Written by Jen Watson
On Monday, July 10, 2023, the internet was treated to a behind-the-scenes set photo of Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine from the upcoming Deadpool 3 movie. Audiences have known for a while that Jackman would be reprising his role, but what we didn’t know was that he’d be outfitted in the iconic yellow and blue costume that he’s been associated with in comics and cartoons for decades — most notably in the fan-favorite 90s X-Men cartoon that introduced a whole generation to Marvel comics in the first place. Fans were, to put it in the parlance of the decade… stoked.
But why?
A good costume is a pretty strong signal to fans that the people in charge understand the character. If they can deliver a look that’s accurate, there’s a higher chance of delivering a story that’s true to the character. Such is the case with the MCU’s Infinity Saga, which uses the spirit of comics-accurate looks to inspire costumes that blend the colorful with the believable.
These set photos, showing Wolverine in a MCU-style blue-and-yellow super suit, with all the details we remember so keenly from the past, is essentially the fulfillment of a wish X-Men fans have been carrying around for the better part of twenty years. It is as close to a perfect translation as one could ever imagine: a costume squarely in the sweet spot between realistic and colorful, drenched in nostalgia while still showing that Marvel Studios knows what X-Men fans are looking forward to.
The X-Men of the 90s cartoon and comics always represented the outcasts. As kids who felt unseen and unheard in their own lives, fans identified with the mutants. These superheroes were a team but still had individual costumes, because Xavier’s school taught them to celebrate their differences.
The costumes of X-Men (2000) alluded to the cool black-leather aesthetic of the previous year’s The Matrix, positioning the heroes as rebels against the status quo. The movie itself implies that comics accurate costumes would be silly, with Cyclops asking Wolverine if he’d “prefer yellow spandex.” These costumes were a way to show general audiences that superheroes could be taken seriously, and make perfect sense for the time in which the movie was released.
Fox took liberties with the X-Men over the course of decades, delivering films of varying quality. With some exceptions — matching navy-and-yellow field uniforms for the students of First Class, a brief glimpse of familiar suits at the end of Apocalypse, a box containing a cowl in The Wolverine — audiences were never treated to the “real” X-Men costumes on screen. By the time Dark Phoenix (2019) came out, Marvel fans had seen the MCU go full-tilt weird with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Doctor Strange (2016), but Fox still stuck to black leather and the implication that colorful costumes were silly, as were the associated comics stories, and we should all be taking ourselves much more seriously. The later X-Men movies were out of touch with not just the cultural zeitgeist, but also the fans.
Wolverine’s yellow costume matters because it makes fans of the X-Men feel seen. It looks like the 90s cartoon that made many people pick up comics in the first place. It is bright, colorful, astonishingly practical, and yes — deeply silly in the best way. It’s supposed to look like that. The stories are supposed to be like that, too. This is an indication that maybe we’ll get them.
The fans’ excited reactions to these photos are a collective answer to the question posed 23 years ago: would we prefer yellow spandex?
Yes. Absolutely.
