Naturally, this discussion will necessitate the requisite SPOILER WARNING, so here we go.

Attention Attention. We are about to discuss plot details to one of DC’s biggest “event series” of the year. Undoubtedly most of you have already heard about this, but if you HAVEN’T READ IT YET, AND DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, DON’T COME CRYING TO ME. AFTER ALL, ONE OF YOU PUNKS SPOILED IT FOR ME, SO I’VE GOT NO COMPUNCTIONS ABOUT RETURNING THE FAVOR…

But I digress. Anyway, DC’s much-talked about miniseries IDENTITY CRISIS by comics writer/novelist Brad Meltzer and artist Rags Morales is a classic “whodunit,” focusing on the murder of a long-running supporting character, Sue Dibny, the wife of Justice League member Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man.

The Dibnys have been fixtures in the DC universe for years, first appearing in the pages of FLASH in the 1960s, and later making countless appearances in most of the Justice League-related series like JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE.

Before public identities were commonplace like today, Ralph was the first DC character to publicly reveal his identity, and Ralph and his rich socialite wife Sue gallivanted throughout the DCU when they weren’t on duty with the Justice League, solving mysteries as the lighthearted Nick and Nora Charles of superheroes (or HART TO HART, or MOONLIGHTING’s Dave and Maddie, depending on your age and frame of reference).

Aside from his stretching abilities (gained from drinking a rare fruit essence called Gingold), Ralph was best known as the most accomplished detective around, second only to Batman.

After their lengthy JLA run in the 1970s and early ‘80s, Ralph and Sue received their biggest exposure as members of JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE, in Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis’ comedy super-team stories of the ‘90s, which not only featured Ralph prominently but also elevated Sue’s status as well, making her an honorary team member and involving her in administrative and monitor duties. In recent years, Grant Morrison’s preference for Plastic Man over Elongated Man during his stint as JLA writer seemed to have caught on widely with DC creatives and editors, and Ralph and Sue faded into the background, save for an excellent appearance in the final story arc of James Robinson’s STARMAN.

Well, Ralph’s back in the spotlight now, and to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it. IDENTITY CRISIS is centered around the brutal murder of Sue by an unknown party, and the efforts of the remaining members of the 1970s-era JLA (Green Arrow, Black Canary, Hawkman, Zatanna, Atom and Ralph) to find the murderer. The murder is rendered even more heinous by the revelation that Sue was pregnant, and had planned on telling Ralph the good news the night she was killed.

The second issue of the series upped the emotional and dramatic ante even further, as the younger JLA members Wally “Flash” West and Kyle “Green Lantern” Rayner question their teammates about who they think they’re after. Via flashback, we learn that back in the day, before original JLAers Hal Jordan and Barry Allen had died, longtime JLA villain Dr. Light had somehow infiltrated the JLA satellite, and surprised Sue Dibny there alone, where she had just been looking at the stars. Before the JLA can arrive to intervene, Light brutally rapes Sue Dibny, in an on-panel depiction that’s one of the more unpleasant things I’ve ever seen DC publish.

The JLA shows up and puts Light down, but the now-raving Light threatens to go after the rest of their families as well, which spurs the League (minus Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and J’onn J’onzz, in case you were wondering) to ponder a more permanent solution: Hawkman proposes that the sorceress Zatanna mystically reorder his mind, making him forget the incident and rendering him less vicious and more docile in the process.

The League is split on the issue, with Green Arrow, Green Lantern and Black Canary voting against the move, and Hawkman, Zatanna and the Atom voting for it (Ralph was already gone, having taken Sue to the hospital). It’s left to Barry Allen to cast the deciding vote, and having just lost his own wife at the murderous hands of a supervillain, the Flash votes yes.

Back in the here and now, while the Justice League tracks down Dr. Light, whom they naturally assume killed Sue, they soon learn that Light has hired protection in the form of Deathstroke the Terminator, while JSA member Dr. Mid-Nite performs the autopsy on Sue, and the results don’t seem to point to Light as the culprit. And as of the last issue (#2 of 7 at this writing), that’s where we are so far.

This series raises a lot of issues for me, to be frank. First off, let’s discuss the appropriateness of the content itself. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t think all-ages characters are the proper venue for telling a story like this. Doesn’t mean you can’t tell an adult superhero story: WATCHMEN is one of the best and most lauded comic books ever created (which has a very similar and troubling rape scene, as a matter of fact). Books like POWERS, I think, do a fine job of using the superhero archetype with a more hard-boiled story. I have a problem using these established characters in such an adult context, particularly with no “mature readers” label on the book, nor anything in the cover art to indicate that it’s not a typical superhero story.

With so many of these characters currently appearing in JUSTICE LEAGUE on Cartoon Network, there’s nothing to prevent a parent or child from picking this up thinking it’s all-age-appropriate, and getting something of a shock. Don’t misunderstand: I don’t think the story is intrinsically exploitative or salacious. But would I have published it, were I in charge? No.

The series has gotten slammed by some for being misogynistic, focusing as it does in such detail on the rape and murder of Sue Dibny, which I don’t think is a fair or accurate charge at all. With the story Meltzer’s trying to tell, about the risks involved to the families of superheroes, by definition the characters threatened are going to be female, since the majority of DC’s popular characters are male. And while DC has deservedly gotten a bad rap for this in the past (with the murder of Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend and the crippling of Batgirl just two of the easiest examples to spring to mind), in this case, I’m inclined to see the fact that the victim is a woman as more of a necessary by-product of the kind of story he’s telling.

As for the story itself, here’s where I find myself conflicted: as much as I disagree with what’s being done, Meltzer is telling an excellent story, and his characterization is spot-on. You get a real sense that Meltzer knows and understands these characters and how they relate. If, like me, you find the actions of the Justice League members in their mindwiping of Dr. Light severely out of character, it’s hard to say that it’s due to strictly bad writing, since the characters sound the way they’re supposed to. And yet, when people in your life do things you don’t approve of, don’t you find their actions out of character as well? In an odd way, I find myself disappointed in them, which, as much as I would like to claim otherwise, is the mark of superior writing. The art by Rags Morales is also excellent, often conveying through facial expression and posture the conflicted moral stances of the characters – not the easiest thing to achieve in panel-to-panel storytelling.

In a clever move by Meltzer, the characters that most people would consider the moral centers of the JLA, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and J’onn J’onzz, are noticeably absent from the Dr. Light incident and the decision to mentally neuter him, and the fact that they’ve been keeping it a secret from the Big Four for all these years makes it a bit easier to swallow a revelation of this magnitude.

The biggest problem I have with the story is that, dramatically, it’s still something of a cheat. The reason the murder of Sue Dibny is so shocking is because of the emotional investment that longtime readers like myself have in the character, thanks to the fine work of others, and to first cash in on that for shock value by brutally murdering her, and then to taint the older appearances by inserting this horribly degrading assault years into her backstory, making it hard to re-read those appearances without recontextualizing them through the prism of this brutalization, seems to me at best a cheap and lazy manner in which to generate an emotional response in the reader, and at worst an outright slap in the face to all of those writers and artists who came before you. Without cashing in on the readers’ investment in Sue Dibny, it’s hard to say that the story would have any impact at all. As the late great Mark Gruenwald said, “Every character is somebody’s favorite.” You shouldn’t kill them off lightly, or worse, ruin their old appearances in retrospect.

Still, even though I disagree with the decision, I have to admit that the story is gripping and well-told, and at least DC isn’t reveling in the murder and torture of its characters the way Marvel is nowadays, with the gleeful stripmining of the proud, four-decade-spanning Avengers heritage (complete with a ghoulish “check-‘em-off-as-they-die” chart at the Marvel Web site – no thanks, Marvel, I don’t need to pay that close attention as you disembowel my childhood), all so they can replace the team with a slapped-together mishmash of top-selling Marvel characters that have little to do with the Avengers concept. Feh.

Am I terribly upset by this decision? Not really. It’s still just comics. Any decent writer could bring Sue back to life in about a page and a half, and at DC especially, death is never too permanent. Just ask Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Hawkman and plenty of other DC superheroes. Besides, everything always comes around again. The reason you don’t hear me being even more vitriolic about what’s happening in AVENGERS is that I remember the last time the team was “Disassembled,” with the Mansion blown up, traitors revealed, members killed, blah blah blah. Within a couple years, it had all been wiped away again and Kurt Busiek and George Perez came in to tell some of the best AVENGERS stories of the past 20 years. So do your worst, Bendis. I can wait you out. I’ve done it before.

I guess what it comes down to for me is this: before IDENTITY CRISIS, there was at least one happily married superhero in the DC Universe involved with an intelligent, competent woman. Now there isn’t, and I have my doubts that whatever comes out of the series when all is said and done is going to provide vastly better storytelling potential than that.

However, in deference to the first-rate storytelling of Messrs. Meltzer and Morales, I will definitely be sticking around to find out.

By the way, my money says Firestorm is the killer. No inside info here, just a gut feeling. Who could have let Dr. Light into the JLA satellite? He was the only other active member at the time unaccounted for. Who else has the molecular powers necessary to alter Sue Dibny’s corpse to make it look Dr. Light did it? I don’t like where this is heading…If you disagree with my theory, or just have other IDENTITY CRISIS questions or gripes, send them tostipton99x@moviepoopshoot.com.

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