Wall Banger/Comic Books/Identity Crisis: Difference between revisions

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Ah, ''[[Identity Crisis]]''! Such a [[Love It or Hate It]] mini-series. Those that love it think it's one of the greatest comic book stories of all time, while those of us who hate it find so much in it to [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|bang our heads at the wall over]] that it's "earned" its own full page here:

* The voting for the mindwipe was massive [[Character Derailment]] for everyone involved, especially for Green Arrow, given that one of his defining character traits was his hardcore libertarian/liberal ideals as regards the rights of the individual. For that matter, it would have been more in-character for Hawkman to solve the 'What if Dr. Light comes back after our families?' problem by simply smashing his head in than it was for him to vote for double mindwipe. Not to mention that many fans were confused about Batman's attempted intervention of the mindwipe, with people thinking he was objecting to the actual mindwipe as opposed to him trying to stop the personality change (which would be more in character, but it isn't really clear, dammit Meltzer...).

* The scene where Deathstroke supposedly defeats an entire Justice League lineup singlehandedsingle-handed, in a fight sequence that could have been designed to showcase the common pitfalls of [[Popularity Power]]. Superpowers suddenly failing to work consistently for no reason? (The Atom can and often does retain full mass when he shrinks, especially when he's going for a charging attack). Sudden outbreaks of [[Faux Action Girl]]? (Black Canary having a bag stuffed over her head after having stood still, doing absolutely nothing, for a span of time sufficient for Deathstroke beating up half the team before even getting around to her. Let us recall that Dinah has the reaction time of one of the top six martial artists in the world, and can at least temporarily incapacitate Deathstroke simply by opening her mouth and screaming.) Inexplicable outbreaks of [[Plot Induced Stupidity]]? Green Lantern, wearing one of the most powerful ranged weapons in the universe, instead chose to go hand-to-hand against one of the DCU's finest melee combatants?

** Dinah is unable to use her scream because of a bag on her head (she's plowed through steel with that birdcallbird call, but burlap is too much), and Kyle being taken down because Slade grabbed his arm and put it in a kind of lock. (Note that it takes truly epic overuse of the [[Idiot Ball]] for Kyle to ''go within reach of Deathstroke at all'', seeing as how Deathstroke is one of the DCU's ''melee'' combatants, and Green Lantern is a flying energy blaster!)

** Let's not forget what happened to the Flash. One of two things happened in that fight: either Deathstroke was able to swing a sword around faster than the Flash could react (which would require his hands to be moving at FTL velocities), or else Wally ran his chest directly onto the point of what to him would be a stationary object. Neither of these possibilities makes the remotest bit of sense. And before someone reminds us that Deathstroke tripped Wally while he was running during the Teen Titans era, two points: one, Wally was notably slower then, and two, it didn't make any damn sense back then either.

* Jean's somehow knowing Tim Drake's secret identity, when that was information more closely held than Batman's own secret ID. Tim didn't even tell Oracle who he was until several years after his career started. Tim has chosen to let romantic relationships and even his Young Justice membership entirely collapse rather than violate secret ID security. Steph had to find out who Robin was from Batman, not him, and Tim was so incensed over that breach of security that he temporarily quit working for Batman! The point is, Tim Drake is the only person in the DCU whose own secret identity paranoia makes Bruce Wayne look open and trusting, so ''how in the name of Rao did Jean Loring ever find out?''

** Both Tim Drake and his ID paranoia are products of a bygone age that unofficially ended with Identity Crisis. In the [[Silver Age]], it seemed like just about every good guy in a costume seemed to know that Bruce Wayne is Batman and Clark Kent is Superman, but after ''[[Crisis Onon Infinite Earths]]'', DC made [[Ret ConsRetcon]]s that drastically scaled back the number of heroes who knew their IDs. Now, just like most people in the DC Universe, most superheroes didn't know who they really were. When a superhero did learn either of their IDs (whether because like Tim Drake, they figured it out, or because either Bats or Supes told them) it was always a semi-major event during that period. Identity Crisis was the first story since COIE to restore the Silver Age status quo of most superheroes knowing Bats & Supes' IDs. This was more or less revealed in the first issue of IdC when Oliver Queen, who had never been part of the "entrusted few" after COIE, kept casually referring to Superman and Batman as Clark and Bruce. Of course, since Tim Drake came on the scene long after Ray and Jean divorced, and since until IdC, he was not an orphan living with Bruce, this revision still doesn't explain how Jean knew Tim Drake was Robin. Even knowing Bruce is Batman wouldn't make it a foregone conclusion that Tim is the current Robin. To say nothing of the fact that IdC, the first story since COIE to do away with the notion that most superheroes don't know Bats & Supes' IDs, illustrated all too painfully well just why ''that post-Crisis revision was such a bloody good idea!''

*** The fact that this story made that revision seem like a good idea is in itself horrible in that, Pre Crisis, the League was much like a police agency where the heroes got along well. In an Alan Moore penned story for Swamp Thing that featured the League, they referred to each other by name, making them seem more (ironically as it sounds) human and friendlier to each other (always referring each other as their hero names always seems like a weird idea, especially if they were supposed to have worked together for years).

* Jean's motive for the whole plot to begin with. Jean & Ray split up the last time because she wanted to leave, and Ray didn't want her to go. The only thing she'd have needed to do to rekindle their relationship was go back and ask him for a date.

** To say nothing of how ludicrous Jean's claim was that she'd not intended to kill Sue, but lugged along a flamethrower anyway.

* The rape. Just...the rape. There are actually several mutually reinforcing reasons just why the rape was such a deeply polarizing event for many readers, particularly older ones.

** It's, well, a rape. [[Squick]], [[Nightmare Fuel]], etc.

** It's a brutal, graphically depicted rape, leaving very little to the imagination.

** It was inflicted on Sue Dibny of all people, who, as one half of the most [[Happily Married]] couple of the DC Universe, ha always been one of the DCU's [[Lighter and Softer]], [[Fun Personified]] characters.

** [[Rape Asas Backstory|The rape was a flashback to many years earlier during the Satellite era of the Justice League,]] roughly halfway through Sue's career in comics. The problem is, though, that Sue turned up in ''plenty'' of comics since then, without any hint of having suffered such a severe, life-changing trauma as a rape. If anything, she'd actually been more prominent during this second half of her career than she'd been in her first, as a regular supporting character in the short-lived Detroit version of the League, the longer lasting Justice League Europe, and in James Robinson's Starman series. In all three series (and in every other post-Satellite League comic she'd been in, including IdC # 1), she kept right on being a friendly, cheerful, happy, [[Lighter and Softer]], [[Fun Personified]] character. In the JLE, she even worked alongside a teammate, the second Dr. Light, who had the same code name as her rapist without batting an eyelash. (The theory that the Satellite League erased her memory of the rape is, as far as this troper can tell, a Fanon explanation, which still doesn't explain why the League didn't also erase Ralph's memory of it.)

** The flashback was shown after she'd already been killed off, making it painfully clear that Meltzer had no interest in exploring how this rape had affected her, or how she managed to cope with such a horrific event.

** In the end, the rape turned out to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with her murder. For all the controversy and [[No Such Thing Asas Bad Publicity|shameless hype]] the rape aroused, it turned out to have about as much importance to the rest of the mini-series as a [[Big LippedNon AlligatorSequitur MomentScene]], including the fact that it was never mentioned again after issue # 2 (the issue in which it was shown).

* The retool of Dr. Light. Making him [[Took a Level Inin Badass|re-Take A Level In Badass]] who could fight the entire Teen Titans roster was fine, but DC managed to make him more of a joke than he already was. Nearly every single appearance of him since Identity Crisis has him mention rape in every sentence he says. Wanting to point out the Justice League mindwiped him? "They raped my mind!" Wanting to point out how good power is? "It's like rape!" Dr. Light has become such a joke in this manner, Plastic Man even mentioned, "It's like his superpower now." It's gotten to a point where he could just be named Dr. Rape or Rapeman or Rape Ape.

* Elongated Man, Batman and numerous other detectives are involved in this story, yet none of the detective work proceeds as a real case would. As we see, anyone can set a fire with a few simple tools or weapons, but all of the super-heroes race off to find fire-based villains regardless of how tangentially (or not-at-all) they know Sue Dibny. Later, just to drive the point home, Jean is attacked with rope (attached using a standard knot), so they interrogate Slipknot even though he is in jail, cannot tie a rope now that he has only one arm, and has never met Jean or Sue.

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