Who Wore It Best? X-Men Red Carpet Edition
We can all agree that one of the greatest tragedies of social distancing has been the underwhelming red carpet effort during this year's award season. Luckily, where Hollywood has dropped the ball-ball Marvel's X-Men is ready to pick it up with the most outrageous comic book fashion event since Jubilee's nip slip at the 2007 Teen Choice Awards.
This year's big summer X-Men storyline will focus more on A-lines than B-plots as the super mutants will gather the first annual Hellfire Gala (imagine if the Illuminati had a Spring Social) on the roaming mutant island of Krakoa, a high fashion gathering of the who's who of human's next evolution. Marvel recently teased the upcoming event by releasing a little fashion booklet featuring everyone's favorite A-list X-Men in their "green carpet" outfits, the height of freak couture.
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With the average non-cosplaying comic book reader knowing as much about fashion houses as Vera Wang knows about The House of X, allow me to be a mutant Joan Rivers (her power was a superhuman tolerance to Botox) and make a bunch of catty jokes about the most powerful metahumans on the planet's fashion sense. Let's start with the Fashion Do's, as some super mutants are killing it harder than a Mjolnir-wielding Magneto. First up is Synch, whose low-key metrosexual leisurewear combined with his glorious technicolor dreamcoat would make anyone want to be absorbed by this Josef tonight.
Speaking of daddies: forgoing the dated Swarzeneggerian muscle T for a bold layering of chains and dark furs, Colossus and his (literally) chiseled beard ooze the kind of Kremlin confidence that has many a thirsty fan longing for this Vlad to impale her.
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And let's not forget the old guard. Storm is nothing but sparks as she combines her iconic fashion look (whatever hand-me-downs Tina Turner gave her after starring in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome) with a cape made out of a literal stormcloud.
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A bit more downplayed, Wolverine infinitely regenerates class in this traditional tuxedo. The only flourish is an eye-popping bolo tie because, obviously, the only way the X-Force got him to wear a suit was by telling him he looked like Johnny Cash.
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But the really genocidal belle of the ball is no doubt Mystique; combining her alluring physique with a feathered dress that makes her look so raven, I'd expect her to fly away to take a crap on the X-Wing windshield. When asked about her outfit, the fan-service assassin announced that she's wearing an original Jumbo Carnation, only this time it's just his gown and not his entire skin.
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On the wrong side of the fashion police mirror are the following mutants, who put the X into faux pas. Evolutionary eye-sores include Selene, who in her all-leather outfit strikes me less like a dark mistress and more like a model UN-president who accidentally discovered her mom's BDSM gear.
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Then there's Cyclops, whose boxy reimagining of his original X-Men outfit makes him look like one of his own crappy 80's toys and just about as anatomically correct.
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But the worst contender has to be Daken, who, with his slicked-back man-bun and oversized tribal tattoo tux reminds us why he hasn't been relevant since the late aughts.
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Of course, the main event of any red carpet gala is plunging these fashionistas into the comparative couture crucible of Who Wore It Best. So let's ask the question: who wore their genderbending dress best: fashion icon Harry Styles …
Or chill slope-bunny, Iceman?
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My vote goes to Styles since Iceman still hasn't learned the lesson that ski goggles don't go with anything. Up next is an even rarer fashion style, the battle of greatest baptist space-preacher. Who wore it best, the late great Chadwick Boseman …
Or the great pate, Professor Charles Xavier?
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I'm going with Professor X, just because I've never seen him stand out like that -- or up, for that matter. Yet all of these fashion fights are nothing compared to the most important Who Wore It Best of this award season: Is it Carey Mulligan, voted best dressed at the 2021 Oscars …
Prodigy, who clearly spent some time in the same room as Mulligan's tailor ...
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Or is it surprise contender, Miss Piggy?
For me, it's a three-way tie. And to see more of the X-Men's adventures in high fashion and who wears it best with burn, laser, and claw marks, you'll sadly have to wait until summer. Until then, keep yourself busy as all the other Marvel fans are: complaining loudly about the feminization of X-Men and/or quietly spanking it to the new Gambit.
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Top Image: Marvel Comics