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Saturday, December 18, 2004
All about that Identity Crisis, you got it while it was hot
WARNING: This is yet another post about how a comic blogger is disappointed with the mini-series Identity Crisis and the dark direction DC wants to go in. You’ve probably read stuff like this before and if you don’t want to read another one you can and should skip over this post.
I heard from a source affiliated with DC that one reason my Metal Men series was canned was because the scripts were deemed "too goofy" by a power-that-be. That's right."Too goofy". The Metal Men. If that's true, I guess I should've had Platinum get raped and killed by Chemo while she was going to have Tin's clockwork baby. -Evan Dorkin in a 12.17.04 post
So I had to see what the big hub-bub about Identity Crisis was. After seeing what felt like 50% percent of the internet comics pundits praise it and the other 50% denounce it I can say that I was a little interested. After the whole thing was finished I knew it would be easily found on bit torrent (if DC thinks I’m paying $3.95 seven times over for something with Michael Turner covers they’re out of their minds) so I decided to take a look.
I’m underwhelmed. I got this weird sense upon reading it. I found myself rolling my eyes at parts of the story that I knew others were going to be excited and intrigued with. That’s totally cool though, everyone’s got their own reasons to love or hate a book. It’s just while reading IC that I felt myself wondering “is this where DC really wants to go with their books?”
First I must tell you that a lot of what I didn’t like about the book is purely subjective. Two things that IC wants to achieve is to have a big gathering of DC characters and to be a mystery/thriller. The series accomplishes both. It’s just that both of those concepts bore me.
I never liked those big crossovers and event books where every superhero shows up for at least two panels. The idea of being excited by seeing your favorite character appear in a book even if it’s a short cameo and the plot’s no good is an attitude that befuddles me. I’m not much of a person who buys books just because a favorite character appears in them and I don’t see the big deal about a bunch of superheroes living in the same universe. There have been books that take advatnge of a sprawling superhero universe that I have enjoyed but that's because they were good stories, not the fact that I get to see Mister Miracle or Adam Strange show up.
Mystery books are beloved by many but not me. I was raised from a very early age to not get caught up in genre literature. Even though I now know that’s not the healthiest attitude towards reading I still get bored at the sight of rows and rows of mass-market paperbacks just ready to be read on airplanes and turned into movies starring Ashley Judd. All plot and nothing deeper might make for good reading at the beach but I just can’t take it. Not to mention Brad Meltzer hasn’t created a very good mystery here. The story seemed to be a lot of red herrings until the end where we find “the wife was…crazy!” and the reader is left wondering “why’d we have to deal with Captain Boomerang and his son?”
I have other problems with the book. Rags Morales’ art is one. I liked his work on Hourman a lot but here his work seems to be about grim, hulking figures that have no center and weirdly pointed faces that creep me out. I think the combination of him and inker Mike Bair is a bad one. The long, dark lines might want to recall late period Gil Kane but instead it just reminds me of what makes this book so unlikable: a bunch of bright costumed characters uncomfortably shoe horned-in to a plot of Murder, She Wrote.
It’s because of that uncomfortable mix we get two scenes that the creators and other fans probably felt were important but I ended up thinking were hilarious. The first scene is Elongated Man losing his shape at his wife’s funereal. I know it was meant to be sad but the look of this big, grotesque head crying made me think of MODOK getting his foot stepped on. The other is at the end where The Atom is feeling so small that his caption box cuts out. It just felt like a silly device and way too maudlin for a character in a blue and red costume that can travel through telephones. I think the creators of this book take the characters and the situation created for them much, much more seriously than I do.
The real bummer about this book is that DC basically wants to this to be the blueprint of how their flagship books should feel in the coming months and I suppose years. I was never going to pay to read the latest issues of The Flash or Detective Comics anyway (although if Carlos Pacheco is drawing Green Lantern it’s worth a look) so I don’t have much invested in where DC is going with their books. Still, it is a little bothersome to see this is where publishers and, judging by the sales of this book and others, many fans want their superhero books to look like.
Some quotations standout for me:
Used to call himself Calculator. Ran around with giant numbered buttons on his chest. Exactly. A moron.
The satellite used to belong to some schmucks called The Injustice Gang. With a name like, they deserved to be beaten.
People always say it was simpler back then. But it wasn’t
One of the goals IC seems to want to achieve is to get DC superheroes away from those sillier Silver Age ideas. It wants to turn the universe that gave as Detective Chimp into some cold 21st Century Olympus with big serious super-guys with big serious problems for them to brood and cry over. Perhaps for some readers that is cool. It’s an affirmation that their love of Green Arrow isn’t some hokey hobby. For me it just seems to deflate the appeal of these characters, if there was any at this point (I first started reading superhero comics in the mid-90s and DC loved going dark then, too). I’m surprised we didn’t get a scene of Krypto being put to sleep.
He used to be a champion. A great dog. Loyal friend. Now he’s something rabid even the Man of Steel can’t control.
It feels too much like DC is ashamed of being perceived as fun or something, what with content of so many of their comics from earlier decades. This might sounds more like a grade-school pep talk than a way to market comics, but I feel DC should know that you shouldn’t start worrying about how you’re perceived by others. If you let that poisonous thinking influence your big decisions you’re dooming yourself. Maybe DC should change their name to IC. Not for Identity Crisis but for Insecure Comics.
The tone of the book just seems wholly antithetical to what makes an exciting and interesting superhero story. In issue three we have seven superheroes jumping into action against Deathstroke. In just that small scene, before any of the fighting has started, we see the Flash gritting his teeth at Green Arrow while Black Canary looks sullen in the background. As for the fight itself, I know it's meant to feels like it’s in slow motion but should that really mean all the fun is sucked out of it? The moody tone of the whole series infects what should be a wild superhero bang-up. Meltzer’s captions are often a chore to read through, I feel like he’s read no other comic book writers but Chris Claremont and Brian Michael Bendis and combines the worst of both, but here they really just make a scene feel as exciting as watching someone watch paint dry. Of course, that fits the tone of the series. I just think that only proves there’s a problem with the whole series.
Now I must say there were things I liked in this book. The double page spread with The Atom finding his wife hanging was done well. The lead-up the murder of Robin’s Dad was exciting, even though I felt the bad art choices by Morales and Bair made a crying Robin look odd. The fight with Deadshot, Merlyn and Monocle was a big improvement over the earlier scene mentioned above.
Overall this book leaves me baffled and depressed. I shouldn’t really give damn about DC’s mainstream books anymore but it was still sad to read this. It’s basically an ode to fans that have too much trivial knowledge of these characters and take them too seriously. There the ones who will always be buying DC’s books (many fans cried out about the rape scene in issue two but I’m sure most of them kept buying the book anyway) so why should DC try to pander to anyone else? I’m 21 and I feel too young and too alienated to be reading these characters.
I’m glad that DC doesn’t put all their eggs in this overwrought basket. It’s still the company that puts out New Frontier, Plastic Man and Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers books. Perhaps it’s an effort to achieve some sort of balance. I ultimately don’t mind a book like IC coming out and being enjoyed by those who will take pleasure in it as long as I still have alternatives to read, from the same publisher no less. It’s just that I wonder if the creators and fans who dig IC mind books like Plastic Man who dare to have a little fun with the idea of someone going around in long underwear?
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