Bruce Wayne Held Hostage: Difference between revisions

"Either [[The Hero|Captain Hero]] shows up to settle the score with us or these people get it! He has 15 minutes!"

 

 

Now he must find a way to rescue the hostages, bring the bad guys down, and prevent anyone present, good or bad, from [[Cover-Blowing Superpower|putting 2 and 2 together]] and figuring out that he and his alter ego are the same person.

 

 

 

* ''[[Tantei Opera Milky Holmes]]'' twists this brilliantly in the finale, in which {{spoiler|Master Thief Arsene kidnaps ''her own'' [[Secret Identity|alter ego]]}}.

* The first season of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' had Zoisite trap Mamoru, and Usagi by accident, in a building and chased them with intent to kill as a trap for Tuxedo Kamen; Usagi, not filled in on all the details, thinks he's after ''her'' and ''Mamoru'' is the innocent hostage. She ends up revealing her identity to both of them.

* Couldn't have missed from ''[[Beelzebub]]'', a mostly parody of the genre. Four self-proclaimed pretty damn good robbers end up in the store with [[Badass|a guy chosen by Satan's kid himself]], [[Creepy Child|a kid that can spur out lighting and other nasties if upset]] and his nanny of sorts, that can summon dragons and other goodies from the Underworld. They're actually about to be put in charge of taking care of the kid, until Oga decides [[Even Evil Has Standards|they're too weak]] and swiftly disposes of them.

 

* ''[[The Long Halloween]]'' had a variant where Poison Ivy was hired by mobsters to mind-control Bruce Wayne into going along with a money laundering scheme; since this was early in his career, there was no Robin, but thankfully Selina Kyle caught on to Bruce's odd behavior and saved the day as Catwoman.

* In a comic book version of the [[Batman: The Animated Series|animated series]] universe, Bruce Wayne is taken hostage on a charity cruise by Poison Ivy and her overgrown plant henchmen. To escape, Bruce Wayne makes a "foolish" attack at the villains and is immediately swatted overboard, where he is free to swim to cover and become Batman.

* A variation occurred in a [[Silver Age]] [[Superman]] story. During an attempted heist at a museum, some goons take a bystander hostage and force Superman to help them. Only the "Superman" they have is a lookalike in a Superman costume on his way to his son's school, and the "hostage" is Clark Kent, who they grabbed before he could change clothes. The ''real'' Superman ends up having to use his powers to covertly make his kidnappers believe the fake one is the real deal until he can get him safely away.

 

* Subverted in ''[[Batman Forever]]'' - when Two-Face threatens to detonate a bomb at a circus, killing everyone there unless Batman shows up, Bruce ''is'' willing to reveal himself. He stands up and yells "I'm Batman," but no one can hear him because everyone is screaming in panic. He then tries to push his way down and either stop the bomb or give himself up ''in his civilian identity.''

** Two-Face actually points out that he wouldn't be surprised if Batman ''is'' in the wealthy and well-to-do audience.

* In ''[[Mystery Men]]'', Lance Hunt AKA Captain Amazing is kidnapped by his arch-nemesis, who knows exactly who he is. Everyone else doesn't, and thus [[Holding Out for a Hero|expects the Captain to come to his rescue.]]

* Averted in the ''[[Green Hornet]]'' film with Seth Rogen. In a move which seems unusually thoughtful for Rogen, Rogen has included a scene where Britt Reid specifically states that he will pretend to operate as a criminal for profit, so that his enemies will never think of taking innocent people as hostages or attacking innocent people to get his attention.

** Another near miss example, occurred on the TV show. A group of mobsters wanted Britt Reid kidnapped so they could intimidate him into calling off his newspaper's reports on their activities, as well as to extort a ransom for him. Of course, since as the Green Hornet, Reid pretended to operate as a criminal for profit, he appeared to these criminals as the Green Hornet and agreed to abduct Reid for them. The mobsters, of course, revealed to him the location of their base where they wanted him to deliver Reid. Reid had Kato drive the Black Beauty to this location and dump him out of it (obviously in his civilian guise). Kato then used the Black Beauty's weapons to assault the mobsters and played a previously made recording of Reid speaking in character as the Green Hornet, claiming he now wanted half of the ransom. Reid used the diversion, as planned, to contact the police, who came and arrested the mobsters. Again, the mobsters had a grudge against Britt, not the Hornet, or at least not until after he demanded half the ransom money.

* In ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|The Dark Knight]]'', Bruce Wayne just barely manages to ''not'' be part of the hostages as he has just walked out of the room when the Joker comes in and takes the fundraiser party hostage. Though this time, the Joker is looking for Harvey Dent, and Wayne manages to knock Dent out and hide him before ducking into his panic room/back-up bat-cave and come back to the party as Batman.

** It also helps that Bruce knew the Joker was coming.

 

* In [[Batman (TV series)|the Adam West television series]], Bruce Wayne is held hostage. He breaks out, dons the bat-suit, does hero stuff, breaks back in, dons civilian clothes, does hostage stuff, breaks out, dons the bat-suit... you get the picture.

** More often, if Bruce was in the villains' custody or otherwise occupied, either Robin would show up alone and claim Batman was elsewhere (once he pretended to call Batman on his portable Bat-transmitter), or Alfred would don a spare Batsuit and either speak through a voice modulator or lip-synch as Bruce threw his voice.

** Also played with in the episode ''Mortal''. Clark Kent and his family are held hostage by three Meteor Freaks, who know Clark has superpowers, and wants him to use his superpowers to help them, or they'll kill the Kents. Except what they don't know is that Clark has been [[Brought Down to Normal]]. So instead of saving the day while still hiding the fact he has superpowers, he's got to save the day by ''pretending to have'' superpowers.

 

* In ''[[Rainbow Six]]'', some terrorists try to hijack an airliner that happens to have three badass special forces/spies on board. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'' starts off this way, with Bruce Wayne arrested on trumped-up charges and thrown into the titular prison. Hugo Strange, the one bad guy who knows Batman's secret identity, tells him, "It was far easier to capture Bruce Wayne than it was to capture Batman."

 

* The New York Metropolitan Museum was invaded by gunmen during the presentation of a new exhibit. Both Achilles and Bungie of the [[Global Guardians PBEM Universe|Global Guardians]] were in attendance in their secret identities. It didn't go well for the gunmen.

 

** Subverted in ''[[Batman and Mister Freeze Sub Zero]]''. Dick and Barbara are at an upscale party when the title villain crashes it and attempts to kidnap Barbara. Dick doesn't bother hiding at all and tries to stop him ([[Everything's Worse with Bears|and gets brutally beat down by 2 polar bears in the process]]). Barbara eventually allows herself to be taken in order to save the other guests. It still doesn't stop Dick, who proceeds to [[Hero Stole My Bike|take someone's motorcycle]] and give chase.

*** Not just take the guy's motorcycle. Dick ''tosses the guy the keys to his Corvette''. That's more than fair trade.

** The route Darkwing took was a [[Death Trap]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* In the rebooted ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'', Prince Adam is kidnapped by Skeletor to serve as bait for He-Man. Obviously, it's a long wait until a robotic stand-in for He-Man cobbled together by Man-At-Arms shows up to complete the ruse.

** The old series also had an episode with him being kidnapped, with a robotic He-Man used in the rescue.

* In ''[[Superman: The Animated Series|Superman the Animated Series]]'', as Clark Kent, he uncovered evidence that a man facing execution for murder is innocent. While Kent was trying to get the information to the authorities, a car bomb planted by the real killer detonated, "killing" Kent and destroying the evidence. Superman then faced a dilemma: how to bring the evidence forward without anyone asking how he could possibly know it. In a clever subversion, {{spoiler|the real killer is eventually apprehended, and makes the connection that Clark Kent ''is'' Superman, right as the lever on the execution machine is thrown.}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:I Have Your Index]]

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Secret Identity Tropes]]

[[Category:Plots]]