Which is your favorite 'original' costume for Batman?

[Batman Begins 2005]

The Year One Suit gets my vote.

Me too. Love the story as well.

[Batman Begins 2005]

On a side note, this scene in Mask of the Phantasm still gives me goosebumps whenever I watch it.

Same. I LOVE that scene especially when Bruce becomes Batman and Alfred's reaction to it of "My God".

[Bad Witch]

Alex Ross batman is my fav ainec

[Gaius]

[Captain Nostalgia]

I voted year one....honestly though, any costume that doesn't have the traditional yellow belt is good with me....I've never understood why it remained so prevalent for so many decades.

[Restingvoice]

I like Everything is Canon. In my mind Batman debuted in 1940s and he's immortal. So the original. Aesthetically I like that the cowl is unique.

THAT SAID, if I'm making my own Batman stories I'm gonna do it in the modern day, so it's gonna have bulletproof vest, fireproofing, all the gadgets available with present day technology, with enough flexibility to perform martial arts and none of the movie origin suit fit that description. The Dark Knight is the closest, but that's not an origin suit.

I voted year one....honestly though, any costume that doesn't have the traditional yellow belt is good with me....I've never understood why it remained so prevalent for so many decades.

Why not?

[bat39]

These would be My Top (3) Three Favorites:

1939




Year One




BTAS

Oh wow! I didn't know that Mask of a Phantasm had a comic adaptation...

I'm glad we get an actual shot at Batman's OG suit in this panel...though I feel the original scene where you just make out the silhoutte is WAY more powerful!

[K7P5V]

Oh wow! I didn't know that Mask of a Phantasm had a comic adaptation...

I'm glad we get an actual shot at Batman's OG suit in this panel...though I feel the original scene where you just make out the silhoutte is WAY more powerful!

Couldn't agree with you more, bat39. Truly powerful, indeed

[Jim Kelly]

Any costume with a pouchy belt is a no-go for me--except maybe the Adam West belt. I mean I can kind of see it as a prototype in "Year One," but after that Batman would develop a better belt and he wouldn't go back to using the pouchy belt. Still because "Year One" popularized the pouchy belt that's another black mark against it. And I found it very weird in the Bruce Timm cartoons. Because, BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES has a proper utility belt and oval bat, but following that in THE NEW BATMAN ADVENTURES, he has the pouchy belt and the no oval bat. That gets it back to front and doesn't follow the logical sequence of events for the Batman. Bruce would develop a better belt with more utility, he wouldn't go back to using a bulky belt with less utility.

[prepmaster]

I just feel that the movie cheapens Batman as a heroic figure. Bruce should be the one to make the active choice of becoming Batman instead of finally putting on the cowl after having received the letter. He should know he cant be Batman and have a fulfilling love life at the same time. People are suckers for romance but if you do romance too much, it makes the hero look less noble.

[9th.]

I really like the purple gloves for some reason

[Vakanai]

I was torn between the original 1939 and the Zero Year suits. Ultimately I voted Zero Year as a "modern" update/take on it. The trunks look is just too dated and only works in a "period" setting - and that period ended long, long before even Adam West put on his tights...

I don't get the Year One love. Yes it is a good story (although I feel it is a bit overrated among the fandom) and the art is gorgeous - but as a "proto" suit it just feels too..."normal." Not enough flourishes to really feel like a beginning suit vs a more advanced/evolved/later in his career batsuit. But that's just me I guess (same with Mask of the Phantasm - good movie, but the suit in flashbacks isn't that different).

[bat39]

I was torn between the original 1939 and the Zero Year suits. Ultimately I voted Zero Year as a "modern" update/take on it. The trunks look is just too dated and only works in a "period" setting - and that period ended long, long before even Adam West put on his tights...

I don't get the Year One love. Yes it is a good story (although I feel it is a bit overrated among the fandom) and the art is gorgeous - but as a "proto" suit it just feels too..."normal." Not enough flourishes to really feel like a beginning suit vs a more advanced/evolved/later in his career batsuit. But that's just me I guess (same with Mask of the Phantasm - good movie, but the suit in flashbacks isn't that different).

Yeah, I kinda get what you mean.

I guess the Year One suit has become such a favorite simply because it distills a bunch of elements people want in a Batsuit, particularly an 'early' Batsuit. Its darker than most of the other designs, which fits in with the ''ruthless vigilante clinging to the shadows" vibe that Frank Miller and most modern writers want to give early Batman. It has the plain black bat, another thing a lot of people associate with early pre-Robin Batman. The bulky utility belt with pouches seems a lot more 'basic' and less 'advanced' than any of the capsule belts, which look like some low-key sci-fi technology in their own right! And yet, it looks, as you've said, 'normal' enough to not be in your face about being a 'proto' suit. To the point where this look was eventually adopted by 'current continuity' comics in the early 2000's, and has more or less stayed as the default suit ever since (the Batman Inc suit was a brief deviation, the New 52 and Rebirth suits were largely updates of this one, and eventually this one returned).

I like the 1939 suit, and I think the Zero Year suit was a good attempt to modernize it, but somehow I just don't 'love' them. I kinda like the suit which the Earth Two Batman wore in the retelling of his origin in Secret Origins # 6 - it was like a lightly modernized version of the classic Golden Age/early Silver Age suit.

Its interesting that even Pre-COIE, the 1939 suit was never given much love after, well, 1939...and that all flashbacks to Batman's early years (such as they were) had the classic Golden Age/Silver Age suit or the New Look suit with the yellow oval (as was the case with Untold Legends of Batman). The only time I recall seeing the 1939 suit in a flashback was in a JLofA story from the 60's, "Crisis on Earth A" I think, where this time-traveling villain goes back to Earth One's history and alters the timeline to wipe out the League members. The villain incidentially goes back to the events of 'Tec # 27 specifically, and we see Batman in the 1939 suit. Funnily enough, this scene was set on Earth One...

But yeah, Morrison was the one who brought the 1939 suit back and gave it some love in "Joe Chill in Hell" and "Last Rites", and the Brave and the Bold cartoon also used it. And now we've gotten to the point where the 1939 Batman is literally appearing in comics again!

[MajorHoy]

I was torn between the original 1939 and the Zero Year suits. Ultimately I voted Zero Year as a "modern" update/take on it. The trunks look is just too dated and only works in a "period" setting - and that period ended long, long before even Adam West put on his tights...

Disagree about the trunks.

For some reason, the coloring of the Bat-suit really needs those darker colored trunks for contrast. Otherwise, Batman looks like he is wearing a pair of long-johns / tights or something other than a threatening-looking costume. (When they've gone with a darker, almost black color on the bodysuit, the trunks aren't needed. But to me, the lighter grayish/blueish tone to the costume doesn't work without the dark trunks.)

[Restingvoice]

Disagree about the trunks.

For some reason, the coloring of the Bat-suit really needs those darker colored trunks for contrast. Otherwise, Batman looks like he is wearing a pair of long-johns / tights or something other than a threatening-looking costume. (When they've gone with a darker, almost black color on the bodysuit, the trunks aren't needed. But to me, the lighter grayish/blueish tone to the costume doesn't work without the dark trunks.)

This is why I go all black if I design the Batman costume, though I find neither the trunk nor the gray suit intimidating