Identity Crisis caused a rift inside the Justice League Of America that would have repercussions in future storylines. — Photos: DC Comics
20 years ago, DC Comics addressed the elephant in the comics room by asking how far heroes would go to protect their loved ones. With the seven-issue miniseries Identity Crisis back in 1984, writer Brad Meltzer and artists Rags Morales and Michael Bair waded into this issue, and even wrapped up loose ends from some illogical Silver Age stories for good measure.
While the “crisis” word is usually synonymous with universe-wide cataclysmic events in the DC Universe(s), the creative team down-scaled the entire project by focusing on just one single planet (aka Earth) and making its smallest character the lead antagonist.
Having read all of DC’s “Crisis” events, Identity Crisis was a welcome departure from the wide scale destruction that its same-name counterparts had to offer.
Identity Crisis’ focal point was the death of Sue Dibny (aka Elongated Man’s wife), which unravelled an entire warehouse-sized load of dirty laundry that members of the Justice League committed in order to protect their loved ones.
Zatanna performs the mindwipe on Doctor Light.
The story begins with Sue Dibny, the wife of the Elongated Man, Ralph Dibny, being found murdered in her apartment with severe burns. Although there are plenty of fire-based villains around to choose from, suspicion immediately fell upon former loony Teen Titans villain – Doctor Light, with the startling revelation that he had once raped Sue in the Justice League of America (JLA) satellite headquarters!
To ensure this horrific crime will not happen to another Justice League member or their loved ones again, a few (then) JLA members, comprising The Atom (Ray Palmer), Black Canary, Hawkman, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Flash (Barry Allen), decided to allow Zatanna to mind-wipe Light and alter his personality to induce a state of lunacy.
But they did not stop at Light – the mind-wipe was also performed on the Secret Society of Super Villains when they learned about the JLA members’ secret identities after a “body switching” accident. And the biggest shocker came when it was revealed that even Batman was mind-wiped after he found out about his team mates’ acts.
After Sue’s murder – other heroes’ family members were also targeted, including Jean Loring (Atom’s estranged ex-wife) and Jack Drake (Robin’s dad). While Jack was killed by Captain Boomerang, who also died in the process, Jean was “luckier” as she survived the assassination attempt.
During the autopsy of Sue’s charred body by Doctor Mid-Nite and Mister Terrific, it was revealed that she had been killed by an infarction in her brain – with a microscopic scan of her brain revealing very tiny footprints.
With the Atom or someone using his shrinking technology being prime suspects, the Atom accused his ex-wife Jean of being the culprit, which she admitted, citing that she orchestrated the whole event just to rekindle their marriage. Realising that Jean is insane, the Atom checks her into Arkham Asylum.
The JLA votes on whether to wipe Doctor Light’s mind in order to preserve the safety of their loved ones.
In case you feel that Identity Crisis is just all about Sue’s death and Jean’s insane plan, well, there were other highlights.
Character-wise, let’s start with Zatanna, whom prior to this was just known as a magician with a quirky way of saying spells backwards. Through Identity Crisis, readers found out her true potential and power (which eventually led her to becoming the DC Universe’s Sorceress Supreme equivalent).
Next is Deathstroke, who proved his mettle by single- handedly taking on the Titans before, and here, he does even better against the JLA.
Then, there’s Light who is now exposed as a serial rapist and deemed “punished” by being reduced to an imbecile buffoon.
Amidst these changes, we also observe a rift in the JLA. Obviously, with self-righteous characters like Superman and ultra-paranoid heroes like Batman in the roster, their views differ on the method of mind-wiping – an irreconcilable action. The conflict here fuels several storylines later on.
Even Batman was not spared from Zatanna’s mindwipe.
For me, reading Identity Crisis helped me to make sense of the Secret Society of Super Villains tale I read in Justice League Of America # 167 and 168 in the 1970s. Back then, I wondered how come the villains didn’t (bother to) know the heroes’ identities.
Overall, this series is not everyone’s cup of tea. The highest accolade it received was being selected by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) in its’ 2007 recommended list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens.
Online reviewers thought otherwise, as the Comic Book Roundup (an online review aggregator) gave it an overall score of 7.3 (of 10), underlying a great start (8.7 score) but a poor ending (5.3).
This was echoed by Comic Book Resources, which called the miniseries a “work of staggering genius” but the story was cheapened by a few things, mainly it was not a good murder mystery, as it was ruined by the abrupt revelation of Jean Loring’s guilt and Sue’s sad story was cheapened by the fact that Meltzer used it not to deal with how she handled the rape trauma, but how it affected her mostly male friends.
ComicsAlliance described the series as “the comic that ruined comics” and it did a disservice to its protagonists: due to its portrayal of heroes in a questionable light. Not surprising, two years later ComicsAlliance named it one of the 15 Worst Comics of the Decade, stating it was “the embodiment of all the worst aspects of current super-hero comics”.
Whatever you may think of it, Identity Crisis did open the Pandora’s box, not just in the DC Universe. It made every hero rethink the repercussions of exposing their secret identity.
