Man of Steel: Superman’s Black Costume Appears in Concept Art

Earlier today, we mentioned that there may be a sequence in Man of Steel in which Superman is depicted in an all-black version of his costume. Without getting into any spoilers, it seems to be one of the film’s key moments, and is being played up in some of the movie merchandise for its cool imagery.At right, you can see some concept art from the film, scanned from the book Man of Steel: Inside the Legendary World of Superman and posted to a fan Facebook page, showing off what such an image of Superman might be in the film.Why’s this so exciting to a percentage of fans? Well, back in the 1990s, Superman wore a black-and-silver version of his costume for a brief period of time.In the story, he had been killed and his body was being slowly restored by a regeneration chamber stored in the Fortress of Solitude. The black suit was something the Fortress robots had put on him while he hibernated/recovered/was resurrected.It was a surprisingly popular suit among fans and, probably because it was never presented as a potentially permanent change, many fans have asked to see it again and again over the years. DC has played with the concept a little bit–notably dressing Superman Prime in a caped version of the outfit during the Countdown to Final Crisis event.