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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I'm really only half-joking, he probably could.
He has and I don't like it.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI'm also generally not as thrilled with mechanical suits. Although it can be an interesting change of pace when spandex characters use them.
One take on spandex that I do find cool is where the spandex actually has the benefits of armor and includes hidden high tech doohickies. Thinking of examples like (for heroes) Black Panther, Spider-Man in the MCU, and presumably now Sam!Cap in the MCU or (for villains) Green Goblin and Janice Lincoln Beetle.
I like it both in terms of style, and because it can make a character subtly very inimidating, because while they look like they are unprotected, they are actually Immune to Bullets, etc.
Speaking of Janice, I'll note again that besides being a cool character, she would be perfect for the MCU, because her costume is basically bulletproof spandex plus Wasp's wings and Iron Man's gauntlets.
Edited by Hodor2 on May 10th 2021 at 6:54:35 AM
The suit that Spidey wears in the PS4 came shown above also has that going for it.
One Strip! One Strip!Like I said, superheroes and supervillains are always (explicitly or implicitly) philosophical figures. They're draped in bizarre symbols and colors because they want to represent something. When The Vulture asks Shocker "What is this, pro wrestling?" he's actually correct. It is pro wrestling.
The Captain America franchise is actually one of the few of the MCU that actually really gets this, with everyone and their mothers talking about the meaning of a guy draped in the US flag. It's a deliberate philosophical statement.
"All you Fascists bound to lose.""At the same time...I can’t help shake the feeling that complaining about heroes wearing spandex is about the same as going to a performance of, say, Peter Pan, and standing up in the audience and shouting 'Hey, I can see the wires!"
How so? Explain in at least ten full-length paragraphs and continue the argument for three pages.
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.It's a Necessary Weasel, the way stage shows involving flight often have obvious wire stunts (for a slightly more on topic example, here's
◊ an image from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark): Most of the time you just gotta roll with it as a convention of the genre.
Edited by Synchronicity on May 10th 2021 at 7:53:50 AM
Thank you but I understood the metaphor, I was questioning the relevance of that metaphor. A convention of the genre, an expected trope, yes. A Necessary Weasel? Ummmmm...
And even then, it's not like one can't criticize the conventions of the genre or should be seen as "petty" and "needing to just get a stick out of their butt". We can allow for different tastes of the same thing.
Edited by fredhot16 on May 10th 2021 at 6:34:09 AM
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.Honestly if their still keeping it this much of a secret. I wonder if their supposed to secretly be one of widow's team. As otherwise it seems weird to keepit secret this long.
The main theory I've seen is that Taskmaster is actually Melina Vostokoff, Natasha's surrogate mother played by Rachel Weisz.
x3 I was admittedly something I said more because I thought it sounded good rather than because the metaphor was fully thought out. I suppose you could view it as part of how you convey at a glance to the audience that this character is a superhero, rather than a random guy who can fly or shoot lightning from his eyes.
A more apt comparison might be kuroko
in Japanese theatre, who are basically stagehands who dress in all black to signify to the audience that they are not part of the action onstage. Likewise, bright, colorful costumes in the superhero genre signify to the audience, even without any additional context, that these are the guys who are going to be beating the snot out of each other. It basically helps to scream to the audience “I’M IMPORTANT!”
I’m largely talking out of my ass here, but I think I might be onto something.
More to the point, costumes are good because they help make characters visually distinct. That’s not to say that characters can’t be visually distinct in their civvies, and there are characters who it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense for them to be dressed up in bright colors all the time - Black Widow, Jessica Jones, and the Runaways all come to mind. But I feel like that if you have a team of pro heroes, and they’re all wearing suits or regular combat armor or whatever...it’s kind of dull, to be honest.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on May 10th 2021 at 9:54:08 AM
Oh God! Natural light!I've seen some franchises that justify it by explicitly saying they're basing it on in-universe superhero comics. In Wearing the Cape, the first hero explains early on that a flying man in normal clothes (or worse, armor) is scary and threatening, but a flying man in ridiculous, colorful spandex is obviously at least trying to be a superhero. It puts powered people into a context that people are more familiar with, even if it's a ridiculous context.
And then you've got Grrl Power, where apparently supers instinctively tried to dress in colorful spandex centuries ago but the government made them dress more sensibly because they were still a secret. And modern supers are a little annoyed that their uniforms are obviously military and not at all colorful.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.![]()
Exactly how I felt during Defenders.
Daredevil was the only character wearing a distinctive ensemble, while Jess and Luke were wearing like the same fucking hoodie.
Whats worse is that its not like Luke needs a super-suit, just clothing with his iconic colors. Give him his yellow tee instead of that shitty-ass hoodie.
Edited by slimcoder on May 10th 2021 at 6:56:41 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."If you want an in-universe explanation for colorful costumes, just blame it on Captain America. He had an outfit, and everyone else followed his lead.
Most things like these result from years of conditioning to connect two things together. Fashion is especially based off trends.
Edited by Joshbones on May 10th 2021 at 7:01:20 AM
Well, maybe the ones who emerged in the modern era. Thor just kind of dresses like that, though, and Natasha and Clint’s outfits are rather subdued. Tony I guess just wanted to give the armor a nice paint job (still have not seen first Iron Man yet, should fix that).
And Hulk is famously pretty minimalistic, aside from possessing the awesome power of the expanding pants that turn purple.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on May 10th 2021 at 10:10:18 AM
Oh God! Natural light!I'm amused how the Green Lantern franchise in its entirety has costume inertia.
The normal uniform for a regular GL is still the same spandex style onesie introduced all the way back in the Silver Age with Hal.
Like you'd expect similar modernizations where they start wearing high-tech body armor like with Batman, but thats only happened in the Earth One AU series.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor each wear flashy costumes for different reasons, and I figure the three of them are enough to set "flashy costumes" as part of the public perception of superheroes. I mean, personally I never question a superhero wearing a flashy costume in the first place.
On the subject of the in-universe origins of heroes costumes: I know that Captain Marvel's suit is a recoloured Kree military uniform because she switched teams mid-movie and just used the suit's built in colour-changing function (that the Kree military included in their uniforms for some reason), but you'd think that at some point after that she would have modified it to not resemble a Kree military uniform at all... Her suit looks normal to us but to the many, many victims of Kree imperialism that has to be the epitome of "a flying woman in militarized clothing is scary and threatening".
I have issues with talking about how awesome armoured costumes are and taking Spider-Man as an example, because Spider-Man is not only one of those characters that don't need heavy armours, but wearing heavy armour would make him worse, both in look and functionalities.
A character who looks better in practical armour than his classic comic look would be Taskmaster.
Edited by Nightwire on May 10th 2021 at 10:37:47 AM

Now, obviously this sort of thing is subjective, and not every character is well-suited (heh) for every type of costume, or even needs a costume at all. As
says, the militarized look is not always appropriate, but I could buy it working for some characters (Cap does it fine, though I do think it can look kind of ass when he’s drawn that way a lot of the time).
At the same time...I can’t help shake the feeling that complaining about heroes wearing spandex is about the same as going to a performance of, say, Peter Pan, and standing up in the audience and shouting “Hey, I can see the wires!”
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on May 10th 2021 at 6:28:40 AM
Oh God! Natural light!