10 Messed Up Comic Book Moments Everyone Wishes They Could Unsee
1. The Abuse Of Sue Dibny
There are parts of the controversial 2004 limited series Identity Crisis that many people found troubling and hard to look at; none more so than the sexual assult of beloved supporting character Sue Dibny. She was the wife of Ralph Dibny, the Elongated Man, and was featured prominently in the Keith Giffen version of the Justice League.
Sue was on the Justice League satellite watching the stars, as she had done on many occasions. This particular night, the villainous Dr. Arthur Light used his powers to break into the satellite to steal back one of his confiscated weapons. Finding Sue there alone, Light blinded her and sexually assaulted her from behind. The League returned to their HQ and beat Light mercilessly, with Ralph knocking him out with Hawkman’s mace.
As Ralph took his wife to the hospital, Zatanna wiped Light’s memory of the incident so that he couldn’t share it, and it was Hawkman who suggested that they alter the rogue's mind further in order to make him less of a threat. However one might feel about how everything went down after that, it is easy to understand the emotions, the anger, and the frustration that went into the decision to mess with Dr. Light's memory.
When this heinous act happened to Sue, she stopped being ink on paper. Instead, she immediately became every mother, daughter, sister, wife, and friend who had ever been attacked, and Light became the focus of that visceral feeling that no one wants to face in themselves. That feeling that someone must pay.