My thoughts on Grant Gustin's Flash headshot reveal:
(Here is the image again for anyone who missed it)
The Good:
Grant's head looks great in it. Relieved to see the material isn't armor like and that there's no visors or goggles (thank God). I like the way the cowl is cut and how it sits on his face, with his nose slightly exposed (unlike the 90s tv show suit, which had the nose piece (my only menial complaint about it along with the fake muscles in retrospect, although I get why the suit looked like that at the time, it was par for the course and state of the art, so I am not going to hold the 90s suit over the coals for that, obviously the rubber muscle suit is no longer trending these days so I wouldn't expect to see it, naturally, on a current incarnation of the character, however, the tv show did at least provide a logical explanation for it so I will give it points for that)). I like how the mask scallops to a point on his cheeks and dips back toward his ears, it looks sleek and cool and exactly the way the mask should look in live action. I also like the
choice of material being used, while it does look a little leather like, the pic is very dim, and it isn't spandex and doesn't have those ridiculous chainmaily looking insignias all over it, these are good things to me, I like that the material looks mostly solid. It looks tough. Again, it is hard to say for sure because of how dim the pic is, but if the suit itself is a crimson red, and it may be, I think that is absolutely the way to go, and I love the sleek gold metallic look for the yellow areas of the costume. That was always the way to do The Flash's "yellow" areas, the lightning trim, however they did the suit in live action. I also like that we can see his eyes, and am very pleased that he doesn't have any sort of makeup or eyeliner along his eyelids, etc, like Batman and Green Arrow - unlike them, we are supposed to see that The Flash's skin is very separate from his mask. This is a good clean look for him and I'm glad they kept that.
The Bad:
I hate to be the stick in the mud, but the ear pieces are HORRENDOUS. My biggest complaint oddly isn't the chin strap, it's the damn ear pieces. They look like they half assed the symbol on his chest and just stuck it on his ears. This is bad. They are not supposed to be miniature Flash logos, they are supposed to be fin like, not little Flash lightning symbols. And I'm not complaining because it "isn't the look from the comics, and I want that no matter how 'silly' it is!!!", I'm complaining because it just looks bad and what is in the comics looks remarkably better. The people who are saying it looks great I feel aren't that familiar with The Flash visually and are maybe judging it as a whole (albeit prematurely - but I guess we all are as there's no body shot yet). There needs to be an actual ear PIECE (the ROUND, solid circular part that contains the police scanner, not the fin part, the fin needs to be attached to that, it needs to be solid and
round, not just a circular outline), and there's a way to do them and have them look cool, like how Ethan Van Sciver draws them:
THIS is how they need to look in live action - they look sleek and sharp, gold, and cool. They don't look like little wings but they don't look like little Flash lightning logos, either, what they look like is unique and just all around pretty cool, they don't look flimsy, either.
They always seem to want to screw with the ear pieces somewhat (see the Injustice game), what the ear pieces are like now remind me of the suit from the failed Justice League TV pilot from the 90s, only difference is this suit has a gold circular outline the bolts attach to:
(that suit even appears to have a "collar", but we'll get to that...
)
Oh, and here's what else it reminded me of:
As you can see, a change like that, however small it may seem to some, drastically detracts from The Flash's look as a whole and instead of making him look sleek and cool just makes him look kind of dorky, which is a fine line with a character like The Flash, it's something that's really easy for him to fall into because of the nature of his costume - if you do it wrong you screw it up pretty bad. It's why it's mostly went unchanged in the comics, it's such a perfect design the most people can think to do with it to "improve" it is to give it a chin strap and draw lines all over it, any tweaks usually dilute it).
The collar is the next thing that bugs me but at a much, MUCH smaller level. I can deal with a collar as long as they get the ear pieces right, but I do think if a "collar" is what they are going for, they could smooth it down and make it stand out less, that would be a good way to go about it, IMO, they don't have to make it so the cowl connects directly to the chest of the suit if they want the two broken up for "mobility" or whatever, I have no qualms with that, just that it look as seamless and fluid as possible. The chin strap I expected it to have so it is no surprise to me at all that it's there, and while I can definitely do without it and prefer it not be there because it is pretty ugly and distracting looking, it's not a deal breaker for me, I'm willing to accept all of this stuff so long as they get the ear pieces right.
The suit does look dark but I'm thinking that's mostly in part because that's how the image itself looks and not the suit itself, the pic is pretty dark (and I imagine that's for good reason as far as the producers are concerned, it does make me a bit apprehensive I will admit but there's still a lot of potential with this, I hope the rest of the suit is good).
Final thoughts:
While it could be better, it could also be a lot worse, but 1) we haven't seen the entire suit so far, so I will withold final judgments until then, but going off of what we have seen so far, I will say I don't have complete faith in what the whole suit itself will be, I'm concerned they won't get the logo right, he'll be in sneakers, and worse, he'll be in some sort of DareDevil zipper coat thing, it will just be disappointing if true - and 2) HOWEVER, this is the BEGINNING, many things may be subject to change and improvements to the suit could be made and they could fix the things I mentioned with further seasons and we may end up with the right look after all, Arrow did this with its second season, it's also possible The Flash could take the same route (although the more they get right out the gate the better, but I digress, I will give it a chance). Right now, of the two, John Wesley Shipp's 90s Flash suit still has the upper hand, even with the
nose piece, it remains the superior cowl, CW/WB has plenty of room to step it up with this.
(Even the ear piece on the old Flash tv show suit looks pretty good - it's amazing how much right they got back then over 20 years ago and how it still holds while all the crap that came after is just awful, even by the standards of the time in which they were made)
On Gustin:
I think he looks like Chris Pine in the pic for some reason (good thing to me, I think Pine would make a great Barry Allen). Does anybody else see it? Something about the shape of his head, the eyes, and the smile - smile, that's another thing, I like the look on Gustin's face here, very Flash like, it's a pleasure to see that instead of another grimace.
Bottom line on the ear pieces: These ear pieces don't look like they could contain anything; they look transparent. The round piece contains the bulk of the scanner while the long rod like part contains the receptor. It just looks stupid when compared to the comics look and is a bad design, like they just tacked The Flash's chest logo to the sides of his head half assedly.
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