Why do Superman and other superheroes wear underwear over pants? Know the secret

Did this question ever stroke your mind that why superheroes such as Superman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and others wear underwear outside their pants?

Well, there are many theories behind this decades-long mystery but we are going to tell you the real reason behind this.

Julius Schwartz, the famous DC comics editor in his biography “The man of two words” had revealed the inspiration behind this trend. According to Schwartz, during the period of 1920 – 1930, the aerial circus was very famous and superheroes were often inspired by them due to their strong physique. The circus wrestlers and performers used to wear underwear (technically it shouldn't even be called underwear since it's worn over the pants) outside their pants while performing stunts as it made their pelvis region look broader and muscular. The underwear that performers used were longer and more like underwear-shorts. This also made sense for superheroes to adapt their clothing style of wearing their underpants over their thighs.

'Technical reason'

This was a piece of theoretical knowledge that was mentioned in the biography of Julius Schwartz but there is another theory about a "technical reason" behind this trend. Graphic novels and superhero comics were first introduced in the 1930s but were initially not taken as serious art and only considered for children. And in order to be viable and make profits, comic-book makers had to publish comics at cheap rates. The extremely low price of graphic novels wouldn’t allow a good quality of color printing and the publishers were bound to publish them only in 4 colors, Blue, Yellow, Red, and Black.

The lack of options made it harder to show gradient, shadow, and darker areas of the body. So to represent gradients, thick black cross-hatch lines would be used to denote darker areas, which also became the staple way to denote gradients in graphic novels. Thick outlines were drawn to avoid color bleeding. The presence of only 4 colors and thick black lines covering most of the shaded areas caused the superhero characters to have indistinguishable body parts.

Underwear-over-the-pants was a very clever idea to make the character stand out and to highlight the groin and buttock. And this was the main reason or one can say compulsion for the makers to introduce our superheroes with undies on the outside.

Do you agree with these theories? Do let us know in the comment section!