DC's Identity Crisis Ongoing Thread (Open Spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

To discuss what’s shaping up to be one of the finest mainstream comic miniseries of all time, in my opinion. This thread should serve for the remaining four issues, I think, rather than starting one for each.

No Spoiler boxes here, so if you don’t want it spoiled, get thee hence!

Seriously!
Okay.

So, I’m marvelling (no pun intended) at the job DC has done setting this thing up. Many of the main titles had been dealing with identity issues before the miniseries started, and there was the foreshadowing of a ‘Crisis’ by Luthor in Superman/Batman #6.

Birds of Prey - Oracle’s secret identity threatened, her files potentially compromised a couple times.

Robin - Tim having to give up being Robin, after his dad discovered his identity. (While IC hasn’t acknowledged this bit of lore yet, I imagine it will.)

Teen Titans - Superboy questioning the origin of his genetic material.

Firestorm - the mysterious disappearance of Ronnie Raymond, who was present in IC #1.

Flash - the whole Spectre thing. and Batman’s the one that figures out who Wally is, despite the Spectre’s spell, and who haven’t we seen in IC…?

I’m sure there are others.

So far, our body count includes Sue Dibny, and Jean Loring, the wife and ex-wife of Satellite-era Leaguers with public identities.

Speculation as to further deaths, and the identity of the killer runs wild.

One also wonders why the series has focused on some small-time villains - Captain Boomerang’s odd meanderings, for instance.

Speculations? Inside info? Crackpot theories?

I’ve even heard one on another messageboard suggesting Barry Allen’s the killer. Heh.

2

Well, first off, I think that the killer is primarily going after loved ones of the JLA members who were on the satellite the night Sue was attacked.

Also, I had originally thought that Batman’s absence was easily explained away by “being in the Batcave running tests”. I figured that the story revolved around Ralph and the seven characters who were involved in the conspiracy to mess wit’ Dr. Light’s head, and with Superman and Wonder Woman being used so minimally, and the fact that if Batman knew, he might not disapprove, his presence probably wouldn’t add a lot of dramatic tension to the story.

But then there was the flashback. I mentioned this in another thread, and I’ll repeat it here. The panel in IC part 2 where the conspirators are wrestling Dr. Light to the floor and the panel of Dr. Light’s flashback in which he remembers that “You. Took. My. Mind.” are the same drawing. Not a similar scene, but the same drawing… except that it’s been cropped, colored in sepia tones, and Batman has been drawn into the picture.

So, the first appearance of the Batman in this story is in a flashback to a previous scene that he wasn’t in originally.

Very interesting.

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And I’m wondering if it has any ties to J’onn’s recent psychotic break - leading up to it, there were some slightly abusive uses of his telepathic powers along a similar vein, as I recall.

It’s possible that the trauma Luthor suffered in S/B #6 unlocked his own memories of a mindwipe - because certainly, Luthor’s involved somehow.

4

Pardon if this is a hijack, but since CandidGamera has declared himself a huge fan of this series, I’m curious as to what he thinks about the charges of misogyny leveled against the writers by some circles for their treatment of Sue Dibny. (I can expand on the arguments further if you don’t know them.)

5

Batman wins if he’s prepared.
Oh, wait a minute. That makes no sense, does it?

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I haven’t heard these arguments. So fine, in what way is the treatment of Sue Dibny misogynistic?

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The argument goes: because she was one of the strongest, most independent female characters in the DCU, involved in one of the most stable and happy relationships there were. So, to break it up so suddenly and in so violent a way, AND to tack on a brutal rape on top of that, is so unnecessary and gratuitous that one would think that the writers had something against women and good relationships.

That’s it in a nutshell as I understand it. I’ll look into it more if need be.

8

The fact is, superheroes are predominently heterosexual males without close family ties, without siblings, and childless. So whenever you say “villains may strike out at those I love if they learn my secret identity” you’re basically talking girlfriends and wives. These parameters have been broken before – the Kingpin took apart Matt Murdock’s whole life when he learned his identity, and Mysterio went after his law partner Foggy and screwed with his girlfriend Karen’s head. Despero killed Gypsy’s adopted parents and Black Manta killed Aquaman’s son – but the real threat has always been assumed to be against women. The attitude is more paternalistic and chauvanistic than misogynist.

Sue’s rape, death and post-mortem burns may reveal a misogynist leaning on the part of the writer, but I don’t see it that way. To kill off a superhero’s lover has been done shockingly ever since poor Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend was stuffed in the fridge. Even if Jean Loring death turns out to be brutal, I don’t think that necessarily proves misogyny – I’d have to see something else.

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From reading the different comics from the 1960s that introduced Jean Loring, Sue Dibny, and Carol Ferris, I noticed one thing which I have not seen anyone mention.

The three of them in their inception looked virtually the same. Similar heights, similar builds, all with short black hair. Carol and Jean were proto feminists, working hard to make it in a man’s world while everyone basically knew that Sue was smarter than Ralph. Remember, Ralph’s a four. :stuck_out_tongue:

I am not sure if that point will be dealt with, but with the way the series is going I have a suspicion that Carol Ferris is next and that is what will spark the Spectre into becoming Hal Jordan again.

Regarding the thought of miogyny. I think that the fact of Ray Palmer and Ralph Dibny being public figures for so long and thus having their wives on display has allowed them to go along unscathed for an incredibly unrealistic period of time. Take what happened to Linda Park-West in the Flash. She was in regular peril which Wally saved her from. The law of averages would have to account for the fact that he’d fail sometime in protecting her.

The law of averages is catching up to people. If memories do return to all those villains who were mindwiped, goodbye Lois and the Kents and sayonara to anyone else who isn’t a superhero and is their friend, confidante, or relative.

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Aint she the Star Sapphire? :eek:

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Sometimes.

It’s her body, not her personality.

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OK, something occurred to me while I was waiting for the bus home from work.

What the hell was Sue Dibney doing being alone on the satellite that night? I mean, shouldn’t some Spandex-wearing type have been on monitor duty?

13

The writer, Meltzer, hasn’t really done much in comics, and I’ve never read any of his other work, so I can’t say I have enough evidence of a pattern of misogynistic thought in his work.

I think the issue here is more one of : sometimes horrible things happen to people. In this case, horrible things happened twice to Sue Dibny, and once to Jean Loring - however, considering the nature of the story, these horrible thing’s aren’t extraneous or unnecessary - they’re essential.

Meltzer was telling an intriguing story of some taking vengeance on the Justice League’s loved ones for a very questionable moral action they took in the past. And something big had to happen to motivate the Leaguers to take such an action.

So the violence fits the facts so far.

Now, one might argue that the depictions were a little gratuitous, I suppose. I’d argue that was done for the emotional impact on the reader, rather than any secret woman-loathing on Meltzer or Morales’ part.

If you have some specific points that I may not have considered, please share.

14

Sort of related to the sub-topic of misogyny.

On the respondants page, Jim Shooter and Fabian Nicezia made really good points about the topic (Fabian’s being more on-topic for this particular discussion).

Quoting Nicezia (I’ve hated that name for over a decade. So…hard to spell…worse to pronounce):

Judging by their ‘character list’, and some of the respondants, if it had been Ralph who bought it, it would have still been called a misogynist slam on Sue by SOMEONE.

(Randomly: Mark Waid’s apology there for killing Ice makes me cringe. The fact that killing her was done specifically because her death would get the strongest reaction from the readers doesn’t make it misogynist…perhaps a little sadistic, and possibly weak writing (as per Shooter’s comments), but not misogynist.)

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Why? Who’s gonna invade a satellite, fer Primus’ sake?

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That answer was in the issue. Sue was up there to gaze at the stars.

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People who invaded the JLA Satellite:

  1. The Spirit King in Jay Garrick’s body
  2. An alien who was possessing each of the JLA members in turn
  3. The Injustice Society(circa 194-197 of the JLA v1 run)
  4. The Crime Syndicate of Earth-3

There are more I’m sure, these are just the times that come to mind first.

18

The question was more the aloneness part and the someone not being on monitor duty.

There is, after all, a whole planet with lots of supervillian types to watch over, and you never know when you’re going to need to call Kyle and ask him to blow up the brownstone you’re in because you’re in a fight with a bunch of demons that you really don’t want unleased on Star City.

Someone should have been on monitor duty, dammit. Then Sue could have gazed at the stars and munched on leftover spanikopita with Diana or listened to Bruce not tell jokes, and been protected when Dr. Light showed up looking for trouble.

Now I’m hungry for spanikopita.

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Back to the earlier mention of Batman’s presence in Light’s flashback — if the Leaguers don’t remember Batman there, isn’t it possible that someone has then tampered with their minds as well, much as they have been tampering with the minds of the villains?

I’m wondering: where was the Martian Manhunter in all of this? Supposedly, he’s been a member of every single version of the Justice League, so he should have been on the satellite. Perhaps he used his own mental powers to tamper with the League’s memory of the events…

And not to digress, but can someone fill me in on this “psychotic break” CandidGamera mentioned above?

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The Martian Manhunter, in pre-Crisis continuity, took a leave of absence from the League for an extended period. Post-Crisis, he didn’t have the reason to take that leave, but may still have been on vacation at the time. Also please note that ‘having been with every version of the League’ doesn’t mean ‘was a member of the League during every adventure they’ve had.’

Psychotic break - short version - J’onn was working with a fire-manipulating villainess to try and get rid of his aversion to fire. This triggered the release of a martian ‘racial consciousness’ in J’onn’s mind - a violent, dark consciousness that inspired him to nearly crush the Justice League, stopped only by Plastic Man. J’onn regained control over himself and now possesses the fear of fire again, in a lessened form.