Avengers: Endgame – Does Marvel have a fridging problem?

The treatment of Black Widow and the other female superheroes in Avengers: Endgame is a reflection of Marvel’s failure to update its storytelling for the modern age.

*Spoiler Alert: The following article discusses the events of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame and Uncanny X-Men No. 17 in detail.

**Content warning for transmisogyny and violence

Avengers: Endgame is a surprisingly imperfect finale that has divided fans over many aspects of the film. Be it the lack of closure for Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes’ friendship, the absence of diversity or the questionable choice for Thor’s character arc, the swan song for the original Avengers has been contentious. Many critics have especially found fault in Black Widow’s sacrifice on Vormir.

When the Avengers travel back in time to retrieve the six infinity stones, Black Widow and Hawkeye team up to fly to Vormir, the resting place of the Soul Stone. As we saw in Avengers: Infinity War, the only way to secure the Soul Stone is to trade a soul in its place – in Infinity War, Thanos sacrificed the only thing he purportedly loved in the world, his adoptive daughter Gamora, to gain the stone. Once Black Widow and Hawkeye landed on the planet, viewers expected a death.

Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS: ENDGAME..L to R: Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner)..Photo: Film Frame..©Marvel Studios 2019

That it would be Black Widow still blindsided many, especially since the fridging of Gamora received plenty of criticism last year. The writers of Avengers: Endgame have given their reasoning for how Widow choosing to sacrifice herself for the stone completes her arc – yet she is the one who is leading the Avengers five years after the Snap, unlike Hawkeye, who has taken on the mantle of Ronin and is killing people on Earth. If Black Widow has red in her ledger, so does Clint Barton, and his is still fresh.

Now that the directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, have confirmed that Natasha Romanoff is “gone forever,” it begs the question why, of all the original six Avengers, was the sole female Avenger given this arc? We have speculated that the writers could have gone down another route if they had tried hard enough. It comes back to Marvel’s (and most of entertainment media’s) myopic view of storytelling. Fridging is never a good option for a character arc, and Marvel have been guilty of it in not one, but two, major properties over the span of one week.

While Avengers: Endgame has taken the world by storm, in the world of comics, Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men No. 17 released on May 1 with a questionable storyline. At the end of the previous issue, Danielle Moonstar had realized that her friend and fellow New Mutant, Rahne Sinclair/ Wolfsbane, was dead. In issue No. 17, we learn the circumstances of Rahne’s death.

Image Source: Comixology Digital Comics

But the story isn’t about Rahne. It uses her death as a plot device that fuels Wolverine’s rage for vengeance and drives a wedge between the X-Men’s de facto co-leaders, Wolverine and Cyclops. To add fuel to the fire, the circumstances of Wolfsbane’s murder were heavily coded with transmisogyny, which is blatantly problematic, considering how few trans characters there are in mainstream comic books.

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It’s 2019 and, somehow, depicting violence against female characters seems to come instinctively to many creators, and killing women is still seen by some as the only way to advance a story forward. What made these two particular instances worse was how little consideration the rest of the female characters in both Avengers: Endgame and Uncanny X-Men No. 17 were given.

In Endgame, most of the women had curtailed screen time, even Captain Marvel, who most people expected was going to take on the mantle as the new leader of the Avengers. Okoye, one of the few remaining main characters, had less than 10 minutes of screen time. The best moment of the film came when all the women superheroes banded together to help Captain Marvel with the Infinity Gauntlet. But the directors managed to ruin her moment of glory by having Thanos easily defeat Carol. People are calling that botched A-Force moment “pandering” because Marvel didn’t follow through with the initial premise of that scene.

The potency of the “Avengers Assemble” moment in the climatic battle was also undercut by the fact that Natasha was dead and couldn’t assemble with the family she had helped build. To make matters worse, she wasn’t given a funeral either, unlike Tony Stark, whose life and sacrifice were celebrated at the end of the film. Are women just not important to Marvel?

From the comics side, Uncanny X-Men had a powerful cast of female characters at the forefront till the 10th issue of the series. Led by Jean Grey, they valiantly fought Nate Grey before he banished them to the “Age of X-Man” dimension. The current team has few female mutants, and the majority of them have had little to no story arcs within the pages of the comics. To then see a female character killed off summarily is like rubbing salt in one too many wounds. It rankles when one reads fan comments applauding the current make up of the team, when there was a far more inclusive one before. Perhaps it’s a reflection of how narrow-minded some comics readers continue to be?

Comic books in general have always been contentious forms of media, though we are at a stage when the marginalized have a voice to confront those issues. On the other hand, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has never been without its problems, but it’s rarely been this obviously problematic. Bringing in sensitivity viewers or critics would have enhanced the final product and made Avengers: Endgame a truly perfect send-off for the 11-year long journey. Instead, Marvel chose to take one step forward (with Black Panther and Captain Marvel) and five steps back with the Avengers films – all the Avengers films have been particularly problematic, but Endgame felt completely out of sync with modern sensibilities.

The fridging and fat-shaming in the final two Avengers films felt out of character for the franchise. When you know you’re making the most anticipated film of the year (or, arguably of many years), it is your duty to make it the best version of itself. With the next phase in the franchise promising greater inclusion, it’s time for Marvel to finally move forward and, in the words of Nick Fury, “get with the program.”