The CW Superheroes *Suck* At Secret Identities

General Discussion Movies & TV
1

Dude, all of these people suck at secret IDs.

Flash has like a minimum of 5 people at any given time.
Joe, Iris, Cisco, Frost, Ralph, lord knows how many Wells. I’m not even counting people like the Atom, the Firestorms, Argus, etc.

Batwoman
Her sister, her tech guy, her step-sisters, she’s only been around for a few episodes.

Arrow
I’ve literally lost count.

Supergirl
Her sister, Lena, Brainiac, Saturn Girl, Martian Manhunter, Jimmy Olsen, her sister’s girlfriend, her co-worker/tech guy (he left the show though).

These guys suuuuck at secret IDs.

Superman generally had 3 people. Two weren’t regulars. Lois, Ma and Pa.

Yes, technically Lana - But she wasn’t a regular.

So in Superman you shouldn’t have a tech support team. It should be Superman and Lois and that’s it.

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2

To be fair, Arrow doesn’t really count anymore since Oliver outed himself to the world. But yeah, it is amusing to think about what lengths some of them have gone to to protect their identities only for dozens of people to discover it over the years

3

You notice how all of them have a base, and at that base is a lot of computers, and how all of them have a tech team?

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4

Remove “CW” from the title of this thread and I agree completely. I still agree but you are a little too specific.

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5

Oh yeah, that’s definitely another CW trope. Admittedly Kate’s team is smaller and a little spread out, but I’m sure it’ll grow as the show goes on

6

All I can think of is my horror whenever the batfam calls one another by their first names when speaking by comm link (or sometimes in person, in public) while in uniform. I just picture some random Joe Schmoe catching some air on his apartment’s rooftop while Tim, ten feet away, is like, “Dick, any sign of Bruce?! I just stopped by the Batcave but Alfred hasn’t heard anything from him since he took down that smuggling ring in Bristol!”

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7

I also recall on the Flash, Joe telling Barry “yeah, I told Cecile you’re the Flash.” It was so nonchalant, it’s like they’re not even trying to pretend they can make the ID reveal have any weight anymore.
Really, the problem is the laziness of the writers involved. It’s not exclusive to the CW, though. Some at DC Comics don’t seem to be good at handling secret identities, either.

8

That. Others me too, but I can forgive that. I mean your average Joe isn’t going to connect Bruce and Bruce Wayne. It’s still bad form though.

9

I have seen them call each other their superhero names in public. THAT bothers me. There is no way Joe is at Bruce Wayne’s party and overhears his son saying over comms “Nightwing this is Robin. Bruce is about to give his speech so Batman won’t be able to be there for at least 30 min. Try Tim.” and doesn’t add something up.

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Though fav identity reveal fail

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11

I thought I was the only one who had a problem with that!! Flash needs a whole entourage to battle evil. Supergirl (I stopped watching after 1st season JUST for the reasons you mentioned) has/had a secret military force that didn’t exist. Doesn’t that imply that these "super"heroes can’t handle a simple villain??

12

And let’s not mention their security – how many times has STAR Labs been broken into?

To me that’s the biggest problem with all the DCCW shows. I think it worked well enough in Arrow at the beginning when it was just Oliver, then over the course of the season you got Diggle and Felicity, same with The Flash with Barry, Cisco, Caitlin and “Harrison Welles.” But both teams grew so big and so unyeldly that the actual stars of the shows ended up losing focus and had to be dumbed down in order to give the support team more to do.

I get that these are often characters that fans want to see more of, but I think all these shows would benefit from either holding back on bringing in more characters, or being more willing to kill them off or just moving them away for a while.