Is Identity Crisis worth Buying?

[Jackalope89]

I trudged through it. I can why people hate it, and why others like it. In short, its about a great betrayal amongst the heroes, and ends one of Batman's longest friendships in the pre-Flashpoint continuity. It does give some credence to a different arc, in some aspects at least. But, personally, I didn't like it enough to recommend. Some parts I liked, others I really wanted nothing to do with.

[BatmanJones]

People are very divided on this series. Personally, it is my all-time favorite Justice League story. Others feel like it was the worst. All opinions are valid of course but I would suggest that you find out for yourself. You're likely to really hate it or really love it. That's a bet worth taking every time, IMO. It's neither a universally beloved or universally hated series; it inspired both responses from different people.

A lot of great art (and a lot of terrible art) is controversial in this way. I think the only way to know is to read it for yourself. It's pretty inexpensive, especially with all the sales these days.

I'd be curious to know your opinion if you do read it.

[BatmanJones]

If you really like Ralph & Sue Dibny . . . you might be better off avoiding it like the plague.

If you like rapes; murdered pregnant women; and adding more dead parents for superheroes, then go for it.

Ralph and Sue are among my top 5 DC characters of all time and I loved it more than any other Ralph/Sue story because I found it so heartbreaking. Not looking to argue though. Just pointing out that at least one mega-fan of both characters found it to be a brilliant and brutal series that treated Ralph and Sue with the utmost sensitivity. After all, it wasn't Meltzer that raped Sue. A supervillain did that. I understand that that's too much for some people and I understand why some hate it and I don't argue with them. I just point out that there are also people that really loved it not in spite of but because they love the characters. Because I'm one of them. It's the one book I use to turn non-comic book readers onto superhero comics and so far it's worked every time.

Just different strokes for different folks. I understand though why some were so upset by it.

My experience of life is such that I feel less alone when I experience art (songs, visual art, theatre, film, comics, whatever) that is about the brutality of the human condition. That's real to me and I appreciate stories that confront it.

That the events depicted in the story were so horrid only served to make me feel the story that much harder. I thought the picture of Ralph at the funeral (you know the one) was as empathetic a portrait of any superhero ever. It's just a difference in taste and in point of view. Both takes are valid takes and an enormous number of people hated this book but an enormous number loved it too.

It's like the Snyder DC movies that way but like times a thousand.

[BatmanJones]

I'll go against the grain here, because I loved that story. And I know several people who became comic fans because of it, for what that's worth.

It's not a Crisis in your typical "the whole of reality is ending!" sort of way. Its a murder mystery that plays around with a lot of C-list characters that everyone had stopped caring about....right up until this story brought them back. It's a personal story about loss and desperation and how those things affect the individual and their community. It's not about a big bad villain trying to eat the world.

Easiest way I can think to sum it up is; this is as close to Game of Thrones as DC has ever gotten. As far as character dynamics are concerned, I mean. No one is fighting over a throne here.

Meltzer toys around with the innate silliness of the Silver Age, and puts some of those ridiculous elements into a modern context with some pretty twisted stuff. If you have a great amount of nostalgia for the Silver Age, you'll hate seeing certain events in this new light. If you're open to more layers being unveiled, you may enjoy it. But just to forewarn you; it does not treat all the heroes like flawless paragons of righteousness; in fact some of the things you'll see are quite cruel and unusual. But in a lot of ways, all it's doing is looking at hairline cracks that were always there, and pulling them open to find out why they existed in the first place.

And of course, some of the characters don't make it out intact. Some of them don't make it out at all, and several leave with some pretty horrible scars, both literally and figuratively. You'll walk away from the story feeling a little queasy and violated.....and that's the point. That's the emotional gut punch reaction you're meant to have. Some will say it's not a story that should have been told. I respectfully disagree, and it made me far more interested in certain characters than I had ever been beforehand.

If you like murder mysteries where the line between good and evil is blurred, where good people do bad things for both good and for selfish reasons, and evil people are sometimes the victims, you'll enjoy Identity Crisis. If you prefer your superheroes with a more binary, clean-cut morality where heroes always act heroically and villains are always in the wrong, or you cannot stand to see Silver Age characters make major mistakes that'll come back to haunt them and their loved ones, it's best if you ignore it.

There's also a few things in the writing that're just plain questionable (a thing with Deathstroke chief among them) but I don't think those are any worse than what you see in any comic.

Couldn't agree more and couldn't have put it so eloquently. Thank you for speaking for me. I agree with this post down to the letter. If this were Facebook I would have hearted it.

You gave the best, most thoughtful answer to OP's question that a fan of the book could have given. Thanks for it.

[MajorHoy]

After all, it wasn't Meltzer that raped Sue. A supervillain did that.

That's a lame excuse, though.
I don't buy the "it wasn't Meltzer that raped Sue" because even though Meltzer didn't physically enter the comic book world to commit the actual rape himself, he was the one who wrote that rape into the story. It's not like Dr. Light has a mind of his own and can perform actions in a comic book story all by himself without writers, artists, and editors deciding what will and won't happen!
I'm not aware of anybody arguing that it wasn't Meltzer's idea/decision to add the rape to the story, so as far as I'm concerned, Meltzer gets the blame for having it happen as part of the story he wrote.

[Barbatos666]

Unfortunately I cant even defend it as a murder mystery. It utterly fails at that. So when you have a story that flunks at its basic premise and has no idea what its core message should be then violence like rape or murder just come across as being there for shock factor.

[failo.legendkiller]

I've read it 10 yeras later cause i was in a comics pause at that time, and my opinion is underwhelm about it.
I probably would have hated it if I had read it when it came out because of how badly it affected the lives of some of my loved ones.
In any case, it has been a focal point for the development of many future stories of the DC universe and certainly deserves to be read and judged.

[BatmanJones]

That's a lame excuse, though.
I don't buy the "it wasn't Meltzer that raped Sue" because even though Meltzer didn't physically enter the comic book world to commit the actual rape himself, he was the one who wrote that rape into the story. It's not like Dr. Light has a mind of his own and can perform actions in a comic book story all by himself without writers, artists, and editors deciding what will and won't happen!
I'm not aware of anybody arguing that it wasn't Meltzer's idea/decision to add the rape to the story, so as far as I'm concerned, Meltzer gets the blame for having it happen as part of the story he wrote.

I figured that went without saying but your post sort of illustrates what I was trying but failed to say. My point was that Meltzer wrote a super villain committing a horrific act and some folks seem to take it so personally that it was as if the writer literally raped the character by writing the rape. If we were talking movies, novels, TV, a play, this wouldn't be so taboo. In those media violent crime is all violent crime and we aren't spared from rape. The difference is that in comics where characters are murdered and tortured and maimed, rape remained off the table. So it was shocking. And I get why it was so hurtful to so many people.

It's rare that fans attribute the acts of their characters to the writers in such a personal way. (As in Meltzer raped Sue.) But in this case they really did. I'm used to horrible violence in comics. For some rape is a step too far. But if these criminals are the worst of the worst, it seems natural to me that one of them, given the opportunity would commit that horrible crime.

Another part of me being partial to the story though is that I'm partial to the Satellite JLA stories being retconned to reveal some secret underneath. In the 80s I remember it happening in JLA with Black Canary and with Red Tornado and I loved the way they fleshed out older stories and made them more sophisticated simply by having more modern writers. As a JLA fanboy (deeply dedicated to the first 15 members) I loved seeing that old story revisited and being shown the "secrets behind it." Again, I got to learn more about a story I'd loved as a kid but was able to love it as an adult because it was by a more modern writer, writing for an older audience. And as a Ralph and Sue fan, they never got a lot of love outside of JLE and I always wished Elongated Man would be at the center of a major arc.

And I actually thought the Arthur Light retcon explained a lot since he'd gone from being a mastermind that stood tall against the JLA to a punching bag for the Teen Titans. So it was Marv Wolfman that wrote Dr. Light out of character in order to have more fun with him. But Meltzer took that continuity gap and explained it with what I thought was a very smart "something you never knew about this classic story" retcon, a la Reddy's retcon. And that part of what Meltzer did, giving reason for the change in character -- that he'd been essentially lobotomized -- I thought was really clever. And super fun for an old-time fan. I don't mean that the rape was fun. The rape was disturbing as it was intended the be. I meant that the explanation of the mega-shift in Dr. Light's abilities and intelligence had been unexplained and I found this a very imaginative and fulfilling explanation of it.

And since I wasn't put off by it in the ways you were (which I can still find completely understandable) I was able to feel for both Ralph and Sue in ways I'd never been able before because no writer had given them such attention or such tragedy. It made Elongated Man not just a personal favorite but a major character at the same time and I loved that.

And I have no doubt whatever that Meltzer is a huge DC fan going back to childhood like so many of us and was writing his dream JLA story after becoming successful as a NYT best selling mystery novelist. In other words, he didn't need the money or attention. A novelist is almost slumming it to write comics unless she/he/they are great lovers of the characters and doing it for that reason. And we all know Meltzer was a very devoted fan (for those that weren't into ID Crisis, might I suggest his JLA #0? Perhaps my second favorite JLA book ever and not at all dark). So I think that the stuff he did that upset so many fans... I don't think he was trying to do that. I think he was trying to do the opposite, to write a love letter to the characters. On TV a character being raped would be a major development but not an unthinkable thing like it has been in comics. In novels having a beloved character experience rape is not equal to character assassination. So I really think he was trying to write a love letter to JLA and particularly to Ralph and Sue.

But as I always say, the only opinion one can really have is their own and that's the only opinion they probably ever should have. I'm not trying to change your mind or be disagreeable. Just sharing a different point of view.

[Agent Z]

I figured that went without saying but your post sort of illustrates what I was trying but failed to say. My point was that Meltzer wrote a super villain committing a horrific act and some folks seem to take it so personally that it was as if the writer literally raped the character by writing the rape. If we were talking movies, novels, TV, a play, this wouldn't be so taboo. In those media violent crime is all violent crime and we aren't spared from rape. The difference is that in comics where characters are murdered and tortured and maimed, rape remained off the table. So it was shocking. And I get why it was so hurtful to so many people.

It's rare that fans attribute the acts of their characters to the writers in such a personal way. (As in Meltzer raped Sue.) But in this case they really did. I'm used to horrible violence in comics. For some rape is a step too far. But if these criminals are the worst of the worst, it seems natural to me that one of them, given the opportunity would commit that horrible crime.

Another part of me being partial to the story though is that I'm partial to the Satellite JLA stories being retconned to reveal some secret underneath. In the 80s I remember it happening in JLA with Black Canary and with Red Tornado and I loved the way they fleshed out older stories and made them more sophisticated simply by having more modern writers. As a JLA fanboy (deeply dedicated to the first 15 members) I loved seeing that old story revisited and being shown the "secrets behind it." Again, I got to learn more about a story I'd loved as a kid but was able to love it as an adult because it was by a more modern writer, writing for an older audience. And as a Ralph and Sue fan, they never got a lot of love outside of JLE and I always wished Elongated Man would be at the center of a major arc.

And I actually thought the Arthur Light retcon explained a lot since he'd gone from being a mastermind that stood tall against the JLA to a punching bag for the Teen Titans. So it was Marv Wolfman that wrote Dr. Light out of character in order to have more fun with him. But Meltzer took that continuity gap and explained it with what I thought was a very smart "something you never knew about this classic story" retcon, a la Reddy's retcon. And that part of what Meltzer did, giving reason for the change in character -- that he'd been essentially lobotomized -- I thought was really clever. And super fun for an old-time fan. I don't mean that the rape was fun. The rape was disturbing as it was intended the be. I meant that the explanation of the mega-shift in Dr. Light's abilities and intelligence had been unexplained and I found this a very imaginative and fulfilling explanation of it.

And since I wasn't put off by it in the ways you were (which I can still find completely understandable) I was able to feel for both Ralph and Sue in ways I'd never been able before because no writer had given them such attention or such tragedy. It made Elongated Man not just a personal favorite but a major character at the same time and I loved that.

And I have no doubt whatever that Meltzer is a huge DC fan going back to childhood like so many of us and was writing his dream JLA story after becoming successful as a NYT best selling mystery novelist. In other words, he didn't need the money or attention. A novelist is almost slumming it to write comics unless she/he/they are great lovers of the characters and doing it for that reason. And we all know Meltzer was a very devoted fan (for those that weren't into ID Crisis, might I suggest his JLA #0? Perhaps my second favorite JLA book ever and not at all dark). So I think that the stuff he did that upset so many fans... I don't think he was trying to do that. I think he was trying to do the opposite, to write a love letter to the characters. On TV a character being raped would be a major development but not an unthinkable thing like it has been in comics. In novels having a beloved character experience rape is not equal to character assassination. So I really think he was trying to write a love letter to JLA and particularly to Ralph and Sue.

But as I always say, the only opinion one can really have is their own and that's the only opinion they probably ever should have. I'm not trying to change your mind or be disagreeable. Just sharing a different point of view.

Light wasn't originally a rapist or the worst of the worst. He was a fairly competent villain who was treated somewhat humorously but that was it. He wasn't anymore of a punching bag as a Titans villain. Hell the flashback in Identity Crisis doesn't portray him as a mastermind either. He breaks into the Watchtower somehow and can't do anything smarter than rape a decenseless woman? He doesn't try to steal any valuable technology or sabotage the satellite? Hell, in Titans he defeated Starfire and kidnapped Vic's father. In a fight with Kyle Rayner, he took control of one of Kyle's constructs. What about this sounds like a moron who's brain has been reduced to fried oatmeal?

That the retcon ended up being completely inconsequential to the story just made it worse.

I also don't know where this "Brad Meltzer raped Sue" stuff is coming from. No one has ever said that. No one is accusing the guy of actual rape.

[Shadowedeyes]

I think I agree with Agent Z on this. The rape was already going to be a touchy subject even in the best of circumstances. But it ended up simply being the catalyst for a red herring for a mystery that wasn't really all that great, and as a catalyst to give the League drama issues. As such, it comes off as shock value stuff, which really kinda devalues the whole thing.

As much as I tore apart Identity Crisis earlier in the thread, I will say that it gave a strong focus to Elongated Man that he hadn't had in awhile, and the follow up in 52 I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Sadly, they didn't really follow up on the ghost detective premise ending of that storyline.

But even if it gave Ralph some attention, I can't say anything about it was good for Sue's character.

[hyped78]

I have just finished reading Identity Crisis. I am a longtime Marvel comics fan that decided to read a DC story for the first time. As such I do not know the background, old stories, some of the characters etc.
That having been said, I loved the story. Yes, it is disturbing, polarizing, perhaps a bit over the top... but I think it is awesome, I liked the mysteries, the twists, the darkness.

[Denirac]

I have just finished reading Identity Crisis. I am a longtime Marvel comics fan that decided to read a DC story for the first time. As such I do not know the background, old stories, some of the characters etc.
That having been said, I loved the story. Yes, it is disturbing, polarizing, perhaps a bit over the top... but I think it is awesome, I liked the mysteries, the twists, the darkness.

I've always been a DC fan and after reading this Thread I did get it but never really posted my thoughts on it.

I didnt like it but didnt despise it- I always liked Ralph and Sue, I didnt like the direction it took them and it made me kinda dislike Green Arrow.... But that might be the Hat. I hated many things in it however in general I was whelmed it existed thats as nice as I can be about the story.

However if you liked it I'd suggest reading Countdown to Infinite Crisis, Infinite Crisis and 52, all of which deal with the aftermath of this Story (Mainly with Batman's brain and Ralph Dibny)

[hyped78]

Thanks for the tip. I have just opened a thread on that:
http://community.comicbookresources....volumes-to-buy

[yohyoi]

I'm always amazed how the west, particularly the US, view murder and sex. Who cares if we kill maim, disfigure, torture, etc. the person. It's fine. But when it comes to rape, it's going toooo far. Both are horrendous acts. Being desensitized to violence is not something to be proud of.

[BatmanJones]

I have just finished reading Identity Crisis. I am a longtime Marvel comics fan that decided to read a DC story for the first time. As such I do not know the background, old stories, some of the characters etc.
That having been said, I loved the story. Yes, it is disturbing, polarizing, perhaps a bit over the top... but I think it is awesome, I liked the mysteries, the twists, the darkness.

Glad to hear it. I understand (I think) why some people hate it but I couldn't love it more than I do. I've re-read it more than any other comic series I think. Always great to hear from a new fan of the series.