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- I haven’t been much of a comic book fan for a number of years now, but it occurs to me that many comic book heroes were based on a character that led two fairly separate lives: one was fighting crime with whatever superpowers they had, and another was leading a completely “normal” life. (I tended to get lost on the justification for this arrangement) — I am curious, did any other types of literature (ack!) commonly portray heroes as “two different people” rather than one person with heroic and average qualities? - MC
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It always seemed to me that the superhero/secret-identity concept was based on The Scarlet Pimpernel, but you could also cite Dracula if you wanted to stretch a little.
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.
Zorro
Hm, Does the Secret Life of Walter Mitty count? 
I’m writing a fantasy trilogy where the main character/narrator is half human and half feyen (fairy) a la Merlin and due to supressing his (to him, shameful) feyen traits winds up with a split personality…of course, being a wizard he still has supernatural powers either way… They’re just stronger in his fey side.
A similar setup is used in the White Wolf RPG Changeling, where ordinary humans have fairy souls that eventually emerge. Of course, RPGs can wind up being much like comic books.
It goes at least as far back as the Ancient Greeks. In the Odyssey, Odysseus disguises himself (with the help of Athena) as a poor beggar when he returns home to Ithaca and is harassed by Penelope’s suitors until he bests them in a contest and then reveals his true identity and slays them all. Sure, it’s a reverse of today’s norm, but I think it still counts.
Could you also count Achilles and Samson who, respectively gain and lose superpowers through something else (Achilles gains strength with his special coating, Samson loses all of his strength when his hair is cut) count?
Jesus Christ, maybe? Father, son and the Holy Ghost, after all - raised as an ordinary Nazarene carpenter, this being of divine birth calls himself the Son of God, then embarks on a ministry in and around Judea to save the souls of his countrymen, gathering a team of like-minded believers to follow him, battling the evil tyranny of the Pharisees and the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, all the while displaying powers and abilities Far Beyond Those Of Mortal Men… ‘Look! Up on the Cross!’
Moving from fiction to folklore, and from Eurpopean to African I’ve always thought in interesting that the West African folk hero/trickster Anansi had shapechanging abilities that allowed him him access to the worlds of humans and gods. His most amazing adventures happened as a spider communing with gods, his more mundane adventures as a conniving man.
Most of the pulp heroes at the start of the century started the tradition of having “other lives” and public, superheroic identities: Zorro, Tarzan, The Shadow, Doc Savage – even the villainous Fu Machu and Professor Moriarity hid their criminal activities under the guise of businessmen/scholars.
Sherlock Holmes often disguised himself while investigation certain cases, but I don’t recall if he had an ‘alter ego’ as such.
A comic book you might enjoy for its literary antecedents and references is THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN by Alan Moore and Kevin O’ Neill, which posits a ‘superteam’ of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Alan Quatermaine, Mina (from Dracula) and Captain Nemo fighting the forces of darkness in Victorian England. Jolly good reading, that with a sequel planned for fighting… Ah, but that would be telling.
Of course, spy fiction often portrays people with double lives.
Just like I did after returning to Ithaca, NY, from my two week business trip in Los Angeles.
Just kidding. I have neither a wife, nor a job that puts me on business trips.
Askia K. Hale wrote:
LOL. Classic. Thank you.
Interesting. I never thought of Styx river water as a special coating, but it does make sense.
Hehe. I couldn’t remember what the hell Achilles bathed in to get impenitrable skin.
Was it Styx or another river?
I always understood that the Styx washed away the mortal half of him, leaving only the immortal bits.
More Achilles hijacking:
I read The Illiad for the first time about a year ago, and was surprised to find out that Achilles’ invulnerability was apparently a post-Homer addition to his resume. There was no mention of it that I can recall, and even a brief bit where one of the hosts of doomed Troyish soldiers manages to inflict a flesh wound on him before the inevitable hewing.