*SPOILERS* Who is this? *SPOILERS*

The embroidered seams on the Acid Washed jeans might could work...

Oh god, PLEASE tell me it doesn't dive headlong into the uncanny valley like the Steampunk faces did? They never fixed the unnatural, waxy sheen they put on those...

3D guys, look back at Mirror Spirit to see how to do faces right, damnit!

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

This one. This one looks good.

And no, all you [frell krrr k'char] who keep tossing up that strawman of 'OMG, apparently skin is bad!!'

No, skin is not bad when it serves a purpose! Whether that is for ease of movement, convenience or, yes, to look sexy, that's fine. That outfit does NOT feel like it fits into any of those categories, and thus falls into 'skin for the sake of it', which is a STUPID category. It's as [Krr'kar] simple as that. Deal.



Yes, that other language is all made up. You'd sound insane too if it was 3am and you'd just had to put together a massive hand-in with stupid formatting restrictions. Frelling Uni...

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Check back a couple of pages

....

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Costumed Penny represents her several years later in the timeline, changing her model in Faultline would make no sense, as that's chronologically years ago when she was still a juvenile.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

/double sign. The steampunk faces are way too creepy and angular.

I like #3 and the way that the use of white to creates better contrast - it looks like a fairly respectable, if overly-detailed, combat suit.

However, her overall costume design does seem a little... military-themed.

In fact, a lot of the new designs for various characters are getting a bit too zazzy for my personal taste and appear to carry either some weird leather-and-lace motif, military bodysuit design, or are just a variation of standard clothes.

Thematically-oriented classic costumes that are more readily familiar in the super hero genre appear to be slowly getting phased out of COH and I recently ranted about how Darren Wade does not stand out visually because he looks like Neo from the Matrix with his rather simplistic black leather jacket getup, and thus hardly looks like someone we can recognize as an imposing and recognizable threat.

A picture says a thousand words. While the pictures we are getting lately may look cool and edgy, they are hardly of the comic book variety in terms of style because they are losing variation and a thematic basis. They're starting to look a little too similar, and thus lack that special "pop" that allows us to recognize comic book characters as visually unique.

Is there a female member of the Freedom Phalanx that DOESNT show skin? I'm just saying now is a good oppotunity to set a different standard for how comics envision female heroes. Or not. But they dont ALL have to show skin, do they?

Bats and Superman going at it in a back room in Berlin?

Silly thought: Copper Girl. It's a play on the name Penny Yin (penny: a copper coin; yin: a concept in Chinese philosophy representing the feminine, among other things). Totally doesn't work with the costume, though.

Numina's outfit is very conservative, and the Vindicators have Valkyrie, Mynx, and Luminary all dressed conservatively. Well, as much as Luminary can be dressed.

As for Penny's possible hero names, we already know Bad Penny belongs to a villain (with an amazing bio, btw). I suggest Psi Princess.

She should just go by the name Yin and get a sidekick named Yang.

Doesn't it look like she's ready to pilot a giant mecha?

As if her relationship with Clockwork King wasn't squicky enough...

Hit the brakes. Full stop.


At no point in the leak so far do we actually see how Penny's psi powers manifest.

I propose, even if this means them putting the arc on hold to make it happen, that she creates a psionic energy construct in the shape of a Kronos-sized mecha that she 'pilots' from inside.

Do it. Do it now.



.

I thought he may be talking about her looking kinda like a Zentradei

The question is, do you feel the "underwear over tights" look is sexy or suggestive when worn by gold and silver age heroes? (Considering that those books were mostly aimed at young boys, the idea that Superman or Batman were intentionally designed to be sexually suggestive to readers has some pretty serious implications).

And if not, then why do you feel Penny's costume is overly suggestive for sporting the same look?

I have serveral characters who are designed to have a silver age hero look and therefore have the "underwear over tights" thing going for them. It's classic, it's campy, it's even a little silly, but I never thought of it as sexy, on males or females.

I do agree with those who don't want Penny to be too sexy--I don't want to see it either. I don't have a problem wrapping my head around the concept of an older, more mature Penny--just because I've seen her in Faultline as a teen doesn't mean I can't picture her as an adult. I just don't think every female adult superhero has to be obliged to show a lot of skin--it works for some, not for others. And Penny strikes me as someone who would dress modestly at any age. Personally though, I don't think the new costume is too unmodest--the exposed belly is not really necessary, but not a big deal either. I think it's fine (although Zombie's alterations, especially #2, are visually a big improvement--the white of the upper leg looks out of place in the original. Personally I would like to see a combo of #2 & #3, with a black upper leg and a red belly region together).

But what have to wonder about after reading all the uproar over Penny's "sexiness" is: what do people think about Fusionette? Although no ages are given for either of these characters, it's always been my impression that Fusionette is about the same age as Penny or possibly a couple of years older at the most. She certainly acts as girlish as Penny, if not more so. Yet she has always had a costume which shows a fair amount of skin--certainly more revealing than Penny's new costume. Do people have a problem with that too? If so, I've never heard anyone mention it.

Firstly, let's dispense with "underwear on the outside" when talking about Superman-style of uniforms. That's a modern-day schtick. His uniform was created in the 1930's when nobody at all would have thought of it was "underwear on the outside" and any WOMAN wearing something that looked like underwear would have been viewed as a vixen, at best.

Superman and the heroes who copied him are based on a circus strongman's outfit. The shorts (not underwear) are a caricature of the clothes worn by body-builders even today and the tights was just an excuse to make him look muscular while still having him be less-than-naked.

A golden-age heroine's costume would never look like "underwear on the outside". It would have been inspired by a one-piece swimsuit or an evening gown and more likely to have a skirt than to have any piece that was obviously meant to look like panties.

Penny's outfit looks just fine when drawn that way, as some of the photoshopped examples in this thread show.

Is she risque? No, not really. Is she gratuitous? Yes, most definitely. The question is, "Why?". What's the point of drawing that attention, to the point that they even paint her panties on her trousers?

I say "they" because Penny is a fictional character and ultimately some designer at Paragon Studios is the one who made this decision.

She wears a uniform made of some shiny, apparently rubber-like material that one assumes is intended to be protection of some sort. Why then have an exposed, unprotected midriff? That seems downright silly. I assume the weird belt holds up her pants in much the way a garter belt holds up stockings. Seems like a clumsy arrangement,really.

However, teen Penny also wears a short jacket. Maybe she just likes the feel of air on her belly. *shrug*

"Underwear on the outside" serves a purpose, however antiquated, on the Superman-inspired styles and it was never intended sexually, nor would it have been perceived that way by the people who were initially exposed to it. The circus strong man style would have been well-known and recognized for what it was.

I don't think you can find any examples of a woman wearing a lingerie-style of clothing that doesn't involve at least a deliberate display of her assets, when it doesn't involve outright intent to pander to male sexual desire. If you can name any, I'll be interested to hear of them.

A character like Swan has her place in the pantheon. She's a Victoria's Secret hero. That's fine and dandy because she doesn't make any bones about it. In fact, there's a certain intimidation factor from dressing like that - a criminal who is accosted by a hero in nothing but lingerie has to ask himself what defenses this hero has that he's not seeing.

Penny's outfit is basically pandering. She's wearing a protective uniform that covers her up and that could have had thousands of different patterns imposed onto it that would have been cool and unique. Instead, the pattern that was chosen was to literally paint her underwear onto her uniform since we couldn't see it under the uniform.

If anything, the one thing that actually offends me about the design is not the sexuality of it. It's the idea in some graphic designer's head that the only way that I, the player, can recognize this character as female and appreciate her as female is to spell it out and clobber me over the head with it, as if I'm too stupid or loutish to appreciate anything other than lingerie on a woman.

I'll bet you there's a rule 34 on that.