I’d argue that DC only really started to prominently color Harley Quinn with red and blue when they started marketing her as an anti-hero. Supervillain Harley always wore red and black, but the blue gives her a bit of a heroic flare and this works better for her more modern anti-hero characterization.
@@coywarrior71 so what, are you saying that Scott intentionally misidentified her core color scheme? Because if we go by the words he chose and the pictures he used, Scott is mistaken. As for your appeal to authority… Being a lifelong comic reader makes no difference here. Harley first appeared in the 90s. And not in a comic book. Perhaps most importantly, Scott got Harley’s colors wrong in that DC-centric toy line you mentioned. Her mime-white face was depicted as a weird baby blue. If anything, Scott has a long history of being wrong about Harley Quinn.
I remember the story how Stan Lee told us why he'd switched The Hulk's color from Grey to Green. Once Stan Lee was told Green was easy to produces, many characters utilizes the color green because of that, to help with the printing cost.
@@TitularHeroine mostly 'cause Grey was too expensive to inked on paper back then. Then Stan asked what are cheapest color to produce, they told him Green and Purple. So Stan made sure to switch Hulk to green, and focus on using Green and Purple for any new characters.
Great vid. Another way to say it, is that colors which are ALMOST complementary, but not quite - like purple & orange, or purple & green - are disturbing because they’re ALMOST correct & harmonious, but they’re not quite right. So they feel sickly and disgusting. Perfect for villains. :)
The timing on this is crazy. My little kid asked me just yesterday afternoon why there isn't an orange Power Ranger and why the only purple one is the evil one who kills all the other Rangers...
Thanks for sharing, this was some great content regarding color theory. I’m glad you included Scrapper from Transformers when discussing the relationship of green and purple. If anyone wants to take a deep dive into advanced color theory on toys-things like tertiary colors, split complementary, triadic, square, and rectangle schemes-I’d recommend looking at Decepticons from 1986-1988. After the 84 and 85 lines, and before the neon 90s, Hasbro really got into mixing purple, violet, teal, and pink with yellow and dark blue. However, the Autobots mostly maintained primary and secondary color schemes throughout all of G1. Might be a cool video idea for the Toy Guru to compare the traditional, primary toy colors of the 80s vs the bright, neon colors of the 90s.
Makes sense why there's always a Red, Blue, and Yellow Ranger in every Power Ranger team since those three colors represent heroes. (Yellow is missing in two teams but are usually there.) The other remaining team colors aren't always the same. Interesting video for sure.
I first noticed this with M.A.S.K. and Transformers collections. Generally, the good guys are all warmer colors, and the bad guys are all cooler colors. And of course, good old Decepticon Purple. :) I never got this in-depth into it. I did notice that a lot of heroic comic book characters (and Optimus Prime!) use red, white, and blue - Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America (of course!), and Spider-Man. Hah, purple and orange Joker and making you feel uneasy. This must be why it's also Halloween colors!
The Phantom wears a purple costume which falls outside of the typical color schemes for heroes. Now that I think about it, the title of The Ghost who walks is passed from father to son along a wealthy bloodline like a crown, which could indicate a representation of a type of royalty, I guess.
in scandinavia he is blu, and for a coupel of decades he out sould Batman, Superman and all outher superheroes. in a lot of school materiel he is still used for words whit F. (he is cald Fantomet in Denamark) wich confues a lot of childen becuse no child born after 1995 haver ever herd of him
But the MAXX was so monstrous in appearance that *new readers* were uncertain of his _goodness_ (until they'd read the book, that is). The Maxx I remember had a purple and yellow-orange costume with an ogre-like overbite and gloves with huge spikes.
My only experience with The Maxx so far -- other than the two action figures -- has been with the MTV cartoon. Bloody marvellous. I still get a smile every time I remember "They got SQUID."
As part of my Graphic Design MA, I undertook a typological analysis of the colours from my album artwork collection (then approx. 2000) calculating their percentages. Unsurprisingly, black and red predominated, with pink and purple being least common. Though this may have been equally telling about my musical tastes! Anywho, this upload reminded me of it - another interesting vid Scott :)
In real life, vehicles like police cars probably use yellow simply for visibility: a way to catch the eye. Old-school black-and-white units (neutral color scheme, similar to gray and silver) probably blend into the background. (There's a theory that James Dean died in a vehicle collision due to his silver/gray car not being all that visible to the other driver.) Also, there were attempts to change the color of fire trucks from the traditional red to either yellow or white so they'd be more visible (especially at night).
It is also important to note that a number of the combinations are derived from complementary adjacent pairings. Whereas straight up complementary pairs can look very garish, bumping one of them to the side is more tolerable, such as blue with yellow and purple with orange. Much sadness about green and purple, as I like both of those colors, though I kind of think of them more in terms of plants, with a lot of green and a little purple.
What are your thoughts on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 🥷 🐢 colors 🤔? In the original comics they wear red bandanas, but later media they have different colors for each 🐢 Turtle. Do you think the colors match their individual character?
3:26 "With green there's only one guy." I love you do death, but you're off by like 5 to 6 thousand Green Lanterns. They even have a talking tree and raccoon.
Darkseid in blue STILL looks like he has come to ruin your life and everything that you stand for; and there’s nothing you can do about it. Amazing what red eyes can do. It shows how revealing they are, even in real life.
Regarding orange, I was involved in a discussion recently on an internet forum regarding characters who wear orange, and the two that came immediately to mind were Goku and Naruto. The thing that comes to mind is that both of them are not only characters that originated in Asia, but are martial arts-themed characters. Orange is also traditionally the color worn by Buddhist monks, so the use of orange may be a reference to martial arts movies. Which makes me wonder if the connotations of colors are different in other cultures?
I really wished to see the use of orange more at comic book characters. The only one I can think of is Hobgoblin, where it's a color that pops a lot more compared to the other colors he wears. I mean, I guess I could count feline characters such as Cheetah, Tigra and Puma, but usually those turn more to yellow so it's not always the case because covering the entire character in a very burning orange can make them look more like a big blurry spot on the book and hard for the reader to really distinguish their silhoeutte. It happened a lot with Spider-Man, his red was so alarming it would make him look more like a stop sign or a stain on the page, where you couldn't even see the web lining on the suit or his white eyes, which were made to be white specifically because of that.
Green Arrows' colorscheme works perfectly - besides the point that he's an Archer and most archers wear Green, that's just their signature color - but Green works the bestest for Oliver Queen and the kind of hero that he is. He's essentially a "White Knight" but altered - and when he needs to evade, Green works perfectly because it's not out-and-out Black, it has that hero-ish hue to it. Yellow, in my book, is an overused color for heroes. Same goes for Black (for villains), I'd like to see more villains wear White.
I seem to recall that the orange of Aquaman´s costume was inspired by/to resemble a goldfish. I personally love it since it is unique. However, and even though it is a fit with the character, it still weird given the fact that goldfish are fresh water fish.
Ahhh Purple... Skeletor has his Evil-Lyn, Magneto has Mystique, Miles has Vanessa, etc. Now analyzing Hess Toys Trucks: WHITE (for clean, opposite of black "dirty" oil), GREEN (for GO, Green, pleasing, welcoming?) and what about all that silver-chrome, what feeling does that give off? Shiny things! :)
Interesting, but I think you left out a very well known character in orange and purple: Mr. Mxyzptlk When that demon in a derby appears, you know its about to get weird. I will have to look into the books and other sources you mentioned
I think it's clever theming that heroes have primary colors and villains have secondary colors, but I've never really understood purple as a villain color. I've read that it's the color of royalty, so it represents undo ambition. I've read that it's the least common color in nature, so it represents the unnatural. Personally, I've always found it to be a very tranquil color. I mean, it's one that's used in a number of sleep aid products.
My law enforcement uniform is accented with a purple tie and purple ribbon our Stetson. The founder of our agency in 1917 stated that the Roman Pretorian guards used this color. It does set off our otherwise grey uniform, but you can always encounter some smart a$$ who identifies you as a “purple tie”. Fortunately we ditch tie in the summer. If it is a “bad guy” color, our first superintendent made a poor choice
I think it’s a dark color to denote evil, that’s also a pretty natural color, I think that’s basically it. Villains can’t be restricted to only wearing solid black for example…
I think the idea of using pruple and/or dark shade blue is to avoid covering the subject's details especially in a drawing consider characters like Darth Vader, Black Pather, and Batman in live action the lighting works great but at one time coloring all in black would look like a blotch
Golden Age Sandman in green and purple. Love it! Boomerang's costume is purple and blue. I always thought it looked heroic, although he obviously isn't--he was trouble even when he was with the Thunderbolts. Hawkeye got mistaken for a crook his first time out. I was looking through the Marvel Universe Master Edition (albeit I'm missing two issues) the other day, and the only character I noticed in orange and purple was Water Wizard, a villain. Mimic wore solid orange, but he didn't even live that long. Orange and green is a really common combination for a villain. I think Melter's original costume was changed to this because he looked too much like a hero's sidekick. The Unicorn and the Trapster also use this rather unpleasant combination. I think a lot of these color "rules" seem more applicable to Marvel than DC, where prominent heroes like Green Lantern and the Spectre wear green. The original Green Lantern even wore a purple cape! Although off the top of my head, apart from the three I mentioned, the only other characters I can think of at DC who wear green are Niles Caulder (who wears civilian clothes so it doesn't really count, and whose revealed nature during the Morrison run seemed rather villainous) and Geo-Force, who is kind of obscure--I don't know much about him. Probably the most famous hero in green is Robin. Of course that's counterbalanced with red and yellow. Metamorpho wears orange and purple, if that even counts as clothing. Brother Power wears orange and blue, and he himself is white and pure. Cliff Steele is orange, but people are also scared of him. I wonder if Etrigan's shift from yellow to orange skin in the 1990s had anything to do with such theories. He behaved a lot less like a superhero post-Kirby. I wonder if this theory has anything to do with Namor's green trunks in the 1960s. In the golden age, he wore black that was shaded with blue. By the time he got his own series, the highlight seems to have become a formal stripe. But Namor actually changed costumes quite regularly between 1939 and 1941, including to one with a yellow shirt, blue pants, and a red cape, which I would put up there with Gerber's '70s design. for favorite Namor costume. The green trunks in 1960s Marvel shout villain.
The Sandman later switched to a purple and yellow costume that was also swiped by a hero called the Tarantula. Of course, purple and yellow are complementary colors, whereas orange is off.
Sonic the Hedgehog, famous for being calm and trustworthy, unless you've seen him ever. Especially his movie, where he's basically the biggest criminal Earth has ever known.
I don't think Scott that this color theory applies for all action figure brands. For example GI Joe with alley vipers repaints in blue , yellow, which are the bad guys. How about disco skeletor? maybe this was the the professional approach but as everything these days what it used to be a rule on how to do things is probably not the same today because designers take liberties...💡
You can see a bit of a different take on this with Japanese heroes. They use a lot of greens and reds, and have lately even given male super heroes a pink and blue color costume. My Hero Academia is a good example of how different countries see super heroes. You have the character All Might who initially wears a red, white, yellow, and blue costume and has a lot of American sayings with his attacks because he sort of represents the idea of the American comic book hero. He's huge, muscular, always saves the day, and has a flashy outfit. Then you have the main character, Deku, who wears a green, black, and white outfit, which is more common with tokusatsu heroes like Kamen Rider. Then there's One Punch Man, which sort of pokes fun at heroes in general and notes the thin line between good and bad. The main character there wears a yellow jumpsuit with red gloves and boots, a white cape, and has a bald head. Certainly not the first thought you have when thinking of super hero looks, but it works after you see the character in action in this kind of silly situation. I think the character's actions drive home whether or not they are good or bad, because there are some who appear to be bad because of their demeanor or look, but then turn out to be heroes. The ones that subvert our expectations are of the more interesting ones to me.
Funny enough, just had a conversation about this at work today. I mentioned that Con in conman meant confidence. A regular customer hearing this says to me that Orange is the colour of confidence. Does that sound right? I also mentioned to him about the colour scheme in superheroes, knowing a little about this from before. Then I see this video! Too cool 😎
Hmm… Original 13 GI Joes 11 are mostly green, but “Modern Army Action Figures”, so fine. Dr Mindbender, Tele-Vipers, and Techno-Vipers predominately purple…okay… HEAT-Vipers orange and purple would imply crazy and dangerous since they absolutely advertise that they have man portable anti-tank rocket launchers!
Classic psylocke, both the original white woman and the Asian one, had pinks and purple for their scheme. But Betsy did come across as mysterious and sometimes an anti-hero, even before the problematic body issues.
Blue and purple for Hawkeye might be because he started out as a villain in the comics and none of the costumes artists tried other than that just looked weird.
To answer the thumbnail's question, "why don't superheroes wear orange & purple?" Well, they probably went to a school that often lost to the Clemson Tigers, or were fans of teams that lost to the Phoenix Suns.
Harley Quinn is popular when she is attractive from original to the video game Arkham one. Ronald McDonald would be popular if red or yellow were enough. I think Green Lantern or Hulk like the only green characters I'm really a fan of or into at all. Purple is the color of royalty. I know from doing zones for MUD it was limiting on what colors can even use or how many per line. I would be a bigger fan of heroes if they had cooler color schemes. Though part of me prefers the classic Johnny Blue Ghost Rider outfit over the later Black Leather. Even though it looks cooler its not quite the same classical feel. I"m not really a fan of blue at all while certain shades of green were my favorite color like the toxic Commodore Gcomm over darker hues heh.
I think the whole color scheme thing works about as well as astrology. Punisher, Death from DC Vertigo and Black Adam are all black and white, so they should be similar to one another. One of the top 3 comic book characters of all time, Spider-Man has appeared in virtually every color pattern imaginable. Just that one character destroys this entire argument. And putting Reed Richards, who I hate more than virtually everyone in comics, in the same boat as Sue Richards, who I love and ship with Cyclops, since you asked, is just wrong.
the Hulk argument doesn't work if your audience has someone who knows the Hulk didn't start out green and purple. He was made green later for reasons that have nothing to do with your argument. You might as well claim that they shot Robocop to cash in on the MCU movies. I mean, dudes in metal suits, right ?
It's human nature to FIND patterns where there are none. You can find thousands of examples where that's true. For every single character that fits the pattern, I can find a character that doesn't fit the pattern. That's what we call "50 / 50 booking", or "NOT A REAL THING". I still love you, though. But it's like arguing that every character in He-Man with a sword is a good guy, because He-Man is a good guy. Or every character who wears a mask in GI Joe is a bad guy, because Beachhead is garbage and looking at him just makes me want to ..... er, I mean, Storm Shadow is a bad guy. If you're old enough. Because then he's not a bad guy. But then, he is again. Fun fact; Freddy Keruger wears red and green because red and green together make us uncomfortable. Take that, Christmas !
Just an FYI; your purple and orange "hero" @ 7:39 is a character used to promote the Orange Order, a hate-filled organisation with ties to the KKK. Hero to few, villain to many.
Put MOTU villains together you get a rainbow of sorts. Put MOTU heroes together - few exceptions, they look like they dress the American flag colors. Was it on purpose?
Harley Quinn did NOT wear red and blue until fairly recently. Her classic costume is Black, red and white, recalling a deck of cards.
And that change pretty much directly correlates with her transition from villain to anti-hero.
I’d argue that DC only really started to prominently color Harley Quinn with red and blue when they started marketing her as an anti-hero. Supervillain Harley always wore red and black, but the blue gives her a bit of a heroic flare and this works better for her more modern anti-hero characterization.
Dude this guy has been reading dc for decades and has worked on a entire dc action figure line! I’m pretty sure he know Harley Quinn’s color scheme…..
@@coywarrior71 so what, are you saying that Scott intentionally misidentified her core color scheme? Because if we go by the words he chose and the pictures he used, Scott is mistaken.
As for your appeal to authority… Being a lifelong comic reader makes no difference here. Harley first appeared in the 90s. And not in a comic book.
Perhaps most importantly, Scott got Harley’s colors wrong in that DC-centric toy line you mentioned. Her mime-white face was depicted as a weird baby blue.
If anything, Scott has a long history of being wrong about Harley Quinn.
The deck is based on ancient kings.
Superheros never wear orange and purple:
-Metamorpho (DC): ohh, crap
I remember the story how Stan Lee told us why he'd switched The Hulk's color from Grey to Green. Once Stan Lee was told Green was easy to produces, many characters utilizes the color green because of that, to help with the printing cost.
I'd heard that part of that, too, was that grey was inconsistent, difficult to produce uniformly.
@@TitularHeroine mostly 'cause Grey was too expensive to inked on paper back then. Then Stan asked what are cheapest color to produce, they told him Green and Purple. So Stan made sure to switch Hulk to green, and focus on using Green and Purple for any new characters.
I've also heard that story as well.
Hawkeye started out as a villain so it makes sense that his colors would clash with all of the heroes.
Great vid. Another way to say it, is that colors which are ALMOST complementary, but not quite - like purple & orange, or purple & green - are disturbing because they’re ALMOST correct & harmonious, but they’re not quite right. So they feel sickly and disgusting. Perfect for villains. :)
The timing on this is crazy. My little kid asked me just yesterday afternoon why there isn't an orange Power Ranger and why the only purple one is the evil one who kills all the other Rangers...
Thanks for sharing, this was some great content regarding color theory. I’m glad you included Scrapper from Transformers when discussing the relationship of green and purple.
If anyone wants to take a deep dive into advanced color theory on toys-things like tertiary colors, split complementary, triadic, square, and rectangle schemes-I’d recommend looking at Decepticons from 1986-1988.
After the 84 and 85 lines, and before the neon 90s, Hasbro really got into mixing purple, violet, teal, and pink with yellow and dark blue. However, the Autobots mostly maintained primary and secondary color schemes throughout all of G1.
Might be a cool video idea for the Toy Guru to compare the traditional, primary toy colors of the 80s vs the bright, neon colors of the 90s.
I will certainly add that to the list!
Brainiac 5, Legion of Super-Heroes, another early green/purple combo. But he's redeeming the name.
Makes sense why there's always a Red, Blue, and Yellow Ranger in every Power Ranger team since those three colors represent heroes. (Yellow is missing in two teams but are usually there.) The other remaining team colors aren't always the same. Interesting video for sure.
Really interesting topic, I should experiment with colors on a few of my own Characters.
I first noticed this with M.A.S.K. and Transformers collections. Generally, the good guys are all warmer colors, and the bad guys are all cooler colors. And of course, good old Decepticon Purple. :)
I never got this in-depth into it. I did notice that a lot of heroic comic book characters (and Optimus Prime!) use red, white, and blue - Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain America (of course!), and Spider-Man.
Hah, purple and orange Joker and making you feel uneasy. This must be why it's also Halloween colors!
Love these later videos!
Man I was not expecting a Transformers reference in here. Scrapper and the Constructicons work great in purple in green.
Don’t they!
When I get my superpowers my costume will be orange & purple to confuse the bad guys
And that's why I prefer the color scheme Batman sported in the Silver Age. Sure, there was grey, but blue and yellow!
The Phantom wears a purple costume which falls outside of the typical color schemes for heroes. Now that I think about it, the title of The Ghost who walks is passed from father to son along a wealthy bloodline like a crown, which could indicate a representation of a type of royalty, I guess.
in scandinavia he is blu, and for a coupel of decades he out sould Batman, Superman and all outher superheroes.
in a lot of school materiel he is still used for words whit F. (he is cald Fantomet in Denamark) wich confues a lot of childen becuse no child born after 1995 haver ever herd of him
One of my favorite figures that doesn't fit this catagory is the MAXX he was mainly purple and he was the hero.
But the MAXX was so monstrous in appearance that *new readers* were uncertain of his _goodness_ (until they'd read the book, that is). The Maxx I remember had a purple and yellow-orange costume with an ogre-like overbite and gloves with huge spikes.
My only experience with The Maxx so far -- other than the two action figures -- has been with the MTV cartoon. Bloody marvellous. I still get a smile every time I remember "They got SQUID."
This was excellent, thank you for covering this subject.
As part of my Graphic Design MA, I undertook a typological analysis of the colours from my album artwork collection (then approx. 2000) calculating their percentages. Unsurprisingly, black and red predominated, with pink and purple being least common. Though this may have been equally telling about my musical tastes!
Anywho, this upload reminded me of it - another interesting vid Scott :)
In real life, vehicles like police cars probably use yellow simply for visibility: a way to catch the eye. Old-school black-and-white units (neutral color scheme, similar to gray and silver) probably blend into the background. (There's a theory that James Dean died in a vehicle collision due to his silver/gray car not being all that visible to the other driver.) Also, there were attempts to change the color of fire trucks from the traditional red to either yellow or white so they'd be more visible (especially at night).
that the resaon New York Taxis are yellow, to catch the eye
This is a great and informative video. Top tier!
It is also important to note that a number of the combinations are derived from complementary adjacent pairings. Whereas straight up complementary pairs can look very garish, bumping one of them to the side is more tolerable, such as blue with yellow and purple with orange. Much sadness about green and purple, as I like both of those colors, though I kind of think of them more in terms of plants, with a lot of green and a little purple.
Nobody more pure than Emma Frost.
Excellent video! Extremely interesting!
Very interestingvideo. I am fascinated with the color sheme of Hobgoblin and the thought behind that.
What are your thoughts on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 🥷 🐢 colors 🤔? In the original comics they wear red bandanas, but later media they have different colors for each 🐢 Turtle. Do you think the colors match their individual character?
Fascinating! Thank you, Scott :)
3:26 "With green there's only one guy." I love you do death, but you're off by like 5 to 6 thousand Green Lanterns. They even have a talking tree and raccoon.
*Guardians Of The Galaxy intensifies*
awsome & informative vid brother,great job.
Well thank you. I was really happy with this one
Thanks I've always wondered about y they put characters in such color schemes especially green & purple
Thats really interesting! I'm slightly colorblind, so I never really had the ability to notice this before. Thanks, Scott!
Darkseid in blue STILL looks like he has come to ruin your life and everything that you stand for; and there’s nothing you can do about it. Amazing what red eyes can do. It shows how revealing they are, even in real life.
Regarding orange, I was involved in a discussion recently on an internet forum regarding characters who wear orange, and the two that came immediately to mind were Goku and Naruto. The thing that comes to mind is that both of them are not only characters that originated in Asia, but are martial arts-themed characters. Orange is also traditionally the color worn by Buddhist monks, so the use of orange may be a reference to martial arts movies. Which makes me wonder if the connotations of colors are different in other cultures?
I really wished to see the use of orange more at comic book characters. The only one I can think of is Hobgoblin, where it's a color that pops a lot more compared to the other colors he wears. I mean, I guess I could count feline characters such as Cheetah, Tigra and Puma, but usually those turn more to yellow so it's not always the case because covering the entire character in a very burning orange can make them look more like a big blurry spot on the book and hard for the reader to really distinguish their silhoeutte. It happened a lot with Spider-Man, his red was so alarming it would make him look more like a stop sign or a stain on the page, where you couldn't even see the web lining on the suit or his white eyes, which were made to be white specifically because of that.
The orange and purple combination just reminds my of the hideous school colors of my university.
Green Arrows' colorscheme works perfectly - besides the point that he's an Archer and most archers wear Green, that's just their signature color - but Green works the bestest for Oliver Queen and the kind of hero that he is. He's essentially a "White Knight" but altered - and when he needs to evade, Green works perfectly because it's not out-and-out Black, it has that hero-ish hue to it.
Yellow, in my book, is an overused color for heroes. Same goes for Black (for villains), I'd like to see more villains wear White.
Plus he is Robin Hood
I seem to recall that the orange of Aquaman´s costume was inspired by/to resemble a goldfish. I personally love it since it is unique. However, and even though it is a fit with the character, it still weird given the fact that goldfish are fresh water fish.
Ahhh Purple... Skeletor has his Evil-Lyn, Magneto has Mystique, Miles has Vanessa, etc. Now analyzing Hess Toys Trucks: WHITE (for clean, opposite of black "dirty" oil), GREEN (for GO, Green, pleasing, welcoming?) and what about all that silver-chrome, what feeling does that give off? Shiny things! :)
Interesting, but I think you left out a very well known character in orange and purple: Mr. Mxyzptlk When that demon in a derby appears, you know its about to get weird. I will have to look into the books and other sources you mentioned
I think it's clever theming that heroes have primary colors and villains have secondary colors, but I've never really understood purple as a villain color. I've read that it's the color of royalty, so it represents undo ambition. I've read that it's the least common color in nature, so it represents the unnatural. Personally, I've always found it to be a very tranquil color. I mean, it's one that's used in a number of sleep aid products.
My law enforcement uniform is accented with a purple tie and purple ribbon our Stetson. The founder of our agency in 1917 stated that the Roman Pretorian guards used this color. It does set off our otherwise grey uniform, but you can always encounter some smart a$$ who identifies you as a “purple tie”. Fortunately we ditch tie in the summer. If it is a “bad guy” color, our first superintendent made a poor choice
I think it’s a dark color to denote evil, that’s also a pretty natural color, I think that’s basically it. Villains can’t be restricted to only wearing solid black for example…
I think the idea of using pruple and/or dark shade blue is to avoid covering the subject's details especially in a drawing consider characters like Darth Vader, Black Pather, and Batman in live action the lighting works great but at one time coloring all in black would look like a blotch
Purple is the most villanous/mysterious color that exists. How can't you see that?
What about The Wonder Twins?
This isn’t a universal rule and their will be exceptions of course!
Golden Age Sandman in green and purple. Love it! Boomerang's costume is purple and blue. I always thought it looked heroic, although he obviously isn't--he was trouble even when he was with the Thunderbolts. Hawkeye got mistaken for a crook his first time out. I was looking through the Marvel Universe Master Edition (albeit I'm missing two issues) the other day, and the only character I noticed in orange and purple was Water Wizard, a villain. Mimic wore solid orange, but he didn't even live that long. Orange and green is a really common combination for a villain. I think Melter's original costume was changed to this because he looked too much like a hero's sidekick. The Unicorn and the Trapster also use this rather unpleasant combination. I think a lot of these color "rules" seem more applicable to Marvel than DC, where prominent heroes like Green Lantern and the Spectre wear green. The original Green Lantern even wore a purple cape! Although off the top of my head, apart from the three I mentioned, the only other characters I can think of at DC who wear green are Niles Caulder (who wears civilian clothes so it doesn't really count, and whose revealed nature during the Morrison run seemed rather villainous) and Geo-Force, who is kind of obscure--I don't know much about him. Probably the most famous hero in green is Robin. Of course that's counterbalanced with red and yellow.
Metamorpho wears orange and purple, if that even counts as clothing. Brother Power wears orange and blue, and he himself is white and pure. Cliff Steele is orange, but people are also scared of him. I wonder if Etrigan's shift from yellow to orange skin in the 1990s had anything to do with such theories. He behaved a lot less like a superhero post-Kirby.
I wonder if this theory has anything to do with Namor's green trunks in the 1960s. In the golden age, he wore black that was shaded with blue. By the time he got his own series, the highlight seems to have become a formal stripe. But Namor actually changed costumes quite regularly between 1939 and 1941, including to one with a yellow shirt, blue pants, and a red cape, which I would put up there with Gerber's '70s design. for favorite Namor costume. The green trunks in 1960s Marvel shout villain.
The Sandman later switched to a purple and yellow costume that was also swiped by a hero called the Tarantula. Of course, purple and yellow are complementary colors, whereas orange is off.
And keep in mind Namor was a villain for a while
When in the New Warriors, Nova wore a brown version of his original costume for a while, until Night Thrasher gave him a new blue and gold version.
Yup which made him look more like a cop
From what I'm told, Japan uses Purple and White as colors of evil.
Also I believe in Billy Batson Captain Marvel.
2:18 Thanos the famous heroic character. Maybe he and Hulk should change outfits.
Sonic the Hedgehog, famous for being calm and trustworthy, unless you've seen him ever. Especially his movie, where he's basically the biggest criminal Earth has ever known.
I don't think Scott that this color theory applies for all action figure brands. For example GI Joe with alley vipers repaints in blue , yellow, which are the bad guys. How about disco skeletor? maybe this was the the professional approach but as everything these days what it used to be a rule on how to do things is probably not the same today because designers take liberties...💡
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Green, red and purple were Beast Boy's original color... but he dropped the purple in the late 70s/early 80s.
You can see a bit of a different take on this with Japanese heroes. They use a lot of greens and reds, and have lately even given male super heroes a pink and blue color costume. My Hero Academia is a good example of how different countries see super heroes. You have the character All Might who initially wears a red, white, yellow, and blue costume and has a lot of American sayings with his attacks because he sort of represents the idea of the American comic book hero. He's huge, muscular, always saves the day, and has a flashy outfit. Then you have the main character, Deku, who wears a green, black, and white outfit, which is more common with tokusatsu heroes like Kamen Rider. Then there's One Punch Man, which sort of pokes fun at heroes in general and notes the thin line between good and bad. The main character there wears a yellow jumpsuit with red gloves and boots, a white cape, and has a bald head. Certainly not the first thought you have when thinking of super hero looks, but it works after you see the character in action in this kind of silly situation. I think the character's actions drive home whether or not they are good or bad, because there are some who appear to be bad because of their demeanor or look, but then turn out to be heroes. The ones that subvert our expectations are of the more interesting ones to me.
Yes, very different culture and color meanings
Funny enough, just had a conversation about this at work today. I mentioned that Con in conman meant confidence.
A regular customer hearing this says to me that Orange is the colour of confidence. Does that sound right?
I also mentioned to him about the colour scheme in superheroes, knowing a little about this from before. Then I see this video! Too cool 😎
Orange is the color of convicts
@@anthonybernero9720 haha
Not that kind of con man!
Lol orange order man... amazing.
Not often you see Northern Irish weirdness on these toy channels
Not often indeed
Hmm… Original 13 GI Joes 11 are mostly green, but “Modern Army Action Figures”, so fine.
Dr Mindbender, Tele-Vipers, and Techno-Vipers predominately purple…okay…
HEAT-Vipers orange and purple would imply crazy and dangerous since they absolutely advertise that they have man portable anti-tank rocket launchers!
Donatello and michaelangelo wears orange and purple
Classic psylocke, both the original white woman and the Asian one, had pinks and purple for their scheme. But Betsy did come across as mysterious and sometimes an anti-hero, even before the problematic body issues.
Exactly. Same with Hawkeye
I created a super hero who was yellow orange and purple when I was a lad. He was a parody character funny enough.
whats about green and yellow?
or something a little more advanced green yellow and some grey (or green and grey?)
Blue and purple for Hawkeye might be because he started out as a villain in the comics and none of the costumes artists tried other than that just looked weird.
To answer the thumbnail's question, "why don't superheroes wear orange & purple?"
Well, they probably went to a school that often lost to the Clemson Tigers, or were fans of teams that lost to the Phoenix Suns.
Harley Quinn is popular when she is attractive from original to the video game Arkham one. Ronald McDonald would be popular if red or yellow were enough. I think Green Lantern or Hulk like the only green characters I'm really a fan of or into at all. Purple is the color of royalty. I know from doing zones for MUD it was limiting on what colors can even use or how many per line. I would be a bigger fan of heroes if they had cooler color schemes. Though part of me prefers the classic Johnny Blue Ghost Rider outfit over the later Black Leather. Even though it looks cooler its not quite the same classical feel. I"m not really a fan of blue at all while certain shades of green were my favorite color like the toxic Commodore Gcomm over darker hues heh.
So the mighty spectre is a secretly an evil warrior?
I thought I was the only person who noticed this.
what about green and yellow?
I noticed a lot of Spider-Man's villains wear green a lot
And purple!
@@spectorcreative1872 yep
I think the whole color scheme thing works about as well as astrology. Punisher, Death from DC Vertigo and Black Adam are all black and white, so they should be similar to one another. One of the top 3 comic book characters of all time, Spider-Man has appeared in virtually every color pattern imaginable. Just that one character destroys this entire argument. And putting Reed Richards, who I hate more than virtually everyone in comics, in the same boat as Sue Richards, who I love and ship with Cyclops, since you asked, is just wrong.
2:15 ah yes Thanos my favorite superhero
Purple and orange? Unlucky Thanos you're outta here!!🙄
Pretty much
7:36 so that's why many found the wonder twins nauseating.
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Historically, German police wore green - just like Green Lantern, the space cop.
Point taken!
Blue and orange.
Speedball
Did he say heroes rarely wear red blue(+white)?? Citing Harley??
As a counter example!
the Hulk argument doesn't work if your audience has someone who knows the Hulk didn't start out green and purple. He was made green later for reasons that have nothing to do with your argument. You might as well claim that they shot Robocop to cash in on the MCU movies. I mean, dudes in metal suits, right ?
Goku (dragon ball) have an orange with purple gi and looks more heroic than all marvel universe heroes.
Marvel's villains are Green and Purple, DC's Heroes are Purple and Green as a general trend.
And this video is about why!
It's human nature to FIND patterns where there are none. You can find thousands of examples where that's true. For every single character that fits the pattern, I can find a character that doesn't fit the pattern. That's what we call "50 / 50 booking", or "NOT A REAL THING". I still love you, though. But it's like arguing that every character in He-Man with a sword is a good guy, because He-Man is a good guy. Or every character who wears a mask in GI Joe is a bad guy, because Beachhead is garbage and looking at him just makes me want to ..... er, I mean, Storm Shadow is a bad guy. If you're old enough. Because then he's not a bad guy. But then, he is again. Fun fact; Freddy Keruger wears red and green because red and green together make us uncomfortable. Take that, Christmas !
The Thing feels really insulted right now.
doesn't the joker wear orange purple and green
Yes. Did you watch the video?
Just an FYI; your purple and orange "hero" @ 7:39 is a character used to promote the Orange Order, a hate-filled organisation with ties to the KKK. Hero to few, villain to many.
Put MOTU villains together you get a rainbow of sorts.
Put MOTU heroes together - few exceptions, they look like they dress the American flag colors.
Was it on purpose?
100%. Just look at optimus prime
Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, gets my vote for worse superhero costume colour scheme.
Hobgoblin
Not a hero.
Goku says otherwise..
Well their are exceptions