Eh. Can a story just be about reactions to an event rather than the event? Also, poor storytelling? Next you’ll be telling me it’s a comic book! To me the story is sort of trying to get to a feminist message. The JL rely on violence to maintain their world, but that violence leaves them vulnerable to the twist at the end.
But again I’ll argue hat Sue is the pivotal character in IC. Guess what, death doesn’t mean much to the dead. It means a heck of a lot to the living. It’s the fact that it is Sue. IC does not happen in a vacuum, it does not happen without the history of her character. It is folly to think that these heroes don’t run across these types of crimes or their perpetrators. What makes it different for them is that it WAS Sue. She may not have a line in the entire book, it doesn’t mean that she isn’t the main character, because she is. She hangs in the air of every line and every panel. What is not said is often more important than what is said. Subtext matters.
Would IC have occurred if it was any other character besides Sue at that moment in time. I’d argue no, IC is not relevant without her.
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And again, male characters die to motivate the heroes in basically every comic book ever. The fact that Simone cherry picked examples and gave it a name doesn’t equate to misogyny.
I had a girlfriend who dumped me and a female role model who through me under the bus. I declare this to be a systemic bias I declare Females Pee on Batwatch. Now every time I have a single negative interaction with women, I’ll blame it on anti-Batwatch bias in culture and decry the blindness of anyone who doesn’t share my views. Sure, extrapolating a browd conclusion from a few points of cherry picked data is silly, but no more silly than when Simone does it and apparently that’s still in vogue.
I mean threw me under the bus. The option to edit can’t come soon enough.
@BatWatch The thing is, that you imply that every death of any character is fridging. It’s important to notice that fridging has a few requirements to be fridging. The character has to be female as Simone and other creators in 1999 (since then, it might have changed because of them) saw that this happens much more with female characters. It has to be an established, at least a little popular character (so Uncle Ben or the Wayne’s are not fridged, as they died before they were established).
The death/rape/depowering is not a result of their own actions, because, in the comic book where the fridging happens they have no agency, they exist only to be hurt. Barbara Gordon is a great example of it in Killing Joke. She is only there to be shot in the spine. A counterexample could be Damian Wayne’s death which was not only about him but Batman dealing with his death. The difference is that Damian died fighting and decided to do so. Blue Beetle’s death in CtIC also happens as a result of his own actions. Imagine your favourite character (I believe you like Cassandra Cain) being shot for no reason. She wasn’t even in a comic book before being shot dead. And the shot was meant for Batwoman and it’s her arc. Do you think it does Cassandra justice? Do you think that’s how one of your favourite characters should end? I mean Batwoman gets a great arc about her relationship with Cassandra but would you rather she died fighting? With her mom? Doing anything active? Or as shock value?
And let’s look at Sue Dibny: She was raped. WHY? How the author deals with her being raped? Why does rape exist in this book? The death you can justify by saying it’s to move a plot for someone else. But if you write about rape and don’t even acknowledge how the VICTIM deals with it, you are an edgy teenager, who should think twice about using traumatizing events as only shock value. Let me ask you one question: if Sue Dibny wasn’t raped what would change in the story? If you could swap it to attempted murder for example? NOTHING WOULD CHANGE. Except you wouldn’t be as edgy a writer as you could be.
But let’s go back to death. You know, I’m not a fan of Sue Dibny, I know her only from this book, but if Guy Gardner died in IC I would be REALLY pissed. Sue died… because Jean Lorring is stupid. She killed Sue so people would come together. She could just phone Atom. They didn’t really have bad blood between them. He didn’t have a girlfriend. And if she wanted to still do that, she could just fake her own assassination. Which she did. And it worked. Sue Dibny died for NO REASON.
Let me end with another trope: “Dead Men Defrosting”. If a male character is put in the fridge, he is more likely to be resurrected. Sue Dibny is still in the ground and Firestorm? Resurrected five years later. And you keep bringing up Jack Drake, the thing I said is the worst result of IC…
@DGWJTWTDW Yeah, comic books can have good storytelling. And comic books with bad storytelling have to be criticized or you’ll end up with a lot of bad storytelling in comic books. And there is an easy way to tell if a story is feminist: does it give women a voice? We have 5 narrators in the story. None are female. And the comic book can be about the aftermath of a death in the close one’s life. But you can do it without fridging (regardless of gender): Death of Superman and Requiem for Damian are great examples of that.
@DeSade-acolyte In my lit classes, I learnt that the main character is the one we follow, the one who has an arc. It’s like saying that the dead body in a murder mystery is the main character. Yeah, the story is all about this dead body, but the dead body is not really the main character.
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WIR’s site reminds me of the feminist treatise “Against Sadomasochism”. A time which made a case that was topical for its time. Yet some 25 years later a number of its essay writers had made a 180 on the view.
Is it “fair” that more female characters at the time got killed/depowered/etc. probably not, but it also wasn’t “fair” that most female heroines were underrepresented and many where not especially well written and throw away characters.
Simone takes no care or mentioning, even the slightest bit, of male characters being “fridged”. Something I’m sure she wouldn’t deny today. It is a one sided argument. It is more of a rant, not without some validity, but a rant nonetheless.
Even creators who responded mentioned that comics are read by misanthropic males who “can’t get laid or keep a girlfriend.”
Is it a coincidence that it was 1999 a year that had seen sales in a constant decade long down turn in sales. Characters (male and female) were being killed or radically depowered. Trying to find some hook to maybe get sales up again. Again, nothing operates in a vacuum.
Does fridging occur, yes. Does that mean that every time a character, especially a female character is killed/depowered they have been “fridged”. No.
Even Simone in her list defines “Rouge (just simply messed up)”
Yes a “main character” my the one who’s arc is the most prominent. By this definition in superhero comics it is the hero who is the protagonist and the villain who is the antagonist. Correct?
You say that “it also wasn’t “fair” that most female heroines were underrepresented and many where not especially well written and throw away characters.”. That’s the point! That you have much less female characters in comics and you STILL do this to them. More than men which are a higher percentage of comic book characters. And DC did not improve that much when it comes to a number of female characters in their universe.
“Is it a coincidence that it was 1999 a year that had seen sales in a constant decade long down turn in sales. Characters (male and female) were being killed or radically depowered. Trying to find some hook to maybe get sales up again. Again, nothing operates in a vacuum.” And Death of Superman and Knightfall were all about Superman and Batman ACTIVELY trying to stop a great danger from hurting the innocent. And Superman sacrificed himself. WiR are about PASSIVE characters. The problem is not the characters dying. It’s that they are PASSIVE in the story. Sue didn’t die saving the Multiverse. Supergirl did. She wasn’t fridged. She sacrificed herself. And fridging enforces a stereotype of women being passive, without power over their fate. As you said “nothing exists in a vacuum”.
"Even creators who responded mentioned that comics are read by misanthropic males who “can’t get laid or keep a girlfriend.” " So maybe it’s best to try and change their worldview?
“Does fridging occur, yes. Does that mean that every time a character, especially a female character is killed/depowered they have been “fridged”? No.”
60% of my last comment is about proving that Sue Dibny is one of the most disgusting examples of fridging in the DC Universe. And you can’t make an argument that she isn’t. That’s why you deflected.
“Yes a “main character” my the one who’s arc is the most prominent. By this definition in superhero comics it is the hero who is the protagonist and the villain who is the antagonist. Correct?” Especially for you, I scanned the entire mini, as I read it a couple years ago, and thought I forgot something. Do you imply that a character that is only in #1, #2 and #7 of a story for max of 8 pages is the main character?
“S-see this red button? I already called them. They’ll be here in a minute. I-I can’t see! I can’t see…! Oh God…! Nuuuuh! Get off me! Get your hands off me! I’ll kill you! I swear…! What are you…? No… Please… Don’t…! P-please… P-please… R-ralph… P-please, are you there…?”
That’s all she said. The only events of her “arc” is her rape and death. Do you think that constitues a character arc? The main character pretty much needs to be ACTIVE. So they need to DO SOMETHING. Sue does NOTHING in the story. Exactly two things happen to her. We don’t even know her reaction to the rape. She doesn’t even get to decide if Dr Light should be mindwiped… Sue is not a character in Identity Crisis. She is a plot point. I thought there were at least some flashbacks with her but nope. And even Ralph has too few scenes of mourning in the comic to justify Sue’s death.
@BewarethePower
Though I still disagree with you, kudos for making a coherent argument. I appreciate people who do a good job of articulating their views.
Thanks for defining more clearly what you mean by Women in Refrigerators. You say a Women in Refrigerators are established female characters who are brutally injured or killed in ways where they have no agency and will not recover as a plot device to motivate male characters to action.
I don’t deny you can find characters who fit this trope, but I do deny it is particularly widespread. By this standard, many characters said to be “fridged” do not qualify. Barbara Gordon became more powerful than ever after her injury and eventually recovered. Black Canary had agency in her capture and torture. She chose to go after a drug ring. She also recovered. The dozens of girlfriends of Bruce Wayne and other heroes who have been killed over the years were rarely if ever established.
You can certainly find some examples like Sue Dibny and I’m sure some others that truly fit this trope, and though it’s far from proven, I’ll allow for the sake of discussion that perhaps this trope does disproportionately affect female characters, but even so, I reject the suggestion that this is being because these characters are female. Rather, this is being done because these characters are love interests. The love interest, like the parents, are characters that can be killed off provoking a strong reaction in the protagonist. The love interest is usually unpowered, so they cannot resist the threat. Since they aren’t superheroic, there isn’t a huge market demand to bring them back into the story after a death.
Most characters the fit the “fridged” trope are fridged because they are the significant other not because they are female. There aren’t a lot of homosexual characters out there, but remember when Earth 2’s Alan Scott tried to propose to his boyfriend on a plain, and then immediately the train blew up and Alan Scott decided to become GL in his boyfriend’s memory. Same basic thing.
If you feel the death of the significant other is an overused trope, I agree, but I don’t believe it’s a sexist one. If you think establihsed characters should always be kept alive rather than killed off, that’s a perspective I can understand, but again, it’s not really about the sex of the character.
As far as Sue’s death in particular, I agree with DeSade. I feel that Sue’s death and rape added a ton to the story. You say that some lesser threat would have sufficed, but I disagree entirely.In a world where characters are regularly beaten with what should be life shattering injuries and merely walk them off, regular violence isn’t a credible threat. In contrast, the murder of a beloved member of the community, an especially innocent character without the superpowers to have agency in a battle, sets the tone perfectly for superheroes to go on red alert. The rape is so horrific that you can feel the heroes agony and understand why heroes would break their usually lofty ideals.
As for Jean’s motivation, have you ever read and appreciated a Batman book where the villain’s motivation is crazy? Honestly, I think Jean’s makes more sense. Angel of Mercy killings are a thing.
According to Simone, Supergirl I (who died saving the multiverse) is on her “fridge” list.
Sue’s got more screen time in IC than Hamlet’s fathers ghost in Hamlet. Does Hamlet really have an arc without his dead father?
One can draw quite the parallel.
You never answered the question in a superhero story, is the hero the protagonist? Perhaps because you do not know. But the answer is No. The hero is the antagonist. The protagonist is the one that provokes action. Since we don’t know and she’s barely referenced through much of the piece, one could make the argument that Jean is the protagonist of IC.
In “who done it” form. Often it is either way in which someone was killed or who was killed that provokes the action of a story. Or as Conan Doyle put it in Silver Blaze “Holmes: There is the curious case of the dog in the nighttime. Watson: But, Holmes, the dog did nothing in the nighttime. Holmes: That is the curious incident.”
The ghost in Hamlet is a pivotal character, if Hamlet’s father hadn’t been murdered, there is no reason for Hamlet, Hamlet does not have that arc.
I will admit the WIR do exist. They hare a mechanism that has been used. But, I disagree that specifically Sue Dinbey in IC is not one of them. You obviously disagree with Simone that Supergirl I is a WIR.
Not everyone has the same view on every character. I find Sue is more on par with Hamlet’s ghost. The dead character that gives that story and its “main character” their arc.
There is literally nothing in this exchange, nor any of Simone’s statements or comments from other comics creators on her WIR site, that gives me any reason to change my view, specifically on Sue Dibney in IC.
@BatWatch I have to start with Barbara Gordon. If not for an editor Kim Yale she would be forgotten. Yale decided with John Ostrander not to let descend to obscurity. They saved her. It was very lucky because the main editor back then (Len Wein) literally said: “Cripple the b**ch”. He couldn’t care less.
I used the term Women in Refrigerators because Sue is a model example of it. But, generally, I think that characters (regardless of gender) that have an established fanbase, should not die in another hero’s story, also being a passive character or even just a plot point. Even less popular heroes deserve a heroic death.
As I said in the comment before, I get that death of Sue is a great plot point for the story. Don’t agree with it, but it can be argued that it’s justified. But for god’s sake, make her a character in the story… Give her anything… a few flashbacks, maybe a day before she died.
And I will say that: Rape is not off-limits for comic books. You know what you could do? Delete Captain Boomerang subplot (and save Jack Drake) and insert a subplot with Sue and Ralph dealing with the aftermath of the rape. And then it would be perfectly fine. And much more coherent.
What does Angel of Mercy have to do with Jean? And the thing is, that Joker stories are almost never murder-mystery stories. Not every Batman story is a murder mystery. And this one is firmly set in that subgenre. If you find me an Agatha Christie story with such a nonsensical motivation, I will change my opinion of that aspect of IC.
@DeSade-acolyte I… don’t really understand… You think Hamlet’s ghost is the protagonist in Hamlet? There is a difference between “important plot point” and “protagonist”. And you said that Sue is a protagonist. She does not have an arc. She is a plot point in other characters’ arc (one could make a case that a crucial plot point). That doesn’t make her protagonist.
A protagonist is a character whose point of view we experience. We see their world. An antagonist is an obstacle to reach their goals. I get why you say that villain is a protagonist in superhero comics, but it’s undebatable for a handful of stories (from the perspective of a villain).
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Also, King Hamlet wasn’t sexually assaulted by Claudius. King James didn’t tell Shakespeare to spice up his story with a dash of rape. King DiDio did.
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I agree with Desade’s take on Identity Crisis in general, but I have to side with BewareMyPower’s take on the protagonist. I don’t think it’s wrong for a character, even a popular character, to be killed off early to serve as a murder mystery, but the murdered person isn’t the protagonist.
Unless we are talking about some sort of Ghost Detective thing which admittedly sounds cool.
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Now I’m just bummed that Sue didn’t come back in 52 as the new Deadman.
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Protagonist is the character which takes or causes action to be taken. Antagonist is the one who responds to the action. In a superhero story the villain is generally the protagonist, if the villain does nothing, neither does the hero. Sue’s death is the primary catalyst for the heroes to respond and in many cases respond how they do. In that sense, she creates the action which the heroes respond to. That makes her the protagonist.
Which is why it was the fact that it was Sue and not just some woman (or man) in a refrigerator. If Sue is not essential to that story she could be replaced with any other dead body.
Frankly, the only reason it was Sue, was that Barry was still dead, otherwise it would have been Iris. It had to be someone who was truly beloved by the league to create the reasoning for some not “following their better angels”. Pre-COIE that would have been Iris. Post-COIE, it was Sue.
Sue Dibney would rock as a new “Deadperson”. That is an Elseworld I would love to see.
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@DeSade-acolyte I think it’s pretty pointless to argue with you about protagonist. I don’t know where you found this definition. But even so, Sue DOES NOT DO ANYTHING. If I were to accept your definition (and I’m not) then Jean would be the protagonist. Sue is the inciting incident, the reason why characters decide to go on a journey. The thing is that inciting incident doesn’t even have to be a character. And in this case really isn’t.
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I love Identity Crisis. It’s an emotionally gripping story.
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@BewareThePowerGuyGardnersMight
If you ever watch the documentary with creators and academics onnthe nature of evil/villains, you will see the definition of protagonist. Also this can be seen in Greek original plays by Sophocles and Euripides.
And yes, there is no point in debating this with you further. We are both squarely in our camps and are not shifting positions.
@BewareThePower
Batgirl was injured by one creative team and brought back to prominence with another. So? First, she did come back so it disqualifies her from your own definition of WiR, and second, creative teams often have different visions for characters and incorporate them into their stories as they desire.
I can understand your desire to see popular characters getting a heroic death, and that is quite nice, but the entire point of Identity Crisis wasn’t to be nice but to see how characters reacted to horrific tragedy. Perhaps that’s not the kind of story you want, but it was a story that was quite effective in its own way.
I’m not sure if it would have been effective to see flashbacks of Sue dealing with the rape. Every single bit of the story is the heroes responding to the death of Sue. It would have broken the flow of the story to get random Sue moments. Perhaps it could be Ralph mourning? I can see that possibly working if we got to see Sue’s journey to recovery through the eyes of her friends. That would keep it grounded in the present while strengthening the bonds between Sue and the League within the League. I can also see a separate tie-in issue showing her journey of recovery from her perspective.
I mentioned Angel of Mercy killings because there is a version of Angel of Mercy killings where people injure others in order to be seen saving or trying to save them. It’s not the exact same thing, but it’s still killing someone in order to engender sympathy in a community and draw people closer to you. It’s very similar. Google, “Woman kills for sympathy,” and you’ll get a ton of results.
@DeSade_Acolyte
Even by your own definition, Sue isn’t the protagonist. You said the, “protagonist is the character which takes or causes action to be taken,” but Sue isn’t taking or causing action to be taken. Actions are taken against her. Causes are taken up because of her death, but that cause isn’t because of what she’s done but because of what’s been done against her. She’s passive. She isn’t the protagonist.