DC's Identity Crisis Ongoing Thread (Open Spoilers)

Cafe Society
81

Regarding

I think you’re right, and I think it might come back to bite Batman in the ass, given the cover of IC #6. Even if that’s not the reason, I have a feeling Batman is going to screw this one up big time (on a side note, a lot of people on the DC message boards are theorizing that Nightwing is the killer, which seems pretty ludicrous to me, but there you go).

And on the topic of Batman, let’s not forget the panel from IC#2 redrawn in IC#3 with the addition of Batman. There’s no way that’s not significant. Maybe Batman was there when they mind-raped Dr. Light and they mindwiped Batman as well because he opposed the whole thing and threatened to tell Clark or something.

So, yeah, even if Jack Drake doesn’t die, I’m expecting Batman to play a big part in the remainder of the storyline.

I also agree that the Deathstroke thing makes no sense (why didn’t Kyle just trap him in a big green bubble?). It also reminded me too much of some of the more ridiculous “Batman can beat anyone” scenarios.

Random thoughts…

I think it’s significant that Chronos keeps going on about how he knows that they’re going to win. He’s said it a couple times, but we don’t really know exactly what he’s talking about.

This story makes it seem like the JLA have always known each other’s secret identities, but I thought that, post-Crisis, no one knew who Superman or Batman were until that storyline in JLA where everyone gets split into hero and civilian personas? Maybe I’m mis-remembering.

I checked, and in the flashback we see that there doesn’t appear to be any phone near the entrence to Jean’s house. Given that the would-be killer is right next to her the minute she gets through the door, I still think the phone thing is iffy (although it could just be that Meltzer needed a way for Jean not to die, but then again, I don’t think the 33 second phone call is a coincidence, either).

I think Captain Boomerang is going to die, not his son. It would feel really cheap to introduce this son (unless he’s appeared before and I don’t know) just to kill him off.

As for Sue having been pregnant… for some reason I wonder if any of this ties into Wally having lost his unborn twins a year ago. It’s not like Meltzer didn’t know about that, and I really, really hope he didn’t make Sue pregnant just as an emotional sucker punch.

Hijack:

If Guy Gardner hadn’t been a moron, he could have theoretically created a large force field around Doomsday and the ground under him and, as Fenris said, tossed him into space (although I’m not really sure he’d have been fast enough to do it before Doomy broke free).

I also think it’s interesting that, as of now, the murders and etc. have absolutely no connection to what the JLA did to Dr. Light and had been doing to other villains. However, someone had to tell Dr. Light that the League was gunning for him, because he knew they were coming even before they started looking for him. So whoever the killer(s) is, they know what the JLA did to Dr. Light and knew that they’d instinctively go after him if anything ever happened to Sue. If it weren’t confined to the realm of “they’d never do that”, I’d actually theorize that Batman is behind all of this (it would tie into him being present in Dr. Light’s flashback).

I also still don’t have a satisfactory answer to why Dr. Mid-Nite ruled out Dr. Light as a suspect solely on the basis of Sue’s not having been burned to death. Of course, given that my working theory as to the killer’s identity includes a nefarious Batman/Jean Loring partnership, I clearly don’t have the best detective skills.

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On second thought, when Dr. Light bursts into the Villain-Satellite, he says that the Calculator sent him. Now, that might mean that Calculator told him the JLA was gunning for him, but it also might just mean that Calc told him that he could find help on the satellite.

So either the killer or the Calculator knows what the JLA did to Dr. Light. Also, I wonder if something might come of the fact that Light is spreading the news of what happened to him.

83

Doesn’t matter–whip up a mile-wide force-sphere that scoops up at least 1/3d of a mile of dirt under Doomsey. GL energy can travel faster than light (or how could they patrol their sectors, give that each sector is something like 28,000 galaxies (the universe was divided up into what…3400 sectors?) Fling Doomsday, at superlight speed into Cygnus X-1 (nearest black hole). Yeah, he’ll climb out eventually, but it’ll still take him at minimum a million years, after which, Justice Legion A can make short work of him.

Use the ring to beam him a 10[sup]10[sup]76[/sup][/sup] years into the future (at which time, even super-massive black holes have decayed via Hawking radiation and there’s pretty much nothing left)

Granted, that incarnation of Guy was a moron, but Superman moves at near light-speed. He could scoop up a chunk of ground under Doomsey and fling it into space at escape velocity before Doomsey could react. Since Doomsey can’t fly, he’ll just keep drifting further and further off. At that point you get Hal or John or…wasn’t Kilowog hanging out there at the time? or Rip Hunter or whoever and there’s all sorts of ways to dispose of him that don’t involve a fistfight.

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I’m disappointed. 3600 sectors. Plus I think the GL energy doesn’t move faster than light - the rings were just able to access ‘hyperspace’ for travelling vast distances. It’s an important distinction - plus, technically, they can only move as fast as their wielder can think, and we’re talking about Guy here.

Post-Crisis Superman doesn’t move near the speed of light, anymore. Not in an atmosphere, at least. And Doomsday was as fast as Superman, or nearly so.

85

Actually, I thought the Atom thing to be an excellent example of Slade’s abilities. Enhanced senses, and an unequalled tactical mind.

And I am simply flabbergasted at your Joker comment. A madman with no special electronics skill easily getting past a security system with technology from some of the most advanced alien species known to the people of Earth - without setting it off? Balderdash.

I don’t think Zee’s powers work that way. I’ve never seen her conjrue someone or their image without naming them specifically - and I don’t recall her directly conjuring the spirit of a dead person either. Counterexamples are welcome.

Deadman doesn’t exactly have a pager. Dr. Fate’s currently cut himself off from Nabu - his magical options are likely more limited for the time being. Jakeem doesn’t know the full potential of his Thunderbolt yet, it’s likely. Besides, when it comes to investigations, the Thunderbolt has historically been less than useful. Can’t address your Alan Scott comment - I don’t know the other people it’s given life to, or under what circumstances, off the top of my head. Time travellers are difficult to get ahold of. Superman had a nasty falling out with the Linear Men a while back, and we see in recent pages of the JSA that the Android Hourman can be difficult to contact. Metron doesn’t take orders unless it suits his purpose.

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A couple of points:

–Joker and Luthor have been mentioned as possible suspects. Does either one know that Lois is married to Superman, or know Batman is Bruce Wayne? (Maybe they do, I honestly don’t know; my impression is that they do not.) The killer certainly knows these things.

–Jean Loring? Interesting. Not sure what she’d have to gain, aside from the other half of Atom’s patents. He’s not presented as fabulously wealthy.

–Don’t write off Deathstroke. He knows (via his association with Terra and other Titans) Bruce Wayne’s identity, probably figured out Clark Kent’s, and he doesn’t share info with the other assassins. He and Calculator could be working the angles here.

–Batman’s involvement with Dr. Light’s mindwipe still has to be explored. That alone would be a dandy motivation to bump off superheroes and their families.

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Joker (sadly) has any skill needed to do whatever the plot requires. Need someone who can handle Bats in hand to hand combat? Joker’s done it. Build a death ray? Joker’s done it. Create a poison that will change fish’s faces to look like the Joker’s? Joker’s done it. Plus, wasn’t there a story during the President Luthor storyline where the Joker broke into Luthor’s White House? Luthor’s security is easily as good as anything the JLA can come up with.

He could easily bypass any security system in the world if that’s what he wanted to do and the plot called for it. .

Z’s powers are pretty vague, but it boils down to “She can do anything the plot requires as long as she says it backwards.” I’m also sure she’s contacted the spirits of dead people (probably Pre-Crisis though…I’ll see what I can dig up)

Ok, then, let’s quibble! :wink: Fair enough on Deadman–he only shows up when the plot demands (like the Phantom Stranger) and you could argue that it doesn’t so demand. We’ll also ignore the fact that Bats has access to every good-guy magic-user on the planet more-or-less and any of them could certainly contact Deadman. But putting that aside, Batman knows Swamp Thing and can (and has) contact him, if only through Abby. Swampy can visit the realm of the recently dead (Swampy Annual 2) and can talk to Sue’s ghost. .

Agreed, but summoning a ghost is hardly a problem in DC. The Phantom Stranger can do it easily and while the current Dr. Fate would be mopped up by Dr. Strange, getting a recently dead person’s ghost to show up should be no big deal.

That’s because Johnny was an idiot. The Thunderbolt has no limitations. None. The only problem is that he’s extremely literal and Johnny was vague in his commands. Pre-Crisis, the one big rule that was never violated was "You can’t change time/history’. And yet, with a casual comment from Johnny’s evil Earth-1 counterpart, the Thunderbolt did–a nearly unprecidented act. Jakeem only needs to ask and hasn’t been taught there are limits to the T-Bolt’s abilities.

It brought Alan back to life once (in his origin story) and I can’t remember the other time either.

Disagree: They’re common as dirt and several JLA’ers are time-travel veterans with their own machines.

Rip may be gone, but the rest of the Time-Hunters aren’t…you simply trot over to Rip Hunter’s lab and knock on the door.

Or go to Star Labs.

Or use the Booster Gold thing (if it’s still around).

Or contact Tachyon of the New Gods.

T.O. Morrow is in jail…cut a deal with him. His original schtick was that he had a time-viewer. Hell, IIRC it was confiscated. Use it.

Wally’s standing around right there. The cosmic treadmill is a hop, skip and a jump away in the Flash Museum and the treadmill was designed to be time-travel device.

The Atom has the Time Pool that’s only a phone-call away in Ivy University.

A GL ring can be used to time travel (rarely) or (more commonly) view past images (I’ll grant that Kyle, since he’s can’t quite grasp the concept that the ring is NOT “the most powerful weapon in the universe” but the “most powerful tool in the universe” wouldn’t figure that out.) They’re not all that hard to get ahold of. Most DC heroes have access to time machines/travel.

But since this is concurrent with the current JSA storyline (remember about 3 issues back Spectre vanished 'cause of IC?), here he is, ready and eager to help.

He does if ordered to by whoever’s in charge of New Genesis. He’s grumbled, but he’s done it, if only so that he can have a place to come back to. Besides, I think motherboxes can be used with boom-tubes to time travel. Metron may not be necessary.

Like I said, I understand that using any of these would invalidate the story, but IMO it’s still a weakness not to handwave them away rather than have the characters look like idiots for not thinking of stuff that’s obvious. Especially since the hand-waving could have easily been done in like 2 sentences (“We checked the realm of the recently dead–Sue’s not there any more”, “We can’t time-travel/time view–there’s a temporal storm going on”, etc. *)

Fenris

*Zatanna’s still a problem with her “Do anything” power and shouldn’t have been introduced for that reason.

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Can I just throw Hush in there as a suspect?

Actually, I’m starting to suspect that Hush is the big string-puller in the War Games storyline, and if he is, it might be overkill to have him be the Big Bad in two different major DC series at once, but…

The JLA seem to have pretty well eliminated all the villians who have actally appeared in IC as suspects. Also, Hush has a stated goal of ruining Batman. We have established that Bruce had a role in the Zatannabotomizing of Dr. Light, (we just don’t know what it was), and if Big Blue and Wonder Woman were to find out, that would probably be the end of his (as well as the conspirators’) membership in the JLA. Then, if he were to be framed for the murders as well, there would be the issue of the Batman being wanted for murder…

OK, we’ve been there, done that, but plots do get recycled…

Also, has anyone considered that the whole mindwipe issue might just be a red herring? Things seem to be going in that direction.

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I just reread IC#1 with the creepy-as-hell “Jean Loring Did It” theory in mind.

Some plusses and minuses to it-

  1. PLUS-Jean was batshit crazy for about 10 years (real time–roughly Atom #40-something circa 1966 to Super-Team Family #12-ish circa 1977 or so) And when I say “crazy” I don’t mean like “Carol is Star Sapphire who tries to force Hal to marry her” crazy, I mean frothing at the mouth, chewing the carpet insane. Maybe she still is. It wouldn’t be completely out of left field the way it would if it was, say, Iris Allen or Lois Lane.

  2. MINUS-The killer threw Sue a good 15-20 feet. The hysterical/insane strength thing is all well and good, but that would take super-powers.

  3. NEUTRAL-Jean was in Ivy Town when the murder happened. We don’t know which city Sue and Ralph live in, but based on what we saw of the bust with Bolt and Luthor’s uniform, it didn’t look like Ivy Town. So how could she have gotten there and back in an hour? By shrinking (she owns half his patents…but no way did Ray patent that one…but he probably didn’t keep it a secret from Jean either) and phoning her way in.

  4. PLUS-For whatever reason, Jean is somehow able to travel telphonically without exploding. She did it with the Atom in IC#1 (Atom doesn’t have the power to shrink someone else by touching them, so either there was a continuity glitch in #1 (not impossible) or Jean was wearing white dwarf star material clothing. Which she shouldn’t be.

  5. MINUS-Sue was roasted by the person in the trenchcoat who used what I assume is Heat Wave’s gun (or something damned close). How could she have gotten a flame gun?*

  6. PLUS-We keep hearing about how protected the JLA homes are, but when they give the laundry list of things that they’re protected against, Atom phoning in isn’t one of them. AND he and Jean phoned into Sue’s house.

  7. PLUS-If she can shrink, it would also explain why she didn’t die and how she called Ray while hanging with no phone nearby–she ties the noose and strings it up. She calls Ray. She runs back, shrinks enough to get her neck through the noose (it wasn’t a slip-knot remember.) and then grows.

I’m still not completely convinced, but it’s a plausible theory.

Fenris

*I just figured out how. The Flash Museum (for whatever screwball reason) keeps real items lying around–that’s not a replica of the Cosmic Treadmill or the Mirror Master’s solid-hologram projector, they’re the real thing, loaded and ready to use. I agree, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, but it’s been repeatedly established that the stuff in the Flash Museum is real and works. It’s a matter of seconds to phone them, shrink and pass through the atoms of the glass around Heat Wave’s gun, pocket it (by growing , putting it in your white-dwart star pocket and reshrinking and then phoning bck home.

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A loooOOOoooooong time ago, before the first issue debuted, in a thread I no longer recall the name of, I postulated the killer would ultimately be revealed to be

J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter

… and now, with issue #4, I haven’t seen a thing to make me suspect otherwise.

Now, granted, I may be committing the cardinal sin of fitting the facts to indict my suspect, instead of leading me to other, correct conclusions… but still.

Firstly, let’s set aside the matter of motive for a moment. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t the foggiest why this person would do these terrible things (well, I could hazard a few suppositions, actually --), other than the physical evidence at hand suggests the killer is [spoiler]male, tall, powerful, has intimate knowledge of the private lives of many superheroes and supervillains, can bypass the security protocols of combined Thanagarian, Kryptonian, New Genesis and Martian tech, can enter and leave places without leaving a DNA trace, felt close enough to the 1st victim to call her “Sue”, and apparently not disturb carpet fibres, not leave a scent, not leave evidence detected by mettalurgical analysis and somehow avoid the Ray’s spectrum analysis – the last few facts strongly suggest the killer is either non-human or specialized metahuman.

J’onn can alter his molecular structure to phase through walls and floors and has toyed with perhaps hundreds of human psyches in his time on earth – is it possible this isolation has somehow unhinged him?

I haven’t worked out the importance of the hanging noose or fire gun. especially since J’onn is deadly weakened by fire. But then, wasn’t J’onn cured or something?

I suspect that J’onn J’onzz – the JLA’s resident empathic telepath – may have actually done the mindwipes/personality changes on Dr. Light and other villains. I think later he’s mucked with the minds of other JLAers’ to “recall” that it was Zatanna who lobotomized Dr. Light when it was really him. It’s the most logical reason why heroes such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman haven’t caught on sooner. They’re being misled from within.

Isn’t it odd J’onn is so far missing from every single flashback scene and has only appeared in two panels in four issues…? At Sue’s funeral…?

Doesn’t John Jones, detective, wear a trenchcoat and hat?

All I’m saying: the League is looking at villains when they should probably be looking closer to home. i think thi is the unpleasant discovery batman’s about to make.[/spoiler]

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Tsk. I must say, when I go all out on a limb like the post I just made, I expect something along the lines of, “You’re bloody brilliant!” or “You’re blinkin’ mad!” Y’know – something in an outraged English accent. But to get no response at all–? Tsk.

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< Brit voice >
As-TOUND-ing Holmes, how DO you do it?
< /Brit voice >

:wink:

But I dunno. Your theory hangs together, but I doubt the marketing types would allow it to happen. JLA (the cartoon) is evidently hot right now, and Martian Manhunter’s a part of it. I mean, they went so far as to force Jon Stewart into the JLA to match the 'toon (IIRC). Given that…

Plus, it’s way out of character. And they specifically said that the technology prevents (or detects) phasing. Given that,I’d call “cheat” if Jonn phased through somehow.

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Out of character? Perhaps.

So was Superman killing Doomsday

So was President Lex Luthor.

So was Hal Jordan: Green Lantern mass murderer.

Again, we have no motive beyond “He’s unhinged!” but perhaps there’s something more to it.

MM, never a big part of the hour-long JL cartoon, has been marginalized in the new half-hour JLU to a mere coordinator.

As for getting in, phasing is just one of his abilities. He can shapeshift, condense and expand his mass, turn invisible and match Plastic Man in elasticity. If he can defeat the tech that might detect his powers, I dn’t think phasing is cheating at all.

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Are you referring to their first fight, or something afterwards?

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The first fight. Even though he “died” I always thought Superman’s bloodthirsty brute strength attack to the death strategy was way out of character. Just so we’re clear, it’s not just the apparent violation of his oath against taking sentient life, it was the method in which it was done.

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[QUOTE=Fenris]
We don’t know which city Sue and Ralph live in, but based on what we saw of the bust with Bolt and Luthor’s uniform, it didn’t look like Ivy Town.
[/QUOTE=Fenris]

I have nothing more to contribute, theory-wise, but Ralph and Sue lived in beautiful Opal City, former home of Starmen Ted and Jack Knight.

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Yeah, but then the rest of us would be complaining about bad writing. :wink:

There are limits. In fact, as an example, raising the dead is something most of the mystics of the DC universe can’t do. I say this because Zee lost her father - and he wasn’t brought back. Constantine has lost scads of his friends - none brought back. It would be nice to see them bring in Constantine in an attempt to contact Sue’s spirit, though.

Swampy is indisposed at the moment - recent events in his new title have thrown his character development back to a primitive state - I don’t think Bats can contact him right now.

Some mystics of the DCU can manage this. And I imagine at least one of the capable ones would be willing to do it for the JLA. Maybe they’ll address this. Then again, maybe Ralph doesn’t want anyone disturbing the spirit of his beloved wife - we just haven’t been given an indication that it was considered.

Hmm. For some reason, I thought the Thunderbolt couldn’t kill, either. I also ask you to remember that 5th Dimensional entities are empowered by hyper-advanced science that appears to be magic, not true magic. :wink: I seriously can’t remember Mxy or the T-Bolt ever interacting with a spirit that had passed on…

As I recall, Booster’s time machine was one of Rip Hunter’s. Most of the rest stand as mentioned, but…

Kyle’s ring can’t do some of the things previous rings could do. I’m still curious about John Stewart’s ring - if it’s the old can’t-work-against-yellow, has-a-huge-database-inside GL Corps ring, or a copy of Kyle’s.

Funny. In two issues, JSA will be dealing with Mid-Nite’s autopsy of Sue. So they’re a little behind.

Dunno. Metron’s kind of a loose cannon…

I agree that I wish they’d explicitly address some of these issues - but I think most of them wouldn’t be feasable for various reasons.

I mean - why don’t they use time travel to solve every single murder they deal with? Probably because it’s pretty darn risky.

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Actually, Mr. Miracle says that it could be a phaser. Considering all the ways to do that in the DCU, one would think they’d have a safeguard against it, but oh well.

I’ve heard the J’onn theory before and while I think it’s entirely possible, I just really, really hope it’s not true, because I’m a huge J’onn fan, and I don’t know if he’d recover from something like this.

That said, I’m going to reply to a few of the J’onn points:

We don’t know any of these things. We know what Jean Loring told the League, but even Mr. Miracle said it could be a woman, and if Jean is in on it somehow, then we can’t trust anything she says.

Last I checked, he’s okay around “normal” fire, but is weakened by fire that has some kind of malicious intent behind it. I’d say he’d have a tough time burning someone to death (although it doesn’t mean he couldn’t do it, and it would be a good way to throw people off his trail).

They did catch on sooner. Superman and Batman, at least, are just in major denial, as far as we can tell from what Green Arrow said in IC#3. I’m not sure about Wonder Woman, since she didn’t join the League for a while.

It is extremely odd, but I’m hoping that it’s just a character preference of Metzler’s similar to not featuring Plastic Man. We may yet see him pop up later, like Batman has, or maybe make small apperances like Wonder Woman has. At this point he’s been involved in the story so little that I’d feel kind of ripped off if it turned out to be him.

Again, we don’t know for sure anything about the killer’s appearance.

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I just thought of something else:

Let’s say that Jean is telling the truth: I think that makes it even less likely that it’s J’onn. If J’onn can shapeshift into any form he wants, why on Earth would he go around killing people looking in any way similar to his most common form? Why not shapeshift into Sarah Michelle Gellar and then do the killing? Heck, he can turn invisible, why would he bother being seen at all?

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shy guy. Well, it took ALL DAY for somene to do it, but thank you for replying.

Look at the page where Sue Dibny is tossed around. That’s how we know the killer is powerful. When the killer walks up to her body, we can see the edge of fabric that’s reminiscent of a trenchcoat or duster in panels 1 and 3. We can play the odds and assume a male is responsible for this kind of power and violence against a woman. For “tall” and the hat, you’d have to use Jean Loring’s testimony.

No comment yet by how fishy it is that Zatanna allegedly performed mindwipes in a league with a telepath for a member…