10. Kyle Rayner's Girlfriend Is Stuffed In A Fridge
A failure so catastrophic, it's had a whole comic book trope named after it! Kyle Rayner was the third (proper) Green Lantern, having inherited the title from fan-favourite Hal Jordan, and an extremely nineties superhero; a brash kid with attitude who took on his mantle with great relish. He could fly around space like he was surfing! Totally tubular! What a fun time to be young, with no responsibilities or real-life repercussions to your adventures! Kyle had fun as the Bill and/or Ted of the cosmic hero game for a little, but then the adult world came crashing down on top of him. Whilst the latest GL was off doing...something, his dutiful girlfriend Alex is hunted down by villain Major Force, killed, dismembered, and stuffed into a fridge. Kyle returns and finds her. It's a gruesome image (and one that's been pointed to as indicative of the way female supporting characters are abused in comics) that signifies the first time Kyle realised that being a hero is serious business, and he needed to treat it that way to stop anything like this happening on his watch again.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
