Hero Trends 5: Love Is In The Print
Wow, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo was AWESOME! No cop out ending, and it blew Brainiac Attacks WAY out of the water. I'm sort of on a TT kick so I may be biased, but I don't care, it was cool.
So last time I discussed how one of my favorite fandoms, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, shaped some interpretations of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. This time I'll be talking about the big one, how does a timeless hero whose stories aren't set to end deal with the idea of having a love interest and getting married?
How could you have kept this from me for so long? It makes me wonder what other little secrets you’re hiding.
How’d you like to take a lifetime to find out?
What? What are you saying?
I lost you once because I didn’t act quickly enough. I’m not going to make that same mistake again. Mary Jane, will you marry me?
Love interests add a lot to a series. Drama, tension, hope, loss, all that fun stuff. When a hero has a secret identity, it makes it even more complicated. He can be with the woman he loves, but should he tell her who he really is and risk putting her in danger? And if he does, if he finally comes clean, should he get married?
Most people say no. Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada thinks the worst thing that happened to Spider-Man was that he got married. The Clark/Lois engagement was mangled while it was happening, and afterwards, many people don’t think Clark should’ve gotten married.
But let’s back up a bit and talk about Batman. Aside from the occasional future story, he’ll never settle down. And really, no one wants him to. Giving Batman a wife would take some of his edge off.
What they can do, however, is give Batman love interest after love interest after love interest. Vicky Vale, Catwoman, Talia Al Ghul, Silver St. Cloud, Vesper Fairchild, Sasha Bourdeaux, even Wonder Woman. Batman has had many relationships, and even when the other party knows who he really is, it doesn’t work out. It makes Batman seem all the more alone, but the guy’s got to have the occational relationship because hey, he IS human. Having a love interest in Batman’s life doesn’t clutter the book because he can always distance himself from her or she could simply just be written out of the story.
Superman can’t work that way because his love interest always has and always will be Lois Lane. Sure, there’s Lana Lang and Lori Lemaris and whatever woman with the initials “LL” you want to throw in, but Lois is a permanent part of Superman’s cast. The idea was that Lois was in love with Superman and ignored Clark. This game was played for decades and decades over a variety of continuities, and the only time Superman and Lois got together was during alternate futures/Elseworlds/whatever stories.
That is, until the 90’s. I don’t know the whole story, but essentially, Lois did find out about Clark’s dual identity, and due to the show Lois and Clark, their relationship was paused and rushed and all this stuff. DC had a perfect excuse to get rid of Superman’s marriage and make Lois forget his dual identity as of the result of the recent Crisis, but they kept them married (which I am ALL FOR, by the way).
From the looks of it, Marvel WISHES they could retcon punch the spider marriage out of existence. Years ago, it didn’t seem that far-fetched for Peter to get married. He was thinking about it back when Stan Lee was writing the book, and Stan said he introduced Gwen with the idea that she and Peter would marry someday. But we all know how that turned out. Peter and Mary Jane got married in the late 80’s, I believe. They haven’t had the most stable relationship, but that’s because the 90’s weren’t a stable period for Spider-Man. Mary Jane was actually killed off in a plane crash for a time, but later on it was revealed she wasn’t on the plane and had been kidnapped by a stalker.
Marvel wants Spider-Man to be unmarried because they want to keep him young. If they make him a divorcee or a widower, he’ll get his single status back, but it’ll make him seem even older than he does as married man. So without the use of universe-changing power or magic, it seems like they’re stuck as is.
Personally, I like it this way. I don’t want Batman married. When I started reading both Spider-Man and Superman, they were already married, so it feels natural to me. I could see how there’d be a lot more romantic entanglements for Spider-Man to get into, but for Superman? If they ever actually want to move his story forward, he has to tell Lois who he is, and they eventually have to get married. That’s not to say they have to move the story forward. Both Marvel and DC have the luxury of non-continuity stories. In All-Star Superman, there’s still the same Superman/Lois/Clark deal. Both Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane deal with a teenage Peter Parker with romantic problems.
The main continuity heroes are married, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way (although there is supposedly a big Spider-Man story in 2007 that’s supposed to “fix” him, so who knows what will come of that?), and I like it. Flash once said Superman is the smartest guy he knows because he can do what he does but not at the expense of his own happiness. Spider-Man can still have to deal with hardships in his life, being married wouldn’t really stand in the way of that (and you can start by getting him off the New Avengers!).
It really comes down to how you write the story and what kinds of things you want to write about. But flirtation, passion, romance, danger, love, you can REALLY put the hero through a lot when you give him a love interest!
So last time I discussed how one of my favorite fandoms, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, shaped some interpretations of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. This time I'll be talking about the big one, how does a timeless hero whose stories aren't set to end deal with the idea of having a love interest and getting married?
How could you have kept this from me for so long? It makes me wonder what other little secrets you’re hiding.
How’d you like to take a lifetime to find out?
What? What are you saying?
I lost you once because I didn’t act quickly enough. I’m not going to make that same mistake again. Mary Jane, will you marry me?
Love interests add a lot to a series. Drama, tension, hope, loss, all that fun stuff. When a hero has a secret identity, it makes it even more complicated. He can be with the woman he loves, but should he tell her who he really is and risk putting her in danger? And if he does, if he finally comes clean, should he get married?
Most people say no. Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada thinks the worst thing that happened to Spider-Man was that he got married. The Clark/Lois engagement was mangled while it was happening, and afterwards, many people don’t think Clark should’ve gotten married.
But let’s back up a bit and talk about Batman. Aside from the occasional future story, he’ll never settle down. And really, no one wants him to. Giving Batman a wife would take some of his edge off.
What they can do, however, is give Batman love interest after love interest after love interest. Vicky Vale, Catwoman, Talia Al Ghul, Silver St. Cloud, Vesper Fairchild, Sasha Bourdeaux, even Wonder Woman. Batman has had many relationships, and even when the other party knows who he really is, it doesn’t work out. It makes Batman seem all the more alone, but the guy’s got to have the occational relationship because hey, he IS human. Having a love interest in Batman’s life doesn’t clutter the book because he can always distance himself from her or she could simply just be written out of the story.
Superman can’t work that way because his love interest always has and always will be Lois Lane. Sure, there’s Lana Lang and Lori Lemaris and whatever woman with the initials “LL” you want to throw in, but Lois is a permanent part of Superman’s cast. The idea was that Lois was in love with Superman and ignored Clark. This game was played for decades and decades over a variety of continuities, and the only time Superman and Lois got together was during alternate futures/Elseworlds/whatever stories.
That is, until the 90’s. I don’t know the whole story, but essentially, Lois did find out about Clark’s dual identity, and due to the show Lois and Clark, their relationship was paused and rushed and all this stuff. DC had a perfect excuse to get rid of Superman’s marriage and make Lois forget his dual identity as of the result of the recent Crisis, but they kept them married (which I am ALL FOR, by the way).
From the looks of it, Marvel WISHES they could retcon punch the spider marriage out of existence. Years ago, it didn’t seem that far-fetched for Peter to get married. He was thinking about it back when Stan Lee was writing the book, and Stan said he introduced Gwen with the idea that she and Peter would marry someday. But we all know how that turned out. Peter and Mary Jane got married in the late 80’s, I believe. They haven’t had the most stable relationship, but that’s because the 90’s weren’t a stable period for Spider-Man. Mary Jane was actually killed off in a plane crash for a time, but later on it was revealed she wasn’t on the plane and had been kidnapped by a stalker.
Marvel wants Spider-Man to be unmarried because they want to keep him young. If they make him a divorcee or a widower, he’ll get his single status back, but it’ll make him seem even older than he does as married man. So without the use of universe-changing power or magic, it seems like they’re stuck as is.
Personally, I like it this way. I don’t want Batman married. When I started reading both Spider-Man and Superman, they were already married, so it feels natural to me. I could see how there’d be a lot more romantic entanglements for Spider-Man to get into, but for Superman? If they ever actually want to move his story forward, he has to tell Lois who he is, and they eventually have to get married. That’s not to say they have to move the story forward. Both Marvel and DC have the luxury of non-continuity stories. In All-Star Superman, there’s still the same Superman/Lois/Clark deal. Both Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane deal with a teenage Peter Parker with romantic problems.
The main continuity heroes are married, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way (although there is supposedly a big Spider-Man story in 2007 that’s supposed to “fix” him, so who knows what will come of that?), and I like it. Flash once said Superman is the smartest guy he knows because he can do what he does but not at the expense of his own happiness. Spider-Man can still have to deal with hardships in his life, being married wouldn’t really stand in the way of that (and you can start by getting him off the New Avengers!).
It really comes down to how you write the story and what kinds of things you want to write about. But flirtation, passion, romance, danger, love, you can REALLY put the hero through a lot when you give him a love interest!