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| Bulge of Steel |
While watching the newest trailer for Man of Steel (below), I noticed the Superman costume is "following suit" (see what I did there?) with the last few years of highly textured design.
Inspired by real life Kevlar fabric, these costumes are supposed to look like they could actually protect a crime fighter from damage as opposed to their flimsier looking comic counterparts, "unstable molecules" aside.
This makes sense to some franchises, like the moody Dark Knight trilogy, where most of the masked crusaders are, using the word loosley, "normal people." Their costumes made us believe that Batman and Catwoman could actually run around in those things, even though both Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway had a helluva time getting into their suits, suffering from breathing problems and boarder line eating disorders.
DC isn't the only company using the Kevlar style; Marvel's newest reboot of The Amazing Spider-Man featured a rough to the touch looking suit.
It would seem to me that this costume would actually inhibit his wall crawling ability, as Wikipedia notes;
"The ability works through thin layers of cloth, such as the fabric of
his costume, but not through materials such as the soles of shoes. When
Peter Parker needs to crawl without changing into the costume, he
removes his shoes first."
Who can I blame for this trend? How about the X-Men, who first revitalized the comic book movie genre in tight black costumes? Over a decade ago the design was more leather than kevlar, but as Cyclops said,
"Well, what would you prefer? Yellow Spandex?"
Most of the X-Men probably don't need serious kevlar outfits, because they learn to use their mutant powers to protect themselves and fight eviiillll. Which brings me back to Superman. Certainly Supes doesn't need a crazy bulletproof costume to fight in on account of the fact that he's already bulletproof. The movie suit is so bumpy and weird it reminds me of Captain America's chain mail costume from the comics.
Personally I've had enough of these textured costumes. I hope X-Men Days of Future Past will usher in some creativity in modern comic book movie costumes. Designers; don't worry about making the costumes more "believable." We're already believing in mutants, radioactive spiders and aliens who gain superpowers from our sun to follow these stories! Take a chance and ditch the Kevlar!
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