Marvel unveils SHINY CAP W/ GUN - Page 2

You know, the more I look at this costume, the more barftastic it becomes.

For starters, red/white/blue and black is not such a great combination.

Also: a shield, a gun, and a knife? Pick one for fuck's sake. You're a superhero.

And for the love of pete, if you're gonna try to make the costume more "grim n' gritty" by adding black dockers, keeping the red gloves (but resizing them to just hand gloves!) and the little wings on the head kinda defeats the purpose.

Just my two cents.

It's a "temporary" Cap, who cares?

The costume is meant to get people talking about this and will be quickly ignored just like the examples shown here before, and that horrible Scarlett Spider-Man costume.

Yeah, whether Ross intended it that way or not, the costume is a visual metaphor for the impossibility of replacing Steve Rogers: there's only one real Cap, there's only one real Cap costume.

So Steve Rogers' spirit chooses the next Captain America? I liked it better when it was a group of government assholes.

Eh, fuck it. They'll run with this pseudo-Cap for about a year or so, then when the movie comes out, Original Cap will come back. been there, done that, etc., etc. etc. ho-hum.

While I'm waiting, think I'll mainline some vintage Kirby Cap and Avengers (y'know, when comics were FUN), and go on from there. Who's with me?

I still wish they'd used Ross' Green Goblin design in the first film.

Last time I checked, Steve Rogers would pick up a gun in a heartbeat to gain the advantage. Why the outcry of him posessing a gun? The bulk of the Cap covers in silver age had him blowing the fuck outta Nazi's with a tommy gun.

Really, that is the only picture I dislike for the new costume. The other pics do it justice, I guess.

Surprisingly, Epting's cover makes the suit look pretty weak. I'd have figured he would've made it look even cooler.

I emphatically agree - the big problem the writers'/producers had was trying to hash out why Norman would dress like the Ross version, plus get his face to look all evil. They came up with the Power Ranger armor, since they figured Norman was working on a military project, hence the armor, weapons, etc. were already made as a part of the project. The mask was an afterthought.

Have the lab explode while he's working on the serum and his face scars like that from the burns. Simple.

In the words of Norm MacDonald: "The problem with the old costume? It wasn't gay enough."

Look, if you're not going to overanalyze and complicate a simple idea, and use this "common sense" and "logic" of yours, you'll never make it in this town, kid.

Prankster: what if they made the Green Goblin's costume black? I hear that works wonders...

I HATE Alex Ross so much.

Green Goblin wearing a mask didn't need to be explained that much, he's supposed to have gone crazy in the first place.

Ross' Goblin design wasn't that great though ... still better than what they showed in the movie but still ...

Admittedly, if you're going to make a character who represents what America is all about, not giving him a gun is just lying. On the other hand, Captain America is supposed to represent the ideal America, what America aspires to be. A dude in flat black and chrome holding a gun pretty much represents everything that's worst about America.

Okay, I see what you did there, Marvel.

At the heart America, there is an underdog within all of us. From fighting empires to breaking our isolationist ways, we always enter into what is the equivalent of suicide; only to come out the victor. Why? Because of our heart.

All of this has nothing to do with the fact this costume is terrible. Absolutely terrible.

USA! USA!

I think Ross is a very good artist, but his costume designs are usually pretty bad or repetitive.

Pics or it didn't happen.


Okay, I know it happened, I just want you to post some pics of what his design was.

Here ya go.

I never really liked Ross' designs for the movie. I was glad they didn't use them. Raimi's decision to stick closely to Spider-Man's original design was a good one. Like most people, I'm not fond of the Goblin design, but Ross' wouldn't have worked any better, especially considering his origin in the film. How much sense would that have made?

Let's be honest, though. Making the Green Goblin make sense is impossible. He's kind of silly, really. The comics get away with it.

You know what I don't see on this design...I big old cross. Maybe on the shield. Because "God Bless America"

True enough, Greg. I pulled out my copy of "Behind The Mask of Spider-Man" - they had Bernie Wrightson take a crack, but he and the artist that followed him, figured since Osborn had access to all this tech and electronics stuff, it'd be a bit more realistic to have the costume as an offshoot of the military glider Osborn was making.

The mask was originally going to be an animatronic prostehtic that looked damn close to the comics, but the writers figured it would involve too much backstory to explain how Norman made the mask's features change (show emotion, etc.). That's why they had decorated Norman's office with masks - he was a collector of tribal masks, and he used one he found to wear as the Goblin.

Aside from the chrome, I don't exactly dislike the the costume design, as previously noted it's almost the exact same aesthetic compromise between the classic and what's now considered "cool" or "real" as Ross' Spider-Man movie designs were.

Brubaker and Ross recently justified the alterations as a reflection of the personality and style of the guy who's stepping into Steve Rogers boots, and I can see that. Whoever he is though, he has clearly never, not ever, missed an episode of "Pimp My Ride".

Ok, so let's speculate then. Who is it?

Peter Parker?

An excellent guess - however, Peter's the last guy to carry a gun (shades of his Uncle Ben's murder).

We can rule out the Punisher, as he'd be packing much heavier caliber weaponry than a sidearm and dagger.

Wolverine? No way, eh? Our Canadian cousins would pitch a fit, and send the furious thunder of the Great White North upon the lower 48. Probably blast some Rush while they're at it, which would divide my loyalties. Best not to think about it.

Luke Cage? Awesome idea, very forward thinking, but this is Marvel we're talking about... so, no.

Matt Murdock? Gun and knife preclude this choice. Not Daredevil's style.

Winter Soldier? Best choice - he's from Cap's generation so he shares Cap's values at the core (Cap says something along the lines of "I'm not loyal to the flag, I'm loyal to the dream" in an old issue of Daredevil - Bucky idolized the guy as his sidekick, so I believe deep down he'd feel the same way), but he's got more of an edge to him and his time in the shadowy world of black ops gives him a unique insight into the way the "system" works. He'd probably get the uniform from Stark or the Black Panther or somebody.

Shit, let's go radical - it's obviously Aunt May. She's been shot, Peter Parker called in a favor with the Inhumans, she went through the Terragen Mists, got a hog between her legs, and now she's kickin' ass!

You have Osborn be a medieval history buff or something. It's no less ludicrous than having him have masks all over his office.

Whatever they did, you don't cast someone with as vividly expressive face as Willem DaFoe for your villain and then hide his face for the majority of his screen time.

No, you don't. But as I said, I didn't like their final solution. I'm just saying that going with the comics design wouldn't have been the right answer either. The character needs to be rethought. Just not like that. Both versions are goofy.

I just reject the general fanboy wisdom that if the movies stuck to the original designs and storylines, they'd be better movies. Some of the source material, classic as it has become, really isn't all that good. Does anybody really want to see the Fantastic Four story about the Sub-Mariner becoming a film producer and tricking the FF into being in his movie? Didn't think so.

"I don't read comic books and have no idea how good Ed Brubaker's CAPTAIN AMERICA has been, but here's my ill-informed opinion anyway!"

I'm not sure who that comment was aimed at. We were just referencing classic Spider-Man.

Ed Brubaker is great and handles corporate mandates (like Cap's death) well, but he did not design this.

Devin, I know that the book has been legitimately great, and definitely one of the best superhero series on the market, but c'mon. That's a real lousy costume.

I am holding out hope that the new Cap is actually "CapWolf!" How could you not like Captain America, only in werewolf format? The gun could hold silver bullets and the knife could be silver as Cap will now be hunting other werewolves because he hates what he has become, or some other nonsense. It's sure to sell hundreds, if not a thousand copies. Brubaker would be well served to revisit all of Gruenwald's lesser storylines.

Saying that we have to read the series to have a legitimate opinion on the costume is silly. It's like saying that I have to watch Into the Blue before I can have an opinion on whether Jessica Alba is pretty.

Of course it is. And if you didn't read the book and thought this was really going to be Cap's costume from here on in, you'd want to complain. But if you read the book and knew that this costume and this Cap will be gone sooner rather than later, you'd just let it go.

Or you could be disappointed that such an obvious and tired storyline is being put into play for the umpteenth time.

And you'd still have a right to complain about a costume being bad, no matter how brief of an appearance it makes. We all knew "Iron Spidey" was only temporary, but I just re-read Civil War last night, and man it still ain't any fun to look at that sucker.

That's really what they should have done, it would have been so much better.

I agree, Stormin. If they went the route they did with DeFoe in Shadow of the Vampire, it'd be great. They could've had Norman do a Jekyll and Hyde - he'd resist becoming the Goblin, then make a physical and psychological change, with the Goblin overwhelming him in the third act. He'd revert back to Norman once he got impaled on the glider, and with his dying breath, thank Spidey for ending his conflict the only way it could end.

In all fairness, I imagine the Goblin design in the film had a lot to do with how easy it would be to CGI.

The rest of Goblin's body could've stayed the same (on some board somewhere, I'd mentioned that it made sense to me that Osborn would wear some sort of armor, seeing as how his own company manufactured items for the military, why not?). CGI'ing his face wouldn't have been too hard to accomplish.

Thinking back on it, it might've also been a financial decision - I'd figure making a helmet you could wear over and over again would be cheaper than making several one-time wear make-up pieces.

And it more easily let someone who wasn't Willem DaFoe do stunt work.

I think if you've been reading comics since The Death of Superman you would know this is only temporary. Maybe longer but I cannot recall any significant changes since the reboots of the 60's where you had different people and origins in the new costumes so no need to revert back to old ones.

Is there any costume change that has had any longevity since the Symbiote?

I can't think of any of the majors, although Robin's costume has been constantly tweaked over the years. And of course, Daredevil's red costume has stuck around for a long time.

I can deal with Robin since most of the time you have a new person inside, right?

And with Daredevil, I think the change was done so quickly that no one really cared. According to Wikipedia the costume was tweaked every issue and the current color iteration was complete by issue number 7.

Iron Man's had a good run with his changing suits of armor - I'd be very surprised if we ever see the Classic red and gold suit again - but such changes are essential to the nature of the character. The Wasp was established early on as a clotheshorse, so she changed her outfits fairly regularly. To a different extreme, Dr. Who changes physically and personality wise with every regeneration (one actor replacing the other) because it was established early on.

It's tougher to pull it off on characters that are part of the public conciousness via merchandising, growing up with the character over any significant length of time, etc. People get used to how a character looks, and even if they never read comic books, that initial character design will automatically register with a viewer. The black Spider-Man outfit was a well-designed and executed change that came out of nowhere (even made the editorial page of the NY Daily News), and it did last a couple of years, but most people knew that the familiar Spidey costume would be back eventually.

It's harder to pull this kind of a switch on fans nowadays and have it stick - most fans, even the newer ones, have seen or been through this before and KNOW this latest change isn't going to last. They also know that, somehow, Steve Rogers will be back, at least by 2009 and the new movie.

I think every American solidier should be decked out... if we can't defeat the "insurgents," confuse the hell out of them :-P

J/K