I’ve never really liked the idea of a secret identity in superhero stories, but I at least understand from a plot standpoint why they’re necessary for some characters. Peter Parker doesn’t want to endanger his aunt/girlfriend/wife; Bruce Wayne is technically a fugitive and so on. But there are plenty of comics where the secret identity is there for no real reason. These have always bugged me since not only are they completely pointless, but they often make things significantly harder for the heroes in question.
The two big examples I can think of are Tony Stark and Henry Pym. For Tony the whole bodyguard thing was pointless, it wasn’t to protect his factories since they were attacked nearly every issue anyway. And villains figured out very quickly that Iron Man showed up whenever they went after Stark, Pepper, or Happy, so he wasn’t protecting himself or them either. If everyone had known then he could have simply changed into the armor anytime it was necessary, rather than having to slip away and explaining his many mysterious disappearances.
Pym had even less reason; the only person he was close to was Janet, who also has powers. Also his rogue gallery was far too lame to be any sort of danger to anyone at all. So can anybody else think of any unnecessary secret identities?
IIRC Hank Pym hasn’t had a secret identity since Byrne took over the Avengers in the late eighties. Instead of Ant Man, Giant Man, or Yellowjacket, he goes around in red coveralls with many pockets containing shrunken doohickeys.
Part of the reason he’s so good at slipping away and getting into the armor is that his would-be kidnappers are primarily looking all around for Iron Man while doing a half-assed job of keeping an eye on the guy they’re after. (Also, an early story had someone try to bribe Iron Man into betraying Tony.)
They don’t have to currently or recently have had secret identities. I’m simply asking about heroes that have or had an identity solely for the sake of an identity without any real plot or character justification. Another one I just thought of was Golden Age Captain America. You spend massive amounts of time, effort, and money on making a super soldier, and then you make him pretend to be a buffoon around base so nobody finds out his real identity instead of, y’know actually sending him on missions where he would be useful.
They work it into his story that he falls in love with his nurse and blah blah blah must maintain secret identity to protect her blah blah blah but they never needed to go there with him. He’s a freakin’ GOD. There was no reason for him to have to disguise himself and have a day job playing doctor, when he could have/should have just spent his days professionally asskicking.
Maybe Clark Kent fits. I mean, it’s not like he needed to protect himself, and I can’t recall Clark really picking up leads for Superman or anything while supposedly working, so there was no real benefit to it. I think he was Clark just so he could hang out without having people pestering him constantly to get their cat out of a tree or use his heat vision to remove their grandmother’s tumor or stop an out-of-control drunk driver or something else annoying.
Wasn’t it explained that Odin forbid Thor from revealing his identity because he exiled him to earth in the first place to teach him humility, and having him reveal his identity would defeat that purpose?
Ya know, Cranston wasn’t his real identity either. It was revealed after many years that Cranston was a cover ID as well and he was really Kent Allard.
I disagree with it being pointless though. The Shadow shoots at people and they shoot back. If he’d like to go anywhere without being shot at, he kinda needs another identity.
I like how they inverted it – Superman was the secret identity and Clark Kent was the real guy. It makes sense to me that he would want to be a regular guy.
Legal liability. If people knew it was Tony Stark inside that Iron Man suit, he’d be getting hit by lawsuits five times a day. By maintaining the fiction that he and Iron Man are two separate people he avoids this personal liability.
Sure, they can sue Stark Industries but that’s what limited corporate liability is for.
Why? Iron Man wasn’t doing anything illegal, almost all of his actions were done either to protect Stark property, or under official Avengers business. Did he start getting into legal trouble after revealing his identity?
But wouldn’t that happen regardless? Whether an employee of Stark Industries causes property damage or the owner does Stark Industries will be paying either way.
