Bad Retcons Make It So You Can't Even Enjoy Someone Dying

Mentioning Dr. Light's death on Apokolips in the pages of Suicide Squad started me thinking how differently it reads for someone coming to it 20+ years later. I can see what Ostrander's going for. It's kind of sad, with Dr. Light as the pitiful figure, possibly traumatized from his humiliating defeats, and just wanting to be liked, respected, to feel like part of a group. But even in the Suicide Squad he can't manage it. The other villains don't like him, neither do the heroes or any of the support staff. So he made a big play for their admiration and it got him killed.

Of course, it's more funny than sad, because he listened to the ghost of his old partner, who he killed, and honestly believed he was getting good advice. Then it turns into a whole thing about the two of them as ghosts, and Hell messing with them to try and amuse itself. It feels like a satire, though of what, I'm not sure. It is funny, though.

Even with all that, while I'm reading the book, I have that baggage of having read parts of Identity Crisis, and other comics featuring Dr. Light that followed, and, well, that certainly colors things. It's annoying, because I'd just as soon forget Identity Crisis was ever published, and hey, if the relaunch took it out of continuity that'll be one (the only?) good thing it did. Still, there is a part of me saying "Light's a putz because Zatanna mindwiped him for raping Sue Dibny", and with that in play, I end up wishing Ostrander and Yale had just left Light dead.

I know, that wouldn't have stopped another writer from bringing him back, or stopped Meltzer from either ignoring his death or simply picking some other loser villain to use instead. I do wonder, though, for someone who read that story when it was first published, with no inkling of where DC would go with the character, how it played with them.