Review of an Old Saying, By Johnathan

The saying in question is "Adding insult to injury", which actually is almost always used as part of a larger statement, so maybe this should be entitled 'Review of an Old Sentence Fragment'. Nah, it just doesn't have the same zazz that way.

In any case:

So I know that I've touched on the subject of Saturn Girl's horrible/ridiculous costume change, right? Quick recap - she went from this:

Which is if nothing else a respectable costume that certainly doesn't look at all skanky, to this:

Which is, uh... terribly terrible and oh-so-very Designed By A Dude. But fine, okay, I can deal. I can conjure up the suspension of disbelief necessary to reimagine a highly-trained telepathic futurewoman as the sort of person who would willingly wear a bating suit while fighting sentient planetoids and guys with robotic fish-men and goo-based space tyrants. Heck, every once in a while someone will do an okay job of drawing it -

- and I'll almost think that it looks good (Note however that whoever drew this - James Sherman and Jack Abel - managed to make even Cosmic Boy's horrid costume look good).
Sadly, this doesn't happen all that often. Usually her costume just makes me sad. Sometimes it makes me so sad that I have to write about it on the internet. This is one of those times.

Specifically, I'm sad about two trends that I've noticed regarding Saturn Girl's Atrocious Pink Costume. See if you can spot the first one in this picture:

If you guessed "Is it that Saturn Girl has no neck, you giant nerd?" you were correct! Hurtful, but correct. Yes, it seems that this costume brings out a profound neck-hatred in artists, causing them to portray her as having a head that is mounted directly on her shoulders. It's really creepy and definitely ruins the 'really really sexy' look that they were going for. (Note that Lightning Lad doesn't have one either but that he's obscenely musclebound in this issue so it doesn't look as bad). Honestly, I can't look at this picture for very long without getting uneasy and yet I keep looking at it. I fear the power that it holds over me.

The second trend isn't as eerie but it's there nonetheless. No guessing this time: it's a tendency to render her as if she were an R. Crumb character:



Seriously now. I can almost force myself to believe that she'd wear hot pants, but I know that she'd have gotten the right size hot pants.

The costume (again), the no-neck and the short-shorts are all:

NOT APPROVED.

This is totally the third post about this costume, isn't it? I promise not to do this any more. Really.