Moments where a character has to hide the warning signs of abuse at the hands of parents/guardians and mean teachers from their friends and teachers in Comic Books
- In Animorphs: The Invasion, Temrash 114 explains away the injuries his host received from being slapped down a flight of stairs by a fire-breathing hydra alien as being scratched by cats.
- Batman is quite fond of this:
- Bruce Wayne was once in the hospital and the doctor notes that for a supposed lazy Millionaire Playboy, he has considerable scarring. Wayne responded with:Wayne: I fell from a tree.
Doctor: A tree?
Wayne: Yes, it was a very tall tree. - One episode of The Batman had him joking that he Cut Himself Shaving to explain a bandage on his arm (it was actually from a weird chemical Joker injected into him that made him start to act like Joker).
- This was taken to extremes in the '90s comic book arc Knightfall. In it, then new villain Bane deduces Batman's identity, breaks into the Batcave, battles Batman and breaks his back. In order to explain why Gotham's wealthiest playboy is now paralyzed, they claim that Bruce Wayne was in a car accident, complete with the Batclan going out and totaling one of Bruce Wayne's vehicles. Now that's dedication.
- In an odd turn, an actual shaving cut saved Batman on one occasion in the early comics. As Bruce Wayne, he met and briefly romanced a woman who, unbeknownst to him, was one of the Joker's henchwomen. Later, as Batman, he's about to be shot by the Joker, but she recognizes the shaving cut and takes the bullet for him.
- Batman Begins toys with this trope in the dialog between Bruce and both Alfred and Lucius — the former suggests he take up polo to explain his bruises, the latter receives a very flimsy handwave for why Bruce had been drugged with a weaponized hallucinogen.
- In more recent stories, part of Bruce Wayne's public persona includes a fondness for extreme sports. That would plausibly explain some of the scarring.
- There is also the scene from The Long Halloween where (while Batman) Bruce gets a scratch on his face from Catwoman. When they meet up later for a date (as Bruce and Selina) and Selina asks how he got the scratch, he tells her exactly this.
- At the end of Batman: Hush, Batman is questioning The Riddler, who's currently under custody. When he doesn't like the answer he gets, he punches Riddler so hard he ends up on the floor. The noise prompts a couple of guards to enter the room.Guard: What happened?
Batman: He fell. - Early on in his career the third Robin Tim Drake ran into some trouble when a councilor at his school didn't buy his excuses for repeated injuries and thought Bruce was abusing him. He eventually convinced her and his father he'd been getting jumped, and since they live in Gotham they accept this as probable. He also frequently uses his skateboarding as an excuse for injuries.
- Bruce Wayne was once in the hospital and the doctor notes that for a supposed lazy Millionaire Playboy, he has considerable scarring. Wayne responded with:
- Marv from Sin City uses the "cut myself shaving" excuse with his blind mom after the fight at the apartment complex against the dirty cops sent to take him in when he was framed for killing Goldie.
- In Jonah Hex the title character sarcastically gives all sorts of unlikely explanations to his massive facial scarring when asked about it, from the traditional "cut myself shaving" to "my toothpick slipped".
- Archie Comics:
- In an old, '50s-era strip, Archie has a black eye. Everyone assumes he got into a fight and lost, despite his vociferous protests. Even his mother doesn't understand how someone could walk into a door. He demonstrates ... and blacks his other eye, prompting him to decide not to leave the house for a week, as no one will believe he walked into two doors.
- Another Archie universe story inverted this trope with Alex Cabot, one of the managers of Josie and the Pussycats. When Alex gets a black eye, he claims that he got it in a fistfight, while everyone else thinks that he walked into a door. Alex continually denies it, but when he gets up to leave he gets nailed in the other eye by a door. The last panel shows a dazed Alex sitting on the floor with two black eyes, mumbling that it was the same door that got him the first time.
- Yet another Archie comic strip had a surprisingly dark example, when you think about it. Archie is forced by his friends to date Betty because they feel bad for her since Archie always snubs her for Veronica. She's in such a flip to get ready that she slams her cheek AND her forehead and bruises them, but just covers it with makeup. Then her and Archie have to jog through the rain which washes off her makeup, and all the guys at the dance assume he roughed her up on the way. It ends with the guys taking Archie out back and beating him up.
- In Afterlife with Archie, when her boyfriend beats her up one night, Betty's older sister Polly ends up with bruises. The next morning she tries to cover it with makeup but her family still sees the bruise on her eye. Her excuse was that she walked into the closet door.
- In The Question, it's a running gag for Victor Sage to have a snappy response when someone notes he has no face (the desired look of his special mask) such as "Dang those safety razors, you really have to watch them."
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In a Donald Duck story, Donald and Gladstone get into a fistfight against Daisy's wishes. Gladstone excuses his black eye by saying he walked into a door, while Donald says he walked into the same door trying to save Gladstone. Daisy is less than convinced.
- Spider-Man:
- An arc has a Running Gag/subplot of Peter Parker attempting to explain to his boss his injuries from battling super villains the night before. His excuses included a pot exploding in the microwave, to falling into the gorilla cage at the zoo.
- During the time his Secret Identity was no longer a secret, J. Johan Jameson once showed up at Robbie Robertson's house with his hands bandaged, a pair of black eyes, and a busted nose. He claimed to have run into a door. The injuries to his hands he got from punching Peter in the face repeatedly, and since Pete is a guy with the proportional strength of a man sized spider used to be hit in the face by guys just as strong, all JJJ did was bust up his knuckles. The injuries to his face he got from walking into a door.
- Wonder Woman: The Once and Future Story: When Diana questions Moira Keneally on how she got the bruise on her face Moria tries to avoid answering before claiming she clumsily walked into a door at the hotel the night before. In truth her husband hit her.
