One of the weirder questions you may have to deal with is, “What
are your clothes made of?”. And no; this does not apply only to
super-hero comics, but fantasy as well as horror comics. If your
characters have any kind of shape-shifting or size-changing
abilities, or any kind of transformative abilities such as
werewolves, then you may wish to ask this question. The bottom line
is that if there has to be some reason that a character who turns
into flame or gains a few hundred pounds of muscle on a regular basis
isn't a major customer of the local clothiers, and some sort of
meta-cloth may be the answer.
Marvel Comics has a pretty good solution to this: unstable molecules. Clothing made of these molecules mimics the abilities of any wearer, allowing them to stretch, shift, or otherwise be immune to transformations of their wearers, such as turning to flame or even invisible. As the fabric in your universe may also be more resilient it could also offer a form of armor, even capable of repelling bullets.
At the other end of the spectrum White Wolf had a ritual that convert one suit to clothes that would transform along with its wearer and would disappear when he changed to a non-human form and appear back when the shifter returned to a humanoid shape. This allows clothing to disappear, either by shifting to another universe or by melding into the character's new form and reappear unharmed when the character returns to his human form. While this is may not be great for all transforming characters, it is a good fit for a wide range of shapeshifters.
Consider also some of the more exotic options. Spider-man's symbiotic suit is a great one; prior to it becoming Venom, the suit could mimic any suit of clothes with a thought as well as mimic some of Spidey's equipment, such as his web-shooters. With Venom the suit allowed some shape-changing abilities. Similarly, in the Trinity RPG, there is the bio-evacuation suit, or BES; this organically grown suit allows its wearer to survive in space, is comfortable enough to wear under another suit of clothes, and will even pop a helmet up if you end up in space while asleep. Both suits allowed their wearers full range of their powers without interfering, and were considered part of their owners for all intents.
You may have other needs to allow for. If you have energy-based races you may need containment suits so that they can interact with flesh-beings, either because of their radiation or lack of a body. Have a feral race? The outfit needs to be tough, form-fitting, odorless in and of itself, and clasps tools tight in case its wearer runs off. And then there are the Qin of Trinity, a race of worms who rely on their human-shaped body armor to hide their individual identities from the humans they deal with.
Keep in mind that you can have fun with armor as well. "The thicker the better" will always be a good general rule, but you can always develop some sort of special cloth that absorbs impacts or deflects energy attacks. For that matter, you can use cloth that emits a force field when a weak electric current is run through it. Obviously there are no limits to what you can do with clothing, so decide what you need it to do, and it will. So have some fun making up types of clothing and make it do what you need it to do, but remember to be consistent with how you portray it; while it solves a lot of problems you don't want it to be the cause of any continuity issues. Clothing is important, and deserves some serious thought; think it through and your readers will appreciate it.
Marvel Comics has a pretty good solution to this: unstable molecules. Clothing made of these molecules mimics the abilities of any wearer, allowing them to stretch, shift, or otherwise be immune to transformations of their wearers, such as turning to flame or even invisible. As the fabric in your universe may also be more resilient it could also offer a form of armor, even capable of repelling bullets.
At the other end of the spectrum White Wolf had a ritual that convert one suit to clothes that would transform along with its wearer and would disappear when he changed to a non-human form and appear back when the shifter returned to a humanoid shape. This allows clothing to disappear, either by shifting to another universe or by melding into the character's new form and reappear unharmed when the character returns to his human form. While this is may not be great for all transforming characters, it is a good fit for a wide range of shapeshifters.
Consider also some of the more exotic options. Spider-man's symbiotic suit is a great one; prior to it becoming Venom, the suit could mimic any suit of clothes with a thought as well as mimic some of Spidey's equipment, such as his web-shooters. With Venom the suit allowed some shape-changing abilities. Similarly, in the Trinity RPG, there is the bio-evacuation suit, or BES; this organically grown suit allows its wearer to survive in space, is comfortable enough to wear under another suit of clothes, and will even pop a helmet up if you end up in space while asleep. Both suits allowed their wearers full range of their powers without interfering, and were considered part of their owners for all intents.
You may have other needs to allow for. If you have energy-based races you may need containment suits so that they can interact with flesh-beings, either because of their radiation or lack of a body. Have a feral race? The outfit needs to be tough, form-fitting, odorless in and of itself, and clasps tools tight in case its wearer runs off. And then there are the Qin of Trinity, a race of worms who rely on their human-shaped body armor to hide their individual identities from the humans they deal with.
Keep in mind that you can have fun with armor as well. "The thicker the better" will always be a good general rule, but you can always develop some sort of special cloth that absorbs impacts or deflects energy attacks. For that matter, you can use cloth that emits a force field when a weak electric current is run through it. Obviously there are no limits to what you can do with clothing, so decide what you need it to do, and it will. So have some fun making up types of clothing and make it do what you need it to do, but remember to be consistent with how you portray it; while it solves a lot of problems you don't want it to be the cause of any continuity issues. Clothing is important, and deserves some serious thought; think it through and your readers will appreciate it.
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