Comic book creators love weddings, but hate marriages. Marriages tie down characters. Marriages deter freeswinging romances. Marriages are pedestrian. Marriages are boring. Marriages are deeply feared by the young males that comic book companies are primarily-if-not-solely interested in.
I can think of a single marriage in either DC or Marvel that has endured, and that would be Reed and Sue in the FF. (I guess you could argue for Black Bolt and Medusa, but they're hardly as significant, nor exactly normal role models.)
Another more recent marriage (has it really been six years?) between Black Panther and Storm is now over as well. In this case, I don't have many regrets — Marvel never did much with it, except to occasionally have Ororo serve as T'challa's sidekick, or vice-versa. It would have been nice, in principle, to come up with another stable marriage in the Marvel Universe, but just as there never seemed to be much rationale for their getting married, there's not much that seems to keep them together, esp. given all the current AvX brouhaha.
Reshared post from +Comicbook.com
The marriage has gone as suddenly as it came, albeit with somewhat more in-story justification.
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Avengers vs. X-Men: Black Panther and Storm’s Marriage Annulled
Once held up by Marvel Comics as a shining example of a successful relationship between two of their most popular and visible African-American superheroes, the marriage of Black Panther and the X-Men’…
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Peter Parker and MJ stayed together!
For a while. Then editorial decided that nobody was interested in Peter Parker being married, so they insisted on ending it all — in fact, in making it so that it never actually happened (see the much-lambasted "One More Day" storyline, in which Peter agrees to let Mephisto wipe out his marriage in return for saving Aunt May's life).
Yeesh.
See also DC's New52, where Clark and Lois were never married, either. Nor was Barry Allen. Nor was Jay Garrick. Nor was … well, you get the idea.
Haha, well yes I know One More Day vaporized the whole thing, but still! They stayed together until then! 😉
I was not aware that New52 took out Clark and Lois though.
True. Which was pretty cool. Sorry Marvel's suits didn't think so.
So maybe I need to clarify. While there are several marriages that have come and gone in the Marvel and DC universes, there are next to none that have (a) endured in-story and (b) endured through various universal crises and reboots.
There ya go. I do think it makes sense on a level. These heroes are in constant danger. Having someone close to them that is vulnerable is just asking for it. (Which is why Storm and Tchalla shouldn't have had an issue, but then XvsA….which I have, but have not read yet).
While there are certainly parallels to the married lives of cops, or soldiers, or Hollywood celebrities for that matter, it surely comes across less as a recognition of the stresses of such relationships as much as people thinking marriage limits storytelling.
Agreed, I think the ties are far more related to the story limits than actual stresses.
I'm pretty sure Thomas and Martha Wayne will always remain married.
And dead.
Right along with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. And Ma and Pa Kent.
So the moral of the story is, if you get married, you die. Interesting….
If you're a happy married parental couple, yup. "Prepare to be fridged."