Ranking Every Live-Action Superman Suit From Worst To Best

The Superman Returns suit has been controversial from the moment of reveal, yet it is not without its good parts. The best part of it is the perfect color tone selected for all yellow and blue sections - bright and proud. The way the fabric wraps around him is like a second skin - It is skin-tight and gets rid of all wrinkles, but it still looks comfortable and free to move in ( a total opposite from the Snyder movies).

The embossed chest emblem is the best update of the S in a long time. The logo always looked strong and provocative, but adding an ancient 3D angle to it makes it look even more like a regal and indestructible shield. It is unfortunate that it is also a small chest emblem. This version of the costume also has a high neckline. The reason the neckline was low in the past was to emphasize the trap muscles and was an excellent companion piece with a large emblem to really make Superman imposing. If the emblem is small and the neckline is high, then it just emphasizes Brandon Routh’s thin body type - a criticism leveled at Brandon at the time.

The belt design looks great in isolation, but since we already have the emblem on the chest, having another one just a little lower is tacky.

That is what’s really bothering about this suit - it has perfect design decisions, then also make obviously questionable design decisions at the same time. Nothing emphasizes that more than the bright saturation of the blue and yellow, which makes it questionable when we see the saturation of the red is almost brown-looking.

This one is a mixed bag when how it could have been better is as obvious as not changing much with the little details of the classic design. In a film that tries for the audience to be nostalgic for the old Christopher Reeve movies, it should not have been that hard.