Who put that poor confused boy in a gray body suit and then gave him a yellow cape?
Dick Dillon was the penciller, but I'm not sure he's responsible for the design.
Was it Kirby? It was a crime what Kirby did to Sandman. Did he do this to Robin?
Or maybe Wally Wood. I think the guy who'd take DC's personification of seventies feminism and put a huge hole in the chest of her costume in her character design is capable of anything.
Neal Adams was the cover artist here. I saw the atrocity he put the Earth-1 Robin in, I wouldn't put this past him.
Whoever did it, it was cruel beyond measure and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Man! That smarts even though I'm colorblind...
ReplyDeleteIt was probably either Carmine Infantino, who did a lot of behind-the-scenes art for DC for a long time, or Mike Sekowsky, who was regular JLA illustrator at the time that they first introduced the grownup Robin in Justice League #55
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that was one of the WORST costume designs ever, they just took elements from Batman's costume and Robin's costume and jammed them together.
That JLA issue was published at the height of Batmania, at a time when Batman routinely got a disproportionate amount of cover space (sometimes even when he wasn't in the story much). I remember reading somewhere that this costume was a subtrefuge to keep "Batman" on the cover while ostensibly featuring an Earth-2 hero.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, that still doesn't make it any less horrible, even if Big Mike did do it.
The best part is Robin complained in that story about the rest of the JSA not taking him seriously! Just look in a mirror!!!
ReplyDeleteOf course the colors just clash. That's obvious to a 2nd grader with only a few crayons.
ReplyDeleteBut man... that "R" symbol with the bat wings has always been my biggest fault with it.
Hey! Watch how you talk about the original legacy hero!
ReplyDeleteY'know all that "Man, my predecessor's dead, how can I ever fill his booties, angst, angst, angst," That's been infesting the DCU for years now?
All started with the Earth Two Robin.
(And I tend to think of this as a Sekowwky. Infantino's designs tended to be, well, GOOD. At least at this period in time. I got nothin' nice to say about his later work for Marvel.
Although I might be too quick to diss on Mike. M'boy Star Hawkin's robot Ilda is a marvel of design.)
If someone looks at that picture and thinks of Kirby in any way, then they really don't know that much about comic art. Oh, and Simon and Kirby drove sales up a hell of a lot when they were headhunted and editorially mandated to revamp Sandman (they were the Wolfman and Perez of their time, in that respect). However, they weren't to blame for changing Wesley Dodds out of the gasmask and into tights: a guy called Chad Grothkopf did that. He also invented Hoppy The Marvel Bunny. Ker-aazy!
ReplyDeleteAnd Wally Wood could draw Power Girl any way he damned pleased, seeing as he was pretty much a genius. That said, the kinky-as-all-get-out Power Girl costume was designed by either DC art director Joe Orlando or original ALL_STAR COMICS penciller Ric Estrada, depending on who you ask, so Wally was pretty blameless on that account.