'Black Panther' Costume Designer on the Upgrades to the Black Panther Costume

Black Panther's costume in the movies retains much of the comics' sensibility while blending it [...]

Black Panther's costume in the movies retains much of the comics' sensibility while blending it with the utilitarian and hyper-detailed look of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was a challenge that costume designer Ruth Carter embraced when she got the job.

One of the defining elements of Black Panther's comics costume is its simplicity: nearly all black, with no visible "logo" in the traditional way that superheroes tend to carry them, the costume fully dehumanizes the wearer, giving the individual over to the larger cultural identity of the Black Panther. Bringing that to the big screen would likely have been somewhat visually dull.

"I like the original Black Panther costume," Carter said during a set visit last year. "I liked his helmet and I liked his boots. I liked a lot of things about it but what we wanted to do was take it into a new millennium. A new attitude. A new technology. Make it exciting again."

Some of that new technology, of course, is debuting in Black Panther, since Wakanda has so many elements uncommon to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some of it, though, is decidedly Marvel-ous, as it is difficult to ignore some of the detail work that makes the Black Panther suit feel like a natural extension of existing MCU costuming.

"Sometimes cultures can come together with superheroes," Carter said. "I'll leave it at that."

They have already, of course, with the revelation early on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Captain America's shield was indeed made out of vibranium, the strong and valuable metal that makes Wakanda a wealthy nation.

Black Panther currently has a ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating of 4.17 out of 5, making it the second most anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com Users. Let us know how excited you are for Black Panther by giving the movie your own ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating below.

Black Panther opens in theaters on February 16th.

Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Avengers: Infinity War on May 4th, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.

0comments