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I recently asked a question in a very broad way, á la "How can any super hero ever regain his/her secret identity after losing it." and TheLethalCarrot was so nice to point out it is too broad, so I changed it to the event I had in mind while asking the question, the Civil War in Marvel. It now reads as such:

On numerous occasions, especially in the Marvel universe, super heroes reveal their secret identity one way or another to the general public. Prime examples are Iron Man & Spiderman from Marvel during the events of Civil War.

What are possible ways so that the public forgets about these revelations again? To be more specific: How did Iron Man, Spiderman and others made the public forget who they were?

To clarify: I'm speaking about the comics, not the MCU

I am surprised my question was put on-hold AFTER my edit. The specific question is surely not too broad. I could remove the general sounding part. But is it really so bad that I encourage people to not only answer the specific question but tell a little more? I've seen that behavior (answering some unasked extra points for the sake of knowing) around here, so I thought nothing bad of it.

But if this kind of question is frowned upon, I will remove the remaining broadly part, I just wish for some feedback here from the community :/

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    I don't know enough about the Marvel universe to answer this, but thank you for bringing the topic to meta! You came to the right place to get feedback from the community :-)
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    May 8, 2018 at 17:10
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    Disregarding the actual question, there's generally also a certain delay involved in those things sometimes. When the question already had about 4 close-votes before you improved it, it's not unusual for people jumping the bandwagon a little. But if your edit really made the question appropriate, it shouldn't be too hard to gain the necessary reopen votes either. Your edit already pushed it into the respective review queue.
    – TARS
    May 8, 2018 at 17:19
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    I did not vote, but I think it's still too broad because you're asking "what are the possible ways" which is an open-ended list as well as including "Iron Man, Spider-Man and others". Who are the others? ( I think you're better off just asking about the very specific heroes you're interested in, i.e. Iron Man and Spider-Man.
    – user31178
    May 8, 2018 at 17:45
  • @CreationEdge Regarding others: There were a lot who made it public like Captain Marvel (Miss Marvel at the time I believe) and Wonder Man, who even made a commercial for the act. But I don't know which of them retracted afterwards and then revealed again or just let it be. Could be a separate question, though.
    – SK19
    May 8, 2018 at 17:54
  • Aren't Marvel comics a massive multiverse? If you narrowed this down to Earth-616 and maybe cited a couple of specific examples, I imagine it would help.
    – Kevin
    May 8, 2018 at 18:11
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    @Kevin I believe Civil War only happened on 616, at least I don't know mentions of other multiverses.
    – SK19
    May 8, 2018 at 18:28
  • If you want to ask about Civil War, you have to ask about Civil War. Right now you just have it listed as an "example."
    – Kevin
    May 8, 2018 at 22:01
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    @Kevin Well, the title is explicit, but I see what you're getting at.
    – SK19
    May 8, 2018 at 22:03
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    @SK19 part of the problem is that for every hero that's been exposed, the writers could craft a different way to un-expose themselves; plus, in some cases the answer may be "they didn't". I'd suggest focusing on a small, specific number of heroes you're interested in. If you're looking for a general, question of "how could super-hero secret identities be restored after being exposed", it's possible that's a worldbuilding-type question, or maybe writers (may be too broad for them, too)
    – KutuluMike
    May 9, 2018 at 0:38
  • @KutuluMike Best reason so far, I will adept. You may post that as an answer so I can accept it
    – SK19
    May 9, 2018 at 0:39
  • @Stormblessed care to explain how my edit is "outdated"?
    – SK19
    Apr 18, 2019 at 13:29
  • @SK19 Because the question has been reopened
    – Stormblessed
    Apr 18, 2019 at 13:45

1 Answer 1

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As initially written it was far too broad to be answered sensibly and garnered several close votes. Others then seem to have agreed with the review (even after the edit) and also voted to close.

On numerous occasions, especially in the Marvel universe, super heroes reveal their secret identity one way or another to the general public. Prime examples are Iron Man & Spiderman from Marvel during the events of Civil War.

What are possible ways so that the public forgets about these revelations again?

What you were asking was basically for us to list all the possible options that Marvel characters have used (and can use) to make people forget their secret identities in the Marvel universe. I suspect there are quite literally hundreds of examples of this involving memory-rays, devices, spells, flowers and potions not to mention hypnosis, mind-control, psychic powers (and plain old blunt trauma) that have been used for this task.

Obviously it's now been edited into a far more focused question and reopened.

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