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 ...
#6.
Spider-Man AKA Peter Parker
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.
#5.
The Incredible Hulk, AKA Bruce Banner
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 ...
#4.
Cyclops, AKA Scott Summers
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."
Fuckbunkies.
ReplyI think Scott Summers deserves to be number 1 on the list if you consider how he treated his first wife Madelyn Pryor. He only married her because she looked like jean who was suppose to be dead at the time, had a son with her, then totally deserted her when Jean returned. He is the whole reason Madelyn went nuts and Inferno happened at all.
ReplyHawkeye is not a B-lister. He was in the first ten AVENGERS. With a bow and some fancy arrows he was able to go toe to toe with Iron-man. Read the old Thunderbolts with him in them and tell me he isn't a badass.
ReplySeriously, Sue Storm's got problems. Fuckin' Namor has been after her for years, and she stays with Mr. Shoot Our Son's Brain Out.
ReplyWhen you think everyone is better than you thats a superiority complex. Inferiority is when you think you are a god and everyone else is an ant. Mortal.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesPlease tell me you are a troll...
@Victoria_Gayle don't worry, I think that was posted on opposite day.
Stupid people are stupid.
how could you include Scott Summers and not mention his other wife? The one he married, had kids with, and then abandoned when he learned that Jean was still alive?
ReplyI was going to bring up the same thing!
And this is why I like manga better, you don't a bunch of different artists changing the characters personalities and such.
ReplyNot to say there isn't a ton of manga that's freaking messed up, but the good ones are consistent, and usually end when the original author wants them too (if producers don't meddle) or the author dies.
And they're a heck of a lot easier to collect than some 45-page, pencil-thin, flimsy pieces of colored paper.
"Now mrs. storm, did he hit you with an open hand, or a closed hand? With an open hand, or a closed hand? It's ok mrs. storm, you can tell us, he can't hurt you. He would probably almost have to have super powers to get to you here..."
ReplyI don't think the above gentlemen are doing any services for their avid young, confused readers who supposedly already have enough trouble with women.
Okay I still think Hank Pym is worse than Reed Richards, who also is a dick. But the clincher for me would be that most of your references for Reed are from ye olden days when apparently that was the viewpoint of most men regarding wives. He's a terrible husband because apparently everyone was back then.
ReplyThough... you want to see a great dick Reed Richards go watch The Venture Bros. Professor Impossible takes all the jokes you made about Reed and makes them hilarious.
"takes all the jokes you made about Reed and makes them hilarious."
Was that an intentional diss, or an accidental one?
Well, they had Stephen Colbert doing it...
A little thing they forgot to mention..the psychotic robot that wants to kill all humanity, Ultron, that they picture there in the #2 Henry Pym. Yeah...Ultrons brain is a scan of Henry's so the mind that goes on a Galaxy wide killing spree and is always trying to kill the Avengers is that of founding member Antman himself!
Replyanother thing on Reed, in an alternate universe, when zombie superheroes are popping up, and there's only one safe haven, and Nick Fury has told all the geniuses left to find a way to stop the zombies, Reed goes like "Hey, these zombies are the next step in evolution, I'm gonna infect my teammates with the zombie infection, have them infect me, and then we'll go infect everyone whose not a zombie on the only safe haven left on the planet!" Is he a dick? Yes.
ReplyI don't think alternate universe's are fair game. I mean, I'm pretty sure there's an alternate universe where Superman is a Nazi.
Superman is a nazi in all universes or at least a dick.
Mary Jane gave up the marriage, not Spider-Man. Not that the whole thing wasn't stupid, just to point out Spider-Man didn't want to give up his marriage.
ReplyAlso, Invisible Woman was made into a supervillain by the Psycho-Man when the slap happened.
So are you actually JoeQ or just one of his apologists, because anyone who calls themsleves a fan of Spiderman knows that story was set up because JoeQ (who had said he wouldn't 'magically' retcon Peter Parker's unmasking) decided to use magic to retcon PP's unmasking and destroy his marriage (because it 'aged him') all at once. Oh and kill his unborn child, let's not forget that.
in all fairness to Pym, he was crazy and suffering from multiple personality disorder, and several other mental illnesses.
ReplyAlso Jan wasn't an angle herself, taking advantage of Hank's fragile mental state to marry him and then openly flirt with other men.
and when Pym got the boot, what does she do?
take his place as the leader of the avengers.
Pym is pretty much the Marvel universe's punching bag for something he did while in the troughs of insanity.
haha thats proof right there, you can beat women all you want so long as your c**k actually drags the floor they will come back for more lol
ReplyYou are an incalculably horrible person.
One More Day sucked, but oh my God that line from Mephisto is so amazing. "I want your love"? I keep expecting him to continue, "Love, love, love I want your love!" while little demons dance around in white body suits.
ReplySO MUCH NERD RAGE
ReplyOh god I can't believe I read the whole of this. God. Note: Most of these examples are because of one man: Joe Quesada. The former EIC of Marvel, who apparantly hates marriage. The characters themselves aren't to be blamed when you remember that all these examples were just a single example that only happened once and in most stories before and after were much more likable.
ReplyAs for the Cyclops/Maddy incidient, it wasn't as cut and dry as people seem to remember. He didn't leave his wife and son, he went to see if Jean was really back to life, and while there she and his old friends convinced him to stay. He did try to go back to her, but since their marriage was on the rocks before she had assumed by the length he'd been gone that he'd left her, and as such left the home and took her son with him. He came back, found the house empty, had no idea where she was, tried to find out, failed, gave up, THEN persued a relationship with Jean. He didn't pay child support because he had no idea where they were. It was, for lack of a better description, a misunderstanding that ruined his reputation. That was how it originally went, but that combined with later writers screwing up Cyclops, along with many already hating him for not being Wolverine, and as such many just read 'he was married and then left, he had an affair (Again, people are ignoring why it started, he just got possessed by a complete monster and was heavily traumatized, and Emma offered psychotherapy that allowed her to have mind sex with him. He didn't seek out an affair, Emma took advantage of him. Had it been a guy persuing a psychic affair with a traumatized girl who's married, most would see it as essentially rape), he must be a dick'. He isn't, just been terribly mishandled by bad writers.
Ok, I may be a bit of a defensive about that, but I hate how people are always writing him off as a dick for things that aren't fair.
Well, that was well-reasoned. I do agree with you - however, and no-one seems to have got this point, without conflict there is no story. Conflict between members of groups is often the most interesting medium of conflict ( though it can be overdone - the bickering buddies syndrome).
Sure, Covertwalrus, but you can get conflict without always backhanding, (attempted) raping, killing, fake killing, etc the token female members of your cast. Yes they're a bit better at it than they used to be in the earlier comics, but as a female comic fan ... they're not that much better.
You are wrong about Cyclops. The most dickish thing he did was when he abandoned his first wife and son with out as much as a good bye. He was married to Madelyne Pryor and had a son with her. When his old girlfriend Jean came back form the dead he just up and left his wife and newborn son. She did not even know what happened to him.
ReplySo yeah Cyclops is a terrible excuse for a husband and a deadbeat dad who won’t even pay child support.
What?! f**k you Mr Fantastic...
ReplyHank Pym-
Reply"Respect my pimp hand!"