The Clothes Make The Man

Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

It's a good time to be a comic nerd and a movie buff.  Marvel Studios is pumping out hit after hit based on their Mighty Avengers characters, and the fan reaction couldn't be better.  Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, and the Junkyard Gang all look great on the big screen.  And you know why?  They're wearing what they're supposed to be wearing. 

I wish Sam Jackson wore that in the movies!

They look like superheros!  Larger than life, right out of the pages of the funny books they were conceived in 50 years ago.  This is, for me, the #1 reason Marvel is stomping all other comic movies.  Their characters aren't necessarily more relateable (they are) or have better stories (they do) but they look like what we think super heroes should look like.  Colorful, larger than life, heroic - but moreover, they look pretty much how we expect them to look as part of the public conscience. 

You ruined this facial hair for everyone!

You see, Super Heroes have been around a long time, and not just Super Heroes, but a lot of the same super heroes.  Captain America first appeared in 1941, before America even entered World War 2, punching Hitler square in his Michael Jordan mustache.  He had a primarily blue costume, with red and white stripes on his mid section.  Simple, iconic, and instantly says, "I'm Captain America, and I'm about to free the shit out of you."  That costume, that look, is ingrained in our brains.  Even if you don't read comics, chances are you know who Captain America is, what he looks like, and he plays Frisbee or something with his shield.  So you see a movie poster featuring the 'ol Boy in Blue, and you have these thoughts and feelings, even unknown to you, about Captain America.  And that influences how you perceive the movie.  That's your Captain America, you grew up with this guy, and now he's kicking ass and taking names on the big screen just like you always thought he would.  Even if the script took some liberties with the characters and events, it was okay.  They can modernize the story, sure, but Captain America has a look, and if he doesn't look like Cap, then he isn't Cap.

On the OTHER end of the Marvel Spectrum, we have the X-men and Spider-Man movies, whose rights are owned by Fox and Sony respectively.  Let me get this out of the way real quick.  I am convinced neither Fox nor Sony gives a shit about the characters and only care that these movies make money (which they do.)  But in an effort to appeal to a wider audience, they took the liberty of updating those tired-ass superheroes.  Kids don't want to see brightly colored heroes!  They want the gritty reboot, all black leather and brooding.  This might have just been a hold over from the grunge era of the 1990's, but dammit, it didn't belong in my comic book movies!

Hugh Jackman and the Funky Bunch

The argument is, Audiences weren't ready for grown men parading around in spandex shooting lasers out of their eyes.  I disagree.  The first few Superman movies did great, and that was just a guy parading around in spandex shooting lasers out of his eyes.  Now, I'm not saying that in the year of our lord 2000, I wanted to see bright yellow spandex on screen, probably not, but keep the color theme and general layout of the costumes in tact.  Let us see the heroes and villains we love 50ft tall on the big screen!  That was one of the major reasons Sam Raimi's Spider-Man did great, and the more recent Marc Webb Spider-Man Reboot wasn't as well received.  Remember when that trailer first came out and you said, "What the hell is Spider-Man Wearing? I'm not seeing this!"  Because I do.  And I didn't.  Not for a long time.

This costume looks like Spider-Man had an accident and is going home.

Now that Marvel has had such success with their movies and bright costumes, Marc Webb got his shit together and is giving us a Spider-Man costume that we deserve.  He's still doing whatever he wants with the villains, sigh, but at least our hero will look better this time around.  So, Okay, Sony is stepping up their game.  Surely Fox, after seeing the how well recieved the costumes in X-Men: First Class were, as well as the success and buzz around The Avengers, will finally get our heroes out of S&M leather and into some Blue and Gold for the upcoming, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Son of a Bitch!

The techno-goth pictured above is an image of Quicksilver, played in Days of Future Past by Evan Peters.  I have no explanation for why he looks like this.  And the rest of the cast doesn't look any better.  Empire recently did covers for most of the characters, and you can check them all out for yourself here.  How?  How could this have happened?  Obviously, I can't judge a film based on how the costumes look in a photoshoot for a magazine, but I mean, damn.  The Porn Parodies have better costumes than the official movies!  Don't believe me?

The Fastest Man Alive... Is a Porn Star...

That's Quicksilver as he appears in Captain America: XXX.  Now, I ask you, out of those two depictions of Quicksilver, which one looks like he belongs in a low budget porn, and which belongs in a multi-million dollar franchise?  I remember too, a while back there was a big fuss about bringing Wonder Woman to the big screen, as he costume, "Wouldn't Translate" well.  Once again, the Porn industry proves that wrong.

I uh...  I might have to see this one.  For research.

You could have shown this to me a few days ago and said it was a costume shot from the Upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie, and I would have believed you and gone nuts over how great it looked!  Knowing it's from a porn?  I'm left with way more questions than answers.  Why is it that the Mainstream X-Men movies have costumes closer to a Dominatrix film, than an actual Dominatrix film?  Is it really that difficult to adapt the source material so it still resembles the source material?  It's obviously not, Marvel has been giving us their characters movie after movie who are true to their origins on the page, yet are able to grow in modern cinema.  Fox gave us a Cloud and called it Galactus. 

Or rather, "the Gah Lak Tus."  Man that movie was bad.

So why the major financial return difference between what Fox and Sony are putting out, and what Marvel Studios have been able to bring in?  The stories are all full of similar plot holes, the worlds are all 'Based' in reality with some allowances, the caliber of actors are all pretty similar, so why doesn't Fantastic Four work, but The Guardians of the Galaxy probably will?  The clothes.  We as a collective people recognize our heroes by their uniform, be it policemen, firemen, servicemen, postmen, or X-men.  To change that is to fundamentally change the character.  The superhero genre has proven itself by now to be financially lucrative, the highest grossing films arguably being the truest to the books, so why are studios still being so unwilling to give us what we want?  

I'd watch This!

The answer isn't because the costumes don't translate well to film, or people wouldn't take them seriously, it's that the studios are out of touch to the people they're marketing these films to.  The Hollywood types and coked-out executives making these decisions never spent their Friday nights in their room with a blanket over their head and a flashlight reading the latest issue of Amazing.  They see the dollar signs, and want their piece, and they want it to appeal to as wide of an audience as they can, but in trying to appeal to everyone, they are inadvertently turning off the core audience who, ostensibly, this stuff was made for in the first place.  I personally have zero interest in seeing any of the Super Hero movies coming out that aren't from Marvel Studios.  I feel that way, because after Iron Man showed that remaining true to the source and using color in a Super Hero movie was possible, there was no going back.  Black leather doesn't cut it anymore when there is a Norse God in a big red cape.  Basketball textured costumes don't hold a candle to the lived in WWII duds of Captain America.

It's a shame too, because the X-Men and Spider-Man's rougue gallery are 2 of the most colorful groups of characters in comics.  To see them in the intended glory would be a spectacular treat for not only fans of the books, but for young children just discovering these characters for the first time.  And when that day comes, and I believe it will (probably with the next reboot) we're going to see some of the most fun and crazy comic movies to date.  The studios just need to let go of the notion of 'Gritty' and 'Realistic' and embrace the balls out craziness that is comic book storytelling.  Until then, we're a long ways away from seeing a purple-clad Green Goblin, or Wolverine in his classic Yellow costume.

Right?