DC Comics: Identity Crisis-NO SPOILER BOXES INSIDE!

Cafe Society
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I don’t want to step on CandidGamera’s weekly comics thread, but this book seemed important enough to get it’s own thread.

So, warning, seriously–no spoiler boxes. Read the book first. It’s < grudging admiration > good (maybe). I’m spoiling lots more than just who dies.

Really.

I’m not kidding.

Ok, it’s on your head.

  1. It’s Sue. Shit and gawddamnit. :frowning:

  2. It was handled…tastefully. She wasn’t, say, stuffed into a fridge or something. I don’t know who this writer is (per CMKeller, he’s an award winning mystery writer) but I don’t get the feel that he’s snuffing Sue just to make a name for himself. This feels like a legit story where the death is necessary.

  3. He’s a good enough writer to make you care about Sue (I already did, but the background info given was A) accurate and B) well retold). Compare this to, say Thunderbird’s death in X-Men #95. MUCH better here.

  4. I love Rags Morales and I hope this gets him some well-deserved publicity.

  5. I’m very very dubious about the dark hints at the end of the book. If the big revelation is that they killed someone, I’ve got a major issue. Barry does not kill…and I mean on a Superman level (the “Professor Zoom” thing doesn’t count) Ditto Zatanna. G I don’t think Hal was allowed to kill by the Guardians. reen Arrow? No prob. killing. I have no idea who, exactly they might have killed, but that’s the vibe I’m getting.

  6. If this restores Dr. Light to his pre-joke days, I’m be damned happy. (Long digression) When I was a kid, back issues were fairly cheap. I bought a Justice League of America (1960) #1 for part of a summer’s worth of lawn mowing ($55.00). Anyway, when I discovered comics, I learned about back issues! and I talked my dad into driving me downtown (to a fairly scuzzy section of town in retrospect) where I could get some. I had about $20 to spend and the Silver Age rule about covers (the covers sell the book) worked. Based on the covers alone. I picked up the first half of the first Mordru story from Legion (Adventure #269), a special “red kryptonite” issue of Action (approx, #283), a Superboy story with Krypto on the cover (Superboy #113 ish), Atom #8 (Dr. Light holding Atom in a light-bulb of death) and Justice League of America #12—featuring the first appearance of Dr. Light. In it, Dr. Light beats the Justice League and only loses becasue (frankly) Gardener Fox cheated. I loved Dr. Light. From the snazzy black and white costume to the nifty gimmicks, to the fact that he won (except for the author cheating) he was my all time favorite villian. I even wrote an involved (and very bad ) story featuring Dr. Light vs the Legion. But somewhere in the early '80s (during the Wolfman-Perez run of New Teen Titans) he became a joke. And the joke became more and more stale to the point where his death (in Suicide Squad) was a relief. If this guy restores Dr. Light to a real, serious, scary villian again, I’m willing to forgive Sue’s death.

Anyway, long digression aside, I enjoyed the story. The pacing was good, the characterization strong (the pregnancy test seemed a bit of a cheap gimmick though) and as mentioned, the art was up to Morales’s usual high standards.

I’m (kinda despite myself) looking forward to next issue.

Thoughts, opinions?

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Sue who?

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Dibney, the wife of Ralph Dibney aka The Elongated Man.

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Sue Dibny, wife of Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man. They had sort of a Nick and Nora Charles relationship, a husband-and-wife team of detectives who often solved crimes together, only Ralph happened to have stretching powers. Get it, Nick and Nora were from “The Thin Man” = Elongated Man?

Anyway, I haven’t read Identity Crisis yet (and probably won’t), but I had a bad feeling the Dibnys weren’t safe.

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Aw, man. And I was so looking forward to seeing Sue again if I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice Leage ever saw the light of day; I really enjoyed her in Formerly Known As…

I’m still not sure if I’ll be picking up the series… it’s tempting, but I am royally sick of summer “events.”

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Brad Meltzer. I don’t know that he’s won any awards, what I said (and what’s true) is he’s been (well, his novels have been) on the New York Times Bestseller list. Amongst them are Tenth Justice, First Counsel and The Millionaires.

Man, that’s so not fair. I’ve got a buddy who’s been trying to break into the comics business and is a major Elongated Man fan and would, if he’s lucky enough to make it, have loved to do a Ralph-and-Sue series of stories. He’s not going to be happy about this, not one wee little bit.

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Hee. I opened my thread this week with a discussion of this very book.

It’s a well-written mystery so far - but I really enjoyed the worked-in bits of DC Lore.

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I guess I’ll post here as this was the only book I got this week aside from the SpiderMan Official Handbook.

Very well done. I agree that the pregnancy test was a bit of a gimick, but otherwise well written. I’ll be interested to see how (or if) that scene in the alley plays out. I’d like to see what’s going on with that item in the box.

Well, I’m not getting any vibe at all me’self. But it’s not like they need all seven to have killed someone. I doubt they all lined up to stab someone in the chest one at a time. All you need is for one of them to have killed (perhaps even Sue herself) and have all the others involved in the cover-up. That’s where I’m placing my money.

Unless - evil speculation time - Sue faked her own death and all this is her Birthday Mystery.

Nah.

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Except that Barry and Hal were both cops and neither of them would have particpated. Barry was as “square” as it gets. That’s the concern I have…I can’t figure out anything shady enough to get that dark vibe that Barry and Hal would have gone along with.

Very well done. I agree that the pregnancy test was a bit of a gimick, but otherwise well written. I’ll be interested to see how (or if) that scene in the alley plays out. I’d like to see what’s going on with that item in the box.
:eek:

Ok. Now THAT would be evil! :wink:

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The box contained Luthor’s armor from Superman/Batman. That doesn’t seem like a random element, particularly after Lex’s frothing statement at the end of S/B #6.

I was expecting the victim to be Snapper.

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There was a great blink-and-you’ll-miss-it throwaway line: “They didn’t let me into the league because I can stretch my ear down a chimney.” In one of Ralph’s earliest appearances, he eavesdrops on some mobsters by stretching his ear down a chimney. The ear is spotted by one of the crooks, who mouths one of the great surrealist lines from comic book history: “Look! Someone’s stretching an ear down the chimney!”

Would the classic JLA line-up ever kill somebody? Put their backs to the wall and honestly, who wouldn’t? Superman and Batman, but they’re archetypes and hard to relate to. Seems to me there was a Robinson-era Starman story where the Rag Doll put some classic JSA-ers into a corner where they had to kill him. Honestly, knowing what the Joker does every time he inevitably escapes, is Batman’s code against killing really the most moral path?

The Secret Origins issue with Dr. Light and the Legion of Substitute Heroes is one of my all-time favorite comics. Sorry, but I always preferred Dr. Light as a haunted incompetent. But given an unsavory backstory, maybe this (Identity Crisis) could explain why the third Dr. Light (the Japanese woman) never really advanced within the League. It’s like having a decent kid ask your daughter out, but his name happens to be Manson or Starkweather or Dahmer; against all common sense, you’ll respect that it’s a bad omen and hate the little bastard.

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Mmm. Best line in the book?

Firehawk, in response to Ralph guessing his birthday present : “See, that’s why I won’t date detectives. A friend of mine once dated the Question. Nightmare. Anticipated everything, including the break-up. Plus, all those Nietzsche quotes gave her a headache.” :smiley:

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Fully agreed, that was priceless.

I also thought the lead up to the murder was very, very well handled. For a while I couldn’t tell who would buy the farm (Sue or Ralph). We knew it was one of them, cos the ‘party’s cancelled’. But which one, given that the death of either would be traumatic (and the build up reminded us how fundemental the TWO of them were to the DCU, Sue wasn’t a side character to enhance Elongated Man, she was as much a character as Ralph).

Then when the death happened and the lead up to the funeral. Goddamn, that splash of the funeral… I kinda wish I wasn’t reading this at work. I didn’t actually cry, but damn near (ok, ok, it’s wussy fanboy response, but a genuine response to the quality of this nonetheless. Maybe it’s all those years of reading JL, JLI and JLE).

The stuff with Bolt sitting in the car was great. I mean, how DO villains travel around? And what if they need to carry stuff? Of course. A car. What else would you use? It was a nice normal touch to the otherwise insane world of costumed adventuring.

Um… Starfire’s hair? It’s all… straight!
And there’s no *
glow*.
She just looked wierd.

Oh, and visiting all the other characters who’ve been defined by the death of a close family member was nice. It gave us a glimpse of what Ralph might become.

I would have liked to see Doc Magnus, is he still a robot in this? His ‘toys’, really! I mean REALLY!

I am eagerly awaiting the second issue. I’ve never had any huge problems with summer events, but I do conceded there’s been some absolute crap over the years. This one, on the other hand, could turn out to be one of the best if the first issue is anything to go by (alternately, it might not be and if it IS Sue’s mystery gift to fake her death, then I’d sugest that, despite the quality of the righting, it could be a REALLY mean shot at DCU fans in general! [comicbookguy]'How DARE they play with my emotions.)

Oh, and those who said the pregnancy thing was a cheap trick? I remember the morning my wife bounced onto the bed (and woke me up grin) asking, ‘do you see a vertical line in this window?’.

The test kit in sue’s hand wasn’t a cheap trick, it was a serious gut shot that compounded the trauma of losing the woman he loves. Man, that alone made me choke up!

-Gene, geek de la comique.

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  1. That was Green Arrow who used the word “toys” and given that GA is a (self-admitted) asshole…I thought it was a killer-good bit of characterization. It wasn’t nice, mind you, but it was spot-on accurate! :slight_smile:

  2. I think that Metal Men mini-series has gotten the “Now let us never speak of this again” type retcon that the Zatanna-becomes-an-obnoxious-punk-grrrl (who doesn’t speak backwards because it’s too “dead white male” and decides to use a womyn-style majick–which involves using a long hard staff with a knob on the end :rolleyes: ) got.

There’s a quote by Gaiman who, when asked why he simply ignored the Zatanna miniseries when he reintroduced her in BOOKS OF MAGIC basically said “Why bother removing everything that makes a character unique and interesting? If you want to tell a story about a demon-summoning grrrrrl who uses a staff with a knob on the end to cast spells, why call her Zatanna? She’s not.” Zatanna speaks backwards. Adam Strange needs to catch that Zeta Beam and then solve the problem before it wears off. And the Metal Men–half the fun of the book was watching them get trashed half-way through, Doc Magus rebuilding them and them going back out and winning. (Plus if they’re “real”, it makes Doc Magnus’s treatment of Tina even more reprehensible).

Fenris

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Oh I know it was spot on accurate. I was just commenting on HOW assholish is was. I mean, GA can be a nice guy. Sometimes. :wally

I know a lot of folks don’t like the stagnant nature of a lot of DC characters, but I think in Gaiman’s quote you’ve hit the essence of the issue. A character is a character BECAUSE of the features of their personality, not despite it. To go and change those elements so completely that the character becomes unrecogniseable is disingenious.

That said, I have always been a big fan of the late Silver Age, and I’m feeling a lot of that silver age style, the characterisation and cameraderie with a level of polish that only a modern take can bring to the story. It offers such a wonderful feeling of nostalgia without being contrived OR being set in the past.

What the hell am I trying to say?

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eh… that ‘Putz’ is for GA, NOT Fenris. I just realised on re-reading there might be some confusion. (Apologies if there were)

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No prob–I figured you meant GA! :slight_smile:

I reread the issue last night. A bunch of details and (minor) nitpicks (that did NOT undermine my enjoyment of the story) stood out for me that I didn’t catch or comment on first time 'round.

  1. E-Man is in his classic costume, but we got to see him in his (awful) original costume and if you look at the box for Sue’s present, it’s the purple and white of the (awful, IMO) Giffen/DeMatthis(sp) costume.

  2. Either a minor continuity error or a really scary concept–“I heard somone might have an Amazo on the black market.” :eek: “An” Amazo? That’s like saying "I heard there was “a” Galactus on his way here. How many does Metzger think there are?

  3. I love the idea of the Calculator (and Metzger didn’t do justice to the dumbness of his costume! :wink: He had a purple and white costume with big push-button numbers on his chest, true, but he also had a sort of tube with a mail-slot-sized LED display on top of his head. He was a product of the '70s when calculators were new and exciting.) as a semi-competent (note how much stuff the Calculator got wrong?) anti-Oracle. Very nifty idea that can be used later.

  4. Interesting point Metzger/Green Arrow made about Batman refusing to use super-powered types to further his investigations. I don’t buy it, mind you–Bats will use any tool at his disposal, although he might put less weight on various people’s reports depending on how reliable he thinks they are (he’d trust The Atom far more than Firestorm, say), but I love the idea and it’s a good way to keep Bats from taking over the story. (And what a good idea to use super-types as detection equptment. And some excellent, non-obvious choices! :slight_smile: )

  5. Very appropriate for Bolt to be the buyer. Isn’t his gimmick that he recycles other people’s equiptment?

  6. !!! “Thanagarian” phase detectors? Younger fans might not know this but the original origin of Dr. Light (from about the same period as The Calculator, come to think of it) is that Dr. Arthur Light accidentially made a warp-gate that let him step through to another world–Thanagar–where he stole most of his techology. The story was thrown out of continuity right away–the writer didn’t do his homework and there were major flaws in it–but I loved it as a kid. Given the other '70s references, I wonder if that’s a clue? Maybe Metzger didn’t realize it was thrown out of continuity (or maybe, given how f*cked up Hawkman’s history is anyway, he didn’t care) and that how Dr. Light (with stolen Thanagarian tech) managed to get through the Thanagarian alarm system.

  7. Another minor nitpick–two actually. 1) despite the fact that everyone does it, Atom’s costume becomes invisible when he’s full sized. We should never see him in costume and tall. 2) How’d he take Jean with him through the phone? She’s not wearing a suit made of white dwarf-star material.

  8. In the two-page funeral home spread, who’s the pasty faced guy? Find Dr Midnight on the far left hand side, and go back two people. There’s a guy who looks kinda like a chubby Morbius…and if you go two people to the right of him, there’s a sort of sullen female version with her arms crossed. They look familiar.

Fenris

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I haven’t read Identity Crisis yet (I was very skeptical, but from all these good reviews, I’ll probably check out the TPB). However, I recall reading something somewhere that Dr. Light was a pedophile. Was this from John Ostrander’s run on Suicide Squad? I never read that either, so I really have no idea. If so, was it retconned out, or just conveniently not mentioned?

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Fenris. Like Ultron, the Vision, Red Tornado and other super-robots, Amazo has been destroyed and reconstructed since. The most recent model was the one back in JLA #27 that could absorb the powers of any Justice League composition thrown at it. It’s not that far-fetched that Ivo has other Amazos out there, awaiting activation.

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But it’s always just been the one Amazo, built and rebuilt.I just think the idea of multiple Amazos is creepy.

Lou
Dr. Light was the reverse of a pedophile–a pedophobe maybe? In the Suicide Squad books, he was terrified of kids.