Supergirl: Power
Originally published as single issues in Superman/Batman #19 and Supergirl #1-5
ISBN 1-4012-0915-7, $14.99

 

Identity Crisis

Originally published as Identity Crisis #1 to 7

DC Comics, 2004-2005
ISBN 1-4012-0458-9, $14.99

 

It is cliché to look at a book and say that this is the one that changed everything, but for me, Identity Crisis is the one that changed how I look at the DC Universe forever and now, while that universe is in the midst of another “Crisis” that is supposedly the final one, I couldn’t help but pick up this book again to reconnect with it. The story of the current “Crisis” may have its origins in the “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, but its core, its soul was born right here.

 

One of the most profound changes is that it brought sadness to the DCU in many ways. Sue Dibny was not the first comic character to die, by any stretch of the imagination. Heck heroes had been dropping like flies in the DCU for years now. Nor was she even the first supporting female character to die violently and senselessly. It had been happening so frequently that is was being called the Women in Refrigerators syndrome. But the true genius of Brad Meltzer and what makes him a bastard is that he took someone we knew, someone with history, connections and ties to nearly everyone, a character who most recently had been fully entrenched in the “Bwa-Ha-Ha” era of the League, and someone who we thought was “safe” and not only killed her but made her the victim of the most heinous act other than death that one person can inflict on another. It was such a turn around that it felt like a physical blow was struck on me as a reader. Never before had a death of a fictional character really touched me. Because there was always an out. There was no coming back from this. Now I can’t look at the funny Sue moments without reflecting on these moments as well. I hate to say that the other deaths in the book were superfluous but they too lacked the impact of her murder.  Sue and Ralph were a couple, more so than Lois and Clark because at the end of the day, Clark is still Superman and will fly off alone to fight the fight. Ralph without Sue, the Nora Charles to his Nick, and the Ms. Peel to his John Steed is just secondhand Plastic Man without all the surrealism. Meltzer brought the crashing thud of reality into their lives. Not the reality that so often is claimed to be injected into comics but the dirty reality that is outside my door and on my evening news. From the standpoint of a reader, he killed my escapism, the unreality that comics allowed me to get lost in. Now it was real for me.

 

On a grander scale, even the past was not as safe as I was led to believe. My heroes were not as shiny. I will go on record as saying that, after what he did to Sue; Dr. Light deserved everything that happened to him. But in retrospect, it might have been better if Carter had put his mace through Light’s head. I am a fond scholar of the early days of the Justice League and have read every issue of the fabled “Satellite Era” but Identity Crisis now has me looking back at those issues and wondering why issues that seem so clear now in the light of history seemed to be completely forgotten back in the day. Harsh reality again assaulting my escapism and making me wonder why we so blithely accepted things like the Injustice Society just forgetting the identities of the League or why Felix Faust never seemed to capitalize on the obvious advantage he had with his magic or why every near death caper seemed to end with the laughing stop screen shot a la an episode of CHiPs. Where James Robinson makes the past more grand, more full and more sparkling. Brad Meltzer makes it more personal, more sad and more real.

 

The visuals of Rags Morales also have a chilling affect on the reader because of the personality he gives the characters. His Superman is the built like a wall, so thick that he seems to support the buildings he is standing in, Ollie looks weary in every shoot, even when he is fighting or laughing with how dated Hal’s bomber jacket looks, you can see the weight of being the League’s conscience, the one who always tells it like it is, is etched out on his face. Everyone’s face is so expressive in this book. Ralph appears to be actually melting at times with grief, Bruce’s emotions show even without benefit of eyes and everyone looks “real” even when engaged in acts that defy their own reality. There is one visual from all of them that has stuck with me from the first time I saw it and will define the character no matter what happens to him in the future: the image of the distraught Atom shrinking away to nothing was as striking an image as I have seen in decades of reading comics. The shattered picture of the “Satellite League” has become one of the icons of this story and works well as an intellectual touch point, but the sheer emotion of the Atom image is the final emotional jolt to the reader that is only slightly softened by the final image of Ralph “talking to” Sue, although that to makes me sad as a married man more than as a comics fan.

 

52, Countdown, Infinite Crisis and now Final Crisis have all seen many of these characters change, leave, return, and/or die but they all have failed to do one thing that Identity Crisis did so well, it made the reader care, not in the “cool fight” or “how are they going to get out of this one?” way, but it took characters that we thought we knew so well and changed them in such a way that they looked the same as the characters we knew but they could now challenge us and shock us and touch us in ways that we did not think possible.  

 

 

 

John Wilson - After slaving away in retail for a decade or so, John Wilson has taken his life long love for comics and how they are made and has pursued two distinctly different avenues: one as a high school art teacher, always on the lookout to cultivate the next great comic artist and the other, as a creator himself, currently concentrating on his writing, although he still is willing to pick up a crowquill (or mouse) in times of need. John is one of the moderators on the Art Unleashed forum for Sketch Magazine and Blue Line Pro. As for Comics Related, John is explains that he's just really excited to be part of the team.