[Monday Review] Identity Crisis, by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales

A friend of mine loaned me his copy of Identity Crisis, and I finished it in one sitting. It is a heartbreaking story about the toll being a superhero can take on your personal life and the lives of those around you. Also, as a friend on Facebook pointed out to me, it was a very intimate story, as worlds were not at stake. It was personal, and yet, the tension was still high, because you cared about the characters enough to want to solve the mystery and resolve the titular "crisis."

I have been a fan of Brad Meltzer, surprisingly enough not from his books, but from his History Channel television series, Brad Meltzer's Decoded and Brad Meltzer's Lost History. The latter program identified artifacts that had been lost, misplaced or plain stolen and asked for viewers to aid in their recovery. The first episode detailed the story of the "911 Flag" that was raised over Ground Zero.  Toward the end of that single season, it was reported that someone had come forward and returned the flag. This was followed by several months of testing, and then a follow up standalone program aired on the investigation that led to the recovery, identification and verification of the artifact. His writing and delivery sold me on his skills to tell a story.  These skills served him well in making these characters human.

I must confess I was not (and still am not) very familiar with the entirety of the DC pantheon of heroes and villains, but what I knew helped me follow the story. I can completely understand why this is considered a classic.

Of special interest is the article at the end detailing some of the pop figure personalities that the artist used to model his figures of the characters on.