Here’s my response to Nevin’s e-mail, just in case anyone was curious. Because I’ve been so quiet about my thoughts on Identity Crisis. Yeah:
The most interesting thing to me about ID is how it’s serving as a prism for how people view comics, specifically mainstream superhero comics: the kind of stories they should tell, the level of violence that’s acceptable, the ways writers should or shouldn’t function when working within a shared universe. I’ve seen both objections and compliments on all of these fronts, and I think it’s due in part to the fact that DC has promoted this comic as being so seminal that people are judging it to a different set of standards than they do ongoing titles.
As you note, ID specifically references a number of Silver Age stories and heavily features defining characters of that period. In doing so, it invites comparison to the stories it references in terms of tone and characterization, and I think a lot of people are finding the disconnect too much to reconcile. Personally, most of my problems lie in terms of tone, but there are weaknesses in storytelling that bother me, too.
Generally, violence against female characters — the Women in Refrigerators or Gwen Stacy Syndrome — bothers me a great deal. I think it’s an incredibly tired storytelling device, and I’ve rarely seen it used for any compelling ongoing narrative purpose. I can’t really bring myself to give Meltzer a pass because everyone else is doing it, especially when ID is being pitched to readers as ground-breaking. Women are brutalized, and their hero boyfriends (or husbands, or ex-husbands) are upset about it. What’s ground-breaking about that? This brings my to my objections about some of Meltzer’s storytelling choices.
I thought the devices the writer used in the first issue — painting a glowing portrait of why Sue was so special, revealing her long-desired pregnancy — amounted to cheap, lazy emotional manipulation. Honestly, dozens of hack writers have pulled the same device with characters male and female in all kinds of different media. While every writer is obviously aiming for an emotional response from their readers, this is a painfully by-the-numbers way of achieving it, and it carries more than a whiff of cynicism.
Another flaw, to my way of thinking, is the character set Meltzer has used to make his point. As you note, there are only a handful of characters with public identities, which limits Meltzer’s choices. That said, it doesn’t make Ralph and Sue any better protagonists for (or victims in) this kind of story simply because they’re among the few who fit a small set of narrative demands the writer requires to make his point. To my taste, that constitutes plot-driven storytelling, and I prefer the kind that’s driven by character.
I can’t quite get past how wasteful it is to sacrifice two characters who occupied a unique niche in a fictional universe for what amounts to sensationalism. While never A-listers by any stretch of the imagination, Ralph and Sue were a rarity — a mature, mutually supportive couple who functioned equally well in comic stories (like FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE) and as straightforward adventuring sleuths (as in the last major story arc of James Robinson’s STARMAN series). Putting them in these circumstances isn’t just tonally inconsistent with their previous appearances; it’s a wasteful, cynical use of the characters to create shocking effect.
And it’s the cynicism that ultimately sealed my verdict on this title. It coyly plays up to Silver Age fandom while re-envisioning many of the elements that made them love Silver Age stories in the first place. It uses excessive violence to drive story, and it wedges characters into inconsistent roles to prove its point. (Ralph and Sue aside, Meltzer’s portrayal of Green Arrow as a proponent of secret identities is idiotic; there’s virtually no one in the DC Universe sloppier with his secrets than Green Arrow, or anyone in his circle.)
But none of that invalidates anything you’ve said or the examples you cite. Other titles do share what many believe to be ID’s flaws. Other titles *exceed* ID’s flaws by a fairly wide margin. But, again, DC has placed the book at this level — the can’t miss, “important” comic that changes everything. I’m not surprised it has people sharpening their knives, as it’s practically begged them to do so. Beyond its aims as a story, I can’t escape the conclusion that it was designed to create exactly this kind of controversy. That diminishes its value and my ability to judge it on its own merits (which might be my own failing, obviously).
I don’t know if I’ve given you anything useful at all here, but I really do appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts with me.