The L.A. Times Hero Complex blog has given us the first look at Henry Cavill as Superman in forthcoming Man of Steel, and it is worthy of discussion.
The image itself is visually stunning. Nothing like having Superman hold up a vault door that is bigger than he is (and that he most likely ripped off its hinges) to express his power. But let’s talk about that costume.
Noelene Clark at Hero Complex makes note of its “armor-like sheen,” which immediately brings to mind one of the redesigned costumes Superman will sport in the comic books come September.
The costume in question, seen to the left as drawn by the legendary George Pérez, is “Kryptonian Battle Armor” that gives the rebooted Superman a boost in the power department. Scuttlebutt about the new costume says it was changed to move it away from the classic version of the costume designed by Joe Shuster as a result of DC losing the rights to that image, which we spoke about here.
But if you look closer at the Man of Steel image, the costume appears to be very similar to the traditional Superman uniform, only made out of a snakeskin leather-type of material. That should go over well with the comic fans on the Internet. But the fact the film version of the costume matches so closely with the outfit from Action Comics #1, an outfit whose copyright, if the legal rulings in the Siegel’s heirs lawsuit is to be understood, belongs to the Siegel and Shuster estates, not Warner Brothers/DC Comics, then there might be a fair bit of litigation over that outfit in the future.
On another, perhaps more disturbing, point, the fact that this image comes out less than two weeks after the announcement that Man of Steel script is being rewritten makes it another sign this film might not be all that good. Because, if we put on our deerstalker caps and go all Sherlock Holmes on this information, it means that the script is being rewritten while the film is in production. That is never a good sign, and seldom does that ever result in a good film being made.
The film does look like a “darker” and “edgier” Superman, so at least that will make Jeff Robinov happy.
