Nothing is sure in life except death and taxes. Seemingly, however, only one of those universal certainties holds true for comics story-telling. Spoilers follow for the current "event" series "Identity Crisis," but before we get to that, let me remind everyone that the notorious gangster Al Capone was eventually nabbed on tax evasion charges. Apropos of nothing, of course.
As I used to say "Spoilers, ho!" (Oh, and this is not a review.)
Well, maybe apropos of something. I'm starting to get the sense that comics writers are trying for a slot with the writing staff on "The Sopranos," because every so often they just whack somebody. I am displeased with Sue Dibny's murder within the context of the shared DC Universe for any number of reasons, but a top one is the lack of originality. Death is one of the great universal certainties of life, but comics writers get to make things up, so they need not have these universal certainties in their pretend reality. At this point death has gone from meaningful sacrifice (Ferro Lad) or tragic impetus for heroic action (Jean DeWolfe) to sorry, event-driven cliche (Johnny Quick, Hal Jordan.) I would, therefore, submit that it is time to find something else to write about. "Taxes" is, perhaps, a viable candidate. "Batman: The Alternative Minimum Tax," "Superman: The Cayman Islands Accounts,""Wonder Woman: W-2, W-4," "Iron Man: The Audit." Okay, perhaps taxes are not ideal story-telling fodder; however, killing off characters has been done to, well, death, so to speak.
Another problem I have with killing Sue is that I don't think one story, even a great story, is by itself a good enough reason to kill off an established character in the context of a shared universe. This factor is more telling with Sue Dibny than with other characters for a couple reasons. First, she is wrapped up in Ralph's personality and character motivation. There's forty years of Ralph and Sue continuity that mandates that Ralph cannot be the same character with Sue murdered. Ralph should be an emotional wreck without Sue. She was for years the only thing keeping him with one foot in the rational. Frankly, if the reactions were honest, I'd expect Ralph to turn into Adrian Monk, except that Ralph will solve his wife's murder, and I suspect the murderer will meet some gruesome end even if Ralph doesn't go nuts and kill him/it/them/her.
But after that, what do you do with Ralph? Ralph has been a superhero for a long time and is very familiar with the superhero universe. He's met Etrigan. He's seen Ollie and Hal come back. More importantly, he's seen Iris Allen come back. He would probably not rest until he found a way to resurrect Sue, or perhaps join her in death, since he knows of the afterlife. A superhero with a subconscious -- or even overt -- death wish might make for an interesting story, but sadly Ralph doesn't have a monthly title to explore that reaction and I doubt "Identity Crisis' will touch on it, which brings me to my second point about sharing the sandbox.
If a character is essentially the property of one title, like Gwen Stacy in Spidey, then killing that character off in service of one story in that title may or may not be a good idea, but it is obviously the perogative of the particular creative team. Ralph and Sue Dibny were a shared character complex within the narrative structure of the DC universe. Killing her serves to destroy that creative option for all the writers that come afterwards, and frankly, I don't care if the story is "Watchmen," it's not fair to remove the option to use those characters from later writers unless it is necessary for some other over-riding reason. (Possibly the 'sole survivor of Krypton' motivation for the post-Crisis Superman mythology counts here, though I'm not a fan of the post-Crisis version.)
However, let's assume for the moment that killing off a character was a good idea, and even that killing off half the Sue/Ralph team was a good idea and necessary for this story. Why Sue? Why not Ralph? If we are going to pick the character with unexplored potential to keep, it seems to me that Sue is the ideal candidate. Ralph is a favorite of mine. A noble Justice leaguer and a good alternative detective to use when Batman is in his "doesn't-play-well-with-others" phase, and natural comic relief, plus he always brought Sue to the party. (One of my favorite Ralph moments was an old JLA issue where he and the Flash stopped a train.) Ralph's a good, solid character. He's also derivative of Plastic Man, Nick and Nora Charles and is usually played for laughs, which doesn't always work well because comedy is hard. (In the Thin Man movies, Powell and Loy could fall back on their chemistry when the script wasn't working, see "After the Thin Man.")
Sue, otoh, was the straightman, and a good straightman always gets 60 percent of the take.
I ask you:
What sounds more interesting, Sue gets murdered, and her husband the superhero Elongated Man, the world famous detective and Justice Leaguer, and his buddies Superman, Batman and Flash solve her murder and *yawn* bring her killer to justic..zzz. sorry, dozed off there.
Or
Ralph gets murdered, and while Batman and the others are on the case, Sue -- risking a fatal allergic reaction with every swig of Gingold -- defies their intructions to stay behind (she's a civilian, of course) and assumes the identity of Elongated Lady! It even has the alliteration Ralph never had! Using her detective skills honed over the years of helping Ralph solve mysteries, Sue tracks down Ralph's killer, and in a heartwarming scene, cannot bring herself to exact the ultimate revenge, and so brings the killer to justice instead, and earns Ralph's place in the league with Ralph smiling down from the clouds. Now *that's* a comics story.
(We'll just forget about how they manage to kill off women left and right in superhero comics stories. After all, they've killed off Robin, Johnny Quick, and a few others. Of course, they brought a few of the men back, as well.)
Posted by Mike Chary at June 12, 2004 9:19 AM
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No offense to anyone who is a Sue Diby fan, but is she a significant enough character to base a huge DC event around her death?
Not to be snarky, but are Ralph and Sue Dibny that big a part of the DC Universe? I like the characters myself, but with the exception of Formerly Known as the Justice League, have the characters been used that often in recent years?
Jinx! You owe me a Coke, Robby Karol.
Ralph was Barry Allen's second-best friend. He joined the JLA about 40% into its original run, and since he wasn't a big gun with his own series, he became a common mainstay, appearing in the majority of JLA stories. In addition, he had a variety of backup series, in Flash, Detective, and others.
Subsequent to Crisis, he spent a long run in JLE/JLI, then went on hiatus with those titles. When Morrison opted for Plastic Man in his revived JLA, Ralph continued to remain on vacation.
Sue mostly did not appear with Ralph in JLA, but was an equal lead in most, if not all, Elongated Man backups and JLE/JLI, and an guest costar in most, if not all, Elongated Man guest appearances.
The two characters have more pages under their belt than Firestorm, Zatanna, or Black Lightning, just to name a few. They weren't A-list, and their most prominent days weren't recently, but they were definitely B-list.
I think that's kind of the point, though. Sure, they were solid B-list characters. And I'd be willing to say that Sue Dibny is a more realized character than, say, Firestorm or the Blue Devil. But is she strong enough and familiar enough to the modern audience to anchor DC's big event? (Let us for the moment not consider that DC might not need yet another big event.) It just seems... you know, Alfred Pennyworth's a much more established character than Sue Dibny. So's Perry White. Yet I doubt anyone would be particularly thrilled about the idea of a big comic book even built around the death of, say, Snapper Carr.
Furthermore, do we really need to kill Sue Dibny off? Has she even been appearing in enough comics lately that killing her off is meaningful? I hate to invoke the Women in Refrigerators site too soon, having not read the comic in question, but why not kill Ralph Dibny instead, as Mike suggested? Why does the woman have to die? I mean, she doesn't have powers or a costume, I guess, but then again that just seems to point towards her being a less iconic character to anchor this whole mess.
Hell, why not kill off Firestorm or the Blue Devil, while we're offing characters?
Is Sue Dibny sigificant enough to build an event around? Apparently DC thinks so.
I obviously don't think she merits killing in the service of a story, but she's as significant as any character whom DC is likely to kill off.
DC thinks letting John Byrne reboot yet another comic book is a good idea. Hell, they think saying "The Doom Patrol comics you've read before now, even the Drake and Morrison runs, they never happened, and Elasti-Girl isn't dead, and I have no idea who Garfield Logan's adoptive mother was or if Steve Dayton was Mento or not" is a good idea.
Not that I'm bitter or hateful.
I'm bitter and hateful. Join me, Matt! Give in to your anger!
Sue's not enough of a major character to justify the "somebody dies" hype surrounding the book (particularly in mainstream media) but, being generally unfamiliar with the character previously, I thought Meltzer did a pretty good job of "selling" her importance and the other characters' attachment to her.
Well, Firestorm's not going to get killed for at least a few months, since his new title (with an all-new all-abused-as-a-child host for the power) just kicked off. And Blue Devil got killed off in that big "Mist is such a badass" story in Starman. Didn't stick, though.
Believe me, Chris, I'm right about at the point of striking someone down and my journey to the dark side being complete. Maybe Byrne. Seriously, what's next? A twelve issue maxi series rebooting Ant Man? Or maybe he could get his grubby claws on Batman! "Year 0.5"
And yeah, Dave, I vaguely remembered that. Because nothing establishes you as a badass like kicking the Blue Devil's ass. It's how I knew that Darkseid was a major player. You know the Mist is terrifying, what with her having defeated the Crimson Fox. Maybe she could even take Vixen, Vibe, Gypsy and Steel. If two of *them* weren't dead. (I can just see it now... John Byrne relaunches "Justice League Detroit".)
First, thanks to Mike Chary for letting me know about this site. It's like Usenet back when Usenet didn't suck.
I haven't read this comic, and probably never will, but the publicity and hype surrounding this was vaguely nauseating, and it doesn't appear the end result is any better.
As Mike pointed out, Sue and Ralph filled a character niche in the DC Universe -- they were "happily married couple." In a genre known, among other things for its implausible interpersonal relationships ("I love you, but I cannot reveal that love, for I am also Toilet Scrubber Man, and if I married you, my enemies would strike at me through you! *choke*" [Repeat for 40 years]), it was nice to see a happily married couple. No more of that, I guess.
Which is fine, if you're replacing Sue with something of equal or better value. I disagree with Mike that it would be wrong to kill Sue in service of a WATCHMEN. But all inidcations are that this isn't going to be WATCHMEN -- it's going to be SECRET WARS II.
It's like Usenet back when Usenet didn't suck.
I had exactly the same thought the first time I noticed some of the old rec.arts.comics.misc veterans were posting here - so thanks to our many commentors.
Am I naive and self-delusional in thinking that Sue might not actually be dead? I know we've got a fried corpse, but it's not like that isn't fakeable with DC Universe technology. And the comic made a point of establishing that Superman and Green Arrow have both had funerals before and are still running around.
Personally I think the miniseries is going to end with Sue revealing that she faked her death to show her husband that she really could set up a mystery for his birthday (maybe for the occasion she even developed reality altering powers) and Elongated Man is driven to insanity by this revelation, but Sue goes off into the sunset with Flash, since he was recently dumped by Linda Whatshername.
At least, that's the ending that will be in my mind.
Oooh, let's play that game!
The deep dark secret is really that Elongated Man is...Sue Dibny! Ralph died of a severe allergic reaction to his first batch of Gingold Extract, but not before asking Sue to carry on in his stead. Everyone thought EM could only stretch, but she could disguise herself as anyone she wanted, as well. She got her nearly identical cousin (everyone has one of those) to stand in for her and help her maintain the illusion that Ralph was still alive. But now "Sue" is dead, dental records will soon show it wasn't Sue at all, and the secret will out!
"(I can just see it now... John Byrne relaunches "Justice League Detroit".)"
And soon after that, an event twenty years in the making...
JUSTICE LEAGUE DETROIT vs THE GREAT LAKES AVENGERS.
"Am I naive and self-delusional in thinking that Sue might not actually be dead?"
No, I'm hoping for that too, because...dude, what the hell. You're going to make the Elongated Man dark and brooding?