As superhero movies have slowly claimed more and more of the filmgoing market, multiplying and stacking up like piles of spandex-covered firewood, the art of the costume reveal has become increasingly fraught with nuance. A studio that wants to show off its particular version of an iconic character’s duds has a lot of questions to ask itself: Which gray, smoke-filled background will the character stand in front of? Which of the two expressions, pensive or stern, will they choose to plaster on their beautiful superhuman faces? And what about color choices? Do they go with maroon? Or throw caution to the wind and go for dark maroon?
Leave it to Deadpool, then, to buck the trend. Ryan Reynolds, who’s been working for years to get Marvel’s Merc With A Mouth his own movie, released a picture of the costume he’ll be wearing in the upcoming film on his Twitter account, and it’s a doozy: A clear imitation of Burt Reynolds’ famous 1972 Cosmopolitan centerfold (except with clothes on, because a nude costume reveal would be a contradiction in terms), it shows Reynolds as Wade Wilson—presumably, anyway, since he’s in a mask—lounging on a bear skin rug in in front of a roaring fire.
Reynolds previously played the character in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which, like the new film, is part of Fox’s X-Men film franchise. But while the Origins costume seemed like an attempt to ground the character and stick him in something an actual—albeit, colorblind—mercenary might wear, the new suit screams its comic-book provenance, complete with bright reds, a cartoonishly expressive mask, and a Deadpool belt buckle, because nothing says “super cool badass killer for hire” like accessorizing your kit with a shopping spree at Hot Topic.