Identity Crisis #3 SPOILER-FILLED

Is Meltzer some sort of spouse-hater?

I haven't read any of these because I feel sort of overwhelmed by the DCU in macro, but I'm enjoying keeping up vicariously.

I think spouses are just easy targets.

Do any of the DC superheroines have husbands sitting around, waiting to be wacked?

Hee hee.

I can't think of any.

Without murdered wives and parents, would there be comics?

There would still be Little Lulu.

Spouses are probably the easiest characters to kill off who have no potential for their own title (barring a LOIS LANE revival -- and Superman supporting characters are really a separate thing, like with Batman ones): they've been around long enough for readers to care about them more than Tomorrow Woman, but killing them doesn't really affect all that much -- even less than killing off Blue Beetle or Elongated Man would affect.

(And the whole spouse-in-potential-jeopardy thing is built into the superhero mythos to begin with.)

Have they killed Snapper Carr? Cause he'd be one of the few non-spouses to fit those criteria.

I don't think he's been seen in this series, though I haven't indulged in any sort of high-level scrutiny of the big funeral two-page splash in #1.

plz plz revive lois lane title. thx.

anyhow when they offed atom's ex (and it was really kind of horrifyingly done too) i audibly gasped 'omg!' over my chili dogs at the varsity, drawing looks from the next booth over (the fules!).

Superman supporting characters are really a separate thing - this got to me too, it seemed really possible (and still possible who knows) at one point that perry mason and/or jimmy olsen were getting offed.

one question (from someone who hasn't bought a dc comic new prior to this since i was a preteen) - the whole 'switcheroo' thing that "explains" i guess how the villains know all the alteregos: is this something that actually 'happened' in the dc universe? a nod (and seriousization - insert better word there plz) toward absurd dc plotlines of yesteryear (will meltzer revive clark and bruce jrs?)(will krypto get killed next issue?)? or just a way to explain 1) how the baddies know their alteregos etc. and 2) why the heros 'did what they did' (which does not seem so dark & corrupt to me as the comic thinx)(a far cry from comedian in vietnam or veidt sacrificing nyc for the benefit of mankind)?

I think the alter ego reveal re: the 'switcheroo' was something Meltzer added, as part of his turning the Silver Age kiddie stories into grown ass tales of men. I swear that story was one of the first comic stories I ever read, and I can't recall any sort of "oh shit" reveal @ the end where the villains knew about Barry & Hal & other secret identities. (And I really can't see a story from that era actually dealing w/ that sort of twist, either.)

I think BM is approaching all these old skool DC shenanigans the same way Scotty Don't approached spy movie cliches in _Austin Powers_ flicks - instead of giving into the same old tropes of the genre (the villain tying up his nemesis & concocting some Goldbergian machinations to off Mr. Bond while explaining his master plan, so the Good Guy gets a chance to save the day just before he meets his end), he's just cutting through the bullshit / quaintness & having the bad guys make the ruthless, sensible decisions they rarely make. You hit the heroes where it hurts, you don't blatantly toy w/ them, you play to win, etc etc etc insert Al Davis gutcheck cliche here.

Blount, you're right in that these IC shenanigans pale in comparison to what happened in _Watchmen_, BUT since this is the squeaky clean DC universe (where the good guys do the right thing, play by the book - in essence, perpetuate the endless cycle), having the heroes deal w/ these sorts of issues is a Big Freaking Deal. The handful of interweb mentalists that've bitched about IC are (intentionally or not) kvetching about this status quo upheaval.

The "switcheroo" was a reference to the big non-crossover summer even of a few years ago called "Silver Age" or something like that, where some weird alien enabled the bad guys to switch bodies with the JLofA, back in the day. The parts of I've picked up in used bins are actually pretty cool. Similar to the DC Presents thing, where current creators take on Silver Age conceits.

The thing that a lot of the message board geeks (not this message board, of course) seem to miss the point of is that it's not such a big deal that the heroes erased the memories of villains, that's been a pretty standard superhero thing to do since the dawn of time, but that they actually fucked with Dr. Light's personality.

IC #3 shows Green Arrow and Hawkman coming to blows over it.

Plus, Jean Palmer has not been officially pronounced dead, so, like...I don't know.
In some ways, IC has been a little more predictable than expected.

Had Jean Palmer even been seen since, what, Sword of the Atom? (Maybe she's been in JLA, I don't know.) Killing off Sue Dibny and Jean Palmer, that's like killing off Cody and Vance Duke.

(Maybe Power of the Atom came after Sword, come to think of it. But still, that's quite some time.)

"I make stabby."

ihttp://www.indyworld.com/deanhaspiel/images/identity_crisis.gif

Matt, you're my hero. AGAIN.

Glad to be of service, but save the effusiveness for Tim (the remixer in question.)

BIG SPOILER (MAYBE)

There's a very good on the DC Boards that lays out a pretty convincing argument for Mirror Master being the killer. No motive, but he's a mercenary, so he's probably working for somebody else. The Atom, perhaps?

COver art from #7!

ihttp://www.bradmeltzer.com/gifs/identity7_large.jpg

"It was our OWN COSTUMES -- POSSESSED by an EVIL FORCE!! Choke!"

"I find these tights both snug and flattering."

I was in the comic book shop last night and there was a guy, maybe early 30s, chatting with the clerk for the duration of my visit. He was all, "Yep, I heard that that there Identity Crisis is a pretty huge deal. I heard that it might be even more important than Crisis on Infinite Earths, uh huh." DC advertising at work, I guess.

I heard the rumour that the bad guy is Kyle, who's gone a bit mad. He's going to become the new Black Hand.

If that happens, it'll happen in the pages of GL and GL:Rebirth. Why would a character from the 90s be killing characters who haven't mattered since the 70s, aside from the obvious symbolism?

Obvious symbolism is the opiate of the comics masses. Don't knock it.

I just realized last night how mainstream the awareness of this series has become, when my girlfriend -- who doesn't read DC comics, and, like me, hasn't read Identity Crisis -- said "Oh, you're watching Jack and Bobby? That's by the guy doing Identity Crisis." (Which it isn't exactly, but it was phrased that way in a review of the show she read.)

God I hate the way discussion on this series* is breaking down into 'oh they're ruining our characters' vs 'we like strong multilayered storytelling' when both of them are so far away from what I got out of the book (the nasty taste of cynical crime-fic schlockwerk meets middlebrow pop-guilt)

*not on ILC.

Meltzer's Green Arrow: Archer's Quest is really, really good. But I'm beginning to doubt that he's going to be able to accomplish what he says he's trying to with IC.
We're headed into issue 4 of 7 and, really, this story hasn't quite "rocked" the DCU or challenged the convention of secret ID's. The themes brought up have been tackled time and time again, most recently in Bill Willingham's Robing and Geoff Johns' Flash, involving characters with something actually at stake.
And, not to add fuel to the Not On ILC furor declaiming Meltzer a misogynist, but he really hasn't done anything with the female characters. Black Canary here seems like little more than a prop for Green Arrow.

preview of #4

http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17866

Is it just me, or is the pacing in Identity Crisis a little hinky. I though it was cool in #1, but as things seem to drag on, they just feel like they're dragging on, not like there's the kind of terrific urgency that I think is supposed to be there. The preview pages of #4 typify that.

I'll wait for the Tim O'Neill remix, thanks.

What I've seen of IC has just not done it for me. I'm not wild about the art and the writing isn't all that. I kinda wish they'd given this to someone like Greg Rucka or Ed Brubaker. But that's my answer for everything.*

*- when Grant Morrison just isn't right for the project.

haha - bowline's were my fave knot when i was in the navy, maybe I did it!!!

I was waiting for someone to rewrite the preview of IC #4 as Superman/Green Arrow slash.

All apologies to Huck, of course...