And now, the conclusion to today’s list of the Top Ten Creatively Adapted Live-Action Superhero Costumes! (If you missed Part One, feel free to go back and check it out here.)
5. Green Lantern (Ryan Reynolds), Green Lantern
Yep: this is actually, unquestionably one of my favorite superhero costumes. It was just WAY too ambitious for its time. Green Lantern’s costume has always been depicted in the comics as an artificial energy construct, manifested by his power ring; cleverly, the filmmakers opted to put Ryan Reynolds in an entirely-C.G.I. costume, which would allow the suit and the C.G. constructs to have a similar aesthetic. But the design itself is clever, too! The suit is supposed to be a uniform worn by multitudinous alien species across the galaxy, right? So the designers decided that each suit would emphasize the anatomical construction of the species wearing it– sort of an idealized realization of that species’ form. So the human Hal Jordan’s suit is designed to look like the muscle fibers and body forms of human anatomy, down to his “boots” having individually delineated toes.
Yeah, the ultimate effect of the C.G. suit is that it looks like Reynold’s head is floating atop a C.G. body, but it’s actually a rather impressive accomplishment for 2011!1
4. Batman (Christian Bale), The Dark Knight
It was a tough decision, choosing between this or Robert Pattinson’s homebrew Batsuit from The Batman. But while I love that suit’s D.I.Y. aesthetic and stitched-leather, skull-shaped Adam West cowl, ultimately I went with this suit because, well… Bruce Wayne is a billionaire. And a billionaire could easily afford far more cutting-edge technology than military boots and a standard-issue police tactical belt. Christian Bale’s second Bat-suit is designed as a cross between motorcycle gear and S.W.A.T. gear– finding an optimal mid-point between armored durability (without sticking Bale inside another immovable rubber suit) and flexibility (without, say, just putting him in a set of tights). He can even turn his head!!! This feels like the concept of the Bat-suit perfected, with a slick design and technology that never quite verges into the fantastical, but does feel more sophisticated than it would be if this was just some schmoe cobbling together a suit and an arsenal in his garage. Bruce Wayne wouldn’t settle for any less than the best.
3. Moon Knight (Oscar Issac), Moon Knight
Full disclosure: I did not like the Moon Knight show on Disney+. But while I had many gripes about the series, the main character’s costume was NOT one of them! Typically in the comics, Moon Knight is dressed in an all-white, rather generic-looking superhero outfit not-so-subtly based on Batman. But for the show, the designers leaned into the ancient Egyptian source of Moon Knight’s powers and reimagined his costume as a sort of superhero mummy outfit, with bandage patterns, hieroglyphic details, golden fringe elements, and a removable golden chest crescent that doubles as a… Moon-arang? Or is it just a Moon Knife? Anyway, he looks absolutely badass, and frankly, this is one of the most clever and inventive looks the MCU’s ever come up with for a main hero suit.
2. Iron Man Mark I (Robert Downey Jr.), Iron Man
You knew there had to be an Iron Man on here somewhere, right? But I’m not impressed by slick, C.G.I. robot suits… now, what impresses ME is when a film production puts the time, effort, and resources into building a HUGE, PRACTICAL robot suit based on the chunky grey armor Jack Kirby and Don Heck drew for the character’s first appearance! Supposedly built from the repurposed materials of a Stark missile platform, the Mark I Iron Man armor is big, asymmetrical, and gnarly, with lots of little exposed spots of leather (Tony’s hands are literally just covered in welder’s gloves) that create a sense of this being a dangerously imperfect patchwork… kind of a Frankenstein’s monster armor. It has a heavy-duty, imposing RoboCop vibe that the character lost moving forward; every step has POWER behind it, and the only weapon built into the suit is a pair of flamethrowers piped in to the arms, like a primitive stand-in for his later repulsor rays. It feels tangible and REAL, which helps to sell the heightened fantasy of the later, more sophisticated suits.
1. Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Spider-Man: Homecoming
And finally, we reach our number one: a kid in a hoodie and sweatpants.
See, one of the things that’s always bothered me about the Spider-Man movies is how Peter Parker, a nominally poor high school kid from Queens, is somehow able to whip up a perfectly-tailored, technologically-sophisticated, skin-tight costume for himself that it literally takes an entire art and costume department to produce in real life. But the MCU came up with a clever compromise for this: the page-perfect, John Romita-inspired Spider-Man suit is a gift from Tony Stark… but more interestingly, Peter’s ORIGINAL costume looks like something a fifteen-year-old science nerd actually WOULD throw together with limited resources.
This design perfectly threads the needle of looking like a cheap, homemade disguise and also looking recognizably like Spider-Man. From the jury-rigged goggles and the visible kit-bashed web-shooters to the fact that his “boots” are just red knee-socks and slip-on dance shoes, this just FEELS like the suit Peter Parker would put together from the junk he dug out of the bottom of his closet. It looks… authentic.
Honorable Mentions: Spawn (Michael Jai White); Mysterio – Mo-Cap Suit (Jake Gyllenhaal); Superman – Homemade Fleischer Suit (Tyler Hoechlin)
Agree? Disagree? Absolutely despise my picks? Let me know in the comments! (Or don’t– it’s the Open Thread, I’m not expecting many people to read this.) Either way, enjoy your evening!
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