Marvel vs. Marriage

[Nutcase65]

I made some commentary elsewhere on the board about the fact that Marvel leadership seems to be anti-marriage during the fall-out from OMD. I still feel this. Someone used Reed/Sue as an example of how Marvel is not anti-marriage. I have to believe at the time of OMD Bendis knoew he was gonna make Sue a skrull.

So lets look at examples of destroyed marriages
Reed/Sue - her skrull, him no
Peter/ MJ - one more day made it go away
Luke/Jessica - initiative seperation
Black Bolt/Medusa - Silent War

is Rick still with Marlo?

Is Beak still with Angel?

The only marriage I can think of that is of higher level characters is Black Panther and Storm, and even that one is beginning to show strain of the demands of state.

share any info you have on any other Marvel marriages and the state of affairs. I know I am missing plenty, but cannot think of them right now

[Doctor Doom]

A few points to make:

A) Bendis got Cage and Jessica TOGETHER, and invented Jessica. So if anything happened there, there's a 0% chance it's Marvel edict and 100% chacne it's Bendis- and really, he is the ultimate authority on it.

B) Sue is NOT a Skrull- a person simply morphed into A Sue Skrull in Secret Invasion #1. Johnny points out that the real Sue's actually in Michigan or somewhere. So that marriage is fine.

C) Bolt/Medusa- That may not have been the real Bolt, remember? Black Skrolt?

Oh, and you could probably ay Daredevil but c'mon, women only exist in his life to be hideously tortured anyway.

Plus, what exactly does DC have? It has Clark and Lois, but 90% of the DC writers want to get rid of it too, for the exact same reason as the spider marriage!

[Nutcase65]

Thanks for the clarity Doomsie. I had missed that line about Sue. I was not liking the idea that she was a long term skrull.

[woodside]

docdoom said:

Plus, what exactly does DC have? It has Clark and Lois, but 90% of the DC writers want to get rid of it too, for the exact same reason as the spider marriage!

There's a great quote from Grant Morrison concerning the long-dead proposal that he, Millar, and Waid wrote up for "Superman." Let me find it here . . .

I’ve read a few speculations over the years about how we were going to use that proposal to end the Supeman/Lois Lane marriage. In fact that was actually something we decided we didn’t want to do. I remember Mark Waid and the guys and all of us sitting around thinking of ways to end the Superman marriage – and we talked about it for a long time, and we got to where we were talking about things like “memory molecules,” and we finally said, “This is ridiculous! The only way to do this is to keep the marriage and make it work!”

It was the only thing we could do with what I still think was a bad idea. The marriage damaged the dynamic of Superman comics quite severely, but if we broke up the relationship of these two great fictional lovers, Superman would immediately seem ineffectual and ultimately beaten by his foes, walking around for the rest of his life not knowing Lois was ever his wife or whatever.

So we opted to keep Lois Lane and the marriage intact. It’s kind of an interesting reflection of what recently happened in Spider-Man, where they did choose to magically unmarry the hero to predictable howls of protest. Then again, I actually think they’ll be able to make that one work if they just grit their teeth for a couple of years until the new status quo becomes accepted, so who knows?

NRAMA: Why do you feel that, in a comic book, it’s sometimes harder to write a happy, stable relationship than it is to write about, say, the end of the world?

GM: Happy people don’t make good drama, basically, and the end of the world never loses its appeal. It’s why I don’t want too many people to get their hands on Animal Man, because he’s one of the last guys in comics who has a good family relationship, (laughs) and that’s really, really important to that character. So every time I see some new writer get a hold of him, I always worry that they’ll mess with Animal Man’s marriage. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened yet.

Sadly, it can be easier to write the girlfriend in the refrigerator or whatever than it is to write an actual loving relationship. (laughs)

forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=149066


There seems to be a thought in comics in general that as soon as a character gets married, all accessibility and youth that was instilled into that character is gone. While I don't believe this to be the case, there are a lot of examles of seeing characters marry and become weaker because of this.

The biggest example that stands against this rule is Cyclops/Phoenix, in which we saw them as a mature married couple throughout the most of the 90s. They broke up (er, kinda), but it wasn't because of magic -- it was simply that their marriage had just fallen apart.

A realistic light shown to the end of marriages is what I want. Something that can enrich the character. Magic break-ups are stupid.

And let's not to say that marriage in comics is an impossible or bad thing. I think for certain characters, it works rather well.

How many married couples have stayed together? Vision and Wanda had their marriage ended, as did Pym and Jan. So it's not like it's a new thing.

I don't know, to be honest, what my overall opinion is of all this. To write a married couple and still make it interesting and accessible and not turn it into a super-hero version of "Mad About You" takes a lot of effort and may even escape the talents of the patheon of writers in comics these days . . . and of previous eras.

That's one of the things I really liked about Cage and Jess. I understand her reasons for up and leaving, but at the same time, their marriage was so well handled. I still believe they'll end up together.

[Nutcase65]

W, I agree with many things in what you said.

It WOULD take incredible talent to write a marrried couple without it turning into something boring or silly. I think the talent is out there that could handle it. I just don't think anyone wants to put out the kind of effort it would require. It is easier to write strife into a marriage because that's where the excitement is. It is far harder to write excitement into a contented marriage.

I also believe Luke and Jess will wind up back together. It'll make it so they can tear them apart again later ;-)

[dlw66]

nutcase65 said:

It WOULD take incredible talent to write a marrried couple without it turning into something boring or silly. I think the talent is out there that could handle it. I just don't think anyone wants to put out the kind of effort it would require. It is easier to write strife into a marriage because that's where the excitement is. It is far harder to write excitement into a contented marriage.

I have a contented marriage that I work hard at keeping exciting. You should see me in my spandex and cape... Ouch -- that's akin to Nutcase's nude photos of a couple of days ago.

Anyhow, I understand what you guys are saying about writing a marriage that isn't silly or boring. I think in the proper context, maybe in a universe unto itself, there is a place for a superhero comic that is like "Mad About You". Not sure of the market, but creators like DeMatteis/Giffen/Maguire seemed to have a handle on action/absurdity back in the Justice League days (yeah, yeah -- not everyone enjoyed that farce; maybe just me...).

But again, given some of the current events that you are reporting (which I am not reading) makes me glad that I am spending my money on Silver and Bronze Age collections.

[Nutcase65]

Which brings another question, what if

what if you and your wife really were super heroes?

I think if me and Amanda were super-dupers it would probably be the end of civilization as we all know it,.. but it would make for fun reading

[goldenfist]

Alex Ross feel's that marriage makes the characters less appealin
g.

Look at DC they got Green Arrow and Black Canary married.

[dlw66]

dlw66 said:

creators like DeMatteis/Giffen/Maguire seemed to have a handle on action/absurdity back in the Justice League days (yeah, yeah -- not everyone enjoyed that farce; maybe just me...).

And speaking of the '80's Justice League, how about this upcoming release from DC Direct?