Friday, September 30, 2011

Now THAT'S Realism!

This month DC Comics began a company-wide relaunch of all their titles, updating the look of their characters for a new generation of readers. This is nothing new; they did the same thing back in the 1960s when they changed the Flash (among others) from a guy wearing a Mercury helmet to a guy in an all-red suit.

Here's an image of the all new Justice League. Look closely and you'll see that most of the characters seem to be wearing some sort of form-fitting armor rather than spandex. You also might notice they're no longer wearing briefs on the outside of their costumes. DC says that from now on they have a strict "no underwear on the outside" policy. They actually felt the need to announce that to the public. According to DC, the underwear look was silly, outdated and most of all, unrealistic.

Because as we all know, a man who can fly and shoot heat rays from his eyes is the ultimate in realism. A man who wears his underwear over his pants? Well that's just ridiculous. Who could believe such a thing?

I may be missing something, but when was it decided that comics are supposed to be realistic? Isn't the whole point of them to as unrealistic as possible? You know, escapist fantasy literature and all that? If you're going to make them realistic, then aren't they just... novels?

I just don't understand how one can demand realism from a book about a man who squirts spiderwebs from his wrists. That seems like a heaping helping of industrial grade schizophrenia to me.

3 comments:

  1. It looks like each and every one of them is still wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants, but their underwear is the same color as their pants so it's not as noticeable. So ultimately they didn't really do anything with the big change.

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  2. It also looks like they're all wearing some kind of form=fitting segmented armor. Including Superman. Why does Superman need an armored suit?

    Batman's suit is so dark that I didn't even see his black bat symbol on his chest at first. Didn't he once say his suit had a bat symbol inside a yellow oval on his chest, so that criminals would aim for his armored chest and not his head? Now the only hint of color in his suit is his utility belt. Now they're going to be aiming right at his belly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dude, everyone knows that Lex is buying Kryptonite bullets on the black market (or bought Angry Birds Krypton edition on the Apple Store). Hence the full armoured multi-plated obviously designed by Bruce Wayne but made by his Mom and totally covered by a news reporter salary sort of thing...

    Is all about realism.

    ReplyDelete

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