History Main / IdentityImpersonator

%% Image Pickin' thread did not produce an image: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1617132780021714000

** In an episode of ''Series/{{Batwoman|2019}}'', Julia poses as Batwoman to fool the Crows (and specifically Sophie) into drawing suspicion away from Kate, while Kate appears in the same location as herself. Bonus points for Julia technically having the skills to pull off the ruse, even if she doesn't actually use any of them.

* ''Franchise/StarWars: Episode I — Film/ThePhantomMenace'': The Queen's handmaidens are chosen in part to act as decoys when the need arises. For portions of the movie, Queen Amidala disguises herself as the simple handmaiden Padmé, while another handmaiden (Sabé) wears the white makeup. (Sabé was one of Creator/KeiraKnightley's first roles, playing off her facial similarity to Creator/NataliePortman.)

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]

[[folder:Pro Wrestling]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

*** When Oliver is arrested again in Season 3, Roy Harper appears dressed in his Arrow costume and [[MoreExpendableThanYou tells the police they've arrested the wrong man]].

* ''Fanfic/LeaveForMendeleiev'' features an unintentional version of this thanks to mutual [[SecretIdentity Secret Identities]]. Adrien/Chat Noir suspects that Marinette ''might'' be Ladybug, but is thrown off her trail when he witnesses Ladybug checking on her and Ondine during the Timetagger incident. What he doesn't know is that this iteration of his partner is a [[MyFutureSelfAndMe time traveler]] who hitched a ride with the akuma to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong... which has nothing to do with his suspicions. Neither version had any ''clue'' that he suspected anything about her.

* ''Fanfic/LeaveForMendeleiev'' features an unintentional version of this thanks to mutual [[SecretIdentity Secret Identities]]. Adrien/Chat Noir suspects that Marinette ''might'' be Ladybug, but is thrown off her trail when he witnesses Ladybug checking on her and Ondine during the Timetagger incident. What he doesn't know is that this iteration of his partner is a [[MyFutureSelfAndMe time traverer]] who hitched a ride with the akuma to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong... which has nothing to do with his suspicions. Neither version had any ''clue'' that he suspected anything about her.

* ''Fanfic/LeaveForMendeleiev'' features an unintentional version of this. Adrien suspects that Marinette might be Ladybug right up until he witnesses Ladybug checking on her during the Timetagger incident. Unaware that this iteration of his partner is a [[MyFutureSelfAndMe time traveler]], he's completely thrown off her trail.

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370303 A Different Approach]]'' by [=ShawnaCanon=], when Adrien realizes Hawk Moth had noticed his ring and is after him, he commissions a ring identical to his Miraculous, hands the real Miraculous to Nino (along with a wig), and gets into a fight with his father to get himself in the mood to be akumatized. Not only does it throw Hawkmoth off his trail, [[spoiler: his akuma powers let him turn Hawkmoth into a statue. Too bad Ladybug wouldn't listen to him before purifying the akuma and launching her WorldHealingWave]].

%%%

%%%

* In the anime adaptation of ''VideoGame/TheCaligulaEffect'', it's revealed that Ritsu [[spoiler:is doing this. In Mobius, he's taking on the appearance of his senior coworker Shingo Tachibana, one of Mu's lead developers.]]

** On ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' Oliver Queen is the vigilante the police refer to as "The Hood". When Oliver is arrested for being The Hood, his bodyguard John Diggle puts on the costume and beats up some bad guys. The police have to release Oliver and apologize to him. Oliver was actually taking a big risk with this, given that he had only just recruited Diggle to Team Arrow and would have had no-one else to pull this off if Diggle had RefusedTheCall (which he did at first).

*** In "Blind Spot": Laurel has realized that Sebastian Blood is a VillainWithGoodPublicity and "the Man in the Skull Mask", [[CassandraTruth but no one believes her]]. [[spoiler:She ultimately guns down the Man in the Skull Mask, but when she and the Arrow take off the mask they see his [[TheDragon Dragon]]]]. The end result is that everyone takes it as proof she was wrong (even Oliver and Diggle who pulled this move before), and she's left doubting herself and sent even further into a downward spiral.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': At the end of the episode, Mysterion shows his face and gets arrested as a vigilante, but due to the [[OnlySixFaces simplistic style]] of ''South Park,'' the audience can't tell which character it is. A deleted ending from [[Recap/SouthParkS13E2TheCoon "The Coon"]] reveals that Kyle was the one who revealed himself and got arrested...then the ''real'' Mysterion shows up to talk to Kyle and reveal his ''actual'' identity...though the audience still can't tell which character it is. (A later episode would reveal that Mysterion is [[spoiler:Kenny]].)

Of course, if you're an AntiHero or a [[{{Villains}} Villain]], you could always [[IDidWhatIHadToDo just kill Tucker]].

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370303 A Different Approach]]'' by [=ShawnaCanon=], when Adrien realizes Hawk Moth had noticed his ring and is after him, he commissions a ring identical to his Miraculous, hands the real Miraculous to Nino (along with a wig), and gets into a fight with his father to get himself in the mood to be akumatized.

* In [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270351 Best of Both Worlds]] by siderealSandman, when it turns out Chat Noir can split into Chat and Adrien, him (them?) and Marinette briefly consider using that power for this trope... before deciding that it can wait, and proceeding to [[TwinThreesomeFantasy a more immediate and a lot more enjoyable]] use making the fic definitely NSFW.

** On ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' Oliver Queen is the vigilante the police refer to as "The Hood". When Oliver is arrested for being The Hood, his bodyguard Diggle puts on the costume and beats up some bad guys. The police have to release Oliver and apologize to him.

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Fanfic]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/{{Zorro}}'' used this trick in the Disney TV series; when Capitan Monasterio accused Diego de la Vega of being Zorro, Diego's assistant Bernardo appeared disguised in Zorro's costume to throw him off the track.

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* WCW did this in the late-80's as the blow-off for the Midnight Rider angle. The Midnight Rider was Wrestling/DustyRhodes' masked alter ego and Dusty was slated to be in the Midnight Rider's corner for a match. That night, the Midnight Rider was portrayed by jobber The Italian Stallion (who didn't look anything like Dusty). This is a regular aspect of CharlieBrownFromOuttaTown.
* WCW did it again in the early-90's when Brian Pillman got a loser-gets-fired match against Barry Windham, but continued wrestling under a mask as the Yellow Dog (a nod to when Barry wrestled under a mask as the Dirty Yellow Dog in the Florida territory years before). The angle ended with Barry defeating the Yellow Dog on TV, and unmasking him to be jobber Rip Rogers.

[[folder:Religion]]
* In ''Literature/TheBible'': Jacob, when he poses as his brother Esau to get the firstborn blessing from his father Isaac when he was near death in Genesis chapter 27. Because Isaac was blind and Jacob was wearing goatskins on his hands and the back of his neck, Isaac could hardly tell the difference between the two sons, except that the voice was different.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

** Ultimate Iron Man has Tony and his friend pretending to be robots, going so far as to let Tony's arm get cut off by shrapnel so that the people they were trying to trick would believe it even more. Fortunately, in the Ultimate universe, Tony Stark has amazing healing powers.

* ''Series/Snowpiercer'': The FirstEpisodeTwist is that the train's NoOneSeesTheBoss Mr. Wilford and his MouthOfSauron Melanie are the same person. In a later episode, Melanie is asked to call Mr. Wilford on the spot. Melanie then calls one of the few people who know who she really is, who is prepared to impersonate Mr. Wilford if needed.

* ''{{Series/Zorro}}'' used this trick in the Disney TV series; when Capitan Monasterio accused Diego de la Vega of being Zorro, Diego's assistant Bernardo appeared disguised in Zorro's costume to throw him off the track.

* In the ''Roleplay/GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', the Bodysnatcher lives up to her name by literally trading bodies with you. And then she goes out and has fun with your super-powers.

** Not a complete example, but it has been mentioned a few times that Alfred can imitate Bruce Wayne's voice perfectly, allowing him to do a phone conference or make an excuse for missing a date while the ''real'' Bruce is already beating people up in his underoos. In [[Series/{{Batman}} the old Batman TV series]], Alfred put on the bat-suit a couple of times when Batman and Bruce Wayne had to be in the same place at the same time. No one seemed to notice his moustache.

* In another ''Series/{{Batman}}'' example, Adam West's Bruce Wayne would occasionally be seen in public at the same time as his Batman... as played by Alfred in a backup Batsuit.

* In [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270351 Best of Both Worlds]] by siderealSandman, when it turns out Chat Noir can split into Chat and Adrien, him (them?) and Matinette briefly consider using that power for this trope... before deciding that it can wait, and proceeding to [[TwinThreesomeFantasy a more immediate and a lot more enjoyable]] use making the fic definitely NSFW.

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370303 A Different Approach]]'' by [=ShawnaCanon=], when Adrien realizes Hawk Moth had noticed his ring and is after him, he commissions a ring identical to his Miraculous, hands the real miraculous to Nino (along with a wig), and gets into a fight with his father to get himself in the mood to be akumatized.

A SecretIdentity is one of the most important secrets a costumed superhero can have, and the most carefully guarded. However, no matter how CrazyPrepared a hero thinks he is for any given contingency, eventually someone--for purposes of this article, let's call him "Tucker"--''will'' stumble onto his secret. So how can one convince Tucker that he is mistaken, that the superhero and the civilian are not one and the same?

* In ''Anime/SailorMoon'', after Kaolinite discovers Usagi's secret identity, Minako uses Usagi's disguise pen to pose as Sailor Moon. In this form, she uses her own powers (being Sailor Venus), but wisely avoids [[CallingYourAttacks calling them by name]]... sort of... Hissatsu Love-Me Moon Chain compared to Venus Love-Me Chain...
** It gets even weirder in the R season when it's obvious that Moonlight Knight is Endymion/Mamoru .... until the two are seen together. This confused, pretty much everyone, including undoubtedly the viewers until [[spoiler:it's revealed that Moonlight Knight is the embodiment of Mamoru's lost memories as Tuxedo Kamen, who somehow managed to get his own body whole the real Mamoru was afflicted with LaserGuidedAmnesia so he could protect Usagi until it was time for Mamoru to recover his memories. When this happened, Moonlight Knight reveals the truth and merges back into Mamoru's body and soul; when he wakes up, he remembers everything.]]

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', C.C. occasionally dons the Zero costume to cover for Lelouch. FridgeLogic kicks in when you realize that Lelouch is a half a foot taller than C.C. and has a completely different body type. In the second season, ninja maid Sayoko uses an almost frighteningly LatexPerfection to pose as Lelouch at school while the real Lulu is in China as Zero.
** Lelouch even did this all by himself once, using only a tape recorder, a phone, and his Geass.
* During the first [[TournamentArc Tenka'ichi Budokai]] in ''Franchise/{{Dragonball}}'', [[OldMaster Master Roshi]] enters against his pupils under the pseudonym "[[ShoutOut Jackie Chun]]", but has to invoke this trope with the aid of a defeated combatant once said pupils [[PaperThinDisguise start putting two and two together]].

* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Light uses the other users of the titular ArtifactOfDoom to pose as Kira when he is under suspicion by the Kira Task Force.
* This was done in an episode of ''Anime/MegamanNTWarrior'' to convince Lan and his friends that Masa the fishmonger was not Commander Beef. After everyone left the scene, Masa removes the LatexPerfection mask, revealing one of Beef's subordinates, who says that she is ''not'' doing that again.
* In the anime adaptation of ''VideoGame/TheCaligulaEffect'', it's revealed that Ritsu [[spoiler:is doing this. In Mobius, he's taking on the appearance of his senior coworker Shingo Tachibana, one of Mu's lead developers.]]

** One strange example came when Batman was briefly dead; Hush, the villain who devoted himself to ruining Bruce Wayne/Batman, ''gave himself plastic surgery'' to look like Bruce Wayne and take the reins of Wayne Enterprises, with the intent of ruining Bruce's reputation and everything he'd worked for. The rest of the Bat-Family, however, managed to blackmail him into actually "sticking to the script."

** Another instance had Peter Parker caught removing his Spider-Man mask on camera by Spencer Smythe's Spider-Slayer robot. But Parker is able to later fool Smythe by appearing on camera again as "himself," and then [[LatexPerfection tugging off a latex Peter Parker mask]] to reveal [[MultiLayerFacade his Spidey mask underneath]], well aware that Smythe is spying on him.
* ComicBook/IronMan had to do this a lot, actually, mainly due to his cover story that Iron Man was Tony Stark's employee and bodyguard.
** Ultimate Iron Man has Tony and his friend pretending to be robots, going so far as to let Tony's arm get cut off by shrapnel so that the people they were trying to trick would believe it even more. Fortunately, in the Ultimate universe, Tony Stark has amazing healing powers.
* Barbara Gordon pulled this when her alter ego had to be introduced to her father in ''ComicBook/{{Batgirl}}: Year One''. She made Robin (then Dick Grayson) wear her costume.
* In ''ComicBook/RedRobin'' Tim asks his shape shifting friend Ms. Martian to stand in for Tim Drake at a speech he knows he's going to get shot at in order to publicly take out his shooter as Red Robin and then spend about a year publicly "recovering" from his injuries. He concocted the plan to throw Vicki Vale off the sent of the Batfamily's identities while taking care of the assassin some corrupt cops hired to kill him.

* A plot thread in early ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' comics involved Spider-Man assuming Foggy Nelson was Daredevil (because he'd never have guessed it would have been the blind guy next to him), and Foggy consequently trying to keep up the ruse so his friend Karen Page would warm up to him romantically. Things actually managed to continue to get more complicated after that. Matt didn't want Foggy to embarrass himself, but he couldn't stop him without revealing ''he'' was really Daredevil.
* [[ComicBook/ImmortalIronFist Danny Rand]] took over as Comicbook/{{Daredevil}} for a while when Matt Murdock was in prison. As this happened during the Comicbook/CivilWar story arc, it led to a bit of confusion (and parody) as to which Daredevil it was supposed to be in the main arc of that storyline.

* UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks has quite a few one-off stories where superheroes become other superheroes under certain circumstances. For example, ''World's Finest'' #155 had [[spoiler:Batman]] become [[spoiler:Nightman]] after [[spoiler:Superman tricks him into being hypnotized]]. Note that the spoilers are deliberate, as the story revolves around the mystery of the hero's identity. Here's a link to ''Website/TheAgonyBooth'' [[http://www.agonybooth.com/agonizer/Worlds_Finest_Comics_155_Exit_Batman_Enter_Nightman.aspx review]] of ''World's Finest'' #155.
* There was a [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] comic in which Superman and Jimmy Olsen go to Kandor and are forced to take on the identities of Nightwing and Flamebird. Later the Nightwing identity was adopted by Superman's cousin Van-zee... and then by Dick Grayson (Robin!)
* After the death of Franchise/TheFlash rogue Mirror Master in ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths, Captain Boomerang took his costume and equipment to commit crimes while his ComicBook/SuicideSquad partners believed he had reformed.
* [[ComicBook/MartianManhunter J'onn J'onnz]] disguised himself as the President of the United States to protect the real President from a group of would-be assassins in DC Comics' ''[[ComicBook/LegendsDC Legends]]''. In the related ''[[ComicBook/TheWarlord Warlord]]'' side story, [=DeSaad=] and Y'smalla both masquerade as Travis Morgan.

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/ThePhantomMenace'', the Queen's handmaidens are chosen in part to act as decoys when the need arises. For portions of the movie, Queen Amidala disguises herself as the simple handmaiden Padmé, while another handmaiden (Sabé) wears the white makeup. (Sabé was one of Creator/KeiraKnightley's first roles, playing off her facial similarity to Creator/NataliePortman.)

* Though not exactly the same thing, in an episode of ''The Andy Griffith Show'', Barney is threatened by a local man who says he's going to beat Barney up if he ever sees him out of uniform. Andy convinces Barney's judo instructor to don Barney's suit and walk down a street where the man expects Barney to be walking late at night. The end result is that the man mistakes Barney's judo instructor for Barney, [[MuggingTheMonster takes a serious beating from the judo instructor]], and no longer taunts Barney.

** In ''Series/{{Supergirl 2015}}'', Kara's boss Cat Grant becomes convinced (correctly) that she is Supergirl, but is thrown off when Kara's new shapeshifting friend [[spoiler:J'onn J'onnz, normally disguised as Hank Henshaw,]] appears as Supergirl while Kara shows up as herself.

*** One episode has Superman filling in for Batman in Gotham City (Bruce has gone missing, and Robin can't fight the crime of Gotham alone and look for Wayne.) The culprit is [[spoiler:Brainiac, who kidnaps Bruce as the [=CEO=] of Wayne Enterprises, not realizing he's Batman]]. It helps that Bruce and Clark are of the same build, and that Superman's "precise muscle control" allows him to modulate his voice to match Batman.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManAndHisAmazingFriends'', complete with superpower simulation and unwitting dupe.