>>16094 Secret identities are a must for a superhero. Have a normal life? Have friends or relatives? As soon as your identity is outted, they & you are all in danger. Supervillains don't have a code of conduct to only fight your super identity.

>>16095 I know Irredeemable might not be highly thought of around these parts, but I couldn't help but remember these pages when I saw that episode of Invincible where Mark get chewed out by black Amber for lying to her and being absent even though she suspected out his secret!

>>16094 They work when you have a setting where that is a rarity. But when everyone and their mother and their dog has one, it becomes boring fast.

>>16097 That's a problem of having a bloated capeshit universe.

>>16098 Good thing that good mafia stories usually describe a good double-life narrative

>>16099 Mobsters are completely different.

>>16095 What about cops?

>>16112 You think criminals haven't gone after cops families before?

>>16094 No, it's not necessarily an old hat. There are superheroes which possess various identities. But when writers start getting carried away with the concept, its point becomes moot.

>>16094 >Is the cliche of characters having to juggle different lives really old hat? The need is still there, but how in the hell could you maintain an alter ego without having super speed? Government tracks us through phones and satellites, and cameras are everywhere. You'd need Spider-sense AND super-speed to put it off. And maybe not even then.

>>16096 >Image 1, panel 4 Plutonian did nothing wrong. Actually, that's not really true. Plutonian should have burned the entire building to the ground, killing everyone within, and then started a MGTOW youtube channel.

>>16125 That's why you'd have to have a government organization like SHIELD that works with superheroes. It's fiction so you can actually have a useful government body working with heroes.

>>16132 Or maybe a superhero hacker that erases everything and shitposts in imageboards.

>>16145 Powered by Internet Gas.

Secret identities aren't the problem, it's heroes who don't tell their own family their secret identity and repeatedly look like assholes that ditch everything that's shit writing. It's not even that unprecedented to reveal it: Jay Garrick told his girlfriend (not even wife at the time) pretty early on. Only reason writers didn't do it is few early heroes had family to reveal it to (Superman's parents live far away from where he lives, Batman's parents are dead, Wonder Woman's family knows but they're all on a sakoku island, Spider-Man doesn't tell Aunt May partially out of guilt and partially because she's so old and sick he doesn't think she can handle it) and keeping it that way out of misguided tradition.

>>16148 > Secret identities aren't the problem, it's heroes who don't tell their own family their secret identity and repeatedly look like assholes that ditch everything that's shit writing. Anon, have you actually looked at the drama surrounding people in the public service division, like with firefighters and cops? Or, people who keep it secret from their family who enlist in the military until they're actually deployed? It's the same thing. If divorces happen and family excommunicate over someone wanting to fulfill a public service, how do you think they'll react to family members "playing" vigilante while fighting galactic-scale villains?

>>16132 > It's fiction so you can actually have a useful government body working with heroes. Oh yeah, that worked out great for everyone in the MCU. "Hay, guise, this is wrong. We should totes save my mass-murdering buddy and then go on the lam in Europe for 5 years until Purple Man Bad shows up!" Kind of sucked for the 616 Avengers, as well. I don't know how many stories I read over the years where that kike, Gyrich, would just be a total cunt to them in the name of the United States of America. Then there's the Ultimates who were used as Blick Fury's private army.

>>16147 >experimental internet gas

>>16148 >it's heroes who don't tell their own family their secret identity and repeatedly look like assholes that ditch everything Being an asshole is preferable to trusting someone with a secret that can put you and them in danger if anybody slipped up.

>>16158 >the MCU Is shite >>16114 >you think criminals haven't gone after cops families before? And yet they still don't hide their identity

>>16158 The power of fiction is not having to reflect reality by making the government bad guys. >>16163 Because real bad guys are just dudes. Supervillains are super powered. They don't fear for their lives if they fuck with police. Real criminals do.

It's narratively inert. It makes sense, but nothing interesting is ever done with it. The audience knows that status quo changes regarding it don't end up sticking and that they do not tend to lead to shake ups in anything else. Considering that superheroes are already bizarrely likely to have their loved ones in close proximity to supervillains anyway, it wouldn't really change much in terms of endangering them.

>>16163 >Is shite And? >And yet they still don't hide their identity You want to bet some money on that, chief? Ask a cop of any country how eager he is to show his face whilst fucking with gangs/gangsters. They have spouses and/or children to protect.

>>16094 >For a dog!? Fuck you bitch, dogs are loyal and precious creatures who would die for us. Even if they are just spoiled little shits like mine. >>16096 Irredemable might be shit, but the only thing The Plutonian did wrong was not just destroying the fucking planet after he was done of all their shit.

>>16187 That in no way negates what I just said about dealing with powerful criminals. I wasn't saying ALL cops hide their identities, but they sure as fuck don't take the chance that the cartels will figure out who they are and abduct their kids.

>>16186 >Irredemable might be shit, but the only thing The Plutonian did wrong was not just destroying the fucking planet after he was done of all their shit. This. Also, if you guys don't already know, if you read through to the end, Plutonian gets reincarnated as Superman in the DC universe. Nice little "fuck you" to the audience that bought all those expensive comics, no?

>>16187 Heroes who don't risk anything and are just publicity stunts have their identities revealed. Cops who work close against real shady crime organizations need to have their names hidden and use masks or their families get horribly killed by mobsters. >>16244 He isn't reincarnated, he had his essence i.e.his concept sent to the multiverse to make the Plutonian the hero he always wanted to be. Thinking about a comic concept, about a caveman with superman powers waking up in the modern world and causing havoc like a fucking force of nature, so heroes need to deal with him after he sinks china and most of continental asia into the sea.

>>16245 >He isn't reincarnated, he had his essence i.e.his concept sent to the multiverse to make the Plutonian the hero he always wanted to be. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. It's still a "fuck you" to the readers after the series and tie-in.

>>16246 I forgot to add "even", meaning that they shat on the story even harder. A reincarnation could be good, a way to live again and fix his mistakes, but instead they killed him in the most retarded way and erased him from reality just to be the brainfart of two guys drawing comics.

>>16162 It's why Jimmy Olsen almost got broken ribs.

>>16247 The thing that pissed me off the most about that series is that the universe-building was actually pretty decent for current year. Ending it like that was anti-climactic.

>>16320 It was an edgyfest done by someone hating superheroes. And it's an universe with civilians being worse than marvel ones.

There are plenty of characters that don't have secret identities, with the Fantastic Four being the most notable examples in the comics, since not only are they the foundation of the modern Marvel universe, but also they never had secret identities. Then of course there are cases like Iron Man that casuals know about (even if they don't know that he did have a secret identity for like 40 years). But it depends on the characters and their personalities and what stories you want to tell with them. Remember right before Rebirth when Superman revealed his secret identity? It sucked. It did away with elements that were central to the character, particularly his regular life that keeps him as a down to earth guy. The Fantastic Four are celebrities in their regular lives, and Iron Man was a celebrity before he was a superhero. Making Superman a full time celebrity would destroy a significant aspect of the character. Having everyone know Superman is Clark Kent but not hassle him all the time wouldn't be believable. And there are characters like that, but frankly, they're usually secondary characters, and I think if they were focused on harder, people wouldn't buy it. There are also problems with characters that go through crazy shit that should affect their regular lives, but then they go back to having a secret identity. Like in the Death of Superman story, they mention near the end that Superman was actually only dead for like two weeks, in-universe. So when Clark Kent shows back up, it's kind of believable. Hal Jordan was either Parallax or dead for ten years IRL, which must be a significant amount of time in-universe. How the fuck does he go back to having a secret identity? Or does he not have a secret identity anymore? Shouldn't all the regular people be scared of him for what he did as Parallax? I've read pretty much every Green Lantern story (including Green Lantern Corps and that Ion miniseries) from Rebirth to Blackest Night, and I don't think I've seen this addressed, when it really should have been the first thing to address as soon as Hal came back to life. This goes double for Barry Allen. He was dead for years in-universe. How did he just get his life back, including his secret identity? Iris West was dead for even longer. Enough time for Barry to get over her and get married again and then die and for his sidekick to grow up and have kids of his own. And when she came back, she did use a secret identity because the world thought Iris West was dead. But then eventually she became Iris West again. And then when Flashpoint happened Iris forgot that she knew Barry's identity, and presumably forgot that she was married to him and that they were both "dead" for decades. Okay, fine, I can accept that. But there was a period before Flashpoint when this made no sense. And then they remembered most of this stuff after Rebirth, so presumably everyone else remembered too, and then it didn't make sense again. It would be easier to just say the entire world knows Barry Allen is The Flash and Iris West is a time traveler from the 30th century. But that would destroy a significant aspect of the character. Also there was the time Wally West revealed he was The Flash, and that didn't work out long term. And he was a pretty different character from Barry anyway, since he was a superhero since he was a kid, and didn't have much of a life before he became one. And with all the de-aging and disappearing for decades that has happened to the Justice Society, none of them could have secret identities anymore, right? But then why aren't people coming to their door and hassling them all the time? I guess they have all sorts of things set up to protect them from supervillains and stuff, but using things like that to keep regular people away from them doesn't seem very heroic. Why isn't the paparazzi harassing Alan Scott about how it feels to be a 100 year old man who looks at his children and feels compelled to tell them that he loves putting penises in his butt? Surely that would be quite a story. He should never be able to have a moment's peace. Even if he wasn't the world's first superhero. >>16148 >Only reason writers didn't do it is few early heroes had family to reveal it to (Superman's parents live far away from where he lives) Superman's parents were dead on Earth-Two and Earth-One. Man of Steel is the one that kept them alive until the present day, in 1986. Also, originally they said the people who found him just gave him to an orphanage. I don't get how nobody at the orphanage didn't know who Superman was. Maybe they did and just kept their mouths shut. When they introduced the concept of Superboy in 1945, they said that the people who left him at the orphanage regretted it and returned to pick him up shortly after. The Kents then knew his secret identity in all the Superboy stories, but they died before he was an adult. >>16173 >The audience knows that status quo changes regarding it don't end up sticking and that they do not tend to lead to shake ups in anything else. There are cases where it does happen, like Iron Man, Captain America, Flash, etc. Sometimes things get changed back after an extended period of time, but still.

>Secret identity is wanted criminal >At certain point he can no longer use it to get info >Go full superhero all the time >Chief finds out but let it slide Plastic Man is the best! tfw I finish reading Jack Cole run >>16148 >Secret identities aren't the problem, it's heroes who don't tell their own family their secret identity and repeatedly look like assholes that ditch everything that's shit writing No, the real problem is they're not shown to do anything to compensate for it or being helpful, etc. >>16173 >but nothing interesting is ever done with it It just needs good slice of life with it. >Considering that superheroes are already bizarrely likely to have their loved ones in close proximity to supervillains anyway, it wouldn't really change much in terms of endangering them It depends, like the family will be against it or it will be harder for younger siblings to keep it a secret. Furthermore, it's about not letting them to be burden by it. IMO, only spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend should know at some point, the rest not necessarily. >>16125 No need to reflect irl cancer in capeshit as >>16165 said.