No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me

"Sweeney Todd: The years, no doubt, have changed me, sir. But I suppose the face of a barber...the face of a prisoner in the dock...is not particularly memorable.

Judge Turpin: [in immense shock] Benjamin...Barker!

Sweeney Todd: BENJAMIN BARKER!!!"

- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, just before the title character's final vengeance

Taken from a line in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, this is a set-up where Alice reappears after a long absence disguised and/or changed by the passage of time and then reveals herself to Bob and other characters. Typically, she will be unrecognizable until she tells Bob to look closely, at which point her identity will be obvious. Whether Bob's reaction is pleased or horrified will depend on his relationship with Alice, although this trope is notably present in fiction dealing with revenge.

One specific case of this is Something's Different About You Now. Compare As You Wish.

Anime and Manga

 * When Goku shows up for the tournament after the big timeskip in the original Dragon Ball, no one recognizes him because his hair's wrapped in a turban to protect from the rain. Krillin is also shocked at Goku's huge growth spurt.
 * An early episode of Fullmetal Alchemist (the 2003 version) has a mad alchemist trying to replace his "dead" love. Surprise! She's not dead, she's that old lady we've been seeing throughout the episode. When The Reveal finally comes along, he doesn't believe her because he's so caught up in his fantasy.
 * He literally argues that the old woman can't be who she says she is, because his love was a young woman. What an idiot.
 * In Speed Grapher, Suitengu's plans ultimately involve taking revenge on the man who sold him and his sister into slavery as children, and he pulls this on this man  at the end of the series.

Comic Books

 * A graphic novel adaptation of The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has Mr. Hyde comment to one of Jekyll's friends: "Do ye not recognise the face of Henry Jekyll?" - despite the fact that the two should be totally different people, as was in the original story.
 * See the Sin City example in film, as it was word=for-word (and shot-for-shot) for the comic that preceded it.

Film
"Yellow Bastard: Recognize my voice, Hartigan? Recognize my voice, you piece of shit cop? I look different, but I bet you can recognize my voice! I'd be really fucking insulted if you didn't recognize my voice!
 * Parodied in Back to The Future Part II: When Doc Brown returns from the future to pick up Marty in the beginning, he's wearing a latex mask of himself so Marty will recognize him, as he's received rejuvenation treatments. When he takes off the mask, telling Marty to brace himself for a surprise, he looks pretty much the same, just minus a few wrinkles. In real life this was done so Christopher Lloyd wouldn't have to wear makeup to play Doc anymore, making it a parody and a Hand Wave.
 * Spoken almost verbatim by Jonathan, who has been away for years and had multiple, disastrous plastic surgeries, in Arsenic and Old Lace.
 * The revenge variant appears in Kill Bill, when O-Ren Ishii kills Yakuza boss Matsumoto on behalf of her parents. Partial example, as Matsumoto only recognized her because she resembled her mother. She is only eleven years old when she takes her revenge, which makes it all the more chilling. "Do I look familiar? Do I look like somebody...YOU MURDERED?!"
 * In The Incredibles, Syndrome reveals that
 * In Sin City, the "Yellow Bastard" uses this to reveal himself to Detective Hartigan as Roarke Jr.

Hartigan: Yeah, I recognize your voice, Junior."


 * In The Princess Bride Rugen is surprised to recognize Inigo Montoya as the young boy whose father he killed.
 * Earlier, Westley does a similar reveal for Buttercup. Pleasant surprise.
 * Inverted in the 1960 version of The Time Machine (this troper, not having seen the 2002 remake, doesn't know whether it has a similar scene). During his trip through time, George stops briefly in the year 1917 and meets James Filby, son of his good friend David Filby. When George meets James a second time during a stop in the 1960s, James is visibly shocked by the realization that George's appearance -- including his outfit -- hasn't changed at all in the 45 or so years since the two last met.
 * Played for laughs in Sabrina when the title character returns from several years in Paris and is met at the train by her lifelong crush, over whom she tried to kill herself previously. He doesn't recognize her for a long time because she's gotten so elegant and lovely over there. Also, because he's an idiot.
 * Attempted by Edmond in the 2002 film The Count of Monte Cristo (based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas) after his time in prison when he meets his father. He leans in close and pushes the hair from his face, but his father does not recognize him. Apparently, the years had changed him a little too much.
 * The original novel, at least, justifies this by mentioning all the ways Dantes has changed during his imprisonment, including losing a lot of weight and his skin going pale white due to lack of sunlight (he was previously a sailor and therefore would have been quite tanned originally).

Literature

 * In the second Red Dwarf novel, this occurs when the crew reunites with Lister after some time dilation with a black hole, who at this point
 * Older Than Feudalism: In Homer's The Odyssey, Athena uses magic to make Odysseus appear as an old beggar when he finally returns home, and after defeating his wife's suitors in an archery contest, reveals his identity and kills them all.
 * Aside from the disguise, the years really have changed him and Penelope, after waiting 20 years, is terrified of believing too readily, so she does not accept him immediately even when he reveals himself, explaining "But I have too clear a picture of you in my mind as you were when you sailed from Ithaca in your long-oared ship." Then she tricks him into proving his identity in a Crowning Moment of Awesome which leads to one of the most unbearably poignant reunions in literature.
 * This is a subversion, as well. After 10 years stranded on a desert island (possibly with a divine lover), he should look like an old beggar. The text suggests that, in fact, the swineherd who greets him recognized him (why kill a suckling pig for a random beggar?) as did Penelope (why invite a random beggar into your confidence, into a private room, and ask him to interpret a dream?). The first wanted to curry favor, the latter to retain her position as the center of importance on Ithaka. The ones who had actual reason not to recognize him were his son (too young to remember) and the suitors (from other islands, didn't got to Ilia).
 * In The Count of Monte Cristo, which was an influence on the Sweeney Todd musical, Dantes does this type of reveal to each of his enemies.
 * There's a non-revenge variant in "broken token" ballads. This version, along with the appearance change, is used in the Grimms' fairy tale "Bearskin", where the title character breaks a ring in half to give to his betrothed while filthy and ragged in appearance as part of a Deal with the Devil, and and later returns with his appearance restored to claim her.
 * Another variant is in Guy de Maupassant's story "The Necklace", where a woman who borrowed some jewelry from a rich friend lost it and had to take menial and laborious jobs to secretly buy a replacement for it. The story explicitly states that the years of hard work are not kind to the lady, and when she eventually runs into the rich friend she is not recognized, whereas the rich friend looks exactly the same.
 * Subverted/ reversed or something in Harry Potter, when Harry has seen current photographs of Sirius Black, and photos of, and only discovers later (to his horror) that they are the same person. Odd in that it is the changed-by-the-years identity that is both real and static, and the man in the past who's identity is revealed. Sort of a "No doubt the years will change me" moment. Shit, that would make a sick plot twist in a story with time travel... *troper runs off to build an entire fictional continuity revolving around the delivery of this line*
 * Subverted in Les Misérables with Jean Valjean as M. Madeleine. Madeleine is introduced as a fully separate character, but it's exceedingly obvious to the reader that he is Valjean. It looks as though Hugo is setting it up for a reveal as though this were supposed to be some sort of surprise, but instead, after following Madeleine for a while, he simply remarks that the reader has by now certainly guessed that they are the same person.
 * The Flashman novel Flashman and the Redskins starts out with Flashman as a young man in America under an assumed identity and then has a second part in which he returns several years later under his own identity, as a person of importance. In the first part, he betrays a woman and sells her into sexual slavery, and she returns in the second part to take revenge in this style.
 * Also, in a rather bizarre example, Flashman and the Tiger reveals that a cabin boy Flashman met in Flash for Freedom, who offered him his sexual services grew up to be Sherlock Holmes villain Sebastian Moran. Moran saved Flashman's life in battle and seemed to be a friend, but was actually plotting revenge the whole time.
 * A very unusual example: in Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher Cycle: Emhyr var Emereis, Emperor of Nilfgaard and one of the main antagonists from the second book onwards, turns out to have been  Not too long after the Reveal (Geralt actually somehow recognising him when they finally meet face to face), the Emperor.

Live Action Television

 * Parodied in the second series of Blackadder with The Evil Prince Ludwig the Indestructible: His previous interactions with Blackadder and Lord Melchett were in sexual encounters as a tavern wench and a sheep, respectively. The first reveal is most clearly a subversion of the trope, as Ludwig initially makes reference to a Bad Guy Bar at when Blackadder knew a certain criminal, raising the expectation that he would be that criminal.
 * A similiar setup is given when he reveals to Queen Elizabeth that when she used to go riding on her magnificent pony, that he was actually  another of Ludwig's terribly impressive costumes.
 * Also parodied in the first season episode, The Black Seal, when the old man that had been traveling alongside Edmund for much of the episode reveals himself to be "The Hawk", a childhood enemy. Is subverted when Edmund fails to recognize "The Hawk" because the latter is still wearing the bushy eyebrows from his old man disguise. It's only after he tears them off that Edmund is able to recognize him.
 * Daniel Meade's on Ugly Betty was presumed dead at the beginning of the series. It's eventually revealed that  . When "Alexis" finally reveals herself to Daniel after claiming to be one of Daniel's brother's exes, she says "Take a good look at my eyes; that's about the only thing they couldn't change."
 * In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hell's Bells", a future Xander shows up at Xander and Anya's wedding and has to perform this trope to himself, convincing present Xander of his identity. . And.
 * "Your voice is different, and yet... its arrogance is unchanged."
 * The US Deal or No Deal once attempted to reunite a contestant with her sister by disguising the sister as one of the models. This led to an unintended Crowning Moment of Funny as Howie Mandel tries to give increasingly obvious clues, and not only does the contestant fail to recognize her sister for over a minute, but so does their mother.
 * Bones took a while to recognize her father when he first reappeared. Justified in that he also had some plastic surgery done to hide his identity, being a wanted felon.

Music

 * There is a Swedish poem/ballad usually called something like "The Carolin's Wife" about a soldier's wife receiving a visiting officer who makes advances at her which she rebuffs, as her husband has not returned from the war yet. The last lines reveals that the officer IS her husband, having spent years in Russian captivity and then been promoted.
 * There's an English ballad called "John Riley" with the same plot. (Although apparently some versions have a final verse where after he gets what he came for he's revealed not to be John Riley after all.)
 * All the "broken token" ballads, which include some versions of "John Riley". So called because the returning soldier proves his identity with a Memento MacGuffin comprising half a ring or coin.
 * The shanty song "The Mariner's Revenge Song" by The Decemberists tells a tale of two sailors trapped in the belly of a whale, but one has a last tale to tell the other.

Theater

 * The source of the title is taken from a quote from Sweeney Todd to Judge Turpin directly before he finally kills him in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
 * As well as, tragically,.

Religion and Mythology

 * Older Than Feudalism: In the Hebrew Bible, Joseph is unrecognizable to his brothers when he reappears in their lives, and reveals himself to great rejoicing (after having some fun making them sweat for a bit).

Video Games

 * Happens in Vandal Hearts 2 when the hero runs across a prostitute in a large city who turns out to be his little sister, Rosaly. His childhood friend Clive is her protector. He then finds the ousted king and current drunken lout, Nicola, at the same pub. Small world.
 * Averted in Fire Emblem (The Sacred Stones): The missing prince of Jehanna,, has been gone from his homeland for ten years, but steps up and is clearly recognized by Queen Ismaire  . It helps that red hair appears to be common in Jehanna.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots Old Snake and Meryl meet up again but Snake had aged so much that she didn't recognize him at first.
 * In The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, very few people realize that Child Link and Adult Link are the same person (and mostly the ones who do are the ones in on the plan to fight Ganondorf). Justified in the case of his Kokiri Friends - they thought that Link was one of them and no Kokiri child grows up. This is also used in The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask, when Link fails to recognize, but then it was a rather brief encounter and entirely optional at that.
 * In Hatoful Boyfriend's Bad Boys Love route, reveals himself to be.
 * In Disgaea 4 a Promise Unforgotten, Valvatorez's refusal to drink blood has caused his body to degenerate so that he is much smaller and younger-looking than he used to be. The change is drastic enough that isn't able to recognize him until he gives his name.

Visual Novel

 * Being much taller, broader, darker-skinned, and more white-haired than he was in the past, Archer from Fate/stay night is almost completely unrecognizable as the man used to be,.

Western Animation
"Starscream: Megatron?! Is that you?!
 * In Beast Wars, Optimus Primal explains to a new character, "I've changed since we last met, Depthcharge". This is more literal than most, as Primal had actually literally gone through three different bodies between the beginning of the series and Depthcharge's introduction: his Beast Wars form, his Transmetal form, and the Optimal form Depthcharge found him in.
 * And then there's the infamous exchange from Transformers: The Movie;

Galvatron: HERE'S A HINT! (kills him)"

Real Life

 * One notable real life example: Syd Barrett, after being apart from his bandmates in Pink Floyd for a number of years, walked anonymously into the mixing room during one of their recording sessions. The formerly lithe and wavy-haired pop idol had become quite overweight and shaved his head, and was not recognized by his old friends for the better part of an hour. Reportedly, the song being recorded when Syd walked in happened to be about him (the most common story goes that it was "Wish You Were Here").