Unstable Fashion Sense Part 1: The History of the Fantastic Four’s Costumes in the Comics

With the first trailer for Fox’s Fantastic Four hitting the internet this week and giving us our first look at the titular heroes, we figured this would be as good a time as any to take a look at the team’s comic-based costumes over their long and storied publishing history. The trailer didn’t give us a good look at what the Fantastic Four will be wearing and certainly didn’t show us anything like a superhero uniform for the quartet. That being said, while the FF’s costumes in the comics have generally changed only very subtly over the years, these subtle changes still provide a number of different options from which Josh Trank and his team could have pulled.

Without further ado, let’s jump straight into the mix with…

The Proto-Costumes

It’s not the most widely known fact that when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby originally created the Fantastic Four, they didn’t intend for them to wear costumes. The images above show what they wore in issue one (1961) when exploring the “fabled” Monster Isle. Far from the well-known blue tights with “4” symbols, one can see that the four are wearing fairly plain getups, almost what one would expect from a mechanic of the period, Reed notable for a baseball cap and Ben for a trench coat, hat, glasses, and gloves that obscure as much of his form as possible. In fact, the second issue shows them entirely in civilian clothing without even putting the quartet in this sort of generic “action-wear.”

One should also note the look of the Thing. It took Jack Kirby a number of issues to work his way from a lumpy, orange humanoid mass to a figure composed of more well-defined scaly, rock-like plates. While this was almost certainly simply a matter of Kirby defining Ben Grimm’s look as he became more comfortable and familiar with the character, it was eventually firmly established as canon (prior to or during John Byrne’s run on the title) that Ben’s body gradually evolved or mutated following the accident with cosmic rays to achieve its eventual familiar appearance.

The Classic

By Fantastic Four #3 (1962), Stan and Jack had ostensibly bowed to reader demand and introduced “colorful new” costumes for the Fantastic Four right on the book’s cover along with the iconic Fantasticar. These costumes were shown in the issue to have been designed by Sue Storm herself. They feature the “4” chest symbol, deep blue tights, black belts, black gloves, black boots, and a black ring serving as a kind of collar to the ensembles. It’s worth noting that Sue decided that her costume should have heels.

Another lesser-known fact is that Sue was thoughtful enough to design Ben’s costume to cover the entirety of his then-despised form and included a helmet.

Blackbeard Benjy

The Incredible Shrinking Collar

Homage to the Android Human Torch

Honey, I Blew Up the Collar

The Byrne Bunch

The Negative Costumes

Malice… Ugh…

Fantastic Four

The 1990’s Part I

Revenge of the 90s: Sue’s “Stripper” Costume

Attack of the 90s!

Mitigation of the 90s

Onslaught

Heroes Reborn

Fantastic Four

Heroes Return

Fantastic Four

Onslaught Again?

Everything Old Is New Again

Fantastic Four

Human Iron Torch Man?

Fantastic Four

Maternity Costume

Fantastic Four

Android Homage: The Revengening

Herald-Wear? Galactus-Garb?

Fantastic Four

Bryan Hitch

Early Hickman

Future Foundation

FF

Johnny’s Alive!

FF

Fall of the Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four

Back in Blue!

Fantastic Four

Conclusion

So, what have we learned going through all this? Well, we see that Fox certainly has a great many costume variations from which to draw, whether or not they actually use any of them. It’s also worth noting just how many costume variations the team has gone through since the early 1990s. While the team’s costume went essentially unchanged from 1962 to 1983, since 1983 it has been significantly altered roughly 10 times. In recent years, it seems as though the costumes changes have increased in frequency, occurring with more-or-less each creative team that takes a crack a Marvel’s First Family.

So, what Fantastic Four costume is your favorite? Which one do you think Fox and Josh Trank is most likely to go with? Which one do you want them to use? Did we miss any?