Marvel has exhibited a frustrating pattern with their leading female characters.
What will it take to make it stop?
Warning: This article contains spoilers aboutThor: Love and Thunder, as well as several other MCU titles.
©Marvel Studios 2019
Don’t get me wrong, sacrifice is a heroic quality.
It takes a special kind of person to lay down their life for the greater good.
First, there was Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a.
Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’.Marvel Studios
Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has a family who needs him.
And I had such high hopes!
There are flickers of hope that becoming a Thor will strengthen and heal her.
Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’.Jasin Boland/Marvel Studios
But for dudes, with great power comes great responsibility.
For ladies, with great power comes an expiration date.
There is nothing wrong with this choice at face value.
Indeed, it’s a death so noble it earns Jane a place in Valhalla.
But it would be more emotionally satisfying if I hadn’t seen it so many times before.
Sure, I want more female superheroes.
More kick-ass ladies who I can dress up as for Halloween and cheer on.
But not if their only purpose in the plot is virtual martyrdom.
Unless, of course, you’re a woman.
Because women are expendable.
The MCU, intentionally or not, reiterates that narrative.
I don’t want a fictional world of heroes where a woman’s greatest superpower is death.
It’s a hill I’m willing to do anything but die on.
