Manic Monday Bonus--The End Of Secret Identities?

From Captain Britain #1 (1985):

That is a government official, and as I said, this was 1985, so it was largely before any impacts of the computer revolution (although maybe the Brits used a suped up Atari 5200 for this analysis...).

Imagine, then, in 2018, with computers that can not only do sophisticated facial recognition, but can also recognize people from their gait (so much for a full face mask). And unless you subscribe to the theory that unconscious super-hypnosis projected through Kryptonian glass is what makes people buy the Clark Kent/Superman dichotomy, it becomes less and less likely to believe that such computer-based analysis would be ignored.

And even if the hero uses a full face mask, well, technology can do a voice analysis, not just of a voice print, but of grammar, vocabulary, and other factors. Unless a hero goes full Christian Bale-voice, and doesn't talk very much even then, he's gonna get busted.

Sure, secret identities are a cliche--perhaps a hoary one--but in our increasingly surveilled society, it might be technology, and not modern dramatic sensibilities, that put an end comics using them.

Tales From The Quarter Bin--Not Just A Super-Hero Trope!

The following two stories appeared back-to-back in Super DC Giant #S-22 (1971).

First up--the adventures of Johnny Thunder, originally from All-Star Western #97 (1957):

Next reprint in the book--The Nighthawk, from Western Comics #59 (1956):

Yowsa!! Secret identity games, and virtually identical thought balloons (thought balloons!!) for the last panels!!

It's trendy to discount or disparage secret identities as a lame, overused trope of the super-hero genre. And hey, legitimate arguments can be made either way about the value of the idea.

But people tend to forget--the secret identity trope started before super-heroes were ever created.

The Lone Ranger and Zorro were playing that game long before Lois Lane ever tried to figure out who Superman really was.

Westerns didn't originate the "secret identity"--that's largely credited to The Scarlet Pimpernel--and it didn't take long before pulps and radio programs gave us the Shadow and many, many others.

But Westerns, as one of the most popular genres in all media prior to the 1970s, helped to popularize the idea. And, it can be argued, the trope works better with the cowboy opera than many other forms. Smaller populations in the sparsely settled Olde Weste meant a greater chance of an individual being recognized (after all in a city of 8 million, who's going to recognize one nerdy high school student?). The quasi-anarchy as law & order were slow to establish meant that one man had to stand up to powerful forces who could easily take revenge if they knew who he was--or the heo could be jailed and killed by the corrupt justice of the era.

So yeah, rail against super-hero secret identity games if you like. But at least acknowledge that the capes didn't invent the idea--they're just carrying on an older tradition. Hi-Yo, Silver!!

Manic Monday--Not-So-Secret

Faith is hangin' with a couple of friends who know her super-hero identity:

Testify, sister.

I've seen some folks praise the CW approach as "doing away" with the cliche of secret identities, which were an "obstacle" to good writing.

The problem, of course, is that those shows haven't had the courage to actually do away with secret identities. The public at large doesn't know that Barry is the Flash, or that Kara is Supergirl. They still jump through the same hoops keeping their bosses and other folks in the dark about their civilian identities.

Nope, instead they've just created a comfort peer group, 5-12 people every episode who just hang around HQ chillin' with our heroes, like some millennial Friends for super-heroes. Sure, there's no way a circle that big could ever keep a secret like that too long from a determined villain--but just relax, we're all bros, here!

When the Flash pulls off his mask in public and everyone knows that he's Barry Allen, then you can give CW credit for doing away with the cliche. Until then, not so much.

From Faith #10 (2017)

Manic Monday Triple Overtime--The Hidden Benefits of Secret Identites!!

In these modern times, the very concept of secret identities have been called in to question. Why have them? Would they even work? Are they ethical?

But most people forget the single most important reason for heroes to have a secret identity: a masochistic desire to have the woman you love insult you to your face, again and again and again:

Oh, snap.

The gentleman (who yes, is indeed a man) is Caius Martius Wheeler, a cop from ancient Rome granted limited flying power by the gods, who was put into suspended animation for 2200 years, and re-awoke in 1940 to fight crime as The Dart.

His secret identity is a teacher of ancient Roman history, and the lady of his desire is fellow teacher Miss Tilbury. Yet she never, ever passes up an opportunity to tell both the Dart and Caius how little she thinks of the teacher:

I'm not even sure why the Dart has a secret identity--since he slept for two millennia, it's not as if he has any loved ones to protect in modern day.

Maybe he just likes the abuse?

Man, there's mild mannered, and there's 50 shades of Caius:

Geez. Even Clark Kent would at least report, and get the story in the paper occasionally. Not milquetoasty Caius...he seems to live for the abuse!

Of course, and maybe this is just me, it's hard to see why he's so attracted to someone who has absolutely no respect for him...

I guess he just needs the eggs.

So that's one solid reason for keeping a secret identity--so the woman you love can continually degrade you to your face!!

From Weird Comics #9-13 (1940-1941)

Quote Of The Week II: Pet Peeve Edition!!

In Avengers: Ultron Forever #1, time travel shenanigans have teamed up present day-Vision with Jim Rhodes Iron Man...

Thank you. It's about time somebody said it.

No if only someone would tell the Justice League...

The Myth of Fingerprints

In this week's Batman And Robin #23, Judd Winick has Bruce Wayne explain why no one can identify the incarcerated Jason Todd:

Hmmm, this bears examination.

**Not all that long ago, Bruce was framed for murder, arrested and jailed. He was fingerprinted then, right? So did he (or Oracle) go in afterward and erase those records? Because that would leave a pretty big clue-sized whole in the records should Bruce Wayne ever be arrested again, or the police have reason to reference those records--"Hey, where's his records? What's going on here?"

Or did they replace his prints in the records with some others? Which, again, creates problems should Wayne ever be printed again. Harvey Bullock: "Sorry, chump, theses prints don't match. You're not Bruce Wayne--you're an imposter! Take him in, boys!"

Or, like those Q provided James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, was Bruce wearing fake fingerprints when he was booked?

Does he wear those all the time, to prevent stray Bruce Wayne fingerprints from being surreptitiously collected off of martini glasses and Lamborghinis?

**Ditto Dick Grayson--he was a police officer in Bludhaven, and many police departments routinely fingerprint all their cops (so they can quickly eliminate stray cop fingerprints found at crime scenes). And such prints would have been uploaded to state and federal databases, so even though Bludhaven was destroyed (twice!), those records would still exist...

(Did you ever notice how Bludhaven has become the Alderan of the DC Universe, destroyed (twice!) as a cheap gimmick to show how evil the villains were and then never, ever mentioned again?)

**Has Bruce/Barbara shared this technology with other heroes? A recent Flash showed that Barry Allen's fingerprints/DNA were still in the Central City police computers...

**Of course, there's a story idea here, because what if this "erase all our fingerprints" program got into the wrong hands, or malfunctioned, and the fingerprints of every perp in Gotham were erased, accidentally or deliberately? Everyone released from jail, anarchy in the streets...

**Finally, one has to wonder at Batman's obsession with this level of hyper-security over secret identities when roughly 25,000 people already know his secret identity...seriously, what's the point anymore?

A Butler Without Discretion??

We all are in agreement, I think, that everyone in the DC Universe is far, far too casual with their secret identities these days.

It occurs to me that, in part, this is somewhat a natural blowback against the Silver and Bronze Ages at DC, when fully 78.9% of all stories revolved around someone trying to discover the hero's identity, or the extraordinary lengths the hero would go to in order to protect that identity. Note this example, for instance, which was typical of the era. So today's crop of creators, who grew up reading that type of story, and no doubt ridiculing it, are loathe to go in that direction.

But they've gone too far in the opposite direction. Oracle actually has, on a networked computer, a file with the names and addresses of every superhero in the world (Tony Stark ought to hire her!!)! Every hero seems to know every other hero's street identity, and yet somehow, the villains never think to hire a telepath to surreptitiously rip that information out of some Teen Titan's head while they're distracted. And under current DC management, we've seen a distressing trend of heroes identifying each other by civilian name, while in costume and patrolling their cities, or at bachelor parties or whatever. Again, bad idea, because all we need is some mook with a telescopic microphone, and everyones name is all over the internet tomorrow.

But we can always depend on Alfred Pennysworth, the very model of discretion and service, not to make such an error, right?

Sigh...

All right, it was probably fair for Alfred to assume that all those ninjas came from either Talia or Ra's Al Ghul, both of whom already know the Bat identites. BUT there were others on the grounds, whose agenda and knowledge weren't clear. AND it's always possible that the ninjas were sent by someone else, as they were pursuing Damien, not going after Robin or Batman. So blurting out "Master Dick" while in public, while he's in costume, is a pretty big faux pas.

But, Alfred was undoubtedly in a state of shock, having just been thrown out a window by a thousand ninjas and all. We'll chalk it up to a momentary flub, and we're sure it will never happen again.

Oh, Alfred!!!

Alfred's attempt to get Nightwing's identity broadcast all over YouTube by noon tomorrow occurred in Nightwing #138. But, hey, it's a Ra's Al Ghul story, so 90% of it will get tossed out of continuity 5 seconds after Morrison leaves the title, so what the hey, right?