“Accepting this premise (of no secret identities for realism), it was also only natural to forgo the use of costumes. If our heroes were to live in the real world, let them dress like real people.”— Stan Lee, Origins of Marvel Comics
The Fantastic Four stayed in civvies for two adventures, but by their third issue (March 1962) writer/editor Stan Lee acceded to reader demands for superhero costumes.
The blue outfits artist Jack Kirby designed were understated by superhero standards, emphasizing the unity of this often-disunited team. They were uniforms as much as costumes.
Traditionally, the superhero’s costume is not merely his clothing. It is also his identity.
“In theory, the costume — as different from the dull garb of our former existence as we have become from those abandoned selves — forms a part of the strategy of concealment,” observed Michael Chabon. “But in fact, the superhero’s costume often functions as a kind of magic screen onto which the repressed narrative may be projected. No matter how well he or she hides its traces, the secret narrative of transformation, of rebirth from the confines of the ordinary, is given up by the costume.
“Sometimes this secret is betrayed through the allusion of style or form: Robin’s gaudy costume hints at the murder of his circus-acrobat parents; Iron Man’s at the flawed heart that requires a life-support device, which is the primary function of his armor.
“More often the secret narrative is hinted at with a kind of enigmatic, dreamlike obviousness right on the hero’s chest, in the form of the requisite insignia.”
Superman had his S, Batman his bat, and the FF, when they were finally emboldened to put on costumes, had their “4.”
“I loved the ‘no costumes’ approach, as applied by the FF in issues 1 and 2, and Brain Boy from Dell and the early Doctor Solars from Gold Key,” recalled Bob Hughes. “But it just doesn’t cut it with the average fan. Can you imagine people actually preferred the incredibly awful superhero costumes Wonder Man wore to the utterly cool safari jacket? It’s enough to make you want to write off humanity as a lost cause!”
“Readers/fans WANT their heroes to wear distinctive costumes, if for no other reason than to identify them AS heroes, separate from everyone else. (same with the super-villains),” observed Carl Thiel. “As a kid in the ’60s, the books that appealed most to me were the costumed superheroes. Even the non-super-powered among them wore the same jacket and pants from issue to issue.”
“Superhero costumes really do the same jobs as sports uniforms from acrobats to wrestlers, weightlifters to football players,” observed Edward Lee Love.
“1) It makes the characters instantly identifiable. At a sporting event, you can easily tell one player apart from the others and one team from the other, even at a distance and in movement. In comics, where one artist drawing Hank Pym and another drawing Steve Rogers and you cannot really tell them apart from a third artist drawing Clint Barton, the costume does that job.
“2) It highlights the human form and the action sequences. Aside from the functionality of freedom of movement as well as protection gear, the costume and uniform allows an appreciation of the physicality and form of the person. Honestly, there are only a few artists in the history of comics (John Buscema is tops in this in my eye), who can do action sequences of characters in regular clothes that are as viscerally exciting as one in costume.”
Superhero costumes are like Peter Pan’s fairy dust, the stuff that lets you fly — so magical, in fact that they can hardly even exist outside four-color fantasy.
“In its attempts to slip the confines of the paneled page, the superhero costume betrays its nonexistence, like one of those deep-sea creatures that evolved to thrive in the crushing darkness of the benthos, so that when you haul them up to the dazzling surface, they burst,” Chabon wrote.
Superhero costumes too are designed to thrive in darkness and depth. Their real realm is the unconscious mind, which is why they look so odd in the light of day.
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