It’s that time of year again! Kids, costumes, candy, scantily-clad women at parties I never get invited to; the works! I love Halloween. It might just be my favorite holiday. I love the pageantry of everybody willingly dressing up in costumes as if it were the normal course of business. I love kids going trick-or-treating. I love college students wearing full costumes to class. I love bringing a mask to work and wearing it to freak out receptionists. The whole holiday is just one big, festive free-for-all! And here at Henchman-4-Hire, I’ve developed a Halloween tradition of rating the best superhero Halloween costumes on the market. First I did the women, then the men, and this year it’s superhero costumes for kids!

Why couldn’t this have been my childhood?

There are tons of superhero costumes out there for kids these days, but a geek like me is very specific in what I’d be willing to put on my spawn (if I had any). Some professionally-made costumes actually have skill and effort put into them. They actually look like the superheroes they’re supposed to be. Other professionally-made costumes are a joke, slapped together to sell to unsuspecting parents and nothing more. In this day and age, accuracy counts!

So join me after the jump for the 6 best and the 6 worst superhero Halloween costumes for children!

Best:

6. Wolverine

Wolverine is all about the claws, and these costumes absolutely nail the claws. They look tough, even a little dangerous. The rest of the costume isn’t too great, but they went all out with comic book accuracy. It helps that Wolverine in the movies is usually just a black suit or maybe a leather jacket. This Wolverine looks like Wolverine, and the costume might even put a few eyes out. How’s that for authenticity?

5. Supergirl

As we’ll see later, girls are plum out of luck when it comes to superhero costumes. Everyone seems to think that all girls care about are skirts! Fortunately, the classic Supergirl costume is a skirt, so they were able to make a pretty accurate, not-too-shabby Supergirl costume. I especially love the full boots, because most kid costumes end at the ankle. And the cape is just the right kind of adorable.

4.  Flash

The Flash should be lucky that he gets a costume at all. He doesn’t have a major motion picture or TV show to advertise, so instead Flash is relying on pure fandom to sell this bright red bodysuit. And that’s why he’s on this list. Flash’s costume has always been very awesome and eye-catching, so it makes for a great Halloween costume. Even though there isn’t a Flash movie, everybody will be able to recognize a kid dressed as the Scarlet Speedster. I don’t like the lack of gloves, but that pitch perfect face mask more than makes up for it. Yellow gloves shouldn’t be too hard to come by.

3. Bane/Zod

This is a little ridiculous. These costumes are the two most detailed and amazing costumes I could find, and they’re the villains of their respective movies. None of the superheroes get armor or masks as layered and as badass-looking as General Zod’s outfit. That dude is downright terrifying. And that Bane mask is scarily accurate. That kid means business. I also love that neither costume is just painted onto fabric. Those costumes actually look put together. Let’s hope Halloween night is cold enough that Bane gets to wear that big, fuzzy coat he had in The Dark Knight Rises.

2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Thank the world for Nickelodeon’s new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon! I don’t watch it, but the people behind it are going gangbusters when it comes to merchandising. Some of the TMNT toys I’ve seen in toy aisles are amazing. They’re almost as good as when I was a kid watching the Turtles in the 1980s – and dare I say it, some of them are better. Check out these costumes. If I had costumes like that as a kid, I would have been in Heaven. Instead, my brother, cousin and I had to rely on homemade costumes. Good, but not really the envy of children everywhere. Today’s costumes are bright, colorful and maintain the style of animation, with the flared wrists and ankles. I especially love the turtle-feet. Throw in a couple of awesome looking weapons and you’ve got some pretty radical suits!

1. Spider-Man

When it comes to accuracy, awesomeness and plain good-looking costumes, it seems that nobody beats Spider-Man. I applaud the designers who went with the full facemasks instead of cutting them off below the nose. I don’t like the lack of gloves, but a quick Google search reveals that Spidey gloves are very easy to come by. They probably sell them in the same costume shops. Spider-Man would have to be one of the funnest possible costumes for a kid these days, and I think these are absolutely perfect for a tyke wanting to dress up and go web-slinging. Silly-string web-shooters not included.

Worst:

6. Blue Beetle

They aren’t even trying. I realize Blue Beetle isn’t very well known, but his costume is pretty awesome in the comics. This? It looks like he’s wearing the T-shirt inside out, and the mask clearly only covers the front half of his head. I kind of hope somebody got fired for making this monstrosity, but the stores decided to sell it anyway because someone in the company is a huge Blue Beetle fan. This rag would have been higher on the list, except I’m sure nobody outside of comic book geeks has even heard of Blue Beetle.

5. Robin

Robin still gets no respect. What are we looking at here? Looks to me like a couple of green bodysuits with red aprons stapled to the front. Both costumes are short-sleeved, but they insist on flesh-colored arms connected to awkward green forearm guards. Couldn’t trust parents to find green gloves? The capes, masks and belts are subpar, and that one poor kid is just wearing black shoes. Boy Wonder indeed.

4. Hulk

The breakout star of The Avengers movie gets one of the worst costumes of the bunch. It doesn’t help that the Hulk doesn’t really have a costume. He’s a naked man in purple pants, and these costumes capture that perfectly – with a hideously stupid mask and painted-on muscles. Better than letting a kid walk around with a bare chest painted green, but maybe they just shouldn’t have bothered. I would also complain about the lack of green hands/gloves, but that just leaves room for Hulk Hands. So it may have been a genius move.

3. Green Lantern

You poor, poor movie, is there no end to the horror you inflict on the world? The Green Lantern movie came out years ago, but it is apparently still cursing Halloween costumes across the world. Who could possibly want an awkward, hideous Kilowog costume? Or that Sinestro with the fake face mask? Ugh. And all of them suffer from some hideous puffy chest deformity. That would be embarrassing enough, but I’m pretty sure only one of those costumes actually comes with a Green Lantern ring. And that’s just inexcusable.

2. Iron Man/Iron Patriot

Iron Man was always going to be a problem.There’s no way in the history of retail that anyone could make an accurate Iron Man costume. But the world of merchandising demands a million Iron Man costumes, considering his Avengers and threequel popularity. So here we have Iron Man and Iron Patriot in the only thing cheap costume designers could come up with: overly-detailed smocks. Those helmets might look good, but these kids might as well be wearing pajamas. There’s no definition, only pretty pictures drawn on cheap fabric. Hardly men of iron, eh?

1. Almost every costume for girls

I never knew how bad girls had it until I started making this list. Apparently all a costume maker has to do is slap a skirt on something and it becomes a girls’ costume. Doesn’t even matter if it’s a female character or a male character, all they need to do is slap a skirt on it. Wonder Woman? Skirt! Captain America? Skirt! Some disturbed little girl wants to dress up as a cross-gender version of the Joker? Skirt! God forbid a little girl want to actually dress up like the real superhero. Don’t get me wrong, I would fully support some kind of Princess Batman idea, if that’s what the girl wanted. That’s something fun. But this is just straight up crass disinterest. Oh, and all of those costumes are also available in pink.

———————