A theory on Masks in the DCU

Cafe Society
1

I’m completely cross posting this from my livejournal (which is linked in my sig, if you’re curious). I’d like people to actually read it and for some smart people to fill in the holes / nitpick it to death.

I totally want somebody to write a serious (well, semi-serious) psychology paper on this.

People in the DC universe must be wired differently than us so that those little domino masks people like Robin and the Green Arrow wear actually work. It would explain everything. You know how when a little kid sees somebody without glasses for the first time, they completely don’t recognize them? I’d imagine everyone in the DCU is like that. Maybe certain people like Batman can train around it, but their brains are wired that way. For example, we see Tim Drake with a little green mask around his eyes, they see Robin and don’t connect him to Tim Drake at all. It’s the perfect explanation as to why Green Arrow can get away with that completely distinctive beard and no one connects him to Oliver Queen.

I suppose it would it would be an expansion of how we don’t always recognize someone outside where we’re used to seeing them. For example, have you ever met a teacher outside of school and it took you a minute to figure out how it was? Totally like that. It explains Superman’s so-called disguise. And how cross-dressing always works (no, really how many times as Robin dressed like Batgirl? And nobody noticed, ‘Hey! Batgirl’s got stubble. And an Adam’s apple’?)

And I want to put something in about how, for example, we see Christopher Bale in a rubber suit, but they would see BATMAN. But, unfortunately, I’m not clever enough to make this into a complete theory.

(more examples: Matches Malone. the Joker anytime he uses makeup. Um. Anytime Alfred or Dick end up being either Bruce or Batman. Nightwing. Well, anyone in just the ickle domino mask)

And I specify DCU, because Marvel (the only other company I’ve read consistently) either uses real masks (like Spiderman) or doesn’t bother with keeping identities secret (like the Fantastic Four). I’m sure that’s a complete generalization, but as far as I can remember, it’s more or less true (but then I generally stuck to X-related titles)

And an unrelated question: has ‘Jack Napier’ ever been made canon in the comics? I know it was in the first movie and mentioned in the animated series. But everyone in fanfic seems to treat it as law, and I was under the impression it had never been confirmed.

2

The Joker prefers his origin to be multiple-choice.

(But I tend to think of him as Joseph Kerr, from a marvelous story where he believes he finally killed Bats and didn’t see any reason to continue being insane…)

3

I have a Green Lantern comic from some time in the late '80s where he’s in costume and happens to bump into an acquaintance who immediately recognizes him as Hal Jordan. After the conversation ends and the acquaintance walks away, Hal thinks to himself, “Damn, I knew I should have designed this costume with a cowl!” And Hal Jordan’s GL mask provides more coverage than Robin’s.

4

Prosopagnosia is a condition in which the ability to recognize the faces of familiar people is impaired. In the past it was thought to be rare and usually caused by brain damage; however, new research suggests that mild ‘face-blindness’ may actually be fairly common. Prosopagnosiacs learn to compensate for their disorder by identifying people using other criteria.

(Personally I suspect that I myself may suffer from this condition-- I’m thrown by such changes in appearance as new hairstyles or different clothing, and don’t even ask me to identify a co-worker if I run into them while away from work.)

Anyhoo, the obvious conclusion is that nearly all DC humans (and aliens, I suppose) have evolved with a mild degree of congenital face-blindness. This explains why such seemingly trivial disguises as a domino mask can throw them so completely. These cognitive faculties have been displaced in their genome by the latent metagene for superpowers. This is why humans on our Earth can see through such flimsy disguises, but never develop superpowers. Of course, from the perspective of DC humans, we’d all possess an uncannily accurate knack for remembering faces, which by their standards might seem like a form of superpower.

5

There was a period where Green Arrow stopped wearing a mask because the “disguise” fooled absolutely no one. But that’s been retconned since then.

Marvel is not above this. The Young Avengers are a good example. You’ve got one character with no mask, two with shades, a couple with domino masks and only one parent figures out that the kid on TV is their kid. This is additionally weird because two of the characters are twins and are routinely mistaken for each other–yet no one recognizes them out of costume even though neither wears a mask.

I love Young Avengers and don’t care, though. At this point, it’s such a comic convention I’m willing to suspend disbelief without an excuse. I myself am really bad with faces anyway.

6

I knew there had to be a name for it. And that is the perfect explanation. Thank you.

I knew there would be somebody smart that could put it better than I can.

7

well anecdotally i ran into this in a movie i was watching where the main good guy and the main bad guy are played by the same guy… just diffrent hair, glasses, and outfit… i couldnt tell they were the same guy till i read the credits and even then i had a hard time with it.

8

Jack Napier = the Joker is pretty much canon, AFAIK. I don’t recall if currently it was just one of his aliases, or if it was his “real” name. However, Jack Napier is not the person who shot Bruce Wayne’s parents.

Also, I would say that part of the DCU’s obliviousness on the identity of some of the heros’ identities is that those identities keep changing – they’re on Robin #3 or so right now (Dick, Jason, Tim), and there is no announcement to the general public when they change. There are at least five “Green Lanterns” operating on Earth in the DCU now, three of which (Hal, John, Kyle) have very similar costumes, with mainly their masks differing (and John not being a white guy). Although the public does know there are different GLs.

Green Arrow is the real head-scratcher. As Ollie, he’s the mayor – who wears the same distinctive and rather outdated facial hair as the Green Arrow… who operates in the same city. Furthermore, Ollie’s history is not one that would survive scrutiny by any investigative reporting, what with his having been dead for some time and all (though they might have covered that in his monthly).

9

Happy to be of service. And I’m not smart by any stretch of the imagination-- the only reason I know about prosopagnosia is because, as I mentioned before, I personally can’t remember faces.

I have found that other people are often bemused or offended by my inability to recognize them when I run into them at the mall even though we’ve been working in the same department for seven years. “Prosopagnosia” is a nicely technical-sounding medical term that I can toss out as an excuse to distract them from being too insulted. Rather than merely saying, “Oh, sorry; I just didn’t recognize you,” which conveys the implication that they’re forgettable or unimportant in my eyes, instead I can say, “Damn! I’m sorry, it’s this accursed prosopagnosia of mine. It’s a crippling mental disorder that prevents me from remembering faces unless they’re remarkably ugly or feature distinctive scars, tattoos or piercings. Please forgive me.”

10

In the first Superman movies not only did he don glasses he also changed his hairstlye, which I thought was a neat idea. Truthfully I’m not sure I’d recognise him. I’d be like: “I’m sure I’ve seen you someplace before.” Then shrug and forget about it. If I remember correctly the Silver Age Clark Kent was just supposedly one of a dozen or so semi-famous people who looked like Superman.

11

The official explanation for why no one recognized that Silver Age Superman and Clark Kent were the same person is that Superman at the time had the power of “super-hypnosis.” He unconsciously used his super-hypnosis power all the time while in his Clark Kent guise, causing people to see Clark as smaller and frailer than Superman. So mighty was his unconscious super-hypnosis that it even worked through photographs.

12

Right. That would be Joe Chill. Who I think is dead. I know he went splat in the Animated comics.

And you forgot the fourth Robin, Stephanie (aka Spoiler). Course, she’d be harder to confuse with the other three. And Damian sometimes dresses as Robin.

Basically, I really need to get caught up in the comics (I’m currently mostly reading through the Golden Age. Ah, sweet crack). Pretty much everything I know, I got from scans_daily.

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That’d be from the classic Superman #330 (Dec 1978). The Tuesday, March 02, 2004 entry on this blog offers relevant detail.

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I think there’s a simple, obvious reason why masks are so effective in comic books. It’s because people’s faces change constantly. Sometimes Superman’s face looks like this, sometimes it looks like this, and sometimes, God help us, he even looks like this. If the only constant features on Superman’s face is white skin, dark hair, and a spit curl, adding a pair of glasses and a fedora is going to throw you off completely.

15

This is a good point. On top of that, Max Mercury would be mistaken for the Flash all the time because he’s less famous and has the same powers. If you’re seeing a superhero in real life, you were probably about to die. So you’ll be harder pressed to recognize the costume, let alone the face.

That doesn’t quite explain Lois Lane, since she’s been rescued so much. But the heroes have a different presence in costume and using their powers. It’s easy to forget they have normal lives, assuming it even occurs to people in the DCU that their heroes have 9-to-5s.

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A Note On Joe Chill

Chill died back in the Silver Age.
He was confronted by an enraged Batman, who unmasked in front of Chill!

Chill understood that Thomas & Martha Waynes’ killings had come home to roost.
Realizing that he had murdered Batman’s parents, Chill fled in terror of the raw fury in Batman’s face.

Rushing to a bar where members of his gang met, he babbled out that Batman was chasing him, because years before, he had killed Batman’s parents.

Realizing that Chill’s presence was bringing Utter Doom™ upon them, they killed Chill, intending to hide the body. Joe Chill was dead before he could speak Batman’s real name.