Friday, May 24, 2013

This week's comic book ads of note

Marvel comics are often full of ads for mind-boggling licensed products these days, and this one might be the most mind-bogglingest of all. At least that I can remember as I'm typing this (after your mind's been boggled a few times, the memory starts to slip).

It appears to be a line of zip-up hoodies in which the zipper extends to the hood itself, and the hood is something a bit like a bag you put over your entire head, so you can, uh, completely cover your head with a hood, as if you were wearing a fabric version of the helmet, torso and sleeves of the armor worn by Iron Man (or War Machine or Iron Patriot).

I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to do this, particularly if you can't see out of the hood (Can you see out of the hood? I'm not seeing any eye-holes there). And breathing can't be particularly easy, either. But there is a piece of officially licensed clothing that totally exists.

DC Comics, meanwhile, featured this ad for TV show Arrow:
I see that after a brief flirtation with not showing actor Steve Amell's naked torso in the ads, choosing instead to show a close-up of his face in a hood, the ad people have returned to the sensible choice of promoting their show with shirtless images of Amell. And for this one, they even get his crotch in there. And some phallic arrows. And an explosion! Just about any image can be improved upon by having an explosion like that in the background.

4 comments:

revelshade said...

Those licensed/novelty hoodies that zip down over your face have been around for a while. The front panel is mesh so yes you can see out of them, sort of. There's an R2-D2 hoodie that looks especially silly, given that R2 isn't remotely humanoid.

SallyP said...

I for one, approve of Arrow's shirtless return. Now, if they could only show his chest and butt at the same time!

Except he probably has a spine that he'd like to keep.

Caleb said...

Revelshade,

Ah, that makes a lot more sense then. I think I'd like one that looked like cartoon Cobra Commander's mask, then.

Sally,

I haven't looked at any issues of the ARROW comic based on the TV show. Maybe they have a cover to one of the comics with him posing like that? Comic book heroines seem capable of pulling that pose off just fine, after all...

David said...

Pretty sure in one of the many scenes of Amell doing that chin-up climb thing without his shirt there's at least one where he's pulled his legs up enough that his ass and chest are in the same shot.