The Marvel Cinematic Universe has its ups and downs across the 13 years of pop culture domination, but some elements have remained constant issues for debate. One of the biggest draws of the superhero movie craze is getting to see the comic book page enacted in live-action, but what happens when fans don't care for the on-screen counterparts?
The characters that inhabit the MCU have a wide variety of origin points in the comics, some dating back far beyond the lifespan of the genre's fanbase. There's a very reasonable argument to be made for updating designs that are that old, but some argue that the new takes lose some of the old magic.
Since the beginning, the central complaint leveed against the Marvel Cinematic Universe designs for beloved Marvel Comics characters is that they're over-designed. They have too many needless details, too many errant random lines across what used to be blank plates, and too many little black parts that used to be colored in. This is often in service of updating costumes. The cinematic versions of the characters, some might argue, should have suits that look like they could actually serve the purposes they're designed for. Design elements that once resembled spandex must now look like Kevlar, while costumes consisting of only one or two colors must feature more breaks between them. A lot of traditional costumes were swapped out for more metallic looks. It's an overall more "modern" look, but it's also often too busy and messy.
A lot of old superhero costume designs owe their inspiration to professional athletes of the time. They bare a resemblance to professional gymnasts, acrobats, and even circus strongmen. At the time, this would've served as shorthand to identify them as paragons of physical performance. That reference doesn't land the same way today. One would think that modern pro athletes would be a good pull, but very few current superhero designs use that as a reference. Instead, the MCU relies pretty heavily on the military look. This makes sense for some heroes. Captain America, War Machine, and U.S. Agent were literally outfitted by the military. However, characters like Ant-Man went from a spandex suit to a more G. I. Joe look. This issue hasn't gone away. Nor has the issue of over-designing, but good examples are starting to outnumber iffy ones.
DoctorStrange has been a great home for unique looks. Strange himself isn't perfectly comic-accurate, but he does perfectly maintain the spirit of the character's original design. Even in alternate looks, he still retains his essential elements. Multiverse of Madness features his Defender variant who later comes back as a zombie, as well as Strange Supreme, and Strange's evil counterpart. While none of these looks are quite identical to the comic book page, they're all note-perfect. They look like real outfits the character would pick out, they look great in photos or in motion, and they set the different versions of the character apart. It's hard to imagine the MCU of 2010 dressing one of their most central characters in the outfits Raimi put Benedict Cumberbatch in throughout his time with the franchise.
When measuring the MCU's costume design, the best compare and contrasting point is its main competitor, the DCEU. DC's superhero efforts, barring Zack Snyder's personal tastes, generally adheres more closely to the source material than Marvel. The upcoming film Black Adam will unveil the big screen debut of plenty of classic heroes from the old Justice Society of America. Characters like Atom Smasher will appear in the film looking far closer to their comic counterpart than one would expect. Adherence to the source material isn't everything, but it takes some confidence to boldly put up a design from 40 or more years ago, more or less unaltered. Boldness is central, no one wants to go back to the days of pitch-black X-Men uniforms. When the mutants make their way to the MCU, fans want to see them in that distinctive yellow look, and they just might get that chance.
It has been a long and strange road from The Avengers back in 2012 to the modern day. Marvel has changed, sometimes for the worse, other times for the better. The franchise may only update its looks to sell more toys, but at least its new designs feel more appropriate for comic book cinema. Loki's endless variants, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man's newest look, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, none of these costumes could have come up in the early MCU. They still make missteps in this department, but the franchise is largely moving in the right direction. There's an upside to the continued cultural domination of the superhero medium. The more popular they get, the more fans get to make their opinions known, and the more wacky comic book stuff makes it to the big screen. Costumes are only one part of a larger cultural shift that will eventually lead to the weirdest and most fun aspects of the medium played out on the big screen.