Love it or hate it, one major aspect of most popular superheroes it that they still maintain a secret identity, which these images illustrate perfectly. The secret identity concept has been around for quite some time, with Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Peter Parker all having something to hide. After all, these people want to live some semblance of a normal life, but they also want to fight crime. Allowing those two worlds to cross could be disastrous, particularly since their enemies could target friends and family and use them against our heroes.
As such, they struggle to maintain their cover, although to many this trope has overstayed its welcome. One can particularly understand the frustration when characters finally do out themselves, only for that revelation to be “retconned” (essentially canceled out or reversed) later on. Whatever your thoughts, these wonderfully-done images of superheroes and their secret identities are something everyone can like.
Designed by Danny Haas, these pictures might look a bit familiar to some. I can recall that Spider-Man comics often illustrated him with half of his face masked and half unmasked when he was thinking as Peter Parker while still in costume.
The minimalist designs here accomplish something similar, although these are 3/4 body shots with the character split down the middle into its two counterparts. So while there’s the classic image of Spider-Man on one side and sweater-vested Peter Parker on the other, we also get some creative ones like half of The Hulk combined with the much smaller Bruce Banner (with some empty space to make up for the obvious size difference). Both Tony Stark and Batman appear as playboys (with Stark looking a bit more disheveled) while the left side of the images showcase their superhero gear.
The selection of characters pretty much covers the most popular characters of Marvel and DC, although it would be interesting to see Danny Haas cover some slightly more obscure characters or at least throw a female or two into the mix. If you enjoy these, though, you can purchase a print of them for yourself for about $20 for a 13″x17″ print, with other sizes also available. We’ve covered plenty of other superhero art here, and of particular note are these images of Depressed Superheroes or some images of Marvel Heroes Crossed with Dinosaurs.
