THE FLASH Showrunner Explains Why Costumes Are Important In Superhero TV Shows
Smallville's "No Flights, No Tights" rule infuriated fans and set what could have been a very bad precedent moving forwards for superhero TV shows. Here, Greg Berlanti (Green Lantern) explains why including costumes in the likes of Arrow and The Flash is so important...
After a mostly quite grounded first season, Arrow shook things up in season two by giving Oliver Queen a mask and by introducing costumed baddies like Deathstroke and Ravager (it also sounds like The Atom will be suiting up sooner rather than later too). The Flash meanwhile features Barry Allen fully suited up as the Scarlet Speedster and we're set to be introduced to a number of colourful member of his rogues gallery. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, showrunner Greg Berlanti had this to say about the the importance of costumes. "For me, I feel like it's weird. You want the characters to be like you read! Even if they aren't there yet, sometimes I think if you're doing an origin story and they're not all the way there -- like our suit here isn't what it's going to be and Arrow isn't Green Arrow yet, we've sort of said that -- but in this day and age, especially when they can go to the movies or download a film where the character is in a suit and you're dealing with the competition not just against your show but actually against all the superheroes that are out there in the universe that people can see, that are live action, you want I think the most true version of that." Hopefully this is something we'll see throughout the rest of DC's TV adaptations too (like the recently announced Supergirl). What do you guys think?
About The Author:
A lifelong comic book fan who grew up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the '90s, Josh Wilding has been contributing to ComicBookMovie.com since 2009.
While he's also written for websites like Batman-News, HeyUGuys, and WhatCulture, Josh is CBM's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and the site's #1 contributor with nearly two decades of experience covering film and TV news (including interviews with Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Gary Oldman, Halle Berry, Jon Bernthal, Tom Welling, and hundreds more).
Based in the UK with his wife, Josh is also an avid WWE and Formula 1 fan and writes about those passions on CBM's sister sites, TheRingReport.com and FullThrottleHQ.com. Favourite superhero? Spider-Man. Favourite pro wrestler? CM Punk. Favourite F1 driver? Max Verstappen.