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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.
Compare [[Locking MacGyver in
{{examples}}
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* 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 the both of them.
** The third season had Usagi's brooch stolen and herself kidnapped by Kaolinite on suspicion of being Sailor Moon... until Minako arrives as "Sailor Moon" via the disguise pen.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok]]'', Loki makes a game of it at one point; letting Yamino solve the mystery of where he is, and amusing himself by [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|playing the role of]] [[Creepy Child]] to the hilt with his captors.
* One of the DVD extras for ''[[Code Geass]]'' had a bank robbery involving a couple of idiots. These unfortunate fools robbed the very same bank that Lelouch, Suzaku, and Kallen were visiting at the time. Things did not end well for the robbers.
** It also happens when Euphemia is kidnapped along a bunch of students.
* A curious inversion happens in ''[[Moldiver]]'', during the episode with the space shuttle. Machinegal tries to steal the shuttle and takes the crowd hostage, and dares Moldiver to stop him. This is because he thinks Moldiver is in the crowd - specifically an old student of his and a close friend of Hiroshi (but I can't find his name anywhere at all!) who looks just like you'd think Moldiver would look without a suit. Except he's not Moldiver, Hiroshi just modelled its physique after him because he wanted to look buff. So the villain, the poor guy's date, and the crowd want him to transform and try to save the day, while he tries to convince everyone he's ''not'' the superhero.
* Couldn't have missed from ''[[
== Comicbooks ==
* ''[[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
** That happened in the cartoon too, they just later put it in the comic... Or vice versa.
* Subverted in ''The Sword of Azrael'', in which Bruce spends the miniseries captured, and is rescued by Azrael.
** Though the kidnappers had nothing against Batman or Robin specifically, a variation of this trope showed up in a recent ''Robin'' comic wherein Tim Drake got himself kidnapped on purpose in order to save the other kids who'd been grabbed.
* This was forever happening to Peter Parker in the ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' series.
** There was a very interesting variation to that in the [[Spider
** That comics incident received a great [[Continuity Nod]] when Spider-Man made his identity public. ([[Status Quo Is God|For a week or two in-story]]. [[Cosmic Retcon|It was retconned, of course]]. Look up ''[[One More Day]]'', or better yet, don't.) In addition to dealing with all the people in Peter Parker's life he had deceived, Doctor Octopus comes out of hiding to attack him at work. Octavius was enraged to learn that all those years ago he had Spider-Man in his grasp and threw him away because he couldn't believe the nemesis who kept on beating him up and humiliating him was a nebbish high school student.
** In the early 2000s, one of the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip storylines featured a villain called the Chameleon, [[Captain Obvious|who could change his face to look like anyone else's]]. After failing to capture the Chameleon at a fancy party, Spider-man goes back into the party dressed as Peter Parker...and the Chameleon automatically takes on Peter's form.
* A variation occurs in ''[[Astro City]]'', where the secret identity of a small country town hero occasionally saves people while in his civilian guise. The visiting big city girl can't believe how blind everyone is in the small town, given how incredibly obvious the hero's secret identity is. Nobody seems to believe her whenever she points it out. The twist is that for everyone in the town, it is an open secret; they just don't out the guy out of respect for him.
** See also Irene Merriweather constantly putting coworker Adam Peterson in peril in an attempt to prove he's really Atomicus. When Atomicus actually saves him once, she figures that's the end of it... until she sees a TV report of Atomicus showing off his newly discovered ability to create atomic duplicates. She then stops screwing around, tears his shirt open to reveal the Atomicus suit, and drives him away from Earth forever. God''dammit'', Irene.
* In the final issue of the ''[[Spider
* A [[Daredevil]] villain once tried to stop Foggy Nelson from running for DA... by holding poor, blind, helpless Matt Murdock hostage.
* And of course, Intergang has more than once attempted to kidnap or kill that muckraking, bribe-proof, irritating [[Intrepid Reporter]] [[Superman|Clark Kent.]]
** Also in ''[[All
* Minor example - in ''[[Black Canary]]'', a villain uses the Black Canary's name while committing a crime, intending to frame the hero. To set up suspicion on "the Canary", she orders a black orchid to be delivered to the home of her intended victim. The shop she ordered it from was run by one Diana Drake.
* 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.
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== Films ==
* Subverted in ''[[
** Two-Face actually points out that he wouldn't be surprised if Batman ''is'' in the wealthy and well-to-do audience.
* In ''[[Batman:
* 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
* 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.
** Played almost straight in one of the radio dramas. "Straight" in that Britt had to don the Hornet's mask and trenchcoat, pretend he was cutting in on the kidnapping of Britt Reid, then (after gassing all the crooks) ditch the Hornet disguise and have Kato tie him back up so no one would suspect. "Almost" in that the crooks weren't trying to lure the Hornet in -- the ringleader of the gang had a grudge against Britt (''not'' the Hornet), the kidnapping was for payback.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* 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.
*** Batman eventually creates [[Crazy Prepared|dehydrated batsuit tablets]] so that all he needs in order to become Batman after being taken prisoner is to ask for a glass of water.
*** Batgirl was introduced in an episode where the Penguin kidnapped Barbara Gordon and planned to marry her.
*** In an inversion, King Tut once kidnapped and ransomed Batman for one million dollars. Which he would only accept from Bruce Wayne.
* In an episode of George Reeves' ''[[
** There was another such episode where Clark and Lois are tied up in a room with... some sort of amnesia gas. Clark simply Supermans out, knowing that his transformation will be forgotten due to the gas.
** Similar situations often happened in ''[[Lois and Clark]]''. In the pilot, Clark explains he broke through his chains via a "weak link", and then claims the "force of the blast" enabled him, Lois and Jimmy to [[Outrun the Fireball]].
** There was in fact a straight version of this trope in ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' where the Daily Planet is held hostage by the villains and Clark has to find a way to save the day without being noticed. One part of it included Clark deflecting with his hand a bullet headed straight for a coworker's chest, fired at close range. Cue Jack (the coworker) examining his shirt perplexed and partially in shock, while Clark casually tries to pretend it's obvious that the bullet "missed". (By the end of the episode, it was hinted that Jack had figured out Clark's secret identity. Unfortunately, his character was written out of the show a few episodes later, so the series never got to explore that dynamic.)
*** In on episode, an old classmate of Lois' was using a shrinking solution on the spouses of people who spurned her in high school and, naturally, Clark got a dose and (eventually) shrunk to roughly three inches tall. He had to try and save the other spouses ''without'' appearing to them as Superman because obviously, the villains knew ''Clark'' was supposed to be tiny, but would have put two and two together if they spotted a tiny Superman. At one point he put on a Barbie-sized scuba suit to pass himself off as a completely different tiny superhero, but this didn't actually work.
* ''[[
* An early episode of ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' played in a building where a group of terrorists took everyone hostage, including Duncan Macleod. Naturally he was the first one that was "killed" as an example and for the rest of the episode he was trying to rescue the hostages without being seen to avoid the question how he could survive a shot to the head.
** Too bad for him the execution was televised to the police via closed-circuit camera as proof the terrorists were serious. This was never explored further in the series, though whether that is due to writer-amnesia or the fact that they dropped the police and reporter plot threads after the first season isn't certain.
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== Videogames ==
* 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."
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series
** 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
*** Not just take the guy's motorcycle. Dick ''tosses the guy the keys to his Corvette''. That's more than fair trade.
*** This trope also applies to Barbara after being taken to Freeze's lair. Of the 18 people in Gotham who could have saved his wife, Freeze had the misfortune of choosing the one who was both the Commissioner's daughter ''and'' Batgirl.
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** Bruce Wayne is kidnapped by Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, who use mind control lipstick to have him buy them a shopping spree for Christmas; when Bruce starts to snap out of it, Harley chases him with a pucker and Bruce, in avoiding her, falls down an elevator shaft to his "death." The girls are distraught for all of five seconds, before acknowledging they were going to kill him later anyway. Meanwhile, Bruce turns into Batman and captures the duo.
** An early episode of ''BTAS'' had Batman investigating homeless/poor disappearances in Gotham. Going undercover as a poor man, he gets kidnapped by the wrong-doers (who are using their victims as forced labor in a mine). Wouldn't be quite so bad (he was in disguise, of course), but a blow to the head gave him amnesia. It takes Alfred tracking him down to restore his memory and prompt Batman into action.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Batman:
* ''[[
* An ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]'' episode parodying ''Batman'' even had this. The Jokester (Alvin) kidnaps Brice Wayne (Simon) and Nicki Nale (Brittany) and threatens to kill them unless Batmunk brings him the toy he's been trying to steal. Fortunately, loyal butler Happy (Theodore) takes on the role himself for this.
* The same thing happened to Drake Mallard in ''[[Darkwing Duck]]''. He managed to pull it off by moving very quickly from the bank he was held hostage in to where he had a spare costume. Then the villain, Tuskerninni, and the law started arguing over whether hostage Drake had to be let go before hero Darkwing surrendered or vice versa ...
** The route Darkwing took was a [[Death Trap]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
* In the rebooted ''[[He
** A similar plot occurred in an episode of the original ''[[He
** 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
** Furthermore, at one point, Superman realizes that saving the innocent man's life is more important than keeping his identity a secret, and so prepares to go to the Governor as Clark Kent but ready to reveal himself should he need to prove how he survived the car bomb. Of course, [[Status Quo Is God|further plot developments make this unnecessary]].
* In the one episode of the animated TV series [[The Mask (
* This happens to Virgil in Static Shock at one point, a group of his villains believing correctly that he's Static. Gear comes in and saves him while tricking the villains that he's not Static, however.
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