Sews however a spider can

Ah, I remember the halcyon days of the early 80's when Marvel UK reprinted the Secret Wars maxi-series. The premise of the series was wholly ludicrous and thoroughly juvenile, essentially being nothing more than an excuse to gather a large number of super heroes and their opposing villains together in a single place to fight it out. It was pretty much comic book nirvana to my young self and I'll admit I look still look back on it fondly, the heavy mists of nostalgia lending my memories a rosy tint.

Of course, I'm not the only one who remembers the series. It garnered a considerable amount of publicity at the time - I even recall seeing the issue featured on television at the time, as rare an event back then as it is now. The primary reason for the hype, and quite possible the series, was that it was used to premiere a new costume for Spider-man, a rather natty black and white affair that I remain quite partial to:

Although, the classic red and blue costume eventually resurfaced, the black and white variant remained in play for several years, and at one point was used to differentiate between the two different Spider-man titles that ran at the time. Of course, the black and white costume later turned out to be an alien symbiote intent on permanently bonding with Spider-man, only to be spurned at which point it joined with another host to become one of Spider-man's greatest villains. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

But despite the hype around that costume, new wardrobes for Spider-man aren't all that unusual, and Marvel have recently celebrated that fact by featuring a dozen different Spider-man costumes on the covers of recent issues of the comics (player along at home kids - how many can you think of?). Admittedly, some of these only made a single appearance, others were only slightly longer lived, and some were worn by alternate Spider-men. Most amusing of all was the last cover which was was chosen by an internet poll. The winner of the poll? Peter Porker: The Spectacular Spider-ham in all his porcine glory. I believe that sums up the validity internet polls in a nutshell.

Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum, and these recent covers weren't without a purpose. They're leading up to the launch of another new costume. It looks something like this:

My reaction. A hearty "meh". It reeks of design by committee to me, or worse - design by marketing and focus testing. Fortunately these things rarely last too long. After all, hands up who remember the electric blue Superman costume? Thought so...