First Look at Tyler Hoechlin as Superman
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Supergirl has released the first official photo of Melissa Benoist and Tyler Hoechlin together as the Superfamily. It’s hard to believe it’s taken this long, but we are FINALLY going to see the super cousins together in live action! For real! Not obscured by lens flare!
The costumes look really good together. Admittedly, Melissa looks magnificent while Tyler has been photoshopped to the point of looking unnatural. Seems to be a problem with every first official photo of these shows.
The set photos from filming on July 29 showcases Tyler in the suit much better.
The Superman suit was designed by series costume designer Kiersten Ronning, who creates every look on the show aside from the Supergirl suit, which she helped Colleen Atwood design.
The decision to attach the cape over the shoulders is surprising. I immediately thought of Supergirl’s famous early 1980’s costume with the wraparound cape and shield. I don’t like the cape attachments, and I’m sad that their suits don’t match here. Colleen Atwood did such a perfect job with pulling off that tricky bit where the cape attaches at the neckline – better than any previous live action Superman costume. This is a big step back.
Steve Younis from Superman Homepage identifies Superman’s cape attachment as the biggest flaw in the costume:
As with any cape for a Super-family member, the most controversy seems to be about how the cape attaches to the costume. Unfortunately, I think this is the weakest design element of this costume. I’d much prefer to see the cape tuck into the top of Superman’s costume the way it does for Supergirl. That looks much more natural. The gold “clasps” attaching the cape to the front of Superman’s shoulders doesn’t look natural at all.
Agreed. Every live action adaptation has struggled with supporting the weight of the cape in a way that doesn’t pull the costume around the body. They solved it for Supergirl by building an uncomfortable corset into the costume. Maybe this was an attempt to avoid that. If that was the reason, they should have attached the cape directly to the shield, which has been used to great effect in the comics many times.
I like the boots and cape and the traditional yellow-backed shield. Can’t figure out what’s going on with the belt, but it’s okay. Since there are no shorts to hold up, I would like to see a simple, flat gold band like Kara’s. This is still better than the weird Man of Steel no-belt.
The shield and upper portion of the cape look strangely brownish compared to both Melissa’s costume and the cherry red of Tyler’s boots, but the set photos confirm that it’s all deep red which I like.
Overall, this is a slightly non-traditional costume that echoes the seaming and shoulder padding of the New 52 comics costume and is inspired by the muted colour palette of Superman Returns, but is not as drab as Man of Steel. Where those attempts at a redesign failed by overdesigning and trying to look like alien armor, this succeeds in looking high quality and a little more like something someone raised on Earth might actually wear.