Green Lantern #55

[flint_marko]

This is from Green Lantern #55 by Geoff Johns and Shawn Davis.

Comments

[kingrockwell]

I'm torn. On the one hand, awwwww kitty!
On the other, they just fridged a woman to motivate a fucking cat. What the hell, Johns.

[dr_von_fangirl]

On the first pass, I thought it was an abusive boyfriend who'd done her in. Not that this is better, but on rereading, I thought "Random home invasion? Oh. Unlikely...but...Well...at least it wasn't THE EVIL ABUSIVE BOYFRIEND trope."

*shrug*

[jlbarnett]

there were dropped rings, so I think it was evil ex-husband coming back

[dr_von_fangirl]

I somehow completely glossed over that panel. ARG.

Well...I suppose that supports either a.) evil ex-hubby coming back, or b.) she's in the middle of a marriage dissolving (hence the crying into her kitty's fur) and the rings are a target of the random home invasion burglar.

Blah. I choose to read it as NOT A TYPICAL CLICHE GEOFF JOHNS ANGSTY ORIGIN. I will stick my fingers in my ears and do that right now, as a matter of fact. La, la, la!

[intertobamf]

The woman obviously lost her husband and is using Dexter to alleviate her loneliness. Why would she have both rings otherwise?

[dr_von_fangirl]

Well, again: I glossed over that panel while reading the first time (I'm one of those comics readers who rarely actually looks at the art for more than a split second--I'm dialogue-driven)--but there are several possibilities as to why she'd have both.

Sure, it could be that her husband passed away--but if she's still in the serious throes of mourning, would she really take off her own ring? I know everyone deals with grief differently, but I dunno that if in that situation I'd chuck the ring and start crying on my cat.

Another possibility is that the husband left the ring behind and she took hers off when they split. I find this slightly more likely, but again, that's just me.

[flint_marko]

Is killing off a woman always automatically a fridging?

[dr_von_fangirl]

I think the rule is that if the death/rape/injury of a character serves as another character's sole--or at least major--motivation, then it counts as a fridging.

[flint_marko]

So if Uncle Ben was a woman, he would have been fridged?

[freezer]

Men can be fridged, it's just rare that a man would be such a target. And to answer your question, neither this nor Uncle Ben count, since neither were targeted simply to cause pain to a loved one. (This merely carries a Fridgy aftertaste).

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah--from what I understand, the thing that really makes it a WIR is that it's done directly to mess with the other character. So if the guy killed the girl JUST to mess with the head of this cat's head, then that would be more of a better, albeit very odd, example of it.

[intertobamf]

On the other, they just fridged a woman to motivate a fucking cat. What the hell, Johns.

Having bad things happen to people you care about tends to cause rage, yes.