{"id":546,"date":"2023-11-28T14:43:48","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T14:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/?page_id=546"},"modified":"2023-11-28T14:43:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T14:43:48","slug":"the-allure-of-secret-identity-heroes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/?page_id=546","title":{"rendered":"The Allure of Secret Identity Heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since Baroness Orczy created THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL<\/em> shortly after the turn of the 20th<\/sup> century, the secret-identity hero has become a staple in fiction. Literature, comics, motion pictures, and television have all adopted the device with varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n

I, a child of the late 1950s and early 1960s \u2013 and the Cold War \u2013 grew up on the televised versions of SUPERMAN<\/em>, THE LONE RANGER, ZORRO<\/em>, and BATMAN.<\/em> The dark rural nights of my childhood echoed with eerie laughter as my cousins, siblings, and I re-enacted The Wonderful Word of Disney<\/em>\u2019s THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH.<\/em> Even then, I knew there was something very special, very romantic, about the hero who performed his good deeds in disguise.<\/p>\n

I knew then, too, that the mask\/glasses weren\u2019t only to deflect the villain, but also because a true hero doesn\u2019t need credit for his escapades. A true hero does the right thing because he is inherently good.<\/p>\n

Sometime in the 1980s, I saw a made-for-TV movie called THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL<\/em>, starring queen-of-the-mini-series Jane Seymour and BRIDESHEAD REVISITED<\/em>\u2019s Anthony Andrews. The tension between the characters of Sir Percy Blakeney and Marguerite St. Just was exquisitely believable. I fell in love. I dashed out and bought the book, which is when I learned the movie I\u2019d seen was actually a compilation of two Pimpernel books: the original and EL DORADO.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here was a hero. A true, secret-identity guy who risked his life to rescue the French aristocracy from the guillotine. But Sir Percival Blakeney was much, much more than someone with a gift for theatrical make-up and derring-do. He also created a secret identity in which to live, one that very nearly cost him the love of his life.<\/p>\n

Ah, yes.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, Warner Brothers resurrected Superman in the form of LOIS AND CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN.<\/em> The spin was a little different on this updated version of my childhood hero, but one I could easily embrace. Dean Cain\u2019s portrayal of Superman didn\u2019t hurt, nor did Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. And this incarnation of Lois was someone with whom I could identify. Even better, the sexual tension between the two characters was believable.<\/p>\n

And explosive.<\/p>\n

The first season of this series simply blew my mind. I didn\u2019t like it as much once Lois learned that Clark Kent was really Superman, and I really didn\u2019t like it when Clark told Lois, \u201cClark is who I am, Superman is what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrong. Completely, dead wrong.<\/p>\n

The unique thing about Superman as opposed to other comic book superheroes is that Superman \u2013 Kal-El \u2013 is<\/em> the character and Clark Kent the disguise. Bruce Wayne became<\/em> Batman, Peter Parker became<\/em> Spiderman \u2013 even Percy Blakeney and Don Diego de la Vega became<\/em> The Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro.<\/p>\n

Kal-El became Clark Kent. The Clark Kent identity was created to disguise the baby from the far-away planet with the red sun. The whole \u201cmild-mannered-reporter\u201d persona originated, exactly like the \u201cfop\u201d persona of Sir Percy Blakeney, in order to distract the everyday world from the true character. Percy and Clark shed their disguises to do the right thing<\/em><\/strong>, using their inherent abilities as opposed to hiding behind masks, gadgets and nuclear mutations\/lab accidents, etc. (It\u2019s my understanding that this is also the Phantom\u2019s m.o., but I never read the comic.)<\/p>\n

Neither the Scarlet Pimpernel nor Superman is motivated by revenge.\u00a0 Peter Parker wants to get back at the men who killed his uncle; Bruce Wayne wants the men who killed his parents. What does Superman want? He has no hidden, personal agenda for helping. Same with Blakeney. He is a wealthy man, a baronet, and could easily live a stress-free life. Indeed, in the original book, he claims he goes into revolution-stricken France to rescue those sentenced to death for \u201csport.\u201d Pretty noble, if you ask me, when others in his time sported with dog\/cock fights, fox hunts, wenching, and gambling.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not surprising that given my penchant for the secret-identity hero whose every day life is<\/em> the identity he sheds in order to be his heroic self, that my books feature characters of the same ilk. But Tokarz, Stoker, Restin, and the gang \u2013 er, pack \u2013 aren\u2019t from mysterious planets or privileged societies. They\u2019re down-home guys who value family above all else, patriots of the nation that granted sanctuary to their ancestors when the old country was awash in revolution. Okay, things get a little hairy when the moon is full, but no one gets hurt \u2013 unless the core values of these heroes are threatened. Then there is no stopping a pack of crazed werewolves bent on revenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since Baroness Orczy created THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the secret-identity hero has become a staple in fiction. Literature, comics, motion pictures, and television have all adopted the device with varying degrees of success. I, a child of the late 1950s and early 1960s \u2013 and the Cold War […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":69,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.1359999999999998987476601541857235133647918701171875,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3000000000000000444089209850062616169452667236328125,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.67849999999999999200639422269887290894985198974609375,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92000000000000003996802888650563545525074005126953125,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.84999999999999997779553950749686919152736663818359375,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.1999999999999999555910790149937383830547332763671875,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.90000000000000002220446049250313080847263336181640625,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.270000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.020000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.4699999999999999733546474089962430298328399658203125,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-546","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":null,"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/546\/revisions\/547"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}