TrueGentleman

The WIR Syndrome applies to a particular subset of female character deaths, as has been discussed in this thread.

Here are some observations about the trend from notable professional comics writers, collected from the WIR site:

Marv Wolfman:
Jim Shooter:
Barry Windsor-Smith:
Steve Englehart:
Mark Waid:
Wally West's wife Linda Park was apparently erased from the Flash's continuity in the New 52, by the way.

Yet you're the only one who's trying to argue that. Trying to reframe the phenomenon into an either/or proposition simply doesn't hold water.

So it's pure irony that you're constantly linking to TV Tropes to promote your agenda when that site's entry for the phenomenon lists an overwhelming proportion of female examples from comics? That's hardly equal opportunity.

Are you sure you're here for an argument?

Dry your tears, old chap. You may be rather late to this thread, but you can still attempt to troll it if you put more effort into your posts.

He later starred in "Everything Must Go", an adaptation of a short story by Raymond Carver, an even more serious, realistic role for him.

Vigilante status will be more than sufficient for dispensing the justice of an angry God without the impediments of modern society's frail laws and permissive attitudes towards immorality. Beware, sinners: "The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth under them."

Besides, the Rogue Isles offers that much more opportunity for demon-cleansing.

Killface: “Why does it say Welcome to you are ‘doom’? What does that even mean and why for God’s sake is doom in quotes?
Valerie: “I don't know”
Killface: “Is this some sort of ironic doom? Is the wink implied?”
Valerie: “You know, I don't know.”
Killface: “No, it isn't! So please tell me how and why I'm suddenly a laughing stock!”
Valerie: “Umm...Because you signed off on the proofs.”

Good call. Besides the egocentricity and fragile self-esteem, narcissists have a tendency to attach themselves to important groups or institutions, e.g. the Midnight Club, to improve their own standing. That doesn't preclude male chauvinism as another of Praetorian Percy's many issues, of course.

In before teh DOOOOMMMMMM

He's not a misogynist as such, but destroying the entire Midnight Squad essentially to impress the object of his unrequited affection does suggest he's got ... issues.

Reductio ad absurdum this late in the thread, after the WIR trope has been clearly established and numerous examples of it have been supplied, is pretty weak sauce.

The worldwide box office for Twins (1988) was $216,614,388, and Kindergarten Cop's (1990) was $201,957,688. The later Junior and Jingle All the Way made about half that in their worldwide grosses, so technically they could be counted as below expectation. The later sci-fi/action movies had much bigger budgets, so their net profits were less impressive compared to the comedies. The 6th Day (2000) grossed only $96M globally on a $82M budget - a bomb by any standards.

As for the OP's topic:

• Teen movie protagonist John Cusack as a grifter in The Grifters (1990)
• One-time Sweat-hog John Travolta as an underworld hitman in Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Aging leading man Jeff Bridges as The Dude in The Big Lebowski (1998)
• Former Ferris Bueller Matthew Broderick as a high school teacher in Election (1999)
• Previous eye-candy Cameron Diaz as, well, a Charlie Kaufman character in Being John Malkovich (1999)

These are all good points that the devs should consider when revisiting the subject of Miss Liberty's death in the canon. Merely because she was undeveloped as a secondary NPC and was killed arbitrarily doesn't mean the major ones should shrug it off as just something that happens in the superhero world.

Of course, it would have been better to have developed her as a secondary NPC in the first place or at least given her a suitable final scene. Even if the fridging of a female character is 'for the benefit' of another female character, it still perpetuates the nasty stereotype of women as sacrificial victims, without independent roles or individual worth.

Without the ego of Jack Emmert powering Statesman, he might wind up getting McLeaned at long last. And if Emperor Cole also dies at the finale of the Incarnates trials, then we might at last see the end of the Cole Multiverse Proliferation Effect.

That's a workable option. Replacing the flintlocks with a standard revolver cuts into the historical authenticity, but maybe The Puritan can be a Civil War reenactor of the English variety.

Yes, that's it exactly.

You must charm everyone at Thanksgiving celebrations with your assertions of how the Pilgrims were noted for "not being such nice people" and your outthrust tongue.

Sure, maybe. Perhaps you could furnish some examples of female writers in mainstream superhero comics doing this? I'd be willing to wager that the list will be shorter than the one on the WIR website.

Is it even a debate that there's an overall problem with male writers in contemporary superhero comics creating well defined female characters with plausible motivations?

That's an intrinsically mechanistic view of how characters work in a narrative. Charles Dickens was famous for determining in his novels' outlines which of his characters he'd kill off tragically but would always ensure that they (a) made a significant impression on his audience and (b) had a death scene that would move his readers as well as his protagonist. Typically with the WIR Syndrome, part a is underdone, and part b is overplayed for shock value.

Which I have not done. In fact, I've made a special effort to note examples in this thread of when female characters' deaths are handled well and thus avoid the WIR Syndrome.

That doesn't quite distinguish her from Peter Parker's other girlfriends, however. Whatever may be said about Stan Lee's soap operatic cheesiness, he had a talent for creating recognizable characters. With that in mind, the simplified dynamic is that Gwen Stacy was Peter's "nice" girlfriend, the way Liz Allen was his "bitchy" one, Betty Brant his "independent" one, and Mary Jane his "wild" one. Gwen had figured as such a prominent character in the comic for over seven years, going through numerous ups and downs in her relationship with Peter and the other characters, that her death was a shock, even though Marvel had it in mind for some time. In the scheme of horror flicks, Gwen would have been the Final Girl, with MJ killed off early on. It's to Marvel's credit that they upended a cliche before it had even settled in. (Points are deducted, though, for Marvel's continued problem with its characters maturing, which arguably was also behind the editorial motivation behind Gwen's death.)

Miss Liberty's presence in CoH, in contrast, has been so limited that most players would be hard pressed to come up with any particular adjective to describe her.

The irony is that although the WIR Syndrome is a cliche won't die off in contemporary comics, thanks in part to fanboy blinders, MMORPGs are notable in the video game industry for appealing widely to both males and females. The devs should consider their audience as much as their genre when coming up with plot twists.

That's a good point - here's hoping that the devs will follow up on it in the later arcs. Unfortunately, at present Miss Liberty hasn't figured significantly enough in the CoH game for players to care about her, or her death, the way Statesman would.

But including women in a story primarily so that the heinous foe can do bad things to them leads to the WIR Syndrome.

And that's where the misogynistic bias lies, not simply with the character's death. If a female character's purpose in a plot is merely to be killed suddenly and dramatically without properly establishing either the character's depth and roundness or her death within the story's themes (except maybe to provide other characters with some motivation or pathos), then the writer has a potential problem with misogyny.

To do this, one needs to create a good character in the first place.

Number 5 could be "Avoid tropes with a misogynistic bias."

The trope namer - Ron Marz's gratuitous murder of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend, who was killed and dismembered by a super-villain, then hidden in their apartment's refrigerator for the hero to find - would have been a better example than Alan Moore's story. After all, in The Killing Joke, Commissioner Gordon is likewise kidnapped and tormented to the brink of madness by the Joker solely to make a point with Batman - it's part of a pattern of crimes. In the latter case, the violence against a female character (and then a male one) is in service of the book's theme; in the former, it's the quick disposal of the nagging girlfriend six months into the title so the hero can undergo "growth".

Then Uncle Ben got 'fridged as well. Yes, they're supporting characters whose deaths are a constant source of guilt to the protagonist, but they're linked to the overarching theme of responsibility coming with power. In neither case did Peter Parker take sufficient responsibility for their safety and failed dramatically as a consequence. Only once he'd grown up enough to tell his girlfriend Mary Jane that he was Spider-Man did he have anything like a mature relationship. Of course, Brand New Day erased all that.

My point, if I have one at all, is that one can reasonably discuss whether or not these examples from comics count as part of the "women in refrigerators" syndrome, but the death of Miss Liberty, as Smersh describes, is classic 'fridging. The devs should take care to avoid it from now on.

Would the idea be for the Blaster to use the pistol for a ranged attack and the blade for melee and parry/defense? That could be interesting if the devs want to expand gun and blade options.

In the meantime, Fire Manipulation's Fire Sword and Fire Sword Circle seems to have the best compromise powers for a blade on a Blaster.

That's just the sort of narrow-minded prejudice that turned our country's Pilgrim forebears into religious refugees in their native England. Here's hoping that you have the courage of your convictions to boycott Thanksgiving.

As for Kane, he was fighting brigands, slavers, vampires, demons, and assorted supernatural monsters before Statesman was even born. Come to think of it, Paragon City has Puritan roots as part of Rhode Island, so he'd have felt at home here. Dibs on the character name The Puritan on Exalted!