Do secret identities still work in the current day and age? Like I don't think someone like Peter could get away with taking off his mask with how many cameras there are out there now. Bruce would probably have to go full-mask like Black Panther too.
>>154853068There's that part in the Raimi Spider-man 2 movie where Peter gets unmasked and everyone gives him his mask back and promises not to tell and it's all very nice and sentimental but I can't help but imagine that after he swing off, one of those people turned to the others and asked "So does anyone have ANY idea who the hell that was?!"
>>154853179>but I can't help but imagine that after he swing off, one of those people turned to the others and asked "So does anyone have ANY idea who the hell that was?!"Did you see the movie? Doc Ock crushed múltiple people against the train walls, most likely killing them and Peter didn't swing off, he was taken to Harry's mansión by Doc Ock
>>154853179>Spiderman, read a book.
>>154853068Yes, they work even better than ever before because nobody knows each other IRL at all.
>>154853068Secret identities have never REALLY worked. When Nolan's movies were coming out, I think either the Wall Street Journal or Variety, or some publication like that, ran an article in which various journalists and federal agents were interviewed about Batman. All of them concluded that Bruce would be able to stay secret for weeks at most before his identity was uncovered. And this is Batman we're talking about, who in theory should have the money and the resources to cover his tracks.Secret identities are a conceit of the genre and I'm fine with that. They're a very important part of who and what superheroes are, and I hate the writers who try to do away with them.
>>154853068I think about that a lot. Gov and corpo surveillance have basically become so pervasive that the only way secret identities are believable is if they're set in non-contemporary settings, have ways of scrambling their surveillance or explicitly have the blessing of the state. The latter is... bleak to say the least for what that actually says about superheroes/vigilantes and turns them into a meaningless archetype. The whole point of vigilantes is rebelling against the system by doing what its too inept to do, if the only way you can be a vigilante is if the government allows it then you're not a vigilante, just an unaccountable government stooge. And really the only people who could reliably scramble these systems is Batman, and that sends a message that the only way you can rebel against the system and win is by being rich and powerful. Granted that's true but that's also very bleak.
>>154853068Not with modern technology unless you combat it with modern technology.
>>154853268>Secret identities are a conceit of the genre and I'm fine with that.I agree that they've been unfeasible for a number of reasons since forever but it's stretching disbelief more and more as the years go by.
With AI, even video of exposed secret identities can be written off. And Bruce probably has a ton of tech that can interfere with facial recognition software and the best AI that he manufactures himself.
Grant Morrison is right about you lot.>Who fills up the Bat mobile?
>>154853306The system is god and the cattle need to be watched at all times.
>>154853332>With AI, even video of exposed secret identities can be written off. Governments know if the footage they get is AI or not. That helps poison the well in the public sphere but won't stop feds from hounding every superhero's ass.>And Bruce probably has a ton of tech that can interfere with facial recognition software and the best AI that he manufactures himself.True but not every hero is Bruce. Some of them are Spider-man, who is broke as fuck. And we get back to the only ways you can superhero being having enough wealth to get away with it.
>>154853384That's what it comes down to, yeah.
>>154853399Sadopopulism is the way of the future. What's the point of having absolute power if you don't use it to make everyone else suffer?
>>154853179Peter being a young white guy in NYC probably would be enough information to figure out his identity in the current year.
>>154853306>>154853385What this would probably wind up setting up is basically a war between metahumans and the government/Big Tech. On the one hand, Peter is "just some guy." On the other hand, he can see the future in the middle of a fight and can lift a city bus. Tons of the X-Men are even more destructive, and then you've got Thor, Wanda, the Fantastic Four, and beyond.If a decent chunk of people with THAT kind of power decide they've about had it with being surveilled, you could have a hell of a mess on your hands. Would basically be Civil War but with a much more interesting and plausible premise for division. And it would be a fight with Silicon Valley, too, not just Washington.
>>154853470more likely than a war is the emergence of a self governing body that negotiates and collaborates with government entities, like the justice league or avengers
ewing should have good ol' dario resurrect frmo the dead again to try this bullshit before someone like hulk or genis bashes his head in
>>154853068No, most superheroes have awful OPSEC because the writers probably don't even know what OPSEC is, and I know there are people on the internet that could probably dox most heroes if they really wanted to. I mean, it wasn't that long ago when I watched a man who had his face covered by a mask still get doxed within the week. >>154853306I do think the government know who superheros are, they just think it's useful to look the other way and pretend to be ignorant so heroes don't get paranoid.
>>154853068>Do secret identities still work in the current day and age?no>Like I don't think someone like Peter could get away with taking off his mask with how many cameras there are out there nowhe couldnt> Bruce would probably have to go full-mask like Black Panther too.bruce would have a public identity and be forced to live as batman 24/7secret identities died out in the 80s and they only stick around because of the grandfather clause
>>154853359Grant Morrison also relies on said needs to pay his bills since the more forgiving kids aren't reading his comics, they have other media keeping them busy.
>>154853306I think you could argue that with all the crazy superhero and villain stuff, the government could choose not to unmask a hero because everything is too crazy to contain as is and pissing off the "good guys" will only make it worse. But otherwise, I agree
>You probably want to know how I uncovered your secret. It was simple, really. Using information readily available to anyone, I began by narrowing down Gotham's population of 750,832 males. Those not falling inside the Batman's probable age range of 18 to 36 were eliminated. Medical records revealed body type matches. Tax records indicated those who possess the wealth and resources to create his technology. But the true key to the puzzle was deducing who of the remaining candidates had motive to become the Batman. After all, every great hero must have an origin. And once Gotham's ultimate criminal mastermind put it all together, the answer was obvious. Bruce Wayne, son of the late Thomas and Martha Wayne.
>>154853306if they're watching us, why isn't anything happening?if nothing's happening, who cares if they see the identity?also when did you get this paranoid? they're not doing any law enforcement these days, least of all orwellian.Peter at least has the spider-sense to tip him off if any small corner of his eye spots a camera.
>>154853936Dave was one of the better things this show did.It's interesting to think that maybe an LLM would be able to do all of this, but would it make the final jump to trying to deduce who had the motive? Dave did that because that's how he was designed, but I'm not sure Claude or Gemini would ask that question in a vacuum. I guess they could be prompted.
>>154853936>population of 1.6M theres no way gotham is in new jeresya city that size would cause NJ to be way more important that it actually is and re-draw the US political map
>>154853958Most of the surveillance is passive. No one here has done anything to warrant any government agency anywhere to actively give a fuck. The geofencing the US law enforcement has been doing to catch people quickly is pretty scary. The general lack of fucks some areas have for petty crime is a different debate. Not that I don't think the lack of punishment for it hasn't created an epidemic of petty theft
>>154853936>Gotham's population of 750,832 males.There's no way Gotham has less than a million males, isn't it a huge city like NYC?
>>154853224Actually, the correct way to write it is Spider-Man
>>154853986Gotham is just New York City and I hate DC's dumb thing where they try to have real cities existing in the same universe as THEIR cities. It makes no sense. Just swap every major US city out for its DC equivalent and call it a day. Don't twist yourselves into knots because you really want New York City to exist in the DCU.
>>154854020700k males would mean roughly 1.5M total populationwhich would make it the 6th largest city in the US as of 2025 and in between philly and houston
>>154854071>Gotham is just New York Cityin the golden age, which was 80 years agobut gotham has been in new jeresy since at least the 70s
>>154853986Dc earth is literally bigger than Marvel, whose dimensions resemble the real world. There’s some wiggle room to allow for multiple NYC style super cities all over DC’s United States
>>154854199>Dc earth is literally bigger than MarvelWait, really?
>>154854296I think he's referring to the JLA/Avengers crossover which i believe it says that DC's earth is bigger than Marvel's
>>154854020just as a point of comparison, a population of 750K would still be the 20th largest city in the USgotham has almost as many males as seattle has people in total
They never really worked in terms of being a believable thing. You have to just suspend your disbelief and go with it.
>>154854343But that's retarded. There's so many knock-on effects from that that I KNOW dumbfuck comic book writers don't consider. It would mean the gravity was higher on DC Earth, for starters.
bruce wayne basically can't have a secret identity, as far as batman, it's worthless. a masked well equipped vigilante appearing on the scene in gotham would immediately get him investigated as a facilitator, if not literally being him. if you immediately appear on the shortlist of suspects to be tailed an alter ego doesn't really do much for you.
>>154854379the character having to juggle his persona and superhero life and the drama of looking like a flake to all his peers for unexplainable absences and seeming lack of commitment will always be more important than realism, which was always a misaimed goal when talking about stories where people can fly
>>154853332Batman probably shitposts theories on who Batman is and insists that it's Bruce Wayne but is so fucking schizo about it nobody believes him.
It's been a while since i watched the Incredibles movies, but i believe the goverment helps the supers in keeping their identities secret
>>154853068It’s part of the power fantasy, not a feasible thing. I mean— it’s still feasible for a few fuckers, mostly the telepaths and sorcerers (but I repeat myself), but they’re few and far in-between and definitely not the type the government would be snooping on anyways. (Not if they wanted their brains intact.)TL;DR: >>154854428. Also, people used to like the idea of going out and doing good things without becoming famous for it.
>>154853268batman works best when gothamites arent even sure batman is real
>>154853068Secret identities are mostly just a cop out so that the superhero doesn't have to deal with the real life consequences of being an inhuman celebrity vigilante.
With tis show it baffles me how they can work since they don't change the voices and in the newer seasons Drone-tech ans smart phone everywhere. The don't even change their voices
Sometimes they just don't care.
>>154855578Isn't Gotham literally cursed? Batman's existence could be easily brushed off as part of it.
>>154853068Even in JLU all the major players were known by Cadmus and by extension the fedboys, there just isn't a reason to do anything with that when >What's good for the goose is good for the gander >Let sleeping dogs lie >What if superman tore the roof off the Whitehouse and fucked me in the ass if I fuck with him Villains being ignorant of secret identities is manageable, governments above the state level it's been addressed in capeshit for 30+ years. Now if lexcorp made lexcameras available to the Gotham PD as a subscription surveillance tool they just fucked around with to peek in windows and stalk ex wives you'd have a batman broken arrow story on your hands where it extends the hand of glowniggery down to any bad actor with access. You could take it into the direction of crime exploding because batman is the only "criminal" effected by a surveillance state and a big normie riot stealing all the copper out of lex's big infrastructure investment, but that suggests people should take crime into their own hands (and kill the bottom 2% of society when they dindu nuffin) so you'll never see that come out of DC anytime soon. Alternately Waynetech could have a monopoly on surveillance glowniggery in Gotham and it being a set dressing point it's so "inferior" by not violating enough civil liberties that a contingent of people and politicians blame wayne enterprises for Gotham's crime (instead of that portal to hell under the swamp). Interrelate it with the "failure" of Arkham asylum and rehabilitation and your anti batman redditors would seethe when they realize they're on the #wrong side of history
Bruce Wayne is the exact type of person to install mass surveillance in Gotham. Dude has BatGPT inside his fucking man-cave 60 years before billionaires became reliant on computers for everything.
>>154854428But there's so much you can do with that drama before it gets old and tired, the hero could tell his friends and family his secret and still protect them
>>154853268I don't think they were being objective
>>154853808No, he doesn't. He's a trust fund kid that doesn't even write comics anymore.
>>154853936Population argument aside, this is why Bruce purposely corrupts the data pool by staging incidents where it seems like he and Batman were in the same place at the same time.
>>154854019I honestly think Bruce would find a way to bribe the mayor or governor to not enforce finding Batman like whenever an Israeli commits an act of terrorism and they suddenly forget how to do even the simplest detective work
>>154854107I prefer Gotham to be in the Midwest, personally
>>154854392Yes, but it's fiction so they can just say it doesn't work that way
>>154854950>We gotta pay to keep the company quiet. We gotta pay damages, erase memories, relocate your family. Every time it gets harder. Money, money, money, money, money.
>>154856300I like to think he gets Superman to dress as him once in a while so criminals think he's bulletproof and can fly.
>>154856557And it doesn't help that Bob keeps blowing his cover because he can't turn his back on people in need despite the law literally saying he has to.
It gets weird when you unintentionally start raping people.
>>154856351I always thought of metropolis as an idealized version of chicago that was more associated with the midwest and great plains as a whole rather than the great lakes and east north central. clark didn't leave his home completely, just set out for the most prosperous part of it.in hindsight it would probably be ridiculous to put superman in a place limited by not having an ocean.
>>154856140Technically that existed since the 60's. It was called Eliza
>>154855729MLB has the advantage of having magicone episode even says that their masks are magical and people are literally incapable of finding out who is underneath due to the enchantmentýou also cant remove the mask unless the wearer allows it
>>154856580I also like that, and my personal favorite is the Smallville version where Metropolis is the capital of Kansas or something like that. It's only 3 hours or so outside of Smallville making it a lot more convenient for Clark to pop back in and see Ma and Pa Kent. I don't think being beside the Ocean is that integral for most stories, plus he could always just fly over there if need be. One benefit of being based in Kansas, too, would be that Superman would be in the direct center of the country, the "heartland" as it were. I knew he could just speed off to wherever he needs to be regardless but I like the idea that he's central to everyone and everywhere
>>154856977Ah shoot meant for >>154856828I like to think he crosses up as the Bat, too like that one episode of the cartoon.
Most of Super Sentai shows don't even bother with secret identities, this is mostly an american thing
>>154853359He was wrong.
>>154854392the mass of the DC earth can be the same as real Earth if it's less dense
>>154859698I was going to say DC has more mole people/hollow earthers but I'm not actually sureMarvel does literally have Mole Man on their side
>>154859629he was absolutely rightits mostly adults who think cinemasins is a form of actual criticism rather than just funny trivia
>>154853068JLU kind of hand-waived this issue with Waller telling Bruce that they knew his identity and then made a veiled threat to disclose it if he crossed her and the government too many times.
>>154853068The tech, magic and psychic heroes all have bullshit that can shut down camerasSpider-boy is fucked though
>>154859725I think you can apply it too all critique desu.after all children aren't exactly known for their excellent taste in media and plenty of them as adults end up hating stories they thought were actually good as kids.
>>154859898in the context of the whole quote and not just the line about the batmobile, grant morrison isnt saying that its not a question worth answering grant morrison is more just talking about the kind of fan who prioritizes answering questions about where batman gets all of his toys over the more important questions of characterization and drama'this is not presented as a false dichotomy, obviously you can have both, but a problem that adults start to prioritize explaining away the minutiae of superheroics over the characters, themes, or atmosphere of superheroics
>>154854296The DC Earth, much like our own, is expanding while the Marvel one is not
>>154853359>Noooooo you cannot have this discussion in this inconsequential thread because some bald guy with anger issues said it is irrelevant to do so!Why are you even breathing, anon? Don't you know you'll die sooner or later?
>>154854392Could just really mean that there's more land due to, well, ground and sea distribution. And not particularly that the planet itself is volumetrically larger.
>>154854055I apologize, I'm a reader not a writer.
>>154853068Dazzle makeup and IR lights can help a lot with auto cameras.
>>154853068Miraculous LadyBug is exploring robot/android characters that are immune to the magical quantum perception mask thing of the holders.
>>154854484
>>154860833>Batman is a samefag
>>154860833Fucking kek
>>154860833Gahahahaha! Brilliant.
>>154856583A man who breaks the law to do the right thing is what a hero should be.
>>154858258>AmericanMost masked hero tropes can be traced to Scarlet Pimpernel, which was by a British author.
>>154856589I know this is a comic, but I don't understand how women in real life can just plow through men like this. I don't know how anyone could, people are disgusting, disease-ridden things, this is just asking for trouble.
>>154856589>cure your wife of being a Hulk>she hops on a different dick every night???
>>154858258I recall that a few Power Rangers adaptions actually didn't bother with secret identities either, usually as a result of their particular teams being public-facing operatives, actual adults at that. Lightspeed Rescue, for one. That was a good one.
>>154859725No, he was totally wrong. Most kids will question you to death because they're curious. If they aren't asking questions, it's probably because they got told to shut the fuck up. Adults asking these questions about speculative fiction are testing the sturdiness of the writing, not because they're being stupid. If the writer isn't going to put in the work, what good is he?
>>154862885>Adults asking these questions about speculative fiction are testing the sturdiness of the writing, not because they're being stupid. If the writer isn't going to put in the work, what good is he?Is Toy Story a shit movie because Buzz didn't believe he was a toy but stands still when Andy is around?
>>154862198Finally a sane person on this website!
>>154863444When in doubt, do as the locals do. I mean, Buzz was honored to have Andy's name inscribed on his boot, as he believed the toys worshiped Andy as their god.
>>154858258Helps that a lot of Super Sentai work for some kind of organization that provides the level of backing that would make most superheroes blush, particularly protective surveillance, making secret identities unnecessary beyond keeping the creeps and would-be kidnappers at arms lengths. Also helps that most of the villain groups don't give a shit about uncovering the secret identities of the sentai, whether it's because said identities are completely irrelevant to their goals or because they specifically want to kill the sentai while they're in costume for the glory of the victory.
the last time I thought a plot was improved with secret identity nonsense was The Late Mr. Kent in Sueprman The Animated Series. Otherwise it's all been done before.
>>154854950government is too incompetent for this to be a realistic solution.
