10 Things DC Comics Wants You To Forget About Green Lantern

6. The 'Women In Refrigerators' Debacle

You don't have to look far to see that that women haven't been treated particularly well in the comic book medium. The subject of killings, torture, depowerings and more, most male-led books have flirted with victimising female characters for the sake of shock value on numerous occasions, none more famous than the great refrigerator debacle of '94.

The Green Lantern at the time, Kyle Rayner, was dating Alexandra DeWitt. A photographer for a leading paper, Alex was Kyle's confidant and even helped him as he got to grips with his responsibilities as a Lantern. The relationship didn't last long though, as - almost out of the blue - DeWitt is murdered and stuffed into a fridge by Major Force, the antagonist during Ron Marz's tenure on the book.

The panel was immediately controversial, but took on a whole new life altogether when Gail Simone founded Women in Refrigerators in 1999. The site, founded by the writer along with Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Rob Harris, Beau Yarbrough and John Bartol, helped shift the conversation in the industry by collating instances where female comics characters were victimised, utilising DeWitt's death as a focal point for the movement.

'Women in Refrigerators syndrome' was coined, and the scene has been enshrined in comics criticism ever since.