A Hero-Branding Origin Story

So you've just been granted strange powers by a freak lab accident, cosmic ray bombardment, or you find you're the CEO of a tech firm with a limitless slush fund. Here's your chance to set the world to rights - or crush it beneath your boot.

- Rian Hughes

But first, you need to brand yourself. If you were a superhero, wearing a brightly-coloured suit with a logo on the front might not be the best way to sneak around unnoticed, but as Bruce Wayne reflects in a retelling of Batman's origin in Detective Comics #33 back in 1939, "Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible... a bat!"

If Wayne Manor was in Surrey, it might have been a pigeon rather than a bat that flew in through the open window at that precise moment. But Pigeon-Man wouldn't have the same chilling effect on wrong-doers. It's important to get your superhero branding right - an iconic design can help bring villains to justice.