But some of this is iconography and what people are ingrained with. For example, people are so use to the iconography of Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man that to change it too much could be disastrous--just ask Sony about how soundly rejected Andrew Garfield's first costume was received in TASM1, even though it kept the colors and lenses, and much else.
Another way to put this is that Psylocke, despite X-Men being popular, is not iconic unto herself, so we all roll our eyes at the costume. But what about Wonder Woman?
Generally speaking, I thinking the "sci-fi stripper" jab could be equally made to Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman costume which shows off almost as much leg (which is to say almost all of it). It is so blatantly appealing to the male gaze that one wonders whether Warner Bros. had any choice in the matter of making that costume? If they had chosen to given her pants or any sort of armor would fans have accepted it?
Again, to me, the best compromise for how women are objectified in these costumes for live-action has been the new CBS Supergirl outfit. It kept the iconography, but clearly played down much of what male artists most ridiculously animated.
I think WB had a lot of choice and it shows simply because it's not a straight up recreation of the classic WW costume. It's not a simple satin bathing suit design. It is an adaptation of a look she has sometimes had which itself is a variation on her classic look. The battle skirt does make a difference as compared to some Michael Turner styled shear, skin tight covering that seems to be giving her a Melvin, which too often artists have done for the classic WW costume.
As I said, classic Psylocke, from the comics, is the problem and recreating it in live action hasn't done the design any favors. If you have seen WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN, they did Betsy in an episode and it evoked her classic design from the comics, it was in her colors, it was a little sexy, you clearly could tell who the character was, it came off well. Adapting something like that would have been a better route I think.
Marvel and now WB have shown that you probably have to pick and choose the elements you include in costuming, even for iconic characters in this modern CBM age. Cap is identifiable as Cap, but he is not going to be wearing the classic costume into battle any time soon, the USO sequence not withstanding.
And it's worked I think. Again though, in general the designs that are good on the page, with adapting them for live action, tend to look good on the screen. Bad ones, like Psylocke or Ronan, tend to look bad, especially if you are going for comic accurate. That's my feeling, and it seems it's shared by a few others.
Do I think that we could have had over the years some more close to the comics designs? Yeah. I think there were indeed ways to adapt say, the mustard and brown Wolverine costume, or the Cyclops cowl look. But even then it wouldn't work in my opinion, to recreate them in exactitude. There would still be a need to change them given the differences between comic book style illustration and making clothing for a living breathing human being to wear on a movie set.
