Is It The Year of The Spider-man Costumes?

With Marvel’s announcement of a new person under the mask in Ultimate Spider-man after the conclusion of the current storyline, and that a new costume would be unveiled as well, I realized that including that new costume, in this year alone, people have had the chance to see Spider-Man in a least 9 separate costumes in one way or another.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy character and story driven reasons for change, and with the current changes in Spider-Man’s power set, and job position, there have been reasons for some of these costumes, and up to this point, Spidey has always gone back and dawned his classic red and blues after the need for the newest costume, so its only been an issue or two, but it still feels like we’re being inundated with new and different types of costumes.

The problem I have with all these costume changes is that we are just a few months over a year before a new Spider-man movie is to come out in theatres, one that appears to have its own, slightly altered version of the classic costume.  With the success that Marvel has had with it’s recent movies, and no doubt the success it will have this coming summer with Thor, Captain America, and X-Men: First Class, one would imagine that they would be getting their ducks in a row to continue the momentum into next year for The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-man.  There is no question that Marvel is putting together a big push for The Avengers, between the two related movies this year, the new cartoon, using S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of its marketing campaign, its clear Marvel is hoping for success with The Avengers.  However, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers movies are all under Marvel, while The Amazing Spider-man is still over at Sony.  So I’m wondering how much Marvel is actually invested on successfully rebooting this franchise that’s under another company while the properties they have continue to flourish.

Yes, I realize one could argue that Spider-man is as recognizable as Superman.  The red and blue costume, the mask, the emblem, all fairly universal for people to identify with the character.  That’s my main issue though.  When the new Ultimate costume is unveiled this summer, there will have been 9 separate costumes out there, within a year, year and a half, of a new movie.  If you include the classic costume, and the Ultimate one, there will have been at least 7 different Spider-Man costumes seen within the pages of a Spider-man related comic since the beginning of the year.  (The 3 “Big Time” storyline costumes, the classic costume, the black and blue Fantastic Four costume, the black and white Future Foundation costume, and the red and black Ultimate costume).  On top of those, you have the costume from the new movie, which is a few steps away from the original, along with the Broadway play; Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark costume.  That’s 9 total costumes for the first half of this year, and yes I have liked some of the new costumes, I have disliked others.  Regardless I feel like that number of costumes getting thrown at us just waters down the Spider-Man image and familiarity.  Perfect example is my son.  He’s seen the graphic I put together up top, he’s seen a few of the photos from the new movie, along with some comic covers, and every time has asked, “What Spider-Man is that?”  With the overflow of costumes, is it going to make it more difficult for the general public, and parents of young kids/fans to be able to connect with this Spider-man when it comes out in Theatres, or are they no longer hoping to gain readership with the release of a new movie?

I’m not sure if one would ever be able to say or determine if the overflow of costumes that Spider-man is sporting will have any affect on marketing and products for the movie (of course we have 9 different figure options without much effort), but one would wonder if Marvel was that big on the success of this movie next year, why continue to distance the character farther and farther from what the mainstream knows and recognizes with?  When parents go to look for Spider-Man they’re going to go looking for a red and blue costume, white eyes, not a black and yellow costume with a helmet.

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