Manic Monday Bonus--The End Of Secret Identities?

From Captain Britain #1 (1985):

That is a government official, and as I said, this was 1985, so it was largely before any impacts of the computer revolution (although maybe the Brits used a suped up Atari 5200 for this analysis...).

Imagine, then, in 2018, with computers that can not only do sophisticated facial recognition, but can also recognize people from their gait (so much for a full face mask). And unless you subscribe to the theory that unconscious super-hypnosis projected through Kryptonian glass is what makes people buy the Clark Kent/Superman dichotomy, it becomes less and less likely to believe that such computer-based analysis would be ignored.

And even if the hero uses a full face mask, well, technology can do a voice analysis, not just of a voice print, but of grammar, vocabulary, and other factors. Unless a hero goes full Christian Bale-voice, and doesn't talk very much even then, he's gonna get busted.

Sure, secret identities are a cliche--perhaps a hoary one--but in our increasingly surveilled society, it might be technology, and not modern dramatic sensibilities, that put an end comics using them.