Thoughts on modernizing/updating super hero costumes?

[BKatastrophe]

What's wrong with those designs

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That Batgirl design is supposed to be her Year One design "updated." Sean Gordon Murphy is the laziest costume designer, I swear. It's not terrible, but the backpack is just a whatever update to this:

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Which in and of itself is a modified version of her Year one costume

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Barbara has had some great costume designs, and that one doesn't work for her, especially coming off of her Burnside one.

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The Red Hood one is just...I guess if you really dig Casey Jones? Also he carries a crowbar now, which is hilarious.

I dunno. He'll never lose the variation on perfection, to me:

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[Maximum Spider]

I will say that Dick Grayson's Robin suit obviously needed to be redesigned for modern stories. Having a minor run around like that feels inappropriate. That said, it's a real shame that his canonical Robin costume (post Nu52) is so boring. It's not circus-y enough for my liking. (I do very much appreciate it not aping Tim's stuff.)

 

[BKatastrophe]

I will say that Dick Grayson's Robin suit obviously needed to be redesigned for modern stories. Having a minor run around like that feels inappropriate. That said, it's a real shame that his canonical Robin costume (post Nu52) is so boring. It's not circus-y enough for my liking.

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Well all Robin costumes used post-90s are simply using the 90s redesign used for when Tim Drake became Robin.

That's the first major redesign for Robin and every Robin since has used that as the basis

 

[SamAlbro]

That Batgirl design is supposed to be her Year One design "updated." Sean Gordon Murphy is the laziest costume designer, I swear. It's not terrible, but the backpack is just a whatever update to this:

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It may not be terrible, but mediocre coming on the heels of top tier certainly feels like it's terrible.

 

[hwarang]

I personally like the modernizing.

 

[BKatastrophe]

It may not be terrible, but mediocre coming on the heels of top tier certainly feels like it's terrible.

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Don't get me wrong: I do feel she should move on from the Burnside costume. It worked when she was a college student scraping by, not for a graduate that sold a million dollar company with energy and tech patents. Her Year One worked for an arc, but not anymore. The thing is Barbara has always been the "scraping by" or "cobbled together" style of costumes. She didn't build her original costume using Bruce's near unlimited resources. The closest she got to high end was her New 52:

And the reason she had that is because she was basically dusting off old gear after getting out of rehab. She also used a similar look to this for the Arkham games.

 

[Garlador]

Superhero costumes have been getting the "modernizing" treatment since the very beginning. It's fun to remember that countless heroes and villains were tweaked and changed due to feedback and refinement over time.

 

[Mandos]

Superhero costumes have been getting the "modernizing" treatment since the very beginning. It's fun to remember that countless heroes and villains were tweaked and changed due to feedback and refinement over time.

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Classic Blade still rocks. And oh yes the he was a mutated actual Wolverine era

 

[SamAlbro]

Don't get me wrong: I do feel she should move on from the Burnside costume. It worked when she was a college student scraping by, not for a graduate that sold a million dollar company with energy and tech patents. Her Year One worked for an arc, but not anymore. The thing is Barbara has always been the "scraping by" or "cobbled together" style of costumes. She didn't build her original costume using Bruce's near unlimited resources. The closest she got to high end was her New 52:

And the reason she had that is because she was basically dusting off old gear after getting out of rehab. She also used a similar look to this for the Arkham games.

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These suits are pretty much a teched-out version of her Batman: The New Gotham Adventures design, which I think ties with the Burnside suit for the best version of Babs's Batsuit.

The black and gold and purple and gold palettes are more striking in a way that fits Barbara well compared to Bruce's more utilitarian stealth gray suits.

The post-Burnside suit just feels like some third-tier nineties variant figure compared to how striking her better suits are.

 

[BKatastrophe]

These suits are pretty much a teched-out version of her Batman: The New Gotham Adventures design, which I think ties with the Burnside suit for the best version of Babs's Batsuit.

The post-Burnside suit just feels like some third-tier nineties variant figure compared to how striking her better suits are.

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The black and gold is 100% my shit

 

[Wubby]

It's very needed! And they need to be slightly changed from movie to movie as well. This was one thing that was great with Iron Man, even within the same movie he would have different armor sets. The classic comic designs should stay just that, in their classic comics.

One thing you need to remember is these movies need to sell merchandise. You need new designs so companies can make new figures and people will want to buy the new versions. You can't keep selling the same looking things forever. If you want them to keep making movies like this then you need to support designs changing so they can be able to get the merchandise money to keep these movies afloat. Especially important now with traditional box office income likely never coming back even after the pandemic is over.

 

[Dezzy]

Many old super hero costumes have clashing, gaudy color schemes, and underpants on the outside look silly. I like modern looks better.

 

[Alternade]

I'm for it. Most classic costumes would look even more ridiculous than some of the current modern ones do.

The MCU did an amazing job bringing the camp of the comics but grounding it in real life. Let's be honest, if we had real heroes most would end up in a step above jeans and a T-shirt.

 

[KamenSenshi]

People keep using Ironman as though he'sa good example but he doesn't really fit this as his whole thing is creating new suits and specialized suits so if they tried to have him stick to one suit only that would seem really odd. If anyone has a reason to constantly update it's him.

 

[SamAlbro]

I think the X-Men since the late 90s or early 2000s are probably the clearest case of too much updating. The whole team gets redesigned whenever a new regular artist comes into the books, and while some classic like have come out of this period, the majority of the time the new designs are inferior or just plain forgettable. When a new classic does show up, it doesn't get to stick around before being replaced by a flavor of the week redesign.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Remove the goddamn trunks.

 

[The Adder]

Remove the goddamn trunks.

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Still doesn't work on Clark.

It just doesn't look right with simple costumes like his. You see Deathstroke's costume got a lot more complexity on the chest and arms and still maintains a lot of orange all over to keep it from looking like a solid blue field. And Cap already has the stripes to separate the blue of his chest and the blue of his pants. Wolverine's is the closest in style to Clark's, but his colors are everywhere. There's not just a solid field of yellow or blue.

Making the belt chunkier on Clark helps, but it still doesn't look quite right. They don't want to make the necessary major changes to Superman's costume (and for good reason) that would bring a trunksless design together.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Still doesn't work on Clark.

It just doesn't look right with simple costumes like his. You see Deathstroke's costume got a lot more complexity on the chest and arms and still maintains a lot of orange all over to keep it from looking like a solid blue field. And Cap already has the stripes to separate the blue of his chest and the blue of his pants. Wolverine's is the closest in style to Clark's, but his colors are everywhere. There's not just a solid field of yellow or blue.

Making the belt chunkier on Clark helps, but it still doesn't look quite right. They don't want to make the necessary major changes to Superman's costume (and for good reason) that would bring a trunksless design together.

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Other than the fact that I think the Rebirth/Reborn suit is fine and there isn't too much blue, the issue could easily be solved by going the Smallville Season 11 suit option:

Two tone the blue.

 

[Hours Left]

I forgot to add that I am #TeamBriefs

 

[Forkball]

Redesigns are natural when it comes to translating to a new medium. However, I feel that recently there has been a shift towards more fantastical, comic book designs. The costumes of Deadpool or Batfleck would've been hard to imagine ten years ago. Mysterio is even more garish than he is in the comics. Vision and Scarlet Witch are also having their comic costumes referenced in Wandavision. We even got Aquaman's ugly orange and green garb in his movie.

The best redesign is easily Vulture.

Grandpa in a onesie vs a pilot look that still incorporates the color scheme and bird theme of the original.

 

[DragonSJG]

Trunks suck dude, they look silly

 

[Kabuki Waq]

Insomniacs spidey suit is my favorite spidey suit.

 

[The Adder]

Other than the fact that I think the Rebirth/Reborn suit is fine and there isn't too much blue, the issue could easily be solved by going the Smallville Season 11 suit option:

Two tone the blue.

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I agree that that solves the problem, and they can certainly use that in films. But as for Earth-0 primary Clark Kent? It'll never happen.

 

[thetrin]

This is dope

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I would have liked red boots for this. Otherwise it comes off as too dark because of how they do the shading.

 

[Oddish1]

When I clicked on this thread I really hoped that people would be arguing over Superman's trunks and I'm not disappointed.

But yeah, they should just keep the trunks. You could give him a really thick red belt and it looks fine but it still feels kind off as well. The trunks work and so why mess with it.

 

[NeonZ]

Well all Robin costumes used post-90s are simply using the 90s redesign used for when Tim Drake became Robin.

That's the first major redesign for Robin and every Robin since has used that as the basis

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20 years before Tim there was the Earth-2 adult Robin costume too, which seemed to have two variations. One with a standard domino mask,

And then another with a full face mask.

There was also an odd Batman/Robin hybrid one.

 

[J_Viper]

Instead we got motocross pads and a dorky cowl.

The Nolan suits sucked.

This guy's not scaring anybody.

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People forget how good the cowl was in Begins

 

[TheMadTitan]

I agree that that solves the problem, and they can certainly use that in films. But as for Earth-0 primary Clark Kent? It'll never happen.

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It will. DC just needs to commit and not cave to creatives that just want to retread on how things looked during their childhood.

 

[SamAlbro]

Still doesn't work on Clark.

It just doesn't look right with simple costumes like his. You see Deathstroke's costume got a lot more complexity on the chest and arms and still maintains a lot of orange all over to keep it from looking like a solid blue field. And Cap already has the stripes to separate the blue of his chest and the blue of his pants. Wolverine's is the closest in style to Clark's, but his colors are everywhere. There's not just a solid field of yellow or blue.

Making the belt chunkier on Clark helps, but it still doesn't look quite right. They don't want to make the necessary major changes to Superman's costume (and for good reason) that would bring a trunksless design together.

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Wolverine is a good example of the work you have to put in to removing the trunks. Starting with his classic blue and yellow tiger stripe costume:

When the time came to update this suit, they didn't just remove the trunks, because that would leave too much yellow.

Instead, he got blue side panels running down the suit to break up the colors a bit.

Batman is a unique case in just removing the trunks for two reasons:

He has his utility belt (no trunks designs work better with heavy, tactical utility belts, less so with thin belts)

One color suits in Black, White or Gray tend to be less jarring to look at than suits in color.

 

[Maximum Spider]

The brown & tan Wolverine costume is top-5. The modern redesign is good but the original is still superior. He should always wear those colors.

 

[FaceHugger]

I am guessing that most of the costumes were originally designed to make it really easy on the artists and because of limitations with printing. But these days I think making superhero costumes more functional looking makes sense. And also a lot better.

I mean, if Batman is going to be leaping atop buildings in the night and taking on goons with firearms then he should be wearing armor and not spandex.

 

[The Adder]

I am guessing that most of the costumes were originally designed to make it really easy on the artists and because of limitations with printing. But these days I think making superhero costumes more functional looking makes sense. And also a lot better.

I mean, if Batman is going to be leaping atop buildings in the night and taking on goons with firearms then he should be wearing armor and not spandex.

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If Batman is going to be leaping across rooftops in the night and fighting through groups of people single handedly he should be light and mobile, not loaded down with weight from padding.

 

[FaceHugger]

If Batman is going to be leaping across rooftops in the night and fighting through groups of people single handedly he should be light and mobile, not loaded down with weight from padding.

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I guess he is kind of like a ninja in that way. I don't know. Just personally if someone is going to be shooting at me nightly or trying to stab me I would want some Kevlar in the least.

 

[Chumunga64]

Trunks suck dude, they look silly

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[DragonSJG]

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Shoto looks awesome

 

[Chumunga64]

Shoto looks awesome

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I like him as a character but he's every bad fan OC cliche

heterochromia? check

two colored hair? check (extra points for being nearly perfectly parted)

scar? check

face it Dragon, you have bad aesthetics tastes and that's why you can't see how amazing the trunks look on superman

 

[DragonSJG]

I like him as a character but he's every bad fan OC cliche

heterochromia? check

two colored hair? check (extra points for being nearly perfectly parted)

scar? check

face it Dragon, you have bad aesthetics tastes and that's why you can't see how amazing the trunks look on superman

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Them's fightin words
its better than wearing underwear over his suit or looking like a bathing suit

 

[The Adder]

I guess he is kind of like a ninja in that way. I don't know. Just personally if someone is going to be shooting at me nightly or trying to stab me I would want some Kevlar in the least.

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The goal is "don't get shot". However, there's also the fact that Bruce is always about 5 years ahead of the rest of the world in tech and DC is about 10 years ahead of reality. You can have a material that's light and non-bulky but provides decent protection. And I'm also of the opinion that Bruce shouldn't be a bullet sponge to begin with. Hardest armor is the bat symbol (covering the heart while not making it look like armor and not hindering mobility). Softer, still knife stopping armor in the torso. Exposed arms and legs allowing for full mobility. And maybe some additional hard armor in the boots and gloves (though I can take it or leave it).

Mobility aside, as I said in another topic: Batman's whole thing is about being terrifying. Over the years criminals have realized he's just a man, but those first impressions still linger in the back of their heads. And what made that first impression is that when the people he caught went to jail, they didn't tell stories about some heavily armored tank dude. They told stories about some shadowy thing they swore they shot a dozen times but just kept coming for them.

 

[Chumunga64]

Them's fightin words
its better than wearing underwear over his suit or looking like a bathing suit

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it breaks up all the blue and stops him from looking weirdly naked. there's a reason why it's so ubiquitous and why every time it's removed, it comes back.

 

[CountAntonio]

MCU does it right. Gives them a somewhat modern look believable look while maintaining some of the comic identity. Fox got it wrong(Deadpool aside) for the most part and I would love to see how an MCU X-Men would look.

 

[DragonSJG]

it breaks up all the blue and stops him from looking weirdly naked. there's a reason why it's so ubiquitous and why every time it's removed, it comes back.

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He can just wear a more armored version and have a red belt

 

[KingM]

The goal is "don't get shot". However, there's also the fact that Bruce is always about 5 years ahead of the rest of the world in tech and DC is about 10 years ahead of reality. You can have a material that's light and non-bulky but provides decent protection. And I'm also of the opinion that Bruce shouldn't be a bullet sponge to begin with. Hardest armor is the bat symbol (covering the heart while not making it look like armor and not hindering mobility). Softer, still knife stopping armor in the torso. Exposed arms and legs allowing for full mobility. And maybe some additional hard armor in the boots and gloves (though I can take it or leave it).

Mobility aside, as I said in another topic: Batman's whole thing is about being terrifying. Over the years criminals have realized he's just a man, but those first impressions still linger in the back of their heads. And what made that first impression is that when the people he caught went to jail, they didn't tell stories about some heavily armored tank dude. They told stories about some shadowy thing they swore they shot a dozen times but just kept coming for them.

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For the sake of suspension of disbelief Batman basically has to have some armored portions. Like it's all fictional and over the top, but after getting shot at hundreds of times and getting hit by aliens and metahumans who can destroy a city block in seconds you need to have some handwaved excuse of "new energy dampening polymers" or whatever. Getting beat til you piss blood and can't breathe properly by a guy dressed as a bat who left you hanging from a girder is terrifying whether he has on armor or not.

 

[Chumunga64]

He can just wear a more armored version and have a red belt

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why would superman need armor? the need for armor in every redesign is awful and making Superman look "cool" or "badass" is not how he operates

Martha Kent made the suit for her son and Clark would want any potential designs as close to his mother's versions as possible. Every other superhero could be sleek and armored as they want.

Let Superman stay the way he is

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

I've been trying to mentally reimagine the Thundercats' outfits for my own reimagining of the series and came up with a pretty neat idea to remain faithful and offer an updated look (for Lion-O). I never liked the pantsed or boxer briefs versions of Lion-O fan art and statues out there but you can only get so far with underoos in realistic depictions lol.

 

[SamAlbro]

The closest I've seen to making no-trunks Superman work is this design by Corey Walker that uses a thick red waistband in its place:

Differentiating shirt and pants "zones" with two-tone blue also works, although it isn't quite as striking:

 

[RadzPrower]

I get the desire for trunks to go away, but at the same time you can't just remove them and call it a day. The whole design needs to be updated to accommodate their removal and break things up a bit.

Trunks are dumb; unitards are worse.

 

[Mandos]

I like him as a character but he's every bad fan OC cliche

heterochromia? check

two colored hair? check (extra points for being nearly perfectly parted)

scar? check

face it Dragon, you have bad aesthetics tastes and that's why you can't see how amazing the trunks look on superman

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Hey I have heterochromia, the rarer kind(segmental) too

 

[Qikz]

I like the trunks design. Am I weird?

 

[FaceHugger]

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This kind of makes me want to see tight jeans Superman now. Roadhouse style. The rest of the costume the same, just tight jeans.

 

[SamAlbro]

This kind of makes me want to see tight jeans Superman now. Roadhouse style. The rest of the costume the same, just tight jeans.

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His Action Comics look from the New 52 was pretty close: