One of my favorite DC characters since he's probably what most of us would do if we were super wealthy and wanted to get even with bad guys.
As neat as these are, I will not be wearing them with tights like the ad campaign says. Nor will I be wearing my underpants on the outside; my friend Steve, who draws comics for a living, explained that artists in the early days did this because it was easier than drawing all the folds real clothing has.
Somehow these probably offer no protection if I walked through a puddle of Kryptonite or stepped on a magic dog turd.
These special Chucks are two out of five designs exclusively sold through Journeys, you cannot get them from Converse online or their retail stores. I stumbled upon them last weekend at the outlet mall in Round Rock. They ran about $55/pair but I had to have these. Fortunately, I knew from past experience about doing special orders with the story since they didn’t carry my size. I saved some dough too. I received free shipping and 15 percent off due to the order exceeding $100.
What about the other three? Two are alternate designs of Supes and Bats. The last was the heartbreaker. Green Lantern! The Hal Jordan incarnation which appeared to be drawn by Neal Adams (the artist most associated with the character in my opinion). For some weird reason, GL only goes up to size 10 (male). Oddly, they omitted Wonder Woman, the other member of the DC Triumvirate. I thought it was rather short-sighted on both companies’ parts. Journeys caters to ladies and they would like WW. Heck, why not include a couple other key women in DC Comics? Batgirl, Catwoman or Black Canary? It would cover the Birds of Prey series, the book not the terrible TV show.
I want to close about my great experience with Journeys’ customer service. The Supes pair arrived quickly (in two days) yet there was sign of Bats. I checked my receipt, tried to see if I could track the order. No dice. Confused, I clicked the link to try online chat support. I was quickly connected with a helpful woman named Tricia. She explained how lookups only function with Web purchases but she could check the status for me. In a matter of two to three minutes, I received the UPS waybill and news about the shoes arriving today. Tricia rocked. I made sure I did the survey to let the people who check know. Overall, I have always been treated well by Journeys ever since a young man who was relocated by Katrina introduced me to the special order process, it’s how I attained my awesome zebra pair.
Update Aug. 21, 2010: How could I forget a key element about what I love about the Batman shoes! Back in 1989, Converse had two special pairs to help promote the horrendous Tim Burton movies. One for Batman, black Chucks with yellow bats all over them, and the other for the Joker, white Chucks with “ha ha!” in purple and green all over them. I saw the ad in a magazine, called the 800 number at the bottom and got told Converse wouldn’t be selling them anywhere in the Milwaukee area. Man was I bummed. Not now.