Originally Posted by
lefthanded
Heroes in Crisis is not a good story on its own merits. The followup redemption arcs only takes some of the sting away (from tarnishing a hero), but doesn't make the HiC story better at all.
For example, if HiC used Lagoon Boy instead of Wally as the cause, and then over the next years had stories that redeemed Lagoon Boy, it doesn't make the HiC story land any better. Sure, there would be less outrage over making Lagoon Boy a villain so Lagoon-HiC would be less controversial, but the story still is a mess. Personally, I don't care that Harley beat Batman at something or that they 'ruined Wally', but when you combine a mess of a story with making characters people like look bad, you're asking for universal disgust.
A comparable storyline I think of is Identity Crisis.
1. Both IC and HiC have the inciting murder(s), that our heroes set out to solve.
2. They have their prime suspects (Harley and Booster in HiC, Doctor Light in IC) to track down while other characters work on investigating
3. The underlying element is a previously unknown history of our superheroes (Sanctuary/mental health in HiC, and mindwipes in IC)
4. The twists comes when it is revealed that the suspect is not a villain but a superhero (well, superhero's wife in IC, and Wally in HiC).
5. Both did the mistake based on mental health (insanity with Jean, and grief with Wally) and attempted to cover it up.
Where IC is successful, is that the Mindwipe storyline is just a red herring, and so does not need to hold up to close scrutiny within the confines of this specific story.
In contrast, HiC has the mental health be integral to the story (it is the cause of Wally's mistakes, and the threat of public exposure of Sanctuary is *important*), and yet barely develops it. As such, it doesn't hold up at all to the scrutiny it deserves as an integral plot element.
Putting aside the kneejerk 'character assassination' response (Wally, Zatanna mindwiping villains, Jean), Jean's actions seem reactionary while Wally's actions seem incoherent yet calculated. When you add on the fact that time-travel is an important part of the cover-up, everything that Wally did seems less understandable from a character perspective. His plan seems to be to frame innocent people, reflex to a murder-suicide, and expose the existence of Sanctuary to the public. Exposing Sanctuary to Lois doesn't seem to do anything to help with fixing the mistake or helping the cover-up. What you end up with is a twist that doesn't make the preceding issues read better.