DESATURATING OUR COMIC-BOOK HEROES
By Jerry Saravia
At the 2014 Comic-Con in San Diego, a new Wonder Woman still was revealed to eager comic-book fans. Who didn't love Wonder Woman from the comics and the Lynda Carter TV series of the 70's - the warrior princess with the red top, golden Lasso of Truth, the blue star-spangled shorts or culottes to some (used to be a long skirt in the "Sensation Comics"), the bright red boots, her tiara, her bulletproof bracelets, ready for action. Below are the original appearances of Wonder Woman, from her inception in the 1940's and the slight changes in appearance through the 1970's via the television medium.
At Comic-Con, the new cinematic Wonder Woman was unveiled and looked like this:
Granted, starting in 2011, desaturation of the Wonder Woman costume in a post-Christopher Nolan world of troubled superheroes began to take shape. Witness the Justice League comics from 2011 with the revamped look for Wonder Woman:
So why does the new Wonder Woman of the "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" film look like a warrior princess of the J.R.R. Tolkien world or a Xena wannabe than the American icon of primary colors of the past? We can ask the same question of the CW series of "Arrow" based on Green Arrow, accent on the green which is relatively muted in the new show, or the virtually burgundy red costumed look of the new CW "Flash" TV series? The old Flash from the comics, even the 1990's TV series, had the fiery red color of the very fast hero.
But what is going on lately with our comic-book heroes? Why desaturate the colors? I think the reason may be an international economic agenda. Most of these expensive epics, including "Iron Man 3," are released overseas first, specifically China where a lot of the money is made (witness "Transformers: Age of Extinction" which passed the worldwide 1 billion mark thanks to China's box-office grosses). Case in point with "Iron Man 3" - Tony Stark barely wears his red-gold plated armor costume through most of the film (although there is the Iron Patriot played by Don Cheadle). Marvel doesn't seem to extremely modify their heroes' costumes, except for the new Spider-Man, and the Avengers do stand pretty close to their original incarnations (Mark Ruffalo's super-sized Hulk is as green as the Hulk can be). The DC universe has taken the desaturation to its limits, however. Perhaps by muting the colors that so resemble our American flag and thus represent America (Wonder Woman, Superman, etc), it is an easier sell to foreign markets who are not keen on America and its standing in our world nowadays - in other words, nothing
too American. Another odd circumstance regarding a high-profile franchise with a hero, Indiana Jones, was in the first teasers released for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." The International teaser did not feature the American flag as seen during the convoy of Army trucks at Area 51 - in the U.S. version, a close-up of the flag during the same shot is present.
The notion is practically more economic than political...and perhaps the Man of Steel costume may reflect a post-9/11 America or maybe the costume designers forgot that the look was reminiscent of Bizarro or the evil Supes from "Superman III." We can make all the excuses we want and justify such glaringly wrongheaded revisionism in general - I say, forget what the world thinks of us, and bring back our primary colors. I mean, who wants a desaturated "Dick Tracy" movie unlike the primary colors so evident in Warren Beatty's 1990 version?
