10 Most Hated Retcon Changes In DC Comics

7. Your Favourite Heroes Are Actually Awful - Identity Crisis

No Crisis seems to have more of a divisive reputation than Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis. It was the first to boast no distinctive cosmic influence, but its retcons were no less seismic.

Meltzer's comic is a curious one, and certainly a book that has its positives, but it wielded a certain kind of cruelty that proved too much for some of DC's readers. The story was effectively a murder mystery centred around the death of Sue Dibny, the wife of the Elongated Man. The Justice League tirelessly pursue every lead they can find, but only a select few know who the prime suspect actually is - Doctor Light.

Meltzer revealed in his comic that, back during the League's heyday, Light was considered something of a serious threat. For the majority of his existence the Teen Titans villain was portrayed as bumbling and incompetent, and Identity Crisis decided to account for this change by explaining how, after Light raped Sue Dibny in the Watchtower, Zatanna and a small number of Leaguers, among them Green Arrow, Black Canary and Barry Allen, conspired to magically alter Light's personality. He would have no memory of the event, but Zatanna's tinkering resulted in a complete change in the villain's mind, transforming him into the joke character seen up until that point.

Batman, who protested his colleagues' decision, also had his mind-wiped.

Whether you think Identity Crisis added some much needed ambiguity to some of DC's heroes or altered them for the worse, there's no denying just how controversial Meltzer's comic was upon release.