Reviewer: Iain Burnside
Story Title: Chapter Two – House of Lies
Written by: Brad Meltzer
Penciled by: Rags Morales
Inked by: Michaels Bair
Colored by: Alex Sinclair
Lettered by: Kenny Lopez
Editor: Mike Carlin
Publisher: DC Comics
If there is any one comic on the market today that can exemplify the shifting attitudes towards comic books over the past decade or so, then Identity Crisis is that comic. Whereas before practically every major event that was launched by DC or Marvel focused on larger-than-life theatrics that were as preposterous and absurd as they were consequential, this time around things are happening on a much smaller and more realistic scale. This does not mean that the series has sacrificed any of the gravitas; it just means that what is present packs far more of a punch than could have been expected. The characters here are not battling through vast reams of time and space. They are not restricted by the need to flood panels with every conceivable supporting character throughout history. They are not going to be subjected to some deus ex machina finale that negates the point of the actual story itself. They are not going to be hampered in their quest by gimmicks, plot devices and fanboy wet dreams. We’ve come a long way since Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour, and something like this only makes JLA/Avengers seem even more outdated than it already was. Spurred on by a fresh wave of creators spearheading an increasingly mature form of storytelling thanks to the likes of DC’s Vertigo imprint and Quesada & Jemas’ Marvel Knights/Marvel MAX lines, we have now reached a point where even the biggest sales event of the year is grittier and more hard-hitting than many long-term fans would like it to be. They would have been as well to slap a â€This ain’t your daddy’s Justice League!†label on the cover and have done with it.
Yet, even if the finished product is different, the ingredients are still essentially the same. These people are very much written in character and react to the events unfolding around them with the appropriate blend of grief, anger, shock and confusion. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, there was a violent murder of a loveable DCU character in the first issue. The victim was an apparently pregnant Sue Dibny. The assailant was an apparently insane Dr. Arthur Light. We pick up the story following Sue’s funeral, as her husband Ralph and a few close confidantes prepare to embark on a highly personal mission to avenge her death, only there seem to be some hints that there is a deep, dark secret about all of this that only they know about…
We begin at the home of Jean Loring. Her ex-husband, Ray “The Atom†Palmer, has come over to give her a powerful weapon, has been gathering dust in a box for years, which ally Carter “Hawkman†Hall gave him years earlier. Although they are now divorced and Ray still feels devastated by this, and rather irked by the settlement that was heavily slanted in Jean’s favour, there will forever be a special bond between the two of them. This is captured perfectly in Morales’ stunning facial expressions, showing just how truly concerned and unsettled they have become following Sue’s murder.
From here, we follow Ray as he meets up with the rest of the team – the widower, Ralph “Elongated Man†Dibny, Oliver “Green Arrow†Queen, Dinah “Black Canary†Lance, the aforementioned Carter Hall, and Zatanna. Again, everything here is spot-on. Ollie is concerned about Dinah coming along due to certain events in her past that will soon become relevant to this case. Zee shows her concern for Jean by asking Ray about her. Ralph, who can usually be relied on for a quip or two, looks like the saddest and most lost being in the universe. Best of all are Carter and Ollie. The former uses his heightened senses to detect another presence in the room – the usually undetectable Wally “The Flash†West – while Ollie bluffs and calls out Kyle “The Green Lantern†Rayner immediately afterwards, which speaks volumes about the relationships between these people. Wally noticed that these five people were the only ones not assigned to any villains as part of the Justice League’s plan to hunt down the killer, and has been listening to them ever since they left the funeral. While Kyle plays the good cop, Wally takes on the bad cop role with relish and threatens to bring Clark and Bruce down to sort things out unless Ollie spills the beans right now.
So now we get the big reveal of the dark secret that these Justice League members have been carrying for all these years. As it turns out, Sue’s recent encounter with Dr. Light was not her first one… Several years ago, while the League was off fighting Hector Hammond, Sue had come on board the JLA satellite out of sheer boredom. All she had wanted to do was kill time until her husband returned from work by doing a bit of star-gazing. She had not figured on Dr. Light managing to sneak onboard for some unknown reason and rape her. Yep, you read that right. This is not just hinted at or left off-panel either. It is drawn in excruciatingly painful detail, with the anguish on Sue’s face all too realistic for comfort. Morales is again on top form, as he is throughout the book, but a big question mark has to be placed on the editorial team for allowing such a graphic scene to occur in a book with no “Mature Content†warning label placed on the cover. Numerous DC readers have been complaining online about the treatment dished out to Sue Dibny, yet things like this do sadly happen in the world and they have rarely been explored in the confines of a superhero context (for example, this allows for truly touching panels such as Ralph using his stretching capabilities to fully wrap his arms around Sue to protect and comfort her).The story is not the problem, the marketing of it by DC is. What is a parent to do if their kid picks this off the shelf? After all, the cover is rather innocuous. The content, on the other hand…
Once the League returned to the satellite (and at this point in time Barry Allen and Hal Jordan were present rather than Wally and Kyle), they had to decide what to do with him. Hal kept him locked up with a set of GL-derived chains and Zee put him to sleep to stop him from conjuring up an optic replay of what he had just done. At this point, the true crux of the cover-up is revealed. Conflicted by rampaging emotions having just seen one of their friends brutalized in a hideous manner by an extremely powerful and dangerous villain, they began to split into two groups after the seeds of a rather powerful plan were planted by Carter. He, along with Ray, Zee and Barry, wanted to let Zee try to â€clean him up a bitâ€, while Hal, Dinah and, of course, Ollie, stood opposed to the idea. The majority won and Light was tampered with by Zee. However, she was not used to doing anything as tricky and dangerous as this before and managed to turn him into a complete joke of a villain rather than reforming him completely or simply making him forget what had occurred with Sue. Upon hearing all of this, Wally and Kyle fulfill the role of “incredulous comic book reader†by going into complete denial and shock that such an incident occurred. Yet, as Ollie says â€What makes you think it was the only time?â€
From here we go straight to denouement and are left with not one, but two cliffhangers in addition to the revelations already thrown up by this issue. Firstly, Light has recruited a bodyguard of sorts in the form of Slade “Deathstroke†Wilson to protect him from an assault from Ralph and the others. Secondly, the autopsy carried out by Pieter “Dr. Mid-Nite†Cross reveals that Sue was dead before her body was engulfed in flame. From this, Cross determines that Light is most likely not the killer. So who was?
Meltzer is a best-selling mystery author and so far Identity Crisis has followed a very safe path. Issue #1 introduced the main players and the murder, while issue #2 now explores the back-story behind the murder and throws another curveball at the reader by suggesting that all is still not as it seems. It’s a very commendable linear narrative so far, yet it still seems rather perfunctory and flat somehow. The crime is certainly very shocking, and DC do deserve some credit for presenting this as a major event as opposed to All Powerful Space Monkey #67 sending our heroes out to find the fabled Golden Banana of MacGuffin Land in order to save the space-time continuum from farting, or whatever the hell latest galactic threat could have been conjured up (although the point about a warning label regarding the graphic content still stands). There are some truly wonderful little character segments that hint at volumes being spoken regarding their motives and outlooks. However, these are only hints. It still feels as though Meltzer would have been better off writing this as a prose novel rather than as a comic book script. Perhaps then certain scenes, such as Barry Allen’s casting vote over what to do with Dr. Light, would have read with the urgent uncertainty that they should have done rather than being skirted over in a couple of panels. Still, Morales is still far and away the star of the show so far. His facial expressions are wonderful and, in the instance of Sue, rather horrifying in their authenticity. Next issue it would appear that he will get some action to work with courtesy of Slade Wilson, which I am sure will be worthwhile. Here’s hoping that Meltzer will be able to hold it together as well, as at the moment things do seem a tad tenuous.
