Wonder Woman Unbound (39 page)

Causing even more of an impact was the death of Superman, which received international press attention. The issue where the monster Doomsday killed Superman is one of the bestselling comic books of all time, and the collections have been extremely successful and are constantly reissued. Doomsday remains a key part of the DC universe, as do characters created in the wake of Superman’s death, like Steel and a new Superboy. The story hasn’t been on the big screen yet, but it was turned into an animated movie that launched DC’s direct-to-DVD line.

Both Superman and Batman had catastrophic events with ramifications still felt in comic books today that are known even outside of the comic book world. Over the same period, Wonder Woman died twice and lost the title of Wonder Woman, and no one particularly cares or remembers. She died very briefly during the Pérez era in the crossover story
War of the Gods,
lost her title to the upstart Amazon Artemis during the Messner-Loebs/Deodato era, and then died and was replaced by her mother before coming back to life as the goddess of truth during the Byrne era. All of those stories have been out of print for years, and their lasting effects are practically nonexistent. They’ve certainly not inspired new characters or been adapted into movies.

For the vast majority of the Modern Age, Wonder Woman has been an afterthought. Batman and Superman have had innumerable comic books, several movies each, live-action TV shows, and cartoon TV shows. Wonder Woman has had her comic book, and that’s about it. Other DC properties have been expanded into brands and found success elsewhere. Green Lantern was turned into a live-action movie and a cartoon show, and there are five titles in the Green Lantern comics family right now. Lesser-known teams like the Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes have had Saturday morning cartoon shows. Marvel has put nearly all of its characters in its many movies. There have been rumors of Wonder Woman movies and TV shows over the years, but they haven’t come to fruition yet. All she’s had is her one comics series and a few costarring, background roles elsewhere on cartoons like
Super Friends
and
Justice League.
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The Fridged Women of DC Comics

Wonder Woman has been relegated to the background for quite some time, in a comic book limbo where she’s there each month but not really doing anything good or bad, fascinating or controversial. However, given how things have gone for a lot of the female characters at DC Comics over the past couple of decades, limbo might not be the worst place to be.

Though not for Lois Lane, who’s had a decent go of it for the most part. Clark Kent told her that he was Superman and they eventually got married, and she continued working hard as the world’s foremost journalist.
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Sometimes this got her into trouble, like when she was shot while embedded with troops in wartorn Umec as she tried to help an injured soldier, but even that didn’t keep her down for long. She hasn’t had her own ongoing series since
Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane
was canceled in 1974, but she’s costarred in most of those Superman-related series and remains a fixture at DC.

She’s also far and away the Modern Age’s most prominent female character outside of the comics. Lois was played by Margot Kidder in the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, then by Teri Hatcher in the TV show
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.
She was excellently voiced by Dana Delany in
Superman: The Animated Series,
then portrayed by Erica Durance in
Smallville,
Kate Bosworth in
Superman Returns,
and multiple Oscar nominee Amy Adams in
Man of Steel.
No female comic book character has been onscreen more often than Lois Lane. Wonder Woman had one live-action TV show in the 1970s. Since then, a live-action Lois has costarred in two shows and six movies.

In fact, the movies have been good for a lot of female characters in the Modern Age. Catwoman was played by Michelle Pfeiffer in
Batman Returns,
by Halle Berry in her own eponymous film, and by Anne Hathaway in
The Dark Knight Rises.
Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, was portrayed by Jessica Alba in two Fantastic Four movies, while Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, has been played by Scarlett Johansson in several
Avengers
-related movies. Mary Jane Watson was played by Kirsten Dunst in three Spider-Man movies, and now Emma Stone stars as Gwen Stacey in the franchise’s reboot. Supergirl had her own movie starring Helen Slater, and Batgirl was played by Alicia Silverstone in
Batman & Robin.
Even Carol Ferris, a.k.a. Star Sapphire from the Silver Age, made it to the big screen, portrayed by Blake Lively in
Green Lantern.
It seems that everyone has made it to the movies except for Wonder Woman.

These successes for women on the big screen didn’t continue in their monthly print adventures. The dominant trend for female characters in the Modern Age can be defined by this seemingly nonsensical phrase: “Women in Refrigerators.” First coined by Gail Simone, this term is a reference to
Green Lantern
#54 when Kyle Rayner, the Green Lantern, returned home to find that a villain had killed his girlfriend, Alex DeWitt, and stuffed her in the refrigerator. Simone argued that a disproportionate number of female characters were killed, seriously injured, or sidelined, often in a sexualized manner, in the service of furthering a male character’s story. It’s a plot device used to create emotional turmoil in the narrative of a male character, often at the expense of ending a female character’s very existence. The theory gained a lot of traction and even inspired a new verb. To be “fridged” is to be dispatched in such a manner.

One of the most famous fridgings involved Barbara Gordon, the Bronze Age Batgirl. In Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 graphic novel
Batman: The Killing Joke,
the Joker showed up at the home of Barbara’s father, police commissioner James Gordon, and shot her through the spine when she opened the door. The Joker then undressed her and took nude pictures of her as she lay on the floor, bleeding. Barbara was paralyzed and wheelchair bound for the next two decades.
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Barbara wasn’t shot because she was Batgirl, or because she was out stopping a crime of some sort. She was shot because she was the commissioner’s daughter and the Joker wanted to upset him and Batman. The Joker displayed her nude photos in a carnival meant to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, and her injury prompted Batman to be even more determined in his quest to track down the Joker. Crassly, the book ended with the Joker and Batman laughing at a dumb joke, with nary a mention of Barbara.

Another notable fridging involved Supergirl, when she sacrificed herself to save Superman while battling the Anti-Monitor during
Crisis on Infinite Earths.
One of her last thoughts was “I may never be as good as he is, but Kal always taught me to do my best.” She died so Superman would be around to lead the charge to save the universe, and the story made it clear that his life was far more valuable than hers. When the universe rebooted, she was wiped from existence entirely because DC wanted Superman to be the only surviving Kryptonian. It would be almost twenty years before a Kryptonian Supergirl returned to DC Comics.

Continuing with sidekicks, Stephanie Brown became Batman’s new Robin in 2004. After patrolling Gotham City for years as Spoiler, Steph was promoted when the current Robin, Tim Drake, quit. She was Robin for three whole issues before she was brutally tortured and killed by Black Mask during a massive gang war. In fact, the only reason she got to be Robin was to raise her profile before they killed her. Her death was going to be the emotional climax of the Bat-books’ massive “War Games” crossover, and the editors decided that her death would hit readers harder if she was Robin. And, in typical Women in Refrigerators fashion, it spurred the male characters into action. Both Batman and Tim, now Robin again, took to the gang war with new fervor and ended it.

As Spoiler and then as Robin, Steph had developed a sizeable, and largely female, fan base, and her brutal death wasn’t well received. Nor was DC’s response to the fans’ displeasure. When asked why Steph didn’t have a memorial in the Batcave like Jason Todd, a former Robin who had been killed by the Joker, DC’s executive editor Dan DiDio told them that she wasn’t really a Robin. A memorial eventually came, but it took some time.
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In terms of villains, familiar characters haven’t been fridged but they’ve been rather sexualized. Catwoman got a new origin as a prostitute in Frank Miller’s
Batman: Year One
and was drawn ludicrously proportioned by Jim Balent throughout the mid-1990s. When her series relaunched in 2011, the entire first page of the new
Catwoman
#1 was panels of her breasts, and she infiltrated a strip club before finishing the issue by straddling Batman in a sex scene of astoundingly awkward posing. Carol Ferris has appeared frequently in recent Green Lantern stories and has been sexualized as well. Her Star Sapphire outfit has a neckline that dips down below her navel, with grasping bits of fabric that barely contain her breasts.

Fridging and sex merged together memorably in one of DC’s biggest events of the past decade,
Identity Crisis,
and the murder of Sue Dibny, the Elongated Man’s wife. The Justice League had to track down her killer while covering up a terrible secret. The second issue revealed that years before her murder, Sue had been raped by the villainous Dr. Light, an event illustrated in some detail. Sue was graphically murdered and raped to provide the start of a story for the predominantly male Justice League; the terrible secret the league had to protect was that they’d erased Dr. Light’s memory of the event, and that they were now worried he’d remembered and returned to kill Sue. But he wasn’t the murderer.

Another popular trend of the Modern Age was formerly good women becoming bad guys. The culprit was actually Jean Loring, the ex-wife of the Atom. She thought that by attacking another superhero’s wife, her ex-husband might be worried and come back to her, but things quickly got out of hand and Sue died. They corrupted one female character to murder another female character, all because the first female character just missed her husband so much. It’s a laughable stereotype. Even as the archvillain of a big comic book event, the female villain’s motive boils down to a woman needing a husband.

Soon after
Identity Crisis,
Wonder Woman became a murderer as well, but this time for wholly justified reasons. Nonetheless, she was still vilified and ostracized. When Max Lord took control of Superman’s mind and forced him to fight his friends, Batman and Wonder Woman teamed up to stop him. Wonder Woman captured Lord, and he swore that as soon as she let him go he’d take control of Superman again. Under the truth-compelling power of the lasso, Lord said that the only way to stop him from controlling Superman was to kill him. So Wonder Woman snapped his neck.

It was an absolutely necessary killing. Superman was too powerful to let a madman control him, and Lord would’ve used him to go on a murderous spree. Wonder Woman made the hard decision and killed Lord. She was shunned for it. The event was played on screens across the planet and the world turned against her. Batman was disgusted, and even Superman disapproved. Wonder Woman may as well have been Jean Loring for the way she was treated, all because she made the difficult decision that none of the boys could.

Maybe it was better that Wonder Woman faded into the background for most of the Modern Age. Whenever a woman took center stage in a DC comic, she was killed or turned evil or sexualized. The choices were death, scorn, or objectification. While there were several good moments for women at DC over the years, the “women in refrigerators” plot device best encapsulates the era. Women were disposable and malleable, and everything revolved around male characters and their stories. The Modern Age could have used a strong Wonder Woman to counter this approach to women, but it’s hard to make much of an impact with only one series. Considering what happened when Wonder Woman stepped up to end the Max Lord situation, the background was the safest place to be. At least she’s still alive.

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Though in between there was a four-issue miniseries called
The Legend of Wonder Woman,
written and illustrated by Trina Robbins, along with cowriter Kurt Busiek, and set primarily in the Golden Age.

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Berger was also the editor of Neil Gaiman’s
Sandman,
and she would go from
Wonder Woman
to running the wildly successful Vertigo imprint at DC.

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The Eisners were occasionally good to
Wonder Woman.
Brian Bolland and Adam Hughes both won for their cover art, while colorist Trish Mulvihill was nominated four times and finally won in 2004. Mulvihill was the series’ most prolific creator, coloring over 100 issues of
Wonder Woman
in the Modern Age.