Misused: Secret Public Identity

I was torn between Unclear Description and Misused as the tag; the name isn't very indicative, but the description is so bare-bones it's probably the most important issue to focus on at the moment.

So, what's this trope about?

So, it is a character that doesn't have a hero name and just goes by his real name, but it isn't a character who uses his real name as his hero name? What's the difference? If I parse it right, it's someone who is always called just by their real name, but whose activities as a superhero are nonetheless kept secret. This is backed up by both the former and current page quotes (the former page quote involved Jean Grey of the X-Men, and - sigh - is referred to in the first example of the Comic Book section, without even a recognition that it isn't the quote anymore).

But then you get into the examples. Just in the Comic Book section - which, considering this trope's relationship to the superhero genre, I see as most important - I see a number of examples that seem to be indistinguishable from the Dr. Strange case above (Bucky and other Golden Age sidekicks, Jubilee, Moonstar, Dr. Doom - the comment on Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four suggests the Dr. Strange clause only applies in cases of Awesome McCoolname or Stephen Ulysses Perhero), and a few cases of characters that do have codenames unrelated to their real names and/or don't operate in secret at all (the Fantastic Four, the Punisher) - something I mentioned before in what is now the archived discussion. Worth noting that the first class of problem is already sneaking in in the earliest Internet Archive copy, with Bucky and the Golden Age characters as the first non-X-Men bullet point, and Jubilee as the first non-Jean Grey example, though only to show the irony of the quote.

I guess the point is that these are secret identities that should be impossible to keep and self-betraying ("no one knows that mild-mannered Bob Roberts is secretly The Amazing Bob Roberts!"), but that's a subjective concept (as the blurred lines between the Dr. Strange case and the proper examples help show), and most of the time when this happens it's the hero's entire set of heroic activity that's secret (which seems to be how the X-Men are portrayed a lot of the time Depending on the Writer).

I think the distinction here is:

• John Smith fights crime as John Smith, while maintaining a secret identity — this trope
• John Smith fights crime as John Smith, while maintaining no secret identity — not this trope (which probably needs to exist though)

The Dr. Strange corollary is very weird and I think should be removed, or at least seriously reworded. Whether the name is "snazzy" or not is irrelevant to the plot.

Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom definitely aren't examples, since they don't maintain secret identities. Likewise with Luke Cage (he has no secret identity, and "Luke Cage" is an alias, anyway). Likewise with the Superman example (the last one in the comic section).

Bucky, however, did have a secret identity (as far as I know), so he qualifies.

edited 30th Sep '15 2:48:19 PM by Rjinswand

What would be a good way to explain this trope, then, to prevent further confusion and misuse? As the OP said, it is confusing and wordy, and just saying which examples are valid doesn't help anything in the long run.

I think something like "Superhero fights crime under their real name, but at the same time maintains a secret identity".

Locking per New Year Purge.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman