Today, in the newest Pop Culture Theme Time, I’m asking you which movie superhero costume do you think best captured the spirit of the comic books.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
I recently wrote about how movie studios used to be outright ashamed of comic book superhero costumes, and try to do anything they could to make the costumes in the films look DIFFERENT than the comics. That has changed in recent years, but it’s still a fairly frequent thing that films sort of make fun.
So I wanted to know which movie superhero costume do you think BEST captured the spirit of the comic book superhero costumes? I say spirit because I don’t really just mean “most accurate,” as sometimes, most accurate legit DOESN’T look good, ya know? I can see where the filmmakers are coming from sometimes, as certain things DO look kind of odd when filmed. Also, something that works fine in the comics might not translate into the “real” world, like how intricate Spider-Man’s costume is in the comics. I love how detailed the Spider-Man costume is in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, but they almost felt TOO intricate to me. We sort of handwave it in the comics, but in the “real” world, it looks almost TOO much.
So with honorable mentions to Iron Man and Christopher Reeve’s Superman, I am going with Andrew Garfield’s costume in the first Amazing Spider-Man film, which went out of its way to make it seem like something a high school student legit COULD have made, and still look cool in the process.
Okay, so that’s my pick. What’s yours?
Also, feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at my new, much shorter e-mail, brian@poprefs.com!
Superman: Christopher Reeve, Wonder Woman: Lynda Carter
Deadpool
I think Deadpool’s suit was amazingly accurate and in the spirit of the comic book character.
I would also nominate Holland’s pre-Iron-Spider costume, as well. That was definitely a costume that could have been cobbled together by a high school student.
I gotta go with Christopher Reeve’s Superman. Even today, it just looks right. (Well, except when they had to do blue screen effects and gave him a green costume. That’s a separate issue, though.) Too many superhero movie costumes look bulky and unwieldy (like the leather X-Men costumes that look like the actors can barely move, or Keaton’s molded-rubber batsuit that didn’t let him turn his head), and seem to be made of weirdly sculpted textured materials that might look good on screen but you know it takes multiple people just to squeeze the actor into them. (Or they’re not even wearing a costume per se, but have it added in via CGI later. Having Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern costume glowing was kind of neat idea, but the end product looked terrible due to over-doing it.) Reeve’s costume just looked more natural, while also being both comics-accurate and not ridiculous-looking.
The Christopher Reeves suit is a given in that he looks like he just stepped out of a comic book. I’d say the same for Deadpool. Though it’s only seen at the very end of the movie and only for a few moments, the think the Spider-Man costume that Peter Parker made for himself at the end of No Way Home is the best Spidey costume on film so far.
I think my favourite movie superhero costume in this regard is Tom Holland’s Spider-Man suit from Civil War; the first “proper” suit seen in the airport battle.
It keeps the red and blue from the comic (rather than the black from Homecoming) and doesn’t have any of the Iron Spider nanites. Plus it’s clearly a woven lyra-esque fabric, rather than appearing to be rubber or something; I like that you can see the texture. There’s a pleasing earthiness to it, like it was something you could really wear if you were doing what Peter does. Plus the animated eyes, with their focusing lenses, is a great way of adapting the artistic licence of having his costume’s eyes change shape in the comic.
David, I absolutely agree. I remember Spider-Man showing up and thinking how good he looked, and the eyes changing was brilliant.