Supervillain unmaskings tend to be dramatic affairs…but what if the villain unmasked to reveal…another mask? This is what we’re dealing with here.
Today, we look at some of the “worst” supervillain unmaskings of all-time, because they were unmasked to reveal…another mask!
In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I’ll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is “missing” if it is not listed. It’s just not one of the five examples that I chose.
I was discussing this my pal, Chris, who is currently blogging the entire Marvel Age of Comics and we thought that this was a hilarious cliche in comic books, and as the headline suggests, we’re calling them the “worst” reveals because they reveal…other masks! The reveals otherwise were cool.
THE MAN IS…THE RED SKULL?
In Captain America #143 (by Gary Friedrich and John Romita), a new masked person known only as “The Man” was driving up Black anger in Harlem and was directing that energy to destructive means…
The Falcon tried to ease the tensions but he was attacked for his efforts. Captain America eventually got involved and when the two heroes explored more, they realized that there was a regular Cap villain who was driving the hostilities…
Yep, you guessed it, “The Man” Was secretly the Red Skull trying to create a race war…
Marvel pulled the “White guy is secretly behind the Black group” an uncomfortably large amount of times.
THE NEW INVINCIBLE MAN IS…DOCTOR DOOM?
A new Invincible Man seemed to debut in Fantastic Four #287 (by John Byrne and Joe Sinnott), but Sue Richards, knowing that the original Invincible Man was a Skrull impersonating her father, was doubtful and so when she used her powers to look under her mask, she was not surprised to see someone else behind the mask, although she didn’t recognize the guy…
Someone who DID recognize the guy was the man’s wife, who briefly took Sue out of commission to protect her husband from Sue….
she was shocked to learn that Sue went TOO far with her invisibility and had she just pulled back slightly she would have seen that under the Invincible Man mask was a Doctor Doom mask!
Yep, Doom had swapped bodies with the guy.
RA’s AL GHUL’S NEWEST UBU IS…BANE?
In Detective Comics #700 (by Chuck Dixon, Graham Nolan and Scott Hanna), Batman, Nightwing and Robin ran afoul of Ra’s al Ghul and his manservant, Ubu…
However, in the end, when Ra’s escaped capture, “Ubu” reveals that he is actually…
BANE! This was the first major Bane story since Knightfall, so this was a really big deal at the time…
BATMAN IS BEING IMPERSONATED BY…BLACK MASK?
During the “War Crimes” crossover in Batman #643 (by Bill Willingham, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Sandra Hope), “Batman” appears to attack the Joker…
But then the REAL Dark Knight showed up and attacked both villains…
We then discovered that “Batman” was actually the villainous Black Mask in disguise…
THAT’S ONE HECK OF A LATEX MASK FOR BARON ZEMO
In Captain America #606 (by Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice and Dean White), someone comes to break the Red Skull’s daughter out of prison…
He then reveals that it is Baron Zemo, wearing a REALLY good latex mask over his own full face mask!
Wow, that’s a good latex mask, huh?
If you have suggestions for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at [email protected]!
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