The 60s TV Catwoman suit deserves mention. While less artsy than the one Michelle sported on the big screen, it was iconic for a reason. The comics character had worn any number of costumes, most of them silly; the TV people went in a completely different direction, and defined the character's look (and the looks of many other female super-types) for decades to come.
In fact, you like the Black Wiudow costume (both comics and onscreen) so much? Really? Look closely, and see if it just might owe a creative debt to somebody else.
In fairness to Weingrad, his essay is a review of what sound like two extraordinary works of fantasy by Jewish writers. He does anticipate many of the objections raised in these comments (although not the best ones, about Marvel Comics and the Sadman books).
And yet I still think he's wrong, largely because so much of his argument depends upon using Tolkien and Lewis as the defining boundaries of "fantasy." Yes, if you narrow the field to define it as "the work of Christian allegorists and apologists," then it isn't surprising that there aren't a lot of Jews working in it. Precious few Muslims, too.
But expand the definition just a little bit, and his argument collapses.
I've preferred DC over Marvel for, seriously, 40+ years. Sometimes a lot, sometimes just barely. Lately, almost imperceptibly.
Compare the thrillingly unoriginal deaths of Captain America and Batman -- both lousy ideas, but one of them has played out as an interesting, sci-fi/noir storyline. The other has been one more jumbled, incomprehensible, and ultimately disappointing mega-arc. (Actually, it's been several of them, each bad in its own way).
Both the majors suffer from an ugly addiction to the "Crisis" school of giant across-the-brand storytelling. You can't blame them; as Blackest Night shows, it's a great marketing strategy. But I've never thought it made for especially good stories. No matter how hard you try (and sometimes they do try -- look at 52 et seq.), the individual characters get lost in an orgy of spandex.
Lately, I just buy the Silver Age anthologies and read them to my kid at bedtime.
Not to be too geeky, but wasn't it Lady Blackhawk in the cab with Masoud?
For the record, I wear one of those funny collars in my professional life, and spent years at a church in New York, waiting for a superhero who needed counseling to drop by. Didn't happen, although I did get a few pretty-damn-heroic first responders.
Ahem. Kingdom Come? All the same problems noted above, plus a much higher bar for quality of original source material.
