We have already examined both Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad’s costume design histories. Now, it is time for us to tackle the third and final founder of the Legion of Super-Heroes: Saturn Girl! Imra’s costume design has been fairly consistent over the decades. However, Saturn Girl has been saddled with some brutal looks at a couple of points in her history. Let’s dig into the storied design history of Saturn Girl!
Saturn Girl in The 1950s
Saturn Girl’s original costume debuted in Adventure Comics #247 in 1958. Like her fellow Legionnaires in Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl’s original look was a rather poor design. We have Saturn Girl’s codename written across the top of her shirt. You gotta make sure readers do not forget the names of these new characters! The top is mostly yellow with black as a secondary color. The top also sports a black high collar. The costume has a green skirt with a black belt and a yellow buckle. Imra also sported green gloves to match her skirt. The color combination of yellow, black, and green is discordant and unpleasant.
The best aspect of this original costume is the wonderful Saturn Girl logo in the center of the top. The planet is yellow and the ring around Saturn is yellow. The planet Saturn is the one constant design feature of every single Saturn Girl costume with the exception of one costume. I love Saturn Girl’s logo. It is a strong simple design that has become iconic.
Saturn Girl sports a soccer mom hairstyle. This is a reoccurring theme. Saturn Girl has often been portrayed as the “mom” in the Legion of Super-Heroes. Imra often has an older look than her fellow Legionnaires and gives off strong soccer mom vibes at various points in her history. We will follow this trend for Saturn Girl’s character.
Final Grade: 2 Nights Girl out of 10. This original costume has a bad color scheme and the codename written on Saturn Girl’s shirt is awful. This was not the best start for Saturn Girl.
Saturn Girl in The 1960s
Saturn Girl received a new costume in Action Comics #267 in 1960. This second costume design introduced the classic color scheme for Saturn Girl: red and white. There are a few times where Saturn Girl’s deviated from this color scheme, but there is no doubt that red and white is the iconic color scheme for Imra. This is the color scheme that most artists turn to when creating a new costume design for Saturn Girl. Personally, I like the red and white color scheme the most and any outfit in red and white immediately screams Saturn Girl to me.
This costume has a red top with white across the inside of her shoulders and tapering to a point at her belt. This costume also has a white low collar. The top also has rather small black panels on the sides just above the belt. Saturn Girl has a black belt with a white belt buckle. Saturn Girl has a red skirt that drapes over her pants. This look of a short skirt over pants is a design that we will see repeated in further costume designs. This design of a short skirt over pants also contributed to Imra’s vibe of a conservative mom figure compared to the more youthful costume designs of other Legionnaires. The red pants have cool white stripes down the center. This design makes Saturn Girl’s pants remind me of Wonder Woman’s iconic boots. This costume is finished off with white flat boots that come to a point at the top of the boots.
Of course, we still have that iconic Saturn Girl logo in the top center of her shirt. This logo sports the planet of Saturn in white with a white and black ring. Saturn Girl sports longer and more youthful hair with this new costume design. This helps to make Imra look younger than she does in some later designs.
Final Grade: 7 Night Girls out of 10. This costume is still a bit too conservative for my taste and more fitting for a middle-aged mom than it is for a teenage superhero. Still, this costume does introduce the wonderful red and white color scheme. I love all the skinny white line tapering to the belt on the shirt that is repeated down the front of the pants. It is a cool design touch.
Saturn Girl received a slightly tweaked costume design in Adventure Comics #293 in 1962. We see that this third costume now has white cuffs at the end of the sleeves. We also see that the small black panels on the sides above the belt are gone. This was a good decision as it streamlines the design language of the costume. The other noticeable change is that the pants are now half white and half red. What is curious about the new pant design is that the artist did not decide to make the outer half of the pants one color and the inner half of the pants the second color. That is what you often see when the pants are half one color and half another color. This pant design just looks completely odd to me.
Final Grade: 5 Nights out of 10. The third costume’s changes to the pants just ruin the design of the costume. It gives Saturn Girl more of a circus clown look. This is a case of making several design tweaks to a solid costume design that really hurt the overall look.
Saturn Girl received a fourth costume design in Adventure Comics #200 in 1962. This was a modest redesign that brought a few small but vitally necessary changes. The fourth costume has a more formal high white collar. We see a subtle tweak to Saturn Girl’s logo. The planet of Saturn is now yellow instead of white. This was an excellent design change. This helps set off the logo with the contrast of the yellow planet against the white background. Another difference is that the pants are improved as the silly half-white/half-red color scheme is gone. Instead, Saturn Girl gets all red pants. The white boots remain the same.
Final Grade: 6 Night Girls out of 10. The fourth costume is an improvement over the third costume. However, Saturn Girl’s costume remains far too conservative and boring for what I look for in a superheroine costume.
Saturn Girl in The 1970s
Saturn Girl’s reputation as the older soccer mom of the Legion of Super-Heroes came to an end as Imra rolled out one of her best costumes of all time in Action Comics #392 in 1970. This design for Saturn Girls’ fifth costume is simply brilliant and quite bold. Now, I originally credited this costume design to the iconic Dave Cockrum. However, a reader pointed out to me that this costume was actually designed by a fan! The new Saturn Girl costume design was submitted by Kim Haven Metzger of Columbia City, Indiana. That is so cool! Thank you Kim Metzger for blessing us with the coolest Saturn Girl costume!
UPDATE: What is even cooler is that Kim Metzger himself reached out to us to comment on our love for his incredible costume design for Saturn Girl. Kim mentioned how Legion fans actually disliked this costume back when it debuted in the 1970s! That blows my mind as I started reading the Legion of Super-Heroes when I was six years old back in the late 1970s. I instantly loved the costume back when I was a little kid. Kim stated that he appreciated getting so much love for his costume design after having to put up with so much negativity at the beginning.
Kim was a big Legion fan and decided to design a new outfit for the Legionnaire whose costume he liked the least: Saturn Girl. Kim even wrote an article about that which is now in “The Best of the Legion Outpost,” an awesome trade paperback that every Legion fan should own and you can still find it on Amazon! For those who do not know, the Legion Outpost was the official newsletter of the Legion Fan Club. Yup. Life was different when you were a comic nerd before the rise of the internet.
On a side note, Kim went on to work at Comics Buyer’s Guide and was an assistant to Don and Maggie Thompson. For those of you who do not know, Comics Boyer Guide started publication in 1971 and ceased publication in 2013. I remember their Fan Awards which they conducted from 1983 to 2010. Random factoid, Peter David was a staff writer for that publication.
All right, looping back to Dave Cockrum, Cockrum took Metzger’s initial design and made his own changes to it, and delivered to us the glorious Saturn Girl costume that we all know and love. Cockrum loved this design so much that he took it with him when he joined Marvel Comics. Yup. Storm’s costume from the iconic Giant-Sized X-Men #1 in 1975? That was a Dave Cockrum design that was based on Metzger’s Saturn Girl costume.
Yup. Now that you know it is pretty obvious, right? Remove the little half-cape and Storm is simply wearing a black version of Saturn Girl’s costume.
Gone is the puritanical-inspired conservative look of Saturn Girl’s costume where the object was to cover as much skin as possible over layer after layer of clothing. It was the 1970s and Americans were actually becoming progressive about sex and showing off some skin! As a result, Saturn Girl’s fifth costume showed far more skin than the prior costumes.
Basically, the fifth costume is a one-piece bathing suit design with thigh-high flat boots and long gloves. The one-piece bathing suit design with the cut-outs on the side is a dramatic design. It accentuates Saturn Girl’s hourglass figure. It also just looks rad. I love the placement of the iconic Saturn Girl logo basically around her naval area on the bathing suit. This is a creative way to implement Saturn Girl’s logo into this costume.
This new design still retains the classic red and white color scheme. The bikini part of the costume is red and the thigh-high boots are red. The boots are topped with a white band that comes to a point in the middle of the thigh. The gloves are also white and stop short of Imra’s elbows. The Saturn Girl logo is now over Imra’s belly button and is orange with a black ring that tilts up to the right.
Final Grade: 9 Night Girls out of 10. Saturn Girl’s fifth costume is not just an incredible design, it remains one of the best costume designs for any Legionnaire. This new costume allowed Imra’s character to really break out into something other than the stodgy soccer mom that she had been up to this point. It gave Imra more flair and a bold unique look that helped make her even more special.
This design was tweaked with Superboy #184 in 1972. First, the classic color scheme of red and white is replaced with pink and white. While I strongly identify Saturn Girl with a red and white color combination, I actually loved this new color scheme of pink and white. Red is an incredibly common color to find in superhero costumes. On the other hand, pink is a cool color that you simply do not see that often in superhero costume designs. The choice of pink instead of red immediately made Saturn Girl’s sixth costume far more unique. The Saturn Girl logo is also changed back to white instead of yellow.
The long gloves are a nice touch since they are a unique design element. The thigh-high boots retain the white outline at the top and come to a point in the front just like the fifth costume. I like the subtle use of white as an accent color. Also, the pointed tops of the boots evoke the classic design elements of Saturn Girl’s boots from her prior costumes.
We also see that Imra’s hair is longer and more flowing than ever before. This is a nice change as it gives her a more youthful look and matches the more youthful design of her sixth costume.
Final Grade: 9 Night Girls out of 10. Saturn Girl’s sixth costume added a few excellent touches to the fifth costume. I love that the red is replaced with pink. Pink is an underused color and makes this costume design even more dramatic and eye-catching.
Saturn Girl received a seventh costume design in Superboy & the Legion of Super-Heroes #232 in 1977. This sixth costume offered some small tweaks to the lovely fifth costume. I already thought that there was no way to make the fifth costume design better, yet, the sixth costume design did the impossible! The only two differences are with the boots. The white accent lines at the top of the boots were removed. I liked the white accent lines in the fifth costume. But, upon seeing the white lines removed, I think the boots look even better. The more simple color scheme works. The boots are already striking enough since they are thigh-high and have a pointed top at the front. Upon further review, the white accent stripes were actually something that was too busy and unnecessary.
The boots also get high heels in the sixth costume design. I also like this addition. Flat boots are always a dull design that gives a costume a more boring and “realistic” look. High heels on the boots give the costume a more striking and dramatic look. And striking and dramatic is exactly what I look for in a superhero comic book. Don’t tell me that this design is not “realistic.” After all, we are talking about a comic book starring characters from planets across the universe who all possess outrageous powers. So, the costumes should match the naturally ridiculous nature of superhero comic books.
The other change to the costume is the gloves which are now even longer than before. The sixth costume has gloves that are more like formal evening gloves. The gloves also have a pointed top that matches the design of the tops of the thigh-high boots. This is another excellent design touch.
Final Grade: 10 Night Girls out of 10. Saturn’s Girl’s seventh costume is absolutely superhero perfection. This remains not just one of my favorite Legionnaire costumes of all time but one of my favorite superhero costume designs from either Marvel Comics or DC Comics of all time.
Saturn Girl in The 1980s
Saturn Girl received a slightly tweaked design with her eighth costume in Legion of Super-Heroes #273 in 1981. The navel area section of her bathing suit is not a bit wider. It used to be that this area was quite narrow and the Saturn Girl logo looked more like a buckle that held together the bathing suit. Now, the Saturn Girl logo looks more like a patch sewn onto the wider middle part of the bathing suit. We also see that the back strap for the bathing suit is now more of a narrow spaghetti strap. The only other change is that the thigh-high boots are no longer form-fitting at the top. Instead, the boots now flare out a bit off of Imra’s thighs.
Final Grade: 10 Night Girls out of 10. The small design tweaks that the eighth costume brings to Saturn Girl’s looks do not detract at all from the excellent costume design. Imra still rocks an outfit that is a perfect 10.
Saturn Girl received a ninth costume design in Legion of Super-Heroes #280 in 1981 which once again offers some incredibly modest design changes. We see that Imra’s evening gloves are now flat at the tops instead of pointed like her boots. I actually do not like this design tweak. We also see that her boots are now form-fitting once again.
Final Grade: 10 Night Girls out of 10. The minor tweaks mean little to nothing to the overall look of this costume design.
Saturn Girl’s tenth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes #294 in 1982 with a new costume design that strongly evoked Saturn Girl’s fourth costume in Adventure Comics #200 in 1962. Poor Imra went back several decades in terms of progress as she was given as conservative of a costume as possible. Back was a costume design that literally only left her head uncovered. The tenth costume is identical to the fourth one with a few exceptions. The biggest difference is the color scheme. The tenth costume introduced more of a magenta and white color scheme instead of the fourth costume’s red and white color scheme. the only other difference is that the sleeves of the top have white stripes running down the center of them.
Outside of that, this is the same costume as the fourth costume. We have the high white collar. The top has the same white pattern that tapers to a point above the belt buckle. The medium-length white gloves are the same. The placement of the Saturn Girl logo is the same. The yellow color of the planet in the logo is the same. We get the same skirt over pants look. The skirt and pants are both solid magenta with no white or striping. The belt is white. The boots are the same below-the-knee white flat boots with a point at the top as the fourth costume.
To make things worse, Saturn Girl was given the full Karen look as she got the ultimate soccer mom “helmet-hair” hairstyle. I guess this was done because Imra at this point was married to Garth and pregnant with a child. Well, twins as we later learned that she had two sons, and one was stolen by Darkseid and taken into the past and grew to be Validus from the Fatal Five. But, that is a story for a later date. The point is that now that Saturn Girl was married and going to become a mom she could not possibly have a cool and sexy costume.
Final Grade: 4 Night Girls out of 10. I gave the fourth costume a rating of 6 Night Girls out of 10. But, that was because it was introduced in the early 1960s so the overly conservative nature of the costume made more sense in the early 1960s. However, to roll out such an overly conservative outfit in the 1980s? Nope. Bad idea.
Things continue to get worse for poor Imra with her eleventh costume design that was rolled out in Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #2 in 1983. The design of the tenth costume was already way too outdated and conservative. But, at least the color scheme was well done. However, the eleventh costume even messed up the color scheme. There were several small changes that just make the tenth costume design even worse than the tenth costume. The Saturn Girl logo is now white instead of yellow. The ring around Saturn is black. This lack of contrasting colors makes the logo blend into the costume in a dull fashion. The gloves are now more angled at the ends. The worst decision is to make the skirt white overtop the magenta pants. It just looks awful. And poor Imra looks even more like a Karen with that ridiculous hairstyle for a character that was supposed to be no older than her early 20s.
Final Grade: 3 Night Girls out of 10. An outdated and boring costume got even uglier with this eleventh version. Luckily, this look did not stick around for too long.
Saturn Girl got a twelfth costume design in Legion of Super-Heroes #35 in 1987. The twelfth costume basically reverted Imra’s look back to her tenth costume with a few nice detailed upgrades. We get a much wider white panel in the middle of the top. We also get neat black lines running along the sides of the white panel. I dig the thing black lines which help give some nice detailing to what is still an outdated costume design. The white gloves get the same thin black lines at the edges of the gloves. The white flat boots also get thin black lines at the edges of the boot tops. These thin black lines on the white pieces of Saturn Girl’s costume help add some subtle detailing to the overall design and creates a coherent design language for this costume. Thankfully, the skirt over the pants is now magenta rather than white.
The Saturn Girl logo now has a yellow planet with a black ring around it. This is a nice change from the white planet in the logo on the tenth costume. The use of yellow helps to provide some contrast and helps set off the logo from the white background of the top of the costume.
We see that Saturn Girl is given longer hair which gives her a better look. However, the overall look of the costume and Imra herself continues to make her look like she is in her early 30s when she should have been no more than her early 20s at this point in Legion continuity.
Final Grade: 5 Night Girls out of 10. The twelfth costume is just a more classed-up version of the old third costume from the Silver Age. This costume was definitely an improvement over the tenth and eleventh costumes, but it still looks too conservative and dated.
Saturn Girl in The 1990s
Good god. Just when you think Saturn Girl’s look could not get any worse than her tenth costume, we get this complete abomination of a look during the TMK Legion. Of course, it is fitting that the worst Legion of all time, the TMK Legion, which was so bad it led to the unprecedented cancellation and full reboot of the Legion would produce the worst Saturn Girl costume of all time. This hideous thirteenth costume was rolled out in Legion of Super-Heroes #61 in 1989. We were about to enter the 1990s and something terrible was beginning to happen with superhero costumes. Costume designs were beginning to include unnecessary pockets and pouches. Characters were given jackets to wear on top of their superhero costumes. Look, I loved the 1990s. There was so much great about that decade. But, it was a dark time in costume design.
Poor Saturn Girl’s thirteenth costume was an unsightly mix of classic silver age vibe with some ugly early 1990s look. The color scheme remains magenta and white. The top has a white vest section with little shoulder lapels. Those tiny shoulder lapels exist to anchor the half-cape that is attached to the thirteenth costume. The half-cape is a vintage 1960s design element that was popular among many female Legionnaires during the Silver Age.
Saturn Girl’s logo has been moved from its traditional place in the middle of her chest to the left side of her top. The Saturn Girl logo is now enclosed by a black square. The rest of the top is magenta and is incredibly billowy. This gives Saturn Girl an unintentional pirate look. The top is finished off with medium-length white gloves.
The twelfth costume somehow managed to get even worse as we move to the bottom half of the outfit. The costume has a black belt. The “pants” appear to be the bottoms of footy pajamas. It is truly a horrendous look. Of course, the footy pajama bottoms come with pointless white pockets on the sides. Because the 1990s were coming. To top it all off, Imra was somehow given a hairstyle even worse than some of her Karen the soccer mom hairstyles of the past. Unfortunately, Saturn Girl got saddled with a hairstyle that was identical to what both of my boys had when they were pre-teens.
Final Grade: 1 Night Girl out of 10. There is nothing positive about the thirteenth costume. The discordant design of smashing together 1960s elements with early 1990s design elements is unappealing. The footy pajama bottoms with side pockets were unfortunate. The 10-year-old boy’s hairstyle was the rotten cherry on top of this costume design.
Luckily, Saturn Girl’s fourteenth costume was a huge improvement. After the Legion got rebooted, all the Legionnaires got costumes that were modern versions of their Silver Age outfits. Saturn Girl’s fourteenth costume debuted in Legionnaires #1 in 1993. The fourteenth costume retains the magenta and white color scheme. Saturn Girl gets her classic high white collar. The top of the costume has a white panel in the middle. The white panel is flanked by magenta. The top has magenta sleeves with white stripes running down the middle. The white stripes on the sleeves are a fun nod to Saturn Girl’s ninth costume.
Saturn Girl’s logo returns to its rightful position in the center of her top. The logo is also yellow. What is interesting is that for the first time ever, the Saturn Girl logo has the ring of Saturn tilted up slightly to our left. In all of the prior twelve costumes, the ring of Saturn was always pointed up to our right to some degree or another.
The fourteenth costume has a black belt with a massive Legion logo belt buckle. Wow. That is not subtle. It is something a rodeo cowboy would appreciate! The belt comes with two passive pouches because 1990s. Saturn Girl gets short gloves with cuffs. I think short gloves can look cool, but the cuffs look goofy.
The pants are fantastic. I love that the fourteenth costume adds a new element never seen before. The pants are white on the inside half of the legs and magenta on the outside half of the legs. This is an excellent look that continues the white middle panel of the top down through the pants. I also like this design because it is a clear nod to Lightning Lad’s classic costume that had a white panel in the middle of his top that continued down through the inside half of his pants legs. Couples that dress together stay together.
The bottom of the fourteenth costume is finished with white flat ankle boots with cuffs on the top. I am not a fan of these boots. They make Imra look like an elf. It is a lousy finish to an otherwise solid costume design.
Thankfully, Imra rocks a much better hairstyle. Her long hair is styled in a youthful enough manner for her character. I love the earrings that Saturn Girl gets with this costume! The Saturn Girl logo earrings are in magenta which helps set them off from the yellow Saturn Girl logo on her top.
Final Grade: 6 Night Girls out of 10. The elf boots and the huge belt pouches prevent the fourteenth costume from getting a higher score.
Saturn Girl’s fifteenth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes Secret Files #1 in 1998. The fifteenth costume offers a few slight tweaks to the thirteenth costume. The only changes are to the Saturn Girl logo, the belt, and the boots. The Saturn Girl logo now returns the ring of Saturn back to tilting up to our right as it had always been before the fourteenth costume. It is a small detail but I like this return to form. The belt now has a smaller Legion logo belt buckle. To be sure, the belt buckle is still large, but it is no longer cartoonishly oversized like what we got with the fourteenth costume.
The fifteenth costume still has white flat ankle boots, but no longer quite as low, and they do not have the elf-style cuffs on them. While this is an improvement, the fact remains that the short length of the boots and their general design now make them look like a pair of Uggs. And there is nothing more uncool than a superheroine wearing anything resembling a pair of Uggs.
We also get a bit of a different color scheme. Instead of the long-running magenta and white color scheme, this color scheme is more of a deep pink and white. The pink is a cool nod to the beautiful 1970s costumes that introduced a true pink to Saturn Girl’s costumes for the first and only time. Everything else is the same along with Imra’s hairstyle and earrings.
Final Grade: 6 Night Girls out of 10. The subtle changes to the fifteenth costume were not enough to elevate the score for this costume design compared to the fourteenth outfit.
The sixteenth costume appeared in Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #6 in 1995. This is almost identical to the fourteenth costume. The only two differences are with the collar and the belt. The white high collar now has two black lines in the middle. I like this subtle touch. The Legion logo belt buckle balloons in size once again to epic cowboy proportions. Imra also gets a new hairstyle as her hair is longer and straighter than usual.
Final Grade: 6 Night Girls out of 10. This costume is largely just the fifteenth costume and, therefore, gets the same grade.
Saturn Girl in The 2000s
Saturn Girl’s seventeenth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes #5 in 2005. The seventeenth costume was rolled out during the start of the Threeboot Legion and was a modern take on the second costume from 1960. The color scheme reverts back to red and white for the first time since the fourth costume debuted in 1962. Even though I liked the pink color scheme in the 1970s and I enjoyed the magenta and white color scheme in the 80s, 90s, and early 00s, I love that we get the return of Saturn Girl’s classic red and white color scheme. It just feels right.
The seventeenth costume has the classic white high collar that we have seen on every costume outside of the pink 1970s costume. The top design has been changed. The middle white panel is now much larger and drapes over the shoulder tops. The sides of the top are red. The sleeves are red.
The Saturn Girl logo remains in the center of the top. However, the Saturn Girl logo is now red instead of yellow. This was a bad idea. Making the logo red instead of yellow causes the logo to blend into the background of this costume. The ring of Saturn is nearly horizontal rather than at its usual tilt up to our right. Saturn Girl retains her short white gloves with small cuffs.
The belt is white and now has the Saturn Girl logo on it for the first time. The Saturn Girl logo is placed off to our left for a fashionable asymmetrical look. The pants are red with white strips running down the outside of the pants. This is also reminiscent of the second costume. The sixteenth costume has white flat ankle boots. These boots are more like the elf boots from the thirteenth costume.
The seventeenth costume is topped off with a small half-cape that brings that Silver Age vibe to this new design. I rarely like the half-cape on modern costumes and this sixteenth costume is no exception for me.
Final Grade: 5 Night Girls out of 10. The return of the red and white color scheme is cool. But, the rest of the costume design is a big swing and a miss. The half cape, the red Saturn Girl logo, and the elf boots made this a less-than-impressive design.
The eighteenth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes #37 in 2008. This costume design is flat-out brilliant! The eighteenth costume managed to combine design elements from the incredible 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th pink costumes and mash them together with design elements from magenta outfits from the 1980s and 1990s.
The eighteenth costume takes the 5th-9th costume design and makes the pink part of the costume white. Then the eighteenth costume makes the parts of the 5th-9th costume that were bare skin and replaces that with magenta clothing. The bare skin had to be covered up because of the growing Neo-Victorian trend in America at that time. Still, it was a fantastic compromise and a creative way to bring back the 5th-9th costume design while dealing with the modesty concerns.
The eighteenth costume places the Saturn Girl logo in the center of the top like all of the other costumes other than the 5th-8th costumes. The Saturn Girl logo is back to its customary yellow color. However, this time the ring around Saturn is also yellow. The eighteenth costume also adds the Legion logo over Imra’s navel which sits in the same location as the Saturn Girl logo did on the 5th-8th costumes. I love it.
Imra gets flowing long hair that gives her a sexy and youthful look that matches the flashier and more dramatic costume design.
Final Grade: 8 Night Girls out of 10. The eighteenth costume is a fantastic design that perfectly melds together aspects of the 1970s/1980s pink costume with the traditional costumes from the 1980s/1990s. This is such a cool design and it definitely allowed Saturn Girl to break out of her normally conservative and boring persona.
The nineteenth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes #47 in 2008. This costume is a subtle revision of the eighteenth costume. The biggest difference is that the color scheme is now red and white instead of magenta and white. We see that the high collar is gone and the costume has a neckline that exposes her neck and a bit below her neck. I know. Very risque. The Saturn Girl logo is now red instead of yellow. The ring around Saturn is now black. The nineteenth costume also gets rid of the Legion logo in the navel area.
Final Grade: 7 Night Girls out of 10. The few changes made to the nineteenth costume take it down a notch from the eighteenth costume.
The twentieth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes #49 in 2009. The twentieth costume is basically just the nineteenth costume but with three small changes. The Saturn Girl logo is still a red planet, but the ring around Saturn is now yellow. We see that the Legion logo has been placed back in the navel area of the costume like it was in the eighteenth costume. However, the Legion logo is different. The eighteenth costume had a simple circular Legion logo. The twentieth costume has four small loop brackets where the logo is attached to the costume. Second, the high collar returns, however, this time the high collar is not connected in the middle. This time we get a small opening in the middle of the high collar. This is a first for a Saturn Girl costume.
Final Grade: 8 Night Girls out of 10. The small changes were enough to make the twentieth costume even better than the nineteenth costume.
The twenty-first costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes #50 in 2009. This design offered a few tiny tweaks to the costume. The twenty-first costume gets rid of the “bikini strap” design that was present on the top of the costume in the twentieth and nineteenth costumes. The twenty-first costume also gets a belt and the Legion logo is now a belt buckle rather than a badge attached to the costume.
Final Grade: 8 Night Girls out of 10. The tiny changes were not enough to get me to change my grade up or down from what I gave the twentieth costume.
The twenty-second costume debuted in Action Comics #259 in 2008. This costume design is a complete and total wreck. There is nothing to like about the twenty-second costume. The design language is chaotic as this costume is way too busy and over-detailed. There are horizontal lines, vertical lines, thin stripes, thick stripes, circles, and multiple different textures and they are all mashed together in a crude and discordant manner. This is as ugly and drab of a costume as we have seen since the thirteenth costume.
The twenty-first costume has a red, white, and black color scheme. I am fine with sticking with the classic red and white, but the inclusion of black was an unwelcome addition. The twenty-second costume has a low collar that is open in the middle. This runs contrary to the common high collar of the majority of Saturn Girl’s costumes. The top retains the classic design scheme of a white center panel with red on the sides of the top. One new design element is that the white is now extended over the shoulders. The sleeves are horrendous. They are red and then have a weird black-and-white ribbed section at the elbows. The gloves are over-designed with white gloves that have red bands on top of them with big round buttons on the side of each strap.
The top of the costume is finished off with the iconic Saturn Girl logo in black and yellow which is the first time we see black in this logo. The top ends with a boring brown belt with a small Legion logo buckle. The skirt that is present in most of Saturn Girl’s costumes is gone. The skirt is replaced with the top extending down on the sides below the belt to mimic the look of the old dress design. The entire top from neck to bottom has a black line running across the edges.
The pants are red with thin black lines running down the middle of them. The pants continue the white panel of the top down through the middle of the pelvic area of the pants. It is a weird design decision. The pants have these odd white and black lined mesh panels on the outside of both pant legs in the knee area. It is terrible. The pants then have thick black horizontal lines across the tops of the boots. The twenty-second costume wraps up with white flat boots. There are three red straps with big round buttons on the boot shafts. Then there is a red strap on the foot of each boot.
And to add insult to injury, on top of a total mess of a costume design that manages to be both boring and ugly, Saturn Girl also got one of her worst hairstyles ever. Poor Imra looks like she just escaped from a prison camp. It is just a brutal look for Imra.
Final Grade: 2 Night Girls out of 10. The twenty-second costume is just a complete dumpster fire from top to bottom. There is absolutely nothing positive at all about this costume design.
Saturn Girl in The 2010s
Saturn Girl’s twenty-third costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes in 2013. This costume is just as drab as the twenty-second costume. There are only a few subtle tweaks to the costume design. The white and black mesh areas at the elbows and at the outside of the knees are now replaced with gray and black mesh areas. Amazingly, a bad design element was made even more boring by replacing the white with gray. The pants no longer continue the white panel from the top down through the pelvic area of the pants. This was a good design correction. The Saturn Girl logo is now a black planet outlined with yellow and a yellow ring. The twenty-second costume now has a gray belt instead of a brown belt. The buttons on the red straps are now red instead of white.
Thankfully, Saturn Girl gets back the hairstyle that is most commonly associated with her character. Long hair with bangs in the front. Wise idea.
Final Grade: 3 Night Girls out of 10. The subtle design tweaks do not make this costume much better than the twenty-second costume.
Saturn Girl in The 2020s
The twenty-fourth costume debuted in Legion of Super-Heroes: Millenium #2 in 2019. Yeah, I am slipping this costume into the 2020s because Legion of Super-Heroes: Millenium #2 came out in December 2019 and the new Bendis Legion title where we saw this costume in full was in 2020. The twenty-third costume was a total redesign and a complete failure across the board. The twenty-fourth costume retains the classic red and white color scheme. That is where the positives of this costume design begin and end.
The twenty-fourth costume is basically a leotard. Which is just a brutal decision as the base design for the costume. This is a full-body leotard that runs from Imra’s chin to her toes. The twenty-fourth costume has a high collar, but this time it is in red. The most obvious design element of the twenty-fourth costume that leaps out at you is the lack of the iconic Saturn Girl logo on the costume. This is the first and only Saturn Girl costume to not have the Saturn Girl logo somewhere on the costume. Instead, there is a vague reference to the Saturn Girl logo with the circle on her right shoulder and the line coming off that circle and wrapping around the left side of the costume. This is a weird and dull design choice.
The twenty-fourth costume has short white gloves that are like driving gloves and do not go past the wrist. The white gloves have red on the palms of the gloves. It reminds me of gloves that college football players wear that are white on the outside and then have the school’s logo in color on the palms of the gloves. The full-body leotard is more like footy pajamas at the bottoms. It does not look like Saturn Girl actually has boots on. Instead, it looks like the leotard is colored white at the bottom with red panels on the outside of both feet.
Imra gets saddled with the dreaded asymmetrical undercut hairstyle. This immediately makes Imra look like an NPC from a video game. Much like the mullet, the asymmetrical undercut needs to be assigned to the garbage bin of hairstyles.
Final Grade: 1 Night Girls out of 10. The twenty-fourth costume design manages to be both boring and ugly all at the same time. This costume design lacks interesting details and, yet, has too many busy and pointless details. The Legion of Super-Heroes should always be fun and quirky. That is the essence of the franchise. The twenty-third costume sucks any joy and fun out of Saturn Girl’s look.
Saturn Girl’s Best Costume of All-Time
Saturn Girl’s sixth/seventh/eighth costume design wins it all. These three costumes are all essentially the same costume design with a few small tweaks here and there. This is by far and away the coolest costume design and one that makes Saturn Girl look like a superheroine in a world full of aliens, fantastical technology, and a universe of incredible planets. Superhero costumes should be fun and outrageous. That is the point of superhero comics. Superheros are larger than life. Superheroes are the ultimate versions of who we want to be. Saturn Girl’s sixth/seventh/eighth costume designs nail all of it with an epic costume that is absolutely unforgettable. Yeah, I know we are too puritanical and repressed to ever have a costume design like this in a modern comic book. That sad fact just makes this costume design even more bold and cool.
Saturn Girl’s Worst Costume of All-Time
The twenty-fourth costume is a great example of how many modern-day costumes have been strip-mined of anything creative, outlandish, striking, or cool. Instead, we get a bland design that is immediately forgettable.
All right, that is it for everyone’s favorite telepath! Saturn Girl has a storied history and has had costume designs that have had some incredible highs and unfortunate lows. As always, let me know if I missed any of Saturn Girl’s costumes. You guys have been amazing at recalling such small details of Legion history. Until next time, Long Live the Legion!