Article Erik Larsen posted on Facebook concerning the "trunks"

[Kurosawa]

I would say his iconic look is the red and blue coloring, the shield and the cape. How you put those elements together has changed over the years but that's where the imagery comes from. I'm fairly certain that the new 52 Superman is recognizable as Superman. No one's going to get him confused with any other character. Of course I come at this as someone who had wished the trunks had been a casualty of CoIE.

Take off the S and put it in black and white and no one knows who the nu52 character is. MOS, it's much closer. It still has the real cape attachment and neckline and boots.

[Lexrules]

I would say his iconic look is the red and blue coloring, the shield and the cape. How you put those elements together has changed over the years but that's where the imagery comes from. I'm fairly certain that the new 52 Superman is recognizable as Superman. No one's going to get him confused with any other character. Of course I come at this as someone who had wished the trunks had been a casualty of CoIE.

You secretly go out at night with red underwear over your blue sweatpants. You could admit it.

[iRacingRyan]

That is my hope and I did consider adding some pics of Citizens Bank Park to complete the analogy. I hope once the legal issues are settled that DC celebrates by bringing back Superman's proper visual.

I can accept that. :)

I understand the gripe from both sides. Hell, I'm sure there are still Batman fans who want to see "The Dark Knight" go the way of the Dodo and see their BAM, POW, SMACK! light-hearted Batman return. Unfortunately, each character will undoubtedly go through a change that will be taken as the new standard for quite some time. Be it personality, costume, etc.

We'll see.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I can accept that. :)

I understand the gripe from both sides. Hell, I'm sure there are still Batman fans who want to see "The Dark Knight" go the way of the Dodo and see their BAM, POW, SMACK! light-hearted Batman return. Unfortunately, each character will undoubtedly go through a change that will be taken as the new standard for quite some time. Be it personality, costume, etc.

We'll see.

I deinitely would like to see Batman go back to his natural state of the first thirty or so years of his existence. I really don't see why DKR and Year One are so great in hindsight. At the time, yeah. But everybody has re-used those concepts so often (and I'm sick to death of first person narrative--especially when it's written like Batman is keeping notes as he goes along, yet we never see him whipping out a notebook after he lays out some thug so he can make these notes--"my stomach muscles tensed as I felt the sickening crush of my fist connecting with Sad Sack's jaw and I reflected on the ugliness of the human condition...").

What was once novel 27 years ago has now become hackneyed and overdone. I long for the kind of economy that used to be a rule in comic book story telling--where you just give the readers enough words and pictures as they need and their imaginations fill in the rest. Heck, if I want to read "Ride Bat-Hombre Ride" as a deadly serious story, I have enough imagination to do that. But my imagination can just as easily linger on the fun aspects of the story. I don't need to be led by the nose and told SEE SEE, THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS!

Dave Gibbons' lay-out of WATCHMEN had that kind of economy. But instead of appreciating how Moore and Gibbons championed the virtues of classic comic narratives--all that people took away from that was its deconstruction (not all of its reconstruction of old forms).

But it hasn't been all bad for Batman. We have had people like Timm, Dini, Parobeck, and Templeton doing Batman the way that Finger and Kane imagined him.

[Kurosawa]

I deinitely would like to see Batman go back to his natural state of the first thirty or so years of his existence. I really don't see why DKR and Year One are so great in hindsight. At the time, yeah. But everybody has re-used those concepts so often (and I'm sick to death of first person narrative--especially when it's written like Batman is keeping notes as he goes along, yet we never see him whipping out a notebook after he lays out some thug so he can make these notes--"my stomach muscles tensed as I felt the sickening crush of my fist connecting with Sad Sack's jaw and I reflected on the ugliness of the human condition...").

What was once novel 27 years ago has now become hackneyed and overdone. I long for the kind of economy that used to be a rule in comic book story telling--where you just give the readers enough words and pictures as they need and their imaginations fill in the rest. Heck, if I want to read "Ride Bat-Hombre Ride" as a deadly serious story, I have enough imagination to do that. But my imagination can just as easily linger on the fun aspects of the story. I don't need to be led by the nose and told SEE SEE, THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS!

Dave Gibbons' lay-out of WATCHMEN had that kind of economy. But instead of appreciating how Moore and Gibbons championed the virtues of classic comic narratives--all that people took away from that was its deconstruction (not all of its reconstruction of old forms).

But it hasn't been all bad for Batman. We have had people like Timm, Dini, Parobeck, and Templeton doing Batman the way that Finger and Kane imagined him.

Completely agree although I think things have greatly improved for Batman in some ways. The way he is portrayed as a patriarch and how he regards Dick, Tim and Damien as his sons with Alfred as the grandfather figure is pretty nice. I don't know where they're going with this current storyline as I'm not reading it, but it sounds bad from what little I've heard.

I like Batman grim but in a gothic classy way and not in a nasty and gritty way.

[Fate's Faith]

Take off the S and put it in black and white and no one knows who the nu52 character is. MOS, it's much closer. It still has the real cape attachment and neckline and boots.

Not following you here. Remove the S and the coloring from the old suit and people would still see Superman where they wouldn't with the new if you did the same thing? I wonder if you took the very first suit and did that would the answer be any different.

[Kurosawa]

Not following you here. Remove the S and the coloring from the old suit and people would still see Superman where they wouldn't with the new if you did the same thing? I wonder if you took the very first suit and did that would the answer be any different.

The boots, trunks and neckline are all distinctive even if you can't see the symbol and even if it isn't in color. The nu52 costume is not like that. The MOS costume is even without the trunks because of the neckline, cape attachment and boots.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I almost think it would have been better to create an entirely new costume design--like they did with Spidey's Venom costume and Superman's Electric Blue design. Then they would be totally free to do whatever they want, putting the classic costume out of mind. Trying to redesign the classic look, you're stuck, because whatever you do you still have to preserve the basic elements and that just serves as a reminder of the original design--and it invites comparison. Whereas a new design sends the message that you're not fiddling with the old design--you're making something new and Superman is also new again.

For the purpose of preserving the trademark classic costume--so you can sell it as an action figure--I'd say that the classic costume is traditional Kryptonian dress. Like how many European cultures have traditional costumes--this isn't what they wear in daily life, but for special festivals they put this on to honour their history and traditions.

[Not that I really believe the classic costume should have been junked. But if I'm playing devil's advocate, I think DC would have had a better time of it if they just started from scratch with something all new.]

[Fate's Faith]

I don't know. I think all the heroes have had their costumes updated over the years including Superman's. This was just all little adjustments all at once. But I still see the same basic iconic look there. And could easily imagined how they could have grown the old one to look like the new over a course of months and years.

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

DC did invite several artists to redesign Superman and Clark back in 1973, but for some reason these new designs didn't stick:

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

I guess the world was not ready for these:

[Kurosawa]

The good 'ol days...when fun was fun.

[WilliamMcGuire]

The high collar still makes him look like a weird space militant.

[Addams]

Miss the trunks. But not just on Supes, also on Batman.

In fact, it worked great on the Bat costume.

[Last Son]

You mean the trunks that people laughed at for over 70 years? Oh, I don't think that many people miss it.

I think you're exaggerating just a bit. The anti-trunks people would have you believe that Superman is the only one to have them and that people have made fun of the character since his inception, but he inspired a lot of characters, including how they look. For a long time, every Tom, Dick and Harry had the same basic look as Superman. Even someone as far removed from Superman as Magneto has the cape, trunks, boots, and the two-tone style where the bodysuit is a different color from the rest of the suit.