Miles Morales Needs a More Diverse Collection of Costumes

One of the most common things about superheroes is that, every handful of months, they'll get a new costume. Sometimes it's out of necessity, sometimes to fit with the tone of the story being told. Some stories have been nothing but glorified costume changes, like Secret Empire, while others have used the costume to tell incredibly bonkers stories, as we've seen with Spider-Man and Venom.

Miles Morales ended up with one of the best one-two punches for a character in recent history. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has spent the last two months racking up rave reviews and multiple award wins, in addition to becoming the highest-grossing animated film that Sony's put out.

Insomniac Games' Spider-Man gave him an origin story and the opportunity to play as him, culminating in a sequel tease too torturous for a game years away. But in looking at both, they unfortunately highlighted how odd it is that, unlike his predecessor Peter Parker, his wardrobe is so incredibly static.

With the possible exception of his pre-Spider costume that debuted in his annual issue, most of his other costumes blur together. They're typically mild variations on his black and red costume (see: his jacket and shorts combo in the film or his Weirdworld outfit) or a version of Peter's red and blue when he's starting to get a grip on his powers.

When you throw his fellow Champions into the mix, he sticks out even more. Ironheart's gone through multiple armors, Amadeus Cho has some notable threads, Ms. Marvel's Weirdworld outfit and makeshift costume during her trip to Karachi even give her an edge. While the black and red is striking all on its own, the climate around Miles is much different than it was when he first showed up in 2011.

Both the game and the film had costumes to show the long and storied history of Spider-Man, but the game in particular made the various suits of the Web-Head a selling point. As much fun as it is in that game to do anything, it's even more fun to switch out the costumes and see how they look in motion or in the photo mode.

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse Miles Morales poster header

When the sequel hits and Miles becomes playable, the big elephant in the room when it comes to costumes is that Miles doesn't have nearly as many in his history, unless part of the game involves him just rotating through a variety of them to see what sticks.

Peter's costumes emerged from a need to fight his enemies, but that doesn't have to hold true for Miles. Since he's a teenager and clearly has a sense of style, if artist Javier Garron's style guide is anything to go by, he could simply make a new costume or two just because. Spider-Verse has established him as an artist, and it would be foolish to just let that character trait stay in the movies.

Art is a powerful form of expression and, as has been made clear in fan art after fan art, it's something that suits Spider-Man as a hero quite perfectly. Look at the #Spidersona tag on Twitter and there's a wide variety of costumes on display that are more than just different riffs on Miles' original, or Peter's or Gwen's.

As a fashionable teen, we should be seeing much more of Miles' creativity shine through in all his outfits. We haven't really got a chance to see him make a costume on his own in the comics, so why not use his elevated success to do so now?

CBR

Miles Morales Needs Some More Costumes in His Wardrobe