Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis is a seven-issue comic book limited series published by DC Comics in 2004, written by Brad Meltzer and penciled by Rags Morales. It was one of DC's top-selling series throughout its run, but attracted controversy for drastically retconned aspects of DC's Silver Age. more...

Some critics considered its attempt to add modern excitement and drama to "old-fashioned" characters sensationalist exploitation, while others hailed the work as a masterpiece that updated several DC characters successfully.

Meaning of title

The title of the series plays on several ideas:

• the importance of and consequences of exposure of superhero secret identities
• the unknown identity of the murderer
• the struggle of the protagonists to determine their own identities and deal with the consequences of past actions as well as recent tragedies; see identity crisis (psychology)
• Crisis on Infinite Earths and its sequel Infinite Crisis
• Jack Drake, the father of Tim Drake (alias Robin) dies in Identity Crisis. The story arc of Batman #455–457 (October–December 1990), in which Tim deals with the death of his mother and the crippling of his father, was also called "Identity Crisis".

Plot summary

Sue Dibny, the Elongated Man's wife, is murdered, her body horribly burned. The DC superhero community rallies to find the murderer.

Early suspicion rests on Doctor Light, as it is revealed that he had raped Sue Dibny years earlier in the JLA satellite headquarters. It is also revealed that the Atom, Black Canary II, Hawkman, the Flash II (Barry Allen), Green Lantern II (Hal Jordan), and Green Arrow allowed sorceress Zatanna, to mind-wipe the captured Doctor Light, not only to remove his memory of his rape of Dibny, but to alter his personality to make him less of a threat. Thinking that Light may now have murdered Sue, the superheroes attempt to capture Doctor Light, who has hired Deathstroke to protect him. In the ensuing fight with Deathstroke, Doctor Light regains his memory, is enraged at the violation, and escapes.

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