...there are those who have argued that Storm's original costume was,
indeed, white.

****

Perhaps if Ororo had been called Black Storm, ...

   Having stumbled into this thread after seeing it pop back up every now and then, I've decided to leave my two cents at the door...

   I'm with those who argue the blue highlights due to the limitations of the comicbook color palette and printing materials at the time in which the characters (be they Spider-Man or Black Panther or Superman) were introduced in publication.  At least until the introduction of higher quality Baxter paper during the mid-1980s, comics used -- what, 64 combinations of process red, blue and yellow?  Even after the expansion of the palette to 126 colors or so, there was quite a bit of "mud", as professionals would put it.  The default highlight color for black remained... dark blue.

   For this reason, I guess I'm like Terry Austin in JB's earier reply: Fred Flintstone, not George Jetson.

   Yet, when I began designing certain characters for my own comicbook concepts and artwork within the last decade or so, I've come to look to photographic references and can use either primarily blue or red highlights for those black hairs.  Case in point: Mary Jane Watson.

   Nearly every pic of MJ that I've seen throughout her appearances in Spider-Man comics has her with a darker red (almost a maroon or brick-red) highlight to her hair, which is drawn with lots of black areas in it.  I guess this adds a "Red or Black" wrinkle to the whole debate.  My guess is that MJ is really a very dark auburn with very shiny hair.

   The character that I created is a Japanese teenager who adopted fashion of applying a slight bleaching effect to her hair so that it'd look the same: reddish highlights in very dark hair.  It was a fashion adopted by many Japanese women during the 1990s (the rumor being that they soaked their hair in soda-pop to bleach out the dark pigments).  Hence, the abundance of hot redheads in Japanese animated serials and comics.

Even after the expansion of the palette to 126 colors or so, there was quite a bit of "mud", as professionals would put it.  The default highlight color for black remained... dark blue.

I disagree completely. When they intouduced color film in the theatres in Sweden they were told to change everything. But in fact, when color movies were starting to look good again, that's when they started to shoot in "black and white". You should not change the blue highlights beacause of a new quality paper. But you should check how much color ink the paper will suck up. A toilet paper excuse me will suck up too much ink, while a glossy paper will suck up less.

Here is a very early Ditko pin up of Spider-Man.

He, the costume designer, even drew him blue.

••

Close enough.

Funny thing about this is, I have never seen or read anyone arguing that
MJ has black hair. When Kirsten Dunst dyed her hair red for the Spider-
Man movies, there were, so far as I was aware, no outraged fans
demanding that she dye it black. There are some places, it seems, where
people can read the highlight color and know it to be the "true" color, yet
some places where they can't. Here, Superman's hair springs to mind. I
really have encountered people arguing quite strenuously, and despite all
logic, that he has blue hair. Their brains seem unable to flip back and
forth between two "settings" -- Here the highlight color is the true color,
here it isn't.

Where it gets really crazy, tho, as noted upthread, is when we find
people insisting Storm's original costume was white, despite the fact that
90% of it was black. What puzzles me, again as noted, is why I, as a kid
starting out reading comics, was able to make these intuitive leaps --
Superman has black hair, the X-Men wore black and yellow "school
uniforms", Spider-Man's costume was black and red, etc -- without any
prompting. I simply knew.

Many times, I think there is a genuine perversity at work. Consciously or
unconsciously, those who argue the wrong side of the point do so
deliberately so as to "stand out from the herd mentality."

Well, y'know, it's generally a good idea to go with the herd, when the
herd is right!

He, the costume designer, even drew him blue.

••

Actually, he drew him white. Ditko was not the colorist.

And here's an even EARLIER drawing of the character, also by Ditko.

Ditko dropped the blacks to save time, which is the same reason
Batman's costume changed from black to "blue".

That page neatly demonstrates Ditko's original intent, in fact. Parker's
trousers are left open for color, except where in shadow. As it happenes,
the colorist picked blue. Could have picked just about any shade, but
here it serves to show that Parker is wearing blue trousers, while Spider-
Man's costume is black.

Here's a point to ponder: since my earliest days at Marvel, whenever I
have drawn Spider-Man I have laid in the heavy blacks. This has not
been "fixed" by the inkers. Why not, if it's wrong?