Harley Quinn and Costumes

I want to talk about Harley Quinn's changes with her character and costume over the years and super hero costumes in general. When I was younger I liked the original Harley Quinn from BTAS she was funny and tragic at the same time. Later on I grew a bit bored of her costume and wanted to see new ones. They changed it up a bit in The Batman cartoon with a bigger headdress. Personally I liked the experimentation with her costume. Hell I liked some redesigns on Deviantart that played with the jester theme, some gave her a hoodie and some gave her this Pippy Longstocking look. I loved the experimental new designs. Then Harley's outfit began to change for the worst. It started in Batman Arkham Asylum. To be fair I liked her design in that game. The nurse design felt appropriate for a mental asylum that and I liked the little cleavage she had. Then cam Arkham City where she has this biker chick look. I was a bit puzzled but they explained it ingame that it matches her personality because she got more aggressive as the Joker's health got worse. Then we have modern Harley costume which is this Tank Girl wannabe. Not only did her costume change but so did her character. She went from a funny but tragic character dealing with abuse to some quirky female deadpool which acts as a self insert for teenage girls. It saddens me to see this. I wanted experimentation with her design but now i want the old Harley back.

Anyway now onto super hero designs in general. In recent years I've noticed two trends. In DC they make all the characters armored, while in Marvel they try to make every costume look like street clothes or something. For DC armored look especially when the new 52 started I hated it. For certain characters like Batman I can get but for Superman it looks awful. It feels overcomplicated and ruins the greatest strength of supermans design, its simplicity. For the street clothes look I think it can work for street level heroes like Static Shock or something but for characters like Spider Woman (Jessica Drew) it just looks lazy. Some try to justify it by saying its more practical but they aren't. Street clothes can't defend you from energy attacks it makes no sense. I don't have a problem with these types of designs as long as they make sense for the character they are using it on but I hate seeing this trend continue because of how ugly and stupid it looks. What are your thoughts guys?

Here's some more pics I couldn't post because it was too much for this website.

and some more

and some more pics

and here's tara strong dressed as harley.

i dunno maybe trying to appear or cater to mainstream audiences and shit
big hulky motherfuckers to be edgy and shit
my opinion
the new batman and his power armor was a bit mmhmmm to me

I've always preferred Harley's original costume and variations of it - she actually looks a damn harlequin with it.

As for costumes in general, you have to recognize that the general style of superhero costumes is molded by the eras they were born in and how that inspired them. Originally, cape heroes had their costumes inspired by circus performers (acrobats, strongmen) for being so spectacular and larger than life, which is exactly the type of tone the creators wanted for their capes. Nowadays people look for more identifiable heroes so they look to make them more "believable" and "grounded", so they dress them accordingly as everyday people or in realistic body armor.

also


Modern capes consist of a bunch of guys in an office uncomfortable with the fact they're writing people in tights.

Are these really mutually exclusive? The publishers/creators are embarrassed because the perceptions of the mainstream audiences that publishers want to reach are that spandex and tights are too silly while "practical" and
realistic" heroes are more appealing.

I fucking hate the MCU Cap costume, it's trying too goddamn hard to be "realistic" and "piratical" that it just makes him look like a COD douche cosplaying as Cap instead of the real Cap.

I hate when people say a costume is practical or not, ITS A FREAKIN COMIC!!!!

also, check the double dubs

The one you posted is from Winter Soldier. In civil war one is a little better since it have more white and red.

This thread has no point. Everyone and their mom agrees that Harley's original costume is the best one and that the others are shit.
Go back to 4ch.

vest alt Harley comin thru

OP here. I'm not from 4chan and the reason why I had to post one image at a time is that when I was loading the files on her I got a message saying some of them were too big and it couldn't resize the images (that and I didn't know which ones were too big) so I just got new ones and posted them here piecemeal.

Nice now thats the experimentation that I like. It keeps the core of her harlequin design but adds its own flare to it like the mask.

why are harlequins so sexy?

Because you know there's no chance of Dobson spying on you

She's progressively less and less dressed like a clown and more like any other skank. What a waste.

Ironically enough Poison Ivy has become progressively covered up in the New 52 despite her being sexy and half naked before the New 52.

it's not the samd, just…not the same

Man, she's really milking those implants for all their worth. pun intended

I remember the first time i saw Nurse Harley i absolutley hated it,not because it showed skin (unlike most of the SJWs who hate it too) but because it was trying WAAAY to hard to be sexy and edgy at the same time but the composition,colors and overall look was just awful

,after that it kinda became a competition on who can make harley look more like an edgy goth-punk homeless whore instead of a clown/jester

I don't like the new trashy Harley look. I prefer her way more when she's sticking to the clown theme.

I don't like it when they take Joker out of his iconic suits either.

Why do they have to keep using blue? It just doesn't look good. Costumes tend to look much better if you stick to 3 colors.

As far as non-jester costumes go, the best one was probably Gods and Monsters version. At least it makes Harley look like an unhinged maniac that would run around in underwear, instead of a thuggish skank with some face paint.

I'm kinda glad DC dropped the "armored" look that they were going for when The New 52 started, though I just wish they put a little more effort in making the rebirth designs stand out a little more.

I'd creampie her, no brony.

yeah the only Rebirth design Im liking is Deathstroke.

don't blame you the first time I saw what she really looked like I was 11. She was so hot and I was weirded out because I got to see what a voice actor looked like. I don't know it was a new experience for me but yeah she's great.

Not a fan of the blue either. Can't understand why they started doing that with what appears to be the AA version of Harley and then most versions after that. (While also showing more skin)

I know there's been the complaints that say that HQ is starting become a female version of Deadpool, so the blue was added to make her have a different colour scheme compared to him. But no one was mixing them up in the first place nor were they even alike in terms of role or powers.

I think the female deadpool complaint was more due to her personality shift rather than costume design. Though I agree with you they should've stuck with the black and red, and make her actually look like a fucking clown for once.

Barely related, but I'm so fucking mad at the normal fags who boil down Harley and Joker's relationship to some standard "abusive boyfriend" relationship.

Considering most of those normalfags don't know shit about Harley outside of watching one or two episodes of BTAS, it's understandable they'd think that. Doesn't make it any less infuriating, though.

If you wanna call that "evolution"…
Seriously, the first one is perfect. Why mess with perfection?

Worked for TAS, but everything else?

True,as much as i like it,i dont think i would work in other media,the change was necesary i just wish it was for worst

"wasn't" ..fuck!

It's not like it's that hard to find ways to make it work. Especially the ones that change her color scheme and fucking forget she's supposed to look like a harlequinn.
The most irritating part is that you can find good fan-redesigns very easily.

when i was talking about good redesigns these are the ones I was talking about.

Well what about cosplays? There are women who cosplay as OG Harley Quinn. Would that work for a film.