New Suit Details for Batman in ‘JUSTICE LEAGUE’

One of the fun things about every comic book movie are the suit changes. With practically every single iteration of every single superhero flick, we are pretty much guaranteed to see a new iteration of their suits. This has been true for heroes like Iron Man, Captain America, Superman (to a lesser extent), and of course, Batman. With pretty much every film, he’s evolved the suit, and with the DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY, director Christopher Nolan even gave very pragmatic reasons for the changes — such as giving Bruce the ability to move quicker.

With BATMAN v SUPERMAN, we got to see two different Batman suits — one standard suit, and one armored suit that he used to take on Superman in the titular fight. But what does the future hold for JUSTICE LEAGUE? Has Batman already ironed out all the kinks in his Bat Suit the point where he won’t need any further variations? Okay, that’s a dumb question. Of course there will be changes to the Bat Suit. That’s part of the fun about watching a new film, and, not to get cynical about it, but without the variations, there would be less toys to sell to kids once the flick hits theaters.

But what will these new suits look like? As you may have heard, last week, some outlets got to visit the set of JUSTICE LEAGUE, and Cinema Blend recently did a write-up on what to expect from the two different suits we’ll be getting in the upcoming film — the Classic Bat Suit and the Tactical Bat Suit.

This recently-released JL piece of concept art was cited as the closest example CB could find on the web, but it's not the suit they saw.

This recently-released JL piece of concept art was cited as the closest example CB could find on the web, but it’s not the suit they saw.

The first suit they mentioned was dubbed as the Classic Bat Suit, which is described as a close cousin to the standard suit in BATMAN v SUPERMAN. The difference is in the “armoring.” Whereas the suit in BATMAN v SUPERMAN looked almost as though it had muscle-shaped pillows strapped around it, this one will have an under-layering of armor. If you compare the featured image at the top of the page with the one immediately above, you’ll have an idea of what we’re talking about.

Another aesthetic difference was in the gloves. Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson said the following regarding these new gloves, which take into account Bruce Wayne’s martial arts history:

“One new detail is that Zack wanted a little more sense of armor and deflection on his gauntlets when he is shot at, and so I designed these [gloves] that are kind of based on the samurai. We know from Bruce Wayne’s history that he studied martial arts in Japan, so I thought that could be appropriate. But we sort of modernized it with a Wayne Tech aesthetic here. It’s a little more aggressive.”

Lastly, the cowl is slightly different — but not necessarily in a visual way as much as a practical way. Underneath what we see there is a “whole membrane and a protective system” to protect Bruce from some serious head trauma. Apart from that, there’ve been serious updates to help Bruce communicate with Alfred and the rest of the Justice League. How this differs from BATMAN v SUPERMAN is unclear to me at this time. From what I remember in BvS, Bruce had little problem communicating with Alfred, but I suppose that’s why I’m not in charge of these finer details. There’s likely some extra tech wizardry that they’ll think of to make this system extra badass.

The second suit is what Cinema Blend is calling the Tactical Bat Suit. 

As much as Bruce would like to believe he’ll be spending the rest of this life fighting other humans who can easily buckle under his brute strength, the fact is he’ll be taking on much greater, superhuman threats such as Parademons and Steppenwolf. As we saw in BATMAN v SUPERMAN in the fight against Doomsday, should Batman come up against a physically superior threat, he tends to spend a lot of time on the sidelines, shooting from a distance and letting Superman and Wonder Woman do the heavy lifting. According to Wilkinson, in the final act of JUSTICE LEAGUE, Bruce realizes he needs to “step up his game” and therefore dons the Tactical Suit.

So what kind of suit would be able to handle this? Can we expect another big, bulky Superman-crushing armor? Not necessarily. The outletgoes out of its way to highlight the fact that it doesn’t look a whole lot like that armor. In fact, it more resembles the new Classic Suit in how streamlined and sleek it is — except it has more armor plates. There was no photo of the suit itself, nor was there a comparable version for them to post. However, CB did state that they had this picture of the Rock from G.I. JOE: RETALIATION on their design board that the costume designers used as a reference.

Reference images the costume designers used for Batman's Tactical Suit in JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Reference images the costume designers used for Batman’s Tactical Suit in JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Obviously, we have to take into account this image was merely used for inspiration, and therefore, the similarities will likely be mild. That being said, it does give us a bit of an idea of what they’re trying to accomplish with this Tactical Bat Suit. In many ways, I almost feel like this almost harkens back to the suit from THE DARK KNIGHT, which had separated armored plates.

Admittedly, I don’t think this particular Bat Suit from THE DARK KNIGHT would hold up against Steppenwolf, but if we split the difference between the armored suit in BvS and this one directly above — all while incorporating the look of that G.I. JOE: RETALIATION image — we may be onto something. Sounds easy enough, right?

What do you think of these suit descriptions? Do they feel like natural continuations of the design to you? What do you think the new Tactical Suit will look like? Let us know your ideas down below!

JUSTICE LEAGUE hits theaters on November 17, 2017.

SOURCE: CinemaBlend

Night Terror Banner   GenreVerse FOR FANBOYS, BY FANBOYS Have you checked out LRM Online’s official podcasts and videos on The Genreverse Podcast Network? Available on YouTube and all your favorite podcast apps, This multimedia empire includes The Daily CoGBreaking Geek Radio: The Podcast, GeekScholars Movie News, Anime-Versal Review Podcast, and our Star Wars dedicated podcast The Cantina. Check it out by listening on all your favorite podcast apps, or watching on YouTube! Subscribe on: Apple PodcastsSpotify |  SoundCloud | Stitcher | Google Play
Share the Post: