Ranking The Wonder Man Fits From Best To Worst

Though he’s only had one short-lived solo series to his name, Wonder Man is a character who dates back to Marvel’s Silver Age and the earliest days of the Avengers. As a result, he’s had a number of notable looks through his many decades of existence, some stronger and more iconic than others.

With Wonder Man the latest Avenger to take Disney+ by storm with his own streaming series, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley, let’s take a stroll through Wonder Man’s closest and rank his most notable fits.

9. Post-Resurrection

With all due respect to the legendary George Perez, this is not one of his finest costume designs. The red/green/yellow color scheme is one color too many, which, when combined with all the lines, create a very busy and exhausting look (it’s also the kind of look only Perez could draw, cuz no other artists would want to take the time to get it all right). This is also the only design which features both a skullcap – which, in Perez’s defense, is a nod to the character’s first and only design prior to this – and sleeves, making it the most-covered look for a character whose whole power set is being really, really strong.

8. Original Red and Green W

Wonder Man’s first look, designed by Jack Kirby but first drawn in-story by Don Heck, has a couple of the problems that will carry over to the later, post-resurrection look, namely the skullcap and excessive lines (I have no idea what the little squiggles around his middle are meant to be). But this one at least sticks to two colors instead of three, and gives him bare arms.

7. Force Works

This short-lived look which debuted in the final issue of Wonder Man’s solo series and then carried over to his brief appearance in Force Works, the 90s-fied relaunch of Avengers West Coast, isn’t a bad look, per se. It’s basically just synthesizing Wonder Man’s two most well-established designs at that point – blue body suit with red hightlights and black bodysuit with red highlights, and 90s-ing it up by making it busier, adding pouches, more visual accents, and fingerless gloves.

6. Modern Black and Red W

Technically multiple different looks depending on where the red stripes fall, pretty much all of Wonder Man’s 21st century appearances after he regained a physical form (after existing as a being of pure ionic energy after returning from his second apparent death) are riffs on the same basic idea: a black bodystocking with bare arms and a red W across the chest. These are all basically riffs on an earlier look, but lack one key ingredient: the jet pack(s). One of the cool things about Wonder Man up until the 90s was that, for all his strength, he couldn’t fly under his own power, and relied on a belt (usually) with jet packs on it to fly, which is just such a fun comic book thing it’s a shame he eventually evolved to just being able to fly “normally,”

5. Red and Green Abomination

Here’s my big hot take for this list: this atypical look, sandwiched between two iconic fits from his West Coast Avengers days, is bad…but it’s almost, paradoxically, great for how bad it is? It’s so over-the-top 1950s spaceman, with the wingtip gloves and boots and cannister jetpack (moved from the belt to the traditional back for this look), that I kind of love it for the retro pastiche alone (this is a character named “Wonder Man” after all), Take away the distracting yellow diamond at the intersection of the red W and M, and I’d make a case for it as a top 3 look unironically.

4. Ionic Form

After seemingly dying a second time, Wonder Man was inadvertently resurrected by Scarlet Witch when she subconsciously reassembled the ionic energy that made up his body. As a result, he existed as a being of pure energy for a time (before eventually being able to resume a solid, human-looking form). Also designed by George Perez during his second stint on the Avengers, it is pleasantly simplistic with its sparkly blue body and trailing red W of crackling energy, the polar opposite of Perez’s earlier extremely busy design.

3. Black and Red

After going west and joining the inaugural roster of the Avengers’ West Coast branch, Wonder Man adopted a look that, with minor variations, would become the template for his looks going forward, with everything coming after it either a riff on the general idea of a solid color bodystocking with bare arms and red W across the chest, or an attempt to be a radical departure from it (as in the 1950s space man costume). Regardless of the bodystocking color, it’s both balanced and iconic enough to stand the test of time.

2. Safari Jacket

The best fit of the first phase of Wonder Man’s superhero career (before going west), the safari jacket comes right up the line of being dated without quite crossing it. It carries over the red element from his (chronologically) first two looks while introducing blue to his color scheme. The biggest drawback is that, gold belt rockets aside, this just looks like something any normal person could wear; there’s not much superhero about it. But it’s nevertheless an iconic look, and there’s a reason that, in later stories, you’ll sometimes see the red jacket simply get added on top of Wonder Man’s basic look.

1. Black and Red Tank

A well-balanced synthesis of the best elements from other looks, Wonder Man would wear this after giving up the 1950s space man look until his early 90s redesign. The jet-belt is better accentuated, while the tank-like top, with a deeper neckline, gives it more of a wrestling/strong man vibe that suits the character. I also prefer “glowing red eyes, no goggles” over “red goggles” (to say nothing of the green goggles worn with the first version of this look). There’s a reason every Wonder Man look since this one is essentially just tweaking the basic visual premise laid out here.