Ugh, mentioning the refrigerator incident reminded me of a site I saw a long time ago that did a much better job of detailing mainstream comics' misogyny than I ever could.
http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/index.htmlI find the title amusing in a sick, disturbing kind of way.
A quote from "Fan Gail Simone Responds" under "Reactions" on that site:
"In any case, having a uterus myself, I found that I most enjoyed reading about the girl heroes, or Superchicks. And it had been nagging me for a while that in mainstream comics, being a girl superhero meant inevitably being killed, maimed or depowered, it seemed.
...
So, really for my own edification and with malice towards none, I started making a list of the superchicks who had gone down in one of those ways (ignoring for the moment the wives/girlfriends of superheroes - a whole 'nother problem). I'm not hugely up on continuity issues, and I'm not a Marvel scholar by any means, so the first list had lots of errors and notable omissions. But as I said, it had just been me doodling, essentially. When I realized that it was actually harder to list major female heroes who HADN'T been sliced up somehow, I felt that I might be on to something a bit ... well, creepy. "
and further down in her discussion:
"The male characters seem to die nobly, as heroes, most often, whereas it's not uncommon, as in Katma Tui's case, for a male character to just come home and find her butchered in the kitchen. There are exceptions for both sexes, of course, but shock value seems to be a major motivator in the superchick deaths more often than not."
I'd say this was definitely the case with Spoiler's death, and it reveals a very sad trend in comics.