A Butler Without Discretion??

We all are in agreement, I think, that everyone in the DC Universe is far, far too casual with their secret identities these days.

It occurs to me that, in part, this is somewhat a natural blowback against the Silver and Bronze Ages at DC, when fully 78.9% of all stories revolved around someone trying to discover the hero's identity, or the extraordinary lengths the hero would go to in order to protect that identity. Note this example, for instance, which was typical of the era. So today's crop of creators, who grew up reading that type of story, and no doubt ridiculing it, are loathe to go in that direction.

But they've gone too far in the opposite direction. Oracle actually has, on a networked computer, a file with the names and addresses of every superhero in the world (Tony Stark ought to hire her!!)! Every hero seems to know every other hero's street identity, and yet somehow, the villains never think to hire a telepath to surreptitiously rip that information out of some Teen Titan's head while they're distracted. And under current DC management, we've seen a distressing trend of heroes identifying each other by civilian name, while in costume and patrolling their cities, or at bachelor parties or whatever. Again, bad idea, because all we need is some mook with a telescopic microphone, and everyones name is all over the internet tomorrow.

But we can always depend on Alfred Pennysworth, the very model of discretion and service, not to make such an error, right?

Sigh...

All right, it was probably fair for Alfred to assume that all those ninjas came from either Talia or Ra's Al Ghul, both of whom already know the Bat identites. BUT there were others on the grounds, whose agenda and knowledge weren't clear. AND it's always possible that the ninjas were sent by someone else, as they were pursuing Damien, not going after Robin or Batman. So blurting out "Master Dick" while in public, while he's in costume, is a pretty big faux pas.

But, Alfred was undoubtedly in a state of shock, having just been thrown out a window by a thousand ninjas and all. We'll chalk it up to a momentary flub, and we're sure it will never happen again.

Oh, Alfred!!!

Alfred's attempt to get Nightwing's identity broadcast all over YouTube by noon tomorrow occurred in Nightwing #138. But, hey, it's a Ra's Al Ghul story, so 90% of it will get tossed out of continuity 5 seconds after Morrison leaves the title, so what the hey, right?