History Main / DramaticUnmask

* In the ActionPrologue of ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the final remaining robber removes his clown mask to reveal the Joker, a [[WildCard very different criminal]] from what Gotham has been used to up till now.

* In the ActionPrologue of ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the final remaining robber removes his clown mask to reveal the Joker, a very different criminal from what Gotham has been used to up till now.
-->'''Bank Manager:''' Think you're smart, huh? [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder The guy that hired youze, he'll just do the same to you.]] [[VillainousEthicsDecay Oh, criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect.]] Look at you! What do you believe in, huh? WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?!\\

** The [[PsychoForHire CP9]] reveal their true identities during the Water 7 arc: [[spoiler:Blueno, Kalifa, Kaku, and Lucci, who were the kind bartender, the charming secretary, and two of Galley-La's foremen respectively]].

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': At the end of the "Here Comes the Squirtle Squad" episode of ''Anime/PokemonTheOriginalSeries'', the leader of the eponymous delinquents shows up trailing the heroes. After Ash offers him to join his team, Squirtle removes his TriangleShades, showing off his huge eyes, before running up to embrace Ash.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': In A Clear And Present Danger, Claire is unmasked to Nathan revealing her as one of the black-hooded and drugged prisoners at the airport. She's eventually let go at Nathan's request. Later in the final scene of the next episode, Trust And Blood, a recaptured Tracy is black-hooded again, kept in a van before Nathan unmasks her. Unfortunately for Tracy, she is re-drugged and is black-bagged again as Nathan walks away in the final shot.

** ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'': Foggy learns that Matt is Daredevil when he discovers him bleeding out in his apartment from being attacked by Wilson Fisk and Nobu. Matt learns not to make the same mistake with Karen, which is why he willingly tells her the secret.
** ''Series/{{The Defenders|2017}}'': In "Mean Right Hook," Danny and Colleen catch a cleanup crew preparing to break down the bodies of some fallen Chaste soldiers with acid. Danny manages to corner one of them outside, and rips off the guy's mask, revealing it to be Cole Miller, a street kid from Harlem that Misty Knight has tasked Luke with keeping an eye on. Moments later, Luke shows up, having followed Cole's crew after seeing them getting into a work van elsewhere in Harlem.

*** Frank Castle, acting on information from Karen Page about Micro, dons a ski mask and breaks into Carson Wolf's house to accost him. After a drawn-out fight, he ties Wolf to a chair and tortures him for info. But he's deliberately left the restraints loose enough for Wolf to free himself, get the gun away from Frank and rip off his mask.

*** In episode 8, Billy Russo and some PMC contractors loaned to him by Rawlins ambush Dinah Madani, Sam Stein and a bunch of DHS SWAT officers accompanying them when they are tricked (by Madani feeding false information into Rawlins' bug) into going to a warehouse where they think they will capture Frank meeting with a gun dealer. Stein manages to corner a masked Russo outside and draws his pistol on him. He advances on Russo and pulls his mask off. [[OhCrap He freezes up in shock]], and Russo swiftly disarms him of his gun and stabs him to death with [[NothingUpMySleeve a concealed knife]].

--->'''Clint Barton:''' [[YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe Come on!]]\\

** In an earlier episode, ''A, B, and C'', Number Six's dreams are being tapped into and viewed by Number Two -- in his dream, No. 6 makes a big show of unmasking the mystery man behind his resignation...[[spoiler: Number Two! It turns out 6 got wise to the dream tapping technique and fixed it so he could consciously alter his dream and mess with his captors' heads]].
* ''Series/PoliceSquad'': Played for RuleOfFunny in the climax of the first episode. Drebin confronts the clerk who committed the murder, and reveals that he knows that before she was a clerk, she had another identity, and then rips off her wig to reveal her true hair color. Then he reveals that she had another identity before that, and rips off another wig. And it keeps going through roughly half a dozen prior identities, all of which she was [[DressedInLayers still wearing the disguises for one over the other]], some of which [[HammerSpace could not possibly have been concealed under the wigs]] that were layered on top.

** In [[Recap/Hawkeye2021Episode4PartnersAmIRight "Partners, Am I Right?"]], as Kate is searching Maya's apartment and comes under attack from her, Clint finds himself under attack from a masked assailant on the roof of the building across the street. Kate and Maya eventually join him in the fight, and Maya is briefly taken out when the masked assailant uses [[NothingUpMySleeve Widow's Bites]] to shock her. This leads Clint to realize that they're fighting a Black Widow. Eventually, he's able to rip her mask off, revealing her to be [[spoiler:Yelena Belova]]. Realizing her identity has been compromised, [[spoiler:Yelena]] chooses to cut her losses and flee.

** ''Series/{{The Defenders|2017}}'': In "Mean Right Hook," Danny and Colleen catch a cleanup crew preparing to break down the bodies of some fallen Chaste soldiers with acid. Danny manages to corner one of them outside, and rips off the guy's mask, revealing it to be Cole Miller, the kid from Harlem that Misty Knight has tasked Luke with keeping an eye on. Moments later, Luke shows up, having followed Cole's crew after seeing them getting into a work van elsewhere in Harlem.

*** Frank Castle, acting on information from Karen about Micro, dons a ski mask and breaks into Carson Wolf's house to accost him. After a drawn-out fight, he ties Wolf to a chair and tortures him for info. But he's deliberately left the restraints loose enough for Wolf to free himself, get the gun away from Frank and rip off his mask.

*** In episode 8, Billy Russo and some PMC contractors loaned to him by Rawlins ambush Dinah Madani, Sam Stein and a bunch of DHS SWAT officers accompanying them when they are tricked (by Madani feeding false information into Rawlins' bug) into going to a warehouse where they think they will capture Frank meeting with a gun dealer. Stein manages to corner a masked Russo outside and draws his pistol on him. He advances on Russo and pulls his mask off. [[OhCrap He freezes up in shock]], long enough that [[NothingUpMySleeve Russo produces a concealed knife and stabs him to death.]]

** ''Series/{{Hawkeye|2021}}'': In "Never Meet Your Heroes", Kate Bishop is eavesdropping on an auction where various items recovered from the Avengers Compound are being sold off, including her childhood idol Clint Barton's old Ronin costume and sword. When the auction is attacked by members of the Tracksuit Mafia, Kate dons the costume to take them on. She's caught on camera fleeing the scene afterwards, which gets Clint's attention when he hears about it on the news (as he's in New York with his kids for Christmas). He goes out to confront this person, and ends up saving Kate as she's being ambushed by the Tracksuits. He drags her into a nearby alley, and roughly rips the mask off. Clint is in disbelief over the fact that his costume ended up in the hands of a young woman, while Kate can't believe that her idol of all people came to her rescue.

** ''Anime/UltimateMuscle'': Kevin Mask attempts to do this in the Chōjin Grand Prix to Kid Muscle, but Kid Muscle is able to keep his mask on by biting onto it. If Kevin Mask had succeeded, this would have meant Kid Muscle would have had to commit ritual suicide (original Japanese source), or would be banned from ever wrestling again (4Kids Dub). Even Doc Nakano (the announcer Mac Metaphor's side-commentator) comments on the oddity that what little we see of Kid Muscle's face is actually of relatively normal human-like appearance.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Parodied in one light novel with a pirate named Skull who is NeverBareheaded, constantly wearing a mask in public. His allies eventually deduce that he was ''planning'' to dramatically unmask at some point to reveal his true identity, but he could never find an appropriate time and kept putting it off. He's therefore been wearing the mask for years on end and can't bring himself to take it off in front of others because it's been too long and now it would just be awkward to suddenly remove it.

* ''Manga/OnePiece''
** This trope is toyed with in one point where it's strongly implied that the other characters have met Iron Mask Duval before. (Luffy even claims that the crew should know his face.) When Duval's helmet is finally kicked off, [[spoiler:it turns out that Duval is a total stranger. The crew only knew his face because it was identical to the poorly done sketch used by the Marines for Sanji's wanted poster.]]
** The [[PsychoForHire CP9]] reveal their true identities during the Water 7 arc: [[spoiler:Blueno, Kalifa, Kaku, and Lucci, who were the kind bartender, the charming secretary, and two of Galley-La's foremen respectively]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', both the comic and the movie, shows the police [[spoiler:finally apprehending and forcefully unmasking Rorschach.]] To the surprise of the audience, [[spoiler:he turns out to be a [[ChekhovsGunman previously introduced background character.]]]]
* Roger Stern's original run on the ComicBook/SpiderMan comics of the 1980s introduced the Hobgoblin, the fourth replacement of the then-deceased original Green Goblin. Unfortunately, the mystery of the Hobgoblin's true identity was dragged out for literally years on end and as various writers and editors took the place of Stern and Danny Fingeroth, it was forgotten whom Roger Stern had intended the Hobgoblin to be. The way Tom [=DeFalco=] continued the saga made many people think that it was Ned Leeds, only Christopher Priest (then Jim Owsley) sabotaged that by summarily killing off Ned Leeds in ''Spider-Man vs. Wolverine'' #1. In the end the matter was dropped into Peter David's lap to resolve at short notice in one issue, and he decided that Leeds had been the Hobgoblin all along. It wasn't until Stern returned for a few issues to the Spider-titles years later that he had the ''real'' Hobgoblin returned and Spider-Man unmasked him as [[spoiler:fashion mogul Roderick Kingsley]]. Many fans cheered, but many others reacted with: "Who???" The "real Hobgoblin" subsequently had his ass handed to him by the original Green Goblin (returning from the dead) and wasn't used in the mainstream Spider-books for several years, not returning until a brief appearance during "Big Time".
* A ''ComicBook/DarkwingDuck'' comic in Magazine/DisneyAdventures had [[AlliterativeName Mondo the Mad Mask Misappropriator]], who [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin unmasks heroes]]. He almost gets Darkwing but he had [[CrazyPrepared several masks on under his]] DominoMask.
* ComicBook/UltimateMarvel
** ''ComicBook/UltimateGalactusTrilogy'': Inverted. The audience has already seen that the scientist Phil Lawson is actually an alien with an armor. When he was captured and took it off (something that SHIELD couldn't figure out how to do themselves, being alien tech), Carol Danvers was taken by surprise. But then, she realized it's not that Phil Lawson is an alien, it's that there is no "Phil Lawson". Phil Lawson '''is''' the mask, it has always been an alien infiltrating them as a scientist.
** Subverting this is a RunningGag in ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan''. Peter Parker gets dramatically unmasked frequently, but no one ever has any idea who he is, since he's just some high school student.
* Subverted even more in the original ''Amazing Spider-Man'' series where Doctor Octopus unmasks him in front of the other students who immediately recognize Peter but refuse to believe a geek like him could possibly be Spider-Man. They even convince Doc Ock himself that he caught not the real Spidey but just some kid in a CheapCostume, preserving Peter's secret.
* In the StoryArc ''ComicBook/TheTrialOfTheFlash'', Barry Allen's lawyer, having guessed who he is, decides this would be a huge mitigating factor; no jury will convict a man for saving his bride-to-be from his first wife's murderer. So she unmasks him in open court -- to reveal a face we've ''never seen before''. The explanation? Barry recently took severe facial damage in a fight and was fixed up by his friend Solovar in Gorilla City. At that time he asked for a favour, and now we know what it was: instead of repairing his ''old'' face, he had Solovar make him a ''[[MagicPlasticSurgery new]]'' one, right down to the hair color. (Barry's life was a mess at this point, and he intended to start a new one after the trial.) This wrecks his lawyer's plan, but Barry is ultimately acquitted anyway, and he gets his old face back in time for his big HeroicSacrifice in the [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]].
* ''ComicBook/SensationComics'': Franchise/WonderWoman unmasks the villain the Snowman, whose been terrorizing a small town, by removing her helmet in front of everyone and showing that the local respected school teacher Byrna Brilyant's real personality is quite a bit more vicious and greedy than anyone imagined.