The 9 Stupidest Superhero Secret Identities
Every superhero needs a secret identity; some to move amongst the mortals unheeded, some to simply live a normal life, some to protect themselves while they're off-duty and some to ensure the safety of their loved ones.
And some of them apparently just don't give a shit.
#9.
Green Arrow - Oliver Queen
Green Arrow, the comic book character whose superpower became outdated around the time gunpowder was invented, has still yet to be introduced to another modern invention: Shaving. Look at that thing! Nobody's rocked the Shakespeare Van Dyke since the Industrial Revolution. Yet, when trying to narrow down who the Green Arrow really is, nobody starts with the local rich guy who, oh by the way, happens to also be the only other man on Earth with that facial hair?
And it's not like by day he's skating by in obscurity: His secret identity, billionaire Oliver Queen, is a renowned personality in the city where Green Arrow operates - at one point he was even elected its Mayor.
Elect Mayor Shootyourface... or he'll shoot your face!
But hey, the character was created in the 40s. He's probably the product of a simpler time. Modern comic writers wouldn't seriously expect us to believe that anybody is fooled by his attempts at going incognito. Like in this recent storyline where Green Arrow is captured and unmasked by the police, and...
Now that I can see the area immediately surrounding his eyes, it seems so obvious...
Still, we can't help admiring the man's insane dedication to that beard. Show us a man who values his facial hair over his own life and the safety of his loved ones, and we'll show you a man, sweetheart.
#8.
He-Man - Prince Adam
Thanks to the Sorceress of the legendary Castle Grayskull, Prince Adam of Eternia is magically transformed into... the same dude, with a tan.
That's it. He's no bigger as He-man--you've probably never noticed this, but under that pink jacket Prince Adam's actually pretty muscular--he's just paler and wears more clothes. That's the same dramatic transformation you undergo every winter.
The Power of Grayskull.
If you ask us, the fabled and much sought Power of Grayskull is extremely overrated--although we can understand why a dude like Skeletor would be so desperate to get a part of this action.
"Beach season approaches, Beastman."
And yet it still fools everybody. According to He-Man's opening theme, only three people are aware of his "secret": the Sorceress, Man-At-Arms and Orko. Man-At-Arm's daughter, Teela, despite being Prince Adam's best friend since childhood, has never noticed that he looks exactly like He-Man, probably because she was too busy ogling his man-cleavage to notice anything else.
#7.
The Thing - The Thing in a Trenchcoat
Like the rest of the Fantastic Four, The Thing's identity isn't really secret. Every member of their family has superpowers, so there's no one left to protect. But what if he just wants to escape the limelight for a little while? How can a gigantic, several ton rock monster just enjoy pedestrian life? Holograms? Shapeshifting? Mu-mu and motorcycle helmet?
Nope!
He dresses like a gigantic rock-shaped pervert.
And it works, too. Hell, even the movies used it:
Why even bother doing all the legwork of maintaining an entire separate identity if a raincoat and a hat make you functionally invisible to society. If only more superheroes wised up and took advantage of this wonderful idea...
OK, one guy in a trench coat--even one the size and shape of a Hummer--just minding his own business is fine, but FOUR walking together? Even if you are physically incapable of seeing faces and don't register that there are four monsters under there, it still looks like somebody's about to get raped.
#6.
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - Five Teens From Angel Grove High School
The Power Rangers' superhero personas are entirely concealed by their face wrapping helmets, ostensibly making their secret identities impossible to screw up ... unless they hung out together all the time, wore monochromatic outfits corresponding with their respective Ranger identity and openly practiced martial arts together in formation. They have to try to screw things up that badly. Just look at that picture: The blue ranger is dressed in blue, the pink ranger in pink, the red ranger in red, the yellow ranger in yellow and the black guy is wearing... jeans and stripes. Hey, he can wear whatever he wants; he's still the black one. Later, when a new Green Power Ranger shows up...
...a green clothed teen suddenly joins the gang:
Nobody in that town is fooled for a second by the rainbow coalition of black belt teenagers. They're probably just thanking god there's no albino kids in town. Imagine the PR disaster, having your town saved by the White Power Ran-
#5.
The 1940s Flash - Jay Garrick
And we are officially no longer trying: No mask, no cowl, no tan, just a colander on his head. A colander with wings.
The explanation was that he moved too fast for anyone to recognize him, but what about when he was carrying someone else at the same speed?
Or jumping on people from behind?
Or having his picture taken for the cover of a magazine?
And it didn't help that he wasn't exactly judicious when it came to using his powers...
He should play that Flash guy! What a game that would be!
To be fair, Logan was totally busted by his friends in Madapor. It was later reviled that they were mostly playing along with "Patch". As for the Hulk/Fixit, we're talking about the Marvel universe here. If you car breaks down you might have an origin when the anti-freeze shoots on your face. There are dozens of freeky big guys running around. And while the Hulk is probably the most infamous of them he's mostly known as a giant green guy who can't string more than a couple words together.
ReplyHow do superheroes keep their dry cleaners quiet?
ReplyThere's always been the argument that people in the DCU don't really think of Superman as having an alter ego. He's always around (superspeed), has a home (fortress), doesn't cover his face, and has a "real name" (Kal El) that his closest friends (Wonder Woman, etc) call him by. It was even established in an earlier story that his father told him that if he doesn't wear a mask people won't think he has anything to hide. After all, why would the most powerful being on the planet need to hide himself? The people of Metropolis already "know" Superman's secret identity - Kal El of Krypton, home address Fortress of Solitude, Arctic Circle.
ReplyAs for Jay Garrick, they say he constantly vibrates when in public so you can't really register the features properly, he's just some average white guy, even in pictures. It's the same trick Bart used as Impulse when he was hanging out with the Young Justice crew in their civies.
I just want to know how the hell Batman keeps his identity a secret, especially since Bruce Wayne just happened to adopt Dick Greyson around the same time that Batman got a sidekick that looked aobut the same age a Dick Greyson...no one found that suspicious...NO ONE!?!?
ReplyThere's a lot of assumption here: (1) that the news media focused on the dead Flying Grayson's togs for weeks instead of immediately forgetting the tragedy in favor of fresher meat (including Annual Events That Wipe Out Half The DCU); (2) that Robin made a huge public debut within hours of Dick's adoption; (3) that in a world overflowing with bightly-colored spandex-clad supergoobers, red leotards are so rare that Dick Grayson and Robin MUST be the same person. (Bruce Wayne and Batman both have two legs; Q.E.freakin' D., baby!)
But Oliver Queen? Yeah, that's pretty bad.
Okay, I'm not gonna back-read to see if anyone already addressed this; but if Superman, the m***********g man of steel walked into a room saying his name was Clark Kent normal guy from Smallville Kansas I for one would not give him s**t about it.
ReplyThe dude could either launch your ass into orbit with his pinkie, or vaporize you with heat vision, who in their right mind is gonna say anything other than, "Hey Mr. Kent so nice to meet you."?
Looking at those comments, I have to wonder-- why the f**k do people think that Superman is the real person, and that Clark Kent is just a disguise?! I mean, people... think about it! He grew up as Clark Kent... that name was what he associated with himself ALL of his life. He basically CREATED superman so that he could still help out people and still have a normal life. When he wanted to hide that superman and he was the same person, he just simply exgerrated some of the nerdy qualities that he ALREADY had. so therefore it's Superman that's the disguise, not Clark Kent. and as the actor Christoper reeve showed, "superman" was a pretty effective disguise.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesReverse that and you'll be correct. He's always Superman.
Because he naturally has super powers and when he's Clark Kent he has to pretend that he doesn't, when he's Super Man he's actually being himself, when he's Clark Kent he's being a lesser version of himself.
(Whatever Superman is up to after the DCU reboot, I have no idea.)
John Byrne wrote him that way, and some writers and editors still look at the character that way. It's the humanity of his upbringing that makes him a hero, his alien heritage "only" gives him great power. But he also created details for Clark Kent to create Superman as a separate identity. Some writers portray that he is equally both characters; that both are equally important to him.
After all, he is also always Clark.
I really liked this article, it made me laugh and was so true!
ReplyBut I totally have to bring out the nerd and point out that the white power ranger was actually the green power ranger in a different outfit... Oddly enough, I don't remember if he started wearing white after that... it would only make sense, given their previous wardrobe habits. :-P
Yep, white and black became tyhe default color combo of his clothing after the change to whit ranger. Also when he was reitroduced in Power Rangers:Dino-Thunder as the teacher of the new Rangers and then became the black ranger of that team he mostly wore black clothing.
I like how the reboot of He-Man handled the Prince Adam/He-Man transformation. Prince Adam is just a skinny punk who can't beat his girlfriend in a fight as opposed to the Schwarzenegger-esk He-Man. Definitely gives the secret identity much more credibility.
Reply"Take Supergirl, Superman's cousin from planet Krypton, who is apparently into roleplaying and uses sex to deal with her abandonment issues (her home planet was never there for her, growing up)" Hold on a minute, what issue was that explored in?
Replywait a minute i meant asian
ReplyHehe, nice save.
anyone else think its fucked up that they made the black power ranger black and the yellow power ranger yellow
Replythey even realised it and replaced the characters. The second Black Ranger was asian and the second Yellow Ranger was black.
I love the Tick's HYPO-TIE. He got it at the same shop that Clark gets his HYPO-GLASSES.
ReplyIf you want Maxwell Yezpitelok to disappear, just trick him into saying his name backwards.
ReplyI was just gonna say that his name is suspiciously familiar...
the power rangers one is so true
ReplyHe does something similar in the New 52 Action comics. Also changing the way you talk, how you hold yourself and how you walk all affect how people see you. Everyone has their own unique natural walk but if they alter it, it can become more difficult to tell who they are. I mean think about how a friend looks when they have a new hairstyle. Now picture them with glasses, hunched over, and wearing clothes far to big for them. All of a sudden they look like a different person.
ReplyThis has probably been mentioned 50,000 times already, but Christopher Reeves did a really good job of this in the first Superman movie, particularly that scene where he picks up Lois from her apartment as Clark right after doing the interview as Superman. There's this part where he takes off his glasses and, no other way to describe it, goes from Clark to Superman back to Clark in terms of posture, body language, etc.
My problem with the New 52 Superman is how they made him a loner. Ma and Pa are dead and Lois is just a woman he's known for years but has never had the superballs to ask out. Before, they could justify having a secret identity (as opposed to just taking over the planet) as a way to protect his loved ones. Now, what loved ones? Why have Clark Kent?
Jay Garrick didn't use a secret identity very long; he revealed himself very quickly.
ReplyHow quickly? Like in a flash?
After he and his girl decided to marry yes, before that he maintained the secret identity by using super speed vibration to make his face appear blurry and indistinct when in costume. Only his teammates and his girl knew his secret identity.
I saw the Clark Kent disguise explained best in a Geoff Johns Blackest Night, but its not just slipping on a pair of glasses.
ReplyClark puts on glasses, yes, and changes his hairstyle. But he stoops so her appears shorter, slouches to seem out of shape, and wears clothes two sizes too big to disguise his figure. He adopts a set of mannerisms and a vocabulary that are different to what he does as Superman. And he changes his voice (although I'm not sure which way) by an octave. I'd call that a pretty thorough disguise, and not just 'putting on a pair of glasses'.
The funny thing is, Superman is Superman. His costume is Clark Kent.
Why does Superman even HAVE a secret identity. I understand Batman - he wants to go out to dinner without being shot in the head. But why does Superman need Clark Kent? Does he need the $40 a week Kent made in the 30's? Does he need an apartment in Metropolis when he can commute from the Arctic in 30 seconds? And if he wanted an apartment, who wouldn't give him one rent free? They could put out a sign "Superman lives here - go rob someone else".
Depending on the writer, Clark Kent can actually be a pretty effective disguise, simply because nobody would expect a guy who subsists entirely on solar radiation, can be anywhere in the solar system on a moment's notice, and has a secret base somewhere in the Arctic would want to live as a normal human. There was one story where Lex Luthor suspected a connection between Clark Kent and Superman so he built a computer to figure it out. The computer got it right, but Luthor found the truth absurd and destroyed the computer. Now, in continuities where there's a larger Superman family who all maintain similar disguises or where everyone assumes that Superman does have a secret identify for some reason, the Clark Kent disguise does strain credulity a bit, granted, but for the DCU, it's still not too shabby.
Reply...The man has a point.
Whoop nerd logic.
Stupidest?
ReplyJoe Fixitás kind of an easy one to justify. The Marvelverse has so many weird looking mutants/aliens/'victims' of radiation accidents that some big grey guy turns up claiming he's called 'Joe Fixit' whose going to think twice. Anyway "everyone" knows the Hulk is green not grey, so Joe Fixit is just some other strong guy.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI think the justification is much simpler: if a 600 pound gorilla walks up to you and demands to be addressed as Joe Fixit, would YOU argue with him?
I'd actually be too busy shitting myself!
"The Anyway "everyone" knows the Hulk is green not grey" point is the main reason it worked. Hulk spent less then a year [real time] Grey before they turned him green. Using the ratio Marvel has for comparing Real Time to Comic Time [3:1] he was grey for less then four months. He'd spent how long as the Green [Savage] Hulk again? I'd say short of those who saw the Hulk's birth no one knew about the grey thing and so Fixit just appeared as "some other strong guy"