History Main / CheapCostume

* The "Burnside" costume Barbara Gordon wears in ''ComicBook/{{Batgirl 2011}}'' fits this as some of her costume pieces includes a jacket, boots and a cowl that fits more like a cap. Note the costume itself is not cheaply made, it just consists of artifacts that could resemble real world clothing instead of a spandex outfit.

* Towards the end of the ''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'' series, former Batgirl Barbara Gordon met with a teenage girl who was co-opting her old identity. The cheapness of the young lady's costume -- the cape and cowl of which were made from binliners -- became a plot point, when it was what led Babs to figure out that she was homeless.

* In ''[[ComicBook/DialHForHero Dial H]]'', Nelson has to rescue a friend without a working Hero Dial, and creates his own blue-collar-worker-themed "Rescue Jack" superhero identity with a thrown-together costume and metalworking tools as weapons.
* UsefulNotes/{{The Golden Age|Of Comic Books}} hero the Guardian stole his outfit and shield from a costume shop. Though at least in his case, he left behind some money for it.

* [[Literature/{{Worm}} Madison]] starts out with one in ''FanFic/{{Atonement}}''. Basically, it's a hoodie, balaclava, army pants, boots, and gloves (tightly secured so she can use her tethers on them for NotQuiteFlight), and Mads mentions that she got it from local thrift and army surplus stores, and comments that it only cost around $20. She gets a better costume when she becomes a Ward.

* In Ridley Pearson's ''ComicBook/SuperSons'' graphic novels, Jon and Ian are not officially affiliated with their superhero fathers, so the boys dress in cobbled-together sports equipment to fight crime.

Not to be confused with BetaOutfit which describes the common evolution of superhero attire as they start out with a sort of "dime store" version of their iconic costumes only to switch to their proper costumes at a later point.

** During a Team-Up with Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}}, Spidey once found himself abroad and in need of a costume. Luckily for him, he was able to purchase a reasonable imitation of a Spider-Man costume in a costume shop in Berlin. Unfortunately, it had "Die Spinne" written on the back, the name that the character was known by and that Spider-Man comics were sold under in Germany back then. Worth noting that Spidey's normal costume at the time was the black & white number, so it wasn't a "reasonable" imitation of his way of thinking since it looked like his then-retired red-and-blue costume.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManIntoTheSpiderVerse'': As is the case with his comic book counterpart, [[Characters/UltimateSpiderManMilesMorales Miles Morales]]' original superhero suit is a store-bought, improperly-sized Spider-Man Halloween costume. His growth into a confident, worthy successor to the first Spider-Man is signified by him donning a proper suit.

* ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'':

* Characters/{{Harley Quinn|TheCharacter}}'s costume was just something she stole from a costume shop. [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]]'s duds may count as well, given he just wears a ratty old suit. This tends to fall into DependingOnTheWriter at times. In ''Comicbook/SalvationRun'', Joker mentions that his famed purple tuxedo is made of pure velvet. In the ComicBook/{{New 52}} continuity, Harley's costume is shown to be made up of articles of clothing [[MuggedForDisguise she stole from a cheerleader, jogger, prostitute, and fast food employee, respectively]]. Presumably this was done to explain the {{Stripperiffic}} nature of the outfit.
* At one point when Tony Stark had retired from his Comicbook/IronMan identity to recover from his alcoholism, Tony had his "Recovery Armor" (basically a modernized Mark I armor) discovered by Dr. Demonicus and taken for a test run. Tony had to scrounge up costume parts of his teammates' within the Avengers West Coast so he could go out and get the armor back. Hawkeye mockingly named him "Spare Parts Man".

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Seems to happen with [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]] quite frequently. Makes sense, considering he is often TheWoobie, TheChewToy, or both.
** In the comics, after getting rid of the symbiote, he had to borrow a Comicbook/FantasticFour costume, but because it didn't have a mask, he had [[BrownBagMask to wear a paper bag over his head]] (and a [[KickMePrank kick-me sign on his back]], courtesy of Johnny Storm). No, seriously. He was called [[https://web.archive.org/web/20110418120506/http://www.spiderfan.org/characters/himself/costume/not_really/index.html "The Amazing Bag-Man" and "The Bombastic Bag-Man"]].

** In ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', Spidey had lost his costume to the Comicbook/{{Venom}} suit and was forced to wear a rag-tag Spidey t-shirt/blue pants combo and a loose mask. The glass piece that covered one eye of the mask fell out, and the lady he saved accidentally stepped on it.

*** [[Characters/UltimateSpiderManMilesMorales Miles Morales]], the [[AffirmativeActionLegacy second]] Ultimate Spider-Man, started off in a ratty store-bought Spider-Man costume that was given to him by his friend Ganke. He later upgraded to a cooler, more official model designed by ComicBook/NickFury.

** In the ''Comicbook/{{Infinity}}'' arc of ''[[Comicbook/MightyAvengers2013 Mighty Avengers]]'', [[Comicbook/{{Blade}} Ronin]] hides his identity with a cheap Spider-Man Halloween costume. The costume is lime-green and hot-pink in place of blue and red, and even has "[[LawyerFriendlyCameo Spider Hero]]" written on the front to [[BlandNameProduct avoid]] [[BrandX litigation]].

* In ''Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool'', Comicbook/{{Static}} makes an approximation of his [[WesternAnimation/StaticShock cartoon outfit]] out of some clothing stolen from a sporting goods shop. He later ditches it after several of his friends claim it makes him look like Ash from ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries''.

* Rorschach's costume in ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' is something of an inversion; he works in a tailor's shop in his day job and has the skills and equipment to make himself any costume his imagination could devise --[[FanWank it's possible he made Nite Owl II's in exchange for that]] [[GrapplingHookPistol rope gun]] -- yet is content with a fairly low-key CoatHatMask ensemble with the mask coming from a fabric offcut that nobody at work wanted. It's probably the scariest costume in the comic. The pinstripe suit and shoes that he normally wears under it were probably quite expensive when they were new, for that matter.

* Cassie Sandsmark as ComicBook/WonderGirl tends towards this as a member of ComicBook/YoungJustice (both when she started out and in [[ComicBook/YoungJustice 2019 series]]). Her original Wonder Girl outfit was black leggings with yellow stars, a skirt, and a return to a Wonder Woman-themed shirt.

* Don Martin's Magazine/{{Mad}} Magazine protagonist Captain Klutz got his costume by pure accident. The impoverished schmuck tried to commit suicide by jumping off his floor of a skyscraper when he got fitted out by various laundry items air-drying on a line (most notably some red long johns) and he landed on top of a thug who just robbed a bank. The robber called him a klutz, and when the police asks who he was, he slurs "I'm a klutz, Captain." The officer tells another "I think he said he was Captain Klutz!"