And here’s Nevin’s thoughts on my reply, which conclude with a question about the first Crisis (on Infinite Earths) that I really can’t answer:
Your answer made sense to me. I guess that the more DC hypes an event, the more any negative reactions will be magnified. I still think people are overreacting (especially since some seem to think that ID Crisis is leading comics in a darker direction, rather than reacting to the already-established attitudes). But, since I don’t have years of fandom under my belt, it’s probably unfair for me to decide how strongly others should feel affected by this.
I want to respond to one other thing you said:
“Women are brutalized, and their hero boyfriends (or husbands, or ex-husbands) are upset about it. What’s ground-breaking about that?”
I agree — killing off supporting characters is not groundbreaking at all. But, though the murders are obviously the catalyst for the story, I don’t think that they are supposed to be the main point. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think there are two fundamental issues being addressed:
1) I’m told that Marvel has been gradually eliminating secret identities from its characters. I haven’t read the comics that this has happened in, so I’m relying on what other people have told me here, but it worries me if they really are moving in that direction. Secret identities are not only a lot of fun, but it’s just not believable to me that a superhero could live a normal, open life without putting himself (or herself) and loved ones in harm’s way. I read Green Arrow’s speech about why secret identities are so important right after seeing a rumor that Spider-Man might be unmasked, and the contrast really jumped out at me. It felt like DC’s “How we are different from Marvel” Manifesto. It was a rather bloody way to get the point across, but it worked.
2) This may be a bit of a stretch, but I think ID Crisis is trying to say something about superhero ethics. You probably noticed in my last email that the moral code of a superhero is important to me. I can accept occasional lapses, but only when the characters are clear that there is a dividing line between good and evil, and they face consequences for stepping over it. Over the years, these rules have slowly eroded from many comics. I suspect that even some DC heros could have gotten a pass from their fans if they lobotomized Light in the present day rather than the past. Instead, it showed the contrast between what we accept now and what we expected then. And then, it showed us that the people who weren’t involved are horrified, and the people who were involved are still guilt-ridden. While most people seem to be seeing ID Crisis as a loosening of standards, I think it’s trying to make the traditional ethics clear again.
Of course, I could be wrong on this last point. Really wrong. I’ll have to wait until the end to see whether the heros do the right thing, or whether the villain is brutally beaten to death. (The fact that Manhunter is billed as an ID Crisis tie-in worries me.) This is probably the main thing that could change my mind about ID Crisis.
Finally, I don’t have much historical perspective here. When I casually tossed out names like Crisis On Infinite Earths, I was referring to what other people have told me about it 20 years after the fact. I don’t have any memory of how fans reacted to events like that at the time. Can you help me out here? How do people normally react to changes (big ones like the Crisis, or to individual deaths), and how have their attitudes changed as these events became just another part of history? Does this say anything about how ID Crisis will be remembered?