Those familiar with comics probably already know this concept, those that don't, go here:
http://www.comicvine.com/women-in-refrigerators/12-43763/
Anyway, I was reading Ultimate Spider-Man and just finished the Carnage arc, and guess what?Gwen's dead, again.
She's like a poster child for this concept and one of the few characters that stay dead.
What's your opinion on this, do comics need this concept or not?
Well personally I like to keep my milk and lunch meat in the fridge but that's just me. I haven't thought of putting my girlfriend in there, but now that you mention it...
If I would've done that to my girlfriend, her haters finally would call her cool. Though a fridge might cool her off when she's angry at me. Sometimes she can be cold.
Pun intended.
I know the concept, though I think it's unfair, specially in Marvel comics. they're not getting treated differently than men. ALL kinds characters die frequently and have a lot of tragedy on their lives in the comics or fall by the wayside for years. It's not just women.
Quote from: Nowhere Man on October 13, 2009, 04:24PM
I know the concept, though I think it's unfair, specially in Marvel comics. they're not getting treated differently than men.
So, you want females to get treated differently? I thought people always wanted guys and gals to be treated equally. :P
QuoteALL kinds characters die frequently and have a lot of tragedy on their lives in the comics or fall by the wayside for years. It's not just women.
I think too many comic characters have died and come back from the dead too easily nowadays.
What I meant is that the concept of women in refrigerators is unfair cause they are being treated just like men. The correct term would be PEOPLE in refrigerators =P That's the unfair part.
and agreed on the deaths and ressurection thing. it's like I said here http://marvelmods.com/forum/index.php?topic=3061.0
That's true, Marvel does tend to keep things even, which is why this whole concept came from DC, Green Lantern if I remember right.
Can you name many of Men in Refrigerators though?
True, there's more male hero comics so it's only natural that this concept would be about women.
sure I can name hundreds of men in refrigerators, but I'm gonna do just 5 as examples:
Bucky: died, memory erased, manipulated into being an assassin, ressurected after 40 years in limbo.
Cyclops: died, girlfriend died countless times, merged with Apocalypse, came back unemotional.
Spider-Man: Parents died, uncle died, girlfriend died (partially his fault), marriage erased from reality, cloned twice. tricked into thinking he was a clone. lost unborn child.
Vision: lost his children, was destroyed several times, struggles with apathy, died, came back as another vision and nobody seems do care, wife gone insane.
Hawkeye: wife died, he died, was ressurected, died again in the following month and ressurected yet again the month after that.
Seriously, I could go on forever.
Agreed. My top 5 women who have badly been twisted
Rogue - can't touch anyone, betrayed by mystique and shot by her, power changes often
Jean - died too many times, husband cheated on her, replaced by cosmic entity (although she is that cosmic entity now), power changes, framed for killing billions
Wanda - nervous breakdown, insanity caused her to kill her friends and husband, father used her, powers out of control, children who are not real
Psylocke - power switches, lost eyes, raped, mauled by Sabretooth, deaths, kidnapped and brainwashed and the X-Men don't care even though they know about it, body switch
Mockingbird - raped, husband takes rapist's side, replaced by skrulls
I'd give honorable mentions to Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, and Elektra
Rogue also got raped.
@Nowhere Man: heh, do you notice something there m8?
Cyclops: girlfriend died countless times
Spider-Man: girlfriend died (partially his fault)
Vision: wife gone insane.
Hawkeye: wife died
Seems all the guys on your list had women in refrigerators.Save for Bucky, but he's most likely gay anyway.
well, same thing could be said the other way around:
jean: husband died
mockingbird: husband died
scarlet witch: husband destroyed, boyfriend died
shadowcat: boyfriend died
sharon carter: boyfriend died
vindicator: husband died
everybody dies in comics, there's no preference for women. as far as I know, every character of both marvel and DC are in refrigerators.
According to xmen.wikia.com rogue wasn't raped.
That's a doubtful assertion - her de-powered stint in Genoshan jail (waaay back when it was still a racist haven) had several implied rapes, which was the actual reason for Ms Marvel's personality surfacing in her and effecting her joint escape with Wolverine.
"I'm Patch, she's Ace and we're blowing this joint!"
Then again, Ms Marvel's vague reference as to why SHE'S in control may have simply meant Rogue was manhandled and beaten, something she also hadn't had to experience in a looooong time.
Don't forget about her stuck-in-crazy-drug-parellel-whatchamacallit biological parents.
Deadpool died three times, his ex-girlfriend took his appearance and beat up his then-girlfriend, leaving him scorned by the X-Men ever since, said ex later died on his hands bleeding to death courtesy of Sabertooth, he lost his powers several times, lost his mind more than usual several times, had a crazy killer take the appearance of aforementioned then-not-yet-girlfriend and have sex with him , revealing this to him only afterwards... There's a reason this guy's crazy seven ways to Sunday even if you DON'T include his relationship with Death and Thanos and Killebrew. And if you DO...
Doug Ramsey and Warlock also went through a funny ordeal, what with their deaths and joint resurrection as a new entity that shared their memories and appearances and thought for a while he was one despite being the other (until an Uncanny Valley-style visit to Doug Ramsey's GRAVE with Shadowcat, which left her throwing up all over the cemetery).
Karma, on the other hand, is a walking refrigerator. Killed her twin brother, is a lesbian mutant (double ostracism, yay!), has two younger siblings to take care of, who were abducted several times, one of which ended with Spiral TURNING THEM INTO KILLER CYBERNETIC MONSTERS.
Spiral, who exists in a crazy timeloop of having effected her own transformation into Spiral. Seriously, look at her origin.
Remember Xavier, with all his deaths and resurrections, being betrayed and betraying others himself. He's the epicentre of half the fridge incidents mutantity has ever had! Magneto is responsible for half of the remaining half, what with his own monstrous biography that ranges from Auschwitz to living alone in a dead city ON SEVERAL SEPARATE OCCASIONS for UP TO SEVERAL YEARS AT A TIME because he was depowered/shamed/exiled/marooned/take your pick. Don't even try to remember that he, too, was cloned and no good came out of it for both him and Rogue and their weird weird love.
Kylun the Barbarian is also a notable male example, by the way.
I could go on for hours with this =)
Good post, you'll forgive me for skipping Deadpool I have yet to read the comics, didn't want spoilers.
I wonder though, if you made a top 5 People in Refrigerators, how many would be men and who would be no.1?
Mister Immortal has had at least 18 rather gruesome deaths and he keeps on coming back in a bad mood. His girlfriend, Dinah Soar, was also killed.
Quote from: Dihan on October 14, 2009, 01:06PM
Mister Immortal has had at least 18 rather gruesome deaths and he keeps on coming back in a bad mood. His girlfriend, Dinah Soar, was also killed.
LOL Does Mister Immortal really count though? Considering his power is that he can't die.
:off topic: my favourite Mr I death would have to be either when he impaled himself on a giant pair of scissors, or when Deadpool jammed a remote control in his head :P
Well if he is "Mr. IMMORTAL" and his power is that he can't die, then how did he have 18 gruesome DEATHS? Kind of contradictory no?
No his power is that he can always come back to life. So he is immortal
Immortality is the negation of mortality, which means you are not subject to deah. I.E. you can't die at all. If he can come back to life, that means he can die. Thus, because he can die, he isn't immortal. He can just resurrect himself after death. Coming back to life isn't being immortal because he still died. Whoever named him really screwed that part up. So he isn't truly immortal, he just doesn't stay dead. If he were truly immortal, he wouldn't be able to die at all.
I guess. I don't think of immortal that way but it isn't that important to me if you can keep resurrecting like Jean and Immortal Man. Of course immortality means you wouldn't get the pain of ever dying so that could be better
Immortal just means you can't die of old age.
But it's amazing what an axe can do to fix that status.
In theory vampires are immortal, yet they can die, this is like that I assume.
i beg to differ. example: olympian gods are immortal. they can't die. ever. hell, zues had all of his tendons ripped out, then hermes put them back in for him. athena busted her way out of Zeus's head with a battle-axe (which you must admit is strange).
That's invincible and immortal.You can be two things at the same time.
Invincible means you can't be harmed at all. Immortal means you just can't die. Obviously if Zeus had his tendons ripped out he isn't invincible now is he?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality
Notice the reference to a immortal jellyfish and crap like that, I can squash a jellyfish and eat it with a bottle of Merlot, I'm fairly certain that would kill it, don't you?
It's talking about biological immortality, not true immortality. Quick, let's skew things our way to make it look like we know what we're talking about.
Now that we got the ignorance out of the way, back on topic yeah?
*sigh* It's talking about immortality.You simply chose one definition which is hardly even used anywhere.
Vampires are immortal.Vampires can be killed.
Same goes for a considerable amount of things, the word is subjective, pointing out that your definition is the only one makes you look rather foolish.
And yes, let's get back to the topic before you decide to write an "English dictionary: The Rage way is the Right way".
I was talking about true immortality, hence a certain definition that I was using to poke fun at the character. You're the one prancing around with this biological and other nonsense that didn't even pertain to what I'm talking about. Not once did I say my definition was the only one. Maybe you should learn to read yeah? It makes you look even more foolish when you don't. Either you like the taste of leather, or you just enjoy putting your foot in your mouth.
And I've already written that dictionary. I also created the universe and invented fire. Any questions? Good. End of discussion.
although we are off the discussion of the true definition of immortality, in brings up some interesting points into the the discussion of people in refrigerators. i mean look at deadpool or wolverine. i'm pretty sure they have never technically died (correct me if i'm wrong), but everyone around them on the other hand...
just to be clear bout some things. mister immortal is the only truly 100% immortal character in marvel comics. Death herself said she's powerless against him. So when people say a way that Mister Immortal died, he didn't really die, he just got really freakin injured that his body displayed all signs of death, but wasn't truly dead. it's said that he's going to live till seeing a universe stop existing and a new one take it's place is commomplace for him.
Oh, Olympian gods can die the same way every other god from any Earth pantheon. They're connected to earth and so, if Earth is destroyed they become mortal as well. That's why it's said that Asgardian gods are not immortal in that way cause they're actually gods of another planet who "moved" to an Earth adjacent dimension after their planet's destruction.
Don't forget Deadpool's curse, courtesy of Thanos (which, with Thanos' death, might have ended, though) - in his crazy jealousy of Death, he made it so the guy would never be able to completely DIE. Which is negated in an extremely gruesome way in Days of Future Now, I gotta admit.
Angel! How could we forget Angel! What with his losing wings, attempting a suicide and being reborn as Archangel, regaining wings, losing wings, regaining-- well, you get the gist.
Iceman's inability to de-ice for a while, a few shatterings (which was when he discovered he could regenerate by dehydrating anything and everything around him, including people), a child that may not have even been his...
Emma Frost and her crazy emotional turmoil, the one that drove her to become a heartless blonde with big gazongas (which ain't half bad for a girl who was originally brown-haired and FLAT), the deaths of her students for which she continued to beat herself up for decades until Morrison forgot about that part of her and the subsequent writers followed his example.
Moon Knight. Just Moon Knight.
Quicksilver. His daughter being a bargaining chip for Acolyte idjits, his crushed state after M-Day (which is sort of compensated by what he later did with the Terrigen Mists), his own weird relationship with Joseph...
Let's not mention the Punisher, although we is both a fridge and a fridge-maker at the same time.
Longshot, although his mindwipes and artificial nature don't let him to realize half his problems (well, Dazzler probably won't let him forget - too bad I quit reading the eXile comics, huh?).
Pretty much the whole Ultimate universe is one big refrigerator by this thread's conditions, by the way =)
So basically they're immortal unless killed and when they're killed and brought back then they ware never actually dead hence they're still immortal...wow, guess Rage really did write that dictionary. lol
But I think my original question was a bit lost in all this equal treatment and immortality debates.
Do we really need People in Refrigerators?
I don't know about the rest of you, but I read comics to take a break from all the crap the real world has to offer, so reading about rape, brain-death, slavery, alcoholism, wife beaters etc. is not something I want in excess.
I'm not saying all of it should be removed but toned down, they've been really laying it thick with all the hero alcoholics and there's so much angst going on even Deadpool's been infected, and that's just wrong.
Is there a super-hero, anti-hero or just a hero out there who's actually happy to be one?
The Captain. Heck, all of Nextwave is about that - all the refrigerating going on is made fun of in very messy ways (just look at Dirk Anger). "They EXPLODE! My life has found a new meaning!"
Squirrel Girl, I suppose, though I'm not familiar with all of the GLA lore and she might be hiding some dark hurt past of her own. I honestly can't name any one non-comedic non-2d character here. Does Mojo count as a non-frosty example, by the way? There are none among the mutants, I'm certain.
This turn of storytelling is necessary to flesh characters out, find a way for character development to work, but the idea has been worked to the bone now - as we've established, 98% of all Marvel characters have had it in some way or another.
Quote from: Nox on October 15, 2009, 12:18PM
So basically they're immortal unless killed and when they're killed and brought back then they ware never actually dead hence they're still immortal...wow, guess Rage really did write that dictionary. lol
That's not what I said. Don't be stupid.
Hey, calm down everybody :)
Quote from: Noelemahc on October 15, 2009, 12:28PM
The Captain. Heck, all of Nextwave is about that - all the refrigerating going on is made fun of in very messy ways (just look at Dirk Anger). "They EXPLODE! My life has found a new meaning!"
Squirrel Girl, I suppose, though I'm not familiar with all of the GLA lore and she might be hiding some dark hurt past of her own. I honestly can't name any one non-comedic non-2d character here. Does Mojo count as a non-frosty example, by the way? There are none among the mutants, I'm certain.
This turn of storytelling is necessary to flesh characters out, find a way for character development to work, but the idea has been worked to the bone now - as we've established, 98% of all Marvel characters have had it in some way or another.
Yeah I was asking about Marvel, bummer.
But here's the funny thing, I was hoping the Ultimate universe would be different, I mean they ware starting anew and all, and things ware looking good and then Ultimatum came and there's so many frost characters now it's not even funny.
I guess some of you need to be reminded of the forum rules, http://marvelmods.com/forum/index.php?topic=2304.0
"Be kind to other users and Don't be rude."
feel free to discuss things and disagree, but dont insult each other ;)
Well technically Marvel could not be interesting without all this trouble. I do think it is interesting to see good people get in trouble as you want to know what happens. For me characters who deserve it are not interesting and I could care less about what will happen to them.
However some characters breach the limit. Penance is not interesting as he is too messed up.
Quote from: Nox on October 15, 2009, 12:39PM
Yeah I was asking about Marvel, bummer.
he was talking bout marvel O.o'
I agree with MF, the human conflict is what attracts me the most bout marvel. I want to see the characters go through some deep Chocolate egg and overcome them. that's inspiring.
If you prefer reading a fuzzy-heart-warming-happy comics, I suggest maybe Archie's Gang or Little Lulu.
Or anything, which isn't Marvel, but Disney :D
Quote from: MarvelFan12345 on October 15, 2009, 12:46PM
However some characters breach the limit. Penance is not interesting as he is too messed up.
How about Norman Osborn? I think he's even more messed up after he came back from the dead and became in charge of everything...
I think Penance got better after a few psychiatric treatments with Dr. Samson.
Quote from: The Iron Power of Spider-Man on October 15, 2009, 12:50PM
Or anything, which isn't Marvel, but Disney :D
What about the Super Hero Squad??!?!? hahaha
That doesn't count, because Stan Lee is the mayor there :D
QuoteBut here's the funny thing, I was hoping the Ultimate universe would be different, I mean they ware starting anew and all, and things ware looking good and then Ultimatum came and there's so many frost characters now it's not even funny.
It was pretty frosty way before that. All of Ultimate Nightmare (and, by extension, most of Ultimate Galactus Saga), every other character found in USM, the very weird ways of Ultimate X-Men (Weapon X hits a new imagined low here, yes, but also Proteus, all things Sabertooth and the quickly-gotten-inane shtick of "yes, here's a character that is named like a 616 character and he has similar powers, BUT!" which made Longshot a petty murderer, Sinister a stuttering white mofo crazyboy, Deathstryke a Storm villain, Marrow a camero minifridge, Wraith a WHITE flatscan with issues and Deadpool a Reaver with no character depth).
Also, anybody remember X-Statix? Ice Pole, I'd say.
Quote from: Noelemahc on October 15, 2009, 01:06PM
It was pretty frosty way before that. All of Ultimate Nightmare (and, by extension, most of Ultimate Galactus Saga), every other character found in USM, the very weird ways of Ultimate X-Men (Weapon X hits a new imagined low here, yes, but also Proteus, all things Sabertooth and the quickly-gotten-inane shtick of "yes, here's a character that is named like a 616 character and he has similar powers, BUT!" which made Longshot a petty murderer, Sinister a stuttering white mofo crazyboy, Deathstryke a Storm villain, Marrow a camero minifridge, Wraith a WHITE flatscan with issues and Deadpool a Reaver with no character depth).
Also, anybody remember X-Statix? Ice Pole, I'd say.
Yeah, that bit in Sabertooth's head was seriously messed up, and kind of reminded me of Hannibal only without the class.
They totally f-up the whole X-Men arc, Bandis should have wrote a general ultimate universe arc and have the others follow it.
One of the good things is that Fury actually looks awesome this time around, he's got the whole Sam vibe going for him.
Stryfe a preacher, that one was a laugh riot, and am I crazy or did the Banshee arc make no sense, I mean Cyclops should have seen the supplier out the window and if Colossus was using it all the time, the how the hell was he getting it when he was locked up in Weapon X?