The Uniform (Minimalism).

I truly believe that comics are a form of modern American mythology, and the characters in them, when properly realized, represent symbols and personifications of traits and ideals.  Like the ancient Greek mythologies, their best stories are parables and allegories for the way normal people live their lives - exaggerated lessons and legends of honor and chivalry, greed and consequences.  In comics, the heroes' and villains' personae are brought to life not only through their actions and reputations, but through their choice of wardrobe.  After all, the stories in comics - unlike classic mythological tales - are always told alongside graphic art and necessitate the same embellished symbols and actions in their visual representation as they do in their words in order to help convey the themes and ideological sermons at which they often excel.

The majority of heroes' and villains' clothes have always been bright, flashy costumes - usually all spandex and tights and capes - that personify the characters.  While there have been some exceptions along the way - The Green Hornet's comparably simpler duster and cowboy hat or fedora raising fewer eyebrows than Captain America - the general assumption to non-fans is that if you one day gain superpowers, it's time to sit down and knit yourself something bright.

However, a trend I've enjoyed thoroughly in recent years has been for comics artists and costume designers to go the other way with the uniforms.  My best guess is that since the phenomenon of "America's new trinity of love - Dean, Brando and Presley" (full credit to Kerouac for that) helped popularize antiheroes and flawed everymen in film, they rippled through other media of pop culture - it was only natural that comics would follow suit.  

At some point in the '70s or '80s, something pedestrian and believable started to find its footing in comics. Grant Morrison and Dave McKean released Arkham Asylum which, at points, considered Batman as little more than a self-appointed psychotic with mommy and daddy issues.  Frank Miller's Batman: Year One brought home the first rocky year of the Caped Crusader, showing that he was once still a beginner and almost died in his first ventures out at the hands of a mere pimp in one occasion, and three unarmed burglars in another.  Alan Moore's Watchmen and V For Vendetta showed what a normal person can do with an overdeveloped sense of justice and a chip on his or her shoulder, given the resources.  In fact Heath Ledger's Joker would later say to Harvey Dent, "Look what I did to this city with just a few bullets and a couple of drums of gasoline."

One of the best examples of the toned-down visual presence of heroes actually came from film.  In 1990, Sam Raimi directed Darkman starring Liam Neeson as Peyton Westlake, a scientist who is beaten and burned beyond recognition and left for dead by gangsters.  Peyton's area of expertise is in skin grafts and epidermal recovery, and he proceeds to exact revenge on the criminals in a series of covert operations wearing masks that make him indistinguishable from the person he's mimicking.  Throughout the last half hour or so of the film - as well as on most of Darkman's posters and other ads - Peyton is seen wearing a near-full facial wrap of bandages and black trenchcoat and fedora, which he found lying around.  Even as a kid, I remember seeing the movie and thinking That makes sense!  He's just wearing what he could find; he didn't stitch together a costume.

M. Night Shyamalan's sophomore release, Unbreakable, was the next movie to successfully show off the hero without a costume.  In that film, Bruce Willis plays security guard David Dunn, on the verge of separating from his wife when suddenly he's the sole survivor of a devastating train wreck.  A stranger, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is a comics collector and art gallery proprietor who believes Dunn is a superhero - or at least the closest thing possible in real life.  David Dunn is mortal, but is revealed to have never had any serious injuries despite the train wreck, a car crash in his youth, and everyday life.  Eventually Jackson convinces him to find people in trouble and help them out, which is really just an unlicensed extension of his job of protecting people as a security guard, so Dunn dons his standard-issue rain poncho (but only because it's pouring rain when the scene takes place) and manages to find a family taken hostage in their own home by a homicidal maniac.  At this point, he finds himself a part of a scene familiar to any comics fan, in which he has to fight the bad guy and save the victims.  The following morning, the story makes the front page - but Dunn, remaining anonymous through his limited exposure to the family and his poncho hood covering his face for the most part, is unidentified.  One of my favorite aspects of the movie is how much of the fantastic and unrealistic elements are taken out of the entire script.  As much as I love a superpowered slugfest, probably 95% of Unbreakable is not only believable, but almost bordering on the mundane, and Bruce Willis' "superhero costume" is no exception - it's just a rain poncho with the hood up, similar to Darkman's black duster and fedora.

Sucker Punch released its first PlayStation 3-exclusive game, Infamous, in 2009.  It follows Cole McGrath, a bike courier in Empire City (read: New York) who is delivering a package that turns out to be a bomb that explodes in his hands.  In a complex and comic-based cutscene following the bomb blast, it's revealed that Cole has been imbued with some strange set of superpowers from the bomb, which has also unleashed an epidemic (and subsequent quarantine) and city-wide blackout.  After recovering from severe burns, Cole does his best to control and develop his powers, which mostly involve being an electrical super-conduit and not getting hurt from jumping off buildings.  The first time he picks up a handgun, it explodes in his hand.  He can't sit in a car, but he can power a subway.  The point is, the closest Cole gets to an outfit is that he wears a pair of charcoal cargo pants and a motorcycle jacket - yellow body, black sleeves - and his messenger bag.  Even still, this subtle outfit becomes a trademark of sorts for him - in the 2011 sequel, Cole takes a boat down to New Marais (read: New Orleans) and sports a nearly identical outfit: charcoal jeans, a yellow-bodied ringer t-shirt with black short sleeves and his same impractically small messenger bag.

All these outfits, in their simplicity and mundane nature, have nearly paralleled their heroes' backgrounds.  A scientist, a security guard and a bike messenger are a pretty far cry from Superman's alien baby crash-landing on Earth with x-ray vision and super strength, even with Cole's electrical powers.  The low-key costumes even managed to continue with some more recent examples.

In 2012's Chronicle, a found-footage masterpiece directed by Josh Trank, three high school kids outside of Seattle find a meteor that accidentally bestows powers of telekinesis upon them.  What starts with the boys assembling Legos and skipping stones on water hands-free (and in secret) evolves into flying, throwing cars and more mayhem.  At one point, Andrew Dentmer, the main character and primary cameraman played masterfully by Dane DeHaan, realizes he has to not only use his powers to break several laws, but to do so specifically in front of people in public.  To protect his identity, he dons his father's firefighter's uniform and mask and heads out.  Again, this is a prime example of a character using whatever is on-hand, eschewing the fancy skin-tight primary colors and perfect fits of Superman, Spider-Man, Captain America and other very famous heroes.

Mark Millar's vigilante comic Kick-Ass - and its 2010 film adaptation - both center on Dave Lizewski, a high-school student who decides to go out and try to be a real-life superhero.  He is almost immediately hospitalized with severe injuries and is released to find that many of his broken bones have been set with steel plating and most of his nerve endings are shot.  None of this is a government secret project; he just got seriously fucked up from his crimefighting.  For the remainder of the comic/film, he fights crime with a slightly-deadened pain sensation and a skeletal structure that's a bit more sturdy than most.  What makes him such a normal guy in his heroism is partly his outfit and weaponry - Dave wears a scuba suit with no gear and uses a pair of pipes or batons painted yellow.  The irony is that this outfit looks more like something a superhero would wear than anyone else on this list.

On a side note, I'd like to mention Nicholas Cage's Big Daddy, his crime-fighting alter ego in the film adaptation of Kick-Ass.  While the outfit is definitely an homage to Burton/Nolan-esque Batman, there's one scene in particular that shows Cage in the mirror applying his eye make-up that captures the emotionless, deadpan, utter lack of excitement I imagine a superhero would have suiting up more perfectly than I've ever seen in media, before or since.  I think it plays so well into the "grass is always greener" motif expressed otherwise in Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean's film MirrorMask - that while normal kids would like to run away and join the circus, their heroine, a circus performer, would like to run away and join real life.  This idea was hinted at with subtlety and brilliance in season six, part two of The Sopranos as well, in which Tony Soprano - a Jersey crime boss who regularly acts above and outside the law - slips into a coma and dreams of being a businessman at a sales conference whose briefcase gets stuck shut and who loses his wallet.  These three fantastic, daydream characters who people like you and I could only dream of living as for a day personify for the briefest of moments how less glamorous their lives are than we imagine.

All in all, the increasingly realistic and seemingly normal backgrounds of iconic comic heroes is showing through in their wardrobes as much as their backgrounds.  None of us could be Superman, but any of us could be Scott Pilgrim.  Believing in ourselves with the same conviction we do heroes has been one of comic creators' hopes for longer than most of us have been alive, and dressing a superhero like a normal person is one step towards that goal.  Characters like Darkman, David Dunn, Cole McGrath, Dave Lizewski, Andrew Dentmer and countless others have brought the idea of the superhero outfit from a form-fitted Oscar-worthy costume to little more than what you or I choose to wear to work every day - and after all, isn't that what they're doing?