And the killer is....

THAT’S thirty bucks I’ll never get back.

I’m speaking, of course, of the seven-issue comic series Identity Crisis, which I wrote about a couple of months ago.

The series, by hot novelist Brad Meltzer (I mean hot in the pop culture sense, not in the Hugh Jackman sense) started off, as you may recall, with the murder of Sue Dibny, wife of the happy-go-lucky super-hero The Elongated Man. It was a classic locked-room mystery, no apparent clues and no apparent way for the murderer to get in and out. Sue was at home, preparing a surprise birthday party for her husband while he was out on patrol. The biggest surprise? After twenty years of marriage, she was pregnant. The only glimpse the readers got of the murderer was a hand holding a flamethrower and saying “Goodbye, Sue” before torching her.

As the series went on, we found out several heretofore unknown facts about the superhero community, including:

- that Sue Dibny had been raped by super-villain Dr. Light
- that the Justice League, in addition to regularly mind-wiping super-villains to make them forget sensitive information, mind-wiped Dr. Light to such an extent that his entire personality was altered
- that the Justice League, when confronted by an irate Batman (who objected to the personality modification of Dr. Light), mind-wiped Batman to make him forget the mind-wiping of Dr. Light

The reader was led to believe that a serial killer was on the loose…Jean Loring, ex-wife of shrinking super-hero The Atom, was attacked in her home, and plucky gal reporter Lois Lane received a threatening note indicating that the killer knew Superman’s identity. Jack Drake, father of Robin, was killed while defending himself against super-villain Captain Boomerang.

In the penultimate issue 6, we learned the results of Sue Dibny’s autopsy, which showed that she was NOT killed by the flamethrower after all, but by a brain aneurysm, an aneurysm caused by someone STANDING ON HER BRAIN (evidenced by a pair of tiny footprints which showed up in a CAT Scan). All evidence seemed to point to The Atom, who in fact had no alibi for the time of the original murder, and ended issue 6 about to get into bed with his ex-wife, with a leery grin on his face.

And so yesterday I was all jumpy and couldn’t concentrate, knowing that I would be leaving at 5:30 and going straightaway to the comic shop, and getting my grubby hands on the final issue, and finding out who the killer REALLY was, because I knew it WASN’T the Atom, and so the time finally came and I went and bought it and raced right home and, after walking Dino as I had promised to do, went right home and read it cover to cover, and then I cursed Brad Meltzer’s name and am forced to tell you that he is a hack, because the murderer is (stop reading if you don’t want me to spoil anything for you…)




Jean Loring. Yes, ex-wife of the Atom, who was attacked, as you recall, in her own home. She killed Sue by shrinking down to microscopic size using one of the Atom’s “spare costumes”, even though the existence of spare costumes was never established in the series. While microscopic, she used the Atom’s old trick of riding through the telephone lines, called Sue, and rode right into her inner ear, where she proceeded to accidentally grow too big and cause the aneurysm. She had intended, you see just to simulate a villainous attack. Luckily, she had enough foresight to bring a shrunken flamethrower with her, (and I quote), “Just in case.” JUST IN CASE!

So, having accidentally killed and then torched Sue, she staged an attack on herself, and then sent the note to Lois, and then hired Captain Boomerang to attack Jack Drake and left Jack Drake a gun with which to defend himself.

Her motive?

To get the Atom back.

Even though it WAS established, IN THE STORY, that the divorce was HER idea. Even though it was established, IN THE STORY, that the Atom still loved her and all she would have had to do to get him back was glance at him sideways.

So the entire series, essentially, with the introduction of legions of personality-altered super-villains, and a mind-wiped Batman, and oh, yes, the bastard son of Captain Boomerang who inherited super-speed from his as-yet unnamed mother, was all just a place to introduce these new concepts that will now, presumably, be explained in future comics! That’s like getting to the end of Citizen Kane, and you’re about to find out what Rosebud is, and then you find out you’re not going to find out until you go see, like, three or four other movies!

On the bright side, I have discovered “Astonishing X-Men”, written by Buffy creator Josh Whedon, which is really good, and actually has internal consistency, and if you like Buffy you should go and read it at once. And that’s that.