Women In Refrigerators 13 Years Later
Trigger Warning: discussion of sexual assault.
Sexual violence is so ubiquitous in superhero comics that it is a part of the language. It’s a trope, a shortcut, a means to an end. It’s use is fetishistic: it’s about the hero; it’s about the trope itself. The dead girlfriend, the tragic sex worker, the battered wife—these are not characters, they’re props. Their abuse has a mystical value within the story. It signals that our hero is going to go dark, and then he’s going to prove his worth, by coming through the other side. And just trotting it out has some kind of value. It says, or tries to say, “this ain’t no funny book; this shit is real.”
