Women in Refridgerators
Okay, so, this phenomenon's bugged me for quite a while, but I haven't been able to find a way to talk about it without seeming really sexist, but I think I figured it out. Basically, I think the idea that it's mysoginistic or somehow otherwise biased against females is silly. Which is to say I think being a character in a comic book is hazardous to your health regardless of gender. I think I can finally say this logically without coming off as sexist because I realized Betty Banner (nee Ross) is on the list.
Now, don't get me wrong, it sucks being Betty Banner. You're married to the Hulk, and your dad is trying to kill your husband. Not good stuff. She's also miscarried a few times (I think that was mostly noncontinuity, but still) and even got turned into a monster. And, y'know, now she's dead. Why is this not a show that comic books are biased against women? BECAUSE SHE'S MARRIED TO THE HULK! Bruce Banner goes through that shit pretty much every day, aside from the miscarriages, but that's more biology than anything. He's been stuck as the Hulk for like, "ten years" or some such. He's mutated into MULTIPLE forms, been killed a few times, not just once, and lost multiple kids, even after his wife died. He's definitely got it just a bit worse, so this one clearly shows that, at least as far as the Hulk's concerned, you can't say it's biased against women. As far as I can recall, I think she's the only female who had a bad mutation in the Hulk series, unless I'm forgetting a minor character.
The next major silly one is Blink. Blink was a pretty minor character. I don't care what your gender is, if you're a guest star of an issue and there's no plan to spin you off or have you join a current team, you're probably gonna die. It happens all the time. Doesn't matter your gender, you're probably gonna go melty or some such. Plus, Blink later got her own comic for being an interesting character and an alternate version was used. Soooo . . . really, I think she shouldn't be on the list at all.
And then Monica Rambeau. Her listing on there is that she lost her powers, and had to give her code name to a guy. Yeah, a guy whose father originally had the name. Incidentally, that guy also lost his powers at least once. While it sucks, she didn't lose them very long, and giving someone the code name they pretty much inherited isn't really gender bias. Although, I'll admit, when he stole her new code name like 15 years later, that was just kinda dickish. Eh, Genis is a jerk though.
They have some chick named Dawnstar listed, and it said that she was possessed by some other personality and had her wings cut off. Well shit, I heard that before, but I heard it was a dude named Angel. Mutant Massacre and stuff.
Next, we have the female Dove character. She died. As I recall, at least two male Doves have died too. Seems like a bad name to have is all.
Invisible Woman is listed on there with a miscarriage of her second child. Yeah, considering the kid's name is Valeria, I think that's wrong. You don't name kids that were never actually born. Also, if Doctor Doom is delivering your kid and you're told it's a miscarriage, you might want a second opinion.
Jean Loring - "Nervous Breakdown". Yeah, Hank Pym beat you to it, lady. Literally.
Marlo Chandler, former wife of Rick Jones - former prostitute. Wow. Really? I mean, man, I didn't know that sometimes women are prostitutes. I really fucking don't think that counts. At all. I mean, yeah, that's pretty crappy if you have to take up that line of work, but shit, many male heroes have started out as petty thieves. Not saying they're exactly the same, but plenty of heroes and interesting characters have started out as less than pure good. Shitty beginnings actually give you room to improve, not automatically bring you down. It also says she died and came back mindless, which is common enough an occurrence I'm just gonna say "Wonder Man".
Ms. Marvel - now, this one I find kinda interesting. She's been depowered, had her memories stolen, been in a coma, mind-controlled, raped and impregnated, cosmic-powered and then depowered, and is an alcoholic. The mind controlled raped and impregnated thing was pretty crap. I'll grant points there. The depowered and memory stolen thing and even the coma were due to Rogue. That was actually a rather interesting plotline, and nothing against women. As a matter of fact, that was Rogue refusing to be a victim and trying to fight fate, back before she realized her foster parents were evil. Other than that, she's a female Tony Stark, only she's never been paralyzed.
Namorita: okay, new winner for dumbest one. She's revealed to be a clone. Oh, boo fucking hoo. That's stupid. And then, oh noes, she degenerates into an older form of Atlantean. Y'know, I can name two Spider-Man clones who had the same thing happen to them. One of them died. I think the real lesson here is that comic books hate clones.
Rogue - "just plain messed up." That's probably the dumbest assertion I've heard. She has amnesia due to her powers and cannot touch people. Yeah, that sucks, but I don't see how it's worse than, say, Wolverine's history. Or Gambit's.
Storm - lost powers, periodically crazy. Okay, I fail to remember any time Storm's been "crazy". A bit wild, yes, but shit, people are being assholes, you might lose your temper. And she lost her powers ONCE. Well, okay, more than once, but one time it was restored in the same storyline, and I think was actually a continuation of her first depowerment. Which would make it just the one time. Hrm.
Tigra - devolved into "cat thing". Dude. When your powers are animal based, or animalistic, story dictates you go feral at some point. It's how it goes. Wolverine did it, Sabretoothe never stopped, Wild Child, Feral, Wolvesbane . . . I mean, hell, do I need to keep going?
Zatanna - powers extremely limited. Yeah. She's a magician. For some reason, in comics, that means that someone, at some point, stupidly makes them godlike. I don't like it, editors don't like it, the new guy coming onto the comic doesn't like it. So they get their powers limited. It's happened to Supes and Swamp Thing, it's happened to Green Lantern, it's happened to Wolverine, it's happened to everyone. But MOSTLY, it happens to magic heroes. Mostly because there's no real laws to magic.
So yeah, I'm still coming off more sexist than I mean to be, but what I'm really trying to say here is that, aside from rape and pregnancy stuff, all that stuff happens to male heroes too. Only, instead of "rape" they tend to suffer "child molestation". Also, male heroes tend to suffer from substance abuse a lot more, so I think, as a whole, it evens out. They suffer differently, yeah, but I'd say it's pretty standard stuff in comics that everyone gets screwed over once in a while.
Now, don't get me wrong, it sucks being Betty Banner. You're married to the Hulk, and your dad is trying to kill your husband. Not good stuff. She's also miscarried a few times (I think that was mostly noncontinuity, but still) and even got turned into a monster. And, y'know, now she's dead. Why is this not a show that comic books are biased against women? BECAUSE SHE'S MARRIED TO THE HULK! Bruce Banner goes through that shit pretty much every day, aside from the miscarriages, but that's more biology than anything. He's been stuck as the Hulk for like, "ten years" or some such. He's mutated into MULTIPLE forms, been killed a few times, not just once, and lost multiple kids, even after his wife died. He's definitely got it just a bit worse, so this one clearly shows that, at least as far as the Hulk's concerned, you can't say it's biased against women. As far as I can recall, I think she's the only female who had a bad mutation in the Hulk series, unless I'm forgetting a minor character.
The next major silly one is Blink. Blink was a pretty minor character. I don't care what your gender is, if you're a guest star of an issue and there's no plan to spin you off or have you join a current team, you're probably gonna die. It happens all the time. Doesn't matter your gender, you're probably gonna go melty or some such. Plus, Blink later got her own comic for being an interesting character and an alternate version was used. Soooo . . . really, I think she shouldn't be on the list at all.
And then Monica Rambeau. Her listing on there is that she lost her powers, and had to give her code name to a guy. Yeah, a guy whose father originally had the name. Incidentally, that guy also lost his powers at least once. While it sucks, she didn't lose them very long, and giving someone the code name they pretty much inherited isn't really gender bias. Although, I'll admit, when he stole her new code name like 15 years later, that was just kinda dickish. Eh, Genis is a jerk though.
They have some chick named Dawnstar listed, and it said that she was possessed by some other personality and had her wings cut off. Well shit, I heard that before, but I heard it was a dude named Angel. Mutant Massacre and stuff.
Next, we have the female Dove character. She died. As I recall, at least two male Doves have died too. Seems like a bad name to have is all.
Invisible Woman is listed on there with a miscarriage of her second child. Yeah, considering the kid's name is Valeria, I think that's wrong. You don't name kids that were never actually born. Also, if Doctor Doom is delivering your kid and you're told it's a miscarriage, you might want a second opinion.
Jean Loring - "Nervous Breakdown". Yeah, Hank Pym beat you to it, lady. Literally.
Marlo Chandler, former wife of Rick Jones - former prostitute. Wow. Really? I mean, man, I didn't know that sometimes women are prostitutes. I really fucking don't think that counts. At all. I mean, yeah, that's pretty crappy if you have to take up that line of work, but shit, many male heroes have started out as petty thieves. Not saying they're exactly the same, but plenty of heroes and interesting characters have started out as less than pure good. Shitty beginnings actually give you room to improve, not automatically bring you down. It also says she died and came back mindless, which is common enough an occurrence I'm just gonna say "Wonder Man".
Ms. Marvel - now, this one I find kinda interesting. She's been depowered, had her memories stolen, been in a coma, mind-controlled, raped and impregnated, cosmic-powered and then depowered, and is an alcoholic. The mind controlled raped and impregnated thing was pretty crap. I'll grant points there. The depowered and memory stolen thing and even the coma were due to Rogue. That was actually a rather interesting plotline, and nothing against women. As a matter of fact, that was Rogue refusing to be a victim and trying to fight fate, back before she realized her foster parents were evil. Other than that, she's a female Tony Stark, only she's never been paralyzed.
Namorita: okay, new winner for dumbest one. She's revealed to be a clone. Oh, boo fucking hoo. That's stupid. And then, oh noes, she degenerates into an older form of Atlantean. Y'know, I can name two Spider-Man clones who had the same thing happen to them. One of them died. I think the real lesson here is that comic books hate clones.
Rogue - "just plain messed up." That's probably the dumbest assertion I've heard. She has amnesia due to her powers and cannot touch people. Yeah, that sucks, but I don't see how it's worse than, say, Wolverine's history. Or Gambit's.
Storm - lost powers, periodically crazy. Okay, I fail to remember any time Storm's been "crazy". A bit wild, yes, but shit, people are being assholes, you might lose your temper. And she lost her powers ONCE. Well, okay, more than once, but one time it was restored in the same storyline, and I think was actually a continuation of her first depowerment. Which would make it just the one time. Hrm.
Tigra - devolved into "cat thing". Dude. When your powers are animal based, or animalistic, story dictates you go feral at some point. It's how it goes. Wolverine did it, Sabretoothe never stopped, Wild Child, Feral, Wolvesbane . . . I mean, hell, do I need to keep going?
Zatanna - powers extremely limited. Yeah. She's a magician. For some reason, in comics, that means that someone, at some point, stupidly makes them godlike. I don't like it, editors don't like it, the new guy coming onto the comic doesn't like it. So they get their powers limited. It's happened to Supes and Swamp Thing, it's happened to Green Lantern, it's happened to Wolverine, it's happened to everyone. But MOSTLY, it happens to magic heroes. Mostly because there's no real laws to magic.
So yeah, I'm still coming off more sexist than I mean to be, but what I'm really trying to say here is that, aside from rape and pregnancy stuff, all that stuff happens to male heroes too. Only, instead of "rape" they tend to suffer "child molestation". Also, male heroes tend to suffer from substance abuse a lot more, so I think, as a whole, it evens out. They suffer differently, yeah, but I'd say it's pretty standard stuff in comics that everyone gets screwed over once in a while.