One Way Visor - Television Tropes & Idioms

Shady characters.*Gokai Red, Cobra Commander, Motoko Kusanagi, Geordi LaForge, Astronaut Scott Parazynski of NASA, Master Chief, Cyclops, and Robocop.

1: My legions of terror will have clear, plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

—The Evil Overlord List

A visor is a piece of eyewear that covers at least both eyes and the bridge of the nose. It's like a pair of goggles, but with temple-arms. Visor also refers to the faceplate of a helmet, the part that can be raised or lowered. This is about both kinds, specifically, ones that are opaque on one side (although, for all we know, it's opaque on both sides, so it doesn't have to be confirmed to be one-way), which is often—but not necessarily—connoted by a gold, silver, or obsidian mirror effect. Opaque, spherical helmets also count. Bonus points if the technology to do this shouldn't have been invented yet.

Separate lenses don't count, they go on Opaque Lenses. Compare Sinister Shades, The Blank, Eyeless Face, The Faceless. Contrast In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Female Saints of Athena from Saint Seiya.
Zero from Code Geass.
The Pluto colonists from Van Dread.
At various points throughout the Ghost in the Shell multiverse, Motoko is seen using one sooner or later.
- She wears one in Cash Eye as part of a thief's disguise in Stand Alone Complex.
- She has one during her fight against the giant Spider Tank at the end of the first movie.
- The manga series also shows her using one every now and then.
Crimson Scorpion's henchmen in Steam Detectives
Arc Ail snipers from Elemental Gelade
The Uruk Army commanders from The Tower of Druaga anime (the regular, BFS-weilding footmen don't count, however). One is also seen in the background when Jil gets his armor fixed.

Comic Books

Judge Dredd
Moon Man, a pulp mag character who came out when one-way glass was invented.
Originally, the Red Hood, a Bat Man villain had this. Later, it was changed to the standard superhero opaque eyepeices.
Cyclops from X-Men.
Mysterio, a Spider-Man villain.
Red Hook Asylum guards from Neonomicon
Yorrick's gas mask in Y: The Last Man
Space Marines from Won Ton Soup
In G.I. Joe, Cobra Commander's battle helmet featured a completely mirrored facemask. Many varieties of Cobra Vipers wore such masks as well.

Film

RoboCop
Lamp Shaded in Back to the Future. Doc Brown wears one, and Marty waves his hand in front of them to make sure Doc can see him.
The Mouth of Sauron from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
Jango/Boba Fett's helmets, as well as Clone Troopers from Star Wars.
Cool Rider from Grease 2
The toxic waste cleanup crew from Once Upon a Forest
The sunproof spacesuits from Sunshine
Snake Eyes from GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra
- Mantis Fighter Sub pilots
The Baron from Felix the Cat: The Movie

Live-Action TV

Geordi laForge's VISOR from Star Trek: The Next Generation is a subversion; he's literally blind without it. It isn't actually transparent from the other side, but a sensor array that relays data to neural implants to give a blind person vision.
All heroes in Toku series (Power Rangers, Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, the Ultra Series, and many more.) Interestingly, some heroes' visors or eyepieces look like they'd be very hard to see through because they are. Suit actors have more skill than you think.
The Stig from Top Gear.
Bekhesh from Farscape. Production notes indicates that it's a cybernetic replacement for the top of his head.
The mooks, and the heroes' Powered Armor in Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future .
Wraith soldiers from Stargate Atlantis.

Music

Daft Punk

Real Life

Space Suits have these.
Welding helmets and goggles have heavily smoked glass to protect one's corneas from the light generated by plasma arcs and metal-melting flames.
Hazmat Suits
Some sports eyeshields (including motorbiking helmets).
Air force pilots sometimes wear these (as seen on almost every air-force movie, usually on Mooks).
Mirrored, wraparound sunglasses.

Tabletop Games

Warhammer 40,000 unsurprisingly features many such helmets. The Dark Eldar are especially fond of these, with mirrored full-face masks common among Reaver jetbike pilots, and most of the Haemonculi "creations" such as Wracks and Grotesques have blank visors surgically implanted over their faces.

Video Games

Terran Marines from StarCraft have this. In StarCraft II, Banshee and Viking pilots have this when their ships are invisible or transformed, respectively.
Quarian helmets from Mass Effect. However, looking very closely vaguely shows eyes and a nose.
RiG helmets from Dead Space.
Sanctioned Psyker helmets from Dawn of War. Their helmets are probably all opaque, as it's heavily decorated with imperial religeous ioconography to keep them from exploding or being possessed.
- Khorne Berserkers
Nod Chem Warriors from Command & Conquer: Renegade.
- Cyborg Commando from Tiberian Sun
- Most GDI units from Tiberium Wars
Combine Elites from Half-Life 2.
UNSC SPARTAN soldiers in the Halo series.
- And with Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in Halo 3: ODST, but they can make theirs transparent.
The Assassin Cyber from Space Siege
Jeanne's Soul Armor from Jeanne Darc
Rosies from BioShock
- Alpha Sieres' from the sequel.
Mantel Corporation soldiers from Haze
Mega Man Geo-Omega from Mega Man Starforce
Komuso from Ōkami
Samus Aran from Metroid, although she can make hers transparent.
- Federation Space Marines
Zig Zagged in The Breach, the Security (staring) and Prototype (ending) suits appear to have this, but the cutscenes show us Sergei's expressions through it.
The Assassination mission in Bulletstorm has all members of the Dead Echo team wearing these.
Security guards from Doom3
Several outfits from Fallout*
the entire series, not just the original
. Most prominently, the T-51b Powered Armor (it's on the front of the box for the original and the second sequel, after all). It's got a sort of squinty, angry-eyes look to it.
Sam's prototype Powered Armor from Vanquish.
The Purple Bird in Angry Birds in Space.
Godot from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations wears a visor consisting of three horizontal, red, glowing lines. It allows him to see since he lost his vision due to poison, but he can't see red on a white background.

Web Comics

The Judicatrix and Pillar Security from Collar 6.
The alien cabbie from Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger.
Arbite helmets from Servants Of The Imperium.
One What Might Have Been strip for Gone with the Blastwave, titled "GWTBW 250k", had Gunless and Sniperguy in helmets that were featureless save for the crosshair etched in the centre and some red detailing.
Splink from Zortic. He likes weasring bizzarre makeup and/or prosthetics underneath so he can weird out people who make him take it off. The Continuity Reboot/Retcon introduces the Soykil, who have a pentagonal one as part of their uniforms.
One human scientist from Daydream wears one.
Lord Sigfreid wears one in Dominic Deegan when he's claimed by the Demon Lord Karnak and made into his second-in-command.
- Part of the Callan Battlecaster uniform.
Scarlet and her four sisters' Powered Armor from Sequential Art.
Zig Zagged with Mecha Maid from Spinnerette. About fifty percent of the time she has this.
Greylock, the four-armed climber dude, and Gali-Leo from American Barbarian.
P-T.U.N.I.A.*
Plant-(at)Tuned Undead Named In Acronym
from Beyond the Canopy.
Callista of Magick Chicks never seems to take her's off. Its made evident when Cerise removes it and it leaves lines on her face.
"Sarge," one of Nova's cyborg minions, from Keychain of Creation
The Emmissary from Chorus Of The Neverborn

Web Original

Zero Punctuation usually puts characters in these when the game being reviewed is Sci Fi.
Squall Troopers from Space Janitors

Western Animation

G.I. Joe: Cobra Commander's mask. The Movie shows that it's a rare fully opaque version.
Played With in Static Shock with Richie (AKA Gear). Other characters act as if it's this, but the audience can see through it just fine.
Most goggles in the Dilbert cartoon.

Scary Shiny Glasses

Glasses Tropes

Purely Aesthetic Glasses

Nixon Mask

Who Was That Masked Index

White Mask of Doom