Tonight's episode of "Smallville" utilized a time-honoured comic book tradition; heroes going to great lengths to protect one another's secret identities!! (spoilers used for anyone who may not have watched the episode yet...)



So, what are some of your favourite "save the secret identity" stories?

I kind of liked it when Spider-Man pretended to be Daredevil in that Bob Gale/Phil Winslade DAREDEVIL arc a few years ago, in which Matt Murdock was required to put DD on the witness stand.

Superman and Batman pretended to be each other all the time in the Silver Age for one reason or another. John Byrne referenced that tradition in his SUPERMAN #17, and it was fun to see.

Yeah, whenever Supey-Woopey and Batsy-Watsy pretended to be each other - good times, good times

In this one, they sailed aboard a cruise ship as themselves and their alter-egoes. Clark was seasick so good ole' Bruce Wayne stayed in the cabin to take care of him. that way, Superman and batman could be on the trip as well and Lois would *never* suspect that they were hiding anything.

Well, I recently re-read in the Stan Lee Meets Spider-man book the classic issue (to me) where basically Peter has the flu and is delirious, admits to being Spider-man in front of Gwen, Harry MJ, and Capt Stacy Mj says some mean things to Gwen about it Gwen is horrified.

Anyway, he has the Prowler repay a favor by dressing up as Spider-man, yell at Peter in front of everyone, and has the Prowler as Spidey admit that him and Spidey have a special deal for Pete tpo get photos. Interesting to because, due to retcons, MJ knew all along, and Capt. Stacy would reveal he knew a couple of issues later in his death, so i guess he didn't buy the explanation (though his thought balloons suggested he did)

Kevin, that story was revisited in this

The MJ retcon has always been stupid. That "Parallel Lives" graphic novel can kiss my guinea ass. Talk about rendering huge pieces of history meaningless in one fell swoop.

I liked it a lot when MJ told Peter that she had known his secret for a while and had just kept her mouth shut about it. It even helped to explain her long(ish) absence from the comics. Going back and saying that she knew since (almost) Day One was a terrible idea. I know it was Gerry Conway who wrote it, but I just plain hate it.

For me, the Parallel Lives graphic novel was very important. I re-read that thing a hundred times. Of course, I hadn't read a whole lot of the early MJ issues (i had read the story you are talking of Frank where she said she knew the secret but it wasn't quite clear how long and no indication she always knew) so my perspective was quite different. Ah well, I enjoyed it then anyway. Haven't read it in a long time.

Interestingly, JB kept that change when he did Chapter One-which he at the time seemed to feel would be the official new history. I believe in Wizard he said something like "It explained why someone like MJ would be interested in a loser like Peter Parker." He may not have said loser Of course, JB quit reading comics the first time before MJ was even introduced.

No Super-robots in Smallville?

Well, not yet anyway.