IDing Identity Crisis

I really wish feminist critics of superhero comics, many of whom I admire and respect greatly, would stop describing Identity Crisis as a comic book "about rape".

I'm not saying that the rape of Sue Dibny wasn't a very significant storytelling decision that revealed a lot about the way rape, maturity, and the roles of women (particularly significant others) are viewed by the editorial staff of DC Comics.

I'm not saying that the rape isn't the plot point that is most memorable about the comic. I'm not saying that it isn't extremely annoying that it's being used essentially to give a half-assed lame villain some evil credibility.

But I get a little annoyed by all the descriptions of "Identity Crisis" as a comic about rape (and in particular, the implication that the rape made the comic sell), because it isn't. That's not the selling point of the comic.

Identity Crisis was about a murder. It was a whodunnit. I'm not saying it was a particularly skilled "whodunnit", but that was the selling point of the comic. "Who killed Sue Dibny?" was the draw. Not "Watch Sue Dibny get raped".

Beyond that, Identity Crisis was about the grey area between good and evil, and the lines that good people can cross when they get pushed too far. And yes, the rape was a particular motivating tool here. It is something visceral, scary and human (as opposed to say, the notion of being disintegrated by a death ray), a trigger that makes the heroes' actions immediately comprehensible to the average person, while still not excusing it.

But the story was about what came afterwards. What the heroes did, not the act itself. And it's honestly debatable as to the real significance of the rape in that sense, as it was established that the heroes had been inching toward that line even before then. The rape was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I was never particularly bothered by the use of rape here, but I do sympathize with those who were. Which is another reason I get annoyed at the blanket summary of "Identity Crisis is about rape" hogwash.

Because the reason that a lot of the readers found it so offensive WAS that the rape was secondary. We never got the incident from Sue's own perspective. We never really got a glimpse of its true effect on her. We've never seen her recovery and her strength to move past this horrible experience as she so obviously had done off panel. She never got to face her attacker or have any say in his fate. The attention was solely on the reactions of the hero characters around her.

And it was a complete red-herring anyway! As it turns out, the rape had nothing to do with the murder, and aside from the brief horrified reaction from youngsters like Kyle and Wally at their colleagues' actions and some brooding from Batman, it vanished from the story.

The rape was ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the storyline, as just a place-holding "last straw" to set the heroes moving in a direction that they weren't supposed to go.

It's the fact that Identity Crisis was NOT about the rape that made the inclusion so damned offensive.

And ultimately I get annoyed by that argument, because I am over-sensitive. You see, I liked Identity Crisis. It had its flaws. There were certain parts that irritated me and that I wished had been done differently. But in the end, I liked it. And the fact that I liked it and was not (and am not) terribly offended by the use of rape as a minor plot point was actually used to imply that I didn't comprehend the seriousness of rape.

I admit, I doubt those who've made the "Identity Crisis is about rape" statements ever meant to give that sort of impression. As I said, I'm over-sensitive. But I do think such blanket statements do a disservice to people who did find something to enjoy about the series. I didn't enjoy the story or buy the comic because of the rape, even if it didn't particularly bother me either (now the pregnancy test did, but that's a rant for another occasion) but that sort of statement would seem to imply otherwise.

It's just a bit irritating.