Identity secrets: New York's Forward talks with Brad Meltzer about Identity Crisis:

"'Identity Crisis is about the cost of being a hero. That is something we forget. After 9/11, we realized how much our own heroes risk their lives every single day. So I applied that to comic heroes.' In so doing, Meltzer said, he came to see that while many heroes make their names by scaring the so-called 'bad guys,' the people who need to be scared the most are the heroes themselves.

"'The only thing that protects them and their families is that people do not know who they are,' Meltzer suggested. 'It's easy to have Superman beat the villain and go home to Lois Lane, but I am far more interested in the moment when he goes home to Lois and reminds her that if he had been followed, she would be killed.'"