Re: The First Avenger: Captain America Discussion Thread
With regard to Captain America I don't think anything has been made obvious (at least as far as the links posted in this thread are concerned) about whether they'll follow the Ultimates reboot of the character or not. Sam Jackson in Iron Man for two seconds is obviously straight out of the Ultimates but Tony Stark being caucasian and the design of his suit are not.
As I said clearly, the designs of the suits were always meant to follow a more 616 design from the get go. As for the Ultimates universe, you either do not read the Ultimates books or have forgotten many of the obvious tie ins. In the 616 world, Iron Man could put the suit on himself, in fact now its portable while in the Ultimates world he needed a whole team of machines to fasten and tighten his suit, not to mention it was only charged to run on a limited amount of time, a fact that we heard in the film as well. Also in the Ultimates world, Nick Fury contracts Stark not only as Iron Man but to provide the tech to help create the Ultimates, the scene we saw eluded to in the after credits scene. Tony Stark was not cascasian in the Ultimates world, he was Latino but if you've read Card's stuff they've downplayed that a bit and in the Ultimates world he suffers from a brain tumor that isn't operable not a heart condition....again difference do occur but its obvious if you read the first arc of the Ultimates and see just how the team was assembled in modern times not to mention that the Hulk storyline directly borrows from that in having Banner working on a Super Soldier Serum to try and recreate what was done in the past and having to be taken down by Ross as we are seeing in the trailer as well is directly from the Ultimates Team Ups that occurred pre-Ultimates #1....
The connections and links are clear there are more in the various threads but I'm too lazy to name or find them all and they are following that continuity but wanting to keep the 616 origins in order to make them modern as Ultimates has done but still recognizable to hardcore fans.
As for Captain America he'd had his share of redesigns in costuming, the only differences is that he held a type of costume regularly for a good amount of time, but some DC fans would argue the Blue/Grey Neal Adams Batman which held long time cross over continuity and even the Neal Adams or Swan Superman would follow that same line.
A Marvel fan could not argue that many of Kirby's designs are the iconic most recognized looks that were just modified by artists like Romita Sr and that they should have kept that, look at Alex Ross' work which is heavily inspired from the Silver Age but if you are arguing that Superman and Spider-Man kept true to the original recognizable designs then you haven't read the uproar when the first film's Spider-Man costuming was announced or even how many fans disliked the Christopher Reeve look down to the "S" that differs from the standard Comic S and let's not get into Superman Returns.
A redesign of Cap will happen like it or not because the looks themselves of Spandex do not in any way make sense in the modern world. Superman's look was tampered with as much as would be allowed in reality but as the X-Men showed the spandex costume design isn't one that Marvel is hellbent on keeping intact. The good news is with Spider-Man we got a classic look modernized as we did with Iron Man so I fully expect that the film Captain America will be fully 616 inspired but will in no way be what we got from Sideshow in PF form.
Lastly, look at the first real arc of the Ultimates, it was about forming the team and rediscovering Captain America who was thought lost forever after 1942. It reintroduces him to society who has forgotten him (his meeting with Bucky was great) and it uses the comedy of him having to assimulate into modern society but still having 1940s morals and attitudes. I do not see the writers moving away from what Millar has done so beautifully. His comics play out perfectly on screen as well they should since he said he attacked them like a screenplay and not a comic.