Retro Review

The deaths of Spider-man’s Uncle Ben and Batman’s parents are crucial to the characters’ origins. In Spider-man’s case, losing Uncle Ben because of his own mistake teaches him the lesson of responsibility that will shape the rest of his heroic career: he already had the power and the costume, but did not have direction. In Batman’s case, losing his parents is a tragedy that convinces him that his city needs a protector; the costume and training come later than the direction. These are two classic super-hero origins that involve death as a motivation, and it was only to be expected that other writers would reuse the classic concept.

However, it is difficult to match the emotional impact of the Spider-man origin and the inherent tragedy of Bruce Wayne losing both parents so young, especially when writers ignore the essence of these plot ideas. The deaths illustrate something the hero doesn’t know. Furthermore, when mishandled, deaths during character origins can weaken the whole story, making it seem like a cheap shock for shock’s sake.

In 1994, Hal Jordan, who had been the main Green Lantern since 1959’s Showcase #22, was written out of the Green Lantern series, having become an insane super-villain called Parallax. A new rookie Green Lantern was introduced, Kyle Rayner, and #51-55 of the title were his first story arc: first battles, first encounters with established DC characters, first failures, first triumphs. A standard origin story for a hero, these few issues had one stand-out element: Kyle’s ex-girlfriend Alex de Witt.

 Alex and Kyle had broken up a week before he got the last Green Lantern ring in existence, but there’s still love between them: she is still the first person he turns to for help and advice, and she doesn’t turn him down. He confides in her, and she starts trying to help him cope with his new reality, and they tentatively get back together. Alex would have been a great long-term cast member, with plenty of room for good plot development. For example, the things that broke the two up could have played out into an interesting storyline, and her career as a professional photographer could take her into some situation that dove-tailed into Green Lantern’s super-hero work. Sadly, this was not to be, as Alex was marked for death right from the start.

Green Lantern #54 is the issue where Alex de Witt is murdered. A shadowy possibly governmental agency is looking for the new Green Lantern, wanting to take the ring to be used as a weapon in their service. Having photographed Alex with Green Lantern and positively identified her, they dispatch Major Force, an unstable super-human with rage issues, to threaten to kill Alex unless she tells him who Green Lantern is. When she refuses, he strangles her, and stuffs her body into the refrigerator for Green Lantern to find when he comes back. Kyle’s rage at finding her dead is funneled into a knock-down, brutal fight in which he roundly defeats and is ready to execute Major Force; later, when the rage is gone, the memory of what she wanted for him, and how she wanted him to be responsible and a good hero keeps him going. “You were the best thing I ever had, Alex. I loved you. And I won’t let you down.” is his promise at the end of #55. 

I can see what the writer, Ron Marz, was going for: an emotional core to the hero to rival that of Spider-man or Batman. However, the story fails on so many levels that it just ends up seeming cheap and sensationalist. There is no reason to kill Alex de Witt to create the motivation for Kyle to be the best Green Lantern he can. He is enjoying having the ring and trying to be a hero: he is already learning responsibility. Yes, at the beginning of #54, he wants to goof off instead of patrolling, but he still goes on patrol at Alex’s behest. Any level of threat to Alex could have motivated him to be even better: just finding Major Force in his home, not yet even having laid a hand on her, would have incensed Kyle to defend her, and then make sure she and other innocents like her were never put at risk again. He is not a callow Peter Parker, ignoring the responsibility of his power and needing a lesson in what it means. He is not young Bruce Wayne, with no idea that the world needs heroes. Alex’s death teaches him nothing.

On top of that, the way Alex dies and the way Kyle finds her are completely out of place in a mainstream super-hero comic. Four panels show her being strangled to death. Four panels. Is this a Vertigo comic? Is this a crime noir comic? And then she is stuffed into the refrigerator, a scene which EC Comics might have been proud of, but Ron Marz and his editor Kevin Dooley should be ashamed of. Held up as a textbook example of a female character being brutalized, maimed or killed as a plot device intended to galvanize a male character, this scene inspired Gail Simone’s Women in Refrigerators web site, which lists many more such instances of cheap, sensationalist writing.

Alex de Witt had potential as a character, but it was thrown away. Shock tactics drown out the emotional impact, and there is no benefit to the story. The attempt to create a lasting inspiration fails, not least because the hero didn’t need to be inspired in the first place. He was already a hero: what a shame he couldn’t have shared that journey with a friend.

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