10 Controversial Comic Book Deaths Fans Hated

5. Sue Dibny - Identity Crisis

Sue Dibny Identity Crisis
DC Comics

Identity Crisis is probably the most divisive of all DC's 'Crises'. Written in 2004 by Brad Meltzer, the book took a new approach to the most dastardly of comic book tropes, the dreaded retcon, by including a story centred around mind wiping, mystery, and murder.

Some consider it a well-paced, character driven story that plays to the strengths of the DC Universe's cast of superheroes, while others have deemed it to be a dower, unnecessarily cruel tale that ruined several heroes and conformed to a long-running trend of the publisher sticking women in the fridge. Whatever your take, it's difficult not to see how the death of Sue Dibny upset readers, given how it played out.

Sue was the wife of the Elongated Man, but is found burned to death at the beginning of the book. In their search for the culprit, Green Arrow reveals that Sue was raped by Doctor Light during the League's early years, which led several members to convince Zatanna to mind-wipe and change Light's personality, hence his depiction as a bumbling fool in every other DC book. Still, the death itself still stood, and it was later revealed that Jean Loring - the Atom's ex-wife - was the culprit.

In an attempt to win back Ray Palmer, Loring stole one of his suits, shrank down, and killed Dibny by increasing her mass whilst on her brain, resulting in a major bleed. Loring is then committed to Arkham, and the League's trust is completely broken.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.