Looking at 1980s X-men comic books, I notice so many characters had blue hair, for example, Wolverine, Beast, Mr.Sinister, and tons of no-name extras. Probably this goes beyond the X-men, but that’s the comic I have in front of me to verify this phenomenon. I suspect it had something to do with the available color pallet. Typically the hair is actually blue and black. Does anyone have a definitive answer why so many characters had blue hair?
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5Hi, welcome to SF&F. You could improve this question by adding a few images that show what you're looking at, and by identifying specific issues that this question applies to.– DavidWMay 25, 2021 at 3:04
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1In Marvel comics, this always seemed less noticeable to me as an artistic convention than the flattened shapes of the fingertips.– user2490May 25, 2021 at 18:51
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1 Answer
It's a long-time comics convention, not just used by Marvel. The hair is actually black but to avoid a solid black patch on the page the highlights are depicted in a contrasting colour, usually blue. There was a 1985 DC mini-series called Superman: The Secret Years in which the highlights were brown, not blue, which to my eyes at least looked odd. Here's the cover of the first issue:
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5in other words, the characters have black hair with really glossy blue hair-gel on? ;)– ilkkachuMay 25, 2021 at 13:03
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5Maybe true for Wolverine or Mr. Sinister. Beast, however, is explicitly blue. May 25, 2021 at 13:28
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2@ilkkachu Not necessarily even blue gel. Depending on the lighting and the composition of the gel itself, the gloss can look blue even though the gel is not, though this is usually not as blatant in real life as it is in the comics. May 25, 2021 at 22:18