Basic Trope: The hero disguises himself as a supernatural creature for some reason or other.
- Straight: Alice disguises herself as a vampire to protect the city from evil.
- Exaggerated: Alice disguise herself as a giant robot monster to protect Japan from evil.
- Downplayed: Alice wears an intimidating costume to unnerve her enemies.
- Justified:
- Alice is a good actress with several A+ horror movies to her credit.
- Or she's a Glass Cannon of a shape-shifter.
- Inverted:
- Queen Hades disguise herself as an evil goddess to scare the town.
- Artemis disguises herself as a human to avoid trouble.
- Wolfgang doesn't don his human guise for Halloween
- Subverted: Alice is turned into a vampire for real and no longer disguises herself as such.
- Double Subverted: ...she gets a mummy costume instead.
- Parodied: Alice is wearing the most obviously fake monster get-up imaginable. The fangs are glow-in-the-dark plastic, the face is a mask of the Count from Sesame Street, and the cape is made of badly sewn-together patches of felt. Her enemies flee in terror and seen huddled in a corner sobbing for their mothers.
- Zig Zagged: Alice permanently assumes the form of any costume she wears for an extended time.
- Averted: Alice never disguises herself as a ghost or monster.
- Enforced: "Alice isn't physically intimidating, and she's not really all that powerful. Her crime-fighting success might make more sense if she were disguised as a monster of some kind."
- Lampshaded: "There's got to be easier ways to fight crime than using this bulky costume."
- Invoked: Bob calls Alice to ask her if she want to pretend to be the ghost of his old crazy aunt to protect his mansion from David.
- Exploited: The costume shop has a heroes discount to build loyalty and a good image.
- Defied: Alice refuses to wear some silly costume to fight crime; she'll just use her natural abilities and her wits.
- Discussed: "Alice, you won't last long in a straight fight against those gangsters. But if you use this Chupacabra costume, you won't need to."
- Conversed: "Why are all the criminals in this movie terrified of a zombie costume?"
- Deconstructed: Alice's costume greatly impedes her movement. It's not that scary, and she doesn't have any of a vampire's actual powers, so most crooks aren't fooled. On her first night on patrol, she winds up severely injured by some crooks who run off laughing.
- Reconstructed: Once she recovers, Alice puts real time and effort into a realistic looking costume. She even manages to replicate some of vampires powers with some well-placed gadgets. The first crooks she runs across are absolutely terrified, and don't put up much of a fight.
- Implied: Criminals are often attacked by a vampire in Alice's city. But then one of them thinks to bring a cross and garlic, and they have no effect. In jail, the criminal speculates Alice may be a disguised human.
- Played For Laughs: There's a strong dissonance between Alice's behavior and that implied by her costume choice.
- Played For Drama: Alice struggles to stay in character, making it unclear whether the costume will work.
- Played For Horror:
- Alice inadvertently attracts the attention of a real vampire because her disguise offends them, and its pissed.
- The steps Alice takes to make the "vampire" disguise realistic include Serial Killer-level attacks and a Mook Horror Show that leaves many dead.
- The crooks eventually get their hands on Alice and drive a stake through her heart either because they bought the vampire story too well or to scare the everliving hell out of any other vigilantes out there.
Alice wants you go to "Scarecrow Solution" for your own safety.
