Marvel reveals baffling reason the X-Men couldn't wear comic-accurate suits

The X-Men have never been more popular. Marvel Comics' beloved mutants have been rockstars for decades with comic fans and moviegoers, but it's never been quite as exciting a time to be a fan of them as it is now. And it all has to do with Marvel Studios regaining the movie and TV rights to the characters.

We know that the X-Men will make their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in the coming years (and after the success of Disney Plus animated series X-Men '97, we couldn't be more excited!), but it isn't the first time they have appeared on the silver screen. 20th Century Fox's film saga was insanely popular throughout the 2000s and it gave us many iconic adaptations of the beloved X-Men, including Hugh Jackman's Wolverine.

One of the oddest aspects about that franchise, however, was the lack of comic-accurate suits. Now, Marvel Studios' own Kevin Feige has shed some more light on why the X-Men never suited up in their traditional attire.

X-Men execs were inspired by The Matrix

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has revealed why the X-Men wore black leather in the original film instead of their actual suits from the comic books. It turns out that all had to with the success of The Matrix franchise, which was a big hit at the time - and that franchise is renowned for the black leather suits that its cast (especially Keanu Reeves) wore throughout the movies.

As posted by ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis, Feige revealed that the success of the movie influenced the studio execs to have the X-Men don a similar garb, saying:

"There were studio execs in charge who knew that The Matrix had been a big hit and they wore black leather so, 'Put them in black leather!"

The original X-Men movie series was revolutionary as it flew the flag for the superhero genre at a time when there weren't many superhero movies, but the one aspect of it that hasn't aged all that well is the uniforms. There were certainly nods to the characters' comic book looks (Wolverine's hair, Cyclops' visor, Storm's cape), but the similar outfits prevented each of the X-Men from standing out.

The movie was released at a time when the few superhero adaptations often strayed from being too comic-accurate, both due to budgetary reasons and how the genre wasn't taken as seriously by mainstream audiences back then. For example, Superman prequel series Smallville enjoyed a decade of success by masquerading as both a teen drama and a crime procedural, both of which were extremely popular in the 2000s.

X-Men producer Ralph Winter addressed the lack of comic-accurate suits back in 2020 in an interview with SyFy Wire, revealing that the "yellow spandex" joke in the first movie was a way of acknowledging that they heard the fans' longing for the traditional suits but that they also had to make a movie that appealed to a more mainstream audience to "justify the budget".

"’The trick is always to bullseye the hardcore Marvel/X-Men fan, but do it in a way that doesn’t alienate an average moviegoer that might enjoy, or start to enjoy, these types of stories,”"

Two and a half decades later and the world is a very different place, full of comic-accurate superhero adaptations with their characters in their traditional garb. That's one of the many reasons that there is such excitement for Deadpool and Wolverine, as Hugh Jackman will finally have the opportunity to wear Wolverine's legendary yellow and blue suit from the comics.

There was definitely some logic to the approach of dialling back on the comic-accuracy in a time when it wasn't as necessary of a thing, but the idea of The Matrix influencing that decision is a little odd. Nevertheless, the classic X-Men movies were successful in their approach, and even if the black leather suits haven't aged all that well, they were an important part of the journey to get to where we are today.