Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for The Flash episode "A Girl Named Sue" and the graphic novel Identity Crisis.
The latest episode of The Flash introduced the character of Sue Dearbon and made reference to her infamous death in the pages of DC Comics. While it might seem counter-intuitive to pay homage to a character's death in their first appearance in an Arrowverse adaptation, "A Girl Named Sue" was clever in how it made reference to DC Comics' Identity Crisis.
Sue Dearbon was married to Ralph Dibny (aka the world-famous Elongated Man) in her first appearance in the comics in The Flash #119 in 1961. The daring debutante was never given much background but proved to be the perfect partner in crime-fighting to the Ductile Detective and she became a member of the Justice League on her own merits. Despite partnering up with Ralph for several decades across a number of series, Sue is still best known to casual comic book readers as the victim whose violent death was the main mystery of the best-selling graphic novel Identity Crisis.
The stunning twist of Identity Crisis was that Sue's death was an accident, facilitated as part of an insane plan by The Atom's ex-wife Jean Loring to win back Ray Palmer's heart by convincing him and the rest of the superhero community that a new villain was targeting their loved ones. What was meant to be a simple assault to scare Sue led to her death and Jean attempting to cover her tracks by horrifically burning Sue's body. The search for Sue's killers resulted in a wild goose chase, which exposed the dark secrets of the Justice League and their fears that Sue's death was an act of retaliation by the villain Dr. Light.
"A Girl Named Sue," paid homage to this by introducing a new nemesis for Sue Dearbon; John Lorning. Season 6 of The Flash saw Ralph Dibny hired by Sue's parents to find their missing daughter, chasing reports of her activities around the globe. Ralph finally caught up to Sue in the latest episode of The Flash, learning that the heiress had gone on the run after she discovered that her latest boyfriend, John Loring, was secretly a weapons dealer of ill-repute. Sue recruited Ralph to help protect her from Loring, whom she said had been trying to kill her since she accidentally uncovered the truth about how he made his money.
Changing Jean Loring to John Loring was necessary given the way the early Arrowverse series made use of DC Comics' characters. It would be quite impossible to completely recreate Identity Crisis in the Arrowverse, given that Ray Palmer is quite happily dating Nora Darhk in Legends of Tomorrow and was never involved with a Jean Loring. There is a Jean Loring in the Arrowverse, but she was the Queen Family lawyer and an old friend of Moira Queen, who was last seen handling Oliver Queen's defense on charges of vigilantism during season 6 of Arrow. That's good news for fans of Ralph and Sue, who were hoping to see more of the power couple together in future episodes of The Flash.