Crafting live-action comic book costumes that keep their colorfulness while still fitting into a realistic aesthetic is challenging. Just how hard it is to get a comic book costume right is exemplified by celebrity Halloween costumes. While many of them can be quite high-quality, they don't tend to reach the heights of the super suits we see in most mainstream comic book films. However, every now and then, some celebrities come around with incredible outfits that can hold their own against the best-designed live-action comic book suits out there. The most recent example of this is Sabrina Carpenter and her Wonder Woman costume.
On October 31, Carpenter performed at her Halloween Short n' Spooky show (part of her Short n' Sweet tour) at Madison Square Garden in New York. The "Espresso" singer opened the show with her attire hidden under a glittery cover, before removing it to reveal—and I'm not exaggerating here—an amazingly comic book-faithful Wonder Woman suit.
The suit took inspiration from Lynda Carter's costume in the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show, as well as the hero's Bronze Age design. The costume's design was so amazing, that it would have likely just needed a few adjustments to be movie quality. As a fun bonus, one of her backup dancers was dressed as Storm. The singer sported other costumes throughout her show, including a Flinstones one and a Barbie ensemble.
Sabrina's Wonder Woman suit was a big hit online, to the point where it reached the co-CEO of DC Studios himself, James Gunn. However, Gunn made his knowledge of the costume known in a humorously random fashion. Variety reported on Carpenter's costume, posting on Threads a video of the singer performing in it. The post was captioned: "[Sabrina Carpenter] sings 'Manchild' while dressed as Superwoman in NYC."
Now, of course, for any self-respecting comic book nerd, hearing or reading Wonder Woman being called "Superwoman" is a punch to the gut that you can't easily walk away from. That's probably what James Gunn felt when he read that, because he replied to the post with: "'Superwoman'?!"
Gunn's response was, of course, entirely humorous, and should not be taken as the director calling out Variety in a negative way. Furthermore, perhaps it's important to clarify that Variety's caption does not imply any sort of disrespect to the comic book media or Wonder Woman. It was a simple mistake that provided a pretty funny interaction with the person in charge of bringing DC's characters to life.
A Wonder Woman film is currently in development at DC Studios, written by Ana Nogueira, who also penned next year's Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock.
Supergirl, is scheduled to hit theaters on June 26, 2026.