Do comic book character costumes look ridiculous in real life?

Cafe Society
1

I was watching “The Flash” the other day and I noticed that when they do superheroes “live” so to speak, they tend to tone down the costumes. I think its because some bright colors that while looking good in a comic book or in a cartoon, look simply ridiculous on a live action character. I mean in real life when you see people doing characters like for halloween, that might be fine to look like a clown, but not when they are supposed to be taken seriously.

Has anyone else noticed that all the bright costumes like for Wolverine, the Fantastic Four, and the Marvel characters all look different than the comics? Oh they did have Kid Flash wearing basically the same costume and frankly he looks rather silly.

2

Many do. Lots of things look good in one medium and bad in another; comic books have quite a few of them.

I also think though there’s a strong element of “Dark and Dingy is Serious” going on; to me a lot of attempts at making superhero costumes look better for live action have just made them look dull and dirty instead.

3

It’s not just the costumes-- Everything in the comics is based on a relatively small palette of bright colors. I mean, when I was a kid, Superman’s hair was blue. Not because he was an alien or anything, but just because blue was a good bright color that worked as a highlight with black.

4

And there’s all that yellow lightning too.

5

Well, this is probably veering well into editorial territory, but I’d say there’s a number of factors in play, here. Not the least in the problem of interpreting an artwork in a different medium (TV and film, I’m assuming you’d mostly be thinking of, here. Unless we want to start critiquing cosplay).

First, context. I mean, in the wrong time and place, a ballgown, a full set of Samurai armor (complete with ornate Mempo and Kaubto), a pressurized flight suit, or a Masai Shuka would look ridiculous. Something that looks intimidating sliding out of the shadows in a dark alley or bathed in brilliant atomic fire might not look that impressive on someone standing around in a public park at noon, or sitting in a conference room.

Plus, to combine the two, what constitutes the work’s stylistic standard of “real life,” even when it’s all live action, is going to effect the result. I mean, Cesere the Somnambulist is going to look as ridiculously out of place in Zero Dark Thirty as a Navy SEAL in full battle-rattle and NOGs is going to look in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Back to the present, at least, the particular type and design of costume is going to matter in how “ridiculous” it generally looks in real life (or the “realistically” stylized cinematic form of real life). Something very utilitarian, for example, or at least appearing utilitarian, is probably going to translate a lot easier to real life, especially the jaded modern eye.

But on that note is also, frankly, fashion. In observing pictures and photographs of the past, and even in my own lifetime, I know for a fact that there are forms of dress were considered proper and desirable in their own time that would be a joke in another era. Or sometimes all other eras. The forces of societal evolution are like a great, intricate fractal pattern that occasionally produces enormous perms and codpieces.

Thus, to some eras, it might seem perfectly acceptable for a live-action character to wear a spandex leotard, or fight bare-chested in a bandana, or lots of bright colors and flourishes. And as much as I’d like to hope otherwise, I can’t really say with confidence that I completely believe it’s playing to the mass audience’s sophisticated tastes and technical worldliness that drives many modern superhero costumes to have lots of segmented armored pieces, accentuated textiles patterns, and rich, darkened colors.

Or maybe I’m just still bitter about bomber jackets not being in style anymore.

Maybe I could boil that all down to, “I find the ‘ridiculousness’ of the character’s costume depends on how plausible I find it to be that the character could be wearing it, considering their actions and the setting and situation; an appraisal influenced by my own aesthetic biases at the time, which are in turn at least heavily influenced by those of contemporary society.”

And if I had a little more sleep or a bit more skill with figures, maybe I could boil that down into a proper formula. One I could plug into a spreadsheet.

6

Superhero art is based in drawing a nude figure and painting it bright colors to simulate clothing. That’s why it doesn’t work in real life. A superhero costume isn’t really clothing.

7

Superhero costumes in the comics were supposed to be bright and eye-catching. That’s how they attracted people’s attention, so they bought the comics. That’s not just business theory – when they first started running Superman comics they saw that sales were definitely higher when they had that eye-catching blue-and-red suit on the cover. So they kept it up. That also explains why The Phantom – “The Ghost that Walks” – wore an absurdly bright purple costume in the jungle instead of camouflage. It showed up in the color comic strips and caught people’s attention. And Batman was pretty somber in his grey-=and-black costume (that yellow outline around his bat symbol came later), but Robin was a blaze of color – red, green, and yellow.

When they first started putting people in those costumes, they simply duplicated the colors. And, since you wanted them to stand out, this was a Good Thing. And the Paramount Superman cartoons had brightly colored Superman showing up against the frequently dark backgrounds.

In the movie serials and on TV at first, it was black and white, but as soon as Superman in the 1950s went to color, so did George Reeves’ suit. Then the animated cartoons of the 60s were brightly colored, as was Superman’s costume in the Broadway play It’s a Bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman. 1967’s Batman was a riot of color. And the TV movies of the 1970s (Spider Man, Hulk, Thor, Wonder Woman) And, when the Salkinds and Richard Donner made the first Superman movie, it was bright color. So was the Warren Beatty **Dick Tracy ** movie.
But the live action stuff was for kids, or deliberately campy. Nobody meant to take it seriously. The bright colors were meant to duplicate the comics, and were chosen for precisely that reason. I have to admit, I never really liked it.

Then, when they started doing the angsty movies in the 1980s and onward, the colors in the comics had already been toned down, so they started from a darker place. But it worked better. Tim Burton’s Batman was dark (although his Joker was flamboyantly bright)I think it’s significant that the most brightly colored sequel – Batman and Robin – had the brightest colored costumes (Robin at the beginning looks straight out of the comics, until they ton it down later). When they made the X-men movie, Hugh Jackman refused to appear in Wolverine’s signature yellow suit, and the other X-men were in somber tones. Other superhero movies followed the trend. No way Gal Godot was going to be as flamboyantly colored as Lynda Carter ( or, Hera forbid, Cathy Lee Crosby https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-TV-Movie-Pilot/dp/B00AKK6LM6 )

8

There’s one Silver-Age ***Batman ***story titled “When Batman Was Robin.” In it, the young Bruce Wayne, who learned to sew in the Sea Scouts, whips up the brightly-colored costume now associated with his future sidekick and presents himself at the local police station to learn about criminology. A prominent detective takes him under his wing, so to speak, and says “I’ll teach you everything I know about crimefighting. And since you’re as colorful as a robin redbreast in that costume, I’ll call you Robin!”

Anybody care to try this in real life? :dubious:

9

Right now, Warner Brothers executives are slapping themselves on the head and saying “Sure, we’ve made two hundred million on Wonder Woman. But we could have made two billion.”

10

Astro City has played with this. They have a character called the Samaritan, who’s this series’ equivalent of Superman. In his early appearances, readers assumed that his hair appeared to be blue as an artistic way of portraying black hair. But as the series progressed, the color became more blatant and you realized he actually has blue hair.

11

The point of decking out superheroes in primary colors is twofold; one, printers were much more limited back then in terms of available colors and image fidelity. Similar limitations were in early arcade hardware; thus Super Mario is made of primary colors composed in such a way to maximize readability. Just like Superman, you are hardly never unaware of where Mario is and what pose he is affecting.

Secondly, it is visual shorthand for the audience whether they are up to speed or not. Primary colors of red, blue and yellow equals hero. Secondary colors of purple, green and orange equals villain or antihero. Batman was the exception to the norm.

As for what works in film, well, Sam Raimi’s Spiderman is categorically flamboyant and, frankly, looks great. But then the saturation of NYC, not just Spiderman, was cranked up to an unnatural degree. It certainly feels more alive than its contemporaries.

I dunno, it always just struck me as a misguided attempt at “believability.” It’s all about sacrificing readability for muted colors and superfluous details. As if somehow intricately equals elegancy.

12

Oh, I dunno. I think some people can to manage pull it off. Just take look at some superhero cosplay pictures.

I’d add a link, but it seems like Google won’t let me link directly to an Images page.

13

If you mean an image search, that isn’t a problem. As you can see, there are examples such as Ronald McOdin, Snowba Fette, Wolveriron, Really Really Supergirl, and Gambitch.

14

I bet I can find some adult fanfic that starts out just this way. :smiley:

15

Very often, yes. Things are made to be good in the medium they are in and comics are a different medium than live action movies and TV. Cartoons on the other hand are often close enough to comics that they can translate better but even then sometimes seeing something in motion that works on a still page can be a problem.

That;s one of the reasons it’s silly to get upset when costumes get changed. As long as the “core” remains the same it is fine by me.

16

Well, when I first saw Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman way back in 1975, “ridiculous” was probably the last word on my mind.

17

There were words on your mind?

18

A comment that reminds me of:

[QUOTE=Lon Chaney]
“A clown is funny in the circus ring. But what would be the normal reaction to opening a door at midnight, and finding the same clown standing there in the moonlight?”
[/QUOTE]

19

Anyone else think Gal Gadot’s costume was, to put it as nicely as possibly, an homage to Xena, Warrior Princess.

20

Agreed. Hang around a big comics convention, and you’ll see the whole range, from horrid to completely convincing.