Paper-Thin Disguise/Comic Books

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(After having fallen for one of the Beagle Boys disguised as a woman)

"Great Flaming Catfish Whiskers! The Beagle Boys! The moustache shoulda tipped me off! I need to get out more!"

—Scrooge McDuck, Master of the Mississippi

Examples of Paper-Thin Disguise in Comic Books include:

In a Silver Age Superman comic, actors are being auditioned to play Superman in an alien race's film. Since all humans look alike to the aliens, a severely overweight, middle-aged actor gets the role, because he heroically saves the day. The aliens can't distinguish him from Superman physically, but his bravery was enough to get him cast.
In one of the original Justice Society of America comics, Johnny Thunder puts on a cap and gown and an obviously fake mustache (that make him look like... Conan O'Brien in a cap and gown with a big mustache, for some reason) to fool some criminals, who are more puzzled than fooled.
Green Arrow, despite having facial hair that can most kindly be described as 'extremely distinctive' used to hide his identity as Oliver Queen behind a mask that was little more than a pair of tiny, diamond-shaped pieces of cloth with eyeholes cut out. Finally subverted in Longbow Hunters, when Shado openly expressed surprise that it was supposed to be a secret. Oliver Queen was also the mayor of his city. So literally the Mayor with very distinct facial was fighting crime in a lazy disguise and it worked. Also subverted in Mia Dearden's origin story.

Mia: Oh, please! I'm not a total idiot! That little mask you wear doesn't exactly Batman your face. And the beard's a dead giveaway, too.

In The Tick (animation) comic, the story "Night of A Million Zillion Ninja" features scores of evil Ninja standing around a house that they are staking out, each one holding a single twig. To passers-by they state, "We are a hedge. Please move along." The homeowner is entirely fooled, though he doesn't remember planting a hedge in the first place.
- The Superman Expy, Caped Wonder took Clark Kenting Up to Eleven. He wore glasses, which fooled everyone except the Idiot Hero. A fight between the two heroes occurs and the glasses are broken. The Caped Wonder does the "nerd glasses" hand signals in order to disguise himself when a co-worker shows up.
In PS238, it is suspected that this may be Tyler Marlocke's only super power. Keeping your secret identity in this world full of supers is described as being "as hard as keeping your email from spammers." Yet no one recognises him as Moon Shadow. Not his classmates, not his parents. He goes so far as to leave the room as Tyler and come back as Moon Shadow and nobody figures it out. He's very disturbed by this.

Tyler: That shouldn't have worked!

- However, his non-superpowered best friend is unaffected by this, to the point of wondering why Tyler is wearing a silly costume when he first meets Moon Shadow.
From Asterix Conquers America.

Gaul: Halt! Who Goes there?
Caesar: A barrel you dolt!
Gaul: Oh, a barrel.

- In "Asterix in Switzerland", in order to sneak past the Romans, Petitsuix disguises Asterix and Obelix with a bow and arrows.
  - In all fairness, the Romans in Geneva did not know Asterix and Obelix by sight, so all the disguise was supposed to achieve was to make them appear like Helvetii, not foreigners.
From Sonic X, Dr. Eggman wears these all the time, usually fooling everyone except for Sonic.
Clark Kenting. Hilariously parodied here: I'm Superman, Idiot!!!!
Several of the Young Avengers:
- Kate's "mask" is a pair of sunglasses (hopefully she never wears those when not in costume).
- Cassie and Eli wear actual masks, but their secret identities are already closely associated with the legacies they take on: Cassie, publicly known as the daughter of the second Ant-Man, wears a variant of his costume and doesn't hide her hair or most of her face (Domino Mask); Eli's grandfather is likewise publicly known to have been the prototype Captain America, and Eli, likewise with a Domino Mask, is the Patriot. Both have been easily found out (though, thankfully, not by villains).
- Wiccan has no mask at all and yet somehow avoids detection.
Subverted in Don Rosa's story "The Last Lord of El Dorado", in which Flintheart Glomgold follows Scrooge and his nephews with a series of incredibly obvious disguises (including a female waitress and a nun - Glomgold's beard made things even more obvious). When he reveals himself, however, Scrooge mocks him and tells him that he'd known all along it was him. (Donald was fooled, though.)
- Hey, he's still better at disguises than the Beagle Boys. At least he doesn't wear a black mask while he's trying to disguise himself as a waitress. They pulled it off well a number of times. A group of Beagles wearing hollowed out Robots passed undetected for robot workers, and a latex mask was all it took for each of them to look like a grizzled old lighthouse keeper. And those are examples of when they were really making an 'effort. Their favourite disguise is a false beard.
- Magica De Spell tends to use magic for her disguises, but unless copying someone who looks nothing like her, she tends to end up looking like herself in different clothing and a wig. Add to this the fact that even allowing loads of Negative Continuity, she must have pulled off the same trick almost as many times as the Beagle Boys. You'd think Scrooge would learn to beware of groups of identical stout guys with beards and sunglasses or duck women with green eyelids making him offers that are too good to be true. But since most writers in the comics aren't anywhere near Don Rosa's level, one of their favourite moves for getting the story going is to hand Scrooge the Idiot Ball at the beginning, to this effect or some other.
  - At least Magica often uses various kinds of hypnotic perfumes or other substances to make Scrooge a bit more suggestible, though they usually aren't effective enough to actually make him give up money, let alone his First Dime.
Justified in The Maxx. The Isz have a latent psychic ability that convinces people looking at them that they're actually human whenever they put on a disguise, despite the fact that they're little dark blue Plant Aliens with lots of teeth. Note that this apparently only works on people who don't know they're doing it.
Super Goof is just Goofy in long underwear, but only his nephew Gilbert can recognise him.
- On House of Mouse, when everyone tries to figure out who Super Goof is, they come to the conclusion that it's Dumbo.
In the original four part Sonic the Hedgehog comic, Sonic manages to fool Robotnik into thinking he's been roboticized with just some fake teeth and glasses. Then again, that's what Robions looked like back then.
For a while, Captain America (comics) disguised himself as a hero known as The Captain. The costume looked identical to his normal Captain America costume except for darker colors and a slightly different chest-insignia. He even threw a shield around which was also had a slight color-change. Here is a cover depicting both costumes. This costume somehow fooled everyone, including his allies in The Avengers. The costume would later be worn by the USAgent.
- The reason he put on this new costume was that the US government forbade him to use the old one.
An early Paperinik story has every belittled husband in Duckburg dressing up as Paperinik and playing mean pranks on their Paperinik-worshipping wives to ruin his reputation. Despite the fact that none of them look remotely like him (most of them aren't even ducks!), it works perfectly - At least until the real Paperinik takes action and exposes them.
Parodied by Megaton Man, in which the title character is a grotesquely over-muscled hulk three times the mass of a typical human being, who is convinced that wearing a blue suit and a pair of glasses makes him fade into the crowd. The crowd does not agree.
In Sensational She-Hulk #8, Jen sought the advice of a P.I. to help convict a serial killer; said P.I. was a jolly, plump fellow with a full, white beard, dressed in red, named Nick St. Christopher. Despite Shulkie's ability to see through the 4th wall and her UCLA education, she seemed unable to figure out that the guy was Santa Claus.