Marvel Secret Identities- How many secret identities exists actually?

[TheManhunterfromMars]

I have some serious doubts about this, except for Spider-Man who still uses it, many used to have secret identity but left them by many reasons (random reasons, others or gay, I mean, Mutant Pride in X-Men matters), but now, besides Spider-Man, how many super heroes still use secret identity, masks and all that? Why so many quit secret identities? (BESIDES all Civil War Stuff)

Why does Wolverine wears a mask, even thought he hasn´t secret identity? it serves to anything?

Even a few ones wear masks, but like Wolverine, though wearing masks, all world knows their real name. (Iron Fist, Moon Knight, etc)

Why Marvel hates secret identities, seriously I think much of super heroes, as individuals and groups, in Marvel have no secret identity.

[Agent Z]

Daredevil, Spider-Man and a lot of teenage superheroes still use secret identities. The first superhero team in Marvel didn't use secret identities. It never really made sense for Captain America or Thor to have them and Iron Man not having one differentiates him from Batman.

Personally, I think secret identities wore out their welcome a long time ago and there is only so many stories you can tell with them before you realize they're all the same. Once you've read one story about a secret identity ruining a date or job interview you've read them all.

[Agent Z]

Daredevil, Spider-Man and a lot of teenage superheroes still use secret identities. The first superhero team in Marvel didn't use secret identities. It never really made sense for Captain America or Thor to have them and Iron Man not having one differentiates him from Batman.

Personally, I think secret identities wore out their welcome a long time ago and there is only so many stories you can tell with them before you realize they're all the same. Once you've read one story about a secret identity ruining a date or job interview you've read them all.

[Desmark]

I always wondered if the Punisher wouldn't have benefited from one. No criminal record and keeps criminals guessing who is after them. Then again it would have eventually gotten exposed like Bruce's.

[MichaelC]

He actually has established secret identities on occasion. He just disguises himself when in those identities rather than disguising himself when The Punisher. It's always only been to infiltrate criminals rather than to live a normal life, however.

[Digifiend]

Daredevil, Spider-Man and a lot of teenage superheroes still use secret identities. The first superhero team in Marvel didn't use secret identities. It never really made sense for Captain America or Thor to have them and Iron Man not having one differentiates him from Batman.

Not even most of the teenagers these days. The heroes who still keep a secret identity are:

Spider-Man (Parker)
Spider-Man (Morales)
Ghost Spider (on Earth-616 - it was revealed on her homeworld Earth-65)
Spider-Girl (not that it really matters any more since Anya has no family left)
Ms. Marvel
Nova (Sam Alexander - Rich Rider's secret identity was exposed during Civil War along with the rest of the New Warriors)
Valkyrie (Jane Foster - Brunnhilde never needed one)
Squirrel Girl
Katie Power (though I'm not sure how - her teacher didn't know in Power Pack's Legacy one-shot, but the others seem to be public now - Alex will have been exposed in Civil War, since he'd been a New Warrior).
Daredevil

And that's about it. None of the Young Avengers keep a secret identity, nor do the rest of the Champions, nor the X-Men.

[Raye]

Squirrel Girl was using a secret identity but it was revealed a couple issues ago, so no longer.

[Digifiend]

Ah, wasn't aware, I'm not up to date with USG. Makes sense that it would be outed though, considering her series is ending. She only hid her tail in the first place so that she could attend college.

[Mary Jay]

Daredevil, Spider-Man and a lot of teenage superheroes still use secret identities. The first superhero team in Marvel didn't use secret identities. It never really made sense for Captain America or Thor to have them and Iron Man not having one differentiates him from Batman.

Personally, I think secret identities wore out their welcome a long time ago and there is only so many stories you can tell with them before you realize they're all the same. Once you've read one story about a secret identity ruining a date or job interview you've read them all.

I beg do differ about the part in bold. When the Avengers first formed, nobody knew who the others really were. Even Thor had a secret identity as Dr. Donald Blake (that only Stark knew about if I'm not mistaken). They found out who Giant-Man and Wasp were in issue #27 when Jan was abducted by the Collector. Hank had to reveal himself and Jan when he came out of retirement. It took even more time to find out who Iron Man was really (remember the whole body guard story), not even sure when they found out the Hulk was actually Bruce Banner. Hawekeye went by that name for a long time before anyone learned his real name...

I agree with you though that secret identities are probably a thing of the past, except for maybe Spider-Man cause it works well for his stories. Apparently none of the superheroes have civilian families or parents they need to protect by keeping their true identity secret, so I don't really see the point.

[Agent Z]

I beg do differ about the part in bold. When the Avengers first formed, nobody knew who the others really were. Even Thor had a secret identity as Dr. Donald Blake (that only Stark knew about if I'm not mistaken). They found out who Giant-Man and Wasp were in issue #27 when Jan was abducted by the Collector. Hank had to reveal himself and Jan when he came out of retirement. It took even more time to find out who Iron Man was really (remember the whole body guard story), not even sure when they found out the Hulk was actually Bruce Banner. Hawekeye went by that name for a long time before anyone learned his real name...

I agree with you though that secret identities are probably a thing of the past, except for maybe Spider-Man cause it works well for his stories. Apparently none of the superheroes have civilian families or parents they need to protect by keeping their true identity secret, so I don't really see the point.

I was referring to the Fantastic Four. The Avengers weren't Marvel's first superhero team.

[Raye]

yeah, a lot of them USED to have secret identities and I think that's really the 'why' to the OP's question about why some characters still wear masks etc even though their identity is known. It's just that they used to have a secret identity, and even though it's not a thing any more, they still keep up with the code name and costume because that's how they started out. (non-superhero real life example that just occurred to me. Bands with made up stage personas. Kiss, Daft Punk, and the like. Recent example, there is this band, Ghost, whose identities were a secret... until some disgruntled ex band members sued the frontman last year, and his identity was revealed as Tobias Forge, the case was thrown out as frivolous, but his identity was still spilled. He still performs in mask and under the stage identity. He doesn't do interviews in the mask any more, but never performs out of it, and has no intentions of ditching it, because the stage persona is important to the image of the band. the superheroes and their personas kinda strike me as the same sort of idea, where even though the identity behind the mask is known, the mask is still used to create a clear distinction between on the job and off the job lives) And it's just sort of a thing in Marvel that if you have powers (and even sometimes not, like Hawkeye or whatever) and you're going around stopping (or doing) crimes of some kind, you give yourself a name and dress up. It's just the way it is, it's tradition. It also lets the civilians kinda know you're there to help them if you show up as something bad is going down. And with mutants in particular there are potentially other layers to it with their mutant identity and all. And the Asgardians are an exception that don't use code names for the most part, they just use, you know, their names (with a couple exceptions like Valkyrie or Enchantress) but their outfits seem like costumes. But it's more just that Asgard has different fashion than Earth, and they're just in Asgardian clothes, which stand out as unusual on Midgard. It's fairly rare for them to actually dress in Midgard clothes just 'cus, with a few exceptions (Sigurd, who was living in hiding on Midgard for many years, Loki recently has been known to dress in Midgard clothes for no real reason, but still has his Asgardian clothes as well). And some characters like Wolverine don't always use the costume, they do frequently just go out in regular clothes, or like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage gave up the costume and codename years ago. Or like Tony Stark, his 'costume' is also the source of his powers, so of course he's not going to go around just as himself most of the time even if everyone on the planet knows he's Iron Man now.

[Frontier]

I think Hellcat still has one, even if in her last solo series they made a joke about how obvious it was, but it came up in a recent story in Fearless that she would have to out her identity to clear her name for something.

Although she registered so couldn't people have googled her identity by that point? I forget.

[Vordan]

Most superheroes these days also don’t have any civilian cast members anymore. Their co-workers are all super heroes, their friends/love interests are superheroes, etc. Really only the Big 3 of Supes, Bats, and Spidey have such fleshed out civilian lives that they would lose a lot if their secret identities would ever permanently go away.

[Digifiend]

I think Hellcat still has one, even if in her last solo series they made a joke about how obvious it was, but it came up in a recent story in Fearless that she would have to out her identity to clear her name for something.

Although she registered so couldn't people have googled her identity by that point? I forget.

Yeah, she was being impersonated by a shapeshifter (a demon who's natural form looked feline), and Patsy Walker had a cast iron alibi. Hellcat, however, did not. She ended up befriending that shapeshifter, and they appeared together cleaning up the mess they'd made, thus putting doubt into people's minds that it was really her. Afterwards the shapeshifter took a new identity.

As for being registered under the SHRA, that would make her known to authorities, but not necessarily the public (which is also the case for Squirrel Girl, since she was on an Initiative team).

[Frontier]

As for being registered under the SHRA, that would make her known to authorities, but not necessarily the public (which is also the case for Squirrel Girl, since she was on an Initiative team).

I wonder if people even remember that, elsewise the police would probably have been knocking on her door before she even started investigating things.

I think it's entirely possible most of the Registration files were erased after the Registration Act was repealed.