who could blame him? No, seriously. Shut up. Yeah. You heard me. SHUT UP.

You just don't know him like I know him. At first I was unconsciously uncomprehending, muddling middling maddening uncertain of what I saw. I hated Blockade Boy. What was revolutionary in him, I found revolting. But. There's -- oh, how do I make you understand? -- I'm sure there's a food you like now that maybe you didn't like once upon a time. Maybe you even hated it like I hated Blockade Boy. Stomach-turning. Churning. Sphincter burning. And now? You can't get enough of it. And it's good for you! Like Blockade Boy!

Blockade Boy's eyes? See the world as it should be, which is beautiful. And his missionary position is to make it that way. Beautiful. I just didn't get it before. But now I do. But now enough. About Blockade Boy. And more. About. Me.

My first fatal post-natal memory is seeing my face in a mirror. I was already wearing glasses. And I was one. Month? Year? Decade? No one knows. All I know? Is a round face deformed undefined nose bulb rubberband mouth floppy ears GLASSES. And I saw it was bad. And the others, the children, the teachers, the parents, they saw it was bad also. And they left the clouded stormy boy alone. And the boy in his terrible tumult tore the spectacles from his face and he broke them. The fear came then. The boy had to fix the glasses, the glaring glazing lazing lens. Before it was too. Later, the boy quivered cowering glowering under the steely stare of the Parental Unit but! Nothing happened. Nobody noticed. It was all right with the world at large. The boy plucked the glasses from his knob-nose, carefully this time, and inspected them. They looked good as new. Better even. And a swell of Feeling bubbled in his gut. It was LOVE.

The stormy boy was handy with his hands, he could make anything he might make, even new eyes and glasses goodbyes. But? That would be treason. He didn't not make glasses, no. He made more glasses, alas. Yes. He got good. He made more. Not just glasses. Machines. Dreams. He imagined God, ordering storms, swirling whirling winds with his finger and so he knew how to do it too. He shrunk God, severed his hands, and trapped him in a box. He knocked on the rocket, yellow, distended, upended, from there to join. Or purloin. No boxes! they cried, for we are one-hundred-percent genetically gallant with talent and you? So proud? Are not allowed. Ejected, rejected, dejected and the hate came again and he drank and he ate and his fate was fat. And he met? A threat. A fabulous wide-awake all-night-long nightmare knight in purple and orange. (BLOCKADE BOY.) How he hated the purple and the orange!

Blockade Boy's tongue was sharper than a serpent's ruthless tooth but in truth beneath the teeth there was LOVE. The stormy boy didn't couldn't wouldn't see the love. He could only see a strange hairy horrible thing he could hate more than he hated himself. Blockade Boy was mysterious (lascivious) mercurial inimical (but not meaning it) and so he vanished. Feeling an emerging urge the stormy boy followed after. Months (Years? Decades?) slipped through the stormy boy's fitful fat fingers and fickle celebrity cuddled and caressed him. For the genetically blessed changed their minds and? They deigned to wear his designs. He was high on the hog, heroic, heady with hedonism and unheeding of the headaches ahead. Dame fashion, bored, flippantly flipped him the bird, slid the lever, clever, and the floor slid open and the stormy boy slipped down as it all slipped away. Job/Home. Money/Honey. The stormy boy's boy stormed out. Honey loved money, none other. Nope. No hope. Everything was broken and the stormy boy couldn't fix it.

Time to go. Too slow, the stormy boy jimmied open the jettison tube at the space-port and squeezed inside. One last ride. Straight up up up into space, no mask on his face, no suit, no use, just skin on cold black nothing at all, chilling zero filling spilling into his lungs scraping digging hollowing him out and there would be. No. More. Me. But a hairy heroic hand yanked the stormy boy out at just the last moment. And the stormy boy dared to look at the burgeoning baroque behemoth beast-man, squinting, as at an eclipse. It was Blockade Boy. And the Feeling welled up again in his inner gizzard. LOVE.

[later] What the fuck?!! Goddamn. I must've been drunker than I thought last night. Maybe I should edit this thing? Naw. Screw it; you all get the gist of it, am I right? I was doing great, then my designs went out of style and I lost it all. Including my husband, Dynamo Kid. I guess a shared love of small, electricity-generating devices isn't the best thing to base a marriage on. And I apparently had signed a pre-nup (which I don't remember doing at all) because he got everything. The impecunious little turd. ...Are you reading this, Dynamo Kid? 'Cause I've got a revelation for you, Dynamo: if you've got such a hard-on for money, maybe you should have spent the last three years giving half-hearted handjobs to Gold Boy instead of to me. Also? Drop dead!

Fuck. My head is killing me. What the hell was I talking about? What? How shitty my life got? Oh. Yeah. It got bad, man. So bad I wound up in the really run-down part of Rimbor (i.e. the Western Hemisphere) begging at space-ports and holding a tattered cardboard sign that read "Will repair spectacles for Space Wine." (Mmm, Space Wine!) Finally I tried to kill myself but Blockade Boy was there to stop me. And he asked me to join his crew. It turned out he's actually a pretty decent guy once you get past the back hair and the temper tantrums. He's like one of my best buddies now!

What's left? The costume? Oh. Yeah. I think it's the best thing I've done. Way better than my early stuff. Hey, I'll be the first to admit that my "taste level" wasn't always where it shoulda been. But you know. A guy's aesthetic sense matures if he spends enough time around other artists. Eventually. So. Here goes.

Dig my fearsome fu-manchu! It's fierce! You can look but don't touch, ladies! (Gentlemen, the line forms on the right.) This is based on a concept sketch by me, and of course I designed all the weather-controlling gizmos. Then I handed the drawing to Blockade Boy, or he yanked it out of my hand, I forget which, and he put some finishing touches on it. As in, he filed down all the sharp edges. Also, he insisted on putting those stylized angular symbolic wing doodlybobbers on the helmet. I think he'd wanted to use something like them on another costume but his client wouldn't go for it. (No surprise there! Hee!) But what the hell. He's been a great pal to me; I have no problem with indulging the crazy fucker every now and then. I still miss all the pointiness, though. Yeah, so I like pointiness! So sue me! (Just kidding. Don't sue me. Please.) So I designed a super-pointy kick-ass costume for Timberwolf one time and he lacerated his face so badly during the fitting he had to be sent to a hospital satellite for major reconstructive surgery! SO WHAT.

Sorry. God, it's hot as a crotch in here. Does anybody else here think it's too hot? Guys? Rainbow Girl? ...They're ignoring me.

So anyway. I still have a yen for pretty-but-impractical costumes, kind of like that one guy from around your era. Erté. Sometimes I think I'd be better off designing for the space-burlesque, where all the hot guys just pose with their arms stretched straight out from their bodies and they don't have to fight each other. Unless you pay them extra, heh, heh. Anyway, enjoy! Or don't! No skin off my nose. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for a little "hair of the dog." And I don't mean that godawful marching music my good pal Blockade Boy insists on blaring at full volume at six a.m. every Wednesday morning. *fumbles for flask* What? Oh, don't look at me like that. I can quit any time I want.