Sue Dibny
35 years ago - Sue Dearbon is born.
13 years ago - 22-year-old Sue marries Ralph Dibny after a whirlwind courtship.
10 years ago - 25-year-old Sue & Ralph Dibny work with Jimmy Olsen to solve a series of impossible heists in Metropolis.
9 years ago - 26-year-old Sue is attacked by Arthur Light while alone in the Justice League satellite, fightng him off until the League returns. She and Ralph choose to quit the League and become a full-time detectives.
2 years ago - 33-year-old Sue & Ralph Dibny are attacked by a mysterious arsonist. They come out of retirement to solve the mystery, deducing that it was by Jean Loring. They spend a brief time hosting Traci Thirteen while she is estranged from her father Terry Thirteen.
If you do a google image search for Sue Dibny, the very first thing you get is her rape in the pages of Identity Crisis. This is a character that was a beloved wife, part of an adorably loving and uplifting couple that truly supported each other. She was raped in a FLASHBACK, which means that event was retroactively added to her story, which meant that she had ALWAYS been a rape victim. I'm not saying that a person that has suffered this particular trauma can't be strong and awesome like Sue is, but to pretend that you can retcon this sort of abuse into their story without any repercussions is awful.
Even worse, they depicted it. It's intensely triggery for real life victims to see this sort of thing, and it's all done to advance the story of OTHER characters. She is abused, and then the character is killed. It's intensely misogynist to use this sort of horrible character abuse to advance an unrelated story especially when you could easily tell that story without it. So here's how it is instead: Sue and Ralph enjoy a whirlwind courtship, and she's right by his side through his career as a superhero, even becoming an honorary member of the Justice League herself, exhibiting all the pluck and bravery and general awesomeness that she is known for. Dr. Light gets onto the satellite and TRIES to attack her, because he's a bad guy and sure... awful stuff happens. But she holds him off. He's caught, and the league rewrites his personality just like in the original story, because you don't need to write horrific abuse into your story to justify that. Afterward, Ralph & Sue leave behind superheroics, and decide to just be detectives. Fast forward to the actual events of Identity Crisis, when an arsonist TRIES to kill Sue, which provides all the motivation we need to move that story forward, thereby telling EXACTLY THE SAME STORY without the retroactive abuse and pointless murder of an awesome character. |