Comic books aren't like real life — they're so much cooler.
Lifting characters from comics and adapting them to the big screen is a complicated process.
And for Marvel, that meant a redesign of some pretty iconic characters.
The impact of the Avengers is a lot greater if you think they could actually show up on
the evening news, but getting them from all their brightly-colored comic book glory to
living, breathing characters took some heavy revision.
It was, however, totally worth it.
Here's why Marvel changed how the Avengers looked when they brought them to the movies.
Hawkeye
Sharp-eyed viewers will notice that in Avengers, Age of Ultron, and Civil War, Jeremy Renner's
Hawkeye sports some gear that pays tribute to the character's original comic look with
its purple coloring, but without getting quite so crazy.
Of course, it's thankfully missing some traditional details: when Renner went on stage at Wizard
World Chicago's MCU panel, one optimistic young fan asked if he was going to get to
wear a mask.
He confirmed that the answer was a resounding "no."
And here's why it's for the best.
If Marvel had kept Clint Barton's original look … just, no.
It's not clear what's worse: the purple-on-purple outfit, or that mask.
That mask.
Look at it!
Even still, his comic costume sort of made sense.
The character's parents died when he was a kid.
But when it came time to stay in the orphanage, he said, "nuts to this" and joined the circus
instead.
And, without question, this get-up belongs in the circus.
Marvel was going for a serious feel with The Avengers, after all, and this one just had
to go in its entirely.
Good thing.
Of course, they could've gone a step further and given him, oh, you know, a gun, too.
"The city is flying.
We're fighting an army of robots.
And I have a bow and arrow.
None of this makes sense."
Captain America
When it came to getting down to the business of war, Marvel Studios made the right moves
with Captain America.
They kept the iconic red, white, and blue, but opted for something a little more serious.
It makes sense, because soldiers on either side wouldn't take him seriously if he'd kept
his comics look.
Actor Chris Evans was well aware of the positive changes, too, telling Empire, "Given the fact
that his costume is red, white, and blue, and it's tight, it could be kind of flash
and over the top … they've done a really good job of making it look really cool."
What's not so cool?
The original costume from the comics.
Sure, it's a classic, but it's fitting that Cap only wears it when he's parading on-stage
like a doofus, hawking war bonds.
The movie treats it like a joke, because it pretty much is.
So what if Cap had worn the original comics outfit into the field?
Well, he might feel a little silly with such a brightly colored costume as he charged into
battle.
And those little wings on the side of his head couldn't have offered much tactical advantage,
either.
Definitely better to clip them.
Thor
The original costume for Thor, Marvel's resident Norse god of thunder, was pretty dang cool.
It was also — to put it simply — completely unfilmable.
And the first time Thor made it to television in 1988's The Incredible Hulk Returns proves
this to be true, since they didn't even bother trying to come close:
"No Thor let's save him, give me the hammer."
"Give me the hammer!"
"You want a fight?
You'll get one!"
But by 2007, Marvel redesigned his outfit in the comics.
And that's more or less what made it to the silver screen in 2011's Thor movie.
It's pretty much perfect, right?
Only it's missing one thing...where's his helmet?
The helmet made a brief appearance in the first movie, and then it's never seen again.
That's mostly because Thor actor Chris Hemsworth really, really hated it.
He told IGN in 2013:
"It's just incredibly uncomfortable.
And the amount of times it would fall off and like the bridge would be smashing me in
the nose or the wings to the helmet in one of the fight scenes was getting clipped off…"
And you know?
That's okay.
Because, let's face it: no one really looks badass when they're wearing a hat with wings,
as we've already proved with Captain America.
That goes double for the helmet Thor used to wear in the comics before his redesign,
too.
It looks like he's wearing a flying Hershey's Kiss.
That may work for Peter Jackson and his army of orc-food, but that's just not gonna fly
with Thor.
It's a case where you can draw things that you can't easily translate into the real world.
Thor's hat is one of those things that just didn't work.
Ant-Man
When Ant-Man made it to the big screen, they threw away his silly comic costume, giving
him an updated, redesigned costume that was made in the best possible way ever — with
real, honest-to-goodness science.
The movie-making geniuses over at Marvel consulted with a very real-world genius, Dr. Spiros
Michalakis from the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech.
According to the good doctor, when you look at the problems of shrinking a full-sized
human to ant-sized, you're messing with all kinds of laws.
Like density: if Paul Rudd really was compacted to the size of an ant, he'd about the same
density as a white dwarf star.
"Bringing him in!"
"Sorry about this."
And there's more.
From breathing oxygen molecules too big for your tiny body to process, to a smaller body
that generates too much heat, there are lots of reasons why comic book Ant-Man's outfit
just wouldn't cut it.
Enter the new Ant-Man suit, with a totally closed design.
That's a radical departure from...this thing.
The big, silver dome, the little microphone for speaking to ants, and those antennae.
Oh, lord — the antennae.
Falcon
Movie Falcon's military badassery is another major departure from the comics, and it's
right in line with the updated costume Marvel went with.
Falcon got decked out in military garb, functional-looking wings, and Redwing became a drone, rather
than the feathers-and-blood bird he was in the comics.
The comic book version of Sam Wilson is almost nothing like the movies, and that's a good
thing.
That weird red-and-white spandex he wears?
That mask?
That yellow triangle that looks like a bullseye for the middle of his face?
There's no real rationale that exists to justify that outfit.
Maybe it's supposed to make him more aerodynamic?
Or just looking more like some kinda...bird person?
"It has been a challenging mating season for Bird Person."
"Then it's time to get your beak wet tonight, playa.
Go have some fun out there, Bird Person."
But according to actor Anthony Mackie, he's actually been campaigning to bring back the
spandex.
He told Rolling Stone:
"I worked so hard to get my body in shape that I wanted to show it off.
But [Marvel] decided that they wanted Falcon to be more of a military character, which
I'm not complaining about, because my gear looks dope and I get to kick a lot of ass.
Ever since I got in good shape, though, I'm all about spandex."
So, if you're one of those people that wants to see Falcon in all his supertight glory,
Mackie's working on it.
And he doesn't seem like the type to give up easily.
Quicksilver
Even before actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson was officially, completely signed to play Quicksilver
in Avengers: Age of Ultron, there was some discussion about which parts of the character's
signature look would stay, and which would go.
According to early conversations, what Quicksilver was going to look like was a part of the negotiations
with 20th Century Fox, who has its own version of the character appearing in the X-Men franchise.
There had to be a lot of careful stepping around this one, after all, to keep from mentioning
or using anything that would get them in trouble with Fox.
Given Marvel's dedication to making the Avengers people who could exist in the real world — at
least sort of — Quicksilver got some revisions away from his comic book counterpart, who
would look more than a little creepy in real life.
The hair?
Straight up white.
The outfit?
Blue spandex with a boring lightning bolt going diagonally across the chest, like a
sash or something.
Comic book Quicksilver looks like some kind of hall monitor on meth or something.
Scarlet Witch
When it comes to translating female comic book characters to the big screen, movie studios
have an uphill challenge.
Based on our research, a large contingent of female superheroes think a magic, strapless,
pointy bathing suit is absolutely the way to go when you're fighting evil.
It goes without saying that rushing into battle in a bathing suit isn't the most practical
option — which is why Marvel Studios went and revamped the outfits for Scarlet Witch
in Age of Ultron and Civil War.
And that's an unbelievably good thing, because there's pretty much no options for Scarlet
Witch that they could have lifted from the comics and successfully translated to the
screen.
What Scarlet Witch wears in the comics is pretty bonkers.
She has, for some inexplicable reason, always been drawn wearing a pointed picture frame
around her face.
And then, of course, there's the low-cut bathing suit...situation.
Fortunately for actress Elizabeth Olsen, Marvel's plans to completely revamp Scarlet Witch in
the movies have been in place from the beginning.
While appearing on Late Night with Seth Myers, Olsen herself explained her initial meeting
with Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon:
"He said, there's this character Scarlet Witch that I'm interested in for you to play.
And then he said when you go home and Google her, just now that you'll never ever have
to wear what she wears in the comics."
While a certain segment of the comic book reading population might be pretty pleased
to see Elizabeth Olsen wear whatever this is, Marvel Studios had the good sense to completely
ignore them.
Vision
According to Vision himself, actor Paul Bettany, part of the problem Marvel faced was in making
him look exotic against an already out-there cast of characters.
More than six months of back-and-forth went into finding the right colors for Vision.
Vision first showed up in the comics in 1968, and over the years he's had a couple different
variations to his look.
Eventually Vision went from his sort of "lemonade-and-cucumbers" look to more of a beige, "I spilled country
gravy on myself" look.
And really, white on white is not that great of a fashion choice.
But most of them were, for some reason, variations on a bright yellow-and-green outfit, cape,
and bright red face.
Fortunately, when it came time to film, the Vision's skin tone changed, going from bright
red to what makeup department designer Jeremy Woodhead described as "purple-pinky red".
Considering how Vision in the comics has traditionally looked more or less like a goofy crying clown
with a yellow cape, there's really only one word to describe the filmmakers' changes to
bring the character into reality: Marvelous.
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