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

[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]

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?

[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

[Digifiend]

i just woke up are tony and janet married yet

I doubt that relationship will survive Slott leaving the book. It has at least finally been acknowledged in another series, as Viv and Nadia discussed it in last week's Unstoppable Wasp. Viv was explaining everyone's relationships to Nadia, and when it came to Tony Stark, him dating Janet was mentioned. Since Janet is Nadia's step-mother and adoptive mother, she of course already knew.

[leokearon]

i just woke up are tony and janet married yet

I think Wanda and Jericho are first

[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.

[davew128]

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.

I disagree with this comparison. First line responder professions don't face the things on a day to day basis where a strong probability of live and death exists. Its certainly more than a normal civilian life, not like a superhero. The closest comparison to super hero life in this regard would be active duty military in a combat zone.

[Daniel22]

I think there are a lot of reasons. One I haven't seen mentioned yet is the wish fulfillment power fantasy escapism of many Marvel comics. Many of the characters are gorgeous, hot beyond belief, smart, skilled, worshiped (sometimes literally) often rich... I mean even the "everyman" of the MU sleeps with supermodels and bombshells. If you're escaping into that character, I've gotta think you're imagining who you'll sleep with and in what order and combination, not who you'll agree to give half your stuff and wash their dishes every other day.

[DrNewGod]

I think there are a lot of reasons. One I haven't seen mentioned yet is the wish fulfillment power fantasy escapism of many Marvel comics. Many of the characters are gorgeous, hot beyond belief, smart, skilled, worshiped (sometimes literally) often rich... I mean even the "everyman" of the MU sleeps with supermodels and bombshells. If you're escaping into that character, I've gotta think you're imagining who you'll sleep with and in what order and combination, not who you'll agree to give half your stuff and wash their dishes every other day.

You depress me with your accuracy.