So, ............. SPOILERS.
Let me start off with saying that this is mostly that the catalyst of the story is the death of Sue Dibny. Her husband (Ralph) is the Elongated Man, and a reserve member of the Justice League. He's not one of the higher profile superheroes, but he's seen some action. Ralph tells a Justice League rookie about his perfect marriage (the chemistry is modeled after Rob and Laura's in the Dick Van Dyke Show). We understand that when Ralph made his secret identity public, his private life and family became all the more vulnerable. As the investigation begins, a very moving funeral is shown. In an internal monologue, Oliver Queen points out problems of a service open to the public. There are people who care about the heroes, those who will gawk at the spectacle, and all the while, these masked individuals just want privacy to grieve. Before the public eye, they must even mourn in costume, protecting their lives at home.
An interesting thing about this book is that you get internal monologue from so many different characters, but very little neutral narrations. It's all color coded so that you know who's thinking what, but you're also following their train of thought from knee-jerk assumptions to answers that start making sense.
We see that one of Ralph's teammates, (Ray Palmer) has divorced his wife, and learn that these two heroes were on a team with a dark secret. For the sake of protecting their loved one's this group had crossed a line that someone like Superman wouldn't condone. Sue was part of what led to this dark secret, so the surviving members of the team believed that her murderer must have been this augmented villain seeking vengeance. While planning their next move, Wally West and Kyle Rayner confront them. Queen notes how similar these two are to the two deceased members of this scandalous group (Hal Jordan and Barry Allen). This group of superheroes seek out Dr. Light on this suspicion as Charles McNider discovers in the autopsy that Light didn't do it.
From here, we start looking at some other private lives. Tim Drake just recently telling his father about being a Robin, and the Suicide Squad explaining talking about how Captain Boomerang is low on the totem pole. After Ray's ex-wife is supposedly attacked, an investigation of the attempted murder led to a dead end, because the most likely culprit was incapable of committing the act. Fearing for their family's safety Tim Drake spends more time with his father, Ray spends more time with his ex-wife (Jean), and Captain Boomerang meets a long-lost son who wants to follow in his father's footsteps.
Oliver seeks out the advice from Hal Jordan's spirit. In his afterlife, Jordan is now "the Spectre", spirit of vengeance. Jordan as pained that he knows who is behind this, but he is not allowed to interfere.
Wally goes to Oliver and seeks further truth about this Justice League secret. Light wasn't the only one altered for the protection of families, so was BATMAN. This team believed that Batman knew too much, and could possibly tell Superman. Oliver explains to Barry how masks such as his protects sons, daughters, wives, husbands, parents, and other people in the lives of the superheroes.
Seeing his partner orphaned spurs Batman to go on his own investigation of Drake's murder. The suicide squad is trying to make sense of their teammate's death and who called in the hit Captain Boomerang was supposed to carry out. Ray and Jean are getting closer through the course of the story, and Jean let's slip a detail of the Drake murder that hadn't been released. This is as Bruce Wayne is analyzing evidence, and the autopsy team of Michael Holt and Dr. Midnight have found footprints on Sue Dibny's brain matching an Atom suit. As the heroes close in on Jean's guilt, she tries to explain to Ray how she did it for superheroes' personal lives. Ray is so distraught by this that he goes on a sabbatical after dropping his wife off at Arkham. Tim shuts himself off from Dick Grayson (a former Robin who knows what he's going through). Oliver bonds with his son. Captain Boomerang's son takes up the mantle. Then, in the epilogue, we see a horribly damaged Ralph Dibny self-medicating and unable to accept the loss of his wife.
This was a great but extremely sad book. Morales captures so much emotion in a single panel, that you can see how deeply the pain is striking the hearts of the characters. Ralph just comes apart at the funeral in more ways than one. He normally has flexibility powers like those of Plastic Man, or Mr.
I think that Meltzer writes a great argument about the privacy of superheroes. He writes from both sides of the argument. How an exposed secret identity puts heroes' families at risk, and how far the superheroes can justify taking action to protect their secret identities. There are some elements that I didn't notice until reading it a second time. The first thing was how envy may have first compelled Jean. The fact that her relationship with a Justice League member had fallen apart while the Dibnys' marriage was idyllic. Also, re-reading the story you can relate to what Hal Jordan is going through. You know who's behind Sue's murder and the killer's reasoning, but all you can do is read and watch as the story follows through until the characters find the answer for themselves.
I'd definitely recommend this book. In my opinion, it was one of the great comics tragedies, and it has a moral to the story. In the book, Meltzer and the characters start asking "Who benefits?". You start wondering as you see relationships flourishing, but by the end the answer is that nobody benefits. Neither the villains or the heroes. All these people can do afterwards is try to carry on with their lives.
