Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 11, 2011

Interesting bit of trivia: DC is relaunching Superman this month; and they’ve removed the red underpants from his new look.

Funny, I never thought of them as underpants.

My childhood mental image was very clear — a stretchy blue shirt, and a much thicker, web-belted, red 1920’s-style swimsuit bottom, worn over thin blue tights in the manner of a ballet leotard.

I do remember, though, wondering whether his tights had feet, and who sewed the S on his indestructible shirt.

George Reeves “flying”, while obviously lying flat on a table, was one of the first blatantly phony special effects I ever noticed.

I always figured the blue leotard had an opening for number one, and the red trunks were for, well, shorts. You know, like long underwear. Supes is old enough that there’s probably a flap in the back…..

I read somewhere, maybe here on gocomics, that the early superhero costumes were based on circus strongman and acrobatic costumes of the day.

The kids wearing Superman “underroos” were definitely wearing a blue tshirt with a super S on it and red underpants. Very popular in the ’80’s with the under 5 crowd.

I’m 82 and I still wear my Superman, red underpants, only now they’re thongs! Eeeww!

On the original TV series, Superman had his fingers forward rather than in fists. Sometimes he flies with one fist forward and one back. I guess it varies by what the writer/director thinks is cool.

Superman used to only be able to jump long distances (“leaping tall buildings with a single bound”) but as time went on, writers found it more convenient to just let him fly. (Another bit of trivia: writers originally got around the problem of why Superman’s costume didn’t get shredded all the time by saying it had been sewn from the Kryptonian fabric that baby Kal-El was wrapped in. Yes, Superman was going around in an outfit made from his baby blanket.)

So the baby blanket was indestructable having been made on Krypton, okay . How was it cut and sewn on earth to make the suit?

He’s not wearing the red undies any more as of last week!

That’s just weird.

Nowadays, Supes wears Oakleys to deal with the bugs. That and a LONG shower after flying through a bug swarm.

I had read one of the comics (I can’t remember how long ago. Many, many years…) that told the story of Superman’s costume. Ma Kent unraveled the 3 blankets (blue, red, & yellow) that the baby was wrapped in in the rocket and wove (or knit) the whole suit from the ground up, having Clark cut the threads with his heat vision when needed. And the whole thing stretched over the years from Superboy to Superman.

I’ve never seen any other explanation for the origin of the suit so far.

Christopher Reeve’s portrayal seemed to suggest that hand position was related to steering.