Susan Richards

the Invisible Woman

Fashion Victim

Do we remember this little number? Introduced in Fantastic Four #371 (which bore one of the worst enhanced covers in the history of comicdom), this costume, or lack thereof, seemed to be inspired by the X-Look of Psylocke and other scantily clad mutants. As it turns out, Sue was possessed by the psychic entity Malice, but it was a low key sort of possession that made Sue aggressive and pushy. Immediately after the new personality took effect, Sue adopted this costume and started bossing people around. She started doing things like making all of the tenants of 4 Freedoms Plaza appear naked with her powers and forming big spikey force fields instead of smooth ones. Around Fantastic Four #388, she and Franklin destroyed Malice, leaving Sue to adopt a much more sensible uniform.

Many people complained that this was no way for a responsible mother to dress and that Sue, having born nearly two children (her second died in childbirth), shouldn't be showing off so much flesh. Still, we know that Sue is significantly younger than Reed. John Byrne stated that Sue was twenty-eight years old during his tenure on the Fantastic Four, which makes perfect sense if you follow the Marvel timeline of events. This would place her current maximum age around thirty. As that's only a few years older than myself, I am perfectly willing to believe that a woman of Sue's age could wear such an outlandish outfit, but the problem lies in the fact that it's just not Sue's personality. This is the sort of thing that made people cringe throughout Tom DeFalco's run on the book.

Art by Paul Ryan