Oh yeah, Trajectory died.
Yeah, so I finally got around to reading 52 Week 21 last night and I finally got to see what all the controversy was all about. Trajectory, a throw-away character from a throw-away team from a throw-away storyline in a book that I am sometimes wanting to throw away all together, was killed. She was a girl.
Now, I do understand that women have gotten the short end of the stick for fall too long in comics. Actually, they've mostly gotten the business end of laser guns, axes, refrigerators and Dr. Light. Comics have an awful history of brutalizing female characters where the male characters almost always come out clean and heroic. In comics, when a man dies, he is a martyr. When a woman dies, she is a plot device.
But I don't think this really is the case for Trajectory, the speedster of Lex Luthor's Infinity Inc. who had her neck twisted (off?) by some random villain being called the "new Blockbuster." She was clearly always meant to be killed off (murdered by Luthor, in fact) which is a bad sign, but she also, with the exception of Natasha Irons, was the most fleshed out character in the new Infinity Inc.
Of course, it is very sketchy that her career highlights were being hooked on drugs and being murdered, but we also knew her motivations and personality, which is more than we can say about the other members of Infinity Inc.. I can't even list the other members of Luthor's little troupe.
Now, I think it's pretty obvious that all of the members of Infinity Inc. is going to loose their powers by the end of 52. That would mean that even if Trajectory wasn't killed (let's say whichever one came from Gary, IN got his head ripped off), she till would have fallen victim to depowering and then obscurity. My point is, all of the characters of Infinity Inc. are made to be forgotten, so why should people be upset that the one who is given the spotlight but is also killed happens to be female? Would it have been better if she had remained in the background only to be depowered and tossed aside?
But then again, other than the well-established Natasha Irons, Trajectory was the only female character on the team (I think?). What were the odds she would be the one to be brutally killed?
2 comments:
so why should people be upset that the one who is given the spotlight but is also killed happens to be female?
>>>>>>
Because it's part of a pattern. It's sort of what the women or characters of colour (Black Goliath in Civil War #4) are there for...To wear the red shirts.
dawn,
I understand that women and minority characters are almost always the ones to get the most punishment and I agree that it has to change.
But I'm just not sure that Trajectory's death really fits into the pattern. I do not think she was targeted by the writers because her death would be more dramatic yet more exceptable because she is a woman. Someone from Infinity Inc was going to die. It just so happened that it was Trajectory.
I figure there were two fates for Trajectory:
1) Remain in the background, without any personality or character development, or maybe just stay as a drug addict. Loose powers by the end of 52 and fade into obscurity.
2) Get some real character development, a person the reader can care about. Be brutally killed but at least remembered by the readers (no promises if the writers will remember her [re: Stephanie Brown])
Both options suck, but it's one or the other. I think that some readers have become oversensitive to the deaths of female characters to the point where any turns for the worst can be regarded as sexist. This isn't exactly fair to the writers.
Poor treatment of female, minority and GLBT characters is a very real problem in mainstream comics and it needs to stop, but that doesn't mean that these characters should be immune to tragedy.
It's sad to see Trajectory go. I really liked her. But if it were not for her intended death, 52 would have been lacking another interesting female character.
But hey, maybe she'll come back. Booster Gold is sure too.
/hopeless optimism
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