Jim Lee regrets drawing Aquaman with chainmail outfit, but not his role in damaging the DCU's coherency

Popverse says artist and DC executive Lee told at one of the recent conventions he didn't like drawing Aquaman with a chainmail costume, something Captain America was drawn with at times:

Every artist has their pet peeve, and for Jim Lee it’s chainmail. The superstar artist, who is also the publisher of DC Comics, isn’t a fan of chainmail on superhero costumes because they’re a pain to draw. When asked about the hardest characters to draw, Lee didn’t hold back.

“Anyone that has chainmail on their tunic,” Jim Lee says during a spotlight panel at MegaCon 2026. “Unfortunately, when I was drawing Justice League for the New 52, I decided to draw chainmail on Aquaman’s tunic. I regretted that.”

If he's never drawn Red Sonja, whose bikini-style outfit was often drawn as chainmail, that's decidedly a good thing. Besides, if memory serves, Lee watered down his character designs for the ladies in the past decade, and since the turn of the century, he's wasted whatever artwork he's done on the worst directions DC could go in.

On which note, he's never expressed any regret for the role he played in destroying the DCU's coherency, and that take on the Justice League from nearly 15 years ago was little more than a pathetic continuation of that. They mostly abandoned their "New 52" direction after something like 5 years, along with the status quo set by Identity Crisis, but much damage still remained, and till this day, we're still shaking off the negative effects it left. There's no telling if any of this will change under WB's new ownership through Paramount. It's precisely why it'd do a lot of good if the publishing arm of DC could be bought out, along with Marvel's from Disney.

Sometimes, I think Lee's one of the most overrated artists in history, and he certainly didn't put his art talents to good use in the past quarter century. So, why must we care if he doesn't like chainmail designs? What really matters is if he cares about the moral integrity and cohesion of DC/Marvel. Judging from his conduct over the past 25 years, he sadly doesn't. When will he resign and move on already? He's just not a good fit for them in the end.