Identity Crisis TP New Edition (originale 2005; edizione 2016)

For once, a superhero story brings the action down to earth, giving such a heartfelt emotion to an intriguing murder mystery that leaves you on the edge of your seat until the last page. ( )

One of my very favourite graphic novels, and perhaps my very favourite super hero team-up or event book of all time. Meltzer's ability to quickly get me inside the heads of the myriad of characters -- both ones I was familiar with from before and the many I was not -- and to feel their emotions and think their thoughts is quite impressive. Especially considering how often the narrative hops back and forth between different viewpoints. Morales' artwork is fantastic -- pretty, exciting and most importantly, deeply emotional when it needs to be. Which is often, in this story.

I first bought this comic on a whim, needing something to read on a 4 hour boat ride. I'm not ashamed to say I teared up several times there in my seat, reading this. It's not often a Justice League comic makes you cry, let alone multiple times, but this one did. I've re-read it twice since then, and while the emotional impact is of course somewhat muted upon revisiting, my eyes got distinctly moist at several points even during the third read-through. It's that effective.

"Identity Crisis" is a murder mystery, a conspiracy thriller, a character drama, and a super hero action adventure, all rolled into one, and even upon finishing it, it's tough to know which it is more. What it most definitely is, is a loving dive into DC's many fantastic characters, and -- almost incidentally -- tribute to the Silver Age comics that somehow simultaneously makes the darker, modern incarnations all the more compellingly flawed and conflicted. And what it is most of all is a story about love, and grief, and relationships. And if you know the names of more than five DC characters (which you do. You know you do. Even if you've only ever seen one of the movies, you know the names of three characters from "Superman" alone.), I think you'd enjoy reading this. ( )

this event just felt like edginess for edginess's sake? not sure why it exists. tho it does set up the new 52 comic, which is the most impressive weekly comic i've ever read (which isn't saying a lot, to be fair)

Graphic

I had honestly forgotten I'd already read this years ago (Really, over a decade ago? Wow...) until I came to Goodreads to add it. Luckily, I had also forgotten the plot so it was like reading it for the first time again. This really is a fantastic plotline about how superhero secret identities are meant to protect the heroes' loved ones. So when someone starts attacking and threatening them, the DC heroes declare war to find the perpetrator.

Reading this again with a different eye, I still loved the story but found parts of it very problematic. For one, it focused almost exclusively on male superheroes - no women heroes had their family members targeted. Given who the murderer was, it sort of made sense, but still seemed very skewed. It never really showed a women hero worrying about a loved one, as if that protective instinct was only reserved for men, though there were two panels showing Dinah and Zatanna standing at their fathers' graves. Meltzer could very well have had a brief scene of Barbara calling her dad; instead, we get a flashback of her getting shot by the Joker.

It's hard to reconcile a really powerful storyline with the paternalistic undertone. The story is supposed to make the reader feel uncomfortable, though I'm not sure this is a facet that the author had intended. While Dinah and Zatanna had major parts to play in the plot, they were never a POV character - and it was an odd choice to make Ollie Queen one, I thought.

A good -- if problematic -- read. ( )