Up next in 10
Why Do All Superheroes Need Secret Identities?
163 views
Jun 10, 2025
Throughout the history of superheroes secret Identities were a core staple of the genre. Clark Kent and Superman, Bruce Wayne and Batman, and Peter Parker and Spider-Man, but in today's modern superhero landscape all that has fallen by the wayside. The MCU has effectively done away with the concept of the 'secret identity'. So, now that that core idea is being phased out... what does that mean for the genre as a whole? Will it survive another hundred years without this element? Only time will tell.
View Video Transcript
0:00
The truth is, I am Iron Man
0:09
This moment. This moment right here, it's the moment that changed the superhero in the popular consciousness forever
0:16
It's the turning point where the super-powered metahumans, mutants, and pseudo-deities that we thrilled to evolved
0:22
into something else. By jettisoning the concept of a secret identity from the superhero archetype, the MCU
0:28
pushed these beloved characters into something less tethered to reality and distinctly less
0:33
human. To force mutants to expose themselves will only further... Expose themselves? What is it the
0:39
mutant community has to hide, I wonder, that makes them so afraid to identify themselves? I didn't
0:43
say they were hiding. Sidekicks, costumes, tragic origins. There are many narrative tropes and genre
0:49
trappings that have developed since the introduction of the superhero in 1939 with Action Comics No. 1
0:56
The key to making these characters work is something far more subtle than their typically
1:00
primary colored costumes or extravagant abilities. It's their secret identity. The dichotomy between
1:06
the regal, empathetic, and bulletproof Superman and meek, mild-mannered Clark Kent allowed the entire generation of readers to fall in love with the idea of Superman. Secret identities
1:21
allowed there to be two separate entities at play twin personas representing the polar extremes of
1:27
the protagonists specific personality flaws or aspirations big man in a suit of armor
1:32
take that off what are you genius billionaire playboy philanthropist the real reason that
1:40
superheroes need secret identities is that it allows their superhero personas to transcend
1:45
past the daily frictions of the human condition and into a realm of symbol and icon the way this
1:51
narrative trope manifests in the stories published by Marvel and DC are widely divergent
1:57
DC has a massive, sprawling stable of characters that are, by and large, demigods, people who are born
2:03
all-powerful or nearly omnipotent, whereas Marvel characters are usually street individuals who are elevated to the level of otherworldly ability Take for example the idea of how Clark Kent is dealt with He essentially a fictional persona
2:16
that Superman dons in order to seamlessly move through the human world. Superman is the real
2:22
person. Clark Kent is the performance. It's how he sees us. It's his empathetic satire on how
2:28
difficult it must be to be human. Similarly, Batman is the real person. Bruce Wayne is the
2:34
performance. However, Bruce uses his fake persona of a foppish playboy to shield himself from undue
2:39
scrutiny that might suss out his true intentions. Conversely, Marvel characters use their secret
2:45
identities to escape the new world they find themselves in. Being a teenager is hard, but it's
2:50
a welcome respite for Peter Parker when he's been dealing with the world-ending consequences of being
2:55
on the New Avengers. The true narrative function of secret identities is to facilitate the separation
3:01
of an individual's personal history from the tenets of morality that the hero purports to exemplify
3:07
This is represented visually by a literal icon on the chest of the hero, more often than not
3:13
Think about the X-Men for a second. They're tasked with protecting a world that hates and fears them
3:18
If they didn't have secret identities to hide behind, life would get a hell of a lot more
3:23
complicated for them, which, when it came time to adapt them to the big screen, is an idea that
3:29
kind of got thrown out. No one ever really seems all that concerned with who the individual members of the X-Men are in the movies
3:35
They just generally hate and fear the idea of mutants. Have you tried not being a mutant
3:43
But in the comics, mutant symbolism is used regularly as a call to arms, a cultural rallying cry
3:49
or even as a means by which to violate civil liberties. Symbology in superhero stories is intricately intertwined
3:56
with the character's history. So much so, it even made it into one of Bruce Wayne's speeches in Batman Begins
4:02
As a man, I'm flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed
4:07
But as a symbol, as a symbol, I can be incorruptible. But here's where the cultural prominence of these characters and their inextricable link
4:17
to how we process power and wish fulfillment in our culture has shifted since the first Iron Man film in 2008 The MCU has largely jettisoned the idea that superheroes need secret identities
4:30
All of the Avengers are publicly known. Do they have codenames? Yes
4:34
I'm Peter, by the way. Doctor Strange. Oh, you're using their made-up names. Um, I'm Spider-Man then
4:40
But they don't have the personas that those names shield. The general public is aware that Captain America
4:45
is Steve Rogers, that Natasha Romanoff is Black Widow and that the Hulk is Bruce Banner. The MCU has done away with the idea of secret
4:52
identity so thoroughly that Thor's alternate self, Donald Blake, literally has never made an
4:58
on-screen appearance, other than as the name of Thor's fake driver's license in the first Thor
5:02
film. So why is this? Well, initially, it didn't seem to be an intentional choice. The climax of
5:09
Iron Man 1 shows Tony being told that he should pretend that the Iron Man suit is actually his
5:14
bodyguard. It's a bodyguard? He's my body? I mean, that's kind of flimsy, don't you think
5:18
And then choosing to forgo that by admitting to everyone that he is Iron Man. This choice was
5:24
made to boil close to 40 years of Iron Man continuity down into a few lines and move on
5:29
to where the character was current day as a public futurist. However, after the rampant success of
5:35
Iron Man, this same creative approach was given to all of the Avengers. The fact that Hulk
5:40
essentially a domestic terrorist with a big case of the Jekyll and Hyde's
5:44
is just welcomed with open arms into the staff of an unregulated
5:48
super-powered governing body, is surreal and bizarre. The MCU versions of a lot of these characters are almost viewed as celebrity CEOs
5:56
And a few of them, like Tony, Bruce, and Hank Pym, are literally celebrity CEOs
6:01
The character of Superman comes from a time when the ravages of depression
6:06
racism, and street violence were real fears. His creation as a bulletproof man was sparked from the tragic fact that Superman's co-creator
6:14
Jerry Siegel's father died of a heart attack during a convenience store robbery
6:18
Clark Kent is the emotional core of those ideas. It's not only an endearing metaphor of how Cal-El sees us, but what we should expect
6:26
from people in positions of power. You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards Without this core the character could easily veer into dystopian and deeply disturbing interpretations And in some ways that a problem for a lot of the MCU
6:40
characters. They rarely have a deeper, complex relationship with humanity. They want to protect
6:46
us because that's the right thing to do, but it doesn't come from an individualistic connection
6:50
As their secret identities have been stripped, so has their inner connection to mankind
6:55
Cap is a perfect character to explore how America has evolved throughout the last 60 years that he
7:01
was frozen in the ice. But he never really struggles with the contemporary world outside
7:06
of filling a notebook with stray movie titles he needs to catch up on. And that's largely because
7:11
Steve and Cap are the same person. If they were two separate personas, the narrative possibilities
7:16
are endless. Instead, whenever Cap isn't at home in the modern world or at odds with contemporary
7:22
ideals, he just dons a hoodie and a baseball cap and tries to blend in. None of this is to say that
7:28
the MCU's adaptation of these characters are bad. They're not. In fact, by and large, they've been
7:33
more fidelitous and accurate to their four-color counterparts than the DC ones have. However
7:38
with the removal of secret identities, the MCU versions of these characters have become something
7:43
else, a new breed of character. One that serves simultaneously as a standard bearer for American
7:49
ideals, a harbinger of death for a traditional filmic experience, and a masthead for a new age
7:55
the Disney era. These characters, who were created by oppressed citizens of the lower class
8:01
are now emblematic of the issues that come when power is allowed to run amok unchecked
8:07
He stinks and I don't like him. They dominate the box office, pushing out every other type of media
8:13
and simultaneously are becoming more homogenous by the day. The filmmakers that are hired to work
8:18
on these characters aren't interested in cementing a symbolic call to arms that future generations
8:23
will look to as an example of moral rectitude the army of people with a simple goal make something
8:29
that the masses will love and want to consume there's an argument to be made that you can do
8:34
both but the key is to have these characters have a deep connection to humanity to have a superhero
8:40
persona that is a symbol shining in the darkness and to do that you need a secret identity
#Comic Books
#Comics
#Comics & Animation