VOY - Collective

[CharlesPhipps]

I really don't see the big deal about fridging.

The short version is that it ticks off female readers that it's usually the prominent female side character who gets selected for it. Not to make a big deal out of it but Supergirl and Batgirl were the two most famous superheroines after Wonder Woman and a lot of girl readers loved them. DC comics editors by and large HATED them and considered them cheap copies of the male heroes. Hence why Supergirl died and Batgirl was crippled.

Male heroes who die and get crippled bounce back after a couple of years. But DC was deluged for DECADES with requests for more Batgirl and Supergirl until they finally caved.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I really don't see the big deal about fridging.

The short version is that it ticks off female readers that it's usually the prominent female side character who gets selected for it. Not to make a big deal out of it but Supergirl and Batgirl were the two most famous superheroines after Wonder Woman and a lot of girl readers loved them. DC comics editors by and large HATED them and considered them cheap copies of the male heroes. Hence why Supergirl died and Batgirl was crippled.

Male heroes who die and get crippled bounce back after a couple of years. But DC was deluged for DECADES with requests for more Batgirl and Supergirl until they finally caved.

Not to counterpoint, but how does Jason Todd fit into that mix? Not quite the same but it has a similarities in the gratuitous writing.

[CharlesPhipps]

Not to counterpoint, but how does Jason Todd fit into that mix? Not quite the same but it has a similarities in the gratuitous writing.

Note that I'm not putting down character death as a literary device. Uncle Ben is an important part of Spider-Man's development and he's not going to be more important than his death. However, the trick is recognizing when you're wasting better potential.

The "Women in Refrigerators" trope being recognized brought us Spider-Gwen, Barbara, Supergirl, and other characters back from comic book limbo. And as we see with Jason Todd, he actually is much more interesting as a guy who came back from the dead than he is a reason for Batman to feel guilty about training children to fight crime. Ditto Bucky.

And if you're still thinking, "But are women really killed often way more than men and stay dead?" Well, back then before this trope I'd say yes but because of the fact women tend to be side-characters and somewhat disposable to the narrative. Killing a love interest is also an easy way to generate heat for a heel (using wrestling terms). It's just the numbers tended to crunch with gender bias. Also, women characters in comic books tended to be viewed as less valuable properties for marketing.

There's been like 8 Spider-Women because the name was viewed as more valuable than Jessica Drew (and ironically, because of copyright issues, she didn't become Jessica Jones like intended). There's also the fact some editors HATE some specific female characters and this kind of really pisses off fans.

For example, the embargo against Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain (two very popular characters) that lasted a decade.

[FaxModem1]

That one I never understood. Why were Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain so disliked at DC?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Not to counterpoint, but how does Jason Todd fit into that mix? Not quite the same but it has a similarities in the gratuitous writing.

Note that I'm not putting down character death as a literary device. Uncle Ben is an important part of Spider-Man's development and he's not going to be more important than his death. However, the trick is recognizing when you're wasting better potential.

The "Women in Refrigerators" trope being recognized brought us Spider-Gwen, Barbara, Supergirl, and other characters back from comic book limbo. And as we see with Jason Todd, he actually is much more interesting as a guy who came back from the dead than he is a reason for Batman to feel guilty about training children to fight crime. Ditto Bucky.

And if you're still thinking, "But are women really killed often way more than men and stay dead?" Well, back then before this trope I'd say yes but because of the fact women tend to be side-characters and somewhat disposable to the narrative. Killing a love interest is also an easy way to generate heat for a heel (using wrestling terms). It's just the numbers tended to crunch with gender bias. Also, women characters in comic books tended to be viewed as less valuable properties for marketing.

There's been like 8 Spider-Women because the name was viewed as more valuable than Jessica Drew (and ironically, because of copyright issues, she didn't become Jessica Jones like intended). There's also the fact some editors HATE some specific female characters and this kind of really pisses off fans.

For example, the embargo against Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain (two very popular characters) that lasted a decade.

If it chiefly applies to characters that are supposed to be fleshed out then that makes sense.

[GreyICE]

That one I never understood. Why were Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain so disliked at DC?

Nostalgia and they're women. And before the inevitable backlash, let me explain.

You have to remember, comic book industry 'veterans' are people who grew up reading comics. Specifically, they grew up reading comics created under the comic code. The very simple storylines. And they're not fans, oh no. They're the fan's fan. They're the guy at the Star Trek convention who knows all the stardates episodes happen on. You know how Paramount tries to keep them out of the writer's room? Well I don't entirely blame them, because when they take over it can be bad.

So Robin is a mantle which has been passed down three times, each time somewhat controversially, but you have to remember he's a fantasy for young boys. They can go fight alongside Batman! It doesn't much matter who the boy is, it's that a boy can fight alongside Batman. So a girl becoming Robin? It's not "yet another costume switch", it's "shitting on their childhood." You know how the idea of a girl Robin would cause internet outrage? Well, um, some of that internet mob is in the editor's room.

As for Cassandra, again, Batgirl was a fantasy. She's the hot, cute, flirty redhead who fights with Batman and Robin, but she's definitely not into Batman, so she's into... Robin! Which, if you're a teenage boy who fantasizes about being Robin, well... you see. Cassandra was an Asian daring to intrude on the space, but she also wasn't Batgirl. She wasn't talkative or flirty. She lived in her head. She had a brief relationship she initiated, and she broke off. She just wasn't Barbara Gordon, in any way.

But when they went nostalgia the entire idea was "go back to the great comics of our youth!" They even vetoed a FANTASTIC Grant Morrison pitch for the new Superman that might have rescued the entire New 52 (if it had even one Morrison-caliber writer it'd have attracted more, especially with them having freedom). His All Star Superman is considered the definitive Superman comic - out of Superman's entire run (and that's going up against Moore's legendary "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow"). And they knew that when they vetoed it. So they were damn well going to go back to Barbara Gordon and they were damn well going to make sure that there was no "Cassandra Cain" loyalists, by making her an assassin which was ENTIRELY against everything her character was and stood for.

It's been lunatics running the asylum for years now at Marvel/DC (see also the "One More Day idiocy"). Although if you didn't get they were lunatics from the idea of "turning down a Grant Morrison Superman pitch" I don't know what to tell you. The man shits gold.

[CharlesPhipps]

There's a somewhat less and MORE cynical Alternative ExplanationTM too:

DC has the view of intellectual property as their literal bank in that they have characters they want to sell merchandise of. As Stan Lee said, Marvel comics made about 90% of their money not from Spider-Man comics but Spider-Man underoos. To this idea, DiDo and others believed they had to go back to the "iconic" versions of every superhero. This isn't a problem with Batman and Superman (albeit I believe Dick Grayson was temporarily Batman at this time, no one was taking it seriously as a permanent change).

So they went back to Barry Allen as the Flash (despite being dead for 30 years), Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern (despite John Stewart now many people's "real" GL), and also planned to do the same for Batgirl. The problem being Barbara Gordon's fans....still had her. She was Oracle and a very well liked disabled character. Also, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain were extremely popular among the female readership of DC comics (which has always been there but frequently felt ignored).

Turning Barbara from Oracle to Batgirl felt very much like dissolving Spider-Man's marriage. Not quite as controversial because oracle is more a niche character but still pretty awful optics to turn a 30 year old super genius team leader into a 20 year old teen genius.

It's been lunatics running the asylum for years now at Marvel/DC (see also the "One More Day idiocy"). Although if you didn't get they were lunatics from the idea of "turning down a Grant Morrison Superman pitch" I don't know what to tell you. The man shits gold.

Even more amusingly, this relates to the Bat problem as Grant Morrison loves welding together continuity that other people abandoned. Why there's the Club of Heroes and other obscure Sixties characters. Grant OFFERED to redo Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown so they didn't have the Batgirl problem.

He wanted to have Bruce adapt Cassandra Cain so the Waynes had a sister.

[GreyICE]

There's a somewhat less and MORE cynical Alternative ExplanationTM too:

DC has the view of intellectual property as their literal bank in that they have characters they want to sell merchandise of. As Stan Lee said, Marvel comics made about 90% of their money not from Spider-Man comics but Spider-Man underoos. To this idea, DiDo and others believed they had to go back to the "iconic" versions of every superhero. This isn't a problem with Batman and Superman (albeit I believe Dick Grayson was temporarily Batman at this time, no one was taking it seriously as a permanent change).

So they went back to Barry Allen as the Flash (despite being dead for 30 years), Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern (despite John Stewart now many people's "real" GL), and also planned to do the same for Batgirl. The problem being Barbara Gordon's fans....still had her. She was Oracle and a very well liked disabled character. Also, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain were extremely popular among the female readership of DC comics (which has always been there but frequently felt ignored).

While this explains some of the retcons (it certainly does) it does NOT for Cassandra Cain or Stephanie Brown. Both of those were pure playground spite and maliciousness, the result of angry manchildren kicking other people's sandcastles so they don't get to play.

Cassandra Cain quit being Batgirl at the end of her run. Done. You can bring Barbara Gordon back, no issue. Cassandra could have been the new leader for Birds of Prey. At the end of the run she had the martial arts skills of Batman (possibly surpassing him), with a lot of the level-headedness and vision of Oracle. And decent people skills. She would have been an excellent leader for Birds of Prey. Instead they made her a dragon to fucking Deathstroke working as an assassin.

Do you know who is a good assin for Deathstroke if he needs the best of the best and you want a woman. Oh, I dunno, Lady Shiva? Because fucking duh? She only ran the league of assassins. They did it with Cassandra out of pure, malicious character assassination.

As for Stephanie Brown, it was even worse. People had been asking for a girl Robin for years. Literal years. And Tim Drake was evolving away from the role. He was too damn lighthearted to be Robin, too heavy a contrast with Batman's brooding. He would have been an excellent sidekick for Nightwing, or leader of the Teen Titans, or a number of roles. But not Robin. He was just too mentally stable, while Stephanie had the right mix of drive and pathos (child of a supervillain, driven to make reparations for her father's murders). So what did they do? They made her Robin to kick off a storyline where Batman treats her like literal garbage, she kicks off a plan to show she can do things right, accidentally fucks everything up because Batman didn't trust her and withheld key details from her, Batman tells her she's a fuckup and can't help (when he should know she'll just help anyway given her mentioned drive) and then Black Mask tortures her to death. And Batman doesn't even hang a memorial for her like he did for Jason Todd because she wasn't really Robin.

Excuse me while I fire a shotgun at some neckbeard's gonads, he doesn't deserve to have them.

Fuck, I'm sorry, you've made me unbelievably angry just thinking of the sheer, malicious clusterfuckery that they did. It was inexcusable, malicious, taunting of the fans in the worst possible way. It was sheer malicious cruelty to characters people liked, a way to go "haha, you liked these characters? Well fuck you you're stupid! You're stupid! I didn't just kill them, I shit on their legacy as a person and everything the character stood for! Look at me, I can wreck something you like because I can. There's never going to be a girl Robin. Never! And Cassandra is stupid, who cares her entire character is that she can't stand the idea of killing and is torn with guilt because of her father? She's a murderer! A many times murderer! HAHA YOU SUCK! And you can go out back and cry!"


It's like if Picard started up and we found out that Riker had gone on to Captain a starship and was responsible for the destruction of Romulus and was universally reviled as the worst captain Starfleet ever produced... and nothing, that was just the plot, Riker was the worst captain ever, it's canon now. Haha, fuck you anyone who liked Riker, he's the biggest fuckup in Federation history.

[FaxModem1]

As for Stephanie Brown, it was even worse. People had been asking for a girl Robin for years. Literal years. And Tim Drake was evolving away from the role. He was too damn lighthearted to be Robin, too heavy a contrast with Batman's brooding. He would have been an excellent sidekick for Nightwing, or leader of the Teen Titans, or a number of roles. But not Robin. He was just too mentally stable, while Stephanie had the right mix of drive and pathos (child of a supervillain, driven to make reparations for her father's murders). So what did they do? They made her Robin to kick off a storyline where Batman treats her like literal garbage, she kicks off a plan to show she can do things right, accidentally fucks everything up because Batman didn't trust her and withheld key details from her, Batman tells her she's a fuckup and can't help (when he should know she'll just help anyway given her mentioned drive) and then Black Mask tortures her to death. And Batman doesn't even hang a memorial for her like he did for Jason Todd because she wasn't really Robin.

Funny thing is, War Games and War Drums were my introduction to Stephanie Brown, and I fell in love with the character. It was as if an Archie comics character, going over her romances with another superhero, while also being part of the Batman family. I loved seeing that aspect.

Did not enjoy seeing her die, but she was awesome to see as part of the Batman family.

[CharlesPhipps]

I admit, you are 100% right, the hatred of Cassandra Cain was huge as was Stephanie Brown. Also, long-standing.

Both these events were nasty attempts to make people hate the characters.

1. The retcon of Cassandra Cain has been done a couple of times including making her a member of the League of Shadows who could talk and trying to make her a Robin villain that was "my sexy nemesis" and fitting every Dragon Lady stereotype.

2. Making Stephanie Brown the dumbest Robin who started the WAR GAMES massacre so that Batman could bring back Tim as the "Real" Robin and show he only made her Robin to make Tim jealous. Which...who the fuck even comes up with that.

Really, this was all BEFORE the embargo that was, "Just pretend they don't exist."

And I'm glad that didn't work either.