Super-Hero "purity"
 

So, i saw this site "Women in Refrigerators". It basicly stats abotu most of the Super Heroines of comic books and their Fates (Mostly tragic, some REALLY tragic).

It got me thinking on the present scenario of Comic Heroes we have today... Maybe this awards a good discussion.

Non-caucasian, Gay, Women, and other such heroes... are they repected or accounted for in the Comic Book unniverse?

Also, out of curiosity i'll post the list i mentioned above.

All of Savage Dragon's girlfriends (dead)
Alysande Stuart (dead)
Amethyst (blinded, merged with Gemworld, destroyed in LSH; became a power-hungry witch in Book of Fate)
Apparition (one of her three bodies dead, soul bound to boyfriend)
Aquagirl (dead)
Arisia (dead)
Aurora (Multiple Personality Disorder, depowered)
Batgirl I (paralyzed)
Batwoman (dead)
Betty Banner (abused, changed into a harpy, multiple miscarriages, dead)
Mrs. Brian Banner, Bruce's mother (murdered by her abusive husband)
Black Canary I (dead)
Black Canary II (tortured, made infertile, depowered)
Blink (dead)
Bluebird (dead)
Buf from X-Man (crippled)
Candy Southern (dead)
Captain Marvel II/Photon (depowered, ceded code name to a male hero)
Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire (turned into a villain by the Zamarons, possessed by the Predator)
Celsius (insane, dead, called delusional liar)
Christine Helvin of Troublemakers (victim of date rape, discovered she could never have children because she was no longer human)
Courtney Ross (dead)
Crimson Fox (both sisters dead)
Dart (crippled)
Dawn Allen (dead)
Dawnstar (wings cut off, possessed by another persona)
Diamond Lil (kidnapped, experimented on by own government, developed benign breast tumor)
Domino (kidnapped, tortured)
Dove II (dead)
Dr. Midnight of Infinity, Inc. (dead)
Elasti-Girl (only original Doom Patroller to stay dead)
Electrocute (dead)
Elektra (the real one... dead)
Element Girl (dead)
Enchantress of Suicide Squad - originally a heroine (turned evil, insane, depowered?)
Firebelle (dead)
Firestar (powers were sterilizing her)
Frances Kane/Magenta (stalker complex)
Fury II (child kidnapped, husband killed twice, insane)
Gwen Stacy (dead)
Hawkwoman (depowered)
Hellcat (dead)
Huntress I (dead)
Huntress II (sexually abused)
Ice (dead)
Illyana Rasputin (kidnapped and raised by demons, aged, de-aged, dead)
Invisible Woman (miscarriage of second child)
Jade (lost natural powers)
Jarella (dead)
Jean DeWolff (dead)
Jean Loring Palmer ("nervous breakdown")
Jet of New Guardians (died in battle after contracting HIV)
Jocasta (deactivated - more than once)
Karen Page (addicted to drugs, made porn films, infected with HIV, dead)
Katma Tui (dead)
Kinetix (depowered twice, catatonic)
Kole (dead)
Lady Flash (evil, dead)
Lady Quark (dead)
Laurel Gand (dead)
Laurel Kent (revealed to be an evil robot, dead)
Linda Park (kidnapped, removed from history)
Looker (now a vampire)
Madelyn Pryor (clone, brood mare, demon queen, dead, brought back)
Mantis (child taken away, dead)
Marlo Chandler -- Rick Jones' wife (former prostitute, killed and brought back mindless; got better)
Marrina (insane, dead)
Mentalla of LSH (dead)
Mera (insane, child murdered)
Mirage of Team Titans (impregnated by rape)
Mockingbird (abducted and mind-manipulated into a relationship, dead)
Moira MacTaggert (diseased)
Ms. Marvel I/Warbird (mind-controlled, impregnated by rape, powers and memories stolen, cosmic-powered then depowered, alcoholic - SHEESH!)
Ms. Marvel II (became a monster in Fantastic Four, de-monstered but enslaved by Dr. Doom, depowered)
Mystek of JLTF (dead)
Namorita (revealed to be a clone, reverted to a more primal Atlantean form)
Negative Woman (depowered)
Nightshade (depowered)
Nightwind (dead)
Nova II/Frankie Raye (dead)
Phoenix I (evil-dead-who knows)
Power Girl (depowered, magically impregnated, made vulnerable to unprocessed natural materials... like sharp sticks)
Psylocke (eyes removed, eviscerated, depowered, mind-swapped)
Rachel Summers/Phoenix II (lobotomized)
Raven (sometimes evil, sometimes dead)
Red Guardian II (kidnapped and brainwashed into the love-slave of a super-villain)
Redwing of Team Titans (dead)
Revanche (dead)
Rogue (just plain messed up)
Roulette (dead)
Scarlet Witch (children 'die'/vanish/are lost because they are figments of her imagination)
Serpentine
Shrinking Violet (lost a leg in Giffen's Legion)
Shvaughn Erin (turned into a man)
Silver Sorceress (dead)
Snowbird (child and husband murdered, insane, dead)
Spider-Woman I (dead for a while, depowered)
Starfire (raped, tortured, enslaved; forced into marriage... twice)
Storm (depowered, repowered, periodically crazy to one degree or another)
Supergirl, pre-Crisis (dead)
Supergirl, PAD version (lost her invisibility and most of her shapeshifting)
SW6 Projectra (dead)
Tarot (dead, brought back w/life bound to an evil man)
Threnody (dead)
Tigra (devolved into cat-thing)
Triplicate Girl (one body killed, one presumed dead but revealed to be Glorith's pawn)
Wildcat II (dead)
Wolfsbane (locked in werewolf form for awhile, needs major therapy)
Wonder Girl I/Troia/Darkstar (identity and powers stripped from her multiple times)
Wonder Woman (killed, revived, but lost goddess powers)
Zatanna (powers severely limited)

Just would like to point out that for Super-heroes some of those girls get Raped too easily

So basically all female heroes have either:
Died
Been Raped
Lost their powers

If you want more information on this subject, there's a whole messageboard devoted to women in comic books--I found it back when somebody posted the link to Your Webcomic Is Bad And You Should Feel Bad.

Alot of it is kind of put out-of-proportion. I'm sure you could go over the male heroes with a fine-toothed comb and you'd find just as many flaws.

I mean, let's just start with Superman. He's had his powers changed on him about fifty bajillion times. He even became made of electricity for a little while.

What about Green Lantern, Hal Jordan? The dude went fucking crazy and killed everyone then was brought back from the past before all that happened and magically everyone's okay again.

And Spider Man? Dude, the guy became a giant bipedal spider and killed tons of people, and right now his life is completely collapsing around him because of some stupid choice he made during Civil War. You don't get much more hardcore 'fucked' than that.

I'm not that much into comics to possibly be able to nit pick everything.

So yeah all in all I'm not all that convinced there's a gigantic misogynistic flood against women in comic books, especially since alot of that stuff happened in early DC/Marvel era, where they just kind of treated women the same way that everyone else did.

Also, on the rape thing? Rape is seriously being tagged to "tragedy that happened to a woman" just as a lame plot device more than ever these days. I'm starting to more and more lose interest in fiction when they have a female protagonist be raped. It's almost cliche, and for such a violent and sickening act, that's pretty wrong.

I dunno, being subject to super rape, as is the case with super-females getting raped, seems to be a comparable "hardcore fucked." The fact that it's not uncommon for this to happen just throws a "Wha-huh?" my way.

Not to mention all the death. I mean most super-guys come back to life pretty easy. There are like 20 plain "(dead)"s in there.

I dunno, I'm still not convinced. You could create a spreadsheet with all the "plain deads" in the superheroes book of guys too, mostly cause Marvel and DC were really bad at the whole "Make a new superhero that doesn't suck" and they usually just killed them off to make things easier.

Someone should tally every misfortuned Male and female superhero in reference to every male and female superhero and then compare the percentages! =P

Pretty sure Wikipedia has a list or two on that.

As this site argues the main issue isn't that guy characters don't have bad shit happen to them, it's that they are allowed to heroically confront and overcome the bad shit, whereas with female characters it's like oh well there goes Gwen Stacy off the bridge, sucks to be her.

As a comparison in how this works you have say Batman, who after a full-scale break from Arkham hunts down and recaptures every single criminal held therein, after which he returns exhausted to his home only to be cornered by yet another nemesis, who shatters his spine in what could be a career-ending injury, after which he travels the world to restore his body, his strength and his purpose as a hero before returning to Gotham to renew his crusade against crime.

Then you have Batgirl, who walks in her door one day and gets shot in the stomach, and then she's a cripple.

It's part of the broader theme in comics (and no, not without exception) where women are only relevant as objects to motivate the hero into whatever action, be it by dying or getting kidnapped or just sort of conveniently being around so the hero can fall in love with them. Hell look at Wonder Woman, she's the patron saint of women in comics and in like 3 out of 4 Justice League comics her role is to hang around being hot so the guys can lust after her, interspersed with random episodes of being a crazy bitch so the guys can go "Dayum, that bitch be crazy."

Anyway I'll conclude by noting that the original list as posted above is really woefully out of date, especially as it seems to cut off before DC's half-decade-old slide into more or less outright misogynistic woman-trashing. Seriously pretty much every major DC event for the last five years boils down in one dimension or another to "HOLY SHIT that bitch be WOMB-CRAZAY."

Yeah, the state of women in comics is seriously depressing. I talk a little bit about it and Atomic Robo over here.

Nope. And, as Fifth points out, that's not the point anyway.

To my knowledge, Superman's never been raped or sexually humiliated or tortured (possibly sexually) or murdered (possibly sexually). And when tortured or murdered, he always gets revenge by his own means on his own terms. Dying while valiantly defending the world against destruction is a bit better than being stuffed in a fridge.

Exactly. Things went bad for him, but now it's okay.

Yet Aunt May is the one who's actually suffering the consequence of Peter's decision.

You should check out what they make women wear in those things.

The problem is that it turns out there has been little progress. Heroes for Hire #12 (or #13) has implied tentacle rape on the cover. The last New Avengers features some kinda freaky borderline rape fantasy. These are not isolated events; these are not aberrations of the norm. They're the rule.