2 posts from September 2009

I wanted to look at this Women in Refrigerators (WiR) article again.  Last time, I looked at the idea that men get better after being hurt and women don’t as seen through the lens of Barbara Gordon. This time I’d like to look at Marron’s theory that male characters (i.e. dudes) are not used in the role of “in distress” like damsels are, that dudes aren’t created to be killed as often as female characters are. Marron focuses on Alex DeWitt’s murder, which plays a role in shaping Kyle Rayner’s Green Lantern character. Here is the section of the article that I want to examine:

 

As the ultimate woman in a refrigerator, Alex DeWitt’s untimely death raises a lot of questions. At the very top of the list is the question: is this right? Alex DeWitt was a character that was, according to her creator Ron Marz, destined to die from the beginning. She was created with no purpose other than to be murdered by Major Force. While Marz argues that it’s more a case of tragedy befalling a supporting character rather than specifically a woman, he also makes the point that title characters are more often males and supporting characters female.

 

The question remains, however, if this sort of behavior and plot device should be considered acceptable. If Marz created a character that he knew was going to die from the beginning — a woman who was sentenced to death in order to advance the plot and transition Kyle Rayner from his old life to his new life as Green Lantern — why not a man? Why not Kyle’s brother, for instance? His father, his uncle, his best friend? The fact is that, more likely than not, this has to do with the male-female dynamic — along with common misogynistic misconceptions about women. Alex DeWitt does not go down without a fight, but it is made apparent throughout her entire struggle with Major Force that she is weak and frail compared to her murderer, a powerful and muscular man.

 

If there had been a male character in Alex’s place – an actual Alex instead of an Alexandra — killing him off might not have been so easy. It’s all but inconceivable for a male writer — especially in the comic book industry — to fit a male character into the role of “damsel in distress.” Is it any less conceivable for a male character to be overpowered by a huge muscular monstrosity like Major Force? Or would such a thing emasculate a male character along with killing him? The idea that a female character would be fragile, defenseless, and all but helpless in this situation is more comfortable for male readers than the idea of another man not being able to defend himself in a fight.

 

There are three sub-theories in there:

 

• Male characters are almost never used in the distressed mode like female characters are.
• Male supporting characters (e.g. brothers, fathers, uncles, best friends) are almost never created to die to motivate the hero.
• Men are uncomfortable seeing men beaten up, a theory that not only flies in the face of comic book reality were the vast majority of characters, heroes and villains, who are beat down are male, but also seems to ignore completely the fan base of boxing and mixed martial arts.

 

To explore the validity of these theories, I looked at origin stories (and pretty much only origin stories) of DC characters to see if there were male characters in distress, if male characters appeared to have been created to die to motivate heroes (male and female), and if comic readers would appear to be uncomfortable with violence against male characters. I looked mainly at what would consider major characters (i.e. characters who had their own series or where members of groups that had their own series), but I tossed in a few others because I thought they were fun. Also because Marron noted this in her article --

Dinah Lance will never be able to have children

--  I pointed out a few male character who similarly are unlike to have children. I left out the dead dudes.

 

 

1. Batgirl (Barbara Gordan): took to the cape after saving Bruce Wayne from a kidnapping.
2. Batgirl (Cassandra Cain): became Batgirl because she murdered a businessman when she was eight years old and is atoning for that murder. (What does this say about the theory that male readers not wanting men look weak when this man is taken out by a little girl?)
3. Batgirl (Stephanie Brown): receives the Batgirl costume from Cassandra Cain who is disillusioned by the death of Batman.
4. Batman (Bruce Wayne): takes to the fighting crime when his father, Thomas Wayne, (and mother, Martha Wayne) were murdered. In most retellings that I recall, Thomas goes down pretty much without a fight, always far less of a fight than Alex DeWitt put up.
5. Batman (Dick Grayson): becomes Robin after his father (and mother) are murdered. Becomes Batman after Bruce is apparently murdered.
6. Black Canary (Dinah Drake Lance): had been trained by her father, Detective Richard Drake, and intended to follow in his footsteps on the Gotham City police. She was turned down by the force, however, and her disillusioned father (unable to use his connections to change the decision) died of heart failure shortly thereafter. Dinah was determined to honor his memory and fight crime and corruption.
7. Black Condor: father (and mother) killed, later uncovered a plot to kill United States Senator Thomas Wright but was too late to save Wright from assassination, and so decided to take Wright’s identity.
8. Black Lightning: his father had been murdered and he was appalled by the public murder of Earl Clifford, one of his more promising students, so he took up crime fighting!
9. Blue Beetle (Dan Garret): inspired to fight against crime when his police man father was shot and killed.
10. Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes): received the super scarab when the wizard Shazam was killed and the Rock of Eternity destroyed.
11. Blue Beetle (Ted Kord): became the new Blue Beetle when his friend, the old Blue Beetle, was killed.
12. Bronze Tiger: When he was only 10 years old, he saw a male burglar attacking his parents (which includes his male father, of course) and he proceeded to murder the burglar with a kitchen knife. In an effort to control the rage inside him, he turns to martial arts.
13. Bulletman: Jim Barr was the son of a police officer who was killed and as a result took it upon himself to fight crime.
14. Cameron Chase: developed her disgust of the costumed set when her father was murdered by a supervillain, Dr. Trap.
15. Captain Marvel: after Billy says the wizard Shazam's name and transforming into Captain Marvel, Shazam is crused beneath a large stone that had been suspended by a thread above his head.
16. Captain Marvel Jr./Shazam: Freddy got his powers after he and his grandfather were attacked by Capt. Nazi. Freddy is crippled and his created-to-die grandfather is killed.
17. Captain Triumph: Lance got his powers from the ghost of his twin brother, Michael, who was murdered and died in Lance’s arms. (For some reason, I've always thought Captain Triumph had a cool origin, and I think it would be fun if there was a Captain Truimph/Dr. Voodoo (nee Brother Voodoo) crossover, ghost brother v. ghost brother.)

18. Chemical King: there is probably no character more created-to-die than this guy. His first appearance was a memorial statue to his death in Adventure Comics #354, which was a story about the Legion as adults. The character didn’t appear alive until Adventure Comics #371. He died of radiation poisoning while stopping WW VII, just as his memorial statue said he would. Interestingly, Shadow Lass, a female character, also had a memorial statue in Adventure Comics #354 but did not die as that issue foretold.

19. Citizen Steel: gets powers when he kills the man who killed his brother (and mother.)
20. Congrilla: Congo Bill meets Congorilla, a strange golden gorilla. Bill's friend, the witch doctor Chief Kawolo who Bill has rescued but who is dying from a fall, tells him that he can control the gorilla by way of a mysterious ring, which allows him to change minds with the gorilla. Shortly after Kawolo tells Congo Bill this, he dies. Later, Bill’s human body dies. (Unlikely to have children.)
21. Creeper: Jack got his powers from the kidnapped Dr. Yatz, who was then immediately murdered. Jack, btw, was also shot up in his origin story.
22. Deadman: was himself murdered.
23. Dr. Fate (Hector Hall): became Dr. Fate after dying and living in a dream dimension. He inherited the title when the guy with the Dr. Fate artifacts before him was killed by Mordru.
24. Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson): the son of an archaeologist, Sven Nelson, who died discovering the tomb of the ancient mystical being, Nabu, when poison gas was released from the tomb. The orphaned boy was trained by Nabu in the arts of magic.
25. Dr. Mid-Nite (Charles McNider): was called to remove a bullet from a male witness who was to testify against the mob; however, a mobster threw a grenade into the room, killing the witness and blinding McNider, who later found he could see in the dark.
26. Firestorm (Jason Rusch): got his powers from the death of the first Firestorm and while he was learning about his new powers, he killed a guy he knew (iirc, "friend" might be too strong a word) by merging with him for too long. A significant part of his character development involves the fact that his father lost his hand.
27. Green Arrow (Connor Hawke): Took up the role of Green Arrow when his father (Green Arrow I) sacrificed himself in an explosion.
28. Green Lantern (Alan Scott): the local villagers in fear and as punishment for what they thought sacrilege killed him the guy who created the green lantern.
29. Green Lantern (Guy Gardner): was chosen as backup Green Lantern by created-to-die male alien Abin Sur, whose spaceship crashed on Earth.
30. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan): was given the power ring and battery by a created-to-die male alien named Abin Sur, whose spaceship crashed on Earth.
31. Green Lantern (John Stewart): got to be the backup Green Lantern when Gardner was critically injured when hit by a bus.
32. Hawkman (Carter Hall): murdered by priest.
33. Human Bomb (Roy Lincoln): Ray's created-to-die father was killed by Nazis as they forced their way into his lab. Roy swallowed his father’s explosive formula to keep the Nazis from getting it. As a result anything he touched exploded. (Unlikely to have children.)
34. Huntress: becomes crime fighter after her entire family, including the male members, are killed at a wedding.
35. Tommy Jagger: diven by the murder of his father, the Judo Master, to fight evil, specifically to fight Bane, who killed the Judo Master by breaking his back. That's Bane's thing. BTW, Bane is running around loose and is kind of a hero in The Secret Six, written by Gail Simone, who came up with WiR. You may remember that Marron stated that if the killer escaped justice later, it made the murder meaningless ... well, meaningless when it happened to a female fictional character.
36. Kid Quantum (Jazmin Cullen): took the role of Kid Quantum after her bother, the original Kid Quantum, was murdered. Her brother was created-to-die so that there would be an explanation for why the Legion didn't allow members who got their powers from devices.
37. Manitou Dawn: received her mystic mantle of power while grieving the murder of her husband.
38. Martian Manhunter: pulled to earth by a teleportation experiment by Dr. Erdel, the shock of the encounter kills the created-to-die Dr. Erdel.
39. Negative Man: highly radioactive thanks to experimental aircraft. (Unlikely to have children.)
40. Obsidian: raised by an abusive father.
41. Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight): decides to become a costumed adventurer after saving her father from assassins.
42. Plastic Man: shot by his cohorts and dropped into vat of acid.
43. Ragdoll (Peter Merkel, Jr.): suffers from mental illness and disfigured himself to please his criminal (and possibly insanely abusive) father. He had several operations to alter his body including radical castration.
44. Ragman (pre-Crisis): Rory had grown up helping his father, a junk man who owned a pawn shop. While drinking with his friends one night, his father discovered 2 million dollars stuffed inside an old mattress that had been pawned. He and his friends decided to hide the money for Rory, since they were too old to truly benefit from it. The money turned out to be the loot from an armored car heist and when the hoods came to the shop one night to get it, they shot down some electrical wires and used them to torture Rory's father and his friends into revealing where the money was hidden. Rory arrived soon after and seeing his father in agony attempted to pull him free from the wires. A final shock of power ran though the old men and grounded out at Rory, knocking him unconscious. When he woke his father and friends were dead and the hoods responsible were gone.
45. The Ray (Ray Terrill): becomes a superhero after learning the truth of this life at the deathbed of his created-to-die uncle who Ray thought was his father.
46. Red Robin (Tim Drake): takes the role of Robin upon figuring out that the murder of the previous Robin (Jason Todd) is causing Batman to become more violent. Major turning points in Tim’s life include the murder of his father (which causes him to change his costume), murder of his best friend (Superboy), and murder of his mentor (Batman) which led to him taking the name Red Robin.
47. Resurrection Man: gains his powers through dying, frequently in horrible fashion.
48. Rex the Wonder Dog: Rex spent his early years in the U.S. Army's K-9 Corps, alongside his brother, Pooch. Even early in his training it was apparent that Rex had great potential, which resulted in Dr. Anabolus selecting him as a test subject for a super-soldier serum. Dr. Anabolus was shortly thereafter killed by a Nazi spy. Yes, even dogs have created-to-die guys in their origin stories. Pooch was wounded multiple times and received the honorary rank of sergeant. He perished alongside the Losers near the end of World War II.
49. Robotman (Cliff Steele): a race car accident destroyed his body so the Chief placed Cliff's intact brain into a robotic body. After the operation, Cliff suffered from frequent depression because he viewed himself as less than human. (Unlikely to have children.)
50. Robotman (Robert Crane): brain was placed inside a robotic body after he had been fatally shot. (Unlikely to have children.)
51. Sandman (Sandy Hawkins): takes on the heroic role when the original Sandman died, also took the name Sand after being trapped in a pertrified mineral body for years.
52. Simon Dark: created from the bodies of 20 dead boys.
53. Spectre (Crispus Allen): while examining the murdered body of his male informant, Allen was shot and killed by another police officer without a fight.
54. Spectre (Hal Jordan, Spirit of Redemption): gains supernatural powers after being driven insane and killed.
55. Spectre (Jim Corrigan): murdered by being put into cement and thrown into the water by a crime-boss.
56. Starman (Jack Knight): took the role after this brother, the previous Starman, was shot and killed by an assassin. Again, no fight.
57. Steel: inspired to become a superhero by the death of Superman, who had once saved John.
58. Superman: father (and mother) killed when Krypton explodes.
59. Supermen of America: the group was formed in response to the death of Superman and had the created-to-die character, Psilencer, who died in short order.
60. Swamp Thing: burned to death.
61. Terry Berg: a created-to-die character who ended up only being severally beaten.
62. Unknown Soldier: volunteers to become a special agent after he is disfigured and his created-to-die brother is killed by a grenade thrown into the foxhole they share.

 

So there you have it. You be the judge.

 

Does it look like male characters are almost never used in the distressed mode like female characters are?

 

Does it look like male supporting characters (e.g. brothers, fathers, uncles, best friends) are almost never created to die to motivate the hero?

 

Does it look like men are uncomfortable seeing men beaten up?

 

Do I need to do the same with Marvel characters? I just looked at DC here, but Captain America, Iron Man, the Wasp, Spider-Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, Daredevil, the New X-Men, the Black Widow, Electra, Wolverine, Warpath, etc. etc. have deaths of created-to-die male characters in their origins.

 

Over here, another blogger, Marron, is pushing the Women in Refrigerators (WiR) meme, i.e. that women characters are killed, crippled, etc. with greater frequency than male characters in comics.  Marron makes some statements specific to Barbara Gordon that I think work in opposition to the goals of feminist comic readers like me and people would would just like to see more female characters in central roles in comics. I'll get to those, but let me grouse about some stuff from the blog first.

 

Marron makes a number of unsupported statements that fly in the face of reality like this one:

 

It’s all but inconceivable for a male writer — especially in the comic book industry — to fit a male character into the role of “damsel in distress.”

 

It’s as if Marron is completely unfamiliar with the histories of major characters who have been around for decades like Robin, Jimmy Olson, Bucky, Steve Trevor, Foggy Nelson, and Rick Jones, who seemed to exist only to be in distress, not to mention male characters created to die like Uncle Ben Parker, “Battling” Jack Murdock, and Thomas Wayne, whose deaths where the impetus behind the superheroic careers to some of the biggest characters in comics today. Marron acts as if Lois Lane never saves Superman, that the Invisible Woman never saves the male FF members. For Marron, those characters, these situations are “all but inconceivable.” If Marron's theory were true, women shouldn't read comics, but the theory is plainly false. So why paint a worse picture of comics than the reality and drive women away more than they already are?

 

When Marron does recognize that bad things happen to male characters, the idea is qualified thusly:

 

I will be fair, here. Men in comics have taken their fair share of abuse in the name of plot and story, but not to the extent that women have. Some male characters stay dead, but most of them make their way back — and are better and stronger than ever, whereas the only way Alex DeWitt is coming back is possibly as a Black Lantern in Geoff Johns’ Blackest Night event. Barbara Gordon will never walk again, Dinah Lance will never be able to have children, and, well, let’s not even talk about Jean Grey and the handling of the women of Marvel. Women in comics are treated much more brutally than their male counterparts — main character, supporting, or otherwise.

 

I could counter all the points above by mentioning several male characters who are unlikely to ever have children (Robot Man comes to mind immediately) or that male characters have died and come back to life several time like Jean Grey (e.g. Immorto, Immortal Man, Mr. Immortal, whose entire shtick revolves around returning from brutal deaths), and center mainly at Barbara Gordon because I think there is something really significant about the character.

 

The first thing I want to note about Barbara is that most people don’t seem to want her to be walking again. I’ve seen polls and discussions on this with people who consider themselves feminists and who are opposed to the rampant killing/maiming of female comics characters, and most people seem to like the character better as a disabled woman who must use her wits to beat her opponents. Most people seem to have really enjoyed the evolution of the character and point to it as one of the better character evolutions in comics even if (and maybe especially if) they aren’t fond of The Killing Joke, which began Barbara’s character evolution toward the Oracle persona. Oracle stayed essentially paraplegic while Gail Simone (the creator of the WiR theory) wrote the book for years. So the idea that Barbara staying paraplegic is somehow evidence of sexism or WiR is really weak in my book.

 

And the theory just gets weaker as we look at male paraplegic characters who will never walk again despite Marron's theory that comic guys tend to get better.

 

 

Professor Charles “Prof. X” Xavier: I’ve looked at his character bio at Wikipedia and it looks as if he has been healed and re-crippled something like 5 or 6 times and is currently using a wheelchair again. My guess is that any subsequently healings will be similarly undone by walls that fall on him that conveniently (well, not for him) cripple him in exactly the same manner that he had been before as was the case the first time his spine was healed. Imagine what would be said about the misogyny/WiRing of Barbara if writers kept healing and crippling her, if every few years the Joker shot her in the spine again. Remarkable about Prof. X’s continued paraplegia is that he is in frequent contact with mutants who have the power to heal, and yet, there he is in that chair.

 

 

 

Dr. Niles “The Chief” Caulder: What I love about The Chief being unable to walk is that he created a robot body for a guy who was reduced to being only a brain (i.e. Robot Man) which allowed this disembodied brain to walk, but somehow he can’t figure out how to get himself to walk. (BTW, Elasti-Girl is one of the many female characters who have came back to life that Marron doesn't think come back to life.)

 

 

 

Takashi “Wiz Kid” Matsuya: Another inventive genius who can’t get himself walking.

 

 

 

Quincy Harker: Takes on Dracula while confined to a wheelchair! The guy had guts. And by “had guts” I mean that he doesn’t have them anymore because they were splattered all over the walls of Castle Dracula when Harker detonated a suicide bomb in his wheelchair in an failed attempt to kill Dracula. Marron makes the following point related to deaths that don’t result in punishment for the bad guy:

 

There are people who would argue the point and say that Alexandra DeWitt’s death is no different than that of a victim on one of the many popular crime drama we watch on TV. What’s the difference between a woman in a refrigerator and, say, a murdered woman on an episode of Law & Order? In Law & Order the murderer is arrested, tried, and punished; in the case of Alexandra DeWitt’s murderer, Major Force was made immortal and then thrown into space — ten years later. He eventually dies, but it’s not as a result of justice served for his murder of Alexandra DeWitt; in a way, that makes her death even more meaningless and shallow than the idea that she was created specifically to die.

 

One has to wonder what Marron thinks of Quincy Harker’s meaningless death that left the immortal Dracula unrepentantly killing throughout the Marvel Universe. Come to think of it, The Chief was crippled by General Immortus, who is also immortal and presently running free in the DCU.

 

 

 

Roger “Box” Bochs: will never walk again ... or breathe again for that matter. He too is dead, dead, dead. I should mention that he was briefly given the power to walk by the flesh manipulating mutant Scramble (Lionel Jeffries), but Scramble created Bochs’s new legs from the flesh of dead human bodies. Bochs’s legs eventually began to decompose. Bochs found out what was going on, and he was driven insane by this most grotesque of experiences. Bochs was then bodily subsumed/absorbed by Scramble to form the combined being called Omega. Omega (and thus Bochs) was then killed, never to be seen again ... which means he can’t have children. The Roger Bochs story puts the whole “can’t have kids” tragedy in perspective, right?

 

Barabara Gordon is not worse off than any of the guys above who will also never walk (among other things) again. Barbara Gordon should be a feminist icon that gets more women into reading comics. Suggesting that she is an example of sexism that is reflected in WiR does nothing to help get more women into reading comics or more female characters into lead roles in comics. All it does is discourage women from reading comics and discourage readers from enjoying the character, which hurts her chances of being a popular female character.

 

In the comments section of Marron’s blog, Marron suggests that there will be more Women in Refrigerators columns. Let’s hope that some research is put into those because this kind of research-free claptrap does nothing to advance feminist goals in comics.