www.inverse.com: In the year 2000, superhero movies were at the precipice of a mainstream revolution, and leading that charge were the X-Men. But this was a new millennium and a new format. The tight, stretchy outfits worn by the team in their comics and iconic ’90s cartoon wouldn’t do. Instead, these X-Men donned black leather bodysuits. And yet, even that wasn’t cool enough for the most badass X-Man of them all.
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To speak logically (or as logically as you can discussing imaginary super-beings), Spandex is actually a perfect material for superheroes. As demonstrated in the illustration of Ms. Marvel, superheroes need to be able to move around freely and occasionally their clothing has to be able to adjust to their changing bodies. Obviously this is assuming that the Spandex Ms. Marvel wears is specially created to stretch as far as her body can, but I digress. The fact that we use Spandex for exercise clothing is an excellent example of why superheroes, who are generally very active, also traditionally wore Spandex. Returning to reality, it was interesting that it’s suspected tight-fitting clothing was drawn simply because it was easier to draw the human physique. The aesthetics of the costumes have to be considered, as movies are a visual experience. Spandex is beginning to look dated, and as stated at the beginning of the article, superheroes have to look cool.
When I saw the title of this article, I knew I had to click on it. I had never before quite realized that superheroes almost always wear spandex. So this was so funny to me for some reason to process that they all really do wear super thin, non-protective body suits. I found it interesting how the original superhero look in comics was spandex and that most recently created superheroes used that same base for their “costumes.” I also was so blown away that the comics drew a bodysuit look without ever knowing it was truly possible to make. I guess that adds to the “super” part of superhero and most old comic writers weren’t really concerned with the tangible product. Still, it is so cool to think that something so unique and innovative is now just an assumed quality of the character. The only other superhero “costume” category I can think of is super machine/robot creations. When I look at Marvel I can’t think of any heroes that don't fall into one of those two categories.
I thought that it was really interesting how this article discussed the development of spandex as a cool new material and how spandex found itself not only being used in everything, but also being woven into pop culture. I don’t really know a ton about superhero stuff, so while certainly the concept of the tight-fitting superhero uniform is something I subconsciously noticed, I didn’t know much about the specific tropes regarding superhero uniforms. I thought it was fascinating how the article mentioned that superhero uniforms are always made of fancy futuristic materials, like nanotechnology and other sort of made-up future technologies. And because of that, for the original superheroes back in the mid-1900s, a material like spandex was a fancy futuristic material. It’s really interesting to think about how something that is so commonplace today and is used in nearly everything and has even progressed to a point where it is no longer cool and stylish was at one point in time a revolutionary new material.
This article deals with the biggest question of our generation. Why do superheroes wear spandex? Spandex is a stretchy material whose elastic properties are given by the structure of the woven fibers, as well as a synthetic fiber called elastane. Elastane can be stretched to 7 times its original size, yet still return to its beginning shape. DuPont chemical company created the material, who you may know from hazardous materials such as Teflon, and branded spandex to “lycra.” The first case of a skintight costume was in 1936, so it seems to be deeply ingrained in our cultural brains that superheroes always wear tight fitting materials. The spandex in comics predated the actual invention of spandex, and helps allude to a sideshow strongman type character. Superheros are very entrenched in the spandex look, but I think that the more innovation is made in the field of materials science, the more different and interesting materials we’re going to see costumes being made out of.
Reading about the history of spandex was surprisingly interesting. As someone who’s grown up after the transition away from spandex, I had never thought of it under any lens other than the one it stands under now as something that could never be considered “cool”. Hearing about how and why it was the staple for so long puts into perspective how every superhero show from that time had superheroes in spandex no matter how high production the show was. I also had no idea how many things spandex was used in, I knew it was a useful product but I had no idea it was in so many of the things that people wear. I think the transition away from spandex is a really good example of how even the material of clothes used in a show can end up dating it later down the line even if the style doesn’t.
This was such a cool read! As a big superhero fan, I suppose I always assumed that the spandex correlation was due to the fact that in the comics they all had those style suits - probably to assist their powers and make it easier to fight supervillains, which then was translated to spandex in the early film iterations (though it was interesting to read the fact that Superman wore wool instead). It was cool thinking about how superheroes’ clothing has evolved over the years. It must be difficult to be a costume designer for superhero movies, as not only are you attempting to keep with the times to make the actors look ‘cool’ (switching to leather instead of spandex for example), you have to still keep the essence of the character while making a unique twist. As there have been multiple iterations of Supermans and Batman over the years (as well as many other superhero characters), each director and new adaptors of the story want to make it ‘new,’ which provides a large challenge when it comes to designing the suits for these classic and widely known heroes, as it needs to be both on-brand and yet somehow fresh. I wonder how each designer went about doing it - and if anyone will be able to ‘bring spandex superheroes back’ and still make it ‘cool?’
I was pretty intrigued when I saw the title of this article. It got me wondering why. Why do superheroes- characters who are idolized and looked up to for security- why do they wear spandex? Why would someone put Spiderman in a skin-tight outfit? Spandex can be seen as unserious or even silly. It seems odd to put these awesome characters made up by writers in skin-tight colorful spandex. After reading this article, there are many reasons why. I was and still kind of am a huge superhero/Marvel franchise fan, so it was interesting to look deeper into the logic of using spandex. It is elastic making it easy for the heroes to move and stay active, it shows the builds of the heroes, just amplifying their presence and stance. I also think that it is quite cool how much thought and effort is put into these heroes, I remember loving transforming into this superhero world as an escape in middle school and I never considered the inner workings of these heroes I loved so much.
I’m a huge superhero fan so of course I had to click on this article. I found this really interesting. I had never bothered to look into the history of spandex but I never would have guessed that it was invented by DuPont. I enjoyed reading their explanation as to why when comics came out spandex was so popular: it was seen as futuristic. One thing they didn’t touch on in this article is that though spandex bodysuits look good in animation and drawing, they look ugly as hell on people. I’m very very happy we moved away from spandex bodysuits. I also imagine they’re incredibly hot and uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time during shoots. I also like that it gives the costume designers more freedom. One thing that I’ve always loved about comics is how fluid they are. They’ve never just had one author and thus every superhero is up to interpretation. Many comic fans today get annoyed when a movie differs from the comics, but I prefer to think of it as the next stage of evolution for that comic series. All that is to say, I’m happy we’ve moved away from spandex because it means that the designers are no longer trying to be entirely comic accurate and are able to put their own spin on super heroes.
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