Why aren't more characters married?

[Chris0013]

Reed and Sue have been going strong for decades. And Rogue and Gambit recently tied the not...adn time will tell if it lasts...but why are more not married.

Peter and MJ had a good run...but way I hear it...as soon as they tied the knot Marvel kept trying to find a way to end it.

Kitty and Piotr have been on and off for decades...and I have no doubt that in a few years time they will be back on again....which is really pathetic for Piotr considering the way Kitty done did him.

Hank and Janet...even after Hank's abuse kept hooking back up.

Marriage is a natural part of life...why are there not more married super heroes???

[Snoop Dogg]

because when many different people are working on characters they're going to have different opinions on relationships and stuff, so naturally characters wouldn't be too tied together very often, and that won't stop people who want to break them up anyway

[Materiel]

There's a scene in the movie Heat where Al Pacino's character is talking to Robert DeNiro's character and they eventually start to talk about their personal lives. Pacino's character is in a failing marriage and DeNiro's character exercises a discipline that doesn't permit him to maintain relationships. They can't do their jobs and maintain a healthy relationship. The Super Hero life isn't conducive to marriage. Their lives aren't natural lives in the sense that they wake up, go to work, pick up the kids and come home. They're on call all the time. How do you do Mother's Day, for instance, when someone's trying to rob a bank or trying to steal a chemical weapon from a bunker?

[Personamanx]

It's as simple as many creators feeling as though the dynamics of a married couple are uninteresting and/or limiting to the stories that they wish to tell with certain characters. It isn't right, and it isn't wrong, it's just how some people wish to work with ageless characters.

[Chris0013]

There's a scene in the movie Heat where Al Pacino's character is talking to Robert DeNiro's character and they eventually start to talk about their personal lives. Pacino's character is in a failing marriage and DeNiro's character exercises a discipline that doesn't permit him to maintain relationships. They can't do their jobs and maintain a healthy relationship. The Super Hero life isn't conducive to marriage. Their lives aren't natural lives in the sense that they wake up, go to work, pick up the kids and come home. They're on call all the time. How do you do Mother's Day, for instance, when someone's trying to rob a bank or trying to steal a chemical weapon from a bunker?

That is kind of a cop out...Police, Firefighters, EMS, Medical Professionals...they all make it work. If you are Spider-Man running out on patrol you dial it back to make time for family. Teams like the FF and Avengers...Like I said...Reed and Sue make it work. Ben and Alicia just got married. There is a little more stability in those situations.

[Snoop Dogg]

i just woke up are tony and janet married yet

[Inversed]

Ultimately its because they feel having two characters tie the knot becomes too defining as an "end point" and then could become "limiting" to other writers who may not know or want to work around the relationship. Also considering comic books are essentially soap operas, a BIG part of that is supporting shipping among writers and fanbase, and the emphasis on teasing pairings rather than going through with it in a meaningful way.

Reed and Sue remaining married for all this time is almost certainly due to them all being on the team, so they're going to be together no matter what, or Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, because they're relatively niche characters and can intersect or stand alone between each other much more easily.

[Materiel]

That is kind of a cop out...Police, Firefighters, EMS, Medical Professionals...they all make it work. If you are Spider-Man running out on patrol you dial it back to make time for family. Teams like the FF and Avengers...Like I said...Reed and Sue make it work. Ben and Alicia just got married. There is a little more stability in those situations.

Reed and Sue are in it together. I think they're very special in terms of comic relationships. Our first responders/military deal with some impossible situations, but none of them have a rogue's gallery trying to kill them and unfortunately not all of those marriages survive. That's a fair point, though.

[Grapeweasel]

I blame Quesada.

[Jekyll]

Lazy writing.

[Sutekh]

Lazy writing.

To some extent, and yet it does change the writing needs for a superhero to be married to a non-superhero, because now you have two stories, not just one. The heroes daily struggles, and their spouses, and the need to occasionally jam them together, hopefully not too artificially, so that they can share some of the action of the story, despite having very different lives. Too often, this turns into 'my spouse, the hostage of the week, who somehow got themselves into the thick of it again, and I have to save them, again...' (Whether that other person be Lois Lane or Kyle Jinadu, the only way they get dragged into the adventures of their super-spouse is as a damsel in distress, too often.)

It's easier to write couples who share the action of the story, like Reed and Sue, or Luke and Jessica.

There's also the notion that being married makes a character unrelatable to the fans, but that's hogwash, IMO, since anybody who finds Thor or Tony Stark or Namor 'relatable' has clearly had a very different childhood than my own. I can relate to married people, even 'though I am not one, because at least I've met some. Less so, Asgardians and Atlanteans and billionaire industrialists.

[whiterabbit]

Because marriage ends the cat and mouse relationship game and any possibility of seeing them with someone else without someone looking bad. It's supposed to be final and for the rest of your life. The moment you marry two people it ends the love drama and possible other stories that can be told, and future writers have to adapt to that change.

- Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor was a huge mistake as future writers wanted him back as an X-Men member with Jean Grey. To make matters worse, he had a baby with Madelyne. How do you fix it? Goblin Queen and Mr. Sinister.

- Black Panther and Storm was just stupid and how did they fix it? Black Panther had to annul their wedding.

- Spider-man and MJ. The devil.

- Jane Foster was married to Keith and had a son, but Thor returns and she divorces Keith and loses custody of her son. How do they make her more sympathetic? Kill her ex-husband and son.

- They tried the whole Green Arrow and Black Canary marriage and it just didn't work for everyone. DC aborted before Batman and Catwoman could try their hand.

[PCN24454]

Part of it comes from how the casts work. Reed and Sue are both explicitly Fantastic Four characters, and Spider-Man and MJ are explicitly Spider-Man characters. Ships from crossover books like the Avengers often fail because they often come from two different casts making it hard for the couple to stay exclusive to each other.

[AdamFTF]

Well, part of it is how media tends to view marriages and romantic relationships in general. Ever notice how most love stories are based around "the chase" rather than what comes after it? People treat marriage like an end point. A "happy ending". As if once characters marry all the conflict and story potential ends. And if a marriage does have conflict in it, people act like it's a bad marriage or should end. Basically, writers and the media in general have to change their view of marriage.

[theoneandonly]

wonder how many supporting characters are currently married? most of them are divorced like Jane foster and Keith before her becoming the star of the book, Pepper and Happy, Rick and Marlo,Harry and Liz, Foggy and Debbie and so on.