Cosplay of excellence: Gender Bent Justice League

Liz Ohanesian covers counterculture, cosplay, and cool music for the Los Angeles Weekly. She hit Comic-Con with photographer Shannon Cottrell, and came back with some great photo-essays. "I thought you might be interested in seeing our favorite cosplay of the con," she writes, "they're The Gender Bent Justice League." Above, Kit Quinn as Superma'am and Tallest Silver as Batma'am.

Gender Bent Justice League is a group of cosplayers who have taken characters associated with DC's Justice League and transformed them into something that is more Rule 63 than it is crossplay.

"A couple of us like to do female versions of preexisting male characters. One of our friends, Psykitten Pow, she had a female Flash," says Tallest Silver, who organized the group and who dresses as Batma'am. "One night, we were all hanging out and I said how funny it would be if we had a whole Justice League with swapped sexes."

• [absimiliard]

  Damn, Superma’am’s hot!

  -abs guesses that if he was a straight woman, or a gay man, he probably would have clued in on Superman’s hotness before now, but as it is . . .. . . 

• [PlutoniumX]

  That is crazy awesome. 

  Great costumes!

• [herrnichte]

  But but… where’s wonder-woman… man? cat-woman… man?

  • [Claire Hummel]

    They have Hunter, Wonder Man and Power Guy!  Just click through the link to see them, they’re appropriately garbed.  The photo up at the top is only one of many.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      Is Power Guy’s power having the world’s tiniest waist?

  • [jere7my]

     Catwoman’s not in the Justice League, silly.

  • [qwertyuiop88888]

    In the original article. Geez! kids these days can even click on links

• [Hanglyman]

  Swapping character genders is always a fun thing to do. My favorite is Batma’am’s nemesis, Poison Ivan.

  Is it just me, or does Superma’am look a LOT like Lois Lane?

  • [Brainspore]

    You’re thinking of her reporter boyfriend, Louis Lane.

• [absimiliard]

  Poison Ivan == 100% Pure Awesome!

  -abs would pay (though not much) to this one done up right

• [Deidzoeb]

  Very cute, but the older, more popular male characters usually have canonical female versions: Supergirl, Superwoman, Bat-girl, Spider-woman, She-Hulk. Funny how it rarely happens the other way (like herrnichte said, Wonder-Woman-Man, Cat-Man). Funny how many of them are -girl instead of -woman.

  • [Garnett Schuyler]

    There is a Catman.

  • [Guest]

    That would be the infantilization-of-women thing. ‘Funny’? yeah, I guess, but not ha-ha funny. It mostly pisses me off. Especially considering what a HUGE comic book fan I am. I think comics saved my life! Especially Elfquest and Love and Rockets. I never got into Marvel or DC comics because of the dearth of strong, non-hypersexualized and believable female characters. And, I do love. LOVE superheroes…

    I am madly in like with Super Woman/SuperMa’am. Wow. :O

  • [Sekino]

    In many cases, the ‘-girl’ ones were teenaged characters, not adult women (so a bit like “boy wonder” Robin). And there was a Batwoman as well.

• [Avram Grumer]

  I love that Super-ma’am’s hair reproduces the little curl on Superman’s forehead. 

• [Cookie Monsta]

  Make Mine Marvel!  X-Women!  Ms Fantastic!  (How about the Fabulous Furry Freak Sisters…)

• [PlutoniumX]

  Ladies of Doom? 

  Easy ones to name:

  Miss Mxyzptlk
  Lexi Luthor
  Giganto
  Bizzara
  Sinestra
  Toy Ma’am

  Less Easy ones:

  Marlyn (heh for Green Arrow)
  Solowomon Grundy?

  • [Avram Grumer]

    Salome Grundy. 

    • [Donald Petersen]

      Now I’m picturing Salome Grundy performing her Dance of the Seventeen Veils.  Oof.

• [Rich Keller]

  Does Rule 63 also apply to Brock Samson?

  • [Deidzoeb]

    They’ve had Hank and Dean crossdress before, with Dean as Slave Leia and Hank as Columbia from Rocky Horror. Just a matter of time before Brock does it, if he hasn’t already.

• [Traska]

  So basically, Earth-11 Justice League.

• [GeekMan]

  I love these. Some appeared at a previous con (I forget which) and the lady Green Lantern was a huge internets favourite. I also give props to “Power Boy”. All so great. :D

• [adamrice]

  Nice. It’s a good thing they went with costumes adapted to their sex rather than straight-up crossplaying…the woman doing Martian Manhunter might have run into some trouble.

  • [Donald Petersen]

    Imagine Doctress Manhattan.

    Oh wait… that’s Mystique.

    • [Guest]

      Haaa, another Doctress would be great! :D

• [Julian Fine]

  I’d already seen Power Boy, but Hipster Flash is awesome.

• [Guest]

  I think there should be a cosplaying workshop offered somewhere (hopefully near me, so I can attend!). I want to dress like Alita (Battle Angel) so bad for my first con this fall, and I have no clue how to even begin putting together something as awesome as these women have!  /envy face

  • [Rich Keller]

    Cosplay.com might have something on workshops or at leat some how-to info. I don’t know for sure, though. I’ve only looked at pictures of some of the outfits.

    The only anime/manga character I’d be able to pull off successfully would be Van Hoenheim from Fullmetal Alchemist. I just need a brown three piece Edwardian era suit and a mopish look on my face.

• [rrh]

  It is interesting that I can tell gender-swapped Superman and Batman is not Supergirl and Batgirl.

• [andygates]

  I’m impressed with how creepy and exploitative Power Guy’s costume is.  Fanservice, ho!

• [Donald Petersen]

  It’s great that Batma’am’s pose and demeanor and, er, pecs make her look at least as imposing a physical foe as the brawniest male incarnation of Batman.  And Superma’am is somehow completely, totally perfect as well… but for some unidentifiable reason, her boots bother me a tad.  They obviously shouldn’t be sexy, shiny, slender, heeled boots, nor should they be practical, clunky, steel-toed Docs.  Hmm.  Maybe they just look a size too big.  But that’s a teensy quibble.  If Superman were rebooted next week in this guise, I’d totally subscribe.

  Another great, subtle touch: the wee flower on the edge of Plastic Lass’ white goggles. Power Guy, though.  Man.  That’s an eyeful.

  • [Kit Quinn]

    I actually really like my boots, I wanted them to match my cape, so I made them from the same fabric.  As far as the shape of the heel goes…yeah I’m not made of money so I just made my Wonder Woman boots for this.

• [penguinchris]

  The Superma’am and Batma’am are clearly the greatest, but wow, “Psykitten Pow” as Flash is super hot. Like, my ideal woman aesthetically, and a nerd too (I’m not a comic fan but still).

• [Kit Quinn]

  Thanks all, glad you’re digging what we’re throwing out there! And thanks Boing Boing for the repost of the LA Weekly article.  We all think it’s the most accurate representation of what we’re doing, and it’s greatly appreciated. Liz and Shannon rock major socks!

  -Kit
  (Superma’am)

• [Malkavius Rostif]

  Kit, any chance you’ll bring the Gender Bent Justice League to Dragon*Con in Atlanta come September?

  • [Kit Quinn]

    There’s actually not a lot of us going to DragonCon sadly.  Power Guy and I will be there, but no one else from the league.  I’ll probably bring Superma’am because well, it’s comfy/easy, and Power Guy will probably bring the costume.  But yeah, as of right now we’re the only ones confirmed going to D*C WonderMan and Martian Maneater may go, but not looking great as of right now

• [Brainspore]

  I’m not enough of a comics buff to know the answer to this, but with the dozens of Bizarro Worlds, Multiple Earths and Alternate Realities populating the D.C. Universe it seems hard to believe no comic writers had come up with this idea before. It’s certainly at least as worthy of a storyline as “what if there was a dimension where Superman was evil and Lex Luthor was a hero?”

  • [hypnosifl]

    You missed Traska’s post above, which mentioned something called Earth-11 that apparently used exactly this concept. The costumes from the comic don’t look as cool, though.

• [Gulliver]

  Wait. Wouldn’t this cause an increase in crime?

  Aqualass’s trident is bitchun, as Mr. Doctorow might say!