Identity Within a Trinity: Secret Beginnings

Dual identities are a quintessential part of superhero media. Mostly, anyway. Marvel seems to have ditched that for the most part beyond Peter Parker. Come to think of it, Spider-Man might be the only character in Marvel that writers make his dual identity part of his struggle. Iron Man had a thing years ago in the comics, and everyone has a call sign, but from the 1990s to now most hidden identities have been relegated to villains.

     What has me rambling on about this? Well, with the release of Matt Reeves's The Batman, lots of podcast are going over the Batman franchise and what makes a good Batman versus Bruce Wayne. And because DC seems intent on keeping most of its heroes with secrets, I decided to contrast that with Superman. Will any of the following be new and revelatory: Nope. These are a bunch of thoughts that rattle in my brain while driving or jogging, mostly taken from decades of reading comics, reading about comics, and listening to people talk about reading comics. Take it how you will.

     First, let's look at secret identities in general. Everyone has one to some extent. Dualities are a common form of conflict in stories, from Zeus and Loki changing shapes to Jekyll and Hyde to Superman putting on glasses. People wear uniforms everyday. When you are alone at home in your pajamas eating over the sink, you strike a very different figure than the person wearing the smart suit at the accountant's office or the person wearing whatever people wear to clubs. 

     Just me? Whatever. The point is, most of the population switches to environments, changing their dress, language, and general manner to fit the space. Add in supervillains that may harm those you love if your identity was revealed, boom zoom, of course you keep one side of yourself secret.

Come back next entry where we dig into why Batman keeps his identity a secret when Iron Man does not care: same banned blog, same banned website.