Did the Thing from the Fantastic Four have a secret identity or was he stuck as the Thing?

Actually, none of the Fantastic Four had secret identities; their names were known to the general public. (At least that was the case back when they first came out; Marvel might have “reinvented” them since the last time I looked.)

Could Ben Grimm (the Thing) take on the appearance of a normal human being? Generally, no. There were storylines where he got changed back temporarily, and I think there were one or two in which he got the ability to change back and forth at will, but most of the time he was stuck being orange and scaly.

Within BTVS Universe, The Slayer is unique (though peculiar circumstances gave rise to first two and, later, essentially unlimited numbers of them), which more or less precludes the notion of someone else adopting the persona. She does try (for the most part) to keep her Slayer side and what The Slayer does a secret from the “civilian” population (the fact that some quasi-civilians know is hardly unique amongst supers, though) and to the extent it’s feasible to do so, to keep her personal and Slayer lives separate (the difficulty of doing so is, in fact, a frequent source of narrative tension). It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose, whether or not she’s presented in a way that emphasizes secondary sexual characteristics (no more so than other females her age, I’d say), but it seems that this crtierion should be an optional element of the costume trait, not a separate trait in itself.

Further, Buffy’s enemies repeatedly refer to her as a superhero. Setting the standard to exclude characters with one exceptional but not supernatural talent (Holmes, Fletcher) is legitimate. But setting them such that a character who is supernaturally endowed by definition is excluded merely because she doesn’t wear a flashy, sexualized costume is un-necessarily restrictive.

Teenage superheroes have often lacked #4. Shadowcat (of the X-Men) had a slight figure. Robin always looked spindly to me, at least back when I used to read Batman comics.

Oh, and if Batman is a superhero then so is Zorro. The creator of Batman used Zorro as his archetype.

Barry Deutsch has a longish geekfest on “The Definition of Superhero.” The impetus was to come up with an acceptable definition that excluded Adrian Monk, Jessica Fletcher, Jesus, and Bill Gates will still including non-traditional charact…

I agree, but the question is why? What makes the Endless clearly NOT superheroes while Superman clearly is?

Aliera, I think that Dream, Death and the other Endless are definitely not superheroes, and that any definition that said they were superheroes would be a bad definition.

As for “The Slayer,” she meets only two or perhaps three of my traits, so I’d argue that she’s significantly distant from an archetypical superhero - although of course she shares some important traits with them, too.

Menshevik, lots of very interesting points. I’m short of time now, but I’ll try to find time to respond to you later.

MM does have a “civilian” identity in which he blends in with Earth society, although he doesn’t use that identity often nowadays. And his appearance on Earth is both extraordinary on earth, which is where he lives, and for that matter on Mars (it’s been established that he looks very different when he goes native - his entire anatomy changes).

I’d say MM meets all five of my criteria, although I admit the second identity thing is a little dicey, since he uses it so infrequently.

What I think is a good idea is postulating a second, not secret identity. There are a lot of superheroes who do not keep their civilian ID a secret, yet have a special costume and/or “code-name” when they go out into a fight - for instance the Fantastic Four from their beginning did not keep who they were a secret, yet still they felt compelled not to use their civilian names in action, but noms de guerre which in two cases were actually longer than the civilian ones they “replaced” (Reed Richards - Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm - Invisible Girl (later Invisible Woman - six syllables!). In that way, condition #1 is also fulfilled by the Martian Manhunter (who goes by that name as well as his given name J’onn J’onzz). (2)

(1) The same would also apply to secondary sexual characteristics if that were a criterion.
(2) Leaving aside that at least in the comics his natural shape is very different from his normal appearance and that he for a time he also operated in Caucasian male human shape as Detective John Jones.

And I think you can easily argue number 3 since the society he currently lives in is ours. So I thnk he totally fits.

He only does #2 and #5. You could argue that he also has #3 since he lives on Earth now, but he’s just wearing regular clothes for Mars. No secret ID, no rippling muscles.

ANd I’d argue that Buffy ain’t a superhero, but The Slayer is. Until the series finale, anyways.

Change to “exaggerates secondary sexual characteristics,” or you’ll exclude the distaff half.