Well, not really and I’ll tell you why in two words:

Suicide Squad

At the begining of his Identity Crisis story, Meltzer explores his villains different relationships and connections. He even ties Boomerang with the Calculator and Deadshot, etc. He wants to pretend he’s building his story based on past continuity (you know, with those references to the Secret Society of Super Villains(SSoSV) and Suicide Squad stories); but the fact of the matter is that he wasn’t too thorough. If he had read Suicide Squad, he would have known that the Federal Goverment/Task Force X had access to the Atom’s technology and even had an operative (who wasn’t Ray Palmer) running around with the Suicide Squad.

I believe the guy was killed, which brought in a couple of appearances by the JLA, but the technology remained “out there”.

And as for Jean Loring being behind it all… well, that also didn’t make any sense. After all, she was the one that broke up with him and she was the one that wouldn’t take him back (as chronicled in “Sword of the Atom”, “Power of the Atom” and Jurgen’s run on “Teen Titans”.

So maybe it would’ve been a good reveal if “Identity Crisis” had been a story “all unto itself”. But it wasn’t. And it was Meltzer who made it “continuity heavy”, not the fans.

By the way,

Does Kaiser Soze count as a big Villain reveal???

-Ahem-

Yes I like the big Golden Age reveal most of all. And if I weren’t drawing a blank, I bet I could come up with more than a couple reveals. But as it is, my other two favorite reveals are:

1- The Martians at the end of Morrison’s first JLA arc.

2- And depending on you point of view, this may or may not be a villain reveal; but prior to the Zero-Hour Legion reboot… The real truth behind Proty’s death and Lightning Lad’s resurrection was revealed in an Annual.

Heh, heh…

My personal favorite reveal would have to be Runaways, for being impressive in a very Watchman style way and fitting splendidly with the ramped up sense of paranoia Vaughn had built. Astounding misdirection.

Oh, and I have to give kudos to Gaiman’s American Gods. The name of Mr. World’s other identity was fiendish for how close the book came to telling you right out.

I think Ozymandias’ reveal isn’t about the fact that he’s behind it, but it’s about the confrontation afterward:
“Dan, I’m not a republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I’d explain my masterstroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome?
I did it thirty-five minutes ago.”

THAT is what got me. The fact that he nonchalantly distracts Nite-Owl and Rorschach (which they probably assume is the slow, reminiscing “alright, you got me” approach of someone whose plans have been completely confounded) while his plan is executed makes up for the aspect that he’s the prime suspect by issue 10 (if not far sooner).

I also agree that the Runaways reveal is pretty crazy, and did set the “trust no one” tone of the series. I do enjoy how Vaughan kept up the “anything can happen/anyone can die” feeling for so long, which is a trait that I also admire in Heinberg’s Young Avengers (although it is amplified over there).

…and I know I’m in the minority of people that actually liked Identity Crisis, but I think it served a very crucial role in bringing the modern DCU into existence. I also felt that the revelation that (I suppose this might be spoilers for someone?) Jean Loring was behind it all made sense, and that Brad Meltzer did lay it out in such a way that it is very obvious in hindsight but a complete blindside at the time. It also becomes more important when you consider the actual scene where the revelation takes place, with Ray and Jean in the bedroom, is a scene that has been used frequently as a ‘safe haven’ of sorts for the reader up to that point in the series. The Ray/Jean reconciliation was the only positive thing going without any ominous overtones, and then Meltzer uses that to magnify the feeling of raw horror and shock in Ray’s (and the reader’s) life.

Ozymandias was great, but had a different sort of impact, as it sort of dawned gradually over the issue, so it lacked the sudden “holy s@#t” of the last few pages of the Xorn comic.

Niles was real good, but I was not as emotionally invested in the characters, so the impact was diminished. Similarly, the Losers revealed a traitor but it was so early in the series it didn’t have as much resonance.

In the interest of stuff that hasn’t been mentioned yet: cop revealed to be Loki in Sandman: The Kindly Ones, and a special shout-out to Karma as obese crimelord in Sienciewicz’s last New Mutants issue (which I thought was well done ’cause she had been MIA long enough so you never saw it coming.

Liked the “I killed Batman” trial story too, by the way.

Favorite recent revelation would be the Annihilation Conquest reveal from yesterday. For me it redeems the character from the eye-rolling storyline he has been involved in for the last few months (where due to the artist’s influence he has breasts).

And yes, Caulder’s reveal was so not expecting that, it made sense.

It was a multiple choice quiz as to who the Thunderbolts were, and since one of the choices was “The Masters of Evil,” I thought that totally gave that away before the book’s release, as I remember doing the “math,” and only Mach-5/Beetle being a “who could THAT be?” – as Atlas/Goliath, Songbird/Screaming Mimi, Meteorite/Moonstone, Citizen V/Zemo and Techno/Fixer all seemed quite possible/probable.

That annoyed me.

There were ALREADY some guesses of Masters of Evil back at USEnet, but that house ad totally ruined it, I thought.

but I still felt a good character was lost.

Of course, the Xorn character wasn’t really lost, because he lived on in Magneto’s psyche, driving him crazy and confronting him with his actions.

Xorn really shocked me, too. Like one of those moments where you shout “Whoa!” in public and everybody looks at you.

First, Darkseid as the villian behind The Great Darkness Saga in the Legion–this was a big suprise for readers of the original comics, spoiled for readers of the Trade by putting him on the cover.

In the same run, the reveal that the Shrinking Violet who’d finally fallen for Colossal Boy was a shapeshifting Durlan (a villian’s dupe rather than a villian herself) was a cools uprise. So cool that Marvel swiped it a few years later, to make the Alicia whio fell in love with the Torch a shapeshifting Skrull.

To jump media for a moment, none of the reveals mentioned have hit me as much as the revelation of who really killed Miles Archer in “The Maltese Falcon.” As Bogart put it, “you’re good–your very good.”

Can we please retire this tired cliché?

Yes, the ’90s were full of crappy comics — so is every single decade in the history of the medium. But the ’90s were also the decade of Bone, Starman, Firearm, Preacher, Grant Morrison’s JLA run, Warren Ellis’ Stormwatch run, Aztek, Hate, Castle Waiting, Sin City, Mark Millar’s Swamp Thing run, Transmetropolitan, Mark Waid and Mike Mieringo’s Flash run, Alan Moore’s Supreme, Dylan Horrocks’ Hicksville, and I could go on and on …