The 6 Worst Comic Book Super-Husbands

It's a tough life for female comic book characters. If you aren't being killed off/raped/depowered/kidnapped to motivate your gormless love interest, you're being fitted for your back brace in order to balance your hilariously over=sized super-boobs.

But to make things worse, the potential mates out there among the superheroes will probably convince you you're better off alone. Such as ...

Married To:

Mary Jane Watson

Good Qualities:

Spider-Man has a certain Hugh Grant-esque bumbling sweetness about him, and legs that go on for miles.

Warning Signs:

Spider-Man's a wisecracker. Everyone knows that, it's one of his defining character traits. However, audiences only have to tolerate Spider-Man's lip for 28 pages every couple of weeks, or a couple hours every few years. Imagine trying to live with the guy. Imagine trying to have sex with the guy:

"So I guess that's where I left that web-shooter!"

On top of that, he's a terrible provider. Costumed vigilantism gets you tons of headlines and the adoration of millions but the pay amounts to all the spare change he can salvage from window ledges and pigeons' nests. The good news? That's still more than your average freelance photographer pulls in.

The Clincher:

Spider-Man sold his marriage to Satan. Just read that sentence over a couple more times, let it marinate. Done? OK, allow us to explain:

Spider-Man, in one of his trademark haphazard attempts at doing the right thing, unmasked himself on national television. This led to the Kingpin putting a hit on the wall-crawler, and Aunt May eating the sniper round intended for her dimwitted nephew. With his former caregiver in a deteriorating coma, Spider-Man's angst began approaching critical levels, attracting the attention of the demon Mephisto.

Mephisto, feeling generous, proposed a deal to Spidey: Aunt May would be returned to full health, bullet-free, but in return ...

... he would have to give up his marriage to Mary Jane. For some reason.

Spidey hemmed and hawed for a while, but eventually came to the logical decision: Abandon countless future years of happiness with the woman he loves in exchange for giving his octogenarian aunt a chance to die of heart failure or something.

The marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson could be likened to a Toyota Prius with faulty brakes: Comfortable and reliable under most circumstances, but destined to eventually flatten itself against a brick wall. And ultimately, not worth it.

Married To:

The alien warrior queen Caiera.

Good Qualities:

Say what you like about the Hulk, but he's reliable (to be fucking insane with rage.) Great teeth, too.

Warning Signs:

Aside from the obvious (that he may flip out, grow six feet, and demolish an entire city block because it was suggested they're getting a little paunchy) there's anatomical compatibility to think of. Bruce Banner may have the tiniest, most adorable member imaginable, but once he Hulks out, that thing becomes weaponized.

"Weaponized" is actually a literal description. Every single fluid the Hulk produces is so radioactive that a Hazmat team would rush into the bedroom every time he climaxes.

The Clincher:

The Hulk is cursed. A happy Hulk is not a Hulk at all, so in the comic book universe that means bye-bye to anything that might bring him peace (like, say, a happy relationship.) This is bad news for anyone hoping to settle down, maybe buy a house in the suburbs, and pump out little Hulks.

Case in point: When the Hulk took his second wife, Caiera (yes, he's been married twice) it was on a planet he'd recently liberated from a despotic overlord and saved from an alien menace. She was a proud warrior queen, making her capable not only of withstanding Hulk's temper tantrums, but also his immense mojo.

So, the Hulk basically became king of an entire planet, married to his perfect woman and is surrounded by people who love him to pieces. What happens?

A massive explosion kills everyone except Hulk. Insert trumpet going "Wah-Wah-Wah-Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

To be fair to Hulk, we don't really know how good of a husband he would be long-term, due to the incredibly short lifespan of his wives. And though it's probably not much consolation to them, nothing that happened to either of his wives was his direct fault.

The same cannot be said for the next guy on our list ...

Married To:

Jean Grey, AKA Phoenix

Good Qualities:

We won't lie, Cyclops seems to have the whole package: He's polite, clean-cut, great with kids, and ridiculously muscular. That's like winning the husband lottery, right?

Warning Signs:

Wrong. While Cyke might be the go-to guy for fighting colossal robots, you've got the wrong man if you're looking for someone to have a good time with. Summers is a little like the Hulk, only instead of transforming into a rampaging monster, he turns into sort of a dick. And never changes back.

He's the only man alive who can make beating the tar out of a gang of genetic freaks feel like work.

The Clincher:

The worst thing Cyclops ever did to his wife might not be the most heinous on this list, but it is without a doubt the dumbest. See, Cyclops was married to Jean Grey who, by the way, had psychic powers. When some of the spark went out of the relationship, Cyclops dealt with according to the true nature of his dickishness: by seeking sexual healing from another telepathic babe, Emma Frost.

Ms. Frost In Her Ongoing Campaign Against Subtlety

Thus they being a bizarre "psychic love affair." After all, how would Jean ever find out? Oh, wait. She's also psychic. To reiterate: Scott Summers, while married to a psychic of inestimable power, enters into a psychic affair with the sluttiest psychic in town.

Once Jean catches on, it predictably takes her about a thousandth of a second to tear into Emma's mind and break up the shenanigans, leading to this charming tableau:

Look at Cyclops' face in the above picture. It betrays one of two things: Either he's only just realized what a titanically poor decision he's just made, or he's still in the dark and is completely fucking flabbergasted. "What's wrong, honey? Why are you so angry? Oh, say hi to Emma, you know Emma, right?"

Meanwhile, in the back of his mind he's thinking, "Threesome."