Kathy Kane, the ORIGINAL "Batwoman"

[scary harpy]

Batwoman's Death Barely Makes a Ripple In This Infamous Issue

Interesting article about Kathy Kane: the horribly mistreated Batwoman.

[Gotham citizen]

Like Just Some Guy said: "Women in refrigerators is a lie".



In fact we can count a large number of male character killed in the story of the comics, maybe larger than the female ones.

Anyway she was a character created only to confute the accusations of homosexuality, paedophilia and excessive violence moved by Wertham (like the first Batgirl), to question that is very difficult, because the Batman stories of that period became less dark and the title was invaded also by other characters, like Batmite, Fatman, Batman Jones, who gave a very comical mark to the stories.
So when the accusations dropped, also the character was dropped (like the first Batgirl) and shortly after was substituted by a redeemed Selina Kile (like the first Batgirl was substituted by Barbara Gordon).
I don't think her death was a great lost for the book of Batman: the new Batwoman has a greater potential, like every character who doesn't a merely clone of another one.

[Caivu]

In fact we can count a large number of male character killed in the story of the comics, maybe larger than the female ones.

Women in Refrigerators isn't about any female character dying, it's about a female character dying primarily or even solely to advance the story of another (usually male) character.

[Gotham citizen]

In the comics every character dies to advance the story of the other characters. It happened with the Bruce Wayne's parents (both of them), with Alfred, with Jason Todd, with the first Batwoman (only to cite some of them), it happened with Matt Murdock's father in Daredevil, it happened with uncle Ben, Commissioner Stacy and Gwen Stacy in Spider Man, it happened with Magic, Jean Grey, Colossus, Cyclops, Wolverine and Xavier in the X-men.

[Caivu]

In the comics every character dies to advance the story of the other characters.

This is about the death (or injury, etc) being cheap angst and motivation for another character. That is not universally true for every character death.

[Gotham citizen]

Yes, but that happens independently from the sex of the character who is killed or injured.

[Caivu]

Yes, but that happens independently from the sex of the character who is killed or injured.

Ideally, but that's not generally the case. That's the whole point of the concept.

[Restingvoice]

I haven't read enough comics to know if Women in Refrigerator is actually real or not but it started because the villain, unable to kill the hero, or wanting to hurt the hero, opting to kill the person closest to him. This usually the love interest. Not always, with Batman, it's either the love interest or Robins, but you get the gist.

Now, the problem is, because the heroes in comics are eternal, over the years they may have multiple love interests, and if they're not important enough, they'll get killed. So it's happened multiple times.

Daredevil has so many love interest killed. In fact, the first comic I read of Daredevil is him reminiscing all his love interest or women who died because of him. Three of them. The other comic I read has him angsting in his bedroom as the first panel.

In Batman, there's been, Kathy Kane, Silver St. Cloud in The Widening Gyre, Natalya Trusevich, that one woman in Bruce Wayne Murdered/Fugitive whose name I forgot, and who knows how many else.

Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke is not one for Batman, but Gordon, yet thanks to the animated adaptation, he's one to Batman too. (She's not killed but tortured for a male character's angst then forgotten by the book itself)

Stephanie Brown, for both Batman and Tim.

Collectively, what's the result? Boring. Cheap. Easy. Predictable. As predictable and boring as killing Robins or even killing the heroes themselves. So even if Women In Refrigerator is a false narrative, these whole storytelling trope is still bad because of how often it's used.

[Gotham citizen]

[…]
Collectively, what's the result? Boring. Cheap. Easy. Predictable. As predictable and boring as killing Robins or even killing the heroes themselves. So even if Women In Refrigerator is a false narrative, these whole storytelling trope is still bad because of how often it's used.

I think you are very close to what the point is: if to kill uncle Ben in Spider Man 1 was necessary, because the Peter Parker's role in his death and the consequent feeling of guilty pressed Peter Parker to became the hero we know, most of the other deaths are only a stupid way to start a certain story arc. The death of Cyclops is a wonderful example of that: he died accidentally, but Emma Frost start to tell he was killed by the Inhumans in order to start a war that didn't have any reason to start. So in my opinion this is the only point that matter: was the death of the character really necessary, or it was a simply way to force an editorial change in the book or boost the sales? Was the story well written: the death was a natural consequence of the story (like happened in Spider Man 1 for uncle Ben), it was forced in some way (like it happened for Cyclops in X-men vs Inhumans) or it was a way to get rid of a certain character (like the death of Jean Grey in the end of the Morrison run)? How the survivor characters dealt with the consequences of the death: their reactions were credible?
In the end all the matter can be reduced to the difference among a good storytelling and a bad storytelling, which is the only thing that really matters. So discuss the problem like it were a simply matter of numbers: how many were female characters killed in comparison to the male ones? Or like it were matter of sex: if a female character dye primarily or even solely to advance the story of another character, it is an abused and stupid trope, but if the character is male it isn't (which is even worst), it is silly like stare the finger, without realize it is pointing to the moon; the moon of the bad storytelling.

[K. Jones]

Yes, but that happens independently from the sex of the character who is killed or injured.

One could also argue that the death of loved ones in real life serves to motivate those of us who live on. And that it tended to be women in storytelling serving this function in (more pop culture than just comics) because most of the writers were male, and one ought to 'write what they know' and 'from the heart'. One may use a trope so long as one does something interesting with that trope, be it a new spin, different writing style, subversion, or just ability to have fun with it and be aware of it and not use it unironically and boringly.

I think "Women in Refrigerators" is always important to reference but I also think it's most apt to call attention to when a writer just ... just does it so obviously cheaply. Ugh it's definitely the cheapness, the unearned pathos attempt, that usually makes my Fridgey-Sense go off. A writer or writer's room that literally, unironically hashes out "Oh, she's gotta die so our boy has a reason to A, B, C ..." as though the motivation to be a Hero would ever solely be because of the death of the better sex.

Where was I going with this? Can I bring it back around?

Oh yeah ... Morrison revivifying Kathy and slowly drip-feeding us the fact that she's Better Than Batman was a nice touch. And she's still oozing with mystique as the mysterious Master Spy, even knowing as much as we do about her, her marriage to Nathan Kane, father being a senile Nazi arachnid-enthusiast, twin sister being a ... somewhat evil mad scientist type ... and the fact that a lot of the candy-colored weird-ass stories where she ran around with Batman happened more or less, we don't know ... that much about her. An affair with the Gaucho? Teacher of all kinds of assassin-girls? Fond of color yellow?

[scary harpy]

Oh yeah ... Morrison revivifying Kathy and slowly drip-feeding us the fact that she's Better Than Batman was a nice touch. And she's still oozing with mystique as the mysterious Master Spy, even knowing as much as we do about her, her marriage to Nathan Kane, father being a senile Nazi arachnid-enthusiast, twin sister being a ... somewhat evil mad scientist type ... and the fact that a lot of the candy-colored weird-ass stories where she ran around with Batman happened more or less, we don't know ... that much about her. An affair with the Gaucho? Teacher of all kinds of assassin-girls? Fond of color yellow?

I agree.

I am more interested in Kathy Webb-Kane than Katrina Netz...and I think they may be different characters. I think Kathy Webb-Kane would be a great as the Batwoman for the Bronze Age; I'd let Kathy Kane be the Batwoman of the Silver Age.