The Comics Costume Question

I don't know how I got started on it, but at some point I got thinking about costumes in comic book movies/TV shows.  In the beginning--more or less--costumes in movies/TV were pretty similar to the costumes in the comic books.  Like in the old 1949 Batman serials--one chapter of which is on Rifftrax and the whole thing is on the Roku Channel--the Batman and Robin costumes are pretty close to the 1939-1940 versions.  The George Reeve Superman costume was also pretty similar, though originally it wasn't the same colors because the show was in black-and-white--at least that's what they said in Hollywoodland.  The Batman '66 costumes were mostly bad cosplay versions of the comic book costumes but pretty similar.  The Lynda Carter Wonder Woman was pretty accurate and I suppose the Hulk was too--I mean, it's just tattered pants, right?  The Christopher Reeve Superman costume was pretty accurate to the traditional one.  Other than Lex Luthor having hair I'm not sure what you could really compare any of the villains in those movies to.  

The late 70s Reb Brown Captain America movies, though, were pretty comic book inaccurate.  As were Thor and Daredevil in 80s Incredible Hulk movies.  The crappy 1990-ish Captain America movie was more accurate, but not completely.  The Punisher movie from that time might also  have been less accurate; I've never seen it.  Those were all pretty low budget affairs and I'm sure Marvel/Disney would like us all to forget them.

The trend to get away from accurate costumes really began with the 1989 Batman movie by Tim Burton.  Batman's costume still had the same basic look but instead of blue-and-gray like in the comics of the time it was all black, though it retained the yellow oval with the bat symbol.  It was also rubber instead of fabric.  The Joker was more accurate in that he wore purple, green, and orange most of the time.  In Batman Returns the Catwoman and Penguin costumes were similar but definitely not exactly like those in the comics.  In Batman Forever the Riddler had various costumes with the question mark on them and they were green so they were somewhat accurate.  Two-Face had a suit with two different styles and color schemes so it was fairly similar.  Robin's costume, like Batman's was rubberized but it at least retained the traditional color scheme--but not the tiny green shorts.  In Batman & Robin, though, Robin's costume changes to black-and-red with a different symbol so it was closer to a Nighwing costume than a Robin one.  Mr. Freeze being played by Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger meant his armor was a lot bulkier than the Mr. Freeze of comics and cartoons.  Bane was pretty close to the comic book one in appearance, though that was just about the only similarity.  Poison Ivy was I guess somewhat close.  Batgirl's costume was similar to Batman's, which was similar to some later iterations in the comics, but not really ones in use at the time.

I'm not sure how Wesley Snipes's Blade compared to later comics versions but it was a lot different from the original comic book one I remember from the Marvel Ultimate Alliance video game, which looked kind of like Robin Hood.  The Spawn costume in the 1997 movie looked pretty close to the comic book version.

Then with X-Men they really got away from the comics.  Cyclops even says snarkily to Wolverine, "What did you expect:  yellow spandex?"  Most of the costumes for the characters weren't really that close to the traditional comic book ones, opting for the good guys to mostly wear black leathery stuff instead, though at least Magneto wore red and had a special helmet.

Spider-Man's costumes in the Sam Raimi movies were similar to the traditional comic book design but the villains were not really.  Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin wore a green armored suit instead of a purple leotard or whatever, which is probably a change for the better.  Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus wore a trench coat and normal pants and shirt instead of green-and-yellow spandex--again a change for the better.  The black Spider-Man costume in the third movie was not all that similar to the black suit from the 80s while Venom and Sandman looked much closer to the comic book versions than the villains in the previous movies.

In a similar fashion, the Christopher Nolan Batman movies didn't often make much effort to make costumes comic book accurate.  They were more tailored for realism.  The Joker and Catwoman are probably the closest to their comic book versions while Batman has a design more like the other movies than the comics and the other villains bear only vague resemblances to their comic book versions.

The Green Lantern movie infamously used a CGI costume instead of fabric or rubber or anything like that.  I didn't mind it as much as other people--including Ryan Reynolds.

Fox's Fantastic Four looked fairly similar to the comic book costumes, albeit a bit toned down.  Dr. Doom was pretty similar and the Silver Surfer was still a silver dude but Galactus was a lot different.

The MCU started out with costumes that followed more that Raimi/Nolan design aesthetic.  Iron Man was obviously kind of similar and the Hulk was the Hulk but Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye had much more practical designs than their traditional comics versions.  Black Widow was pretty similar but a black catsuit is a black catsuit so whatever.  I haven't read enough early Marvel comics but I think Obediah Stane's machine (whatever it's called) and War Machine were a little different.  Whiplash I'm pretty sure was a lot different.  Loki was a lot more realistically designed than the comics version as was Red Skull.  Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver looked pretty different from their comics versions while the Vision was similar though toned-down sort of like Robin in Batman Forever.  Sam Wilson's Falcon was pretty different from the comic book version--which was probably a change for the better.  The Winter Soldier looked more or less the same, I think.  The Ant-Man and Yellowjacket were similar to comic book versions but made to look more real.  The Wasp I think was a farther departure from the comics.  I'm pretty sure Star-Lord was a lot different but I can't really say about the others in Guardians of the Galaxy because like most people I hadn't even heard of it until they announced the movie.  I think in the comics Rocket usually wears orange but otherwise I'm not sure there are huge differences.  Groot is still a tree, Gamora and Drax are greenish, and Thanos is purple with gold armor.

Meanwhile at Fox, Wolverine never got the yellow spandex.  Except for Mystique being blue and Professor X in a suit and wheelchair, they really never did any in the first three movies like their comics versions.  Sabertooth in the awful prequel movie looked nothing like the traditional version.  The First Class suits were similar to what the original 60s X-Men wore but the other costumes, not so much.  At the end of Apocalypse they had sort of 1992 costumes but then in Dark Phoenix they were more like the 2000s Grant Morrison-era ones.  Deadpool looked pretty close except the red was more muted while Colossus looked better though still a lot more muted compared to the comics.  Domino and Cable in Deadpool 2 really only bore passing resemblances to the comics versions.

In Sony's Spider-Man reboots the Spidey costume looked mostly the same and I guess the Lizard was a lizard, so whatever.  The Green Goblin again didn't look that close, nor did Electro.  The latter it's not just that he was played by Jamie Foxx but because in the comics Electro wore a green costume with yellow lightning bolts on it whereas in the movie he was blue and in more or less normal clothes.  The Rhino similarly looked nothing like the comics, where he was a big dude in a gray costume, not a shrimpy dude in robot armor.

The Fox Fantastic Four reboot the characters looked nothing like the original versions (except Thing who's an orange-ish rock monster) but they did I think look closer to the Ultimate version from the 2000s.  Dr. Doom was pretty fucking lame though. 

In Civil War the MCU got more comic book accurate with the Spider-Man costume again looking more or less like the comics and Black Panther looking like later versions of the comics, not really like the original.  Though Zemo was just some regular guy, not wearing a purple ski mask and stuff like in the comics.  Dr. Strange looked more or less the same as the comics but I have no real idea about the villains.  Captain Marvel looked pretty similar, albeit designed a bit more realistically than the recent comics.

The MCU Spider-Man movies the Spidey costumes (original and Iron Spider) looked pretty close to the comics while the version at the end of the second one looked more like the Superior Spider-Man, albeit without the extra spider arms. The Vulture in the first movie did not look like the comics but like the first two Raimi movies it was for the best.  I mean in the comics the Vulture is an old bald guy in green spandex with feathery wings so the Michael Keaton version in a helmet, oxygen mask, leather jacket, and robot wings was a lot better.  Mysterio looked pretty similar, though a bit more muted than the comics version.

The recent TV shows have changed the costumes more towards the comic book versions.  In WandaVision they even dress in comics accurate costumes for Halloween.  The Scarlet Witch's costume at the end is far more like the comics version than the original.  In Falcon & the Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson gets a pretty accurate version of his Captain America costume while Zemo gets his purple ski mask and John Walker gets a pretty accurate US Agent costume.  In Loki he goes around in a TVA uniform most of the time but in the fifth episode the other Lokis he meets are all patterned after versions appearing in the comics.

Not the Snyder version

Meanwhile, in DC's Snyderverse, most of the costumes were designed to be more realistic versions of the comic book costumes.  Starting in Watchmen, most of the characters have the same general look but the colors are toned down and the materials are more padded or armored than fabric.  The Superman costume looks pretty close to the New 52 comics version, albeit with muted colors, while the Batman costume is more like The Dark Knight Returns--except black instead of blue.  Wonder Woman's costume loses the star-spangled shorts (which didn't really make sense) to look more like old-fashioned Greek armor.  Aquaman and the Flash have more armored looks.  Cyborg probably looks the closest to his comic book version, albeit more recent ones rather than the original Teen Titans version.

In Suicide Squad, Deadshot's costume looks pretty similar, especially when he's wearing the mask over his face so you don't know it's Will Smith.  Most of the other characters, including Harley Quinn don't look that similar to their comic book/animated versions, not even Killer Croc, who looked more like a lizard alien from a crappy sci-fi show than the giant man-croc from the comics.

But in the non-Snyder movies they get closer to the comics as Aquaman gets the orange armored shirt and green pants and the Shazam costume is pretty similar to the more recent comics versions.

As for the DC TV shows, Smallville never really broke out the Superman costume until the end.  The short-lived Birds of Prey also stayed away from costumes except to flashbacks of Batgirl.  Arrow and The Flash started out with more Nolan-inspired versions of the character costumes.  Over the years they graduated to more comics-looking designs.  Supergirl and Superman looked pretty similar except again the colors were more muted.  Titans, Doom Patrol, and Stargirl all fairly well resemble the comic book costumes for the most part, though the colors of the Robin costumes are still muted and other small things like that.

I'm sure I'm leaving some stuff out.  Anyway, I think especially with Fox under Disney control now, Spider-Man still in the MCU, and the Snyderverse all but gone, the future is probably that comic book movie costumes will continue to largely echo the looks of their comic book counterparts but still with more muted colors and realistic-looking materials.  You'll probably never see Wolverine in bright yellow spandex, but a muted yellow-and-brown leathery-looking suit is more likely.

If someone ever made a movie or TV show of The Scarlet Knight, I don't think the costumes would be hard to design.  Emma wears red plate armor.  The Black Dragoon wears black plate armor.  Seems pretty easy, though for practical shooting reasons they'd probably want to use less heavy materials than real plate armor.  The Girl Power and Gender Swap Hero costumes would far more resemble real superhero costumes, so probably with more muted colors and leathery padded materials.

Anyway, should comic book movie costumes be comic book accurate?  I don't think they should be 100% so.  I think it is better to take the basic designs and make them more realistic.  But what do you think, true believer?