Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I've one over the years.
A number of times over the years, Spider-Man has been forced to put together a makeshift costume. As you might expect, the results sometimes end up looking quite ridiculous. Here, then, are the top five most ridiculous temporary costumes worn by Spider-Man...
There was a storyline in the late 1990s where Spider-Man had a bounty on his head, so he had to come up with four alternate superhero identities to do his superhero work. Shockingly (SHOCKINGLY), Marvel then used these four new identities to launch four new heroes using these new costumes in their own book, Slingers. Anyhow, I don't really think these count for this top five list, since Spider-Man put a bunch of work into these costumes and I'm only talking about makeshift costumes. However, they're notable enough that I figured I should share them with you anyways...
5. German Costume Shop Costume
During the Spider-Man vs. Wolverine one-shot (by Jim Owsley, M.D. Bright and Al Williamson), Peter Parker and Ned Leeds are on an investigation for the Daily Bugle in Germany (earlier in the story, Peter decided to briefly quit being Spider-Man, to the point where he doesn't bring his costume with him to Germany). Peter returns to their hotel suite one day to find Ned murdered and armed agents standing over his body. Wolverine shows up out of nowhere and kills all the agents. He and Peter then get the heck out of there. Peter debates what to do next and ultimately decides that he has to track Wolverine down to see what is going on. To do this, though, he'll need to find a replacement costume...
This was a nice piece of levity to balance what was, on the whole, a very, very dark and depressing Spider-Man comic book. Particularly for the time (this was pre-Kraven's Last Hunt).
4. Storebought Costume
Steve Ditko was the first person to come up with the rather clever idea of "What happens if Spider-Man runs out of costumes?" In Amazing Spider-Man #25, Spidey has to give up his costume when he is trapped by a Spider-Slayer. He can get himself free, but he has to leave his costume behind. Meanwhile, back at home, Aunt May discovers his back-up costume and takes it from Peter (she doesn't want him dressing up as that horrible Spider-Man person as a prank). So the next issue, Amazing Spider-Man #26 (by Ditko and Stan Lee), he comes up with a solution...
Throughout #26, he has to keep readjusting the costume with his webbing. In #27, though, he has trouble doing so during a fight...
And when he falls into some water later on in the issue...
Eventually he just makes himself a new costume. Very clever stuff by Ditko. Very humanizing, which was obviously a big appeal to the Spider-Man character at the time.
3. Fantastic Four Costume Plus Bag Over Head
In Amazing Spider-Man #258 (by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein), Spider-Man visits Mr. Fantastic to learn about his new costume. While there, he discovers to his great dismay that his new black costume is actually an alien symbiote! With the help of Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch, the three heroes are able to capture the alien. However, Spider-Man is now without a costume. The FF lend him one of their old blue costumes (they had recently begun wearing a new costume with a blackish tint to their blue costume). The problem is that the FF costumes don't have MASKS...
Very funny stuff from DeFalco and Frenz.
Fantastic Four Costume with a Bag over his head not even in the top TWO?!? How can this be! Well, find out by checking out the top two on the next page!
2. Paint Canvas-Man
In Peter Parker: Spider-Man #18 (by Howard Mackie, Graham Nolan and Scott Hanna), Peter is on the streets after losing his apartment, but overnight, someone also stole his backpack, which had his costume and webshooters in it!
It turns out it was some punk kid who took them...
Anyhow, later in the issue, the Green Goblin clone shows up to attack Liz Osborn (the Green Goblin clone was a clone that Norman Osborn created to convince the world that he was not the Green Goblin, as after all, he was being attacked BY the Green Goblin!). Peter needs to protect her, but without a costume he has to make due, using a paint-covered canvass from some work being done on the Daily Bugle...
1. Bag-Man
During his second stint on Spectacular Spider-Man, J.M. DeMatteis had a subplot where the former villains Grizzly and the Gibbon decided to make a go of it as superheroes. In Spectacular Spider-Man #256 (by DeMatteis, Luke Ross and Dan Green), they are captured by the White Rabbit. This is during the point in time when Spider-Man had a bounty on his head. He had created some alternate identities already, but he didn't have time to go back home to find his other get-up AND come back in time to save Gibbon and Grizzly, so he decided to improvise, in hilarious fashion...
I have to imagine that a LITTLE bit of this was DeMatteis taking the piss a bit out of the whole "Identity Crisis" storyline in general (as they each involved Spider-Man coming up with fake backstories to go with each of the identities he introduced). Either way, it's ridiculous, but in the most awesome way, and the clear first place result for this top five!
Anyhow, that's the top five! Agree? Disagree? Let me know!