Costumes and Insignia

Its funny how comic book characters are usually designed with something specific refering to their name built into their costume. Superman has a big S on his chest, Batman has a bat on his chest. If I remember right Wonder Woman has a double W arching across the top of her "armor". From what I can tell, Marvel is just as bad as DC in the designs. Spiderman has a spider on his chest and the X-Men wear Xs. Even Galactus had a big G on his chest at one point, but I digress.

As much of a fan of iconic symbolism for heros, aside from marketablity, I can't help but wish more characters were designed as a reaction to function. Batman has his utility belt, and wears black. I like batman, but he is human and needs these things to be able to do his things. He can stand on his own in a fight, but he can't survive the fall off a skyscraper very easily.

Superman can wear whatever he wants, it doesn't matter so much as he can do nearly anything. However, to hide among the rest of the world he needs a "normal" costume - a suit and glasses. A disguise for his normal life.

Green Lantern is a different story considering that they try to keep a secret identity, but not very well. From what I can tell John Stewert does it best, but that's not the point. The outfits they wear are basically police uniforms of their own design. Basically, green and black with a lanternish figure as a member of the corps.

Now I arrive at the point I was trying to get to. Ion, mask aside, could have gone with a radical new look considering his potential power. Instead he chose to stick with basically the same look, except for one thing - he knocked off the top part of the glowing lantern on his chest.

It seems even Kyle Rayner with his newfound abilities can't escape conventional costume design. Clever, since this creates a lowercase i which clearly strands for Ion.