A while back a comic book starring Green Lantern Kyle Rainer featured a plot where in order to strike back at our hero, his girlfriend was killed off-screen (or in this case, off panel) and stuffed into a fridge.



Not exactly what you want to find instead of your leftover pizza.

A bit later, some folks got pissed about it, and pointed out that yeah, women are so commonly treated terribly and/or killed in comics, that the "Women in the Refrigerator Syndrome" might be a bit of a problem for the industry. The jury's still out if that industry fixed the problem (it hasn't) but let me be the first to say . . .it sure as sugar isn't limited to comics!

Enter Eva, a nice sweet and still super hot teacher, who is killed only in flashback, isn't terribly developed as a character, and turns out to be the prime motivator for the hero, Shank (duh) to go on his grindhouse based roaring rampage of revenge!

This is just one example of "fridging" in games, and it's SOOOOOO common. In fact for most games that feature this, especially older ones, we would rarely see the women getting killed actually in the game. They die in the background, to be revealed during the introduction cinematic, or possibly only in the game's manual. Being killed in the damn manual might as well as being the equivalent of getting cut out of Star Wars Episode 2 because you were a terrible actor- you probably wish you didn't exist rather than have to deal with that insult.

There are tons of examples, but it's especially prevalent in fighting games and brawlers like Shank. Look at Terry Bogard's girl in Fatal Fury, or how about the intro of Double Dragon 2, where the girl you worked so hard to save from the first, Marian, even going so far as to beat up your own brother, is just murdered right at the beginning?

Though . . . maybe Marian kind of had it coming. The fact that she made Jimmy and Billy beat the tar out of each other at the end of Double Dragon 1 because, what, she couldn't decide who to pick, was pretty much the definition of "bogus".



Or maybe this guy was the definition, I can't remember.

Anyway, you may be asking, "So if this is so common, why does Eva make the damn list?"

Well smart guy, its' because of two reasons.

First, though we don't really get to know her as a character or actually see her death, I don't think we really want to. If you watch that attached intro video, there's a flashback in the middle, where "The Butcher" leaves Shank for dead, and carries Eva off with the implication that he raped her to death. That's just . . . nasty.

Then, there's this .

That makes it wayyyyyy worse. Eva "wins" this because her death is just so damn brutal.

Oh and speaking of Brutal . . .