"But male characters get killed off just as often as female characters (like Captain America and Superman etc), so you're wrong."
Right. I stand by that summation of my argument.
Except that just lists female heroes who have been depowered or killed. It doesn't give context. It doesn't talk about the stories in which those heroes lost their powers. It just lists them and sure it looks like there's a lot but not really. So the assumption is there that they were killed off purely to further the plot and motivate the male heroes. But it's just a list that gives no real information. That's all. So don't blame me for not seeing your side of this. Because right now, this is just people sayin' stuff and telling me it's true. Then getting offended when I say that in my experience it's not true.
And knowing that there's a greater percentage of male characters in all superhero comics, surely it must be easy to find just as many, if not more, reverse examples of MEN GETTING FRIDGED, or just male characters getting killed, harmed, raped, etc, specifically to motivate a female hero.
But there's not.
Did you know that "The Fridge" code word came from a Green Lantern comic that came out 1994? 21 years ago that comic came out. So in those two decades comics and attitudes have changed. I wonder how many of those characters on that list were part of stories that happened decades ago. Because comics were absolutely a male oriented medium. You had your Lois Lanes and your Pepper Potts and the damsel in distress who were a motivation for male heroes. Who were shrinking violets. But in the last ten years there has been a growing sensitivity and an awareness to have more inclusive comics.
But are you saying that it is off limits for Mongul or Metallo to kidnap Lois Lane? Is she not allowed to be a motivator for Superman?
And that's the problem. Female characters are not only less common, but they don't get to be as cool or get to have as many great stories as the male characters because they get turned into plot points by being killed to service the men's stories way too often.
This is the kind of statement that tells me you don't read comics. The best X-Men are women. Jean Grey alone has basically been an engine propelling the X-Men storylines since the Dark Phoenix saga. Then you had Psylocke and Rogue and Storm who all have had big arcs over time (to name a few). Scarlet Witch was integral to a huge, storyline. You had Kitty Pryde becoming a leader in the more recent comics. You have a reboot of Wonder Woman that got noticed. You have the new Mrs. Marvel which is very well written and has gotten a lot of attention. The Justice League before the new 52 reboot was run by Black Canary and the team had a ton of cool female characters in there.
Thor now is a woman and they've seen something of a 25% increase in sales because people are digging it.
Spider-Gwen as she's called has really connected with fans and gotten a solo series. Silk too.
Elektra was brought back from the dead because she resonated with fans.
So saying that there's no good female characters is a subjective argument, for starters. And saying that all female heroes serve to be bait for villains to motivate male heroes is patently wrong and uninformed.