In the MCU movie Captain America: Civil War, when Tony Stark/Iron Man screams “Underoos!”, I got pretty curious, especially when Spiderman responds to the call. A lot of us got swept up like most others with the appearance of the titular hero because it was one of the scenes we had been looking forward to for years, but I for one derived a heightened level of satisfaction from that sole introduction.
You see, many people like me who grew up watching the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies, as well as the David Webb directed Amazing Spiderman movies starring Andrew Garfield, have contended with one another about which movies are our favourite, and less than half the time the opinion is usually in favour of the Tobey Maguire led first two installations. For me, despite spending more than a decade being certain Spiderman 1 & 2 were by far the best movies, I have lately had a rethink, and it is for one sole reason.
The Spiderman Suit.
In the first two big picture Spiderman adaptations we are taken through the process of seeing Peter Parker being bitten by a genetically augmented radioactive spider, discovering his new powers, his first spider suit and then the final spider suit he dons when he reveals himself to the city of New York and by extension the world. The suit for me seemed pretty detailed and customized, which for me indicated that there would have required a significant bit of work to come up with the finished product, so I would spend considerable time contemplating the back story of the suit. The possibilities that existed if Peter Parker was a terrible stitcher and required the expert hands of someone else to put the whole look together.
None of those questions came up in Captain America: Civil War. It was pretty straight forward; this teenage kid has been jumping around New York with a rudimentary makeshift disguise, saving people and trying to make a difference in his own little way, unbeknownst to him, the legendary Tony Stark has been observing & due to the escalating crisis brought about by the Sarkovia Accords proposal, he needs more people with special abilities on his side. Luckily, he has a near Perfect AI, cutting edge technology and unlimited resources to create a suit which more than compliments Peter Parker’s abilities.
As you can see there are no backstories to contemplate in that regard. The resources and the mind are there, in fact, there are several more iterations of the suit this angle has led to without needing to reboot the Intellectual Property every 4 years, and it is so cool that Tony Stark signals Peter with the call ‘Underoos’ as it clearly is a hardly subtle dig at the popular underwear 80s kids used to don. These matching briefs were mostly designed after popular superhero costumes that were also kid-friendly (that was the marketing gimmick the maker used), so it felt extra special for people like me who caught the reference. Besides, if you’re a big Notorious B.I.G fan, you most definitely would have heard the line in the hit Hypnotize;
“..Timbs for my hooligans in Brooklyn
Dead right, if the head right, Biggie there ery’night
Poppa been smooth since days of Underroos
Never lose, never choose to, bruise crews who..”
