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Superman's disappearing pants

I know, I know... there are many more important things going on, today. The Dow was down 253 points today (my 401K hurts).
Lose something, Superman? Like maybe your red shorts?
Lose something, Superman? Like maybe your red shorts?

I know, I know... there are many more important things going on, today. The Dow was down 253 points today (my 401K hurts). The latest jobs report shows a net gain of zero jobs. Tropical Storm Lee is causing problems for the Gulf Coast. The federal government is suing 17 major banks over the housing crisis. And Standard & Poors is reportedly still giving subprime mortgage-backed securities a AAA rating (seriously?).

You should go and read about all of those things because they're all important...

Ok. Now that you have, can we talk about the fact that Superman is no longer wearing his iconic red shorts?

Since basically forever his first appearance in Action Comics #1 in June of 1938, Superman has always had a pair of red shorts as part of his suit. Always. And while his look has been tweaked and changed over the years as different artists penned the Man of Steel for DC Comics, the red shorts remained... until now.

The new look of the rebooted Justice League
The new look of the rebooted Justice League

DC Comics is relaunching its entire collection of comic books, 52 in all, with 52 new #1 issues this month. You can read a lot more about that in this really great article from The New York Times' Arts Section. In this relaunch, which started this week with the release of Justice League #1, DC Comics' heroes are all getting new looks. Some more radical than others. But none more odd than Superman's disappearing red pants. A move that, according to leaked photos cropping up on sites like io9, is being replicated with Superman's suit in the upcoming film, Man of Steel.

This reminds me of when director Joel Schumacher put nipples on the suits worn by Batman and Robin. I'm still not over that outrage.

But I guess Superman's disappearing shorts are still not as bad as the other story tearing up the geeky end of the Internets this week: the fact that George Lucas still can't stop making changes to the original Star Wars trilogy (CNET has a great write-up on that here).

I mean, what a scruffy-looking nerf herder.