Roberto De Costa, AKA Sunspot, can harness the power of the sun. That might sound a little like Superman, but this founding member of the New Mutants is unique in his own right. Sunspot has been part of several major teams at Marvel Comics, which has led to him changing his costume a number of times. Now that he's part of the recently released The New Mutants feature film, it's a good time to take a look at them.
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From the 80s to the present day, Sunspot has seen a lot of variance in his looks. That's led to some awesome designs over the decades, so without further adieu, here is every Sunspot costume, ranked.
10 De Costa International
In recent years, Bobby De Costa took to wearing simple business suits rather than colorful costumes. The simple black suit with a white shirt makes for a great combo with his ability to turn black as a result of his powers. This reflects his more CEO thinking and actions after long stints as part of the Avengers and extended X-Men family. He inherited the global conglomerate De Costa Industries after his father died and immediately put his business acumen to work, acquiring A.I.M. and using his fortune and influence to help mutants.
9 The New Mutants Movie
The characters in the new movie based off the New Mutants don't wear costumes as such, but thanks to Bobby's powers, he gets the most superhero look of them all (well, except maybe Wolfsbane). Even then, his cinematic appearance is pretty different from the comic book one. He appears more fiery and magmatic in the movie, whereas in the comic he appears pitch black, surrounded in tiny dark spots, which led to his codename. The spots are still there in the movie but are more embers. It's a little bit of Human Torch, but it's cool.
8 Graduating Costume
This one didn't last long - mostly because Sunspot hadn't actually graduated. The New Mutants all got upgraded, individualized costumes upon their graduation from Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. Bobby hadn't actually for his certificate yet, but that didn't stop him from adopting this gloriously 70s look. He wore a white, sleeveless leotard with a V-shaped opening on the front that extended all the way down to his belt. Even better, he went with gold bracelets and boots, with a domino mask. He quickly moved on.
7 Reignfire
Everybody goes evil at some point in the X-Men. It's probably written in the contract somewhere. Bobby De Costa broke bad in the 90s, along with a lot of other people, but this incident was a little more complicated (clones, DNA, confusion, the usual). Nevertheless, the Reignfire Bobby leaned into the villain role, going for an all-gold look that contrasted heavily with his sunspot-black skin.
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This very 90s costume included golden armored gloves, forearm guards, leggings, boots, and shoulder pads. His Mr. Sinister-like gold cape was cut into strips because that just looks cool.
6 Dawn of X
Sunspot is once again a member of the New Mutants in the Dawn of X revival of the X-Men. The team adopts new costumes that echo their original black and yellow uniforms very much (more on that one in a minute) with some key updates. The new costume differs from the original in key ways. The original was mostly like any other costume in the 80s, spandex, while this one appears to be a more modern and practical set of light-armor. Individual pieces make up the shoulder pads and knee pads, for instance, providing the team members a little more personal protection than they really had before.
5 X-Force
The New Mutants underwent one of the most dramatic transformations in all of comics when they evolved from X-Men-in-training into the mutant strikeforce known as X-Force. Everybody got major costume changes courtesy of artist Rob Liefeld, and Sunspot was no different. His initial X-Force costume consisted of an orange jacket with an orange domino mask/bandana, and white pants with black stripes on them. This was one of the more practical and less extreme of the early 90s X-makeovers.
4 Throwback
The New Mutants go through a lot of looks, but they keep to their core visual identity. A recent costume the entire team wore also harkened back to their original. Each member of the team, including Sunspot, wore a black and yellow jumpsuit with the yellow forming into a large X pattern across the body. The signature X symbol adorned the costume on the upper left of the torso. This particular look remains more or less in use today, depending on the mission and the environment that the team operates in.
3 Avengers
In the aftermath of the cataclysmic Avengers vs. X-Men event, Captain America wanted to do better by mutant and human relations, so he made a point of including more mutants on the Avengers (particularly the Uncanny Avengers). Sunspot made the backup squad and got a cool new costume to boot.
He maintains the black and yellow color scheme of his New Mutants and New X-Men era costumes, with some modern upgrades including a nifty sunspot emblem which should stay a feature of his costumes in the future.
2 Classic
The classic New Mutants costume informs many of Sunspot's looks today. The classic black and yellow outfit served as the original training outfit for the X-Men back in the 80s, including Kitty Pryde (who still occasionally wears some variation of it today). The yellow chevron pattern on the chest along with the trunks, gloves, and boots still work today, connecting the classic look of the original five X-Men from the 1960s to the throwback costumes many of the characters wear today.
1 Post Cable X-Force
Sunspot's best look - and one recently commemorated in action figure form by Hasbro - debuted in the post-Liefeld era of X-Force. He set aside his orange and white outfit for a striking red and blue costume that featured a weird but nifty square yellow collar. The chevron pattern remained from his original costume, but inverted, creating one of the more striking looks the character ever wore. Sunspot adopted this look after the team mistakenly believed that their leader Cable had died, and maintained it through much of the 90s.