WHY Do Superheroes Wear Capes (And When Did They Stop)?

today we're going to talk about why superheroes wear capes and when they kind of stopped wearing them by the way this episode was voted on by my supporters over on patreon so if you want to see more shows I always appreciate your support and feedback over there let me ask you a hypothetical if I were to ask you envision a superhero what comes to mind probably at least a skintight uniform to better Define the musculature right but there's an excellent chance you also envisioned that Superhero having a cape despite the fact that relatively few superheroes actually wear a cape so let's dig in to this obscure bit of comic book [Music] history comic hello welcome to comic I'm your host Chris superheroes often wear capes but in our day-to-day lives we generally do not see people wearing capes do we that man he's with is he wearing a cape I believe he is wearing a cape so let's take a look at the earliest superheroes that wore capes look at the design choices and what inspired superheroes to wear those capes and the functionality that it served from both an aesthetic and a character-based perspective Superman is arguably the most recognized and iconic superhero debuting in 1938 there are precursors to Superman like the Phantom and the clock both from 1936 but Superman added sci-fi superhuman abilities and exploded in popularity a popularity that showed real staying power over the decades with iconic comic book runs reinterpreting the character's Mythos and adaptations into radio television and film when we look at the character certainly one of the most distinctive visuals is his bright red cape superheroes evolved from Pulp characters like the Shadow and Zoro the heroes of Pulp magazines didn't necessarily wear capes consistently but Shadow had a flowing trench coat and zor would sometimes wear a small Cape most pulp Heroes did not wear capes Doc Savage Tarzan John Carter of Mars were all popular pulp Heroes of their time for instance but visually the idea of a hero wearing a cape had been established even if it was on a smaller level at the same time the pulp Heroes were primarily appearing in short text stories in magazines and the visuals were initially limited to the magazine covers Superheroes Were panel-to-panel images that were primarily visual their look was an important element but I would argue Superman and Pulp Heroes like Zoro were both using the visual ideas from the same inspiration circus performers in the 1920s and 1930s performers from trapes artists to magicians to strong men would wear skin TP uniforms often with trunks over their tights which is a key visual of Superman's design and sometimes they'd also wear capes like this example of strongman Don atalo wearing one the cape was traditionally something worn by royalty and the strong men's visual look was meant to evoke that power and authority there's also one more example that may have inspired superheroes wearing capes and that is is if you look at Jewish people a lot of the time the men will wear a long shroud over their head that's called a Tali and I mention that because a vast majority of the golden age comic book creators were Jewish seagull and Schuster created Superman Bob Kain credited for creating Batman uh Production Studios run by guys like will Eisner and Jerry Iger were pumping out superheroes to all sorts of public Publishers I've never heard any of them specifically mention that in an interview but it is a visual that they would have been exposed to it's a possibility in real life aside from royalty from Europe to South America capes were commonly worn in medieval Europe because it was a functional way to keep wearers both warm and dry but by the 1930s it was not a commonly worn item when a performer like Don atalo one it stood out as something special and Superman was another early example of this being unique so now I've talked about how capes existed in society and where some of the influences may have existed to create the idea of the superhero in the Golden Age now that we've discussed the visual side of it let's talk a little bit more about the functionality side of it Superman was created by writer Jerry seagull and Artist Joe Schuster childhood friends who successfully pitched the idea to National Comics as Comics were exploding in popularity by reprinting comic strips Publishers at the time were eager to find new ideas to print in a 1981 interview with the BBC seagull and Schuster discussed another reason why they used a cape Jerry suggested putting on a cape a cape so that when the character Zoom through the air would give more more action and movement look like he's really flying and them very very and of course you added all those additional things like the the boots and the belt and the to dig into that a little bit more it's worth noting that printing techniques at the time on cheap newsprint paper made Comics that were not capable of replicating fine detail so a flowing cape for example happened to show motion with bold lines and color when Comics couldn't use fine motion lines it's fair to argue that the popularity of Superman directly LED to the other notable superheroes of the Golden Age Batman Green Lantern Captain Marvel these all used similar visual shorthand while changing up the specific superpowers characterizations and motivations of these Batman is certainly the next most influential hero after Superman and his cape is a big part of his visual identity but also it's functional Batman's cape would help him glide through the air or cloak himself in the shadows ironically Batman's credited Creator Bob Kane initially gave Batman a more colorful design and wings based off of Leonardo da Vinci artwork before writer Bill Finger suggested a more scalloped design to evoke a bat's wings I go into more detail on that in an episode about Bob Kane so now we have some of our most iconic superheroes wearing capes but was was it truly a Trope of the Golden Age superhero to wear capes is that a real archetype it may not be as common as we think other popular Heroes of that era included Wonder Woman Captain America The Flash none of them had capes so while we can find other early examples of Heroes wearing capes like our man or Dr Fate it certainly wasn't the majority of Heroes that wore them and of these early Heroes really only Superman and Batman had continuing Comics that extended past the 30s and 40s going into the 50s and 60s most of the other Heroes just became backup stories if they even survived at all many characters like neyar or Human Torch really could not have been expected to be functional if they were a cape that functionality would be something more comics commented on by the bronze AG of the 1970s and ' 80s but before we get there we need to look at the Silver age superhero comics started to WAN in popularity towards the end of the 1940s going into the 50s as the readership was getting older and they started to shift their interests to more adult genres like sci-fi and crime eventually romance in the 1950s it's worth noting America had a huge fear of Communism the Red Scare and a long story short one piece of that the Fallout was that a lot of comic book publishers banded together and formed something called the comics code Authority if you put that stamp on your comic you were saying to the public hey there's nothing objectionable here there's nothing to fear here and in 1956 DC Comics decided to try superheroes again and this time the popularity just was EXP exposive in 1956 DC reimagined The Flash in showcase number four that was a huge hit DC began bringing back more new versions of their characters like Green Lantern and notably this time he did not have a cape Marvel saw the rebirth of superheroes and between 1961 and 1963 introduced superheroes like the Fantastic 4 Spider-Man Thor Hulk and the X-Men out of this massive output of new characters only two Marvel Superheroes at the time had capes Thor who of course was a God and his cape helped evoke his Royal lineage and Doctor Strange who was a master of the Mystic Arts his cape Beyond being something a stage magician might wear had the functional ability of allowing Doctor Strange to levitate as the years went on Marvel introduced a small handful of characters who would wear capes like Scarlet Witch and vision by and large most superheroes did not wear them of course there are always individual examples where the cape was still being added because it added something to the character for instance storm was worshiped as a rain goddess in Africa and her Cape not only helped her stand out from her fellow X-Men but marked her as a kind of royalty Moon Knight's cape was part of a design that would make him stand out against the black Sky forming a crescent moon and cloak from clo and Dagger was literally a living Cape who could teleport through the dark dimension as Comics moved into the 1980s writers like Alan Moore would begin to deconstruct and analyze the ideas behind superheroes Watchmen Envision superheroes in a more grounded realworld setting in issue too the character dollar bill is shown to have had his cape get caught in a revolving door which allowed bank robbers to shoot him dead this is one of the earliest examples I can find of comic creators commenting on how the cape would not be functional in a real world setting the 2004 movie The Incredibles had costume designer Edna Mode insist on no capes set to a montage of superheroes having disastrous results wearing capes in fact beyond the small handful of silver and bronze Age characters like doctor strange and moonight there are very few prominent superheroes to wear capes many of the ones that do are derivative characters Batman and Robin have had numerous related heroes from Huntress to azreal to batwing and those are all variations on a theme characters like omn man from invincible and homelander from the boys are designed to evoke a character like Superman the century debuted in 2000 in Marvel Comics but his story was that he was supposedly a silverage character who had been forgotten and he has powers on the level of Superman in 2008 Marvel created the blue Marvel but similar to a character like icon from 1993 this is a variation on Superman but with a black black man instead of a white one moonight was a type of Riff on Batman so while there can be newer Heroes like say Hunter's moon in the current moonnight Comics they wear capes primarily to mirror the character they're spinning off from Todd McFarland's Spawn from 1992 might be the last major new character to not be explicitly riffing on a previous superhero who also wears a cape and that Cape is a living entity an important part of that character's mythology flowing elements of a costume can still be useful Gambit of the X-Men wears a trench coat Miz Marvel wears a sash but by and large US superheroes who are completely new are less likely to wear a cape but there are still a few exceptions and they seem to be intentional references to the idea of the superhero wearing a Cape radiant black is a newer Creator owned superhero sometimes when he really Powers up he manifests a cape there are also recent manga that work off of the archetype of the superhero one punch man is a satire of superheroes and my hero Academia is very much a Japanese take on the idea of the X-Men and their students both have characters with capes because the characters are to evoke the classic idea of a superhero so I throw it out to you are there truly that many superheroes who wear capes I would argue that it is primarily Batman and Superman and their ongoing popularity that has formed in our mind the idea that superheroes often wear capes because there are so many characters who are either spin-off characters from them or are intentionally riffing on the idea of that character and then adding a little something new or taking that character archetype and subverting it characters like omn man for instance homelander things like that I think that Batman and Superman having lasted as long as they have having had runs that ran through the 40s and 50s and 60s when superheroes were kind of on a lower level and now have history well over 85 years has just ingrained through cultural osmosis the idea that superheroes wear capes and yeah there are plenty but proportionally kind of small I'd be curious to hear your thoughts Below on whether I'm missing anything huge or just tell me what your favorite superhero is and let us know do they wear a cape or not is a cape actually important to a character I think it can look cool but it is kind of funny you wouldn't create these days an action movie with a character running around in a cape it just would seem to be something that would get tangled up I'm rambling hopefully you got something out of this I had fun looking at superhero history through this very very narrow lens I'm stumbling over my words so now is as good a time as any to wrap it up I'll be back soon until I see you next time keep reading comics [Music] what the hell am I trying to say there oh hi you caught me in the middle of editing and I have a special message for you while you watch these credits thank you always to my amazing supporters uh my friend Godzilla Mendoza has a YouTube channel about comics and he has recently made an episode about I'll point that out over here made an episode about the Fantastic Four movie from the 9s that was never released officially and never intended to be released but the actors didn't know that you should watch his video if you don't know that history it's interesting but the actors and Godzilla Mendoza have gotten together and formed this petition they're looking to see if they can get enough support to get Marvel's attention so that it could finally be formally released if you haven't seen it seen a boot leg over the years it's a Charming movie it is not necessarily bad it's low budget but it is not bad the people behind were behind the movie were really trying hard and so I just wanted to uh shout that out I'll have a link to the petition in the description down below and uh yeah there's a lot of great YouTube channels out there about Comics uh just always happy to shout another one out uh so yeah check that out and thank you so much for watching this episode I will be back very soon uh the next episode should be a deep dive on a um an amazing amazing Creator so I'm very excited but uh yeah right back to work I go let's get this one up first bye what does it take to interest or excite you for when you decide to collaborate it's been awesome we we can tear it up uh we're not like pros or anything but we definitely know we're doing and I've sincerely been really enjoying Project Blue Book or or just blue book The Rampage is hilarious cuz it's like a little boy throwing a tantrum you know he's jumping on his bed he's tearing his posters and then in slow mo he backhands a cup of pencils yes that's whoa whoa screw you art supplies [Music]

Channel: ComicTropes

Views: 135,102

Keywords:

Id: Gli3SanK6Sg

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2024