#Women In Refrigerators

[invisible-pink-toast]

“The woman dies.

She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her. Dies because there weren’t any better story ideas around. Dies because her death was the very best idea that anyone could come up with.

‘I’ve got it! Let’s kill her off!’

‘Yes! Her death will solve everything!’

‘Okay! Let’s hit the pub!’

And so, the woman dies. The woman dies so the man can be sad about it. The woman dies so the man can suffer. She dies to give him a destiny. Dies so he can fall to the dark side. Dies so he can lament her death. As he stands there, brimming with grief, brimming with life, the woman lies there in silence. The woman dies for him. We watch it happen. We read about it happening. We come to know it well.”

- The Woman Dies by Aoko Matsuda (translated by Polly Barton)

[theblogwithoutfear]

So I was reading Daredevil (vol. 1, issue 364) and I noticed something interesting about the cover.

Obviously there's a lot of superhero girlfriends that get thrown off buildings. But I think the most famous is probably Gwen Stacy. So immediately I started thinking about that, and I noticed that Karen is wearing Gwen's death outfit—just in inverted colors (The Amazing Spider-man, vol. 1, issue 121).

I also think it's interesting, comparing these two images, to look at the titles. "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" is one of the most famous Spider-man titles of all time

So to call this DD issue "Taking Back the Night" is really interesting to me, calling back to "The Night" title of the Spider-man issue. This DD issue is from 1997, and obviously feminism had progressed further than it had in 1973, when Gwen Stacy died. And though there was still a long way to go, I think writers were (sometimes) doing a (slightly) better job at treating female characters like actual people, rather than props.

So to me, the title "Taking Back the Night" along with putting Karen in an inverted version of Gwen's outfit seems to be making a very clear statement to the reader. It's an argument against fridging female characters (though obviously, that term wasn't being used yet).

This is especially interesting in the context of Daredevil. Only 24 issues before this one (vol. 1, issue 340), Glorianna O'Breen was thrown off a roof and died, and it had barely any plot significance at all. It was, imo, an even worse fridging than Gwen Stacy, because Glorianna hadn't even been in Daredevil for literal years at that point. She was only there so that she could be killed off.

(it's also worth noting that Glorianna is also wearing the short skirt and trenchcoat ensemble here)

There's this really interesting idea being played with in late '90s Daredevil, especially in conversation with "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." The idea is that the Daredevil writers are "taking back the night"; that is, taking back the night Gwen Stacy died. It feels like they're trying to reverse this trope, or retire it (though obviously, the trope didn't stay retired for long). It feels especially significant within the larger context of Daredevil. I mean, he's lost so many girlfriends over the years that it's a running joke at this point.

So to have Karen Page in the same position as Glorianna O'Breen, and in the same position as Gwen Stacy, but with a different outcome, feels really progressive to me (at least for the time). There's a few factors here:

She puts up a fight. Obviously in the end, she's still saved by a man—but in the meantime she's not waiting around like a passive victim.

She's being targeted on her own merit. She's in danger because she's tangled up in some shady business at work; this fight has nothing to do with Daredevil. She isn't being used as a plot motivator for Matt.

The villain who throws Karen off the roof is a woman, not a man.

Karen survives, where the others have died.

Did the writers succeed in "taking back" what they did to Gwen Stacy and Glorianna O'Breen? I don't know. It was certainly an attempt, and it definitely reflects the attitudes of the time in which it was written. It certainly feels like a step forward.

But the fact remains, all of this is undercut by the fact that only 21 issues later, Karen is killed off anyway (Daredevil vol. 2, issue 5).

Anyway, all of this is just fascinating to me. I'm trying to get into more academic/critical comic studies lately, doing close readings and analyses of the texts, and the intersection of Daredevil and feminism is especially interesting to me. I have a different academic Daredevil paper I'm trying to put together for a conference next year, but maybe at some point I'll write more about the women of Daredevil as a reflection of women in comics more generally.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let me talk about Women in Refrigerators

You know what? This is a thing that is kinda annoying me in the Castlevania fandom. How everyone is screaming about Women in Refrigerators, while folks so clearly do not understand what the trope actually is about and why it is a bad trope.

Like, there is not a single death of a named woman in Castlevania, that not at least someone has called "fridged". Alright, maybe Drolta. But other than that... yeah, folks definitely have called Lenore and Carmilla fridged. And... No, people, you misunderstand the trope.

The name of the trope was coined based on Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (from the 90s), in which Green Lantern finds his death girlfriend stuffed in a refrigerator - mostly for shock value in the reader. Mind you, this was the 90s, when superhero comics were really, really edgy and stuff. And in fact the kind of story happened a lot of times during this time. Female characters being killed, raped and tortured for pure shock value, with the story not featuring any idea of what this did to the female character, but rather focusing on what this does to the male characters. (And mind you: Yes, a woman can be considered fridged and still survive the ordeal. A lot of folks do consider Barbara in The Killing Joke fridged as well.)

So, what does "Fridging" in terms of the trope mean? Basically it means that a female character suffers a horrible fate just so that another (most probably male) character can be motivated to do something and react to this thing happening, setting in motion a character arc for the surviving character - or even setting into motion the plot.

In many examples it should also be noticed that at times the female characters mostly just exist to meet their horrible end. Supernatural as a show is really bad in this regard. Like, within the first episode of the show THREE FUCKING WOMEN get fridged, just so that the brothers can travel together and start the plot.

So, let's move back to Castlevania.

Lisa is fridged. There is no way around it. Yes, it does not feel like it, because they still managed to make her a character of sorts, but yeah, she definitely is fridged. She dies a horrible death and that death is what motivates the plot, as well as what motivates both Alucard and Dracula. That is very classical fridging no way around it.

Carmilla and Lenore, though? Yeah, they are not fridged. They are characters who just die. Their death is not used to motivate another character. Their death is also not random, like most fridging deaths. Especially Carmilla is basically asking for her death, of course. She is a villain and gets the same death as all other villains. And while it is a bit different with Lenore, she definitely is not fridged either, giving that she literally dies in the last episode with no plot or development happening because of her death.

In Nocturne it gets a bit more complicated. Is Julia fridged? In a way, I would argue, she is, mostly on the value that she exists as a character to die and for her death to be the basis for Richter's character arc, giving him the trauma he needs to overcome.

Esther meanwhile does not feel fridged to me. Because Annette's trauma is not deeply linked to her death, rather than the entire slavery experience in general.

Tera? Well, for Tera it is too early to tell. I still assume that her change into a vampire is going to be used to have the characters realize, that vampires are not inherently evil, and to give us a view into what vampire society looks like. At least that is what I assume.

By the way: The fridging of female characters is my big issue with the PS2 Castlevania games. Like, in Lament of Innocence both Sara and Elisabetha are getting fridged to motivate Leon and Mathias. And the same is true for Rosalie in Curse of Darkness, who as a character only exists to motivate Hector. I mean, she is so replacable as a character, that Hector fucking replaces her by the end of the game.

[glitter-stained]

Something impressive about the Arkham Knight is the amount of women they manage to put into a fridge in a single video game. Like at that point, it's a performance. The better question is, who didn't they fridge? Nyssa, Harley, maybe that Jokerized lady doesn't fit the criteria though she does die.

Barbara? Severe case of fridging (+bonus point for dating Tim, who thought it would be a good idea honestly)

Selina? Who thought it would be a good idea to put a collar on Selina and put you in a mindset where having to save her all through the game becomes an annoyance and distraction?

Nora Fries the OG freezer victim (ik it wasn't actually her but damn if that isn't a fun pun). Liked that they took her out of the freezer and microwaved her though.

Talia isn't even here???! Fridging talia when she hasn't even appeared like i get she died last game but her being mentioned for the first time in the whole game when Joker needs ammo to torture Bruce is so wild

Poison Ivy walks through the whole game with her pussy out and a single spinach lead over her boobs, gets fridged on first appearance and then dies, that's it that's her arc

Francine, Manbat's wife, appears just long enough to give us a reason to empathize with the guy and then brutally, immediately dies (thank you for pointing it out! ) also there's something Mileva Einstein-ish about her dedicating her life to research for her husband's disability, working with him as a partner, only to be mauled to death by him as a result of their own research. This is why we don't have enough famous women in STEM.

___________________________

Bonus:

Bruce: That can't be Harley's plan, she's not smart enough for that

Me: yeah well one of you got through medschool asshole, and it wasn't you

[micahbellfan]

@airebeam New rule no more edge lord writers. Only wholesome writers with legit passion for good superhero stories.

[evilwickedme]

It's very frustrating to talk about fridging bc the original point of it was like a very specific criticism of how minorities are treated in comic books in particular and it's now been universalized so much people think it means "killing a woman off because she's a woman" or "killing any character to motivate another character" (the definition according to tvtropes fyi, kill it with fire kill kill kill kill). Fridging isn't bad because you're killing a character as motivation, and it's not bad because you're killing a minority off, it's bad because it's a pattern of behavior from an industry overrun by white men writing and drawing and editing those stories. You're allowed to kill a woman off if it suits your story, but the issue was that women are constantly getting hurt or depowered or raped or killed off to motivate other, non-coincidentally male characters.

The problem that stood behind the original women in refrigerators website was that the narrative that the comic book industry at large was telling was that the purpose of female characters was to get hurt in order to motivate some other guy. Kyle Rayner's girlfriend gets stuffed in a fridge, we're not sad because her life got taken from her too soon, we're sad because Kyle Rayner just lost his girlfriend. Gwen Stacy gets killed by the Green Goblin, we're not sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life, we're sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life with Peter Parker. That is not to say that the story doesn't still get told. Peter going after the Green Goblin is horrific and terrible and amazing and leads to some great plot and character development. But the choice was not to hurt Peter himself, not even to threaten his loved ones but not actually harm them, the choice - CHOICE! - the writers in the comic book industry consistently made was to hurt a character who was already part of a marginalized group, and to do that for the benefit of a (presumably) white male cishet able bodied main character's narrative.

I speak mostly in past tense because once fridging took hold in the collective popular consciousness it didn't disappear completely, but it did fall out of favor in being used so blatantly. It became isolated cases rather than the main feature of one of the best selling batman books of all time. Characters get killed off occasionally, and those characters are even sometimes members of minority groups, and biases still inform those writing choices, but I'm struggling to remember reading a comic in the last couple of years that specifically fulfills the criteria for fridging.

Anyway if you're reading this in context, you know that at the end of this month (may 2023) Marvel is planning to celebrate the most famous fridging of all time by absolutely not learning their lesson and fridging another character. They're being lazy about it, too - they've decided to do it to Kamala Khan in Peter Parker's book, two characters that mean close to nothing to each other, and being extra awful by making it a Pakistani Muslim woman being killed off during AAPI month, and so far the information we have doesn't even involve Kamala's own friends and family and superhero team mourning her at all. It's supposed to motivate Peter, because it's part of his book, and it's also supposed to parallel Gwen Stacy, and they chose to do... This. Kamala is a wildly popular and beloved character who deserves better, and frankly Peter deserves better too. If you're going to fridge, at least do it well.

But I'm also already seeing white men, who supposedly agree with me and think this is bad, saying, well it's for MCU synergy, not "because she's a female" or "because she's not a white character" (direct quotes don't @ me). And firstly, ok, way to assume the rest of us didn't also catch up to the obvious conclusion that marvel comics is doing MCU synergy, AGAIN. The thing is that those aren't separate concepts at all? Or well, they are, but they don't negate each other. They're trying to do MCU synergy and make Kamala into a mutant, but they could've done that a million other ways, just as cheap and not as offensive - a simple retcon would've sufficed, they just did that a few years ago with Franklin Richards.

They chose to do it by killing her off, and they chose to kill her off in somebody else's book to motivate him rather than tell a story about her, and they chose to do it while celebrating Gwen's fridging for some fucking reason. This is context that, when removed from the situation, makes the whole thing meaningless. And you can say a lot about Gail Simone, but that she didn't have a Goddamn point is not one of them.

[samasmith23]

The ACTUAL heck?! Not Kamala! Please don't permanently kill off Kamala Khan Marvel!

Wait... WWWHHHAAATTT???!!! This can't be for real! This honestly cannot be real! Apparently there was a leak for the upcoming issue of Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 by Zeb Wells & John Romita Jr. in which they apparently kill off Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan)?!

This has honestly got to be some kind of fake-out or misdirection. It would be absolutely stupid and insulting for Marvel to kill off not only their most prominent South Asian Muslim female super hero in a white male superhero's book (which not only feeds into the misogynistic "women in refrigerators" trope, but is also rather racist and Islamophobic...), but one of the most popular and successful characters Marvel has created in recent memory! Plus, Kamala did actually die already once in the pages of Champions (2019) #2, but she was immediately resurrected in the exact same issue through a deal Miles Morales made with Mephisto (though sadly someone else died in Kamala's place because making a deal with the Devil is the equivalent of making a wish on the Monkey's Paw)!

So what exactly would motivate Marvel to do this?! Given how popular and successful Kamala's character has been both in and outside of comics, permanently killing her off in a completely separate character's series seems like an incredibly bad business decision that will only serve piss fans off!

Overall, I'm desperately hoping that this alleged death for Kamala is either a complete fake-out or just temporary on the Spider-Man author's part. But I'm still really nervous considering that Marvel is also going to be releasing a one-shot issue titled, Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel (with some of her original writers like Saladin Ahmed & Mark Waid attached to it)...

Just... why is this happening?!

But as deeply disappointed and frustrated as I am by this leak and news, I strongly condemn any person who tries to harass or send death threats to Zeb Wells or any other of the creators involved with this terrible decision!

In the immortal words of Linkara, we can criticize a bad story without becoming supervillains ourselves. Harassment and death threats are NEVER acceptable under any circumstances, no matter how bad you think a story is!

[paradisechid800]

Okay, but everyone keeps saying "Poor Honzo", "He can't catch a break" and I'm sitting over here like "Poor Harumi". Because she gets killed mercilessly in every damn thing she's in. She could just be sitting there, existing, and the writers just go "Not today bitch". Who the hell did she piss off so much that they want her dead in every excruciating way possible. In Scorpion's invasion cutscene, they literally made the most cruel and sadistic ways to kill her. Like, when will it end?

[racefortheironthrone]

Do you think the term 'fridging' has become overused, and if Brienne does sacrifice herself for Jaime, would that not count?

I think that one of the useful things about the term fridging is that the website "Women in Refrigerators" is still up so we can know exactly what Gail Simone wrote when she coined the term back in the 90s. To quote her:

"Hi. This is a list I made when it occurred to me that it's not that healthy to be a female character in comics. I'm curious to find out if this list seems somewhat disproportionate, and if so, what it means, really. These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator. I know I missed a bunch. Some have been revived, even improved -- although the question remains as to why they were thrown in the wood chipper in the first place. I know I missed a bunch -- I just don't know my comics deaths the way I should. I'm not editorializing -- I'm just curious to find out what you guys think it means, if anything. The preceding letter was written and sent by me when I realized one day that most of my favorite female comics characters had met untimely and often icky ends. The history of the idea and this site are listed here, and the responses from various comics professionals are listed here. An important point: This isn't about assessing blame about an individual story or the treatment of an individual character and it's certainly not about personal attacks on the creators who kindly shared their thoughts on this phenomenon. It's about the trend, its meaning and relevance, if any. Plus, it's just fun to talk about refrigerators with dead people in them. I don't know why.

In Simone's original meaning, "fridging" specifically applied to superhero comics, it involved a spectrum of violence from depowering to sexual assault to physical assault to mutiliation to murder, and it was disproportionately gendered. Notably, the qualification that "fridging" is done in order to motivate the (disproportionately male) protagonist rather than as part of a heroic character arc for the woman being fridged, came around a little later, mostly from those creators who were responding to Simone's initial provocation. However, you can see that this particular qualification was an idea floating in the aether at the time Simone was writing her first foray.

Do I think the term has become overused? It's certainly spread to more genres outside of superheroes, but I don't think that's an over-extension, since we're usually talking about the same phenomenon happening in "heroic" subgenres of fantasy, sci-fi, romance, etc.

Does this apply to Brienne sacrificing herself to save Jaime?

No.

Brienne's self-sacrifice is the logical and emotional climax of her own character arc, one rooted in chivalric romance in which Brienne seeks to play the role of the tragic knight. She is introduced as an existential true knight, someone who finds life in Westerosi society a constant trial and humiliation but who longs to escape into a world of song and story through glorious deeds:

"Because it will not last," Catelyn answered, sadly. "Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming." "Lady Catelyn, you are wrong." Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue as her armor. "Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it's always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining."

As in real-world chivalric romance, the structures of Westerosi chivalric romance are built around tragedy: the Dragonknight doesn't get to settle down with Naerys, but gives up his life to save King Aegon IV, and it's the doomed chaste romannce and the stubborn attachment to duty that makes it all so damn chivalrous.

Thus, from Brienne's introduction to now, we see Brienne looking for someone worthy to sacrifice her life to save:

she starts with Renly, except that she can't save him from the magic (although that does mean that she doesn't learn how unworthy he was) and becomes blamed for his death instead.

then she shifts to Catelyn, except that she can't save her because Catelyn sends her away so she's not there during the Red Wedding.

Jaime and Brienne's ASOS trek across the Riverlands, from the revelations of his backstory to him jumping into the bear pit to his quest-giving at the end, is entirely about setting him up as the third of three lord/lady-coded characters that Brienne could sacrifice herself for. And lo and behold, we have a situation where Jaime and Brienne are about to come face-to-face with Lady Stoneheart, a scenario we've already seen be grounded in questions of sacrifice and honor.

So unless GRRM somehow fucks up and makes the conclusion of Brienne's arc more about Jaime than Brienne, it's not a case of fridging.

[flock-of-cassowaries]

I just realized that the writers of Hannibal literally fridged Beverley Katz.

I’m not sure what to do with that.

[cantsayidont]

SUPACELL (2024– ): Interesting but uneven Black British superhero drama, created by Rapman, about five seemingly unrelated South Londoners — delivery driver Michael (Tosin Cole), nurse Sabrina (Nadine Mills), ex-con Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa), pot dealer Rodney (Calvin Demba), and gang leader Tazer (Josh Tedeku) — who discover that they have superhuman powers. Michael sets out to find the others after getting a glimpse of the near future in which he learns that his fiancée Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo) will soon be killed. However, Andre is more concerned with reconnecting with his teenage son (Ky-Mani Carty) and finding a job, Sabrina is desperately trying to keep hers while also trying to keep her sister Sharleen (Rayxia Ojo) out of trouble, Rodney is using his super-speed powers to run London's fastest weed delivery service, and Tazer is enmeshed in an escalating gang war against his former mentor Krazy (Ghetts).

The cast is great (Abrefa, Tedeku, Ghetts, and Ojo are especially good), the characters are engaging, the dialogue and setting are convincing, and there are some clever touches (including the eventual explanation of the title in Ep. 6). However, while watching the ways the characters' emerging powers impact their lives is engrossing, the actual superhero plot (which has distinct echoes of the late and unlamented HEROES) feels a bit stale, the characters' powers are not always clearly delineated, the big fight scenes are sometimes blah, and there are some hokey touches (like over-use of the glowing eyes effect seen on the poster image above).

More concerningly, SUPACELL's attitude toward and treatment of Black women is frequently troubling. The very talented Adedayo is wasted — I hated the way the narrative treated Dionne, which at points had me tempted to nope out — and most of the show's Black female characters consistently get very rough treatment with noticeably less sympathy than the men, which cast a gloomy pall over an otherwise compelling series.

CONTAINS LESBIANS? Not that I noticed, and given the show's attitude toward women, I fear any wlw would meet bad ends in short order. VERDICT: Given how relentlessly most nerd media marginalizes and mistreats Black characters and cast, it's great to see Black characters centered in a story like this, but while much of SUPACELL is really quite good, the misogyny left a bad taste.

[deven895]

Kyle sobbing over his dead girlfriend's fridge emote

This post is brought to you by the fridge gang

Free to use, not for commercial use

[cannibalspicnic]

I've seen a few different people referring to Ro Laren's death as a "fridging" or saying that she was "fridged" etc. It's been bugging me for a while, so I would like to address it because not only does it misrepresent the concept of women in refrigerators but it does a disservice to Ro's character in my mind.

The concept of women in refrigerators came from Gail Simone who noticed a trend of how female superheroes were treated and subsequently killed in comic books after Katma Tui (a female superhero) was pretty unceremoniously sliced up and stuffed into a refrigerator for Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) to find. The brutalization and lack of agency is a huge aspect of women in refrigerators.

"I can't quite shake the feeling that male characters tend to die differently than female ones. The male characters seem to die nobly, as heroes, most often, whereas it's not uncommon, as in Katma Tui's case, for a male character to just come home and find her butchered in the kitchen." -Gail Simone

Generally, a fridged woman not only doesn't have agency in her own death, but the death itself is meaningless to her character development and storyline.

One of Ro Laren's defining character traits is that she is prepared to sacrifice herself, her career, her relationships, her moral certainty to do what she thinks is right. It makes total sense to me that she would be ready to die so Picard could get away.

Another part of Ro's character is her search and struggle for someone to trust and to believe in. A large part of why she betrayed Picard was the old man who reminded her of her father and who probably held beliefs more common to the ones with which she was raised. Her final act being one of trust brings a certain closure for her character that's just hers.

And I thought there was vindication for her. Picard is so far up his own ass about Starfleet, and she's the one who had to bonk him on his head about complete faith in any institution. She was the one bringing one of the major themes of the whole season into clarity because she has always understood the moral complications of war and knows that no side comes out unchanged or untainted.

Anyway, I'm not saying anyone has to like her death or not have a problem with her being brought back just to be killed off, but I very strongly disagree with calling her a fridged woman. Yes, the storyline and Picard's character were advanced because of her death, but that was not the only purpose her death serves.

Thanks for your time!

I will now go back to simping for Vadic.

*climbs off soapbox*

[glitter-stained]

Listen: Bigender Bisexual Schroedinger Kyle Rayner who is trapped into a fridge that might or may not be broken enough to allow oxygen to get in and save her. His boyfriend and girlfriend have both made their trauma about his death into a turning point in their life and motivation to be a hero and stop this tragedy from happening to anyone ever again, but they're also perfectly fine and chilling because she's okay. He is simultaneously alive and dead. His girlfriend keeps his picture in a necklace around her neck to remind herself of the one person she couldn't protect. All three of them are grabbing coffee next thursday.

[invisible-pink-toast]

k so why did the advertising in the flash movie heavily focus on kara when she was barely in the movie only to die??

i was bombarded with advertisements for the flash when it was coming out - and it was almost all barry running and kara showing up in her suit and using her heat vision. i can't even remember if the other timeline barry or batman show up in the ads (either batman version).

i had no desire to watch the movie, but thought it was great that supergirl was back on the big screen in such a major movie. and having her be so different to previous version was so cool - she's latino! she's more masc looking!

anyway it was my dad's birthday and he wanted to watch the flash but i cannot believe how disappointed i was with kara's treatment?

not kara herself - sasha did an amazing job (especially considering), sad but interesting backstory, intriguing character, she's badass and conflicted and has a cool suit.

but she only shows up like over an hour and a half into the movie!? she has what, maybe 15 lines? if i'm being generous. in her first fight she decimates her captors despite being seriously depleted - in her second (and last) fight she's kicking zod's ass only to have him Suddenly Win. for plot reasons. and brutally murder her on screen.

zod stabs kara with some deus ex machina weapon that he's apparently saved until now and it just makes her completely helpless. and then she's stabbed again by some experimental tech and has her blood drained. and then she dies.

despite being... kryptonian. like was it a kryptonite weapon? that wasn't made clear. she survived decades in captivity surrounded by kryptonite but This Weapon is what gets her. despite the sun. idk.

And if that wasn't insulting enough - she dies again. and again. and again. because barry 2.0 can't accept her death and keeps going back in time to change it. there's a montage of kara dying. in different ways. sometimes not even with the stabbing thing? she's just suddenly outmatched?? barry gets stabbed by the kryptonian weapons and just keeps going.

og batman dies twice - being blown up and then dying in the arms of his friend. he gets his moment, he gets his last lines. kara never gets that. kara always dies alone, her body lying on the ground in display of barry's "failure".

and then she's not mentioned again?? because the movie doesn't think she matters at all! only in relation to barry's story!

it's such a textbook example of the 'women in refrigerators' trope and it's so fucking annoying that this trope is still used, especially in superhero media! so incredibly sexist and ridiculous - poor writing and poor character treatment.

i have very little faith that the dc movies could do any justice to kara after this, but saying that they Are going to make a supergirl movie and not even telling sasha if she's going to be cast in it or not like how dirty can you do this poor actor who quite frankly was already the best part of your basic movie?

[samasmith23]

Kamala Khan's death in Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 leaked NOT once... but TWICE in a row!!!

It looks like someone at Marvel RRREEEAAALLLYYY wants this whole publicity stunt of killing off Ms. Marvel (aka, Kamala Khan) to FAIL super hard considering that the pages for tomorrow’s Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 have been leaked not once, but twice now! And now we sadly know exactly just how Kamala dies…

Umm… last time I checked, Kamala has a healing factor. Sure it’s nowhere as powerful as Wolverine’s (and it does require Kamala to eat a lot in order to replenish her energy reserves), but unless that sword is powered by some kind of magic bullcrap which completely shuts off her healing factor, this makes zero sense! Kamala literally healed from a bullet wound to the stomach in her opening arc, and even survived having an entire building collapse right on top of her (just barely, but still)!

Also, it feels so random and arbitrary to have Kamala randomly use her shape-shifting powers to pose as a body-double Mary Jane, especially since she’s not utilized them a lot due her opening arc centering around Kamala becoming comfortable in her own skin after previously trying and failing to resemble her idol Carol Danvers (therefore overcoming her personal insecurities and internalized Islamophobia).

Plus, last time I checked Kamala's only since then shape-shifted into a couch, James Rhodes, and a scary cartoon face.

While it does feel somewhat in character for Kamala to risk her life to save someone she barely knows as part of her characterization as a superhero, the actual execution of it feels incredibly at odds with her past character development (whether it be struggling with her fears of death and mortality in Magnificent Ms. Marvel, or already receiving validation from her family, friends, and dozens of other superheroes, including Peter Parker, so why does she need it from him again when she dies?!).

Based on these leaked pages, I get the general impression that Zeb Wells originally fully intended to kill off Mary Jane here since all throughout his Spider-Man run he’s heavily hinted at it and foreshadowed it with that Paul guy (seriously... WHO THE HECK IS PAUL?!) and their two kids (who are apparently actual mystical constructs or something…), and that mystical supervillain wanting “the Scarlet Woman’s blood” (I know the phrase "Scarlet Woman" is specifically meant to refer to MJ’s red hair, but it is also unfortunately a derogatory slang term for a sex-worker). But maybe Marvel editorial told him to rewrite his planned death of Mary Jane at the last minute as a desperate effort to promote the upcoming The Marvels movie (which Wells shares a co-writing credit for the screenplay of), or Wells wanted to subvert reader expectations but did so in a distasteful manner?

I honestly don’t know... but if I had to guess I’d probably say it’s the former option since Marvel previously killed off Doctor Strange and the Scarlet Witch before resurrecting them a few months later to hype up their upcoming MCU films, plus the Spider-Man offices in particular are notorious for their editorial mandates and interfering with writer’s plans at the last minute (just look at how they recently forced Nick Spencer to settle on retconning Sins Past out of existence instead of One More Day like he was originally building-up towards). And do I think that Zeb Wells himself is an Islamophobic misogynist because of this? Probably not... especially considering I don’t know the guy’s personal politics (maybe he's a swell person IRL) and editorial mandates are likely at play here. I do think that killing off Kamala in such a random and distasteful manner is still a bad look and does give off those unfortunate implications. However, based on what I know I feel that this is more a case of judging the actions as bigoted (whether they were intentional or not) instead of labeling the person themselves as a bigot.

But regardless of whether or not the decision to fridge Kamala Khan is the fault of Zeb Wells, or Nick Lowe or someone else over at Marvel Editorial, I do want to make one thing perfectly clear... DO NOT... I repeat... DO NOT SEND ANY OF THEM DEATH THREATS! Like, I've already lost count of how many people I've encountered on both Twitter and Tumblr who are seriously outright calling for both Wells and Lowe's blood in response to these leaks.

And since the issue is being released tommorow, I feel the need to reiterate that harassing creators and sending them death threats is NEVER acceptable under any circumstances, and that doing so makes you no better than the kinds of supervillains that Kamala regularly fights against! We can criticize a bad story WITHOUT becoming supervillains ourselves! Follow the advice of @atopfourthwall here for heavens sake people:

Now this is hopefully going to be the last time I discuss Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 here on Tumblr as I have zero plans on giving any actual money to the issue myself. I may consider reading the Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel one-shot, if only because it's being written by several of Kamala's past creators G. Willow Wilson, Saladin Ahmed, and Mark Waid, so I trust them to be able to salvage something decent out of this whole fiasco. But that's it. I do plan on releasing a future post which provides an in-depth analysis about the ways in which Ms. Marvel comics have discussed themes of death in a much more nuanced and respectful manner, but I have no idea when it will be released.

Until then folks... vote with your wallets. Please do not cave into the outrage machine and feed into the publicity stunt that this whole mess so obviously is. Don’t give tomorrow's issue of Amazing Spider-Man any more attention than it's already received. Instead go support all of Kamala's past adventures to show your love and appreciation for the character if you do not own the graphic novel collections already. And most importantly... for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT attack the creators involved with this terrible decision and especially DO NOT send them death threats!