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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135539
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| Posted: 17 January 2026 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | 1
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Perusing some online articles about the earliest superheroes, found one that correctly acknowledges Lee Falk’s Phantom as the first to bring together most of the familiar tropes—tho describes the character as “spandex-clad” twenty three years before Spandex was introduced. As many of you know, this is a bit of civilian ignorance (shared by ennui-engorged fanboys) that particularly sticks in my craw. A quick review of Golden and Silver Age reveals none come even close to “spandex”. Superman’s costume was retconned as Kyptonian blankets. Batman debuted in a leotard. Wonder Woman wore Amazon armor. Green Lantern, conventional cloth. Same for the first Flash. By the birth of the Silver age, more exotic materials were introduced. Barry Allen created a fabric that could be compressed to fit in a signet ring. Green Lantern inherited a uniform made from ring plasma/energy. The Atom’s costume was “dark star” material. Over at Marvel, early characters relied on leotards. Captain America’s uniform was government issue, tho nothing ever indicated there was anything “special” about it. The Fantastic Four wore “unstable molecules” developed by Reed Richards. Iron Man wore literal iron at first, later switching to a super polymer invented by Tony Stark. The Hulk wore trunks, then torn trousers. Peter Parker stitched together his costume with fabrics found in Aunt May’s “sewing drawer”. And so on.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8310
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| Posted: 17 January 2026 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | 2
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Yeah, spandex narks me off to no end.
That Joss Whedon was responsible for that line in X-Men just added to the
disappointment of the line. He really should have known better.
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2531
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| Posted: 17 January 2026 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | 3
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Yes, and it's always people who think they are being witty. Same with the whole "wearing their underwear on the outside" thing. We had a movie Superman for ten years who didn't wear the trunks and--it looked awkward...down there.
Now we have some sort of mesh material for most of the live action portrayals. Is there ANY example of actual spandex being used, except for some unfortunate TV attempts 40 or 50 years ago?
We're also seeing a lot of leather. They always want to give Daredevil leather--and I think that would be the most uncomfortable thing when trying to do acrobatics or swinging across the rooftops.
I remember one instance of Don Newton drawing Batman doing a workout without his cape and gloves--and the gray shirt by itself looked like sweatshirt material--which I thought was perfect! Same thing with a maskless and gloveless Captain America working out by George Perez--his white sleeves gave me the impression of simple sweatshirt or henley material.
I'd rather see Superman and some others in t-shirt cloth than thick armor-type material.
Edited by Eric Jansen on 17 January 2026 at 9:34pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135539
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | 4
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Armor destroys much of Batman’s mystique. It is part of the psychological warfare aspect of the character that the bad guys know he wears a leotard and a cape and they can’t kill him!
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Michael Penn
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Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | 5
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It's so frustrating that there have been any number of movies over the decades where we see completely vulnerable-to-bullets individuals effectively kick ass against armed assailants... but Batman has to be armored.
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Craig Earl
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1649
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | 6
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Yeah, the spandex reference bugs me too. It's often trotted out by TV presenters when reviewing superhero movies. The whole 'underwear on the outside' spiel is just another glib phrase to put a juvenile label on the genre as a whole.
I also remember one particularly enthusiastic reporter (when the first Amazing Spider-Man movie came out) stating that 'Andrew Garfield would be wearing the cape this time around.'
urghhh
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135539
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | 7
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It was when real world journalists started reporting on stuff I knew about (intimately) that I first started to distrust them, especially “light news”. And when they started writing about ME, I began to seriously question how much of what I had read was accurate. When a British paper did a feature on me taking over Superman, they filled in my background with my father’s life story!
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Greg McPhee
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Joined: 25 August 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 5168
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | 8
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I remember one instance of Don Newton drawing Batman doing a workout without his cape and gloves--and the gray shirt by itself looked like sweatshirt material--which I thought was perfect! Same thing with a maskless and gloveless Captain America working out by George Perez--his white sleeves gave me the impression of simple sweatshirt or henley material.
========================================================
I'd have to dig out the issue but I'm pretty sure that Don Newton also drew the gray shirt as having sweatshirt like cuffs as well.
And I've also said the 1996 Phantom movie realized the costume brilliantly onscreen no fake muscles / padding the straightforward costume aligned with the physique Billy Zane worked out to get for the movie.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 16328
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 7:59pm | IP Logged | 9
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The Phantom -- though clearly faithful to the overall design -- still succumbed to the Hollywood designer need for extraneous detail.
When it comes to super-hero costumes, the one worn by Christopher Reeve remains at the top of the mountain, looking down at all pretenders. Mainly because it didn't try to do anything other than be the exact costume from the comics.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8310
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | 10
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Chris Reeves absolutely remains the pinnacle of costumes.
That film took the character and the look seriously.
There was fun in that movie, but not at the expense of the concept. No self
deprecating humour, no ‘how could this function as it does in the comic’, no
million dollar, screen printed complicated detail, that actually hardly shows
up on screen.
Just a costume, accurate to the comics, with primary colours, worn with
confidence by the actor.
Never matched.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135539
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| Posted: 18 January 2026 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | 11
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Ironically, the Chris Reeve costume was Spandex, but they played it as Kryptonian blankets.
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Brian Hughes
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Joined: 15 June 2015
Location: United States
Posts: 399
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| Posted: 19 January 2026 at 12:12am | IP Logged | 12
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I really liked Clark Bartram's costume in Batman: Dead End (on youtube). Only the cowl raised questions.
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