Molly’s Top 10 Dream Comic Book Cosplays

I never really avoid the internet. In fact, I’m probably more comfortable in front of a computer than I am anywhere else in the world. If I could crawl into the internet and live in it, it’s highly likely I would not hesitate to do such a thing.

So the fact that the last week I have had a slight aversion to my home at home (and at coffee shops and hotel rooms etc) is some sort of strange anomyly, enough to send my roommate’s into interrogation mode. But once the answer to my avoidance came out into the open it was understood by all parties – I’m really jealous I’m not at Dragon Con!

Dragon Con is a huge convention in Atlanta that I have somehow missed every year, despite my insane convention going schedules. I’ve desperately wanted to attend for a very long time, and since I am taking a bit of a breather from conventions due to health and funds seeing it plastered all over my Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook feeds really disheartened me.

One of the main appeals of Dragon Con – and most conventions, for that matter – to me is that it is one one of the biggest conventions for cosplay in North America. If you’ve been living under a rock, cosplay is short for costume play and it’s the practice of dressing up as fictional characters – generally from anime, comic books, and video games – and strutting your stuff. Some people take it more seriously than others, and I certainly fall into that category. I am the sort of person who won’t cosplay characters if I’m taller than them, refuses to leave to a convention unless every stitch is in place, and will happily not buy groceries for a month if it means having a perfectly character accurate costume.

There is something so exciting about emodying a character that I idolized as a child to perfection, bringing to life ink or animation. I not only wear the costume, I become that character – I walk, talk, and breathe them. For example, at San Diego Comic-Con this year I was Knockout from DC’s the Female Furies. She is a feisty badass Amazon who likes to punch things and kiss Superboy to throw him off guard. Unfortunately I didn’t find any Superboys to kiss, but my posture changed and I got to pretend to be a completely kickass lady for the entire day (even though the thong on my costume slightly put a damper on things).

I have a dream list of characters I’d love to become for a day, and a recent conversation with my roommates (who are cosplayers too) made me start thinking that it’s possible everyone has a “dream” list, even if they haven’t cosplayed a day in their life. Mine are mostly time and money constraints, things that will happen eventually. Some are because I don’t feel physically fit enough to do the characters justice. But all ten of the characters below are my dream comic book cosplays… hopefully I’ll put a checkmark by each of them before I get old and saggy!

 


Delirium

Even though Delirium is mostly a “closet cosplay” (meaning I could get most of the pieces for a willy nilly mish mash outfit from my own closet), one of the main things that has kept me from cosplaying her is the wig. Her hair is always so bizarre in the comics, and mastering a wig to that level would be pretty challenging.

Eventually I will cosplay her, floating goldfish at all, but until then I’m just fine not having my toes stick out through holes in my fishnets.

 


Loki

Cosplaying this female version of the villain and alchemy expert will be a challenge indeed, one I plan on tackling once I have unlimited resources and funds… and when I figure out how to make the helmet without my neck breaking. Unfortunately I don’t have the ridiculous strength of a comic book character, so toting around  a helmet with two giant horns may cost me quite a bit in chiropractor bills.

Not to mention that links for chain mail and some sort of fur shrug – albeit even a faux one – are going to run me pretty steep. But mark my words – I WILL cosplay Loki, I WILL be a bitter and slighted person while doing so, and I WILL continue to look fabulous in green.

 


Ghost Fox Killer

Speaking of green… I seem to have an affinity for the colour, as most of my cosplays have been pretty green centric in some way. It has been completely unintentional until this point, but now I’m beginning to embrace my emerald obsession! Ghost Fox Killer has an all green outfit, which I find incredibly appealing. It’s also flowy. And she kills men to gain her powers. Crazy feminist character who can control the ghosts of dead men, anyone?

 



Dagger

In my opinion Cloak and Dagger is one of the most underrated Marvel comics series of all time, and I will talk off anyone’s ear who will listen about how badly I’d like a modernized reboot of them. When they appeared in “Runaways” I had a little bit of an excited meltdown, throwing down the comic and doing a little dance.

Though I tend to cosplay more modest characters due to a skewed body image, I love these characters so much I will lose weight to look good in white for this one. Now I just need to find a large man to be my Cloak and suck away all of my light…

 


Aphrodite IX

Again with the green! This time it’s the hair, and the idea of hunting down a nice quality green wig is thrilling (I tend to live on Chinese wholesale wig websites, I think I may have an addiction). Aphrodite IX is another one of those really empowered completely awesome female characters, an android bounty hunter who kicks ass and takes names. Seeing a trend here?

 


Magik/Rasputin

As much as I’d love to cosplay her giant hooves coming from hell form as Darkchilde, I think even that is beyond even my skill level. I’m not quite sure how to add another joint to my knees – one that makes them bend the opposite direction. Besides, one can’t go wrong with the yellow and black uniform – it’s a simple homage to my favourite comic book series of all time, and I’ll probably bust this one out in the very, very near future. Perhaps for New York Comic-con?

 


Diamondback (from Bad Girls INC)

The only thing I love more than green hair is pink hair. Which isn’t my PRIMARY reason for wanting to cosplay Diamondback but it definitely has a big contributing factor. And she got to do naughty things with Steve Rogers… and despite my aloof hipster attitude I just can’t deny my love for Aryan all American military types, mmm.

But I digress. I’ve already talked one of my roommates into being one of these questionably motivated ladies with me, now we just need to find a third addition for our team of approximately the same weight and height (as I said, I’m a stickler for accuracy). I hope to debut this one at San Diego Comic-Con 2012!

 


Blink

Aaaand here comes the green again, this time with an added purple skin bonus! YEAH!

To be honest I mostly want to cosplay Blink because I like her costume and I really enjoy the challenge of weird things – like making all of my skin the same shade of purple and not rubbing off the makeup at a hot and sweaty convention – but it also seems amusing to cosplay an unstable and flighty character such as this, as I generally tend to gravitate towards self assured kickass ladies.

 


Modesty Blaise

The real question is: how could I NOT want to cosplay this British comic book icon? She’s basically a female James Bond, and I basically love her.

 


Polaris

Do you know why my ifanboy icon is Polaris? Have you ever read any of my previous articles where I gush over this green haired daughter of Magneto? Do you UNDERSTAND my obsession?

Lorna Dane and I have a thing going on. And by a “thing” I mean I must absolutely represent every costume she has ever worn in every issue of X-men ever. EVER. Especially the purple one pictured above. Just you wait – I will become one of the only people to cosplay this lady, and I will do it ALL. It’s going to happen.

 

So there are MY top ten picks for my dream comic book cosplay – even if you’re not a cosplayer, what are yours? Let us know in the comments!

 


Follow Molly McIsaac’s cosplay progress and other misadventures on her twitter!

Comments

  1. I would love to be Destiny, he is so mysterious..
    Though it would be a tad tiring to walk around on a con with the big and heavy Book of Destiny…

    @Molly
    Why is Death not in your top 10? have you already cosplayed her?

  2. Diamondback? BOOM!

    also,

    what book is Ghost Fox Killer from?

  3. Dagger would be a great costume. You could even go with a painted-on costume judging by that picture.

  4. With several of those characters mainly Daggeryou have to ask yourself do I have the breasts to play this characters?

  5. As an extremely large fellow, I’ve often been envious of other nerds who get to dress up and be silly at conventions. What I really need is a totally awesome fat guy to dress up as. Suggestions, iFanbase?

  6. @ Casey E-Honda from Streetfighter, Bowser from Mario Brothers, Fat Albert, #21 from Venture Brothers

  7. wow, great list. powerful women. wish there was more

  8. I’ve seen most of those costumes at DragonCon in the past. You should really go next year!

  9. @Walter, I don’t have very big boobs at all but I don’t let that hold me back. I have become a master at stuffing. I gave myself three cup sizes for Knockout during San Diego Comic-con. Good cosplayers know how to alter their appearances that way =D

  10. Molly,
    Speakin of Loki. I was at OTAKON 2011 and I ran into her. I took a picture of her but I can’t download it on this comment.
    🙁 How could I share this picture?

  11. Molly, have you checked out Cloak and Dagger Spider Island? It is written by Nick Spencer, highly recommend it!