Halloween Special: When Superheroes Dress Up As… Other Superheroes

With Halloween just around the corner, we've got costumes on the brain, particularly when it comes to the comic book characters who like to cosplay the most: superheroes. A number of them have even traded costumes over the years and dressed up as each other, proving that for superheroes, pretty much every day is Halloween. After the jump, take a look at five of the most remarkable (because naming them the best or worst would just be unfair!) times superheroes have dressed up as... superheroes.

Deadpool has claimed the position of "Annoying Prankster" of the Marvel Universe, and that means getting away with a lot. Back in the day when Christopher Priest and Jim Calafiore were guiding his adventures, a plot led to Deadpool ending up with Thor's hammer. What's a fellow to do once he gets the powers of the Thunder God? Join the Avengers and learn to speake olde englishe!

Years later, Fabian Nicieza and Patrick Zircher were in charge of Cable & Deadpool arranged it so that Deadpool would have a chance to join another of Marvel's classic teams--the X-Men. The X-Men were hunting down Cable, and since Deadpool is inexplicably the foremost authority on Cable, the X-Men drafted him as a temporary ally. Instead, Deadpool immediately claimed X-Men status, declared himself a mutant, and wore a classic X-Men costume: Marvel Girl's. Gross.

Way back in Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti's Punisher War Journal, Frank Castle found himself facing a bit of a dilemma. There was a giant, vicious, man-eating alien who wanted to wreak havoc all over New York City. Castle foolishly challenged him to a duel, because that's what the Punisher does, but he knew he had no chance of winning.

Fortunately his inventory buddy, Stuart Clarke, had just the solution. Take a little bit of Venom's symbiote, add a few high tech upgrades, and you've got a symbiote that can do everything the Punisher can do... but better. By donning the enhanced symbiote, Punisher could form guns with his hands, survive punches that would level buildings, and rip off the arm of a giant monster. Dig that mean looking skull mask, too. If you're going to go full superhero with Frank Castle, this isn't that bad of a look.

When Norman Osborn found himself a cushy government job in Dark Avengers, the first thing he did was surround himself with his friends and cronies. His ragtag group of "Dark" Avengers were meant to emulate the real Avengers. Instead of heroes under the mask, though, Osborn hired on a bunch of lunatics, mass murderers, and serial killers.

Moonstone, who has reformed once or twice and held down a spot on the Thunderbolts for years, got to pretend to be Ms. Marvel, but for some reason chose to wear the worst Ms. Marvel costume. Daken, Wolverine's smooth-talking, tattoo-having, supersexy son got to dress up like his father. Bullseye, who has killed at least two of Daredevil's girlfriends and attempted to kill one or two more, dressed up as Hawkeye, since they both share the gimmick of never missing with projectiles. Venom, of course, got the coveted Spider-Man slot, while Norman Osborn switched from the Green Goblin to the tackiest possible iteration of an Iron Man costume you will ever see in your entire life.

When people say "Everyone in comics looks alike," it's usually just a joke or a criticism of a specific artist. Sure, Hank Pym, Clint Barton, and Steve Rogers are all tall blond-haired white guys. And yeah, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Conner Kent, Carter Hall, and Kyle Rayner are dark-haired guys with similar builds. They don't actually look alike, right? Except for this one time in Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness's Superman/Batman: Public Enemies when they did.

Superman and Batman were made public enemies (get it?) by President Luthor, and all of their villains came out to fight them. They made mincemeat of the bad guys, including a scene where Batman easily defeated Lady Shiva, the Greatest Martial Artist in the World. Later, Superman and Batman's friends come out to fight them, because apparently being the two greatest heroes ever means nothing at all. In response, Superman and Batman beat up Captain Marvel and Hawkman, respectively, and take their clothes so that they can... infiltrate the White House?

Let's be honest here -- Superman has a lot in common with Captain Marvel in terms of powers. Batman and Hawkman? They kinda sorta do. Batman uses high tech gadgets like batarangs and Batmobiles, while Hawkman uses high tech gadgets like a giant mace and fake bird wings. But in the looks department? Not only should all these people have at least slightly different builds, but their heights should be different, too. How many of your coworkers are the exact same height as you? Yeah.

Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira's Ultimates 3 had a lot of problems. We called it one of the 15 Worst Comics of the Decade last year, if that helps any.

One thing we haven't yet mentioned us the scene where Captain America took Black Panther's place. Since Panther's costume features a full mask, no one noticed the difference. All Cap had to do was just not talk when everyone was making plans and getting ready to go fight Magneto. Luckily, no one bothered to ask why Black Panther was there at all (he wasn't in Ultimates 2) and why Cap wasn't leading the team (who cares?). In fact, the question of why Captain America was pretending to be someone else for (presumably) several days and a handful of issues was settled in another comic entirely. So, in Ultimates 3, you get Cap being off-panel for a bunch of issues, then he tears off his Black Panther costume just in time for his buddies to show up with his Captain America costume so they can go fight Magneto.

Yeah. Sometimes Halloween isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it?

Do you have a favorite superhero costume swap we didn't mention? Drop it in the comments.