Until death...or continuity reboot...do them part...

Rumor has it that the marriage between Peter (Spider-Man) Parker and Mary Jane Watson-Parker is about to come to an end (someway, somehow, it’s comic books they can do whatever they want to get to where they want to be.) If true, I think it’s too bad.

Spider-Man has never been my favorite character…I like him well enough but I don’t follow his solo titles on a regular basis (in fact, I rather prefer him in guest-star, team-up, and team member roles…I think him being an Avenger is extremely cool)…but I was pleased when he and Mary Jane got hitched (yep, ol’ Pete really hit the jackpot there :-) and I think the marriage…through all of its ups and downs…has made the character stronger and more interesting.

It’s been argued by some…including Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada…that the essence of Spider-Man is that he’s a sadsack loser despite the fact he has cool super-powers and a classic costume…that having a happy marriage to a gorgeous redhead (who is an actress and model to boot) is not what his life was supposed to be. I think that’s silly. The idea that the character should be in the same emotional place now that he was in 40+ years ago when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him seems absurd to me.

But then I’ve grown up with super-hero comics…I was 9 years old when I got into them seriously…and now that I’m into my 5^th decade I have no problem with characters growing up, growing older, getting married, having kids, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But as someone (I believe it’s attributed to Jim Shooter) once said, super-hero comics from the big 2 are not about change but rather the illusion of change so that they’re always welcoming to new readers (every comic could be somebody’s first comic after all.) I guess that would still make sense if there were hordes of kids taking up the hobby but that just isn’t the case. The audience, for better or worse, is largely adult and (hopefully) able to cope with the fact that characters age and grow…albeit VERY slowly.

Most super-hero marriages come a cropper sooner or later: Aquaman and Mera, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, the Sub-Mariner and Dorma, the Sub-Mariner and Marrina, the Atom and Jean Loring, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Donna Troy and Terry Long, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl (pre-Crisis), the Human Torch and Lyja, and on and on. Through death, continuity reboots, or just plain “irreconcilable differences”, the dissolution rate among super-hero couples is much higher than it is out here in the real world.

Ralph and Sue Dibny, maybe my favorite super-hero couple ever, were ripped asunder in as ugly a way as possible (with having it revealed that Sue was raped by a super-villain in the past and then killed and incinerated by an insane Jean Loring and later Ralph sacrificing himself to contain a demon) and then reunited in the afterlife as ghosts (again, it’s super-hero comics so I guess that qualifies as a happy ending.)

Granted some marriages do endure…that of the Fantastic Four’s Reed and Sue being one that has survived through good times and bad (and hey, their kids are still alive…super-hero offspring don’t usually fare any better than super-hero marriages) with Clark Kent and Lois Lane as another couple that make each other stronger…but they are few and far between.

The Black Panther and Storm were recently married and they seem happy together (at least until some writer comes along and decides that Storm should be back with the X-Men full time) and the union of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones (hey give that kid a name already!) has been interesting and fun so far. Green Arrow and Black Canary are supposedly about to get married but, if it happens, that doesn’t seem like a match that will stand the test of time…though I’m willing to be proved wrong.

Maybe there’s a shift in the way comic book creators think of married super-heroes. But I rather doubt it.

And Pete? MJ? Hey, it’s been real, kids…good luck getting back into the dating pool.