The Comics Code's Hidden Role In The Original 'Woman in Refrigerator'
Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the seven hundred and thirty-eighth installment where we examine comic book legends and whether they are true or false.
As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the weekly three legends.
NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!
COMIC LEGEND:
Green Lantern's girlfriend was dismembered and stuffed into a refrigerator
STATUS:
False
This month marks the 25th anniversary of Green Lantern's controversial "woman in refrigerators" moment. I was going to write about it for my monthly "Look Back" feature, but then realized that the story fit better for Comic Book Legends Revealed, as there really is a lot of fascinating misinformation about this controversial moment.
Click the button below to start this article in quick view. Start nowOkay, so let's recap.
In Green Lantern #50 (by Ron Marz, Darryl Banks and Romeo Tanghal), the last surviving Guardian goes to Earth and picks Kyle Rayner to become the last Green Lantern...
In the next issue, he visited his former girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, who had recently broken up with him, to tell her the news...
He pitches that they move to New York together, and she can take photos of him and sell them to newspapers (sort of like Peter Parker and Spider-Man)...
Alex helps Kyle work on his new powers and also gets him to design a new costume...
In the next issue (with Jamal Igle and Steve Carr joining Banks on pencils), Alex starts taking photos of Kyle...
While also helping him work on his powers...
Kyle's newfound sense of responsibility (also like Peter Parker, Kyle learned that great responsibility is often paired with great power) led to Alex forgiving him and they got back together officially...
Tragically, though, Kyle and Alex did not cover their tracks well enough and a secretive group sent the villainous Major Force to get Kyle's ring by hook or by crook. He attacks Alex...
And when Kyle returns home, he gets a tragic shock...
A few years later, Gail Simone started a list of female characters in comics who had been maimed/killed/etc. titled "Women in Refrigerators." It was later given its own website, that remains up to this very day.
Ron Marz replied to the site and he revealed a fascinating tidbit about Alex's death...
Sure enough, it IS true that people to this day think that Alex was dismembered. Here's just a quick internet search...
Thanks, Comics Code!
Thanks to Ron Marz and Gail Simone for the fascinating insight into the issue in question.
Check out some other comic book movie legends from Legends Revealed:
3. Was The Crystals’ Hit “He’s a Rebel” Not Actually Performed by the Crystals?
4. Was the Word Robot First Coined in a Early 20th Century Czech Play?
Check back soon for part 2 of this week's (actually on time) legends!
And remember, if you have a legend that you're curious about, drop me a line at either brianc@cbr.com or cronb01@aol.com!
Source: www.cbr.com