I’m going to start a little personally this time.
Hisako Ichiki, the mutant known as Armor, is one of my favorite X-Men characters. For better or worse, I started reading X-Men comics in 2008 – as a young teen I remember coming across the cover for Uncanny X-Men #505 by Terry Dodson at my local Stop & Shop supermarket and my brain chemistry fundamentally rewriting itself. I had watched the X-Men live-action movies, and dabbled a bit with the X-Men: Evolution cartoon, but seeing the X-Men’s complex and captivating ongoing stories rendered by the master Terry Dodson, I felt myself not only pulled to reading superhero comic books, but being put on a path towards becoming a professional illustrator and comic artist myself.
In Uncanny X-Men #505, Hisako Ichiki shows up briefly, in a scene with Megan Gwynn, the indomitable Pixie (another character I am on record of stanning) and suddenly I had to know everything there was to know about these cool teens (being a cool teen myself, of course). I chased down her first appearance, in Joss Whedon (:/) and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men and fell in love with her journey of developing her powers and snarky wit, to her dreams of becoming a member of the X-Men. She was my Kitty Pryde, but with an insanely unique visual power, and a tragedy in losing her best friend Wing early on in her adventures.
Hisako has been an on-and-off member of the X-Men since those early days, often one of the few pulled from her generation of young mutants to step in. Her dynamic power signature and strong mentor relationship with Wolverine have cemented her place as the future of the X-Men (if they’d ever let anyone grow up). With a strong showing in the #XMenVote, she’ll appear in this February’s Secret X-Men and hopefully beyond with the future incarnation of Al Ewing’s S.W.O.R.D.
When the artists of the Redesigning X-Men crew vote for a character for the next round, we each nominate names and hope our faves get a chance for redesigns. Being X-Men fans ourselves, we often see unexpected names receive more votes than you’d expect (Maggott has been a top 3 contender for several rounds in a row!). However, I NEVER imagined when I nominated Armor this round that she’d beat the likes of Jean Grey, Rogue, and more X-Men staples to become our newest subject, and I’m just thrilled to see it happen (I only campaigned a little, I swear). Check out the work of our amazing crew of artists and follow their work on social media!
Josh Cornillon
“For my design, I tried to imagine Armor’s solo adventures as an action-packed ambassador of Krakoa, working for Abigail Brand. My costume was inspired by some Miu Miu SP21 runway looks and 60’s minidresses, with a touch of anime and formal flair.”
Calvin Lin
“For Armor, I wanted to play off her SWORD outfit but make it more outer space-y! I went for a retro kind of look with the Gatchaman-esque helmet/visor and the round pauldrons!”
Kenneth Laster
“Theoretically I like the idea of Hisako’s uniform being like a jumpsuit in a mech anime…but I have never seen a mech anime–hence the final look steering towards Rom the Space Knight. Oh well, I think she looks cute here!”
Christian Tomas
“For this design, I mainly leaned into her SWORD color scheme and outfit. Tried to picture what an officer of a mutant space station would wear as inspiration. Went with touches of green to contrast with her pink psionic armor, and gave her a little tunic to keep it fun!”
Alex Buckland
“I’ve always read Armor as a character who doesn’t need a costume with a lot of bells and whistles (I mean she’s been wearing different variations of Kitty’s uniform in astonishing for years) so that’s why I went for a simpler space suit for her place on S.W.O.R.D. As for her powers, I thought it’d be a fun power up for her if she could not only do the big armor but be able to manifest it as any form of armor!”
Valentine Smith
“This go round I was interested in giving Hisako personality in her stance, in her choice of clothing, in her armor manifestation. It’s a little rougher, grimier, more textured—she’s down for a fight and she’s not afraid to use her fists. I wonder what the process would be for her armor forming—almost like moving states. What if it could also be a liquid, a gas, a solid, and move between them?”
Joshua Bruckner
“I wanted to give Armor a unique look and different hair style to break her away from the training uniform look she’s had so long. This is a mature and versatile look good for space explorations or more grounded adventures. The cropped puffy jacket emulates her armored look, and her armored form echos her silhouette while also being cartoony! Those yellow glasses feel right for a former Wolverine protege.”
Dillon Snook
“I thought the ancestral spirit bit of her power was super interesting and decided to just focus on that angle!”
Luis Ramos-Rosas
“The inspiration for this redesign came from a well-known anime series Evangelion, hate it or love we know of that anime. I know I’m not the first to design Armor inspired by this anime, but it was a first to me, and to be honest, A LOT of fun for me to draw her.”
John Caden
“The ‘Children of the Atom’ teenage characters all look up to and want to be X-Men, but what happens if you are a teenager and have already joined the X-Men? Been there, done that? I imagined that she would look up to – and the iconic Sailor Moon stood out – what if Armor had her own Magical Girl transformation? I dressed her as an average school-girl with her street clothes, because inside her suit of armor she doesn’t need to wear spandex, and allowed her armor to be the Magical Girl costume.”
Hector Barros
“I tried giving Hisako a design that could only work for her, but at the same time would fit into a potential young X-men lineup. Her psionic armour now takes the shape of creatures from Japanese folklore.”
Dani Kinney
“It’s apparently patently obvious that I watch a lot of anime while working on my redesigns. Perhaps all of my redesigns exist in the same pastiche AU. For Hisako, I’ve always felt her powers always tended to be drawn like a cross between Voltron and the Michelin man. Since I did mechs already I wanted to push things back in scale. What if the armor integrated with her body in a more worn way? That’s where it started and from there the aesthetic of cyberpunk animes took over. I gave her a bow too, because if she can manifest effective armor… why not artillery?”
Bradley Clayton
“For my armor design I wanted to keep the colors consistent with her SWORD design and do something sort of younger looking and also a bit heroic. The jacket is made of her armor and the idea is that it basically expands into the whole thing.”
Adam Reck
“What If Hisako became separated from her Armor? With my redesign, Armor is inside out, cloaking herself in traditional samurai garb, while standing side by side with her newly emancipated armor form, a ghostly and powerful companion.”
Sara Fangirl
“I decided to give Armor a purple costume as a callback to her being in Kitty Pryde’s squad and hair clips similar to Rei from Neon Genesis with her Armor looking a little like the ones in the show because I wanted to give her design Mecha vibes. I don’t usually design robots but I hope it’s good. Btw I haven’t watched the show yet lol.”
Max Carleton
“A lot of Armor’s costumes are takes on the classic student design, so I decided to pull from a bunch of different eras of training uniforms for her new outfit. (With a dash of New X-Men with the coat.) Her mentor was Kate Pryde, so I used the color scheme and collar from her iconic Excalibur costume. (The color also happening to synch up with Armor’s Age of X-Men costume.)”
Erik Ojo
“Armor in a mecha suit type beat! inspired by the sleek designs of the neon genesis evangelion plugsuit and the cute chunky designs of angelic layer, megaman battle network, y2k futurism, and armor’s armor!”
