I don't want to dig too deep into this, but the '80s were a bad time to be a supporting character in a comic book:- There was Karen Page, Daredevil's ex-girlfriend, whom Frank Miller had become addicted to heroin and eventually sell Daredevil's secret identity to the Kingpin.
- Jim Starlin killed off the second Robin when the Joker forced his mom to hand him over and then beat him with a crowbar before blowing them both up with a bomb. Readers could vote for whether Robin would live or die by calling in to a 900 number. The killers won.
- We've already talked about Moore's Killing Joke and what he did to Batgirl.
The '90s didn't start off much better, with Ron Marz writing a story about Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend being killed and stuffed in a refrigerator by the villain Major Force.
One interesting thing that came from this last one was that comic writer Gail Simone created a list of fictional female characters who had been "killed,
maimed or depowered," in particular in ways that treated the female
character as merely a device to move a male character's story arc
forward, rather than as a fully developed character in her own right.When the list was circulated, several comic book creators indicated that the list caused them to pause and think about the stories they were creating. Often these responses contained arguments for or against the use of death or injury of female characters as a plot device.
Marz replied, too: "To me the real difference is less male-female than main character-supporting character. In most cases, main characters, 'title' characters who support their own books, are male. [...] the supporting characters are the ones who suffer the more permanent and shattering tragedies. And a lot of supporting characters are female."
Simone maintained that her simple point had always been: "If you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won't read comics. That's it!"
There's been a strong push lately to try to increase female readership and strengthen the female characters in comics. Maybe the comics industry understands what Moore understood in the late '90s: the grim '80s should remain in the past.
Gail Simone's insight on comics and the industry is something I value highly. I'd say that "women in refrigerators" trope has had a pretty significant impact on my comics reading and the way I think about female characters and their treatment in the books.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think the industry's push for more diversity and stronger female characters (and promoting more female creators!) has been working, despite a disappointing amount of push-back from defensive fanboys. When I look back on the last few years, a lot of my favorite new series have been by female creators and/or about female characters. G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel is fantastic in particular. Ryan North and Erica Henderson's Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is a joy to read. W Haden Blackman and JH Williams' Batwoman series was probably the best part of the New 52, in my opinion.
Though, to be fair, Marz has a fair point. The solution to the problem he points out is (or rather was) still "not enough strong female characters", though.
Oh, and just as an aside, I read that Batman story where Joker kills Robin when I was younger and even owned the trade, but I'm still a little bit floored whenever I remember that they actually had a 900 number fans could call to vote on whether he lived or died. That's just such a weird, weird thing. Did nobody think "Hey, maybe this is a little too gruesome for a bunch of characters created for little kids?"
DeleteI mean, I kind of like the idea of comics as a choose-your-own-adventure thing and fans voting on the stories is kind of a macro-version of that. But, the specific subject matter they were voting on was just really grim.
Unfortunately, I'm not up on most modern comics, but have been hearing great things about the new wave of women writers. Personally, as a parent, I love the supergirls line of characters from DC, as it's something I want to get my daughter playing with. And the attempt to make the costumes more realistic/less risque has been a nice touch (despite what Erik Larsen says).
DeleteI think Marz's point is interesting, but something I disagree with, since it seems to say that these kinds of stories would be okay if more men were ending up dead in refrigerators. The whole point of this site is that I love this era of Moore's work where he showed that comics could be fun, inventive and sometimes quite emotional, without the need to resort to over-the-top grimness.
And I think that goes into your point about the 900 number to kill Robin. At the time, I think everyone (well, at least those with authority) was saying, now that Dark Knight and Watchmen came out, we can do anything we want with these superheroes, with stopping to ask, should they be doing it.
Don't get me wrong, I respect Watchmen and V for Vendetta, but I'm not letting my kids read them until they're older. In the meantime, I'd happily give them a copy of Supreme to learn to love comics first (well, maybe when they finish Captain Underpants).