Punisher Gift Zone: Leggings

Frank Castle here. You may know me as “The Punisher” from the time I used to wage war on crime, drug fiends, and the underclass. Since my Netflix show was cancelled, I haven’t had much to do and so, Comicon.com asked me to write a series of columns recommending nifty holiday gift ideas.

There was a time when only Shakespearean actors and court jesters wore leotards but now they’re available to everyone. Women especially seem to find them versatile for all kinds of functions: grocery shopping, christenings, high school graduations, bat mitzvahs, and sometimes… yoga. Leggings that are flexible and durable are advantageous when doing nighttime reconnaissance, such as pole vaulting over electrified fences or silently garrotting all the bodyguards at a perimeter to make a dramatic statement. Running through brambles and mud as assailants pursue you is also an occupational hazard. The last thing you want is for your leggings to become torn or muddy or clogged with burrs. Hours monitoring the washing machine, when you should instead be intercepting low level drug dealing communications, is no fun.

All this being said, I prefer the Surge Cold Terrain 28″ running pants from Lululemon (Lululemon makes leggings for men too!) with the muted camo design. Retailing for $138 CAD, these tights will give you unrestricted movement, a form fitting tight fit, and are made out of brushed, Luxtreme fabric. For the secret operative in your family, this comes in a variety of colours including of course, basic black. Microchip and I were working on designing a version of these with kevlar weave to slow down the impact of slugs but they were stiffer to run in, then Chip died.

For the civilians in your family, you might want to buy something lighter, easier, more festive, and let’s face it… more affordable. Just Cozy has a number of tights in different designs available to women. Right now, all of their offerings are on sale for $15 CAD and I recommend these to get into the holiday spirit:

I could see that fool Daredevil wearing the last one, in red with the snowflakes, while patrolling the rooftops during the Holidays as he’s always so Christian and upbeat. Talking of hero costumes, there’s been long standing debate over whether to wear one’s underwear over their leggings or under them. In the old days, we all wore our underwear over our leggings, me included. It was a way of saying ‘Here’s my pelvic girdle – deal with it!’ There was a practical purpose to mine: it separated the torso from the legs and broke up the same-ness of my whole design and once again, reinforced by kevlar, my skivvies protected some of my more – ahem – irreplaceable ammo. Today’s generation: it seems like all they wear is underwear and nothing else. Not even underwear, lingerie and nothing else. But who am I to judge?

For people who want to go old school, may I recommend the Blast Boxers? Heavily reinforced underwear that gives armour-like protection to your crotch, these unmentionables will protect you from perineal and femoral artery injuries… and other places besides. Using Aramid fabric and double-layer zones of Kevlar, this bad boy is also fire retardant. What else could anyone wish for beneath the chimney?