Monday, June 30, 2008

For the WFA Readers...

SOURCE: The 10 Worst Women in Refrigerators (i.e., Cases of Violence Against Women in Superhero Comics) Scenes Ever

You can tell the writer isn't a die-hard reader and seems to have a bit of a grudge against Kevin Smith. Granting that introducing a college rape into Felicia Hardy's background was just a lot of unneeded angst, there's no reason why you should invoke the name of the Holliest of Hollies when discussing how badly Karen Page was treated and not mention the name of Frank Miller.

I'm just saying...

Still, not a bad overall list. I'd have included Ms. Marvel (turned into a sex-slave by her own son from another dimension) and put Gwen Stacy up a lot higher... but for sheer, pointless, plot-driven rape/death, it's hard for me to think of anyone who was more abused than Sue Dibny.

6 comments:

  1. Yeah that's a list that could have been longer.. and honestly some of it was like.. 'Uh don't you understand HOW important Babs became...'definitely a casual reader.

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  2. How someone can compile such a list in the year 2008 and not include Steph Brown's death from War Games baffles me. (Yes I know that story got retconned but it doesn't make War Games/War Crimes any less vile and stupid.)

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  3. Well - fairness - Alan Moore never intended for Babs to become important after that.
    Take on it's own merits, The Killing Joke is an astonishingly sexist piece. Babs is reduced to an object who only has value as one more thing to torture Jim Gordon with. The Joker isn't putting an end to the crime-fighting career of Batgirl - he's using Jim Gordon's daughter as part of the ultimate mind-fuck.
    Up until Suicide Squad, nobody was doing ANYTHING with Babs. If it had been left to Moore and the Bat-Office at the time, Babs would probably be a footnote right now.

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  4. Like I said - casual reader.
    Whole list read like something that was put together by someone who only reads comics by big name authors or collects Trade Paperbacks at 'Barnes and Noble'. I'm not sure about the Psylocke or Savage Dragon stories, but I know for a fact that everything else IS available in at least ONE TP.
    In fact, the Psyclocke and Savage Dragon notes are so... meh, compared to some of the other stories on Gail Simone's "WiR" list, I'm almost certain that they started with the Kevin Smith bashing, looked for a few more stories and then looked for something obscure and Independent to "balance" the list.

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  5. Geez, that was sad... I never knew about that Sue Dibny thing. I'd heard of a couple of the others. *sniffle*
    I have to agree with the Frank Miller thing you mentioned, though. I think he does much worse to his females than most author's have dared to dream. Hah, hah. Well, he just does some really F*ed up stuff to his characters in gerneral. So, maybe he's less sexist that way, and that's an added bonus for him? ^_^
    This is why I like cute, fluffy comics. (Not including the fact that I own the manga Sensual Phrase. *guilty look* But it had a happy ending for the two lovers--after some fighting, drug use, kidnapping, rape, and even a little pillaging--from a certain point of view.) Happy ending is a good thing. ^_~ ("You want Happy Ending?" "Get away from me ... NOOO!")

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  6. Geez, that was sad... I never knew about that Sue Dibny thing. I'd heard of a couple of the others. *sniffle*
    The Sue Dibny thing happened fairly recently. It doesn't help things much that a year later, Ralph Dibny killed himself using a magic wish-granting gun in such a way as to bind a major demon "forever" and it didn't even last a month. Of course now their ghosts are roaming the earth solving mysteries together, which is a great series waiting to happen as soon as someone (Grant Morrison, I'm looking at YOU) starts writing it.
    I have to agree with the Frank Miller thing you mentioned, though. I think he does much worse to his females than most author's have dared to dream. Hah, hah. Well, he just does some really F*ed up stuff to his characters in gerneral. So, maybe he's less sexist that way, and that's an added bonus for him? ^_^
    Not really. Because while Frank has done some truly painful and disgusting things to his male heroes, he very rarely has anything humiliating happen to them.
    Case in point- Sin City: The Big Fat Kill and A Dame To Kill For - Dwight gets beaten up, blown up and generally mauled but comes out of it relatively unscathed mentally. Gail - the mail female hero of both stories and Dwight's love interest - on the other hand - is beaten sensless - while naked - and forced into a submissive position while one of the bad guys talks about how Gail and all her prostitute friends are going to be the slaves of the gangs once again. Violence AND humiliaiton.

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