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DC: Identity Crisis

  
  

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FinderWolf
14:25 / 14.06.04
yeah, I was wondering this too - how can Meltzer dramatically justify NOT killing whoever killed Sue? The ol' "we can't stoop to their level" chestnut??
 
 
Spyder Todd 2008
15:14 / 14.06.04
Something that-having just reviewed the issue in my head- just occured to me plot wise:

Batman knows what's going on. He was invisible the entire issue, working in the background. He wasn't even at the funeral (which, in retrospect, should have raised a bigger red flag to me than it originally did). Bats knows more about all this than any of the characters realise, and when the B-list JLers goes after Dr. Light, it's going to be Bat's who lays the smack down and says "Stop being stupid, you Fucktards!" And then he reveals who really killed her. 'Cause I still don't think it was Dr. Light. Not his style, too obvious anyway.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:02 / 15.06.04
Hilarious comments from Augie DeBlieck at Comic Book Resources about this book:

>> It's so bad that there's a character who is aflame on a stakeout. Yes, Ralph Dibny, The Elongated Man, starts the issue on a rooftop at night trying to hide from criminals, while standing next to a woman who has flames shooting out of her all the time. No wonder why everyone presumed he was to be the dead one.
 
 
FinderWolf
13:04 / 16.06.04
One other thing I want to touch on is that Meltzer does a nice job of showing us the feeling of the DCU heroes as an extended, tight family that draws together in times of trouble, something I really like about DC that Marvel's heroes really don't have (Marvel has no 'legacy' heroes either a la Green Lantern, the Flash, the 3 Robins, etc.).
 
 
Spyder Todd 2008
13:18 / 16.06.04
But there were those multiple Buckys...
 
 
Billuccho!
01:17 / 17.06.04
Finally bought this, against my better judgment. Meltzer finally told a story that didn't put me to sleep. I enjoyed it, but I am an Elongated Man fan. Sue's death still irks me, but, hey. It was actually pretty good.

Suspects? Now, seriously, Sonar hates Ralph, and he keeps trying to steal Sue away from him. I'd suspect him here, no matter what.
 
 
Mr Tricks
23:40 / 14.07.04
Issue #2
is out. After flipping through it in the shop I am SOOOOOOO glad i didn't spend a dime on it (not to mention what, over 3 dollars?). So while I'm not going to star a new thread on it I figured I would post here to see if anyone else read it and what they might think.

Thoughts?

Spoilers?
 
 
LDones
09:57 / 15.07.04
Ugh. Just ugh.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
10:47 / 15.07.04
I didn't think it was that bad at all. I missed the days when villains were truly fucking reprehensible. I like that they had to give him brain damage in order for him to be a typical silver age antagonist.

Are you sure you didn't flip through Identity Disc #2 at the store?

Ah, Marvel.
 
 
LDones
13:03 / 15.07.04
Because Golden Age Dr. Light just raped women left and right. It wasn't until the Silver Age that supervillains became all stupid and girly and non-rapingly uncool.
 
 
CameronStewart
14:00 / 15.07.04

Spoilers, if you care.

I like the notion that DC's roster of goofy, lame villains is the result of lobotomization.

I'm not keen on heaping MORE degredation on poor Sue Dibny - it's not enough that she and her unborn child were killed and torched as a plot device, now she's been raped as well?

I've gone on at length in the past about how I feel about grafting "adult" subject matter onto supposedly all-ages characters, so I'll spare everyone this time...
 
 
CameronStewart
14:02 / 15.07.04
I can't wait until next issue when we find out the NEXT revelation, that Dr. Light had AIDS!
 
 
Triplets
14:05 / 15.07.04
And that after she was dead he raped her some more!
 
 
osymandus
14:12 / 15.07.04
Well as i stated before , its going to be intresting to see the the punishment for the villian in question .

I agree with adult terms etc. Its ok for once or twice shocker issues. But logicly your get to the stage where the good guys and the authorites would possible instate a shoot to kill policey on all known meta villians ??
 
 
FinderWolf
14:35 / 15.07.04
This wasn't all that exciting. The lobotomy thing was interesting (and Green Arrow's kinda chilling "What makes you think this is the only time we did it?"), but that's about it.
 
 
The Falcon
15:14 / 15.07.04
This sounds really parodically tawdry to me.

It's not why I read superhero books, anyway.
 
 
Mr Tricks
15:58 / 15.07.04
As I only flipped through IDENTITY CRISIS can someone go into a bit more details on the lobotomy? is this what the silver age JLofA did in responce to Dr Light's Rape of Sue?

man, talk about retro 80's . . .
 
 
diz
16:43 / 15.07.04
i liked the first issue a lot, but i was less crazy about #2 overall. i'm not on the same bus as Cameron and a lot of other people here in terms of overall dislike for dark/adult material in all cases, but the rape was totally gratuitous. ooh, look how gritty we are! we can have a c-grade villain rape Sue Dibny from behind on the JLA satellite! maybe he was doing her in the ass, too! (oh, no, wait, that's Alias) it's Gaspar Noe Presents The JLA!

also, the idea of the JLA kind of quietly lobotomizing villains for years doesn't really sit well with me, though i agree that i think that it's kind of funny as an excuse for why so many of them are so lame/dumb. but, seriously, did they sterilize them, too? i mean, at least the Authority are upfront about being what they are, you know?

there are things i like. so far Meltzer has been really good at getting the characters in terms of banter and relationships and such, and developing the whole sense of the DCU as a shared universe. he's also got a good grasp on a sort of ground-level perspective, both in terms of heroes and especially villains. last issue, the interaction between Bolt and Calculator, and the whole conceit of using Calculator as a sort of anti-Oracle, was really strong, and this issue i liked the whole idea of the Injustice Gang satellite being turned into a kind of pirate's port for low-rent villains.

however, overall... feh. not liking the turn this has taken.
 
 
Simplist
17:25 / 15.07.04
Yeah, likewise. While reasonably well-written, this second issue just felt like the worst kind of early-90s grim&gritty(tm) gratuitousness. For some reason I still want to know what happens, but I may satisfy myself with reading about it on message boards from here on out.
 
 
FinderWolf
17:25 / 15.07.04
>> i liked the whole idea of the Injustice Gang satellite being turned into a kind of pirate's port for low-rent villains

Yep, this was cool.
 
 
FinderWolf
18:39 / 15.07.04
I respectfully post a commentary from Ahbay, a poster from www.comicscommunity.com. His posts are always interesting and entertaining, and I thought this one was too good to pass up. I have only posted a post of his once before and I emailed him and asked him permission to do so. So, without further ado,

---------------

the numbing awfulness of identity crisis #2

Posted By: abhay
Date: THU, 7/15/04, 3:00 p.m.

i can't believe we don't get a Formerly Known as the Justice League sequel because of this awful awful tripe.

Open on an Atom scene, of Atom complaining that his cunt ex-wife got the house in the divorce. Cut to Black Canary acting like a Bitch- one of them feminist "i don't need your help" xena warrior types. Cut to Supervillains Raping the Elongated Man's Wife's Ass. Cut to girl supervillain who gets sexual pleasure from killing other supervillains (and apparently will only fuck her ugly man if he provides them). Cut to a discussion of the dead girl's lungs.

In what way is this supposed to be fun?

I'll be honest: I'm not the smoothest guy with girls. I am rather un-smooth. It is not my forte- I will admit that with no little regret, but neither hesitation as well.

But, ahmmmm, where do these issues with women come from for comic fans? Cause I don't really think hearing Atom complain about his cunt ex-wife getting the house is that much fun. seriously: if you like this, what is your malfunction???

The execution was at least good on the first issue. THe same can't be said even remotely of the second, which I purchased in what must have been a fit of pure idiocy. Sample line:

Atom re: his ex-wife: "We may not be in love anymore... but even godless physicists can appreciate the past."

OH come on... see, i'm an atheist and a b.s. in biochemistry, and believe me: i don't appreciate the past at all. so, that's totally out of character. if you don't believe in God, you would never appreciate the past. How could you? The past was something Jesus urinated onto his disciples, and atheists reject Jesus and his magical urine, so...

???

Another example, next page(we're not past page three here yet): Flash shows up and says "I know what you're doing." so, my reaction would've been "Oh yeah?" or "is that so?" or "Holy shit, it's the FLash!" But Green Arrow's reaction? "It's not until that moment that I realize he's not alone."

... it's not until Flash APPEARS that he realizes that Flash isn't alone? ... what- "Before Flash unexpectedly showed up, I really should've guessed that Flash wouldnt' be alone if in fact he did show up." What the FUCK is he talking about????

beyond struggling with trying to figure out what it means that the Elongated Man's pregnant wife dies (is this book some sort of "I am impotent and must recover my fertility" thing???), this is just fucking awful. I don't even want to get into the comedy of the "Hal, Barry, Kyle, Wally" monologue that happens next, but its wretched and more than being merely wretched, its wretched plus shity.

as for watching elongated man's wife getting fucked in the ass... see, i thought it wasn't very charming that they'd killed her because comics' love for dead girls has always struck me as weird. so silly me:

mainstream comics love raping girls more than dead girls.

how could i have been so blind???

seriously: What. the. fuck?

i'm not a fanboy. i'm not someone who stays up nights worrying about elongated man's wife. but that this would be your event book, that this would be something you'd want to share with others outside of a slash-fic internet newsgroup.... its astounding. i don't care because its a children's character. i didn't care when luke cage started fucking girl's in the ass. i liked that. i wanted him to fuck girls in the ass, and scream "Sweet christmas" when he did it.

but this thing is just fucked. its coming from a really awful place that i want to know nothing about.

as funny a line of dialogue as "I see a wedding ring bulging under that costume - you got someone at home" is as a straight line...

awful. awful in ways you'd imagine in parody comics something being bad, but ... bad.
-abhay
rags morales isn't so bad. i like his work.

-----------------------
 
 
FinderWolf
18:48 / 15.07.04
I will say this: after I read #2 last night, I thought to myself "I was going to buy all these to see where they go with the story, but this was so not great that I might just read them in the store from now on." I'm really disappointed in this 'event' book, and the fact that they came to Meltzer going "We're intent on killing Sue Dibny, do you want to be the one that writes it". Cause if it wasn't Meltzer, they would have just found someone else.

And like I said, they could have killed Firestorm (hell, he's got a successor right now, it could have been a C-lister "legacy", typical of DC). They could have killed Kyle Rayner (Hal is coming back, after all, the death of a major GL might have been cool, even though I like Kyle). They could have killed Snapper Fucking Carr ('someone connected to the JLA DIES!' was the promo, right?). They could have even killed the Elongated Man himself, but that would also nullify his happy marriage with Sue.

And I agree that Formerly Known As The Justice League was really good, and the Ralph & Sue interaction was a major part of that. And the planned second Formerly Known mini getting scrapped or postponed a year and rewritten for this is a sad thing indeed.
 
 
Simplist
19:32 / 15.07.04
And the planned second Formerly Known mini getting scrapped or postponed a year and rewritten for this is a sad thing indeed.

It's officially scrapped, actually, Giffen & DeMatteis having bailed on DC, seemingly due at least in part to this awful book. The money quotes:

Although not working through DC means not having the marquee "JLA" name there to draw in readers, it also means no worrying about editorial concerns for big name franchises.

"There’s no one looking over our shoulder and saying ‘no, no, no, we need that character next Wednesday.’ ‘No, no, no, we have to slaughter her mercilessly,’" he said. "We always had to look at where the characters are in their own books, and have respect for that.
...

And if you are hoping for Giffen and company to return to the JLI one day, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath.

"I never again, as long as I live, am touching DC Universe characters in that context," he said. "And that’s it, over and out."
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:05 / 15.07.04
That's kind of sad. I loved their JLI. Still can't beat a good bit of cape-rape! Now that's gggggggggggggritty.
 
 
Billuccho!
20:24 / 15.07.04
So they scrapped a mini-series I absolutey pee-my-pants couldn't bloody wait for, a follow-up to FKATJL, in order to put out a mini-series event written by one of my least-favorite novelists that rapes and kills one of the most joycore characters in comics, who just happens to be the wife of Elongated Man, my bloody favorite character who can now never be as joycore again?

Goddammit.
 
 
LDones
20:24 / 15.07.04
It deeply saddens me that Rags Morales, who was so glorious and pitch-perfect on Tom Peyer's Hourman series those years back, will now be remembered as the guy who took the time to render the shreds around the crotch area of Sue Dibny's spandex bottoms.

Grr.
 
 
diz
16:56 / 22.07.04
so, blah blah blah, long story short, my local comics shop was giving away free day passes to Comic-Con if you bought $50.00 worth of trades, so i bought $50.00 worth of trades yesterday. i hadn't ever read any of the Giffen-era Justice League stories before, but ever since Identity Crisis has come out i've seen a lot of people raving about how good those stories and the more recent Formerly Known As The Justice League were. so, i grabbed a copy of Formerly Known As The Justice League yesterday, and i read it last night.

now i like Identity Crisis even less. what the fuck were they thinking? why in God's name is it necessary to do this kind of stuff to Sue Dibny, or, rather, if you want to have a big dark and gritty story you want to tell where a supporting character is raped and killed, what would make you think of that as a good vehicle for a Sue and Ralph Dibny story?

this like having an idea for a brutal, violent, hard-boiled crime drama set in the Star Wars galaxy and picking C-3PO and R2-D2 as your protagonists. having C-3PO tortured and destroyed and turning R2-D2 from spunky trashcan into a vengeance-crazed droid of death would not only not make either of them more interesting characters, it would destroy everything that makes those characters special. there are plenty of generic B-list superheroes with generic love interests you could whack - why waste the potential that Ralph and Sue have for other kinds of stories?

if DC wants to do a hard-edged story, why not use hard-edged characters, or characters who are not so well-defined at all?

this is so stupid it makes me angry.
 
 
gridley
17:57 / 22.07.04
I bet they just killed Sue just so that they could turn her into a ghost. They'll be solving mysteries together again in no time, still husband and wife, still bantering and happy (mostly), only she'll be a ghost.

As for the lobotomizing, I think it's pretty amusing. I do however remember being shocked five or six years ago when I read the old Doc Savage novels, because he would lobotomize most of his enemies after the adventures were over. Plus, he'd make speeches about how it was such a good thing he was doing for them. So, maybe Doc Savage prepared me for this.

And of course, since the JLA's lobotomizings were all done my magic, how much do you wanna bet they can all be magically undone?
 
 
diz
18:11 / 22.07.04
And of course, since the lobotomies were all done my magic, how much do you wanna bet they can all be magically undone?

that's kind of what i'm expecting. i'm expecting them all to be magically undone, and there will basically be this whole roster of newly dangerous villains with serious grudges to re-introduce to the DCU. plus, all the heroes will be torn and conflicted over whether the lobotomies should have been done in the first place, and possible public disapproval of the JLA, and more dead civilians, and so on and so forth.

which, in many senses, is a lot more world-changing in a real sense then a lot of big uber-crossovers ever end up being, so kudos to DC for that. i do like the bottom-up look at the DCU this is providing, it's mainly just the cheap shock tactics and poor character decisions that are bugging me.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
19:16 / 22.07.04
Yeah. More rape and murder. That's what the DCU needs. Here comes the fucking eighties.
 
 
diz
19:32 / 22.07.04
Yeah. More rape and murder. That's what the DCU needs. Here comes the fucking eighties.

i just meant that at least it's not some kind of "there's a flash of cosmic energy at the end, and a few people get new powers, and someone dies in a vague sort of way" kind of mega-crossover. it's a systematic change at a very low level, as opposed to a massive Hand of God change from above, which always gets undone anyway. it gets points for not being, say, Onslaught, or something, and for paying systematic attention to the lower echelons.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:40 / 22.07.04
I hear you, and as I haven't read the thing I'm guilty of blind bashing, but it just seems like a really sordid way of gaining notoriety. Yes there was a rape in Watchmen, but it was dealt with in a complex and, dare I say it, adult fashion. In this instance is it not simply to give the 'heroes' a reason to REALLY beat the shit out of the perpetrator?

Granted, it's a more novel 'event' than those appalling summer crossovers (Bloodlines! Ugh.) that DC are so fond of hoisting on people, but I'm not sure I want this sort of thing shoehorned into the DCU. And if the outcome is more sadistic, fucked up villains with hate agendas then... big fucking deal. I thought that sort of thing was 'intense' and 'adult' when I was a pre-pubescent.

On the plus side, Ralph & Sue as a modern day Randall & Hopkirk Deceased... BRING IT ON!

(After Dr Light's had his spine ripped out, obviously)
 
 
Uatu.is.watching
02:13 / 23.07.04
It's obvious to me what's going to happen. Sue Dibney's the new Spectre. Hal Jordan's gotta come back for his big relanch, and who better to be the spirit of vengence than Sue now that she's been defiled by Dr. Light and Brad Meltzer.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:57 / 23.07.04
as I haven't read the thing I'm guilty of blind bashing

I think there's an exception to every rule, so I don't think many people will hold it against you. Personally, having seen the cover to the first issue of this (those 'solemn' expressions!) I had thought than anyone who went ahead and bought it deserved all they got... But from reading this thread, it sounds like it's even worse than that. Wow.
 
 
Spaniel
11:15 / 23.07.04
DC just loves them adult themes.

Kingdon Come was really great. That Minotaur guy - the one with the claws and guns - he was radical. I bet he could rape with the best of them.
 
  

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