15 Most Notoriously Controversial Storylines In Comic Book History

6. Alexandra DeWitt Gets Fridged

Following the Green Lantern story Emerald Twilight, which in itself is fairly controversial, Hal Jordan was no longer the ring-bearer of sector 2814. Instead, Kyle Rayner was introduced as the new Green Lantern for a new generation of comic book readers. Introduced alongside Kyle was his love interest, Alexandra DeWitt, a photojournalist who was instrumental in helping Kyle adapt to his new role as Green Lantern. The couple had just spent the first few issues reconciling, when Rayner was called into action as Green Lantern. This turned out to be a ruse created to draw Kyle away from Alexandra's house, where the super-powered hitman known as Major Force showed up for answers about Green Lantern. Alexandra was strangled by Major Force, and her body was then stuffed into the refrigerator. Rayner arrived home to see a note telling him to look in the fridge, where he discovered his dead girlfriend. Cue the inevitable battle between GL and Major Force, with heaps of character development and motivations for Rayner at the expense of Alexandra DeWitt. This moment sparked a huge debate between both fans and creators over the use of DeWitt's death as a plot device. Gail Simone and a number of other creators even created a website, and inspired by this specific storyline, titled it Women in Refrigerators, to highlight the number of female characters that are abused, raped, and killed off in order to advance the plot. The term "fridging" became widely used for other events that followed this scenario.