Superhero costumes sure have changed over the years. While some are notoriously ugly, one common theme seems to tie them all together: they’re really uncomfortable. Wonder Woman’s armor in Wonder Woman 1984 is no different. However, aside from its discomfort, its design is similar to the Batsuit in a unique way.
Costume designer Lindy Hemming, who also worked on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, spoke about her design of Wonder Woman’s new armor and, when explaining it, she compared it to the Batsuit. Here’s why:
It's like the Batsuit, or anything: all small parts. An armadillo-like articulation means that the person can move and twist and turn, and it will return to its previous position. Having said that, it was not pleasant to wear -- and no armor of any kind is pleasant to wear!
Wonder Woman’s new armor absolutely looks “armadillo-like,” and one can see how it might be uncomfortable. It's funny because when I see Marvel and DC superheroes on the big screen, the last thing I’m thinking about is how uncomfortable the suits must be. The actors do a good job making the superhero suits look natural when, in reality, they’re probably not comfortable at all.
In the previous Wonder Woman movie, Gal Gadot mentioned briefly how sometimes the suit was so tight she couldn’t breathe. Luckily for Gal Gadot, in Wonder Woman 1984, they found ways to make things as comfortable as possible. Lindy Hemming later describes Total Film (via Syfy Wire) how they got around having Gal Gadot wear the costume all the time. Here’s what she said:
She could wear part of the armor. So she could have her legs free while she was being filmed from the waist up. And the wings would be taken away when they weren't needed, which was often. Patty wanted the wings to become 'a one-woman formation of shields, so no one can attack her.
We got a nice peek of Wonder Woman in her Golden Eagle armor in the official Wonder Woman 1984 trailer, and it’s as epic as one might imagine. In the comics, Wonder Woman first took on this suit in the third issue of the 1996 comic Elseworlds: Kingdom Come.
Before superhero suits were flexible, the Batsuit was rigid and infamously uncomfortable. Back then, Michael Keaton likely would have appreciated these new designs. He once explained that he thought he would be able to do a lot of martial arts stunts in Batman, but the suit physically wouldn’t let him do much of anything.
A lot has changed since Michael Keaton wore the Batsuit, of course. The latest on-screen version of the Batsuit was Ben Affleck’s Batman suit in Justice League, which apparently took six people to help put on. However, it was designed to flex and be as comfortable as possible, just like Wonder Woman's new suit.
Fans of Wonder Woman will have to keep waiting patiently before they can see her fight the forces of evil in the Golden Eagle armor. Wonder Woman 1984’s release date has been shifted a few times, and it’s now set to release on October 2, 2020.
