30-Years After Infamous ‘Green Lantern’ Issue, Comic Book Slang “To Fridge” Officially Enters Merriam-Webster Dictionary
In a bit of interesting crossover between the worlds of comic books and linguistics, the term ‘to fridge’, as originally coined by writer Gail Simone based on the now-infamous killing of Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt in the pages of Green Lantern, has officially been recognized as a genuine piece of American slang by the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Now one of the more infamous moments in comic book history, the scene from which the term originates played out just four issues into Kyle’s time as the DCU’s resident ring-slinger in the pages of 1994’s Green Lantern Vol. 3 #54, as penned by his co-creator Ron Marz and penciled by Steve Carr, Derec Donovan, and Darryl Banks.
Seeking to obtain the Green Lantern ring in order to weaponize it for use by a planned superhuman army, the mysterious off-the-books government agency known as Quorum orders one of their agents, Major Force, to track down the Oan weapon’s current user and bring it in by any means necessary.
Following up on a lead regarding one of the hero’s associates, Alexandra DeWitt – who, unbeknownst to either Major Force or the Quorum is actually his girlfriend – the psychopathic military dog ambushes the unsuspecting woman at her home and forcefully demands she tell him everything she knows about the Green Lantern.
However, after finding that not even a savage beating will get her to betray Kyle’s trust, Major Force ultimately decides that if he can’t get Alex to talk, he can at least use her to send a message to the Emerald Knight.
Shortly thereafter, Kyle, his attentions having been occupied by the sudden appearance of a time displaced Los Angeles 2088 over its current day counterpart, returns home to Alex’s apartment, his mind set on picking back up on their interrupted day plans.
But rather than his girlfriend, Kyle instead finds a note on the table, ostensibly written by Alex herself, beckoning him to check the refrigerator for the “surprise” she had previously promised him as he left to save the day.
Unfortunately for the young hero, upon doing so, he is met not with any sort of romantic treat, but instead the sight of Alex’s freshly-murdered body, which had since been stuffed inside the appliance.
Flying into a Red Lantern worthy rage after being Major Force steps out of the shadows to take credit for the killing, Kyle unleashes an absolutely brutal beatdown against the government agent, going so far as to even subject his opponent to a full zap from a will-powered electric chair.
His fury brought to an end just short of killing Major Force thanks to the intervention of local law enforcement, Kyle flees the scene only to immediately go into a spiral regarding Alex’s death, which he ultimately resolves (at least for the time being) by swearing to honor her memory by becoming a better, more dedicated hero.
Fast forward to 1999 and, having found herself unhappy with what she saw tendency for Western comic books to kill off specifically female characters in order to motivate its male protagonists, a then-just-breaking-into-the-industry Gail Simone chose to investigate her belief that “it’s not that healthy to be a female character in comics.”
To do so, the current Uncanny X-Men Vol. 6 writer proceeded to compile a list of “superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator” and asked her fans to weigh in on what “you guys think it means, if anything”.
Named ‘Women in Refrigerators’ specifically after Alex’s above death at the hands of Major Force, said list eventually caught the attention of industry pros, in doing so sparking a larger conversation regarding Simone’s thesis and ingraining the term ‘to fridge’ into the general comic book fan lexicon.
And on June 6th, Kyle’s unquestionable Worst Day Ever entered the annals of language history when the aforementioned Merriam-Webster chose to officially add the term to their ever-growing collection of defined English words.
“To fridge a (usually female) character in a movie, television show, comic book, etc., is to kill them off or seriously harm/abuse/violate them in some way (as a writer) for the purposes of motivating or furthering the development of another (usually male) character,” reads its official definition. “Fridging is considered, and widely criticized as, a storytelling cliché.”
In explaining the term’s origin, the US’ oldest dictionary publisher asserts, “This use of fridge is attributed to comics/television/novel writer Gail Simone, who in 1999 published a list of over 100 comic book characters, all women, who were killed, injured, tortured, etc., on a website called ‘Women in Refrigerators’. The website’s name comes from an issue of a Green Lantern comic in which the superhero finds that his girlfriend has been murdered by a villain and stuffed into a refrigerator.”
Responding to the news, Simone herself took to Twitter a few days after its reveal to beam, “So, @MerriamWebster has announced that ‘Fridging’ is officially a dictionary word, and they announced it on social media and credited me as the creator of the concept on their website. That is surprising and cool. Thank you, MW!”
And for those curious, the scene’s aforementioned author, Ron Marz, did respond to its later reputation.
Speaking specifically to the events of Green Lantern Vol. 3 #54 as part of a larger reply given to Simone about her list, the Kyle Rayner co-creator explained, “I can tell you Alex was a character destined to die from the moment she was first introduced in Green Lantern Vol. 3 #48.”
“I created her with the intention of having her be murdered at the hands of Major Force,” he said. “I took a lot of care in building her as a character, because I wanted her to be liked and her death to mean something to the readers. I wanted readers to be horrified at the crime, and to empathize with Kyle’s loss. Her death was meant to bring brutal realization to Kyle that being GL wasn’t fun and games. It was also meant to sever his links with his old life, paving the way for his move to New York. And ultimately I wanted her death to be memorable and illustrate just how truly heinous Major Force was. Thus the fridge.”
“From the reactions, I think I succeeded fairly well at those goals,” Marz added. “It’s five years later and people are still talking about it. More than anything as a writer, you want the audience to react emotionally to your work, to care. I wrote a villain committing a truly despicable deed. That doesn’t mean I endorse or admire that behavior. I doubt Thomas Harris thinks of Hannibal Lecter as a positive role model, either. And it’s probably worth mentioning that Major Force was punished for the act.”
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