Actor Glen Powell has never been shy about showing off his all-American charm, but his latest GQ cover shoot has taken his image to surreal new heights, and not everyone is convinced it’s entirely human.
The Twisters and Running Man star is the cover model for GQ’s September 2025 issue, which features a special report on “The State of the American Male.” But it’s not Powell’s usual smirk or leading-man charisma that’s lighting up social media, it’s his body. Or, more accurately, the muscle suit he’s wearing underneath his Calvin Klein boxers.
The viral image shows Powell, 36, standing tall in a white tank top, boxers, and a hyper-defined lower-body prosthetic muscle suit made by Smitizen, a company known for lifelike silicone muscle gear. The suit gives Powell oversized, hypermasculine thighs that appear nearly cartoonish in proportion to the rest of his body.
The look has sent the internet into a spiral of awe, confusion, and hilarity—especially among queer fans, who are no strangers to decoding the performance of masculinity in pop culture.
Real, AI, or Just… Camp?
The conversation around the GQ shoot has been dominated by one question: Is this real? On X (formerly Twitter), users questioned whether Powell’s body had been generated with artificial intelligence, digitally altered, or sculpted with prosthetics. (Spoiler: it’s the latter.)
Even Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok was summoned by fans to determine whether the image was authentic.
“Bro went to the gym and forgot he had a upper body,” joked user @notyourzaddyx.
“There’s nothing hot about this body—he looks shapeless,” wrote @them_alone. “The upper part and lower part of his body are not in good symmetry.”
“Is this real or AI?” asked @thisisLucain. “I need to get myself this kind of body so I can intimidate everyone around me.”
Other fans were fixated on the surreal details, with one viral post asking: “Why does it look like he has two belly buttons?”
For many viewers, the imagery veers into camp territory. It’s the kind of aesthetic that recalls the overbuilt, ultra-buffed bodies of 90s action figures or the plastic fantasy of male dolls.
A Commentary on Masculinity—Intentional or Not
The GQ article accompanying the shoot doesn’t shy away from casting Powell as a counterpoint to modern-day, emotionally complex male stars like Timothée Chalamet or Robert Pattinson. Instead, Powell is portrayed as a return to “old-fashioned masculine competency,” someone who “feels like a man” and radiates unapologetic “alpha energy.”
That framing may appeal to a certain audience nostalgic for the days of rugged, square-jawed Hollywood heroes, it’s hard not to view it as satire.
Whether intentional or not, the GQ shoot taps into broader conversations about what masculinity looks like in 2025. With AI-generated influencers, muscle-enhancing filters, and the rise of fitness-as-performance on social media, the boundaries between real, fake, and aspirational have never been blurrier.
And Powell’s muscle suit, for all its shock value, may be the perfect metaphor.
“It’s giving male drag,” wrote one user.
“Ken doll but make it dystopian,” said another.
Glen Powell Knows What He’s Doing
To his credit, Glen Powell has never seemed particularly concerned about fitting into any one box, whether it’s action star, rom-com heartthrob, or now, semi-cybernetic thirst trap.
He’s been steadily rising in Hollywood thanks to blockbuster roles in Top Gun: Maverick, Anyone But You, Twisters, and the upcoming reboot of The Running Man. And he’s leaned into his public persona with humor and self-awareness, often poking fun at his own good looks and wholesome Texas upbringing.
In that light, the GQ shoot feels like a performance—a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the very idea of “alpha energy” that Powell is supposedly embodying. It’s Peak Male by way of silicone sculpting.
Still, not everyone is in on the joke. Some fans expressed discomfort with the shoot’s body ideals and lack of clarity about the muscle suit, pointing out the damage that unrealistic portrayals can cause—especially in a culture already obsessed with fitness, steroids, and aesthetic perfection.
But for others—especially LGBTQ+ audiences fluent in visual irony and gender performance, the image is less disturbing than it is deliciously absurd.
