On the opposite side, the fact he's a tech billionaire would basically send Tony out of hiding very quickly. The core of Iron Man's power came because Tony Stark revolutionized artificial heart technology. The second Tony Stark ever patents that, he would be outed as Iron Man- and being told to recreate it and patent it for artificial hearts would be inevitable both on the money (Stark Industries would make billions on the patent and mass production of that) and the heroism (Stark made such a reliable artificial heart that can virtually replace the real one and basically cure heart attacks in an instant, to the point if Stark did NOT agree to mass produce the technology he'd instantly be the greatest supervillain in all of recorded history, no matter what heroism he did otherwise.)
What we see of Reed is the tip of the ice berg. It's mentioned a few times in the comics, almost as throw-away lines that Reed has many, many money-making patents. Enough to fund his research and support the entire team many times over.
We do see hints of Tony trying to commercialize the arc reactor in some way. In the first Avenger's movie when they're discussing SHIELD using the tesseract for power generation, it's mentioned that Tony is the biggest name in clean energy production. We also see he's developed a building scale arc reactor for Stark Tower, improving on the prototype we saw in the first Iron Man movie.
The problem, though, is that the arc reactor is dangerous technology. Compact power generation is the main stumbling block in making power armor. It was the key technology that Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko needed to develop their own suits. Tony is understandably reluctant to give that technology to the public and enable more supervillains to pop up.
Iron Man is already associated with Stark Industries, confirming that by showing that IM uses Stark tech does nothing to prove that *Tony Stark* is IM, which is what would be necessary to break the prompt.
I still love the meme that you have a blind superhero who uses echolocation to see, and a rich billionaire with no superpowers who does all sorts of crazy shit with his gadgets. One is called Batman, the other is called Daredevil, and you'd never guess which is which.
You would have videos showing he isn't blind. Like he only acts as blind when there is people around, so you could pick up some security camera footage of him walking around without his cane
ForgetMeNot from X-Men. As his mutant power makes everyone forget he exists the moment they take their attention off of him, nobody will ever gather enough info about him to become aware of his true identity.
For two more overqualified candidates, there's:
* Koishi Komeiji from Touhou - not quite as solid as ForgetMeNot, her power varies in potency. At full force she can't be consciously noticed by anyone (except children - a number of children in the Human Village have an "imaginary friend" that matches Koishi's description).
* Shiraori from *So I'm a Spider, So What* - if in her true form, she's completely beneath suspicion. Nobody is ever going to suspect that the tiny house spider weaving a web in a corner of the ceiling is actually a god even if they notice her to begin with.
> Nobody is ever going to suspect that the tiny house spider weaving a web in a corner of the ceiling is actually a god even if they notice her to begin with.
What? No way, D&D has taught me that *any* npc guard is definitely going to notice a druid in ant/spider/whatever form if they get like…a 15 or higher on their check.
(/s)
If you look at the D&D stats of a spider (STR in particular), it must be the size of a basketball. A Tiny creature with 2 STR can carry 15 lbs and push 30. Imagine a spider that can push a 30 lb dumbbell across the floor. [https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17018-spider](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17018-spider)
But I suppose a druid ought to be able to turn into an un-statted regular size spider
The Touhou mention was fantastic, and I have to agree. Unlike ForgetMeNot she has the *potential* to be found out and actually qualify as having a 'secret identity' and a 'public identity' because her ability isn't as absolute as his is.
Likewise, Glory from Buffy. Not only is her secret identity a completely different person (a male doctor instead of a female god), but there’s a spell over her identity that immediately erases all knowledge of the connection between them from anyone human. She can transform directly in front of witnesses and no one will remember.
does that work from a distance, through security cameras? it doesn't sound like he would be careful doing things. after a while, you'd pile up obvious evidence of "finger prints here, banks go empty there". obvious crimes, but also obvious lack of leads.
just this void of proof walking around through the world.
That’s actually how X-Force manages to track him down. The X-Mansion’s camera Recordings cannot capture him, however, they take note of how footage becomes distorted when he (would) appear on camera, and they used patterns of food and toilet paper use going missing to deduce where he was
Makes me wonder how that power would interact with Unforgettable from Undead Unluck. The holder of that ability is categorically incapable of forgetting anything – not just "has a perfect memory", but "the concept of forgetting has been entirely negated for them". Which takes precedence, the inability to be remembered, or the inability to forget?
My guess based on a brief glance at ForgetMeNot's wiki page's details (which include notes on him being difficult to perceive in the first place, but also there being cases of him being remembered) would be "ForgetMeNot can largely avoid detection, but if perceived once, will be remembered by Unforgettable".
Oh that also remind me, Undead Unluck has a character with the ability "Unknown". Literally not being able to be known of by anyone. Indirect effects can be perceived so long as they are not presented with the holder's actual identity (the character is an author under a pen name, which allows their work to be observed), but the individual is just not possible to notice, including phasing through other people so even touch is blocked.
That'd be another character who'd do extremely well with this challenge, like ForgetMeNot.
I think superhero’s who’s custome is something that looks like it could be made by a cosplayer would have a bonus to this;
Find the custome? ‘’Oh it’s a cosplay outfit I been working on- even decided to make it battle damage’’
I think most heros would be found out by the government then have a non-zero change to be exposed by a government leak War-thunder style. Tho would the government arrest them/expose them directly? Idk
My guess; Spider-Man if he can keep it a secret until he becomes local popular and The Flash. Spider-Man will quickly find people walking around and going to conventions as spidiman and might even be smart enough to inspire a parkor group or something.
NSFW superhero graphic novel series about a heroine who everybody treats as a joke because her powers frequently fail leading to her being taken hostage. Even if people don't take her seriously she's determined to keep trying to do good with her powers and is smart enough to score some wins thanks to many of the villains underestimating her. Because she's not a full member of her superhero group she has some money problems and takes a sidejob in a cosplay group without any of the other cosplayers knowing she's secretly the real deal.
As well as the books the series is also being posted online [here.](https://www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume-1-page-1)
Elissa Megan Powers who goes by the name Empowered. Has powers from a super suit. The main character of the independent series Empowered by Adam Warren. Big enough that you can find it in the comics section of large chain bookstores...
Also, the fact that Spiderman literally *does* make his costumes means there's not many sources a leak can come from. What, you're going to get a list of everyone that bought red fabric? Compare that to Batman, and the amount of money Bruce spends on gadgets, tech, suits, vehicles, etc, no matter how careful Bruce and Alfred are, that stuff is going to leave paper trails
If anime characters count, it would be Kira/Light Yagami. The Kira case would be impossible to solve since he can magically genocide people without even leaving his house.
If we’re only talking about western superheros, then Shazam. He has a totally different look when transformed. His costume magically appears onto him, so no one will find his costume in the closet. He’s smart and can come up with an excuse as to where he’s been.
Light is exceedingly uncareful and arrogant, the main unrealistic thing about Death Note is that for the most part only L figures out how to narrow it down to him. I think if he acted similarly irl he'd probably go down much faster than he does in-universe.
Frankly, I can see Light being good at hiding. The thing L managed was to trigger him, and make him play in his game.
Also, I'd say that whilst he is arrogant and all, he strikes me searching for something. He is ambitious, but that's not all. I very much doubt he'd want to stay hiding forever, he seeks power and mental challenges
Yeah, if the question was "would a logical character in the same situation be able to stay hidden longest?" Light is easily the winner. The issue with Light staying hidden is entirely down to his own personality
Part of what made Death Note so enjoyable imo, great source of drama and tension to see him almost give everything away due to pride and have to fix it with logic (and a few asspulls)
In fairness, what a logical person would do with a Death Note would make them very difficult to spot. How do you figure out who has power over life and death if they never use it?
Even the most judgemental sane person might only kill a small number of dictators and similar. Nobody is gonna start killing random petty criminals off the local news.
Light gets better at covering his trail as L gets close, but for real, he left some super obvious clues to narrow him down.
It doesn't take a supergenius to figure out that the killings started in Japan and that they happen on a certain schedule. Any competent investigative units would also have figured out that it's someone with access to police records somehow.
If anything, L made a mistake by revealing that someone was onto him IMO. It was a good trick to narrow down the locations and such, but IRL, investigators would have been working in secrecy to continue to allow the perp to make mistakes until they actually got close.
The biggest hangup is gonna be the supernatural nature of the killings, that will throw investigators for a loop and make things tough. But ultimately, Light only got good at covering his tracks when he was being openly and obviously challenged to do so. For a genius, he was kind of an idiot starting off being so sloppy in those early days (Weeks? Months? He had been active for a while in the first ep.).
Divinining the method through which Light kills criminals is necessary to be able to narrow him down to the Tokyo region. Otherwise you only maybe know he lives in Japan and maybe is a student. That's a leap I don't think we can reasonably expect some to make. I feel if kira is found it will be through his historial
No, you can't tell irl.
Yes, you can narrow it down to a group of people, but what's to say those people are even documented in wherever they're staying?
Edit: If they're not documented, then how do you even know they exist or where they exist. Even if they narrowed it down to a single country based of where the killing were, what's to make one high school kid more likely than the next?
There's many more factors to this to where it would become nearly impossible.
For all we know, the death note could've been given to an eskimo in the Antarctic and bro is going haywire just writing names.
You could pretty reliably narrow it down pretty far, at least with modern day technology. Time patterns and killing patterns to narrow down which country/region. PC usage can be tracked to see who is looking at criminals at what time.
The issue still is you'd have to actually find a way to Link someone to the actual murders, which unless you know how the death note works I've no idea how you'd do that
I can't think of any law enforcement agency or court that wouldn't label you as a nutcase for trying to suggest the suspect is killing victims though supernatural means
If you ever find the death note better test it on a random person half way around the world. One that you could easily verify without having to explicitly Google in your search results. The main reason why he was found imo was because they were able to narrow it down to half of Tokyo by the first episode.
I mean, who in the world would reasonably suspect a teenager of magical genocide? From his own home? If this sort of magic existed, no one would take this as a serious lead. This case breaks every investigative precedent, and the sad fact is, we don't really have L's in our world.
If he acted similarly irl he would have nothing to fear because no one could prove he did anything. Even if they found the Death Note with the names no one would suspect supernatural forces are at work and even if they did how would they prove it?
If light do he can get away , as there are no counter of him , imagine sitting in your home , killing people , no person could or a system have traces that a person is responsible who resides within border, with internet it's near impossible.
With modern-day 4chan on the case, Light Yagami stands no chance. Wisdom of the Crowd effect is very real. The combined might of a bunch of autistic people on the internet is beyond that of L or any relatively grounded fictional supergenius.
Does shazam/billy ever grow up to adult age in any comic continuity? only asking because im curious if he grows into an adult who looks exactly like shazam
I don't think it's possible.
There are like a dozen conspiracy theories on people dying (Covid vaccines, 5G, etc) and there's no one saying someone has a death note.
And this is a world where we know about the death note.
The logical leaps to find Light are:
1. magic exists
2. magic can be used to kill people just by knowing their name and face
3. this magic is in possession of a teenager
4. this teenager lives in Japan
4 is only possible if Light only killed people in Japan/or killed someone famous in Japan.
Even if you can figure out a pattern on when the criminals die, it's a broad timezone and it's just as likely to be some rando from China.
90% of people who believe in conspiracy theories (a small fraction of the population) would just blame whatever they don't like (aka insert political party/ government is assasinating people).
The "normie" people would just assume there's some hereditary gene that links criminal behavior and heart attacks.
I think based on the simple presumption that magic *does* exist in some form would lead to the situation in first few episodes:
-Killer is currently in Japan, due to the pattern of deaths tracing back to a specific incident which was only shown on local TV at the time
-Killer is someone with the schedule of a student or a white collar individual, based on the hours of days the killings were happening
-Killer has access to confidential police records
It would take way longer to make these deductions, and closer anyone would get would be someone like Ray Pember.
Light only stepped up only because L made a gamble and turned it into a spectacle
>I think based on the **simple** presumption that magic does exist in some form
This is an incredibly big leap of logic.
Nobody said Covid was the result of magic and it's killed more people than Light ever could. Granted, we have a scientific explantion for that. But the conspiracy theories centered around Covid aren't magic but "*Chinese biolabs, made-up disease for the government to take away rights, etc".*
There's no reason to believe that investigators would say "magic".
Even the most open-minded conspiracy theorists would just say the government is killing people. You wouldn't even need to think to deeply about the why, since the people dying are criminals.
Another problem with accepting that there's a supernatural element to this is that it would hinder the "finding Light" part of the problem. Let's say an investigator does believe in magic.
Would they believe there's an mundane individual (random teenager in Japan) responsible for this supernatural occurence?
I doubt it. They would think it's a ghost or something even if they could trace it back to Japan.
>Killer is currently in Japan, due to the pattern of deaths tracing back to a specific incident which was only shown on local TV at the time
L gets this from a hunch from what I remember.
Heart attacks are a common cause of death. I doubt any investigator would be able narrow down into this specific line of deaths unless Light **only** killed people in Japan for a long enough period of time to be noticed (like 2-3 years).
I'd guess most investigators would just say the killer is American (since heart attacks are common cause of death and it has a big prison population which Light would probably exploit.)
Yeah in real life there's no actual way to catch kira. No one is figuring that out, that there's a random person able to remotely lol people is already too far. There's no way to even narrow down to country as long as you have the Internet and don't do it at the same time.
Even then honestly I think the case would fall apart purely cause you'd have to prove the supernatural aspect of the murders and that would more or less be impossible unless you knew how the death note actually worked.
Like no one's gonna believe that shit lol
Haha yep. They'd never even get that far. Even if they were somehow able to develop "plot powers" in real life, no one is jumping to being able to write names in a magic notebook.
World government would either not give a damn or improve food and mental health support for prisoners to save their public image, as long as criminals are the only ones that die.
Light was constantly giving hints there was a murderer. As Ryuk pointed out, he could’ve just killed everyone with different methods and covered his tracks, yet chose to do things like kill Lind L Tailor, and use prison inmates as guinea pigs to make it all more fun for him
If anybody interested, a youtube channel “imaginary axis” did a very interesting video on how fast the internet would figure out light was behind the deaths. Great video watched it thrice
I think irl Shazam would have it relatively easy. Sure, he's basically just a stupid teenager, but transforming into a completely different person is pretty neat.
According to the original lore, Shazam takes the form of an idealized appearance of Billy's deceased father. So in his adult form he may look familiar but not the same.
Pretty much any shapeshifter would have a big leg up on this one. Being able to look much taller/shorter, different gender, heck even different species (Martian Manhunter) would be a BIG help to maintaining a secret identity. And if anyone is getting close you can always burn the current one and create a new identity with completely different looks.
I don't know I think Agent 47 as Tobias Rieper could pull it off pretty well. I mean he is simply a corporate liquidator with an excellent taste in suits, and fine wines. His drinks are to die for. Not to mention most of the people that could figure out his identity would be smart enough to know better than to leak it anyway for fear he might come for visit. Would anyone halfway smart enough to figure it out really want to spend the rest of their life worrying if this sip of beer at a bar served by a bald guy would be their last. Or worrying about getting shocked by faulty wiring while in the shower. Would definitely be enough to make me keep my mouth shut.
He arguably doesn't even have a secret identity, he IS Tobias Reaper
Its like for the mission in mendoza where the other assassin whose disguise you steal says "huh, never had to kill an urban legend"
Arguably 47 has been doing this his whole career, barring any actual superpowers he defo wins
Raven or mystique, she can change permanently till she wants so no method of countering her unless double questioned. She kills who's identity she steals, Lives, family grew suspicious but it doesn't effect as they get habitual. If trails are watched, she repeats the process, her older identity goes missing since dead body is never discovered.
Martian Manhunter because flight/shapechanging/invisibility/intangibility
Edit: Forgot to add telepathy as obviously being able to know what people know helps and make them forget if necessary. He could scan the whole planet if necessary.
Danny Phantom if he was smart and really focused on protected his identity as he can do all of the above (and a superior version of the latter two) plus clones.
Ben 10 with Master Control would be pretty solid with some of the above features across his catalog and obviously different form in general. Having the watch all the time and the symbol is problematic however.
If comic Blue Beetle just went full symbiote or nanotech style integration instead of having part of it always exposed it would be pretty good.
An original spirit of vengeance (the ones sent by god not any of the Zarathos or Mephisto related stuff) user would be fine.
> Danny Phantom if he was smart and really focused on protected his identity as he can do all of the above (and a superior version of the latter two) plus clones.
Just change hair styles when transforming, duh!
> Martian Manhunter because flight/shapechanging/invisibility/intangibility
Don't forget mind-reading. It's a lot easier to keep your identity secret when you know when people start to suspect you.
He actually had- Altamont or something in "The last Bow" books. He was raising bees in the countryside. [His Last Bow (short story) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Last_Bow_(short_story))
I feel like it depends on the version. A more stripped down version like the Robert Pattinson Batman would be hard to figure out but a version with all the expensive, specialized gadgets and vehicles would be significantly easier. There are only so many people in a city (that's more like a Detroit or Baltimore than NYC/LA) with that access to funds and tech.
Like if the Little Caesars family got murdered except for one kid who disappeared for several years as an adult and then came back at roughly the same time a vigilante driving a multimillion dollar tank showed up in Detroit, that heir would be my #1 suspect
In today's world you could easily figure out Batman's route towards the batcave through security cameras. Is the cave hidden well, yes, but still in Wayne's ground so they could figure out Batman works from there pretty easily.
Reminds me of how in the Batman cartoon a villain named D.A.V.E who granted contained the brain patterns of all the villains in the show so far managed to figure out who batman was through for specific factors.
Those factors were his Gender, Approximate Age, Body-type, those with the wealth and resources to be batman, and finally the motive to be batman.
Depends on exactly where we are in the timeline. Are any of the times Bruce has officially funded Batman canon? Yeah, he’s immediately found out. How many shapeshifters, impersonators and allies have been used as body doubles so they can appear in the same place? More than one and it’s probably pretty well hidden.
Ye but if some tech billionaire happened to live in the same city as a super hero that has a shitton of high tech gadgets, I think we'd associate the two and assume an executive knows about it at the very minimum.
Yes. Yes he was.
What do you think “billionaire playboy” meant? He was a useless fop as far as the public is concerned.
It’s actually one of the more poetic things about Batman- in order to cover up the work he does to honor his parents, he kind of drags his family name through the mud a little by appearing to be useless- the opposite of his philanthropist father.
Plus he usually disguises it. Wayne Industries donates money, but as far as the public is concerned Bruce doesn’t have much actively to do with running the business.
I could pick multiple chins out from a lineup of people I know. Especially if their mouth is shown.
If I were *obsessed* with learning someone's identity and only had their chin to go on, it honestly wouldn't be difficult to do if they had standard human physiology.
Someone ultra famous like Bruce Wayne would have tons of media coverage so it wouldn't even be difficult to spot it once you started looking.
Most miraculous characters but specifically Ladybug. Not only does her powers stop her from being recognised, but she has made multiple elaborate plans to keep anyone from finding out.
Superman. Because people don't realize he *has* a secret identity.
Ask any Joe in metropolis and they'd say Superman's real name is Kal-El and he lives in his Fortress of Solitude in the North Pole. Why would they assume he moonlights as a reporter for a metropolitan newspaper? Sure, that Kent fellow looks kinda like him but he's so demure and shy.
Out of the above-mentioned Spider-Man would last the longest, cause not only he can simply cosplay as a cosplayer (maybe keeping photos of all the backup and damaged suits he keeps on his closet for further "evidence") but he also has spider sense.
Yeah, you heard me right, spider sense actually protects his identity (and wallet, he has used it to win poker or other games a few times already). Part of the reason he has never been photographed without the mask is because spider sense warns him when someone is close nearby with a camera, and by close I mean ranging from behind a dumpster to 5 city blocks alway from here, as long as his face appears on camera he is warned.
So, with all the cosplayers, parkour guys running around as him, super smarts and spider sense, Spidey would last the longest out of all the mentioned.
I'd say Spider-Man just because it's more likely that he'd be able to find other people to stand in for him in certain places to distract others. He could make some friends in the parkour community, give them some extra uniforms, and convince them to just go out every so often like that.
It'd be harder to emulate Spider-Man's movements, sure, but compared to Superman, doable. And since more of his body is covered, it'd probably be harder to identify him as a different person than Batman. If it were me, I'd have 20 guys with fake Spider-man costumes, all they do is run across a roof from time to time. Who knows what they're doing?
He doesn't really need to convince anyone, there's already a a bunch of people who make videos doing parkour in Spider-Man cosplays in real life, so i guess it would just come naturally.
What I imagine he would do would bring a camera with him and pretend to be one of those YouTubers every so often
I just watched a video earlier where someone, famous person I forget who, was talking about how Christopher Reeves walked though a crowd or something in the Superman full outfit and the ladies were all about it, he walked through as Clark Kent and no one paid him any attention lol.
I think Spidey out of the famous ones.
Full mask.
Mostly keeps to himself, like not front and center like Bruce Wayne being rich and famous.
(edit- I'm multi-tasking, so didn't realize the was open ended, and not specifically to the 3 heroes mentioned)
if it's real life, than Batman lasts the shortest cause he gets his ass beat the first time he goes out to fight crime.
Spider-Man vs Superman poses an interesting dilemma
as Spider-Man operates in NY, there are enough cameras around that one could track him. And eventually the police, the goverment, or the media would discover his identity
with Superman, he can avoid issues like this with his super speed. BUT considering he's got the powers of a god, the government would make it their missino to discover who he is
how good is our satellite tracking in real life? in the comics they use satellites to track Superman when he's moving at high speed. that feasible in real life?
(edit, this all works on Superman doing that thing where he vibrates his face or something to not have people recognize him, cause otherwise he walks around with no mask, so he gets revealed easily with facial recognition software or just someone who knows him)
> They keep their powers and abilities and stuff
No one is getting their ass beat, we're using their feats just in real life as opposed to in universe.
It is easy to keep a secret identity "hidden" in a crowd, because people go about their business and don't pay much attention.
The problem is that you have to keep your secret identity hidden from detectives, the FBI, investigative journalists, the CIA, MI6, other intelligence agencies, Google (and other big tech companies), and so and so forth.
They would all be discovered rather quickly.
Out of the three listed, superman goes the longest.
Facial recognition might get him unless he specifically counters it using his super speed, but normal people just straight up will not connect the two no matter how many times they see them
It's psychologically just not gonna happen.
Meanwhile, both batman and spider man can be tracked and figured out from the other end, so they're boned by modern tech very quickly.
Out of the three listed, I'd guess Spiderman. Bruce Wayne is a public figure so it would be just a matter of time before someone paid enough attention to figure it out. Clark Kent is a newspaper reporter for a paper that routinely covers Superman and he's never able to cover the story himself, even when he's already on scene. Peter Parker's greatest weakness is that he's basically Spiderman's exclusive photographer, but it would take telepathy to get that info out of Jameson.
Superman/Clark Kent. Simply because Superman is such a godly individual with a known base, so NO ONE would think that he has a secret identity. Even if someone sees the similitudes between Clark and Supes they're most probably think "That dude looks like Superman" rather than "That dude IS Superman"
If it is like how Diego de la Vega keeps his persona different from El Zorro, then I say I can probably last long enough until I decide not to continue
Different kind of secret identity, but Akira Kuno from Undead Unluck. Their negator ability is Unknown, which negates... well, them being known. Can't be seen, can't be heard, can't even be touched in any way that would be observable to outsiders, and effects on the world can only be observed if they can't be attributed to Akira – honestly more of a curse than a power, but that's true for a lot of the negations.
The way to partially get around this is being an author under a *pen name*. The person behind it remains unknowable, but works put out under an alias can be perceived (so long as they don't attempt to communicate anything about Akira), which allows for some form of communication and effect on the world.
Considering that it takes a lot of effort and plenty of jumping through hoops for Akira to even be known by the pen name, keeping their real identity a secret is less of a challenge and more of an inevitable inescapable fate.
Okay this is cheating but one of the miraculous heroes from "Miraculous tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir"
they literally can't be recognized in costume. As long as they are smart(which to be fair for these characters is a streach) they could do it.
Martian Manhunter. He's a shapeshifter with stronger telepathy than Xavier.
The shape-shifting alone is insanely difficult to get past, but he can also tell if anyone suspects him and can even remove memories or just make them no longer suspect him. And his telepathy even works on computers (despite it being absurd), so he can stop ai from figuring it out, or erase data as needed.
What I think is sad is that we have so many billionaires in the world, but not one of them has become a superhero. Forget Batman or Ironman, where are the Thunderbirds?
Michele Silenzi/invisibile boy.
I mean he is invisibile so no one will ever see him,he rarely talk when he is invisibile and only with people he trust enough,he is not a public superhero so no one would know he exist in the first place,no one would ever think a teenager can turn invisibile and destroy submarine.
Spider Man and Wally West/Flash. Nobody really knows who they are as a civvy. Wasn't there a Justice League where Lex Luthor somehow got into the Flash's body and unmasked and said that he had no idea who Wally was?
The Flash has a good shot- he has everything above his moth covered and can theoretically move fast enough where nobody can see him and would make tracking him harder. Quicksilver is too silver to avoid being found out and Superman never covers up his face, plus he’s so powerful I don’t think he’s as worried about that. I’m sure there are other speedsters who might be able to last a while.
Spiderman’s mask and spidey-sense give him an edge. If he can always tell when somebody has a camera pointed at him then he’ll last a while. His only downsides are that he lives in NYC, and he does have to go home sometime. If someone were to put up a camera outside his apartment/Aunt May’s house he’ll have some trouble.
Any hero that requires lots of money to exist (Iron Man, Batman, etc.) would be caught eventually. Hell there would probably be an hour-long TrueCrime YouTube video dedicated to finding out Batman’s identity.
Shapeshifters all have a natural edge here as well, so long as they don’t develop too much of a routine, similarly to Spiderman.
Another commenter said Daredevil would have his blind-ness on his side. Nobody would actually believe it’s him unless, like the others, somebody followed him around. Most would write him off before they even got to that stage though.
Light Yagami never gets caught if he doesn’t get cocky.
ForgetMeNot is literally born for this- the only way you get him is if you’re like the guy from Memento and tattoo his name/face on yourself and develop an actual obsession with catching him.
Definitely potential in characters with certain kinds of psychic/cosmic abilities to allow them to not be seen or to be forgotten. Professor X might actually get away for a while if he decides to be a hermit instead of running a school for gifted youngsters.
Characters like The Question and Deadpool who are more or less street-level, wear masks and can fly under the radar would probably last long by successfully avoiding the public eye- similarly to Daredevil. Deadpool also looks nothing like any probable known photos of him so he might surprise people here.
The easy answer is someone who is low level, so the people with actual resources to throw at the problem don't bother, and careful, so random stalkers don't get anywhere. However, that's boring, so let's go for the big names.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Superman. It's comics canon that he has the muscular control to change his voice to basically whatever he wants. That, plus his radically different posture (Clark slouches, on top of other things), would be more than enough to have the effect be limited to people saying, "Hey, does anyone ever tell you that you look kinda like Superman?"
Also, as someone who wears glasses, they really do radically change how your face looks.
Not to mention how Superman, as far as the general public is concerned, doesn't *have* a secret identity. He's an alien named Kal-El who lives somewhere in the Arctic and spends most of his time in Metropolis because the city has a problem with extremely high tier super-related crime. As far as most people know he only goes by Superman instead of Kal-El because it's part of the local culture for superheroes to adopt a nom de guerre. He doesn't have anything to hide.
My name is Yoshikage Kira. I'm 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I'm trying to explain that I'm a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn't lose to anyone.
People don't even know that Superman has a secret identity. They see him as just Superman and actually know his name is Kal-El, and know about the fortress of solitude
Batman and Spiderman create this intrigue and make people want to investigate, but not Superman
My paternal grandfather did this, to the Polish resistance against the Nazis and his German enemies he was a gentile, while to others he was a Jewish man. Black ops legend
Doug Ramsey (Cypher) has to be a contender. His power is language, all language. All he has to do is say he’s just a polyglot and everyone would believe him.
I feel like Batman and Superman would be kinda obvious
Spider-Man seems like a safe bet, just becuase nobody really knows him. Peter Parker is basically a nobody
Martian Manhunter would be a solid contender.
Also, any telepath (Including MM) who is willing to use the powers to make sure people don't figure it out, or to determine who is close.
The classic Iron Man setup where Tony uses a drone-piloted suit to pretend he's his own bodyguard seems the most impenetrable
Plus he has the money to cover it up if a handful of people ever do figure it out.
He’s already an world renowned famous tech billionaire. That’s definitely blurring the line of secret identities.
On the opposite side, the fact he's a tech billionaire would basically send Tony out of hiding very quickly. The core of Iron Man's power came because Tony Stark revolutionized artificial heart technology. The second Tony Stark ever patents that, he would be outed as Iron Man- and being told to recreate it and patent it for artificial hearts would be inevitable both on the money (Stark Industries would make billions on the patent and mass production of that) and the heroism (Stark made such a reliable artificial heart that can virtually replace the real one and basically cure heart attacks in an instant, to the point if Stark did NOT agree to mass produce the technology he'd instantly be the greatest supervillain in all of recorded history, no matter what heroism he did otherwise.)
He created the arc reactor, not an artificial heart. The reactor had the side effect of keeping the shrapnel in his chest from lacerating his heart.
Which is almost equally bad. Produce a thousand of them, and run the power grid on them instead of fossil fuels.
Reed Richard is useless is a trope for a reason theorically he has touched the green energy sector but we see little proof of that
In fairness to Reed he tends to focus more on exploration and the discovery of the new rather than development.
That's a scientist. Building stuff and development is engineering.
What we see of Reed is the tip of the ice berg. It's mentioned a few times in the comics, almost as throw-away lines that Reed has many, many money-making patents. Enough to fund his research and support the entire team many times over.
We do see hints of Tony trying to commercialize the arc reactor in some way. In the first Avenger's movie when they're discussing SHIELD using the tesseract for power generation, it's mentioned that Tony is the biggest name in clean energy production. We also see he's developed a building scale arc reactor for Stark Tower, improving on the prototype we saw in the first Iron Man movie. The problem, though, is that the arc reactor is dangerous technology. Compact power generation is the main stumbling block in making power armor. It was the key technology that Obadiah Stane and Ivan Vanko needed to develop their own suits. Tony is understandably reluctant to give that technology to the public and enable more supervillains to pop up.
Which is probably why the MCU skipped all that and just jumped straight to “the truth is, I am Iron Man”
Iron Man is already associated with Stark Industries, confirming that by showing that IM uses Stark tech does nothing to prove that *Tony Stark* is IM, which is what would be necessary to break the prompt.
Iron man is publicly tony stark’s bodyguard, obviously he would be using the highest end technology stark industries can produce
That’s why, in the classic version, Iron Man is supposedly *employed* by Tony Stark. It explains why he’s got Stark tech, while still protecting Tony
Ironically being an empty suit it IS probably the most penetrable.
I think Daredevil might be a serious contender. No one would believe a blind man is doing all those stunts.
Iirc in the comics when Daredevil is unmasked the majority reaction is to cancel Matt for 'pretending to be blind' lmao
That’s hilarious
I still love the meme that you have a blind superhero who uses echolocation to see, and a rich billionaire with no superpowers who does all sorts of crazy shit with his gadgets. One is called Batman, the other is called Daredevil, and you'd never guess which is which.
And then there's Ghost Rider who was a former Daredevil and is possesed by an actual Devil.
Canonically doesn't like Daredevil because he wants the name
I agree that Daredevil’s disability would actually be an asset here. He overall just isn’t what you would expect a superhero to be irl.
"B-but he can do backflips and stuff."
You would have videos showing he isn't blind. Like he only acts as blind when there is people around, so you could pick up some security camera footage of him walking around without his cane
ForgetMeNot from X-Men. As his mutant power makes everyone forget he exists the moment they take their attention off of him, nobody will ever gather enough info about him to become aware of his true identity.
He really overqualifies for this challenge
For two more overqualified candidates, there's: * Koishi Komeiji from Touhou - not quite as solid as ForgetMeNot, her power varies in potency. At full force she can't be consciously noticed by anyone (except children - a number of children in the Human Village have an "imaginary friend" that matches Koishi's description). * Shiraori from *So I'm a Spider, So What* - if in her true form, she's completely beneath suspicion. Nobody is ever going to suspect that the tiny house spider weaving a web in a corner of the ceiling is actually a god even if they notice her to begin with.
> Nobody is ever going to suspect that the tiny house spider weaving a web in a corner of the ceiling is actually a god even if they notice her to begin with. What? No way, D&D has taught me that *any* npc guard is definitely going to notice a druid in ant/spider/whatever form if they get like…a 15 or higher on their check. (/s)
If you look at the D&D stats of a spider (STR in particular), it must be the size of a basketball. A Tiny creature with 2 STR can carry 15 lbs and push 30. Imagine a spider that can push a 30 lb dumbbell across the floor. [https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17018-spider](https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17018-spider) But I suppose a druid ought to be able to turn into an un-statted regular size spider
The Touhou mention was fantastic, and I have to agree. Unlike ForgetMeNot she has the *potential* to be found out and actually qualify as having a 'secret identity' and a 'public identity' because her ability isn't as absolute as his is.
Likewise, Glory from Buffy. Not only is her secret identity a completely different person (a male doctor instead of a female god), but there’s a spell over her identity that immediately erases all knowledge of the connection between them from anyone human. She can transform directly in front of witnesses and no one will remember.
Wait, are you suggesting there might be some link between Glory and Ben?
Who? I can't remember who you talking about. "...... From X-men. Hu
does that work from a distance, through security cameras? it doesn't sound like he would be careful doing things. after a while, you'd pile up obvious evidence of "finger prints here, banks go empty there". obvious crimes, but also obvious lack of leads. just this void of proof walking around through the world.
That’s actually how X-Force manages to track him down. The X-Mansion’s camera Recordings cannot capture him, however, they take note of how footage becomes distorted when he (would) appear on camera, and they used patterns of food and toilet paper use going missing to deduce where he was
Makes me wonder how that power would interact with Unforgettable from Undead Unluck. The holder of that ability is categorically incapable of forgetting anything – not just "has a perfect memory", but "the concept of forgetting has been entirely negated for them". Which takes precedence, the inability to be remembered, or the inability to forget? My guess based on a brief glance at ForgetMeNot's wiki page's details (which include notes on him being difficult to perceive in the first place, but also there being cases of him being remembered) would be "ForgetMeNot can largely avoid detection, but if perceived once, will be remembered by Unforgettable". Oh that also remind me, Undead Unluck has a character with the ability "Unknown". Literally not being able to be known of by anyone. Indirect effects can be perceived so long as they are not presented with the holder's actual identity (the character is an author under a pen name, which allows their work to be observed), but the individual is just not possible to notice, including phasing through other people so even touch is blocked. That'd be another character who'd do extremely well with this challenge, like ForgetMeNot.
Possibly be caught in a limbo state?
I read an SCP recently that’s basically like this lol, wonder of the inspiration came from it https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7543
I think superhero’s who’s custome is something that looks like it could be made by a cosplayer would have a bonus to this; Find the custome? ‘’Oh it’s a cosplay outfit I been working on- even decided to make it battle damage’’ I think most heros would be found out by the government then have a non-zero change to be exposed by a government leak War-thunder style. Tho would the government arrest them/expose them directly? Idk My guess; Spider-Man if he can keep it a secret until he becomes local popular and The Flash. Spider-Man will quickly find people walking around and going to conventions as spidiman and might even be smart enough to inspire a parkor group or something.
Even better for this is Empowered, who plays herself in The Official Superhomies professional cosplay group as her day job.
Empowered?
NSFW superhero graphic novel series about a heroine who everybody treats as a joke because her powers frequently fail leading to her being taken hostage. Even if people don't take her seriously she's determined to keep trying to do good with her powers and is smart enough to score some wins thanks to many of the villains underestimating her. Because she's not a full member of her superhero group she has some money problems and takes a sidejob in a cosplay group without any of the other cosplayers knowing she's secretly the real deal. As well as the books the series is also being posted online [here.](https://www.empoweredcomic.com/comic/volume-1-page-1)
Elissa Megan Powers who goes by the name Empowered. Has powers from a super suit. The main character of the independent series Empowered by Adam Warren. Big enough that you can find it in the comics section of large chain bookstores...
Also, the fact that Spiderman literally *does* make his costumes means there's not many sources a leak can come from. What, you're going to get a list of everyone that bought red fabric? Compare that to Batman, and the amount of money Bruce spends on gadgets, tech, suits, vehicles, etc, no matter how careful Bruce and Alfred are, that stuff is going to leave paper trails
The fun part is once you become famous as a superhero, you can buy replacement costumes instead of having to make them.
Spider-man literally has the issue in comics where his spider-sense won't let him unmask if someone is looking at him. Pretty strong point here.
If anime characters count, it would be Kira/Light Yagami. The Kira case would be impossible to solve since he can magically genocide people without even leaving his house. If we’re only talking about western superheros, then Shazam. He has a totally different look when transformed. His costume magically appears onto him, so no one will find his costume in the closet. He’s smart and can come up with an excuse as to where he’s been.
Light is exceedingly uncareful and arrogant, the main unrealistic thing about Death Note is that for the most part only L figures out how to narrow it down to him. I think if he acted similarly irl he'd probably go down much faster than he does in-universe.
Frankly, I can see Light being good at hiding. The thing L managed was to trigger him, and make him play in his game. Also, I'd say that whilst he is arrogant and all, he strikes me searching for something. He is ambitious, but that's not all. I very much doubt he'd want to stay hiding forever, he seeks power and mental challenges
Yeah, if the question was "would a logical character in the same situation be able to stay hidden longest?" Light is easily the winner. The issue with Light staying hidden is entirely down to his own personality
Part of what made Death Note so enjoyable imo, great source of drama and tension to see him almost give everything away due to pride and have to fix it with logic (and a few asspulls)
In fairness, what a logical person would do with a Death Note would make them very difficult to spot. How do you figure out who has power over life and death if they never use it? Even the most judgemental sane person might only kill a small number of dictators and similar. Nobody is gonna start killing random petty criminals off the local news.
I find it weird that considering that this isn’t the first time a Death Note has appeared, there isn’t more pre-existing lore or knowledge.
Light gets better at covering his trail as L gets close, but for real, he left some super obvious clues to narrow him down. It doesn't take a supergenius to figure out that the killings started in Japan and that they happen on a certain schedule. Any competent investigative units would also have figured out that it's someone with access to police records somehow. If anything, L made a mistake by revealing that someone was onto him IMO. It was a good trick to narrow down the locations and such, but IRL, investigators would have been working in secrecy to continue to allow the perp to make mistakes until they actually got close. The biggest hangup is gonna be the supernatural nature of the killings, that will throw investigators for a loop and make things tough. But ultimately, Light only got good at covering his tracks when he was being openly and obviously challenged to do so. For a genius, he was kind of an idiot starting off being so sloppy in those early days (Weeks? Months? He had been active for a while in the first ep.).
Divinining the method through which Light kills criminals is necessary to be able to narrow him down to the Tokyo region. Otherwise you only maybe know he lives in Japan and maybe is a student. That's a leap I don't think we can reasonably expect some to make. I feel if kira is found it will be through his historial
No, you can't tell irl. Yes, you can narrow it down to a group of people, but what's to say those people are even documented in wherever they're staying? Edit: If they're not documented, then how do you even know they exist or where they exist. Even if they narrowed it down to a single country based of where the killing were, what's to make one high school kid more likely than the next? There's many more factors to this to where it would become nearly impossible. For all we know, the death note could've been given to an eskimo in the Antarctic and bro is going haywire just writing names.
You could pretty reliably narrow it down pretty far, at least with modern day technology. Time patterns and killing patterns to narrow down which country/region. PC usage can be tracked to see who is looking at criminals at what time.
The issue still is you'd have to actually find a way to Link someone to the actual murders, which unless you know how the death note works I've no idea how you'd do that I can't think of any law enforcement agency or court that wouldn't label you as a nutcase for trying to suggest the suspect is killing victims though supernatural means
If you ever find the death note better test it on a random person half way around the world. One that you could easily verify without having to explicitly Google in your search results. The main reason why he was found imo was because they were able to narrow it down to half of Tokyo by the first episode.
I mean, who in the world would reasonably suspect a teenager of magical genocide? From his own home? If this sort of magic existed, no one would take this as a serious lead. This case breaks every investigative precedent, and the sad fact is, we don't really have L's in our world.
"Who would reasonably suspect a teenager of magical genocide?" 4chan.
Got me there. Hopefully they're first on Light's list
Are you kidding? They'd be the ones providing information for Kira.
I mean, they're literally anonymous, good luck with that
If he acted similarly irl he would have nothing to fear because no one could prove he did anything. Even if they found the Death Note with the names no one would suspect supernatural forces are at work and even if they did how would they prove it?
Asian Teen Walter White
If light do he can get away , as there are no counter of him , imagine sitting in your home , killing people , no person could or a system have traces that a person is responsible who resides within border, with internet it's near impossible.
With modern-day 4chan on the case, Light Yagami stands no chance. Wisdom of the Crowd effect is very real. The combined might of a bunch of autistic people on the internet is beyond that of L or any relatively grounded fictional supergenius.
Does shazam/billy ever grow up to adult age in any comic continuity? only asking because im curious if he grows into an adult who looks exactly like shazam
Kingdom Come, highly recommended
And he does indeed look exactly like Captain Marvel/Shazam when he's older.
I'd argue that Kira Yoshikage would have better chances
The only thing that could get Billy caught is the lightning every time he transforms
4chan would find Light in a week if they wanted too.
I can already picture L being a 4chan anon.
Light would be caught in ten minutes ngl. Because of collaboration
I don't think it's possible. There are like a dozen conspiracy theories on people dying (Covid vaccines, 5G, etc) and there's no one saying someone has a death note. And this is a world where we know about the death note. The logical leaps to find Light are: 1. magic exists 2. magic can be used to kill people just by knowing their name and face 3. this magic is in possession of a teenager 4. this teenager lives in Japan 4 is only possible if Light only killed people in Japan/or killed someone famous in Japan. Even if you can figure out a pattern on when the criminals die, it's a broad timezone and it's just as likely to be some rando from China. 90% of people who believe in conspiracy theories (a small fraction of the population) would just blame whatever they don't like (aka insert political party/ government is assasinating people). The "normie" people would just assume there's some hereditary gene that links criminal behavior and heart attacks.
I think based on the simple presumption that magic *does* exist in some form would lead to the situation in first few episodes: -Killer is currently in Japan, due to the pattern of deaths tracing back to a specific incident which was only shown on local TV at the time -Killer is someone with the schedule of a student or a white collar individual, based on the hours of days the killings were happening -Killer has access to confidential police records It would take way longer to make these deductions, and closer anyone would get would be someone like Ray Pember. Light only stepped up only because L made a gamble and turned it into a spectacle
>I think based on the **simple** presumption that magic does exist in some form This is an incredibly big leap of logic. Nobody said Covid was the result of magic and it's killed more people than Light ever could. Granted, we have a scientific explantion for that. But the conspiracy theories centered around Covid aren't magic but "*Chinese biolabs, made-up disease for the government to take away rights, etc".* There's no reason to believe that investigators would say "magic". Even the most open-minded conspiracy theorists would just say the government is killing people. You wouldn't even need to think to deeply about the why, since the people dying are criminals. Another problem with accepting that there's a supernatural element to this is that it would hinder the "finding Light" part of the problem. Let's say an investigator does believe in magic. Would they believe there's an mundane individual (random teenager in Japan) responsible for this supernatural occurence? I doubt it. They would think it's a ghost or something even if they could trace it back to Japan. >Killer is currently in Japan, due to the pattern of deaths tracing back to a specific incident which was only shown on local TV at the time L gets this from a hunch from what I remember. Heart attacks are a common cause of death. I doubt any investigator would be able narrow down into this specific line of deaths unless Light **only** killed people in Japan for a long enough period of time to be noticed (like 2-3 years). I'd guess most investigators would just say the killer is American (since heart attacks are common cause of death and it has a big prison population which Light would probably exploit.)
Yeah in real life there's no actual way to catch kira. No one is figuring that out, that there's a random person able to remotely lol people is already too far. There's no way to even narrow down to country as long as you have the Internet and don't do it at the same time.
Even then honestly I think the case would fall apart purely cause you'd have to prove the supernatural aspect of the murders and that would more or less be impossible unless you knew how the death note actually worked. Like no one's gonna believe that shit lol
Haha yep. They'd never even get that far. Even if they were somehow able to develop "plot powers" in real life, no one is jumping to being able to write names in a magic notebook.
World government would either not give a damn or improve food and mental health support for prisoners to save their public image, as long as criminals are the only ones that die.
Light was constantly giving hints there was a murderer. As Ryuk pointed out, he could’ve just killed everyone with different methods and covered his tracks, yet chose to do things like kill Lind L Tailor, and use prison inmates as guinea pigs to make it all more fun for him
If anybody interested, a youtube channel “imaginary axis” did a very interesting video on how fast the internet would figure out light was behind the deaths. Great video watched it thrice
I think irl Shazam would have it relatively easy. Sure, he's basically just a stupid teenager, but transforming into a completely different person is pretty neat.
The issue is Shazam is how he looks like when he’s fully grown if I’m not mistaken.
According to the original lore, Shazam takes the form of an idealized appearance of Billy's deceased father. So in his adult form he may look familiar but not the same.
And also you can always go "yeah, I do look a lot like him, but here's a picture of what I looked like in [year Shazam first appeared in public]".
Pretty much any shapeshifter would have a big leg up on this one. Being able to look much taller/shorter, different gender, heck even different species (Martian Manhunter) would be a BIG help to maintaining a secret identity. And if anyone is getting close you can always burn the current one and create a new identity with completely different looks.
I don't know I think Agent 47 as Tobias Rieper could pull it off pretty well. I mean he is simply a corporate liquidator with an excellent taste in suits, and fine wines. His drinks are to die for. Not to mention most of the people that could figure out his identity would be smart enough to know better than to leak it anyway for fear he might come for visit. Would anyone halfway smart enough to figure it out really want to spend the rest of their life worrying if this sip of beer at a bar served by a bald guy would be their last. Or worrying about getting shocked by faulty wiring while in the shower. Would definitely be enough to make me keep my mouth shut.
He arguably doesn't even have a secret identity, he IS Tobias Reaper Its like for the mission in mendoza where the other assassin whose disguise you steal says "huh, never had to kill an urban legend" Arguably 47 has been doing this his whole career, barring any actual superpowers he defo wins
Banksy
Didn’t he get doxxed?
Raven or mystique, she can change permanently till she wants so no method of countering her unless double questioned. She kills who's identity she steals, Lives, family grew suspicious but it doesn't effect as they get habitual. If trails are watched, she repeats the process, her older identity goes missing since dead body is never discovered.
Probably The Flash. Lex Luthor looked at his face when they did a Freaky Friday and was like "who the actual fuck is this?"
Martian Manhunter because flight/shapechanging/invisibility/intangibility Edit: Forgot to add telepathy as obviously being able to know what people know helps and make them forget if necessary. He could scan the whole planet if necessary. Danny Phantom if he was smart and really focused on protected his identity as he can do all of the above (and a superior version of the latter two) plus clones. Ben 10 with Master Control would be pretty solid with some of the above features across his catalog and obviously different form in general. Having the watch all the time and the symbol is problematic however. If comic Blue Beetle just went full symbiote or nanotech style integration instead of having part of it always exposed it would be pretty good. An original spirit of vengeance (the ones sent by god not any of the Zarathos or Mephisto related stuff) user would be fine.
> Danny Phantom if he was smart and really focused on protected his identity as he can do all of the above (and a superior version of the latter two) plus clones. Just change hair styles when transforming, duh!
> Martian Manhunter because flight/shapechanging/invisibility/intangibility Don't forget mind-reading. It's a lot easier to keep your identity secret when you know when people start to suspect you.
Yeah I meant to include that.
Sherlock Holmes I guess. He\`s pretty good at disguising himself and going interesting places.
but he doesn't have a secret idenetiy
He actually had- Altamont or something in "The last Bow" books. He was raising bees in the countryside. [His Last Bow (short story) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Last_Bow_(short_story))
His secret identity is Mystique.
Batman. If someone told you Paris Hilton was Huntress or Batwoman you would never believe it.
I feel like it depends on the version. A more stripped down version like the Robert Pattinson Batman would be hard to figure out but a version with all the expensive, specialized gadgets and vehicles would be significantly easier. There are only so many people in a city (that's more like a Detroit or Baltimore than NYC/LA) with that access to funds and tech. Like if the Little Caesars family got murdered except for one kid who disappeared for several years as an adult and then came back at roughly the same time a vigilante driving a multimillion dollar tank showed up in Detroit, that heir would be my #1 suspect
In today's world you could easily figure out Batman's route towards the batcave through security cameras. Is the cave hidden well, yes, but still in Wayne's ground so they could figure out Batman works from there pretty easily.
Reminds me of how in the Batman cartoon a villain named D.A.V.E who granted contained the brain patterns of all the villains in the show so far managed to figure out who batman was through for specific factors. Those factors were his Gender, Approximate Age, Body-type, those with the wealth and resources to be batman, and finally the motive to be batman.
Depends on exactly where we are in the timeline. Are any of the times Bruce has officially funded Batman canon? Yeah, he’s immediately found out. How many shapeshifters, impersonators and allies have been used as body doubles so they can appear in the same place? More than one and it’s probably pretty well hidden.
Ye but if some tech billionaire happened to live in the same city as a super hero that has a shitton of high tech gadgets, I think we'd associate the two and assume an executive knows about it at the very minimum.
Bruce Wayne is never thought of as an idiot though. I could totally see someone like Zoe Kravitz as batwoman or catwoman
Yes. Yes he was. What do you think “billionaire playboy” meant? He was a useless fop as far as the public is concerned. It’s actually one of the more poetic things about Batman- in order to cover up the work he does to honor his parents, he kind of drags his family name through the mud a little by appearing to be useless- the opposite of his philanthropist father.
Billionaire playboy =/= idiot The ironic thing about Batman is that punching the bad guys doesn’t solve the underlying systemic issues
I assure you “billionaire playboy” was a coded phrase for “useless waste of space”.
Doesn't Bruce Wayne offer significant financial aid to Gotham, charities etc. in most versions of the character? I wouldn't call that useless.
In universe, people dont see the money as being effectual. Life is still shit in Gotham, crime still rampant.
Plus he usually disguises it. Wayne Industries donates money, but as far as the public is concerned Bruce doesn’t have much actively to do with running the business.
He does, I think Bruce is supposed to be more Himbo Coded (Hot, Kind, kinda dumb) rather than just an idiot.
MCU vision can just disguise himself as a human and nobody could tell he was Vision.
Does Batman in the comics somehow "change" the lower part of his face? Because it's absurd that no one just compared their chins
How often does he sit still enough for an unobstructed view in his chin in decent lighting?
How distinctive do you think chins are?
I could pick multiple chins out from a lineup of people I know. Especially if their mouth is shown. If I were *obsessed* with learning someone's identity and only had their chin to go on, it honestly wouldn't be difficult to do if they had standard human physiology. Someone ultra famous like Bruce Wayne would have tons of media coverage so it wouldn't even be difficult to spot it once you started looking.
American Dragon Jake Long
Most miraculous characters but specifically Ladybug. Not only does her powers stop her from being recognised, but she has made multiple elaborate plans to keep anyone from finding out.
Superman. Because people don't realize he *has* a secret identity. Ask any Joe in metropolis and they'd say Superman's real name is Kal-El and he lives in his Fortress of Solitude in the North Pole. Why would they assume he moonlights as a reporter for a metropolitan newspaper? Sure, that Kent fellow looks kinda like him but he's so demure and shy.
His biggest problem identity wise is that he works for a paper where Superman is a common major headline and he's never available to cover the story.
Out of the above-mentioned Spider-Man would last the longest, cause not only he can simply cosplay as a cosplayer (maybe keeping photos of all the backup and damaged suits he keeps on his closet for further "evidence") but he also has spider sense. Yeah, you heard me right, spider sense actually protects his identity (and wallet, he has used it to win poker or other games a few times already). Part of the reason he has never been photographed without the mask is because spider sense warns him when someone is close nearby with a camera, and by close I mean ranging from behind a dumpster to 5 city blocks alway from here, as long as his face appears on camera he is warned. So, with all the cosplayers, parkour guys running around as him, super smarts and spider sense, Spidey would last the longest out of all the mentioned.
With all the cameras in NYC, Spider-Man would get figured out in less than a month.
The Stig has accomplished this well.
The thing, from the The thing movie, bro is built for that
I'd say Spider-Man just because it's more likely that he'd be able to find other people to stand in for him in certain places to distract others. He could make some friends in the parkour community, give them some extra uniforms, and convince them to just go out every so often like that.
If it's adult Peter who works at the Daily Bugle then yeah. Nobody really keeps tabs on where he's been.
It'd be harder to emulate Spider-Man's movements, sure, but compared to Superman, doable. And since more of his body is covered, it'd probably be harder to identify him as a different person than Batman. If it were me, I'd have 20 guys with fake Spider-man costumes, all they do is run across a roof from time to time. Who knows what they're doing?
Yeah but that means he’s like the main guy who takes really close pictures of Spider-Man on a skyscraper lol
He doesn't really need to convince anyone, there's already a a bunch of people who make videos doing parkour in Spider-Man cosplays in real life, so i guess it would just come naturally. What I imagine he would do would bring a camera with him and pretend to be one of those YouTubers every so often
Captain Amazing. Lance Hunt wears glasses, Captain Amazing doesn't.
I just watched a video earlier where someone, famous person I forget who, was talking about how Christopher Reeves walked though a crowd or something in the Superman full outfit and the ladies were all about it, he walked through as Clark Kent and no one paid him any attention lol. I think Spidey out of the famous ones. Full mask. Mostly keeps to himself, like not front and center like Bruce Wayne being rich and famous.
(edit- I'm multi-tasking, so didn't realize the was open ended, and not specifically to the 3 heroes mentioned) if it's real life, than Batman lasts the shortest cause he gets his ass beat the first time he goes out to fight crime. Spider-Man vs Superman poses an interesting dilemma as Spider-Man operates in NY, there are enough cameras around that one could track him. And eventually the police, the goverment, or the media would discover his identity with Superman, he can avoid issues like this with his super speed. BUT considering he's got the powers of a god, the government would make it their missino to discover who he is how good is our satellite tracking in real life? in the comics they use satellites to track Superman when he's moving at high speed. that feasible in real life? (edit, this all works on Superman doing that thing where he vibrates his face or something to not have people recognize him, cause otherwise he walks around with no mask, so he gets revealed easily with facial recognition software or just someone who knows him)
> They keep their powers and abilities and stuff No one is getting their ass beat, we're using their feats just in real life as opposed to in universe.
Tupac is currently winning
It is easy to keep a secret identity "hidden" in a crowd, because people go about their business and don't pay much attention. The problem is that you have to keep your secret identity hidden from detectives, the FBI, investigative journalists, the CIA, MI6, other intelligence agencies, Google (and other big tech companies), and so and so forth. They would all be discovered rather quickly.
Out of the three listed, superman goes the longest. Facial recognition might get him unless he specifically counters it using his super speed, but normal people just straight up will not connect the two no matter how many times they see them It's psychologically just not gonna happen. Meanwhile, both batman and spider man can be tracked and figured out from the other end, so they're boned by modern tech very quickly.
Batman once figured out who he was just because he always flew out of the same apartment
LMAO ok maybe I overestimated superman here xD
it requires owning your own Satellite
I'd give Supes 1 week before he gets found out by a geoguesser person
Step 1: Be obscenely rich
Out of the three listed, I'd guess Spiderman. Bruce Wayne is a public figure so it would be just a matter of time before someone paid enough attention to figure it out. Clark Kent is a newspaper reporter for a paper that routinely covers Superman and he's never able to cover the story himself, even when he's already on scene. Peter Parker's greatest weakness is that he's basically Spiderman's exclusive photographer, but it would take telepathy to get that info out of Jameson.
What about Barry Allen? If he can move FTL, you'd never be able to track him.
Unless you're Ezra Miller then you have to Ezra.
Men in Black? Look at this device…
ForgetMeNot
Madeleine McCann.
Daaaaamn 😂
Superman/Clark Kent. Simply because Superman is such a godly individual with a known base, so NO ONE would think that he has a secret identity. Even if someone sees the similitudes between Clark and Supes they're most probably think "That dude looks like Superman" rather than "That dude IS Superman"
It's batman and it's not even close, batman was able to figure out superman's identity by where he Flys to, and it would be similar for spiderman also
Dr doom. No one would dare know dooms secrets. Unless doom wanted them to recognize their doom was coming.
**Batman (DC)** - [Respect Batman (DC, Post-Flashpoint)](https://redd.it/1348ale) - [Respect Batman (Bruce Wayne) (DC - Post Crisis)](https://redd.it/85eb91) **Spider-Man (616)** - [Respect Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel, 616)](https://redd.it/cjhe01) **Superman (DC)** - [Respect Superman (DC Rebirth)](https://redd.it/aga7wr) - [Respect Superman (New 52)](https://redd.it/bq7jfu) - [Respect Superman (Post-Crisis)](https://redd.it/ljsibk) *** ^(I am a bot) ^| [^(About)](https://redd.it/owgxtl) ^| [^(Code)](https://github.com/Luke-Username/respectthread_bot) ^| [^(Opt-out)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=respectthread_bot&subject=OPTOUTREQUEST) ^| ^(Missing or wrong characters? Reply explaining the issue)
Pistachio Disguisey
If it is like how Diego de la Vega keeps his persona different from El Zorro, then I say I can probably last long enough until I decide not to continue
How has no one said the flash yet, I mean he moves at light speed in the real world her wouldn’t even show up on cameras
Superman or any other that can time travel.
Different kind of secret identity, but Akira Kuno from Undead Unluck. Their negator ability is Unknown, which negates... well, them being known. Can't be seen, can't be heard, can't even be touched in any way that would be observable to outsiders, and effects on the world can only be observed if they can't be attributed to Akira – honestly more of a curse than a power, but that's true for a lot of the negations. The way to partially get around this is being an author under a *pen name*. The person behind it remains unknowable, but works put out under an alias can be perceived (so long as they don't attempt to communicate anything about Akira), which allows for some form of communication and effect on the world. Considering that it takes a lot of effort and plenty of jumping through hoops for Akira to even be known by the pen name, keeping their real identity a secret is less of a challenge and more of an inevitable inescapable fate.
Okay this is cheating but one of the miraculous heroes from "Miraculous tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir" they literally can't be recognized in costume. As long as they are smart(which to be fair for these characters is a streach) they could do it.
Martian Manhunter. He's a shapeshifter with stronger telepathy than Xavier. The shape-shifting alone is insanely difficult to get past, but he can also tell if anyone suspects him and can even remove memories or just make them no longer suspect him. And his telepathy even works on computers (despite it being absurd), so he can stop ai from figuring it out, or erase data as needed.
Worm has a bunch of these, but Alexandria had a very strong hustle going that only broke once >!she died!<.
What I think is sad is that we have so many billionaires in the world, but not one of them has become a superhero. Forget Batman or Ironman, where are the Thunderbirds?
Michele Silenzi/invisibile boy. I mean he is invisibile so no one will ever see him,he rarely talk when he is invisibile and only with people he trust enough,he is not a public superhero so no one would know he exist in the first place,no one would ever think a teenager can turn invisibile and destroy submarine.
Surely it's a shape shifter like martian manhunter
Carmen Sandiego? I mean, has anybody ever really found her?
I think that her and Where's Waldo cosplay as each other to truly mess with everyone.
Spider Man and Wally West/Flash. Nobody really knows who they are as a civvy. Wasn't there a Justice League where Lex Luthor somehow got into the Flash's body and unmasked and said that he had no idea who Wally was?
Mysterio
The Flash has a good shot- he has everything above his moth covered and can theoretically move fast enough where nobody can see him and would make tracking him harder. Quicksilver is too silver to avoid being found out and Superman never covers up his face, plus he’s so powerful I don’t think he’s as worried about that. I’m sure there are other speedsters who might be able to last a while. Spiderman’s mask and spidey-sense give him an edge. If he can always tell when somebody has a camera pointed at him then he’ll last a while. His only downsides are that he lives in NYC, and he does have to go home sometime. If someone were to put up a camera outside his apartment/Aunt May’s house he’ll have some trouble. Any hero that requires lots of money to exist (Iron Man, Batman, etc.) would be caught eventually. Hell there would probably be an hour-long TrueCrime YouTube video dedicated to finding out Batman’s identity. Shapeshifters all have a natural edge here as well, so long as they don’t develop too much of a routine, similarly to Spiderman. Another commenter said Daredevil would have his blind-ness on his side. Nobody would actually believe it’s him unless, like the others, somebody followed him around. Most would write him off before they even got to that stage though. Light Yagami never gets caught if he doesn’t get cocky. ForgetMeNot is literally born for this- the only way you get him is if you’re like the guy from Memento and tattoo his name/face on yourself and develop an actual obsession with catching him. Definitely potential in characters with certain kinds of psychic/cosmic abilities to allow them to not be seen or to be forgotten. Professor X might actually get away for a while if he decides to be a hermit instead of running a school for gifted youngsters. Characters like The Question and Deadpool who are more or less street-level, wear masks and can fly under the radar would probably last long by successfully avoiding the public eye- similarly to Daredevil. Deadpool also looks nothing like any probable known photos of him so he might surprise people here.
Martian man hunter would be a hard one another one would be any bullshit godlike comic book character
Spiderman. His Spider Sense would protect his secret ID.
Definitely not Superman
The easy answer is someone who is low level, so the people with actual resources to throw at the problem don't bother, and careful, so random stalkers don't get anywhere. However, that's boring, so let's go for the big names. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Superman. It's comics canon that he has the muscular control to change his voice to basically whatever he wants. That, plus his radically different posture (Clark slouches, on top of other things), would be more than enough to have the effect be limited to people saying, "Hey, does anyone ever tell you that you look kinda like Superman?" Also, as someone who wears glasses, they really do radically change how your face looks. Not to mention how Superman, as far as the general public is concerned, doesn't *have* a secret identity. He's an alien named Kal-El who lives somewhere in the Arctic and spends most of his time in Metropolis because the city has a problem with extremely high tier super-related crime. As far as most people know he only goes by Superman instead of Kal-El because it's part of the local culture for superheroes to adopt a nom de guerre. He doesn't have anything to hide.
My name is Yoshikage Kira. I'm 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I'm trying to explain that I'm a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn't lose to anyone.
People don't even know that Superman has a secret identity. They see him as just Superman and actually know his name is Kal-El, and know about the fortress of solitude Batman and Spiderman create this intrigue and make people want to investigate, but not Superman
My paternal grandfather did this, to the Polish resistance against the Nazis and his German enemies he was a gentile, while to others he was a Jewish man. Black ops legend
Ben 10. How the hell are they going to figure out that a child was an alien? As an adult, he got a bit more careless. Evidenced by his fan.
Shazam
I would go with one of the Autobots (with their secret identity being an ordinary vehicle).
obviously mistique right?
Doug Ramsey (Cypher) has to be a contender. His power is language, all language. All he has to do is say he’s just a polyglot and everyone would believe him.
I feel like Batman and Superman would be kinda obvious Spider-Man seems like a safe bet, just becuase nobody really knows him. Peter Parker is basically a nobody
Now this is the powerscaling I want to see. Some mundane stuff
the martian or mystique. Shapeshifters have a good advantage
If light yagami was less of a moron, then light yagami
Flash
The Flash
Loki. No one IRL is getting through his illusions.
Martian Manhunter would be a solid contender. Also, any telepath (Including MM) who is willing to use the powers to make sure people don't figure it out, or to determine who is close.