Clothing Damage/Comic Books

Spider-Man
- Ultimate Spider-Man frequently has to improvise ill-fitting and ridiculous-looking costumes when he is unable to get Mary Jane to fix his Clothing Damage.
- Regular Spider-Man has this problem too. Once patching his clothing with webs kept someone from pulling his mask off.
Elsewhere in the Ultimate Marvel universe, Hulk frequently ends up nude when he transforms. In one case he was witnessed stealing the pants from a fat guy.
Giant Man tends to destroy his clothes every time he grew into giant size at least in the first issues of Ultimates.
X-Men
- The ridiculous outfit Alex Summers wore during the Inferno arc as the Goblin Prince. An over-the-top shreded version of his Havok costume.
- Happens to Emma on occasion. In her origin comic series, this happens to her when she goes to a school dance, in a scene reminiscent of Cinderella.
- Whenever the mutant Paul Patterson uses his powers, he ends up destroying all of his clothes.
- This happens to Wolverine frequently, often when he goes into berserk-mode. In one Spider-Man story, when his orange and red costume was destroyed after a fight with the Wendigo, he decides to bring out his old yellow and blue one and wear that instead. (He told Spidey that he wanted to wear something that reminded him of when they didn't know each other; he was probably being sarcastic.) Apparently, this made him decide to change back to the old costume permanently, even though he did wear the red and orange one in one more story.
Gen 13
- Lampshaded by protagonist Caitlin Fairchild after realizing that a raft crash has somehow completely removed her khakis and belt: "For some strange reason, I always seem to lose articles of clothing whenever we get into trouble."
- In a recent remake, Fairchild managed to get most of her skintight body suit ripped nearly to shreds in the space of five minutes. To be fair, she did take out several commandos and jump clear through a roof to do so.
- The very first time her powers manifested, increasing her muscle mass among other things, she went from petite to Amazonian Beauty and busted out of her clothing.
- The first issue of Adam Warren's run was a recap disguised as a Behind The Music parody; in the (imaginary) Where Are They Now? Epilogue, Caitlin died after defeating a supervillain in sub-zero weather... of exposure.
- For a male example, Burnout once incinerated his swim trunks while flying up to a plane and ended up having to fight naked.
Typical in Witchblade (the comic, at least), where, in the process of expanding from its dormant bracelet form into Stripperiffic superpowered armor form, the Witchblade tends to tear up whatever Sara Pezzini was already wearing. Justified (and lampshaded!) by a later Retcon that revealed that Witchblade was male and he pretty much did the shredding for his own enjoyment. As Sara became more experienced with Witchblade, the instances of shredded clothes decreased (instead, Witchblade simply appeared over whatever she was wearing at the time.) Danielle, the less experienced Witchblade bearer, on the other hand...
The title Superheroine of the comic Empowered has a super-suit that literally shreds with a touch, cannot be worn with other clothing (including underwear) and weakens her powers when torn. The suit can repair itself, but only a day later.
Happened frequently to Catwoman in her 1990s series. She was also shown to be able to cut a man's clothing off with her whip without leaving a scratch on him.
This can happen pretty regularly with She Hulk; though it's pretty much guaranteed with her cousin the Hulk.
- Lampshaded in the Sensational She-Hulk where she ends up in a teddy during the fight. When asked afterwards what the hell made the teddy indestructible, she pointed out the "APPROVED BY THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY" label on them.
In a variant case, Plastique's first appearance ended rather badly when she tried to blow herself up for a terrorist attack and make herself a martyr with a suit that was laden with bombs. Firestorm responded by changing the fabric of her suit into air, leaving her naked and humiliated while he gathered up the bombs to explode at a safe distance while her political credibility was equally vaporized.
This used to happen to Luke Cage a lot to show off how indestructible he was.
Ditto The Savage Dragon.
In the recent Blackest Night story, the original Dr. Light came back via the Black Lanterns and challenged Kimiyo "I am now Dr. Light" Hoshi. He not only mentally and verbally attacked her, but to add insult to injury, basically blasted her outfit off of her piece by piece until she was naked lying on the ground. No big surprise, since recent Dr. Light stories have established him as a special kind of evil.
Sergeant Nick Fury used to have this happen all the time. Lampshaded when a supply sergeant is issuing him replacements, which are the last shirts available in the European Theater of Operations that will fit a man with a 22-inch neck.
A recent Runaways had the older members of the team attempt to hold a prom, which was interrupted by a plane crashing into their current base. Klara freaks out and starts unleashing her plant-based powers uncontrollably, and Nico's top gets completely torn off. She spends the rest of the arc loosely wrapped in Victor's suit jacket.
The bounty hunter Lobo, a popular character for DC Comics in the 90s, has the ability to near instantly regenerate any damage done to his body, even from being reduced to a puddle. Unfortunately his clothing doesn't grow back, often leaving him bare naked after, and occasionally during, his fights. Lobo seems to understand how this makes people feel, and takes great pleasure in the discomfort his nudity brings to others.
The character Skuzz from The New Universe title DP7 had disintegration powers. Unfortunately, these ran all the time, so an outfit would usually last three days for him even if he wasn't actively using them. And when he does... well, there's usually a scene of him focusing his power to destroy something with a beam attack, only to realize afterwards that he's just gotten nekkid.
Happens all the time to the female protagonists in the Al Rio comic Exposure. They even adopt their trademark uniforms because their clothes were shredded to nothing, and even they don't last long.
Of The Authority, Apollo seems to suffer from this the most.
Being a werewolf, Wolf-Man is very susceptible to this. His costume fits his wolf form. However, with the exception of sweatpants and tanktops, if he has to wolf out in normal clothes they will be shreded.
Several characters in ClanDestine.
- Samantha, who generates "ectoplasmic armor", tends to shred her clothes completely each time she uses her power. She is never shown dispelling the armor (although she is shown altering and dispelling portions, and dispelling the swords that she occasionally generates instead), and it remains intact even when she's unconscious.
- Walter's Hulk-like transformations destroy his clothing, except for his underwear. It takes him a while to revert to his human form, so the story tends to end before he does so anyway.
- Adam, who is Made Of Diamond but wears normal clothing, tends to lose his shirt in combat situations but retain his pants. This can be attributed to censorship or to the genie who gave him his powers, whichever you prefer.
There's rarely an issue of Atomic Robo that goes by where Robo's shirt isn't destroyed entirely (likely for the same reasons as Luke Cage and Savage Dragon). His pants, however, always remain intact.

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