Many early superheroes started off wearing bright colored spandex and cuffed buccaneer-style boots. Superhero costumes historically appeared to draw inspiration from the form-fitting costumes worn by gymnasts, circus strongmen, and acrobats. While such outfits are sound for strictly athletic purposes, they provide little in the form of body protection. The actual reason for skintight spandex is that artists found the human figure easier to draw nude than with clothes. Drawing the nude figure is a basic skill drilled into the artists early on. Drawing clothing and folds in cloth may take much longer to master and render. These points are especially significant since comic book artists often had to produce completed art much faster than they do now. They simply did not have the time or resources to create elaborate highly detailed costumes, especially when they knew that much of their fine detail would be lost during image reduction as well as in the cheap printing processes of the time. The reason for the bright colors, of course, was that until recently, comic books were printed in four colors (the CYMK color model). Also, in most cases, black was necessarily substituted with blue; black would appear too flat in print. Spider-Man's costume, for instance, was originally intended to be red and black, not red and blue.
This has changed with artists given more time and paid better, and more sophisticated printing processes. Costumes have been redesigned to look more functional with sturdier footwear and visible armour, or simply more like normal clothing.
