Identity Crisis: 16 issues from 2004-2005
Writers: Brad Meltzer (7 issues of the main miniseries), Geoff Johns (4 issues of the Flash and 1 issue of JSA), Marc Andreyko (4 issues of Manhunter)
Right, here we go. Some of the tie-ins my reading order lists aren’t billed as tie-ins on the cover, but they do seem at least vaguely connected.
Anyway, going to go through each issue (will be spoilers under the dropdown) and then give my general thoughts (with spoilers blurred) below.
Issue-by-issue breakdown
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Identity Crisis #1 by Brad Meltzer: If I’m going issue-by-issue, I’m going to pretend I don’t know the ridiculous places this goes. Given that, this is a decent lead-in. I do not like killing Sue at all, but a lot of this holds up from page to page, and I guess for the concept they had to kill somebody. I’ll talk a bit more about that in my summation at the bottom.
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The Flash #213 by Geoff Johns: Decent issue, I guess. Just kind of stuff playing out mid-arc.
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Identity Crisis #2 by Brad Meltzer: And this is where it goes off the rails. No, wait, it doesn’t go off the rails. It flies screaming off the rails blaring death metal composed from the final screams of its passengers played over the sound of rusty chainsaws as it rockets flaming into the stratosphere. The flashback stuff here is gratuitous and edgy and unnecessary and it’s a complete red herring. It doesn’t even pretend not to be a red herring.
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Identity Crisis #3 by Brad Meltzer: “My Deathstroke is so cool and could totally beat up your dad, nerd.” God, give me a break.
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Manhunter #2 by Marc Andreyko: OK, I dig this so far. Like… Kate’s a jerk and I don’t normally go for jerk protagonists, but it’s kind of working somehow, and that cliffhanger was really good.
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The Flash #214 by Geoff Johns: Look, the intrigue aspect of this is actually sort of interesting. The ethical dilemma. So at least this is pretty much just about that.
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Identity Crisis #4 by Brad Meltzer: Basically filler.
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Manhunter #3 by Marc Andreyko: Another good issue. Shadow Thief is creepy and I’m liking the drama.
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The Flash #215 by Geoff Johns: Huh. Honestly surprised to see a Johns book—or any book, really—treating Barry Allen as anything less than 100% perfect. Weird.
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Identity Crisis #5 by Brad Meltzer: “No one there is a physicist. But they still know what happens when you puncture a nuclear reactor.” Not much. Not very much at all happens when you puncture a nuclear reactor. And Firestorm is not a nuclear reactor. This has been said before and it absolutely bears repeating. Killing Jack Drake was also not really necessary. Another powerful moment in a vacuum that screws the relevant characters going forward.
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Manhunter #4 by Marc Andreyko: Wow, Kate is a real piece of work, isn’t she?
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The Flash #216 by Geoff Johns: Man, can we get Geoff Johns to write the miniseries instead of just tie-ins? I like this plot so much better when I’m not looking directly at it.
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JSA #67 by Geoff Johns: Another tie-in showing up the event.
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Identity Crisis #6 by Brad Meltzer: Here, the backstory intrigue goes from “This is an interesting dilemma” to “Turns out these seven are all secretly psychopaths.” Yaaaay.
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Identity Crisis #7 by Brad Meltzer: OK, this one brings together all the stupid little plot holes into one big block of Swiss cheese, so I’m going to put that below.
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Manhunter #5 by Marc Andreyko: My reading order overstated how much these issues have to do with Identity Crisis, but I am enjoying them.
OK, this is an event that’s been debated to death and back for years. Given that I fall, as is my consistently cantankerous custom, on the “against” side, let me start with some positives.
The art is very good. There are some really strong emotional beats. I like murder mysteries, I like personal drama, I like ethical dilemmas, and I like dark secrets. I believe everyone (except for Dan DiDio, maybe) went into this with the best of intentions, and it’s the sort of story I might like. And while I like Sue Dibny and think her being dead is a long-term problem for later stories because now nobody can use her anymore, I admit that this story works best if the person who died is someone everyone—characters and audience—cares about.
As far as being positive about this goes, I’ve just about hit the end of my rope.
So, OK, first thing’s first: If you’re going to kill off a beloved character so you can have a murder mystery, have the murder mystery make sense. Jean’s entire plan would have been completely unnecessary if she’d just said four words to the right person: “I miss you, Ray.” Not only did she leave him in the first place, there is no logical nexus between what she wants and what she did to get it. It was just sort of vaguely hoping that the thing might sort of happen as an indirect result. I think the “You’re insane” line was intended to deflect these questions, but it’s a cheap excuse at best. It’s “Trust me, there’s a reason, but you wouldn’t understand it.”
And the investigation makes no sense in light of the solution. Supposedly, there was no forensic evidence because the killer was microscopic, except that’s not actually true. The killer had to and did grow to full size to use the flamethrower (Why did Jean have a flamethrower?!).
And the investigation into all the metahuman fire villains is completely ridiculous because the weapon—and I’m not blurring this because it’s readily visible in the first issue—is a completely mundane flamethrower. Not only does no one consider that it could be the case, I imagine there would be some sort of evidence to distinguish it from the more sci-fi powers and weapons these other villains use. Like traces of the accelerant or something.
And you know what? I just thought of another problem with the killer’s plan. So, Jean just wanted to scare Sue. So let’s assume she did that successfully. How would Sue know she’d been attacked and not just had some other health problem? She’d have no way of knowing that the sensation she was experiencing was a tiny microscopic person inside her skull squishing her brain. And if she did know that, everyone would immediately look at the Atom and it would get tied back to Jean Loring almost as fast. The plan only came as close to working as it did because Sue died.
Every time I think I’m done talking about this, more plot holes occur to me. So, the next problem is that I don’t think the Atom’s phone line trick works with cell phones. But let’s assume it does even though that makes even less sense than the original gimmick. I also am pretty sure that she should have blown up when she shrunk. I read a throwaway line in some other, earlier issue of a different series mentioning that Ray fixed that problem, but Jean is explicitly using one of his old belts, which were the earliest version of his size-changing gear.
You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about Doctor Light and the mind wipes yet. Well, first of all, that would be a good name for a band. But second of all, none of that crap had anything to do with the actual mystery. We learn that it’s a total red herring less than halfway through the story.
First of all, I don’t think we’re allowed to even say the word for what Light did to Sue on here, which should give you some idea of how unnecessary it is. So, it’s this over-the-top, gratuitous, retroactive attack on a character who’s already dead, and it doesn’t even affect the story.
Second, mind wiping Light himself is… I’ve gotta be honest. I actually kind of like that. It’s interesting. I’d like to know more about what was going through Zatanna’s head at that point, but overall it’s a good moment.
Third, mind wiping Batman is a ridiculous shock-twist that obviously exists just to trick you into thinking the whole flashback thread wasn’t completely irrelevant. I mean, they were taking a vote, so count this as a vote against. That would deadlock them. If only there were someone directly affected by this who they could talk to as a tiebreaker. Ask Sue what she thinks, you morons.
Instead, they unanimously agree to brain-whammy someone who is ostensibly their friend for being upset that they’re lobotomizing someone. Way to go, heroes. It’s also really weird that this second, even more morally questionable decision is unanimous where the first one, which you could make a plausible argument to defend, was split.
This event could have been so good if it were, uh, actually good.
3,741.
Captain America: 26 issues from 2000-2002
Writers: Dan Jurgens (25 issues, 2 stories in #50), Katherine Kuder (story in #50), Brian David-Marshall (story in #50), Jen Van Meter (story in #50), Evan Dorkin (story in #50)
Review
Uuuuuuuugh every single Cap run has the exact same stories. You can set your watch by it. You’ve got the inexplicably large and well-armed neo-Nazi militia. Something’s going to happen to the shield or the serum (probably the serum since Waid just did the shield thing). And then the Red Skull will show up and get a cosmic cube. That’s it. Those are the plots that you get. I wonder whether these writers think they’re being creative because they don’t read each other’s runs, think they’re being creative because of the very slight variations in these three plots from run to run, or don’t think they’re being creative and just don’t care.
Woo, and a twofer! Not only is there a melodramatic moment where Cap’s shield gets taken away from him and defaced by a villain right in that first arc (and some shield-related exposition for which I can’t tell whether it’s just clumsy pontificating or foreshadowing something further happening to it), we immediately segue into a guy with a prototype super soldier serum. I knew we’d get one or the other, but both! Within four issues! Am I good or am I good?
Also, the dude’s name is Protocide. Protocide.
Anyway, after that, we get recycled relationship drama with this random lawyer, her brother turns out to be a supervillain which would be dumb but it’s OK because he’s hilarious, and then the final arc is, drumroll please, the Red Skull doing Cosmic Cube stuff. Gosh, that’s a novel idea. How’d you come up with that one?
Also, Cap… dies in the last issue? … Huh. Oh and he dies to an inexplicably large and well-armed neo-Nazi militia, there’s a plot point that they can’t find his shield, and the bad guys are all dressed like the Red Skull. Do you see what I mean with this stuff?!
3,767.
I read a bunch more than I usually do but nowhere near what everyone else on here has. I’ll work on that next year. 
