10 Comic Book Deaths That Angered The World
4. Ralph & Sue Dibny (AKA The Elongated Man & Sue Dibny)
Generally lauded as a modern day masterpiece, Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis is nevertheless an extremely depressing story. One of the major talking points of the story was the death of Sue Dibny, detective partner and wife of The Elongated Man, AKA Ralph Dibny. At one point in this tragic tale, readers discovered that poor old Sue had also been raped by Silver Age villain (and retroactive sex offender) Dr. Light. As if that wasn't grim enough, she was also pregnant with Ralph's kid at the time of her death. Yeesh. It seems pretty obvious that Brad Meltzer was badly bullied in his childhood by somebody with the surname Dibny.
Ralph and Sue Dibny were, in many ways, the last vestiges of Silver Age innocence still extant in the DCU. They were happily married, they travelled the world solving mysteries and, due to being a backup feature for most of their publication history, had largely escaped being reinvented by would be Moore and Miller copycats as gritty or conflicted anti heroes in the 80s and 90s. Of course, it made perfect sense for Sue Dibny to be raped. Then murdered and then burned. Did we mentioned she got burned? Because yeah, she also got burned. Most comics fans didn't mind this, but Sue's fictitious death became a major discussion point about misogyny in comics and contemporary fiction.
Many women were upset about a sweet, innocent, non-powered character like Sue Dibny being raped, then murdered and then burned. Understandably so. Ralph, her grieving husband, lived through a hellstorm of personal torment throughout the following weekly 52 event, before finally dying in what was, essentially, a glorified suicide. Lovely. Of course, the pair returned as murderous zombies during the Blackest Night event. And we comics fans wonder why our stuff isn't taken seriously by the rest of the world...