Adaptational Secrecy Downgrade

Setting up a secret and The Reveal is a difficult thing to do. There are many things, from red herrings to Chekhov's Guns, to be considered, and there are many ways the writing can go wrong, from Clueless Mystery to Captain Obvious Reveal. It's particularly hard when, for example, you are adapting a 500-page book into a ninety-minute movie.

So what is there to do? Easy: make sure some mysteries from the original's plot never become mysteries at all! Did Alice in The Novel of Alice and Bob keep her criminal past a secret? Well, in Alice and Bob: The Movie, everyone and their moms are aware of it! Did Bob only find out about his terminal illness by the end of the novel? In the movie, he knows his diagnosis from the start! Did the book version of Emperor Evulz hunt down the heroes to obtain the battle spells? His movie counterpart knows all of them by heart anyway.

Can go hand in hand with Adaptational Origin Connection (if Alice is Bob's best friend instead of a stranger he just met, of course she knows a lot more about him than in the source material). A frequent necessity in a Pragmatic Adaptation and/or Compressed Adaptation.

A Setting Update may result in this trope: frequently, after all, things kept under wraps in one culture or time period are allowed or even encouraged in another.

This trope is specifically about In-Universe secrecy. If Alice reveals her criminal past to the audience with an Aside Glance in the first scene of the movie but the characters are kept in the dark just like in the original, the trope is Adaptation Expansion.

Can overlap with Not His Sled if The Reveal is an integral and/or famous plot twist in the original. Compare Uniqueness Decay, when something becomes less exceptional over the course of a franchise, and Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the Title Drop is first used by Midna to mock Zelda (being a princess held captive in the Twilight realm), before it's revealed that Midna is the actual princess of twilight, and her true form is visible for all of two scenes at the very end of the game. In the manga adaptation, Midna's very first on-panel appearance has her in her true form and state her title.
• Many adaptations of Dororo play fast and loose with the major reveal that the titular character is a girl, and Hyakkimaru never learns about it until the latter half of the story. In the 2019 retelling, it's out of the way by episode 9 of 26, as a religious woman tells him and Dororo already knows this time around instead of believing she was always a boy. It doesn't matter either way in this version, since Hyakkimaru is still so sense deprived and childlike that he has no meaningful distinction between men and women yet.

Comic Books

• In Andrea Chénier, Maddalena is absolutely shocked when Gérard spells it out that he is her Stalker with a Crush and has been since he was a servant at her parents' household. In the photo novel loosely based on the opera, Maddalena is very much aware of his desire for her even before the Revolution unfolds: she senses him getting more touchy-feely with her than it's appropriate (both for a servant towards a lady in the 18th century and for a man towards a girl who clearly shows he makes her uncomfortable).

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon):
  • In Godzilla vs. Kong, Apex Cybernetics' project to perfect Mechagodzilla with the aim of murdering and usurping Godzilla in the name of Muggle Power and corporate hegemony was kept almost completely secret by Apex's corporate conspiracy, with Monarch and the public only knowing that Apex claimed to be working on a Godzilla-combating secret weapon and that they were seeking the Hollow Earth's Green Rocks as a power source; not realizing what the weapon was precisely or that it was already built. In the AbraxasVerse Timeline, Apex collaborate with Monarch openly to build the first Mechagodzilla, Kiryu, with Apex telling Monarch and the world that the mech's purpose is to provide the world with an extra, human-controlled Protector Titan against hostile threats — it's just the fact that Apex are piggybacking on the Kiryu project and are building a second, more advanced Mechagodzilla of their own in secret in order to kill and usurp Godzilla, that are being kept secret.
  • Due to the main Abraxas fic starting publishing before Godzilla vs. Kong came out, the verified existence of the Hollow Earth and its ties to the Titans are pretty much public knowledge. In MonsterVerse canon, the Hollow Earth's existence was revealed to the world at the end of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but Broad Strokes in Godzilla vs. Kong led to a Series Continuity Error where the Hollow Earth was still regarded as a quack theory by the world at large in that movie.
• As Fate Would Have It: Whereas in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, Yancy's Secret Identity as the Idol Singer slash TV host Nancy remains a secret to everyone except Nate, here it remains so up until the halfway point of the story. During a Fan Convention where Professor Kukui (who himself maintains a Secret Identity as the Masked Royal) is in attendance, the former accidentally blurts out in public that he knows who she really is thanks to his knowledge of disguising oneself. This in turn causes a series of circumstantial events that lead to her secret being unraveled by the rest of Unova and the Pokemon World, eventually leading her to retire from singing.
• Better Bones AU: In the original Warrior Cats series, SkyClan's exile, which happened generations before the main series started, was covered up by the other Clans and never mentioned again out of shame so that protagonist Firestar, and the readers, aren't aware of it until he's told by spiritual means. In this AU, SkyClan's exile is very much historically remembered, though SkyClan is seen as weak and having "deserved it".
• Coeur Al'Aran:
  • Arc Royale: Due to the plot-triggering Intercontinuity Crossover caused by the Brother Gods' intervention throwing the entire post-Volume 1 canon course of events out the window, Team RWBY and JNPR learn the truth about Salem, Ozpin's true identity, the eternal war between the two immortals and the Brothers' existence, a lot earlier than they did in canon.
  • Relic Of The Future: Eventually, despite all the changes in the reset timeline including Blake's morality taking a turn for the worse, she still ends up going to Beacon Academy when she's 17. Unlike in the original timeline, this version of Blake, who's a bitter misanthrope who's barely been de-radicalized since the White Fang's destruction, doesn't make any secret of her Faunus identity from the get-go.
• Danny Phantom: Fire And Ice: The fic is set after the end of the series (and the end of Danny's keeping a Secret Identity). One of the catalysts of the fic's story is Danny starting to crack under the pressure of he and his family always being in the public eye.
• The Ghosts of the Old Castle: In the original book and movie, the fact that Olya and Yalo are girls and plan to rescue Gurd is only fully known to the good guys. Here, thanks to Aunt Aksal's Adaptational Villainy, Abazh receives her full reports on the girls and what they are up to, from the moment they come to the palace.
• Many Miraculous Ladybug fics involve Marinette and Adrien/Ladybug and Chat Noir learning each other's secret identities for whatever reason. While the importance of keeping one's identity a secret is brought up numerous times during the show, in the fics it isn't treated like such a big issue (justified if Hawkmoth has been defeated, thus removing the reason for secret identities in the first place).
• The Omnitrix Hero: In the original Ben 10 series, Ben was able to keep his Secret Identity for six years until he was eventually outed at the start of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. While his secret was revealed to a select few individuals besides Gwen, Grandpa Max, and a few villains like Vilgax, it wasn't a regular occurrence for him before he was permanently exposed. Here, however, Flash is much worse at keeping the Omnitrix a secret. Trixie was with him when he first got the Omnitrix, making her his primary confidant, before Shining Armor finds out about it in the second chapter after seeing Flash revert to normal. The first "Season Finale" has not just Vilgax learning Flash's identity, but all of the Rainbooms too after they begin piecing some evidence together. Then in Season 2, it is practically a Running Gag for Flash to have his secret revealed to someone throughout the season, with his secret identity only staying safe due to those that learned either suffering Laser-Guided Amnesia, dying via Heroic Sacrifice before they could tell anyone, or becoming a new Secret-Keeper. This eventually culminates in Vilgax revealing Flash's secret to the entire world when he makes his return, only a few months after he first got the Omnitrix as opposed to it taking Ben six years.
• One of the major alterations to the Naruto timeline in Son of the Sannin is that Jiraiya convinces Hiruzen to not pass the law forbidding talk about Naruto being a jinchūriki. As a result, the younger generation are all Fantastically Indifferent to him having the Kyubi sealed inside him by the time they're all preteens and at most show mild surprise when they meet other jinchūriki later in the story. In canon, Naruto didn't learn about it until he was twelve and his peers didn't learn it until their late teens.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Lost in Gotham: Spectacular's Spider-Man did a fairly good job of keeping his Secret Identity safe (by the end of the show, the only people who knew his true identity were Eddie Brock/Venom, Mary Jane (according to Word of God), and (possibly) Captain Stacy.) In the fic, he ends up in Gotham and a member of the Bats (and thus, by association, the Justice League). Seeing as how many superheroes in the League are more-or-less okay with revealing their identities to one another, Peter has trouble adjusting to the fact that he doesn't have to keep his identity a secret 24/7 anymore.
• True Potential:
  • In Naruto, it took several story arcs before the titular character's teammates Sasuke and Sakura learned that he was also the jinchūriki of the Kyūbi (something Naruto himself was aware of since the first chapter). In True Potential, both Hinata and Shikamaru (who replace Sasuke and Sakura as Naruto's teammates) become aware of that secret at the same time as Naruto does as a result of them being present when Mizuki reveals it.
  • In canon, Naruto learned who were his parents only after the Time Skip. Also, it took until the Fourth Shinobi War arc before anyone else among the Rookie Nine (Naruto's former classmates) learned that his father was Minato Namikaze AKA the Fourth Hokage. In this fanfic, Naruto learns who were his parents before the time skip, with Hinata and Shikamaru learning about it in the next chapter as a result of the Third Hokage allowing the Uzumaki to share that information only to those he deems trustworthy to not spread it around.

Films — Animation

• Downplayed in The Mystery of the Third Planet. Both in the original and here, the Captains are very Famed In-Story. However, in the original, Alice has never heard of them before the plot begins, while here, she was taught about them at school.
• Inverted in The LEGO Ninjago Movie. In the original series, the Ninja's real names are known to the public, while the film's version of the Ninja have secret identities, only revealed to the public at the end of the movie. Also, Zane's status as a robot/Nindroid is also public knowledge in the show (at least after he himself found out he was a Nindroid), while the movie shows him keeping that a secret.

Films — Live-Action

• In Dead Mountaineer's Hotel by Strugatsky Brothers, Brun is a cis girl who spends the majority of the novel posing as an Ambiguous Gender person by virtue of Sunglasses at Night and keeping the characters, save for her uncle, utterly baffled; once the sunglasses are removed, though, it's instantly clear she is a girl. Since the last part would be rather difficult to pull off onscreen without stretching the audience's suspension of disbelief beyond its limits, in the film adaptation there is no enigma surrounding Brun's identity and she is shown to be a girl from the get-go.
• Dune (2021): In the books, the fact that the Sardaukar hail from Salusa Secundus is a closely-guarded secret (though Thufir Hawat figures it out, and makes the connection that the Fremen — raised on an equally harsh planet — have the potential to match them in battle). The Baron certainly didn't know, having always assumed — as the Emperor would have everyone believe — that they're just the best recruits from among his regular levies. Here, it seems to be well-known to begin with: Piter goes to Salusa Secundus personally to negotiate their alliance with the Harkonnens, and the Sardaukar don't seem concerned about him knowing their origin, indicating they don't bother with secrecy in this continuity.
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: In the book, there's a minor subplot about Percy Weasley acting secretive, which exists to set him up as a Red Herring. In the end, it turns out that he was just trying to hide his secret girlfriend Penelope Clearwater. The movie eliminates this subplot, but it does feature a brief moment in which Percy is walking along next to a girl, who is addressed as "Miss Clearwater." This seems to imply that Percy and Penelope are open about their relationship in the movie canon.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: In the book, Harry is reluctant to tell his fellow students that he, Ron, and Hermione have returned to Hogwarts so they can complete their hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes (as he wants to keep the information compartmentalized) and Ron has to convince him the Trio can share some basic, non-incriminating details so the others can help. In the film, he's upfront with the other students that the Trio came back to find the object.
• How Czar Peter the Great Married Off His Moor:
  • A downplayed version. In The Moor of Peter the Great by Alexander Pushkin, the entire Paris knows about the Countess's affair with Ibrahim and the Chocolate Baby's birth it led to — the entire Paris, that is, except for the Count. In the film, the Count does find out about the affair, challenges Ibrahim to a duel and gets killed.
  • There is also an inversion of the trope. In the book, Natalya's father is aware of Ibrahim's royal origins. In the film, he has no clue whether Ibrahim is royal or lowborn and only agrees to Ibrahim and Natalya's marriage when the alternative is getting exiled.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: In the book, Merry doesn't realise that "Dernhelm", the Rohirrim soldier who brings him to the Battle of Pellenor Field, is actually Eowyn disguised as a man until she removes her helmet during the showdown with the Witch-King of Angmar, with it being intended as a surprise to the reader too. However, this simply wouldn't be a convincing twist on film, as the audience can clearly see and hear it's Eowyn, so instead Merry recognises her right away and stays quiet so they can both join the battle. The other characters still don't recognise her until she reveals herself, though this is understandable given that with her helmet on she looks like every other soldier and no one is specifically looking for her.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Iron Man has two examples:
    • Tony performing life-saving surgery on himself was largely considered a secret in the comics; Stan Lee's original run had him need to hide whenever he needed to charge the battery in his chest that kept the shrapnel away from his heart. In the film, the knowledge of Tony building the Arc Reactor is at least known to several of his close confidants and SHIELD.
    • The ending of the film has Tony declare "I am Iron Man"; in the comics, Tony had had a secret identity from 1963 all the way until 2006, when Civil War happened and Tony came out as pro-Superhero Registration.
  • In the comics, Captain America’s secret identity was a closely guarded secret, with multiple attempts to reveal it subjected to Status Quo Is God and Armed with Canon, until like the aforementioned Iron Man, he revealed himself in the Civil War storyline. In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers begins his Captain America career as a USO showman, meaning his identity is known to the world from the start.
  • Captain America: Civil War has an interesting version of this with regards to Spider-Man; Tony, using surveillance technology, was able to pinpoint who Spider-Man was, and where Peter Parker lived, but it seems to be a secret from everyone who isn't a billionaire with questionable ethics and access to ex-SHIELD surveillance networks.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming has Peter reveal his secret identity to his best friend Ned Leeds by accident about a quarter of the way through the film, and the ending shows Aunt May walking in on Peter putting on his Stark suit; while other adaptations have implied or outright shown that Aunt May knows about Peter's secret identity, the 616-timeline comics only have Aunt May learn the truth after seeing an injured Peter in his costume remains sleeping in a 2001 story arc, which was undone by the events of One More Day.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home has MJ Watson figure out Peter's secret, pointing out that Spider-Man has shown up in places where Peter should be.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The reveal of Percy's divine parentage is a pivotal moment in the first book, due to the fact that Poseidon was part of a pact, along with Hades and Zeus, to not have children in the aftermath of the Second World War. In the film, Percy immediately realizes he's the son of Poseidon after waking up at Camp Half-Blood.
• In The Woman in White, the fact that Anne is Laura's half-sister, born of an affair between Mrs. Catherick and Mr. Fairlie, is only deduced by Walter Hartright closer to the end of the novel, and nobody else except Anne's parents and maybe Mrs. Fairlie seemed to know it before. In the Soviet adaptation, it is much less of a mystery In-Universe since Marian learns it by eavesdropping on the conversation of Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco.

Jokes

• Many Stierlitz jokes run on this trope per Rule of Funny. In the series, Stierlitz has successfully worked as a Deep Cover Agent for almost twenty years and nobody manages to break his cover. In the jokes, sometimes the majority of the Nazi high command knows that he is a Soviet spy.
  Hitler is holding a secret meeting. Suddenly, Stierlitz bursts inside, puts a bag of oranges on the table, takes photos of all the secret documents, and runs away.
  Hitler: Who was that?!
  Others: That's Stierlitz, a Soviet agent.
  Hitler: Then why aren't you arresting him?!
  Others: That's useless. He'll weasel his way out anyway: he'll say he simply brought the oranges.

Literature

• Tales of the Magic Land, The Wizard of the Emerald City, as compared to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
  • In Oz, Dorothy never learns the Wicked Witch of the West has exhausted all her powers. In Emerald City, not only does Ellie find it out, but the Winkies do (on her prompting) as well, and they even begin to prepare a coup.
  • In Oz, Dorothy doesn't know the Wicked Witch of the West is averse to water. In Emerald City, Ellie knows Bastinda hates water, and often leaves the kitchen floor wet to annoy her (however, she never suspects water is outright lethal to the witch until the melting happens).

Live-Action TV

• Elementary's final story arc adapts the events of 'The Adventure of the Final Problem', after which Sherlock Holmes fakes his death for several years; unlike in the original stories, however, this version of Watson, and several members of the police force Sherlock works with, are fully clued into the fact that he's faking his death. Joan even helps him with it by planting evidence implicating Odin Reichenbach, the Big Bad of the final season, in his "murder".
• Game of Thrones:
  • In the original books, the fact that Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell are gay lovers is only implied, many characters are entirely clueless about it, and it took the author's words to make the matter clear for the fans. In the series, not only is the relationship shown explicitly to the viewers, but it's so well-known In-Universe that random Lannister guards are aware of it.
  • Also in the books, Barristan Selmy initially disguised himself as a man named Arstan Whitebeard in order to judge whether Daenerys had the qualifications to be a queen before revealing himself; as Dany was the only viewpoint character who interacted with “Arstan”, the readers didn’t learn the truth until she did. The show has Barristan introduce himself with his own name, as trying to hide his identity from the viewers would be pointless and the show had Daenerys get involved enough in Qarthian politics, so Barristan could already get her measure from that.
• Guest from the Future: In the original book, Kolya never learns the space pirates' identities due to coming from a different time period from them. In the series, he inexplicably knows their names and details of what they look like by the fourth episode.
• Les Misérables (2000): Asia Argento's Éponine doesn't disguise herself as a boy when she goes to the barricade, but wears the same red dress she always has.
• Ms. Marvel has Kamala's mother learning about her powers about halfway through the series, with the rest of her family being clued in soon after; in the comics, this didn't happen until a couple of years into Kamala's tenure as a hero, but her mother had been a Secret Secret-Keeper for a while.
• Once Upon a Time: In the original Rumpelstiltskin fairytale, the eponymous character's name being a secret is a central plot point, the heroine has to guess it to avoid surrendering her child to him, and it's only revealed thanks to the soldiers' Exact Eavesdropping right when Rumpelstiltskin is singing about it to himself. In this series, none of his storylines involve him forcing others to guess his name, and in the Enchanted Forest scenes, including the one in "The Miller's Daughter" directly corresponding to the fairytale, he openly introduces himself as Rumplestiltskin. In a Mythology Gag, his alias in the Land Without Magic is "Mr. Gold" with the first name never revealed.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
  • In The Lightning Thief, Percy and everyone else assume Percy's mom died from the minotaur attack until Ares reveals that Mrs. Jackson was merely abducted by Hades on the brink of death. In the series, Grover recognizes that the way Percy's mom "died" didn't look right, and figures out that she was taken alive by Hades, which Mr. Brunner and Mr. D already suspected. Grover tells Percy this in order to get him to agree to go to the Underworld.
  • Annabeth, Luke, and Grover's backstory connection to Thalia is not revealed until 3/4 of the way through the first book, since Luke and Annabeth don't like talking about her and Grover was afraid Percy wouldn't want him along if he knew how he failed Thalia. In the series, Luke tells Percy how he and Annabeth knew Thalia in Episode 2, and Annabeth lets slip about Grover's involvement in Episode 3.
  • Where Percy, Annabeth, and Grover were all initially taken in by Medusa's Aunty Em act in the book (implied to be because the food was bewitched and the kids were so hungry), here Grover already knows Aunty Em is connected to the Greek gods since her home is on a satyr path and from there Genre Savvy Annabeth quickly figures out "Aunty Em" is Medusa. Medusa herself makes no secret of this once she appears since she wants to give the demigods a chance to listen to her side of the story.
• In Mirai Sentai Timeranger, no one was aware of the Time Fire suit until Naoto took control of the V-Commander, all anyone knew was that it could control V-Rex. In Power Rangers Time Force, part of the reason for the conflict over the Quantum Control Box is to gain the Quantum Ranger powers.
• In A Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaires have a much better idea of what V.F.D. is compared to the books, where they were a highly obtuse and secretive Milkman Conspiracy whose members were either evil, incompetent, or dead. They even figure out what the initialism actually stands for at the end of Season 2: Volunteer Fire Department.
• A prequel-related variation in Star Trek. In its original incarnation in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Section 31 is firmly a No Such Agency that hardly anybody in Starfleet even knows exists and whose existence Starfleet Command refuses to comment on. Come Star Trek: Discovery, and it seems practically everybody in the fleet is aware of them: in season 2, Philippa Georgiou flashes a black Starfleet badge and Michael Burnham connects it to Section 31 immediately.

Theatre

• The Lightning Thief: In the book, Annabeth is reluctant to talk about her past as a runaway, and doesn't tell Percy about it until over halfway through the book. In "The Campfire Song", Annabeth casually sings to the whole camp about why and how she ran away from home, though it isn't until "My Grand Plan" that her true angst about the ordeal comes out.
  Annabeth: Oh, and my stepmom, she hates me, and my dad works all day
  So I left Virginia and I ran away
  Percy: [spoken] Wait, is that true?
  Luke: [spoken] Everybody!
• Inverted in Orfeo ed Euridice. In Classical Mythology, as Orpheus and Eurydice leave the Underworld, Eurydice knows that Orpheus is forbidden to look at her until they reach the world of the living. But in Gluck's opera, she doesn't know, and Orpheus is also forbidden to tell her. Therefore, her pleading for him to look at her becomes the reason for his fatal backward glance.
• A Very Potter Musical: In Harry Potter, Snape's love for Lily was a carefully-guarded secret known to nobody else except Dumbledore and only revealed to Harry in the last book. In the musical, Sirius and Lucius know about it.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Knight: The climax of the game sees Bruce Wayne unmasked as Batman, something that has yet to stick in the primary continuity of the comics.
• Spider-Man (PS4): The final minutes of the main campaign reveal that Aunt May has known that Peter is Spider-Man for years at this point, and that she's proud of what he's doing. While other adaptations have hinted at or confirmed that May knows about Peter's double life, she seems largely oblivious to it in the central Earth-616 continuity, a couple of imposters or clones notwithstanding.

Web Video

• In Sword Art Online Abridged, Suguha/Leafa immediately cottons on to the fact that Kirito is her dorky brother Kazuto, even being a bit disturbed by it because she briefly had the hots for him (bearing in mind that the two are canonically cousins, with Kirito being adopted into Suguha's family). In the original Sword Art Online, neither of them was aware of this until a Wham Episode towards the end of the Alfheim arc.

Western Animation

• Invincible: Mark's best friend William spent most of the original comics concealing his sexuality, only coming out of the closet as gay fairly late in the comic run. In the show, however, he's openly gay from the start, and his brief attempt at dating Eve from the comics is scrapped.
• My Adventures with Superman: In most Superman stories, Jimmy Olsen is unaware of Superman's secret identity as Clark Kent, despite working with both of them up close. Here, since the two were college roommates in this continuity and Clark is initially terrible at hiding his abilities, Jimmy is revealed to be the Secret Secret-Keeper halfway through the first season, knowing Clark had powers even before he became Superman.
• Pet Alien: In the original toyline, as well as the web shorts made to promote it, the aliens had to be adopted by children and hidden from the public to protect them from scientists who wanted to experiment on them and adults who wanted them sent back to their home planet. In the show, however, this element is completely dropped, with the aliens frequently going out in public without arousing any suspicion. It's implied that most of DeSpray Bay (barring Tommy, who knows the truth) are simply too stupid to realise that they're aliens; Melba refers to them as Tommy's "things".
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: In the original She-Ra cartoon, Adora kept it a secret that she was the heroine She-Ra. In the reboot, however, she's fairly open about being She-Ra (as the fact that she was the fabled hero was the main reason why she was accepted as a member of the Princess Rebellion). ND Stevenson admitted that they abandoned the idea of Adora keeping her identity as She-Ra a secret because it seemed a bit silly.
• The original Thunderbirds made a big deal about ensuring that International Rescue's cover was maintained, even if they were rescuing a Tracy family friend not aware that they're International Rescue. This is dropped in Thunderbirds Are Go because ubiquitous internet-connected cameras would have rendered that level of secrecy impossible to maintain, especially with the advent of social media.
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Much like in the comic it was based on, the Spider-Man of this series isn't as good at keeping his Secret Identity as other versions. In the first season alone, his identity is known to SHIELD (to the point where he comfortably unmasks in front of SHIELD agents several times) and his teammates (who are also kids at his school). He reveals the secret to more people as the series goes on, with it eventually being revealed that his Aunt May had known about his double life for years.

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