What it all boils down to at this point is that whatever the true color of the "black" in the picture being printed  is depends on the perspective of the viewer.  In a few words, a highly subjective judgement.  For those of us who're wrangling over the question of "Black or Blue", it seems to be "Damn the limitations of material and budget, RAMMING SPEED!"

   Ai, ai, ai...

   Now that we're printing on better paper with more precise equipment and finer grades of ink, we should all be happy to view Spider-Man ans Superman with their blacks highlighted by the appropriate shades of gray (or whatever the ambient light source happens to be).

Macy's Spider-Man balloon from the Thanksgiving Day Parade:

I suppose this would indicate what the public sees as the costume's color. And yet if it were black would any "civilian" complain? Would it look so weird to them as to elicit comment?

••

Bear in min that those early Shuster drawings were for reproduction in
black and white. The shading on Superman's costume was there
because they wanted to distinguish the colors in a newspaper daily, not a
full color comicbook.

Oh, I wasn't referring to the shading, I was referring to the design of the costume.

Even though the Superman emblem was originally just the letter s, does that make it the better one?

Even though Spider-Man's costume was originally Black and red, does that make it the better one?

My point is that for the majority of time, Spider-Man's costume was blue and red, and Superman's costume had the emblem with the red border.  This why I think they are the "true" costumes.

••

As long as we're playing this game, it's worth noting yet again that the
pure blue of the balloon's color is not accurate, either. Spider-Man of
that vintage still had the mixed colors that made that part of his costume
slightly more purple than blue. As I mentioned upthread, it was basically
the mix for caucasian skin tones, with blue added.

There's a rather notorious shot from the Andru days, where Spider-Man
leaps into (as I recall) the bedroom of a startled young woman, and due to
the blue being missing on the leggings of his costume, looks for all the
world as if he doesn't have pants on.

Even though the Superman emblem was originally just the letter s, does that
make it the better one?

••

Ah, the old "I'm Losing the Argument, So I'll Change it" ploy. How dull.

Enjoy being on my IGNORE list.

I didn't think I was changing the arguement.

I apologize.

Actually, I didn't even think this was an arguement.  More like two people having different opinions.

again, sorry if I offended you.

From the latest issue of Ms. Marvel (Ms. Marvel #47) Spider-Man's costume is colored red & black throughout the entire issue, no blue highlights.

_______________________

It looks good that way.

Yeah, I noticed John Romita Jr. has been drawing him red and black.

Maybe this is a new trend.

I think people are paying too much attention to color. A comic book (if we ignore the modern computerized colors) have always been in black and white. All comics have been in black and white, no color, that's what you look at. That's why black is printed separately. Then, to enhance the comic book, you splash on some color. It has to be used in a way, so it it doesn't "touch" the blck and white art. This is where modern colorists sometimes error I believe, but it's beyond the scope of my knowledge. If we remove the black ink, all we get is color blur, we don't get a CMYK or RGB section of a photo or anything like that. It's the same with the NTSC TV, you watch a black and white TV picture, a tiny piece of it is chopped off for color, and on VHS the piece was degraded further so it was an even tinier piece. So some of you are looking at colors to heavily in my opinion. If there is an error in b&w, be my guest, but that a shade should represent real blue, no.

Added: Next time I hear about blue hair or even Spider-Man blue, I 'm going toask him if he sees people walking around in black outlines as well.