"Xavier's goal when designing the original uniforms was to promote cooperation, and project a positive public image. He wanted his students to inspire people, like superheroes did. It's the same concept behind police uniforms or firefighters."
—kaptainkristian, "X-Men - Color and Costumes"
Some superhero teams wear matching costumes so it's clear to everyone who the team members are. This may mean their uniforms have the same colors and logos, or possibly a design format they all follow and apply with their own colors. The matching suits may also serve a practical purpose.
Sometimes the costume may have different details and touches in different characters; see Nonuniform Uniform. Sometimes there may also be members who wear their own duds; see Custom Uniform.
Every Sentai, by default, is an example of this.
Note that this trope can also apply to supervillain teams and also does not apply to one-time missions such as space or underwater travels that naturally require matching group attire.
Sister trope to Coordinated Clothes. Compare Identically Powered Team. See also Clothes Make the Legend, Movie Superheroes Wear Black, and Costume Evolution.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball Super: The Pride Troopers all wear matching red and black spandex.
- My Hero Academia:
- Wild Wild Pussycats all wear matching cat-themed outfits in different colors as part of their team's theme. Notably, this is in spite of the fact that none of them have cat-related Quirks, such as Tiger's Pliabody, Mandalay's Telepath, or Pixie-Bob's Earth-flow.
- Kota Izumi's parents, known collectively as the superhero team Water Hose, wore identical outfits consisting of a red vest, white shoulder pads, and a visor with a snorkel.
- Sailor Moon: The team of Magical Girls, known as the Sailor Senshi, when transformed, all wear Sailor Fuku.
Comic Books
- The Avengers: The infamous leather-jacket era, where all the members wore a jacket with an Avengers "A" on the sleeve over their regular costumes.
- Deathstroke's Teen Titans wear black and white suits.
- Doom Patrol: The original Doom Patrol originally wore all-green uniforms before they started wearing the more recognizable red and white uniforms. During the Kupperburg run, the team wore uniforms with more variety in color. The Morrison run dispensed with uniforms entirely.
- The Fantastic Four are probably the most well-known example of this, known for their matching blue suits with the "4" logo.
- The heroes of the spinoff Future Foundation wear primarily white uniforms with some black as the secondary color. For example, Spider-Man used a white variation of his costume with black lenses and chest spider-symbol when he temporarily joined the team.
- All the Green Lantern heroes wear similar green and black costumes, which are extensions of the rings themselves. The same goes for the six corps based on the rest of the emotional spectrum, who likewise wear costumes in their emotion's colour with a distinctive circle-based Chest Insignia.
- Legion of Super-Heroes: In the SW6 and Reboot Legions, all Legionnaires wore a bodysuit with one color down the middle and a different colour on the sides, accessorised with a belt that had the Legion logo on the buckle.
- New Mutants: The original team wore the old X-Men uniform, before getting their own costumes. In the New X-Men era, the team started off with yellow and white outfits, mostly with a yellow upper torso with a blue X-Men logo in the centre, and a larger yellow X on the lower torso, before moving to the classic uniform in New X-Men: Academy X. Other "squads" of the Xavier Institute student body had their own uniforms, most notably their rivals, the Hellions, who wore red and white.
- In Runaways (Rainbow Rowell), the original J-Team all wore matching outfits. When the original '60s-style costumes went out of style, the team started using more individual costumes.
- In Shazam!-related comics, the Marvel/Shazam family all wear bodysuits with golden belts, boots and cuffs, and the iconic golden thunderbolt Chest Insignia. They are also Color-Coded for Your Convenience, with Billy and Mary wearing red (in some incarnations Mary wears white), Freddy wearing blue, and later characters Paco wearing green, Eugene wearing grey, and Darla wearing purple. Mary's costume is also distinguished by having a skirt.
- In The Terrifics, Plastic Man changes his outfit to white and black to match Mr. Terrific after they become a team. In Phantom Girl's case, she is already wearing white and black, while Metamorpho doesn't bother because of his shapeshifter powers.
- In Uncanny X-Force X-Force wears matching black and white outfits.
- The X-Men originally wore matching navy blue and yellow outfits that made them instantly recognizable to the public eye. In X-Men vol 1 #39, Jean Grey designs them each unique outfits. The uniforms occasionally reappear when a new recruit doesn't have their own costume yet (for instance, early Kitty Pryde). New X-Men introduced a new version, a black leather outfit with a blocky yellow X occupying most of the torso.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: From "Mysterious Island", the Sailor Fuku of the Sailor Senshi leads Mareki to be confused by Cathy:
I'm trying to figure out what exactly you are. You dress like a sailor senshi, and I can feel some similar magic from you, but I'm not familiar with any celestial object that's called 'Cathy'.
- Oversaturated World: The GALAX-E Girls, as said in ''Crossworlds Guardian, Sailor Orbital!'': "Outfitting and Armory! Some Problems are Encountered.", who wear modified Crossworld Guardian suits, paraphrased with these quotes:
"After some discussion with the Aztlan institute and a few purchases of my own from a few Company of D.R.E.A.M.S. subsidiaries, I've managed to wrangle together a basic outfit kit for each of us."
Ditzy tilted her head. "Those are Crossworlds Guardian Emergency Worker Uniforms, aren't they?"
[...]
I ditched the helmets and rigged together something different." She tapped a tiara resting on one of the mannequin's heads. "This is a micro-radio, complete with earbuds, that will let us remain in contact if we are anywhere within... three, four miles of each other. They are not aerodynamic, so there's not going to be any Lunar Tiara Action."
[...]
"Are the colored collars and miniskirts just so we can look like Sailor Luna and her pals?"
"Actually no." Blue moved her hands up to the sailor collar. "The jewel on the chest is the outfit conversion module—you put your hand to it and say a keyphrase, you switch back to your civilian clothes. The ribbons serve as thaumatic dispersion units, keeping hostile magic from overwhelming the wearer. And the collar itself is woven with the Identity Derecognition Pattern."
Film — Animated
- The Incredibles: The Parr family all wear the same red, yellow, and black superhero outfits with the "i" logo on the chest that Edna designed for them when arriving on Syndrome's island, wearing them for the rest of the movie.
Film — Live-Action
- X-Men: In contrast to their comic book counterparts, who have a variety of colorful costumes, the movie X-Men all wear relatively matching black leather suits.
Live Action TV
- The Umbrella Academy (2019): The Umbrellas had a team costume as children and the Sparrows wear all red jumpsuits.
Video Games
- In The Wonderful 101, each Wonderful One generally wears some version of a black-and-some-color jumpsuit, black gloves, and black boots, along with a jacket with the Wonderful 100 symbol on the back and their signature Wonder Mask. The details are generally customized to match each hero's theme.
Visual Novels
- Villainous Nights: The Syndicate all wear black jumpsuits, each with a secondary color unique to the character. Each member also wears their own animal mask. Other details, such as the exact pattern of their suit, presence of armor, and any additional accessories, differ from character to character.
Webcomics
- Inhibit: Urquhart has uniforms that designate whether or not the wearer is “trained.”
- In El Goonish Shive, a guest comic features the main cast as superheroes wearing uniforms with yellow belts and similarly patterned dual-tone spandex.
- Grrl Power: Archon has an official uniform for Arc-SWAT. And another for combat deployments. They are not typically worn by civilian specialists or those whose powers would interfere with uniforms, such as Mr. Amorphous.
Western Animation
- Ben 10: The "Galactic Enforcers" wear yellow and white.
- In Kim Possible, Team Go wears identical uniforms in different colors. Hego wears blue, Wego wear red, and Mego wears purple. Shego is in fact their missing sister, with her color being green.
- League of Super Evil: The Power Rangers expies the Force Fighters V all wear matching outfits with different colors, although Periwinkle is too fat to fit in his outfit with his belly exposed and his helmet only covering the top half of his face.
- In Monster Buster Club, the titular team wears black jumpsuits with Tron Lines and goggles, with each member having their lines and goggles in a different color.
- Ninjago: The ninja have different suits every season that their individual colors are applied to.
- Rick and Morty: Semi-parodied in the Vindicators episode when Vance Maximus gives Morty a Vindicators team vest even though Vance was the only one wearing one before that.
- Each class at Hero Elementary has a unique style of uniform that all the students in the class wear.
