Here’s the thing: I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to costuming in comic book & video game movies. I love the feeling of seeing a costume or prop, and being able to instantly recall the first time I ever saw that character. However, Hollywood has seen fit over the years, to tinker with the iconic looks for the superheroes whom we have all come to know & love from our respective childhoods. That being said, let’s take a look back at the different costume looks that our friendly neighborhood Spider Man has had in his cinematic outings, and break them down a bit, shall we?

First, we have Nicholas Hammond’s version (no, Tobey Maguire was not the first big-screen Spidey). This costume was SO close! However, the contoured border & metal strainer look to the eyes just threw me off, and the “web-shooters” & belt looked clunky.

Then, there’s Tobey Maguire’s look in the Sam Raimi films. This, I feel was the best out of the bunch. The look was classic, the webs on the outfit popped, and the whole costume reminded me of the Spidey I love from the comics that I read from the 80’s to the early 2000s. Classic blue & red, with a simple webbed look, and large white eyes.

Andrew Garfield’s costume in the “Amazing” series of films was…interesting. For some reason, the costume designers chose to go with a look that was almost evocative of reptilian scales on the blue part of the outfit, and they slightly broke up the red parts on the arms & legs, making the lines more angular. The biggest issue I took with this one, is it almost looked as if he was wearing tennis shoes. A minor detail, yes; but it irked me.

Now, we come to the most recent look for the eponymous webhead. Both in Captain America: Civil War, and in the upcoming Spider Man: Homecoming movie. On Tuesday, June 28, Looper got an exclusive look at some set photos of Tom Holland in the Spider Man costume for the new movie. Not much has changed since the look was revealed in Civil War, but I’m…less than pleased with the updated look for the iconic Spidey suit.

1. The arms on the costume have these black stripes(?) on the shoulders & forearms that have not been present in ANY other iteration of the outfit. Why are they there? I don’t feel like they add anything to the look, and they also seem to detract from the web motif on the upper part of the costume. I can ALMOST understand them being on the wrists, as it seems that the filmmakers are still embracing the idea of mechanical web-shooters, but even still….Those black sections look odd to me.

2. Those weird circuitry-looking lines everywhere. WHAT the hell is up with those? They seem to be present anywhere there is blue on the costume. It makes Spidey look….techy, for lack of a better term, and I don’t feel like those lines add anything to the contour of the outfit. Why not just stick with the straight blue?

3. On the plus side, the thicker black outline on the eyes of the mask actually hearkens back to the classic Spidey look, and remind me of the old Spider Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon I used to watch back in the 1980s. That little bit of nostalgia is nice to see, and it does please me to see that the filmmakers are taking a bit of the classic into account.

All in all, I understand wanting to modernize the look of a character, and ensuring that they appeal to today’s audience(s), but I am not yet sold on this look.

The costumes for Spider Man: Homecoming were designed by Louise Frogley, who also worked on such films as Iron Man 3, Quantum of Solace, Traffic, and Man on Fire. What do you think, dear readers?  Did Ms. Frogley do Spidey justice, or do you feel that the outfit should have been more in line with the classic Spider-Man look?

Spider Man: Homecoming releases in theaters on July 7, 2017.