Marvel Studios Has a Killing Women Problem

Marvel Studios has a problem with killing women. Oh, SPOILERS ahead for various MCU movies released since 2016, as well as the just-launched series Secret Invasion. Like I said: Marvel Studios has a problem with killing women, and that problem is that they appear to have no problem with killing women. And with Maria Hill’s murder in the Secret Invasion premiere, we have yet another name to add to a long list of dead women.

If you’re somehow shocked by this allegation, let me run through the names of the dead: Peggy Carter (died of old age in Captain America: Civil War), Gamora (sacrificed by Thanos to acquire the Soul Stone in Avengers: Infinity War), Black Widow (sacrificed herself so that Hawkeye could acquire the Soul Stone in Avengers: Endgame), Scarlet Witch (crushed to death by her own castle after destroying the Darkhold in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Mighty Thor (succumbed to a battle with cancer after assuming the mantle of Thor one last time in Thor: Love and Thunder), and Maria Hill (shot by Gravik in Secret Invasion).

That is, by the way, just the A-listers — the headline heroes whose deaths were used to further plots or make the men in their lives very sad. If we expand the scope out to supporting cast members, we’ve also lost Frigga (killed by Algrim in battle in Thor: The Dark World), May Parker (killed by the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: No Way Home), Queen Ramonda (killed during Talokan’s siege of Wakanda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), and Ayesha (killed during the destruction of Counter-Earth in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3).

By comparison, how many male leads have we lost over the last 15 years? Phil Coulson was the first major death in the MCU, but he got better and enjoyed 7 seasons on his own TV show. Loki violently died with a crunch at the hands of Thanos, but immediately lived on in the form of an alternate timeline variant who also got his own TV show (Season 2, coming this October!). Vision died in Avengers: Infinity War and again in WandaVision, but his soulless resurrected corpse is still flying around… and getting his own show. Wow — why not cut any of the women in on this death and a TV show deal, Marvel?

(To be fair, Gamora did come back, albeit in a time-traveling alternate-universe form. So that’s one!)

So far, the only Marvel men who have died and stayed dead are Iron Man and Quicksilver — not counting Quicksilver’s quasi-sorta-not-really return in WandaVision. Since the majority of speaking roles in films go to men, yes, we have seen a lot of men die in the MCU — most of them being the villains (Killmonger, Thanos, Mysterio, etc.) and supporting players (Yondu, Heimdall, Odin, the Warriors Three, all of Asgard really). But the ratio of leading women killed to leading men killed is not a good look.

To demonstrate this, look at the characters introduced in Phase One, characters that are the foundation of the MCU. Of all the major female characters introduced in Phase One, Pepper Potts, Darcy Lewis, presumably Betty Ross, and Lady Sif are the only ones left alive now that Maria Hill is dead. As for the men? We’ve still got Nick Fury, Happy Hogan, James Rhodes, Bruce Banner, Gen. Thunderbolt Ross, Thor, a Loki, Hawkeye, Erik Selvig, Winter Soldier, Phil Coulson depending on how Marvel Studios feels about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and even Captain America is still alive as far as we know! The only Avengers who have died are Iron Man and the two women — the only two women to ever serve on the Avengers. The only Guardian of the Galaxy who has died is Gamora. This is a problem!

It’s a problem because, first, it’s a boring-ass trope that — I swear to god — needs to be lesson one on day one of Screenwriting 101. Killing a female character in order to advance a male character’s storyline was identified as a trope — Women in Refrigerators — in 1999. This is not an exclusively academic or terminally online term, either. This is a pretty mainstream concept, one that is widely used — especially in superhero, fantasy, and sci-fi fandoms. I do not understand how one can make a career writing screenplays and remain unaware of quite possibly the most glaring problem in genre storytelling (or, uh, any storytelling). But here we are, nearly a quarter century after Gail Simone made the Women in Refrigerators website, watching Maria Hill — one of the last OG women standing in the MCU — being shot in the gut in front of Nick Fury so that Nick Fury can feel sad.

Even if we put aside this being a pernicious, pervasive trope, it’s also just lazy. Nowhere is this more evident than in the deaths of Gamora and Black Widow in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, respectively. The MCU looked at its two most prominent female leads, both of whom are the only woman on their teams, both of whom are deadly assassin types, and said, “Yes, both of them should die in literally the exact same way.” Like… what the hell? Really? That’s what y’all decided on? Okay.

But there’s an even greater reason to be alarmed and extremely annoyed by this, and it’s a reason that is exclusive to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and damaging to the kinds of stories that can be told within it. By killing Gamora, Black Widow, Peggy Carter, Scarlet Witch, Mighty Thor, and now Maria Hill, the MCU is robbing the next generation of female superheroes of their elders. The male heroes get to have heirs and elders. Tony and Rhodey pushed each other to new heights in their iron armor. Tony even taught Peter Parker a thing or thirty. Steve Rogers inspired Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes. Hank Pym showed Scott Lang all of the ropes. By killing all of the women with on-the-field training, we are killing any kind of intergenerational knowledge that could be passed from character to character, which is damn fine fodder for stories.

We got this in Black Widow between Natasha and Yelena — but that movie was released after Nat’s death so we knew the clock was ticking. Thank god we’re getting The Marvels later this year, a film named after the first all-female superhero dynasty of the MCU.

Still, I want to know what advice Maria Hill would give She-Hulk (and vice versa). I want to see Scarlet Witch teach America Chavez, not try to kill her. I want Black Widow training all of the new recruits in the art of ass-kickery. These characters have the potential for the same inspirational cultural longevity as Captain America, Thor, and Hulk. But Marvel keeps burying this potential in the back of the fridge.