The Avengers 2: Casting Ms. Marvel’s Costume…

Emily Blunt? Ruth Wilson? — according to Bleeding Cool, either one of these lovely leading ladies could be up for the role of Ms. Marvel in the next Avengers movie.

Blunt was recently seen in ‘Looper’, Wilson’s shot here is from the always excellent ‘Luther’…

Of course, a more crucial decision to legions of fanboys is less who’ll be portraying Carol Danvers (Ms. M’s alter-ego), but which outfit that actress will be expected to fill out. Because she’s had a bunch, and they range from cheese-cakey to pretty damned atrocious. Assuming they base it at least tangentially on one of Ms. Marvel’s costumes during her rich comics history, Emily Blunt, Ruth Wilson, or some other lucky gal will be expected to pull off something like:

1.] “The Knock-Off With Randomly Bare Midriff.”

In the comics, Carol Danvers gets her powers from events surrounding the confusingly named Captain Marvel (see, that’s also the name of the DC Comics hero sometimes known as “Shazam”; the Marvel Captain Marvel is a human-looking alien with a sweet ’70s haircut). This, Ms. Marvel’s first costume, is basically derivative of her male counterpart , but with an awkward triangular panel exposing her belly button. No points for originality and not exactly striking. (Oh, but the neck scarf is cool.) Thankfully only lasted about 8 issues of her original series.

2.] “Slightly More Conservative Knock-Off.”

Same, but without the midriff cut-out. Better.

3.] “The Classic.”

For most of her 35 years as a Marvel comics mainstay, Ms. Marvel’s been wearing this number — black body suit, yellow bolt symbol (less lightning, and more like Zorro slashed her with a paint brush), thigh boots, and red sash. I’ll admit it — I love that sash.

4.] “I’m Super Serious, Guys, Really.”

This costume, which appeared in the recent relaunch, is pretty snappy, sprucing up the original with the sash (love the sash!) and invoking a more serious feel with some military elements. Alas, it loses some of the wolf-whistle factor that The Classic evokes, but may well work better in a “real” movie setting.

There are a couple more — an impostor posting as Ms. Marvel wore a version of The Knock Off for a while, for instance. Oh, and the “I’ve Lost My Memory and My Powers Changed and I live in Space and I’m Kind of on Fire” phase , in which she was known as Binary and wore a sort of space-cadet version of The Classic. But those are dark horse candidates. I’m guessing fans are hoping for something based on #3 (guilty), but should #4, or some sort of new, practical costume emerge, at least we always have in our back pocket that Ms. M’s classic costume is pretty popular with cosplayers. That new one? Not so much… at least not yet.

[Editor’s Note – Personally I’m pulling for the classic, and as much as I like Wilson and Blunt, Yvonne Strahovski still gets my vote…]

Images: Marvel Comics, BBC