Cool Mask: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Fezzik''': Why are you wearing a mask? Were you [[Phantom of the Opera|burned by acid]] or something like that?

Anyone who routinely covers at least half of their face is likely to be at the top end of the personal power scale. Habitual illusions and kabuki-style makeup also count.

{{examples}}

== Your Basic Mask ==

* The Glittering Crux Brigade from ''[[Star Driver]]'' is practically built around this trope. Their masks even let them pilot ''[[Humongous Mecha]]''.

* [[Action Girl|Juliet]] of ''[[Romeo X Juliet]]'', as part of her awesome, cross-dressing vigilante alter ego, The Red Whirlwind.

* The fox masks the players of [[Kakurenbo|Otokoyo]] have to wear.

* The legendary [[Bully Hunter]] "Rubber Shooter" in ''[[Daily Lives of High School Boys]]'' wears a [[Kamen Rider]] mask.

=== Comic Books ===

** The turtles' vigilante ally Casey Jones wears a hockey mask. This is more about looking scary than hiding his identity; Casey frequently yells out his name just so people know who's delivering the beatdown.

** The Shredder's helmet and the Foot Clan's ninja masks could count as well.

=== Film ===

* [[Lon Chaney]], in the Silent Era ''[[Phantom of the Opera]]'', may not have worn the coolest face-cover around... but the scene where it's snatched off remains one of the most memorable [[The Reveal|Unmaskings]] in the history of cinema.

* In ''[[Onibaba]]'', a mysterious samurai wears a frightful demonic Noh mask which was later the inspiration for the demon in ''[[The Exorcist]]''.

=== Literature ===

* Legendary seducer [[Lord Byron's Don Juan|Don Juan.]] Different writers have portrayed him in various ways over the centuries- a high-spirited rascal, a heartless destroyer, even a semi-innocent victim of his own [[So Beautiful It's a Curse|good looks]]- but all the better-known accounts agree he had a penchant for wearing a mask.

* In ''[[Queen of Swords]]'', Tessa wears a very elegant black lace mask made from her mother's favourite shawl.

* Liz 10, from the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Beast Below", wears a porcelain mask.

** From the Expanded Universe, [[Faction Paradox]] members wear [[Rule of Cool|masks of]] [[Skeletons in the Coat Closet|bone]]. Along with ''[[Impossibly Cool Clothes|awesome]]'' [[Impossibly Cool Clothes|headdresses and gorgets]].

=== Music ===

* The members of Japanese rock band Beat Crusaders always wore masks featuring dot-matrix print-outs of their faces, never showing their actual faces in public.

* The '80s [[Progressive Metal|Prog-]][[Power Metal]] band Crimson Glory deliberately distinguished itself by all wearing silver full-face masks, except for the singer, whose mouth was uncovered. So he could, you know, [[Captain Obvious|sing.]]

=== Professional Wrestling ===

* The mask is also closely related to the [[Charlie Brown From Outta Town]] angles, where a banished/disgraced wrestler returns with a not-very-conspicuous mask under a different name to try to "clear" the banned wrestler (ie himself)'s name.

* Ethergaunts from ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. They are a race of (evil) [[Eldritch Abomination|alien supergeniuses]] dwelling on the ethereal plane whose faces are entirely covered by [[The Faceless|blank, bisected masks]], with the color of said masks indicating their rank. Of special note are the black ethergaunts, which are some of the most intelligent monsters out there, and cast spells as a 17th-level wizard.

** [[Go Mad from the Revelation|And you do NOT want to see what's underneath the mask.]]

** Mask, the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' god of thieves.

* [[Exalted]]: [http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/76891/Icon_PrincessMagnificent.jpg Princess Magnificent with Lips of Coral and Robes of Black Feathers.]

=== Toys ===

** Some masks are more powerful than others, and only some actually grant powers at all. Only Toa and Turaga can use them either way. Matoran can sense if a mask has power, but can't use it. So multiple levels of this trope.

** Also, it's a breathing apparatus. {{spoiler|Since the Matoran were designed to live inside the giant robot body of Mata Nui, leaving Metru Nui to go to Mata Nui essentially put them in a toxic atmosphere.}}

=== Video Games ===

** [[Don't Fear the Reaper|Kelemvor]], god of the dead, is depicted wearing a full-face gold mask.

** Belueth the Calm, an aasimar rogue you can hire in ''Storm of Zehir'', wears a jet-black domino as a symbol of her devotion to the thief-god Mask.

=== [[Visual Novels]] ===

* Baron Munchhausen in ''[[Shikkoku no Sharnoth]]'' always wears a strange, inhuman mask. {{spoiler|Underneath it is a strange, inhuman face. ''Sometimes.''}}

=== Web Original ===

* The mysterious masked man in ''[[One Hundred Yard Stare]]'' could fit this trope.

* Dave of ''[[Narbonic]]'' fame, begins with apparently opaque round glasses. But, {{spoiler|as he realizes his mad science abilities, his glasses turn transparent.}}

* Eternion and the rest of the Eternals in ''[[Adventurers!]]!''

* Guy, from ''[[Mushroom Go]]'', is a [[Super Mario Bros. 2|Shyguy]] with a scarred mask.

* [[Juathuur|Weijuaru]] wears a mask whenever he goes out in public. This is half because it provides his political persona with a level of mystique that helps things work out better in his favor, and half because it hides the fact that [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|he hasn't aged a day during his reign thanks to his Shift magic]].

=== Western Animation ===

** Also it was probably psychological. The Blue Spirit didn't have {{spoiler|Zuko's}} emotional baggage.

** This may also apply to the [[Amazon Brigade|Kyoshi Warriors.]] While their facepaint doesn't give them any special powers (Suki and the others are just about as deadly without it), they use it to remind themselves of their connection to Avatar Kyoshi, and it is definitely a symbol of being at the top end of their power scale.

* {{spoiler|The real Noodle}} in [[Gorillaz]] Phase 3 now has a cat mask. It's hinted that it's hiding some form of facial injury. 2D wears a clown mask for as-yet-unexplained reasons in the "Stylo" and "On Melancholy Hill" videos.

** [[All There in the Manual|In the iTunes interviews,]] 2D explains he had the mask to cover up a massive hangover.

* In [[Winx Club]], all three evil witches, Icy, Darcy, and Stormy (The Trix) wear eye makeup that goes down to their cheekbones on the bottom and to their eyebrows on the top. When they achieve Disenchantix, their eye makeup goes from the top of their face to their chins on either side. Darcy in civilian form also wears a tiny pair of spectacles on her nose and when she was a child wore a large, round pair.

* In ''[[Rollbots]]'', Vett's mask makes him look even more [[Badass]] than he is.

=== Real Life ===

* Shamans of various traditions and cultures the world over wear masks of animals or spirits in ceremonies in order to assume the aspects, powers and identities associated with the animal or spirit.

* Hip hop dance crew Jabbawockeez wear creepy, blank masks to give the illusion that they are a bunch of puppets moving to the music. They're masked heroes! Like Rorschach.

* Since Jacques Plante introduced the goaltender mask to ice hockey, wearers of such equipment have taken to personalizing their masks, giving each golatender in the National Hockey League their own Cool Mask. Starting with Gerry Cheever's [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508154003/http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0810/halloween.trick.or.treat/images/cheevers%282%29.jpg scars] for every time he was hit in the mask with a puck, art has evolved with motifs such as [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508154254/http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0711/nhl.goalie.masks/images/nabokov.jpg Evgeni Nabokov's] [[Dem Bones|skeletons]], [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508153122/http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0810/nhl.goalie.masks/images/curtis-joseph.jpg Curtis Joseph's] painting of [[Angry Guard Dog|Cujo]] from the [[Cujo|novel of the same name]], and [http://forums.smirkinchicken.com/thread.php?forumid=1&threadid=19630 Kari Lehtonen's] [[One of Us|paintings of Yuna and Rikku]] from [[Final Fantasy X-2]].

* Can we count astronaut's helmets, with monolayers of gold to block the sun?

== For those little round glasses, see ==

* Gendo Ikari from ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' wears little round [[Scary Shiny Glasses]], and while he may or may not be physically formidable, he's a megalomaniacal mad genius and absolutely ruthless, as well as having large numbers of security goons and assassins at his beck and call, not to mention that he commands a force of [[Humongous Mecha]]; he is definitely ''not'' a man to be trifled with.

* No mention of Yu-gi-oh! GX's Shou Marufuji yet? If nothing else, the fact that they only fall off his face ''twice'' throughout the series (once for a [[Blind Without'Em]] joke, once for drama,) makes them pretty cool.

=== Music ===

** who was just imitating John Lennon.

** Also Deep Purpledrummer Ian Paice.

=== Video Games ===

* [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Doctor Eggman.]]

=== Western Animation ===

* Hermes in Disney's ''[[Hercules (1997 film)||Hercules]]''.

== Exceptions ==

* Wannabe [[Superhero]] Strike Man, from ''[[You're Under Arrest]]''

* Done in ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' (in a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Sailor Moon]]''), where Nagi dons a small face-mask and takes on the name "Mask the Money" when she rescues Hayate from the <s>[[Yakuza]]</s> very nice people looking to collect on his debt. She takes [[Crimefighting with Cash]] [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|very literally]].

=== Professional Wrestling ===

* For some reason practically every two bit independent wrestling promotion has to have a Doink The Clown rip off. The role is usually given to the worst wrestler on the roster, a fat, charisma deficient load. The worst part of an already awful idea is that they are given a Doink mask of horrible quality instead of simply painting their face like the original did. In every instance the matches are awful, the fans hate it, and yet the promoters will keep doing it.

* Inversion : In the ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' universe, the whole of the Scorpion Clan (one of the 7 major factions) wear masks of one sort of the other. It doesn't give them any kind of power whatsoever, though. In fact, all it does is ''make them look shifty''. Which is the whole point, as the basis for the Clan is that they are good guys pretending to be bad guys to ferret out the bad guys within the ranks of the ''other'' good guys. Or are they?' Of course, only they know that, all the other Clans think they're just [[Manipulative Bastard]]s being really [[Evil Gloating|obvious]] about it. Obviously, it's all [[Gambit Roulette]]s from that point on.

=== Video Games ===

** The coolness value of El Fuerte's mask is often undone by his goofy expressions and hamminess. The coolness of it can really only be appreciated in his [[Asskicking Pose]] at the start of the fight.

* Before the director of ''[[GEAR Fighter Dendoh]]'' went on to direct ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Gundam SEED]]'', he was already referencing that franchises masked characters with a masked mentor (Vega) and masked rival (Altair).

=== Web Animation ===

* [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0325.html Utterly subverted] in ''[[Adventurers!]]!''.

* Shows up many, many times in ''[[The Fall (film)|The Fall]]'' (and even on the cover of the DVD!).

=== [[Web Original]] ===

* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance]]'', General Leopold covers half of his face with a cool mask. The Totenkopfs are fond of masks which look like skulls.

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

{{reflist}}