Any point in secret identities?

With facial recognition and increasingly present surveillance, is there any point in superheroes having secret identities anymore? And if not, does that mean an end to costumes, or would they still want them anyway? I know some of the comics have dabbled with the idea of doing away with secret identities, and Tony Stark just flat told the world he was Iron Man, but it seems like largely whenever they do it, they backpedal or otherwise somehow change it back.

(I shopped the image above using a similar Clark Kent / Superman one found on the web.)

 

Everybody knows who most of the Avengers and X-Men are at this point in the comics. I can't even remember the last time I saw that as a plot point.

 

It's still pretty important in the DC universe. They've made the importance of secret identities and the consequences of the true identity of a hero a major point in several stories in the last decade. Now, not all of these stories were good, but that is another debate.

I think for the characters it still is important. Imagine if Batman's secret identity was public knowledge, it would take a lot of the mystique of the character away, even for readers.
Superman recently revealed his identity to the public in the comics, and already there are ramifications to that step. I fully expect that development to be retconned with the end of Bendis' run at the latest.

Over at Marvel, Spider-Man's identity being a secret is also a pretty important part of the character, the comics showed the personal catastrophe this would have in the aftermath of Civil War, and it was retconned pretty quickly (and with that intention from the very start, so it was more of a semi-reset button than a retcon.

Now, with the reality of governments and big tech using technology to learn (not necessarily publicly reveal, mind you) the true identity of superheroes, this has been used as story points, as well. Amanda Waller has been shown in "Justice League Unlimited" and the "Suicide Squad" movie to know the true identity of Batman, but keeping it to herself.

But even there, there are narrative ways to work around that, mostly organized heroes with their own resources
Even in reality, facial recognition is far from foolproof, even without masks. There are simply too many people that have similar facial structure. That's something that always bugged me about the "Superman only uses glasses as a disguise" complaint. So Clark Kent and Superman look alike, so what, so must dozens of other men in Metropolis alone.

Aside from that, Justice League-distributed (or Avengers-, in case of Marvel) tech could be used to narratively counter that technology. Special masks simulating different facial structure, apps to fool trackers in other apps for their smartphones, (you want to track me via my phone? What if my phone gives you the wrong GPS signal), and that's not even the usefulness of shapeshifting heroes in the community. At the end of the "Death & Return of Superman" saga in the comics, Matrix-Supergirl pretended to be Superman to publicly find a surviving Clark Kent under the rubble left from the Doomsday battle (or she pretended to be Clark, I can't remember right now). Something like that would throw off a lot of intelligence services, whether state or private.

 

That's a good point that secret identities don't scale to the facial recognition era. They'd have to get masks that cover their entire face.

 

Maybe.

Certainly a full face mask would be effective at thwarting facial recognition whereas a "domino" mask -- particularly the open eye holes ones mostly, though not exclusively favoured by female heroes -- would be almost as pointless as not wearing one. I think there's probably a continuum between those two points, for instance Wally West's 90s-00s Flash costume (or the similar Batman suits) with the white eyes and at least partly covered nose might have some value if you wanted to eliminate a particular person but probably wouldn't be much good going the other way.

 

Why? With facial recognition as unreliable as it is, all you need to do is obscure half the face (top, bottom, or one side) and facial recognition is useless. Just make sure the nose is altered/covered, and you increase the unreliability to the point of not being admissible in court, so cover everything from the nose up or down and you're good to go.

John Byrne attempted to address this in an issue of Star Brand, his comic self telling the hero he could find him easily, but the fact is, if there is the possibility of two others that match the criteria, the recognition is a failure. And John Byrne himself admitted that while the hero would have to be counted among the possibilities, that there are so many others that qualify makes the attempt a crap shoot at best.

 

It can be pretty easy to fool facial recognition systems with masks, and even face paint, so most of the heroes probably wouldn't be identified by them.
As for the idea of secret identities in general, with the kind of threats and things they face on a regular basis I can definitely see keeping their identities secret from the public. Even in the real world the identities of people like Seal Team 6, and others who go on top secret, high risk missions tend to be kept secret, so I think it makes sense for superheroes to do the same thing. However, I do prefer it when they tell the people close them, just because I get tired of the story lines where they're constantly lying to the people close to them and sneaking around.

 

Secret identities worked to keep others safe, supposedly. If Superman was revealed, baddies would be kidnapping Lois every week. Spiderman would spend a lot of time rescuing Aunt May, etc. OR the big-time baddies would kill loved ones just because they could, to cause heroes pain.

 

It's good for the general public to not know who you are but not so much for family and friends. Your basically putting them at risk but not alerting them of the dangers of being close to the hero. Of course if you were smart you might even shake things up and create multi superhero identies to throw people off your trace. Why dress up in the same costume and use the same name all the time. Imagine what it would be like if people for example felt their were 3 Superman type of heroes in town even if's still Clark Kent each time.


Jason

 

I would say yes. In fact, especially if I'm using more tech style work I would craft a suit that would disrupt video feed around me.

Regardless, I still think that secret identities are necessary.

 

Good example of this was the recent episode of Supergirl where she had the chance to go back and change when Lena Luthor found out Kara and Supergirl were one and the same.

No matter what, it would always got some-one killed.

 

But only because the writers decided that, despite the characterization we had previously been shown, Lena would always turn on Kara. I wasn't much of a fan of that episode. They could have been more clever with the ways things went wrong, rather than always going to the well of "Lena is a bad guy". Not to mention that the events that Kara was going back to were pre-Crisis, and might not have even gone that way originally in the current history.

 

It's a plot device. It will work as well as the plot needs it to, no matter what the current level of IRL technology.
And how effective is the tech IRL?

 

But...that happens anyways. Lois still gets kidnapped, Aunt May still ends up in danger.

In the first Spider-Man movie, Peter keeping his ID a secret from MJ and Aunt May didn't keep them safe.

And really, the Superman/Clark/Lois triangle was never some romantic love story. It was a creepy thing that made Clark look like some douchebag playing some sick mind game with Lois this whole time.

 

No-one is going to let billionaire Bruce Wayne go out every night and violate multiple people's civil liberties via torture and excessive force. Batman gets to do what he wants.

 

Reminder: MJ and Aunt May were endangered in that movie because the Green Goblin found out Spider-Man's secret identity.

As for Superman, Lois might get herself in danger all the time, but Clark's parents don't. Neither do his next-door neighbours.

 

Just like Jem from Jem and the Holograms did to Rio. I mean, in the very first episode, they were intimate enough to share a romantic kiss, so what the heck was her kink with letting him be confused about being attracted to Jem? It's not like he'd have betrayed her trust from the start, but the longer she waited to let him know the more po'ed he was likely to be.

 

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

And also.... the rise of mobile phones rendered the phone-booth obsolete,
where can a hero change clothes these days?