May
15
Black is the new black, apparently. For the better part of a decade, comic book and cartoon characters have had their colorful costumes made over as “none more black,” to paraphrase Spinal Tap, when translated to film. Batman, the X-Men and even Spider-Man — to be fair, Spidey’s costume change also took place in the comics — have appeared on the big screen in slimming black getups, not their more recognizable outfits, the ones that costume designers say “won’t work” on film. It sometimes makes you wonder why these films are even shot in color.
Stills from the upcoming “G.I. Joe” movie began trickling out recently. The first one I saw was of a fan-favorite — the disfigured mute ninja in a knight’s helmet, Snake Eyes. It was as faithful a translation from cartoon-to-film as one could ask for. Granted, the character is black-clad on the television show and in the comics, so he had a bit of an advantage over the other Joes inasmuch as he wasn’t at risk of designers eighty-sixing his entire look in favor of something more Matrix-y.
It’s Snake Eyes’ teammates, at least the ones in the other stills I’ve seen, whose outfits are as interchangable as the b-lister Autobots and Decepticons in Michael Bay’s “Transformers.” They should be wearing “Hello…My Name is ____” stickers on their vacuformed black kevlar jumpsuits — jumpsuits that look very much like the body armor Bruce Wayne uses for “spelunking” in “Batman Begins.”
And where the hell’s Shipwreck?! I’ve been trying to scoop up an action figure of my favorite bearded sailor — the one from the ’80s, not the new one that makes him look like he has spinal meningitis — on eBay but I’m always outbid at the last minute. Now he’s not even going to be back in black in the movie next year? It’s probably just as well. I wouldn’t be able to pick him out from the other black-garbed Joes anyway.
-Brad Lohan
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