Why do superheores still use secret identities?

You mean like Wonder Woman does/did with Diana Price?

No, most of the time it's been the other way around. Until several years after Crisis on Infinite Earths, Batman was unquestionably Bruce Wayne's mask, and there was also a transitional period where it could be have been read either way. The "There is no Bruce, there is only Batman" notion only really became canon in the early to mid 90s.

It's worth contrasting Batman with Superman, who went the opposite route. Until Crisis, Kal-El's true identity was Superman, who dressed up as Clark Kent. After Crisis, John Byrne rejigged things to emphasise the importance of the Kents in Kal-El's upbrining, such that Clark became Kal-El's real face and Superman the mask.

This follows the changing role and importance of media. In the Golden Age, Superman kept up the Clark persona so he could hear about crimes early. This was also part of the justification in the Silver Age, but at that point it was mostly used as a plot device to drive wacky shenanigans. Around the start of the Bronze Age, as telecommunications became widespread and thus working as a journalist was of less aid in identifying crimes, it shifted into a combination of protecting those he loves from supervillains and an expression of Kal-El's sense of justice and humility, as despite being freaking Superman he still insists on earning an honest wage to pay the rent.

Then in the 80s, at the start of the Iron Age it was rebooted so that Superman was a mask that Clark wore, mostly to protect his friends and family from being targeted by the supervillains he defeats.

But still, each of the ages gave a different, evolving reason for Kal-El to maintain the Clark identity. Does Batman still need Bruce? I would say so from an entirely practical standpoint.

Again, let's compare Batman to the Phantom. The Phantom is basically the Phantom all the time, though he maintains the Mister Walker identity when he needs to do something in the civilised world. However, the Phantom is of relatively limited means, living off the land and paying for what little he needs to buy from, presumably, ill-gotten money originally pilfered by the criminals he defeats.

Such an approach wouldn't work for Batman. He's an urban character, so he needs to buy all his food. He also needs to pay for fuel for the batvehicles, electricity to run the batcomputer, spare parts for his devices, and extra kevlar for when his suit gets damaged. That's a whole lot more than the Phantom goes through, and for that, Batman needs funds which are ultimately unlimited. This can be accomplished by having a steady, moderately high income from the Wayne Estate, but since Batman isn't a legal person, he needs somebody with a valid social security number to bring in the cash. That's why he needs to keep Bruce Wayne around - if Bruce dies, all his assets go to the government at best, or if Damian has been born and acknowledged as his heir, they wind up under the control of Talia al'Ghul. Either way, he's now broke and cannot afford all his fancy gear.

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Which is where Alfred would come in, as the designated heir to the family fortune. The money is brought in by long-term investments and savings interest on top of the still substantial trust fund, and officially goes to the upkeep of the manor, as managed by the Waynes' loyal retainer. Not that anyone would bother checking, as this is a private account, and few people would pay attention to an eccentric millionaire in a world of Musks and Trumps. So long as Batman's operations are kept well below the inflated Bat-god shenanigans, there should be no problem in maintaining a plausible financial cover.

edited 17th Aug '15 11:42:13 AM by indiana404

While it's gotten more pronounced since the 80's, I will stick to the idea that the Bruce Wayne, at least the persona he shows to the public, has always been a mask. If you go back to his earliest appearances, he's shown behaving like the classic "bored playboy" when talking to Commissioner Gordon or pretty much anyone else. Once Robin came along, we got to see his actual persona more often, but even then he was the playboy when around other people. He was markedly less angsty about it, though. Seemed to treat it like it was great fun.

Regarding Batman, I'll stay out of the whole "should Bruce Wayne be dead" discussion, but I will mention that he's one of the few superheroes who definitely can't let his actual identity get out. This has less to do with danger to his own person or those he loves, mind you, and more to do with the fact that it would render his entire routine useless. You can't go around scaring criminals straight when they know that under the mask you're a spoiled rich kid who's still upset about mom and dad's death (I know that Indiana would question whether Batman should be able to frighten criminals given his non-lethal policy, but that's irrelevant to the fact that he's supposed to be able to).

I'm also pretty forgiving of any superhero who maintains a secret identity while being a teenager. Again, it's hard to be intimidating when your enemies realize you haven't graduated high school yet. Better yet, being a teen pretty much guarantees you live at home with your family, and that makes going after you in your civilian life far more tempting than targeting an adult hero, particularly given how humiliated your average supervillain is likely to be by losing to a kid in the first place.

I'd say the plausibility of Batman maintaining a secret identity ultimately depends on the scale and visibility of his operations. Him being an urban legend seen only by a few criminals and even fewer cops, and using mostly gadgets and machinery that could be mistaken for anything in the dark - that's pretty plausible. Him making public appearances along with the rest of the Justice League, or otherwise employing Iron Man level tech or utilizing the equivalent budget thereof - this one stretches disbelief. At the very least it would be an open secret that Wayne Enterprises sponsors Batman, with anyone who'd seen both him and Bruce Wayne up close pretty much realizing the truth... which Gordon and half the Arkhamites already do, and not coincidentally the ones who aren't scared of him. It's a considerable contrivance nowadays that neither Bane nor Nygma nor Ra's al Ghul nor Luthor have elected to reveal his identity so as to drown him in the fallout. I'm betting Luthor's gonna get the amnesia treatment after his current stint, but among the rest, only the Riddler has a pathological excuse.

Otherwise yeah, heroes still in school can rock the masks all night long. Though if Buffy and Kim Possible are any indication, the trend there is to not have masks or costumes anyway, and simply rely on an almost comically reinforced masquerade.

There's also the little detail that being a vigilante is, y'know, illegal, so having a secret identity makes sense for plain ol' not-getting-arrested reasons.

Given how the DCU not only tolerates a vigilante-run orbital station in international space, but sports a dedicated Flash museum, and never mind the all but legally accepted status of some teams, I'd say getting arrested is hardly worth worrying about.

In an age of ubiquitous digital surveillance by both state and citizens, it's pretty much impossible to retain any secret identity with a straight face, much less on a grand superhero scale. It's simply an increasingly outdated concept that classic titles keep on sheer momentum, while new franchises and most adaptations dispense with entirely.

For that matter, I only mentioned Batman for a minor speculation on how his mythos can avoid having to hold yet another weasel, before he starts looking just as ridiculous as all those last generation horror films where the first thing the evil ghosts go after is cellphone reception. Bad enough he's become too serious to take seriously nowadays, but the franchise's insistence on maintaining every single implausible cliche left over from the Golden Age really makes it look more like an exercise in circular nostalgia than anything else. All I'm saying is, it's only natural to change with the times.

Oh please, with "extra dimensions", "folded space", sub space, "alternate universes", "other planes", literal gods, lack of conservation of mass and all other silliness seen in comic books digital surveillance is hardly a death sentence to secret identities.

All those reasons to use a secret identity? Off the top of my head. Here's more.

The superhero is legally dead or faking the dead.

The superhero was a result of some immoral practice and doesn't want people to know it was successful. This one also ties in with legally dead and or faking the dead and goes double for pet\animal superheroes.

The superhero is a foreign agent.

The superhero is impersonating someone else or undercover.

The superhero is in hiding, either from doing embarrassment, shame or fear.

The superheroes powers work better when people know less.

The superhero is cursed to have his good deeds forever unknown by the general public.

The superhero is trying to pull it off on a dare\for charity.

@indiana Kim Possible didn't rely on a masquerade.

Perhaps I should've gone with Perry the Platypus, but the general idea is still the same - leading that kind of double life is implausible enough without the spandex and associated paraphernalia. And when it's played for drama, it simply becomes a genie in a sealed bottle, since, while modern technology makes it increasingly easier for the secret to slip up, its importance to the mythos means there'll be a ton of contrivances so as for that not to happen. Superman's own paper-thin disguise and associated two person love triangle have themselves been mocked to no end, to the point where both the current comics and the latest films have dispensed with them, the latter at least as far as Lois Lane is concerned. Why - because a superpowered alien fending off an invasion may not be realistic in the strictest physical sense, but a man hiding his identity behind a pair of glasses - that's just not believable.

edited 20th Aug '15 9:04:32 AM by indiana404

I'd definitely say secret identities can still work, even in a society as hi-tech as ours has become. I feel that a lot of the post-modern sneering of secret identities comes not from the practice itself being flawed but rather by it being improperly used for the sake of the status quo. One must have the right reasons for maintaining a secret identity, and, more importantly, one must be willing to let the right people in on it.

That second point is what I feel is the main issue. Because when I see people laugh about that stuff being implausible, it's less from the perspective of the public and enemies and more from family and friends. And it does make sense: they would do a better job protecting themselves if they knew what was going on, they could actually help out with keeping it under wraps, they should be sensible enough to not just blab about it to anybody, them knowing isn't going to completely destroy one's normal life, etc.

I think that there's an obvious reason why superheroes still maintain secret identities. They are illegal vigilantes, and if their identities where public they would be arrested. In the marvel movies Tony should have been super duper arrested and hauled before an international tribunal for the shit he was pulling. This especially true for heroes like Daredevil and Batman who don't have powers, and mostly go around assaulting criminals. That was the reason for having secret identities in the 30s comics, because the police where hunting down the heroes, even the golden age superman had run ins with the law, although I'm not sure how necessary superman's secret identity is because it's not like they can arrest him. Also from a storytelling standpoint, it brings drama and conflict to the superheroes life.

edited 21st Aug '15 3:26:15 AM by HeroAllAlong

Except that in modern superhero comics, vigilantism is totally legal. DC America even has a constitutional amendment allowing vigilantes to testify anonymously.

There's a nice moment in Judgement on Gotham when Batman is unprepared for the idea that there might be a universe where vigilantism would get him arrested.

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So, given that most of Batman's dangerous enemies already know who he is and where to target him, and pretty much all his allies share his lifestyle anyway, he's officially out of excuses... maybe apart from fearing charges of embezzlement and reckless endangerment of minors, but if Luthor's lawyers can handle worse, so can Wayne's.

When you think about it, superheroes usually fit one of two archetypes - the vigilante dealing with mobsters and thugs, and the specialist handling larger than life threats, in the vein of pulp adventurers like Doc Savage and Mandrake the Magician. Thus, it makes sense that the latter wouldn't have to bother with a secret identity - they're not stepping in on any legitimate authority in the first place, nor do their stories need said authority to be corrupt or altogether useless for the narrative to function. Even the Adam West Batman worked like a costumed great detective called only for the tricky cases, while the 40's Fleischer cartoons coined the phrase "a job for Superman", so as to avoid having him fight regular criminals.

With this in mind, very few newly invented superheroes are cast from the former mold. Usually, they come with dedicated supervillains, with the street-level stage being a start-up at most. Thus, the heroes can have a somewhat regular life whenever there aren't any ninja pirate zombie robots to fight, without bothering with regular crime altogether. This sort of thing is unrealistic in a different fashion, but at least it's more than a few weasels short of the usual kennel.

If most batman's enemies know who he is, then why don't they kill him?

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Most of Batman's enemies don't know his secret identity. Riddler forgot and Batman made very clear he couldn't use the info without revealing himself before that, Joker only was actually shown as really knowing very recently and we don't know when/how/if that will ever be followed on (and most of the time he only wants for their 'game' to continue), Ra's has the whole Honor thing, Bane has a lesser degree of the Honor thing and keeps flirting with anti-heroism anyway. Hush has always been a badly written mess of a character, so any plothole involving him ultimately comes down to 'Because Reasons'. Right now, even Catwoman's knowledge of Bruce's secret was retconned, I think.

edited 22nd Aug '15 7:24:13 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Which is, itself, a violation of the Bill of Rights. Lovely.

At Marvel, it's more of a murky gray area. It's illegal but tolerated, largely depending on how the police feel about the superhero. As with many laws, whether or not efforts are made to apprehend superheroes based on vigilantism is entirely up to the discretion of the people who enforce those laws.

Which is why, say, the Punisher usually has only a token effort at catching him but Spider-Man was hounded by police everywhere he went before he had an Avengers ID to flash around, legitimizing him. The Punisher has higher approval rating than Spider-Man.

That superhero activities are technically illegal yet tolerated also allows for stories in which something happens to put the superhero in the police's Shit List, that tolerance goes out the window, and the manhunts begin.

edited 24th Aug '15 9:23:39 AM by TobiasDrake

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I would venture to say that said Constitutional Amendment is going to be seriously Depending on the Writer, regardless of what it's "official" status is.

edited 24th Aug '15 4:50:41 PM by Robbery

In addition to all of the very valid reasons mentioned elsewhere along this thread, I don't think anyone's mentioned the most mishandled and abused, yet still valid, reason of all:

Protection of loved ones.

Yes, the laws of dramatic narrative often foil this. But let's face it, not wanting the (possibly super-powered) psychopath who feels a personal grudge against me to murder my loved ones as part of their Roaring Rampage of Revenge, or have to put up with mobsters threatening/torturing/murdering my loved ones to try and influence me the way police, legal officials and governmental agents have to do in real life is a pretty good reason to try and keep anyone from figuring out who I really am when I'm not in the spandex.

That is a valid reason but I do know if it is all that valid. Spiderman frequently gets involved in things that would otherwise endanger his Aunt May and his loved ones. Even Daredevil gets involved in things that would otherwise endanger his partners, friends and families lives.

"We are just like Irregular Data. And that applies to you too, Ri CO. And as for you, Player... your job is to correct Irregular Data."

Although Daredevil's case is in a huge part due to how lousy he is at protecting that secret identity.

In Spider-Man's case, a lot of his supporting cast work for a high profile newspaper in a world where super-crime exists, and MJ is a typical movie starlet with the usual Freak Magnet cranked up to twelve...

edited 30th Aug '15 1:23:42 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Maybe this goes without saying, but the external reason seems obvious: it's a ready-to-use source of drama and intrigue that a writer can exploit for a story when he can't think of anything else that day. It was one of the only things that Silver Age Superman was genuinely vulnerable to, for example; take that away, and God only knows what the hacks could've used to fill a year's worth of issues.

So between its massive convenience to the writer and regular old creative inertia, the secret identity is probably never going away.