How Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four quietly re-envisioned superhero gender equality in 1961

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1961 was a watershed year for American comics. It was the year that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four #1 came out, introducing the world to Marvel’s First Family – Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Human Torch, and The Thing. The first hundred issues of Fantastic Four laid down foundational elements of the Marvel Universe, painting a rosy, futuristic look of postwar America during the Space Race.  

There is a lot that the Fantastic Four pioneered, and I’m not here to document all of that for you, but one thing that has hardly ever been a part of this conversation is the actual costumes that the team wore. Or rather, the fact that the entire team wore the same outfit in their earliest comics – including Sue Storm’s Invisible Girl. While it might not be something that we’d take notice of in the year 2025, there was something subtly groundbreaking about all of the Fantastic Four members, regardless of their gender, wearing the same unisex jumpsuit in 1961. Sure, Sue was the Invisible Girl, but she didn’t need to look girlish as a superhero.

The Fantastic Four were even more futuristic than Star Trek with their costumes 

It’s a subtle choice on behalf of Kirby, but it established within the Marvel Universe this idea that superheroism came in all kinds of figures and bodies. Even Ben Grimm as the Thing sported that same jumpsuit originally before he opted for briefs. If you were a girl, boy, somewhere in between, or beyond, and dressed up as one of the Fantastic Four, you weren’t siloed into one particular gendered expression. That jumpsuit was for everyone. 

Dressing a female superhero in pants is still a big deal (see: Supergirl), and in 1961, it was downright futuristic. Up until that point in time in superhero comics, if there was a female character, she was probably in a skirt or a dress. Obviously, it’s fine to wear skirts and dresses, but women’s trousers had become popularized during World War II. A new age of fashion was upon us. Even Star Trek: The Original Series didn’t dress its female Starfleet members in pants. Instead, they wore miniskirts. Let me also say that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with women wearing miniskirts. But I also don’t think it should be the only clothing option for them, either (have you ever tried running in one? It’s hell.). Let the miniskirt be an equal opportunity garment for everyone in Starfleet! Put Kirk in a miniskirt for all I care! 

Sue Storm without her Fantastic Four jumpsuit looks… off. 

In this sense, it’s worth bringing up the outfit that my friends and I (my Fantastic Friends? I need to shut up) refer to as the Dark Ages for Sue: her 90s outfit. You probably know the one, with the boob window in the shape of a ‘4’. In Fantastic Four #371 by Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan, Sue debuts a revealing costume and tells her husband, “I was starting to feel like an old frump in that tedious, outdated jumpsuit,” without regard for the fact that Reed himself was wearing that very same “tedious, outdated jumpsuit.” But would Reed ever be called a ‘frump’ for wearing a simple onesie? No, because he’s a man, and we’re conditioned to see him as more than just his physical appearance. You know the rest. 

Beyond the ugliness of Sue’s 90s costume, part of the reason why it was so jarring was because it betrayed the original values of the Fantastic Four. By wearing the same jumpsuit, they provided a unified front to the world and beyond, particularly in an age where there were hardly any women in the workforce. With the Invisible Woman in a sexy costume while the rest of the team looks like a bunch of regular dudes, they look like they’re all going to different events. Sue’s ready to hit the club while Reed is ready to run down to the UN Building in five minutes. There’s no togetherness. If Sue is going to have a revealing outfit, then why isn’t Reed or Johnny matching her? At least when Jean Grey’s clone, Madelyne Pryor, became the Goblin Queen during the ‘Inferno’ storyline in X-Men, Havok was there to join her in a matching skimpy outfit as the Goblin Prince. 

Thankfully, we are no longer in the ’90s, and we’re at a point in time where there’s respect being paid to Kirby’s original costume designs for the Fantastic Four. I was pleased to see that in The Fantastic Four: First Steps movie, the team stands proudly in their retro jumpsuits. Everyone looks good in a Fantastic Four jumpsuit, whether you’re an elegant lady, an enormous man with rocks for skin, a guy who can light himself on fire and not die, or a stretchy boy. Long live the jumpsuit!