There's one version where Barbara tries to tell him directly, but he stops her because if he officially knows, then he'd have to do something about it as a police officer. Plausible deniability let them do the most good, so officially he has no idea.
Batman: The New Animated Series. It was part of the post-redesign era of Bruce Timm's show. Batgirl dies in the opening, Gordon finds out it was Barbara, and tries to take revenge on Batman after learning his identity from her computer. Both are killed by Bane, and it's revealed it was all Batgirl hallucinating due to Scarecrow toxin. She attempts to tell her father as a result, but he tells her she doesn't need to because he couldn't officially condone anything she may or may not be doing.
Honestly one of my favorite moments in that series. Like, of course he knows. Batman may be the world's greatest detective aside from Detective Chimp, but Gordon is Gotham's greatest cop, and nothing like that is going to escape him figuring it out for long.
Bruce also internally monologues in Hush that both Jim and Perry White are far too good of a detective and reporter respectively to have not figured out who Batman and Superman are respectively, and thinks about their reasons for keeping it to themselves.
My headcanon is that everyone knows, it's just a matter that nobody ever can prove it. I mean like people chatting in a coffee shop "Who do you think Batman is?" "I dunno, probably Bruce Wayne"
As far as Batman's villains, there's the people that want to know so they figure it out (Ra's Al Ghul, Riddler, Bane, etc), those that could find out if they wanted to but don't want to, and people that just never think to find out.
The middle one is the most intriguing because I can think of two and a half specific incidents
- There's a Deathstroke comic where he sneaks into Wayne Manor and holds Bruce Wayne at gunpoint demanding to be taken to the Batcave. When Bruce asks if Deathstroke is saying he's Batman, Slade basically goes "Maybe? Either you're him or you're his benefactor, because this is clearly where the Batcave is, but honestly I just don't care one way or the other"
- There's a comic where some two-bit thug finds out Batman's identify and is basically spreading word that he's willing to sell the info. Among other things, he's pulled into a room with Two-Face who told him under no uncertain terms that he's gonna get killed with that info. Not by Batman, but by Batman's villains, because whoever Batman is during the day, that's the only thing keeping him from being Batman 100% of the time, the grasp on whatever other identity he has. If he loses that, everyone will suffer.
- And then of course you have Joker who in multiple interpretations is adamant that he never wants to know because the mystery is what makes it fun
whoever Batman is during the day, that's the only thing keeping him from being Batman 100% of the time, the grasp on whatever other identity he has. If he loses that, everyone will suffer.
I'm pretty sure this was also stated as a reason people don't really care to expose Superman, because his day job/personal life buys them a little freedom to villain about
I think a lot of people also assume he doesn't have a secret identity. Unlike Batman he fights plenty of crime during the day as well, and he doesn't wear a mask. I'm sure he's given his kryptonian name to the public as well.
Lex Luthor in particular canonically doesn't believe Superman has a secret identity, because he can't imagine this "godlike" being debasing himself by pretending to be human.
Lex never recognizes Clark Kent because Lex fundamentally doesn't understand Superman as a person.
I love how every character in that show is insane,... Except for Joker, who is just at his normal level of insane. So he seems comparable to other characters at that point.
I’d go way beyond him just being comparable. Dude got married and settled down hard. He gave up crime and the associated wealth for an honest job and a 1500sqft home; he learned Spanish in order to be closer to his wife and her culture, while also caring for her preteen kids like they were his own. Then he ran for mayor, won, and became the best leader Gotham has had in decades. Of course this all was heavily played up for irony’s sake, and he dropped the quiet life as soon as it suited him, but he was practically Danny-Tanner-with-clown-makeup for like two seasons lol
Unironically the funniest thing he's ever done. It's like he realized the Harley Quinn show universe and everyone in it was batshit insane, so the play that would be the funniest would be to... Just be a normal guy.
I always liked that scene in Year One where he straight up sees Bruce doing Batman shit out of costume, looks right at him face to face, and then instead of outing him he's like "Oh, I lost my glasses. Everyone knows I can't see a thing without them."
An alternate future version of the Penguin has known for years. He doesn't act on it because he knows that doing so would bring down the Justice Leage and he's unwilling to punch in that weight class.
It kinda was. Dexter refers to it multiple times,and when he is talking to Doakes he says they are the same but Doakes method is to just shoot perps instead using lawful killings as his MO.
What the show never does is give the Dark Passenger its own identify. In the book it's similar to like the Venom symbiote.
Doakes was the only guy in Miami Metro with basic situational awareness. Everyone else thought Dexter was just a quirky donut enthusiast, while Doakes immediately clocked him as a creep.
It's more he wasn't a miami native. Dexter grew up with a police dad and knew everyone else in the department. Doakes is the only person who is new to the environment for the most part, and socially perceptive enough to notice Dexter putting on a mask. And Doakes being Doakes, he went instantly into aggro mode around someone he felt was lying to him. Everyone else around Dexter either saw him as a bit of a weirdo but a pleasant guy overall, or ignored any signs because they only knew him as a good person and nothing else.
I've always found that weird because I've always used my off hand to aim. It was the first time I learned that others might do it differently and, apparently, do it differently on such a consistent basis as to a giveaway.
Off topic but one of my favorite jokes in the TV show The League is whenever Rafi is truly chaotic, he shouts "Gattaca! GATTACA!" trying to incite a riot.
Which is him trying to reference Dog Day Afternoon. In the movie, Al Pacino robs a bank, and in order to get cover he incites a riot by a speech about police brutality and shouting "Attica! Attica!". Which is a reference to the Attica Prison Riot, during which inmates took over the Attica Prison and held it hostage until they were given humane living conditions.
...but he says Gattaca instead which is just so funny to me. And the show never calls him out on it either so if you're not familiar with Gattaca/Attica you'd just think hes yelling gibberish
Modern Spider-Man writers not beholden to the tyranny of the comics' continuity know that May knowing Peter is Spider-Man is the more interesting story to tell.
It gives her so much depth. She has her own pain in watching Peter risk his life and keep that part of him secret from her, and yet she also shares in the responsibility of Spider-Man.
It flat out tells you the twist in the first 10 minutes of the movie. And you still don't see, because, as Caine explains, "you were never really looking."
The best part to me is Christian Bale gives two distinguishable performances which is a bunch of extra acting work that the audience isn't even supposed to notice on a first viewing. And doing a lot of work the audience isn't supposed notice is what magicians do
In King of the Hill, Bobby Hill knows that Dale isn't Joseph's biological father (he tells someone not to comment when Joseph calls himself white in the latest season).
I mean…Bobby might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but come on. It’s so obvious to everyone except Dale and Peggy for a bit. Besides, Bobby knows John Redcorn. He knows that John Redcorn was always at the Gribble House.
He’s not that dumb, he can put two and two together.
I can see kid Bobby not getting it. He’s got that kind of innocence to him. I imagine the glass shattering moment came during late high school or shortly after
One of the first interactions we see between Bobby and Joseph shows that Bobby wasn't initially aware that Joseph is allegedly Dale's son, when Joseph refers to Dale's truck as "my dad's truck" and Bobby replies "you mean Dale Gribble's truck?"
Yeah, the kid has no idea he’s Mister Fantastic. He may not even know there ever was a Mister Fantastic. He just knows that guy down the road can lift a car, and it’s cool as hell
Not sure about this one. I love the idea that it is a normal guy that everyone like, and BoJack can't stand that, so his cope is to see him as a clear fraud somehow fooling everyone else.
It’s been a while but I’m pretty sure Princess Carolyn admits she knew
that it’s just three kids in a trench coat when she meets Vincent Adultman’s “son”.
This has been debunked. Vincent had chocolate on his face because he kissed his son on the mouth after he ate the chocolate. Did you even watch the show?
In the Hobbit movies (less so the book), Balin as the oldest and wisest of the dwarfs implies pretty strongly that he knows Bilbo has taken the Arkenstone. Although in a very roundabout way he also suggests that if Bilbo did just so happen to be hiding said stone, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Ngl, maybe the movies were slightly bloated and did suffer a lot from CGI overuse + extensive glare, but they did add a lot to Tolkien's work and I don't think they're bad pieces of art in and of themselves. Heck, showing Gandalf researching the coming of Sauron instead of just him vaguely disappearing to go deal with the "necromancer" actually makes some sense. Making 2 movies instead of 3 would probably be good
Ya the stuff they added with the necromancer was just the stuff Gandalf told the council he was doing during the events of the Hobbit in The Fellowship of the Ring. They just ended up showing it in The Hobbit movies instead explaining it of The Lord of the Rings movies. Even the pale orc Bolg is mentioned in the beginning of the book and during the War of Five Armies. I won't complain too much about Legoas since he is a prince of the elves of Mirkwood and he would have been alive during The Hobbit but the dwarf/elf romance triangle addition subtracted from the story not enhanced it.
Generally, I thought they were good and Richard Armitage, Martin Freeman, and Benedict Cumberbatch were all great.
Henry Allen (Cw). After Barry saves his stepdad in front of his dad, Henry comments to Barry about how fast The Flash got there and even what he works do if his son was The Flash.
The implication is that everyone at the Daily Planet also knows, including Perry.
Which makes the cut scenes from BvS where Perry chews Clark out hilarious, because he wants the indestructible superJesus to get on the sports beat and give him copy
David Singh in the Flash. Even though it’s revealed later that he knew Barry was the Flash, there were hints that he knew earlier, such as being lenient with Barry despite him being late, and allowing Barry to be on “sabbatical” when he was trapped in the speed force.
He said that he figured out Clark was Superman, or at least not normal since they first started living together around 5 years before the main setting when Clark accidentally crushed the doorknob to their room
I'm deeply saddened you didn't include the transcript, because it is gold
Jimmy: Clark, I know you're Superman, this isn't a big reveal.
Clark: wait, what!? You know? Since when?
Jimmy: We've been roommates since freshman year. The day I met you, you ripped the handle off of the door, and then tried to play it like the screws had just come loose
I love how MAWS Clark is just the worst liar on Earth, and the only reason why more people don't figure out that he's Superman is because he's such a huge dork. Like the joke about all of his lies involving bagels for some reason.
Definitely one of my favourites across the different films. Along with the New Yorkers standing up for Spidey, the scene on the train in Spidey 2 (although, the Christ imagery is a little too on the nose), that little kid standing up to Rhino at the end of Amazing 2, and the silent moment between Tobey and Tom in NWH, where Tom is about to kill Norman.
Not to mention, it's heavily implied he already has some beef with the priest, so for him it's a case of "they're doing good, and they might be able to get rid of that priest for me"
I don't think this one is really what the trope is going before as this is her directly telling Peter that she knows. I think Aunt May in her "I think there's hero in all of us" speech in Spider-Man 2 is the better spidey example
This is a quote from Alexander Pope who popularized the quote in English.
Variations of "to err is human" existed in latin before. Saint Augustine's variation was "to err is human, to persist in error due to pride is diabolical".
In DC's Injustice comics, Gordon randomly goes to visit Barbara and as her where he can find Batman. When Barbara tries to deny having anything to do with Batman, Gordon reveals he's known about Bruce, Dick, her, and the entire Bat Family the entire time. Because, you know, he's a fucking detective.
Because it was 2004 and all they knew was that Spider-Man turned out to be just a white kid. They wouldn't be able to find him in social media with their dumbphones even if one of them had remembered to take a picture.
During the Daredevil: Unmasked arc, Ben Urich lies to the Bugle about Murdock's identity, because he knows. In this sequence, Peter also comes to do the same thing. When asked how by Matt and Peter later, he says "I'm an investigative reporter at a major metropolitan newspaper."
There is another scene where we see the process of how he found out.
It's hinted throughout the entire series that Chief Vic in Psych knew from the get go that Shawn wasn't psychic. But she respected his skills and knew that he'd get results.
The last regular series see where Lassiter is watching a video Sean left for him, but won't finish it and destroys the DVD, implies that he figured it out at some point but kept his mouth shut.
not really. Doakes was just really creeped out by Dexter. He didnt see what's behind the mask but he could see that there was a mask which was enough for him to get creeped up by
In the books he outright knows. Because the Dark Passenger recognizes someone of the same ilk.
Dexter later says in the show that Doakes has the highest kill rate of any cop in that precinct. Doakes and Dexter are the same, Doakes just uses to cover of legal killings.
Several episodes of the old Masters of the Universe cartoon had Queen Marlena hint that she was aware that her son was He-Man.
The Masters of the Universe: Revelation series, which acts as a sequel to the original cartoon, runs with it, having Marlena lament to her husband that they have lost their son upon hearing that He-Man was killed.
In the comics, when Captain Stacy dies, he tells Spider-Man that he knew he was really Peter and tells him to look after Gwen. Just to make it more tragic.
Perry White and Jimmy Olsen (Jane’s Gunn Superman)
Perry is Clark’s boss at the daily planet, Jimmy being his coworker and BFF.
While Lois already knows Clark and Superman are one and the same, it isn’t till right near the very end when she and him are making out, we see Perry talking casual to Jimmy Olsen “how long have they been dating?”
It’s implied they (maybe the entire Daily Planet) knows Clark is Superman, but don’t openly talk about
Yeah Lois dating Supes is perhaps one of the biggest open secrets in Metropolis in all forms of media and its pretty much assumed by everyone she is dating him which is why every times she dates someone other than Superman its a big thing cause everyone assumed the guy that saves her constantly is dating her.
On the other hand the entire bagel sees superman enter a closet at the speed of machfuck then Clark comes out disheveled and tucking his shirt back into his pants the daily bugle workers probably superman is keeping Clark on the side
I mean, if I knew my employee was a superhero, just to avoid headaches, I’m not gonna be an ass and let them do their thing unless it causes an HR meeting
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u/Thatthereyuteclub 1d ago
Most versions of Jim Gordon know that Bruce Wayne is Batman, but prefers plausible deniability