Poll Do you like Superman's red trunks? (124 votes)
Do you like the red trunks on superman's costume?
Character » Superman appears in 18886 issues.
Do you like the red trunks on superman's costume?
Yep! The belt does nothing for me what so ever and fails to tie the suit together as the undies did.
@undefined: Yeah, and that's the only kind of Superman costume I have worn too. Shows less detail below the belt, and is a tribute to the original Superman being a kind of acrobat or strongman at the circus.
Don't know why but i never saw them as 'underwear on the outside' or trunks other kids would say stuff like that and i'd be like what are you talking about, i always saw it as an appropriate balance in colours in his outfit and it just fit and never looked weird to me.
My small peeve, Batman had the same thing in black, Nothing was ever said about that and if it was, it wasn't nearly as much as Superman's.
So, people should understand that trunks are not the same as underwear....
That aside, I don't think they really make sense for a modern take on Superman.
A modern superman would take inspiration from modern sources, and well...not too many people dress that way, and there would be no need for them with a more advanced suit. However...the New52 design, any of them, is probably my least favorite non trunk costume. I think the New52 Ultraman and the Injustice Superman have much better designs.
Actually I take that back...MoS has the worst costume, with a pointless not a belt which does nothing to break up the color of his navy suit and maroon cape.
They have been a huge part of the character for so long that its hard for me to picture him without them. I dont get why people dont like the trunks. They worked with the costume and now without them his costume doesnt feel complete.
@undefined: It seems like a lot of superheroes have that inverted clothing deal unfortunately. Kind of like promoting dressing accidents isn't it?
I love the cape and undies ensemble – but I’d like it if they just didn’t pretend that their costumes aren’t costumes. It takes away from the fun and humanity of it. I also feel the same way about the “S”– I don’t think anyone really buys into it, so why bother? When you become a superhero, you want to do all the fun superhero stuff. Pick a name, design a costume. I reckon Kent should have been all in that, do the whole Spiderman thing. (Or even if he doesn't - like Ma Kent whips it up and all that. But it's the principle of the thing.)
It’s kind of a turn-off for me with quite a few of the heroes now. They all look very shiny and plastic and over-wrought. No real warmth to their design.
I also think Clark Kent should wear a fedora with a full ensemble 70s mafia/city-man suit with a coffee in his hand and newspaper and umbrella tucked under his arm and get changed by zipping into phone-booths or through revolving doors, and sport hair like Elvis (well, okay, that's optional). As far as I’m concerned he should be the tropiest troper that ever troped and just revel in it - it’s his prerogative as the ultimate classic superhero. He should rub his invulnerable underwear in people’s faces until they love it. Basically, as long as he understands that it's fun, and that it's a costume, it works for me.
But, you know. That’s just me. I’m a sucker for that stuff.
But it’s not like he has to stick to just one costume – different suits for different occasions. Maybe his cape n’ undies costume could be just for daily routine performance, working in a little spectacle and fun with a friendly image for the home crowd.
Or maybe it was a costume he made as a kid and hung onto. I’d probably be happy enough if he just had the classic suit sitting in his closet for a rainy day or to embarrass his Justice League friends on diplomatic missions or something.
@supermudz: Tehe~ 'rub his invulnerable underwear in people's faces until they love it'
But yeah, agreed. I'm a sucker for the fedora.
@supermudz: rub his invulnerable underwear in people's faces until they love it'
Lmao
Lol, I'm just saying, how many people can beat up Darkseid in their underwear and live to brag about it? :D
When Superman was first created in the 1930s, the red trucks conveyed to people my implication that he had incredible strength, because they were used to "strong man" carnival acts where people wore those sort of trunks.
Today, they convey nothing to the readership. They really just look like he wears his underwear on the outside. It's kind of embarrassing, really.
Even within the context of the main time line comic books themselves, Superman would have been born no earlier than 1980 (Probably later, he'd be 35 today if he had been born then), and thus it seems unlikely that a young Clark Kent would have picked the trunks as part of a costume meant to be a positive symbol for the good guys and to intimidate the bad guys. He'd have the same preconceptions that people of his generation have. The only way Clark Kent would come up with a costume like that in a timeline where he was born in the last 50 years or so is if he intended some sort of sexual connotation or something, which isn't really his character (Not that he's a sexless character, he just doesn't seem like he'd want to highlight sexuality in his costume while flying around protecting people and fighting villains- some heroes might, but not his character).
Really, the Superman that preceded the new52 Superman shouldn't have had red trunks either. I can only see a Clark Kent who came of age in the first half of the 20th century making them part of his costume- and the only way I see it making sense from a storyline view for them to continue to be part of a Superman costume would have been if Earth 2 Clark Kent had passed down the uniform and Superman identity to someone else and the new guy kept them out of a sense of respect and tradition. If the setting is a world that's never seen Superman, and a character who's inventing a costume in modern times, it just wouldn't have trunks.
The New52 has some bad points, and I don't like the jeans and t-shirt Superman, but the one thing they absolutely got right was ditching the trunks. The family crest, the cape, and the blue and red all work- they are all things I logically see the modern Clark as wanting to include. None of them are anachronisms. The trunks are very much an anachronism.
Now, the current costume could be fiddled with a little, maybe experiment with say a red stripe down the pant legs or something, or that kind of thing, if they want to, but, really, I think it's the right choice in broad strokes for a modern Superman.
To me, the trunks should only be seen if we get stories set in the past, or if previous Supermans from alternate timelines come back. The Clark who was born in the millennial generation wouldn't wear them.
And excluding trunks isn't a radical rewrite. It's exactly the sort of mild modernization that makes sense. The heart of the legend is all intact. If that was the most daring change they had made, I think we'd all be happier.
Design Dossier
This thread seems like a silly topic, but in fact, our modern consumerism world of all lifestyle goods (i.e., Victoria's Secret, Green Giant vegetables, etc.) highlights the social value of the look and feel of all visual presentations related to culture and couture.
I like Superman's outfit and all its neat little parts as much as I like his chest insignia and his X-ray vision.
I mean, isn't that why George Lucas made the civilization-design film "THX 1138" [1971]?
Superman's red trunks are as nifty as Wonder Woman's bra and invisible plane. There should be a Superman-Wonder Woman video game.
@abishai100: Sounds like an idea, although people always have an issue with making a "Superman" video game though:
1) Okay gameplay but not faithful to the source material
or
2) bad gameplay and somewhat faithful to the source material.
IDK, but an action RPGs similar to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance about New 52 heroes sounds more playable than a straight up action game of Superman/Wonder Woman.
@playswithsquirrels: They also didn't make as interesting of a character since they took them away either, in comics anyways.
@playswithsquirrels: Have you read the new Justice League of America title yet? That's really good (This month's full book ad for Martian Manhunter aside).
Context Control
@abishai100: Sounds like an idea, although people always have an issue with making a "Superman" video game though:
1) Okay gameplay but not faithful to the source material
or
2) bad gameplay and somewhat faithful to the source material.
IDK, but an action RPGs similar to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance about New 52 heroes sounds more playable than a straight up action game of Superman/Wonder Woman.
These are solid points, and I think many designers would agree with you --- i.e., Injustice: Gods Among Us pitting Superman and Wonder Woman in a multi-character matrix.
What we don't want is a clumsy mixing of storyboarding and gameplay. By the way, what do people think about the story continuity use-value from video games?
I like them when they are drawn like these.
Bigger, more like strongman suits rather than trunks. Like really big boxers with a yellow belt.
It just works, they make the suit look better.
I agree.
@squalleon, best opinion.
There is a strong visual syntax problem here. Shorts passed the idea of strongman at circus in the 40s-50s, but as of the 1960s the circus disappeared from the "popular culture", almost no one else associates Superman trunks with "strongman at circus." On the contrary, the trunks are jokes. To get back on the idea of "force", "strongman", the trunks look better if they look like boxe or MMA shorts
i think red color in he lower body is fine。i always think NEW 52 superman too blue。。。but trunks。。。i just say not to my taste
They are out of date, and personally I find the New 52 outfit cooler than Post Crisis. The Rebirth costume without red trunks is good, too.
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