Comic Book Review – Identity Crisis

Writer: Brad Meltzer
Pencilers: Rags Morales
Cover Artist: Michael Turner
Publisher: DC Comics
Publication Date: October 2005
Format: Hardcover

Identity Crisis is a DC mini-series that love or hate is a legitimate benchmark on the DC timeline noting the company’s trends as the beginning of a shift in their line’s direction as a whole. While being far removed from my introduction to the DC Universe, as I had been a fan of several characters and runs at one time or another prior to reading it, it is the series that made me a fan of the DC Universe and ultimately is the series I credit for bringing me back to the hobby itself after more than a decade away. I was what I’d call a Marvel-fan boy and excluding scattered reads I’d extend that to not even thinking DC so much as fell off as much as me not ever being alive when it was ever ‘on’. One day, no longer a comic collector or reader, a chance encounter led a stranger to loan me this series in its collected trade paperback form and in a way that watching the first Superman movie introduced me to the concept of heroism, this story felt like my first encounter with characters and institutions I had known for years but hadn’t met yet. When reading the series it is your fan boy subconscious that is stimulated , as someone who had never read the Brave and the Bold, when Meltzer invokes the title in story you intuitively know it is significant, you know it is part of comic book lore that still tugs at you when there was never a previous tangible connection.

“But that’s why ice cream stores don’t just sell chocolate and vanilla. Every once in awhile, someone walks in and orders butter pecan.

She’s met everyone. Batman, Flash, Arthur, Hal – she’s seen Hawkman with the hairy chest thing going.

C’mon, she’s looked directly into Superman’s melt-your heart baby blues–”

And she STILL chose me”

Whodunit Love Story…

The seven issue miniseries is written by Brad Meltzer, a bestselling novelist, and Identity Crisis is in its most basic sense, a classic old-fashioned murder mystery; the targets seemingly the spouses and/or loved ones of the heroes themselves. The wife of the Ralph Dibney, the Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, herself a fixture in the DCU is murdered at her home as she sets up a surprise for her Husband – the first time she has ever been able to fool her husband for his birthday – her pregnancy. It is act that will rock the core of the DC Universe, and expose a rot in the legacy of the heroes that turns into a debate of the definition of a hero and the reality of it. It will tear it down and leave it as a hanging query to be answered every issue of ever title afterwards. Something to prove, something to live up to, a mantle earned daily, never to be taken for granted by those they serve and more importantly amongst themselves.

The Crimes…

The murder of Sue is the first crime revealed but not the first committed and with it answers to a question never asked – what readers accepted a leap of faith – dealing with how Heroes have been able to keep their and the identity of their families and loved ones a secret from villains possessing power or resources that would make one believe such information would be impossible to keep from. Amidst telepaths, time travelers, geniuses, magicians, demigods, and aliens among others, how are such secrets maintained? They burnt Prometheus. A group within The JLA had been in the practice of having Zatanna mind-wipe certain adversaries to protect themselves. It is one of these former victims who became the chief suspect, a villain we have come to know as being rather incompetent even with formidable powers, Dr. Light. We learn that Dr. Light previously infiltrated the Watchtower only to find Sue alone and they would remain so until he was caught mid-rape by the JLA. He is subdued and a decision is made that would become semi-policy – it’s always the hardest the first time – he would be brainwashed and made a shadow of his former self (the one we know). It would not be the worst of their deeds…

Batman returned, and mortal, just a man, he charges the rest of the league – Hawkman, Flash, Ralph, Zatanna, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Green Lantern, Atom and what would occur would then start the schism that would create the true Dark Knight and would tear the Justice League apart. This is Meltzer’s assault on our heroes, their home, the DC Universe as a whole but most importantly reader expectation.

The Trinity…

What Meltzer is able to capture is that truly iconic quality possessed by the trio that is known throughout the hobby as the Big Three. No matter what triumphs another company or even DC will have, no matter what the flavor of the month or even decade is, no other characters will assume the position of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman – The Trinity. They are the very foundation of the current superhero genre, not the first, not perhaps the best selling in a given Diamond report, but they are the benchmark for everything that occurs afterward either as facsimiles or reaction. They are at the same time classic and the standard, and even though a title like Wonder Woman has struggled to find a consistent audience or benefited from as successful a modern retelling like Batman or Superman, her in-comic presence is one that befits her permanent stature. To construct a story that could be viewed as a viable candidate for being described as the starting point of everything that would come after from DC and to tip toe the line of having the Big 3 in subsidiary roles but still loom large via how they interjected them in the storyline was a large part of what became policy. What we see is DC acknowledge the position of the three, they don’t refute or run away from it, and they separate by embracing it and having the other characters – pantheons themselves in any other company, like the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Green Arrow, the Atom, Robin, the Elongated Man, Zatanna, members of the mighty Justice League, the classic Justice Society, and Teen Titans acknowledge this without diminishing themselves. It offers a unique vantage of gods from the perspectives of heroes and validates an understood hierarchy as if the rest of the DC all broke the fourth wall for a moment and winked at us – we know.

The Essence…

Ultimately I have issues with the actual story, there is a hokiness to the ending, and while a showdown between the JLA and Deathstroke is the stuff of fan boy gushery, the scene ultimately feels cheapened because – simply stated – it’s rather stupid. Don’t get me wrong, Deathstroke is pimp, but he’s not Doomsday* – Flash and a Green Lantern? Isn’t this the guy that historically gets thwarted by the Teen Titans? I understand that this was supposed to be a vehicle to heighten the stakes by heightening the villains themselves, and I love the idea, but this particular transition was just a bit over board and it would succeed as a legacy much better than it does in-story. I’m definitely for the result, but how we got there felt a bit odd. If nothing else it served as the action scene that needs to be thrown in.

As noted above however Meltzer hits the moments with unbelievable precision, his understanding of not only these characters and where they have to go to be relevant and compelling beyond this series is dead on. You walk away from this series with the feeling you just found a new best friend, but you have known each other forever; he maximises moments, and makes them part of the permanent tapestry of storied characters. Meltzer brings intangibles that negates some of the negative tangibles of the story itself – he is the Mark Lemke squared – and is the writer that I credit to introducing me to DC and the characters that all others aspire to. His is a seven issue crash course, that has turned into a love affair, and the series fulfilled the promise that came with it when it was handed to me: If you don’t know Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman – you cannot claim you love comic books, as you don’t have the bible to validate preaching of any other scripture be it labeled Love and Rockets, Bone, Blankets, Maus, Eightball, or the Endless.

I’m not at all sure there is a finer example of universe start -off point for a new reader while still being a story that has impact to long-time fans. You may not love the Elongated man, but you will love, cry, smile, – you will feel Ralph Dibny.

Riches to Rags…

When a book goes beyond simply being successful it is because the writer and penciler create this synergy that transcends achievement in either facet and becomes a storytelling accomplishment. Modern examples include combo like Moore and Bolland, Gaiman and McKean, Moore and Totleben, Ellis and Cassady, Ennis and Dillon, Shooter and Lapham, Moore and Ha, Miller and Mazzucchelli, Moore and Gibbons, and Morales delivers his most powerful, meaningful work to date that dabbles in that company. His pencils make scenes like a meeting with the Spectre – the Green Lantern to prior generation – and Green Arrow into a heartfelt chat between old friends: Ollie and Hal that goes back to days of O’Neil and Adams. The way Wonder Woman was rendered in her brief appearance shows the proper majesty an encounter; the look of horror on Tim Drake as Bruce Wayne embraces him; the pure love emanating from Ralph when speaking about his wife…she saw him, the grief – twitch and all – of a husband. Rags Morales has put his stamp on a work that is unique in that it occurs in continuity and involves touches on so many. I’m not sure I’d describe Morales, – whose work in VALIANTS’s Turok I also admired – as an all-time penciler or one that will come to represent the cream of an era but he has under his belt a project that stands artistically as an achievement It’s a legitimate top shelf effort in my mind that’s a label people don’t like to give modern art – but they’d be lacking for not doing so. Art and story really were as one here, in a way it wasn’t in say another major storyline like Civil War where McNiven (minus a few instances in the final issue) really delivered first-rate work but Millar never exhibited the desire to write dialogue that would be appropriate for anyone but John Cena, and didn’t display his range as a writer.

Prefunctionary (Over) Reaction…

Originally this section of the review had about a page and half on some of the reaction this series. My final decision was to remove it as I’m trying to get away from reacting to reactions as honestly when I read the book the issues in question didn’t even occur to me. Call it being socially unaware, simple dimwittedness, whatever, I tend to view it as not practicing in actively looking for elements to be offended by. I think I’m known to be able to identify layers, and strands of storytelling (whether existing or not!) but I don’t read looking for blanks to fire. Personal reflection equals content, the best ammo for a review in my mind. There are some thoughts that some may find interesting regarding the rape of Sue Dibny and I suggest googling them to get that angle from others. They just weren’t part of my original experience and my reviews are about my sandbox not the playground. Back to a comic book…

I read the story as a fictional tragedy. The Dibny family – and thus the DC universe – became family and turned Doctor Light into public enemy number one, but we were conflicted. He didn’t respond to violation with violation – indeed it was the opposite. Our heroes did. There have been failures in scattered call backs to the series and some apparent continuity gaffs regarding background appearances and while it speaks on some amount of sloppiness it also speaks on the undertaking itself; no foundation is without its cracks originating from above and below and Identity Crisis is no different but it succeeds at being an evolution that occurs overnight; it’s arriving at the summit and finding an infinite staircase.

Godfall…

No, not the horrific, puerility-personified Superman story by Kelly and Caldwell, but speaking on the effects of the occurrences in Identity Crisis would effect the entire DC you and in a series that would come out later the fallout and ramifications of Identity Crisis are summed up rather aptly by the most unlikely of characters when in the series Villains United – Catman – tells a smug Green Arrow:

“You were all great once. You can be that way again…but you’d better hurry. Before the line between you and us gets too damn blurry to see”

What occurs at the top reverberates and is felt by everyone beneath. These are not just our heroes, they are the heroes of heroes, they are what villains or what the anti-hero couldn’t be but still – from somewhere – admire. The destruction of that truth…well, I have always said a good story is one that continues and lives past it’s pages.

The next day, my new friend – after giving him back his book – talked comics. The first time I had done so in my adult life.

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