The latest issue of King Spawn has a harrowing revelation about Wanda Blake, and it unfortunately might be one of the biggest “sins” in comics.
Ever since his debut back in the early 1990s, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn has been a violent vehicle for anger, vengeance and rage. Determined to see his wife again at all costs, this undying love landed him in hot water and hellfire. His “widow” Wanda remained a firm part of the book’s storyline until she met her end in Spawn: Resurrection. This death is now revealed as being far less than the random death it seemed to be, and the result could be controversial.
King Spawn #7 reveals that Wanda Blake’s death was planned and intended to get a proverbial rise out of Spawn. This could arguably be viewed as another example of one of the most controversial tropes in comics, but is it really? Better yet, does the thematic concept work for a book such as Spawn, which has never pulled punches anyway?
King Spawn Reveals the Truth About Wanda Blake’s Death
King Spawn #7 has Spawn and Terry Fitzgerald investigating the mysterious Psalms 137/11 terrorist group that’s acting against Spawn. Tracking a member of the group, they suddenly re-experience the events that lead to the death of their mutual widow Wanda Blake. Unable to keep the past from happening, the reason for Spawn’s torment is then revealed to have had a specific purpose.
Black Azreal, the leader of 11, tells Spawn that Wanda’s death at the hands of an angry mob was not just an act of random violence. This mayhem was engineered by Azreal to anger Al Simmons and coerce him further to walk his current path. This intended path is supposedly beneficial for Spawn, as it would involve him taking his throne as more than a mere hellspawn, but as the ruler of worlds. Unfortunately, it took the death of Wanda to start heading toward this path, something which could rub some readers the wrong way.
Was Wanda Blake’s Death an Example of “Fridging”?
Using a female character’s death to motivate a male superhero has been deemed “fridging,” as it stems from the controversial “women in refrigerators” concept from the ‘90s Green Lantern comics from DC. There, Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend was killed and stuffed into a fridge, with the violent, grisly fate meant to taunt him. Writers such as Gail Simone heavily criticized this story, seeing it as killing off female characters just to “develop” male ones. Other retroactive examples include the paralyzing of Barbara Gordon in Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.
Given this definition, it could easily be argued that King Spawn is another example of a female character being fridged. This would, however, much like the “women in refrigerators” concept in general, require honing in solely on the fates of female comic book characters. After all, weren’t the deaths of male characters like Thomas Wayne, Jason Todd, Bucky Barnes and Uncle Ben used as development for characters, all of whom also happened to be men? Given the harrowing events of superhero comics in general, tons of characters die, and it’s obviously meant to develop the main hero. Was Aunt May’s eventually retconned death in The Clone Saga fridging, or simply a natural development of the story?
As bad as it may sound, the Spawn book arguably couldn’t keep Wanda around forever anyways, since logically she and Al would never truly reunite. Also keep in mind that Spawn, since it’s inception, has never been a particularly “politically correct” book. It’s fifth issue featured a harrowing story involving the child murdering Billy Kincaid, and the way that Spawn dealt with him was far removed from the heroism of Superman and Batman. Thus, having demons and angels engineer the deaths of mortals is just part of the franchise’s DNA, and it isn’t fridging so much as just another horrible day in the life of Image’s resident hellspawn.
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