The Superman-Should-or-Shouldn't-have-trunks Discourse™ is happening again so I might as well jump in with a thread of showing my favorite trunkless Superman designs (that actually work unlike the "official" designs of the DCEU/New 52/Rebirth/CW)

Feel free to add your favs too

First off, the great Corey Walker

Note that he supplements the lack of color balance of a trunk-less Superman by either giving Superman a thick red/yellow midsection or better yet, gives Superman "pants" by having his lower half be a darker shade of blue. Either way, perfection

Kris Anka

Again like Walker, Kris gives his designs a strong sense of color-balance with a darker lower half or reincorporating sections of yellow/red around Superman's midsection.

While not strictly Superman, Akiel Guzman's Powergirl designs are 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 for a Trunkless Superman™ design and honestly is what the DCEU should've gone with for MoS/BvS/JL. Just, absolutely gorgeous.

Going even further than just giving Superman a darker shade of blue, deviantart users Harseik and Redmasker give their Supermen black pants

These are great, but they seem more fitting for a Conner or Jon Kent more than Clark (maybe as a Kingdom Come design, but I digress)

Rob Nix's trunkless Superman design is great too, very sleek, classy and aerodynamic while still being true to Superman's tone and character

Similar to Nix is Ming Doyle and Kevin Zeigler's designs, both achieving what DC wanted Jim Lee's New 52 designs to have while still maintaining a cleaner and more color balanced design.

Here's Thomas Branch's take on Jim Lee's New 52 design along with a Phil Bourassa sketch of Superboy, again both excellent designs that showcase that you can make a trunkless Superman work if you put the effort in.

And finally, here's a design by Whiley Dunsmore and an edit of the DCEU's Superman design, which again showcase just how close "official" Superman costumes can be to perfection, and how massively they improve with just a few simple changes.

The discussion surrounding Superman's trunks is always obfuscated by the pro-trunkless side misinterpreting the pro-trunks side as being so only out of nostalgia, which is not the case. In reality, it is just because everytime DC does come out with a trunkless design--

--they never make up for the lack of color balance, and then always revert back to the trunks because without any additions to the design you're always left with a Superman costume that looks boring, uninspired, bland and off-putting. Don't fix what isn't broken--

--and if you do, at least look at what dozens upon dozens of online artists have been doing for the past decade and actually give Superman a trunkless costume that works, thanks.

Lol to add to this thread, the reason why people are so vocal as to why Superman (specifically the DCEU's Superman) should have trunks is because when you edit them in the suit looks so much better, because the suit was initially designed with the trunks in mind to begin with....

...and when Snyder said no, they never bothered to make up for the lack of trunks, which is like the number one mistake that every form of DC media has made over the past decade when they introduce a trunkless Superman design.

Lol imma keep adding to this thread, so here's a piece of early concept art for MoS (apparently*) designed by James Acheson

I like this one a lot, the costume has a nice, aerodynamic flow to it, all it needs is for the gray bits to be red or a darker blue and it's perfect

*I think this was just an April Fool's prank done by the Superman Homepage, which, regardless, still looks nice even if it's meant as a prank

Here's a few Superboy (Jon Kent) designs by Carlo Barberi and a "Damian Wayne as Superboy" design by Peter Nguyen, both showcasing how effortlessly easy it is to make a trunkless Superman design that works