Launcher Of A Thousand Ships / Comic Books

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• Archie Comics:
  • Archie himself is obvious. In canon, he practically has his own harem and has had many love interests over the years. In non-canon territory he gets shipped with Jughead and Reggie pretty often.
  • Jughead is well-known for disliking girls but that doesn't stop him from being shipped with Veronica, Betty, Ethel, and various minor girls. Then there are the people who consider him Ambiguously Gay and ship him with Archie, Reggie, or Kevin.
• A common joke about Avengers Academy fans is that Mettle is a natural Chick Magnet for teenage Asian girls, leading to him being paired with his canonical girlfriend Hazmat, Armor, Surge, Nico Minoru or all four at the same time.
• Black Widow: The Black Widow is the female version of this in Marvel comics. Her relationships include Iron Man, Hawkeye, Daredevil, Hercules, Bucky Barnes, an attempt by the writers to set her up with Deadpool(?!), and arguably Nick Fury. Even her late husband (she's a widow, get it?), the Red Guardian, was a superhero. Yes, Natasha goes with everything.
  • Called out in one of the early issues of her recent solo series, where Captain America, Iron Man, and at least one other are protesting her innocence to a higher-up, who concludes his devastating rebuttal about her super-spy skills with "Case in point. . . is there any one of you she hasn't slept with?" Cue three very guilty looks.
• Daken, Wolverine's son and member of the Dark Avengers, is starting to become this, mostly just being paired with male characters though. But then again he's a Depraved Bisexual whose powers include super-healing and what amounts to sex-pollen. Common pairings include every member of the Dark Avengers (Bullseye and Mac/Venom in particular), his father Wolverine, Northstar, Deadpool, Anole, Wiccan and Hulkling.
• Batman:
  • It's a running gag in The DCU that virtually every female that comes in contact with Nightwing falls in love with him. And that's not even getting into the Foe Yay Shipping...
    • Known exceptions: Dr. Leslie Tompkins (Old enough to be his grandmother) and Batwoman (lesbian)... and that's about it. Every female who's legal and is remotely in his age range appears to be fair game, whether they're canon love interests (Barbara, Helena, Kory), someone who had a crush on him (Power Girl, Supergirl, Raven, etc.), or exist in a different medium altogether. Donna Troy rarely gets shipped with him — fans enjoy their friendship too much — but Donna/Dick has its fans. Even characters that are usually considered to be contemporaries of Bruce and not Dick have been shipped with Dick — examples include Dinah Lance, who once said that Dick was even more handsome than Bruce, and Zatanna Zatara, who was paired with him in Young Justice.
    • Dick's "bicycliness" doesn't stop with the females he meets, at least in the fandom. Popular Slash Fic pairings fix him up with Bruce, Roy, Wally, Tim, Jason, Terry...
  • Bruce. Look at how many love interests he's had in the course of Batman History! Plus how many women have kissed him! Even non-love interests have kissed him, like Harley Quinn! If you think about it, comic book love interests, villainesses, movie love interests, TV show love interests, animated DCU love interests... that's just the TIP of the iceberg! Plus slash pairings! IN ALL INCARNATIONS!
  • Tim Drake! He stays mostly to the batfamily side of things, but popular ships include: Dick/Tim, Jason/Tim, Bruce/Tim, Damian/Tim, Kon/Tim, Bart/Tim, Kon/Bart/Tim, Steph/Tim, Tim/Tam, Cassie/Tim, Cass/Tim, Ra's/Tim and Tim/Bernard. Canonically, he is a gorgeous woman as Caroline Hill (one of his many undercover disguises), and there are several fics pairing other characters with "her." It also helps that Marcus To's drawings of Tim brought him into the ranks of a Pretty Boy with pretty hair.
  • And then the New 52 went and added Miguel/Tim, Harper/Tim & Cullen/Tim.
  • When she's not paired with Dick, Barbara Gordon gets a lot of action from other superheroines, mostly from her Birds of Prey team, or Batgirl proteges, and sometimes Dick's own love interests. It doesn't help that Gail Simone intentionally writes in plenty of Les Yay in her runs.
  • Even Damian, who is the Jerk with a Heart of Gold and only ten or thirteen years old (depending on the continuity), has been shipped with nearly everyone in (and out) of his age group and both genders. Between Colin Wilkes, Jon Kent, Irey West, Maya Ducard and Maps Mizoguchi, he has a lot of shipping partners for someone his age.
    • Just about every member of the Bat-Family, sans Alfred, falls victim of this. Oftentimes they're paired with each other.
• Deadpool: While not getting much love in-universe, Deadpool fans seem to think he has chemistry with almost anyone who tolerates him for more than 5 minutes. Popular ships include Cable, Weasel, Bob, Domino, Black Widow, Spider-Man, Bullseye, and Captain America.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Donald Duck. Aside from Daisy, we have Donna Duck (once the prototype for Daisy, later established as a separate character), Reginella, Xadhoom, Lila Lay, Kay K, multiple one-shot characters... And those are the ones with canon Ship Tease. It got so bad that Disney found it necessary to torpedo any ship except Donald x Daisy... And it still doesn't work, as proven by Reginella repeatedly coming back due to fan demand even if she's supposed to be out of reach on another planet.
• Ghost Rider: Looks like new Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes is a good way to becoming this, considering people started pairing him with at least three people (Kamala Khan, Nico Minoru and Water Snake) before the first issue of his series even came out. After his first issue, he got paired with X-23, Agent Venom's sidekick Mania, the Hulk's daughter Lyra, and Jason Todd (who isn't even in the same universe).
• Harley Quinn: In the Batman fandom, Harley Quinn gets paired with lots of different guys plus Ivy. Which is ironic since in canon she's shown to have Single-Target Sexuality for The Joker and some subtext with Ivy. Harley has also had her moments with Batman himself on occasion (see above for all the ships he's launched), at one point kissing him on the lips for being nice to her. Also, as of The New 52's Suicide Squad, is frequently ship teased with Deadshot.
• Hawkeye: Clint Barton is largely considered the Marvel character who can be with any single other superheroine in the Marvel Universe and it not to come off strange. His current tally includes the first Ronin (Maya Lopez), The Black Widow, Mockingbird, Moonstone, the Scarlet Witch, and The Wasp. Currently in an "it's complicated" relationship with Spider-Woman.
• Iron Man: Who hasn't Tony Stark been paired up with? Depending on how you count it, no one. There's even one fanfic out there pairing him with Hal Emmerich!
• Kamala Khan is no slouch, either. She's been paired with her friend Bruno, her other friend Nakia, the aforementioned Robbie Reyes, Sam Alexander, Miles Morales, Peter Parker, Wolverine, her mentor the original Ms. Marvel, Loki: Agent of Asgard, and Gwenpool.
  • Kamala and Loki are often "friendshipped" platonically, perhaps because they're both geeky, web-savvy, and canonically fanfic writers, but actual romance would be squicky since Kamala's only 16 (and Loki's a reincarnation of an ancient god with a very dark past).
• Back in New X-Men Prodigy had only been shipped with his canonical Love Interest, Surge, and possibly with Wallflower. Since he joined Young Avengers, however, he has also been paired up with Speed, Hulkling, Miss America, Kate Bishop, Loki and Transonic.
  • Since his Plot-Relevant Age-Up Loki themself gets shipped with pretty much every single member of the team. And since their solo title everybody in that too, including an alternate version of themself, not to mention the people they never met but are still shipped with like Kamala Khan.
    • The writers seem to be aware of this because since then Loki and Kamala have met in a Crossover that was set at a High-School Dance no less.
    • As with Mystique above, being a bisexual shapeshifter with both male and female forms who's usually been a villain but also been a hero helps. The logical conclusion to this would be pairing Loki/Mystique...
• She-Hulk: She-Hulk, due taking to pride in her sexuality and promiscuity, has been shipped with pretty every unmarried male hero (and villain) in the MU. Her canon love interests include Daniel "Zapper" Ridge, Eros, Wyatt Wingfoot, John Jameson III, Clay Quartermain, Iron Man, Hercules, Juggernaut (though it got retconned) and more recently Thor. Shulkie has also flirted with Spider-Man, Johnny Storm, Wolverine, Captain America and even kissed Ben Grimm aka The Thing. Some even goes as far to ship She-Hulk with her own cousin Hulk which unfortunately in Squick fuel did become canon in the Old Man Logan universe. She-Hulk also plenty of Les Yay ships such with ladies such The Wasp, Skrull Jazinda and Thundra.
• You wouldn't think so, but a large number of Sin City Fan Fics are either slash fics or involve Shipping amongst the cast. This often involves the female characters.
• Princess Sally from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) can be either type. IN CANON, no less.
• Spider-Man: Spider-Man is this to an extreme extent — not only is he paired with almost every woman in the Marvel Universe, including Mary Jane, Betty Brant, Black Cat, Gwen Stacy, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Black Widow, Silver Sable, Sue Richards, The Wasp, Spider-Woman and X-23, but also dozens of guys, including Captain America, Johnny Storm, Wolverine, Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, all incarnations of Venom and the symbiote itself, his own clones, Iron Man, Green Goblin, Loki, Doctor Octopus, Daredevil and, as mentioned above, Deadpool. And that's only the most popular ones.
  • The Black Cat herself is no slouch. Besides the long list of paramours she's had in canon ^note Peter, Flash, the Foreigner, Puma, Odessa, the Human Torch and Tamara, it's quite common for fans to pair her with MJ, Silk, Gwen Stacy, Silver Sable and even Eddie Brock. And that's just the Spider-Man adjacent characters.
• Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman is also considered to be a Launcher of a Thousand Ships for the main heroes of DC comics. It's just that none of the pairings ever stick in canon. They've tried to pair her up with Aquaman, Batman, Superman, and Nemesis. It also helps out shippers that she's been implied to be bisexual since Volume 2 of her self titled book and now has a confirmed past romantic relationship with another woman.
• X-Men:
  • For a long time (and probably to this day) Gambit has fulfilled this role in the fandom, being paired with any and every character out there, regardless of whether he likes them, or whether he's even met them in the first place.
  • Wolverine is considered to be a sexual stud-muffin given that he has been paired with virtually every other character possible in the X-Men in fanfic. The authors sense this too. His canonical love interests have included: Silver Fox, Viper (with a very descriptive honeymoon), Jean Grey (who was strongly implied to have a polyamorous relationship with him and Cyclops during the early part of the Krakoa era, but that seemed to be quietly dropped when Hickman left the title), Mystique, Storm, the Heather Hudson version of Vindicator, the Silver Samurai's sister Mariko Yashida, his string of female sidekicks like Kitty Pryde, Jubilee, and Pixie, and many more.
  • Iceman gets this treatment too, but for a different reason. He's easy to identify with and thus is a good Audience Surrogate, so making him slutty and pairing him with absolutely everyone makes much of the X-Men fandom happy.
  • Mystique, a bisexual shapeshifter who's taken on both male and female forms. She's usually a villain, but has spent time as a hero, so she can be paired with anyone of any Character Alignment, gender, or sexual orientation.
  • Jean Grey gets plenty of this despite being more closely linked to Cyclops and Wolverine, still has plenty of UST with Beast (or at least, their teenage selves did, and dated, but they broke up offscreen with teen Hank resignedly remarking that it always ends up as Scott and Jean), and she was even kissed by Spider-Man. And that's getting into the Les Yay she has with her female teammates most noticeably Storm. There's also Mastermind...
  • Kitty Pryde as well. Often with characters named Peter, because that's a Running Gag in the Marvel Universe. And other times with her mentors.
  • Cyclops while not as much as Logan or Jean, still gets shipped around the X-Men having had moments with Psylocke, a relationship with Emma Frost, and technically Madelyne Pryor Jean's Evil Knock Off. Also the Ho Yay he has with Wolverine and several other male X-Men
  • And if there's a popular male character, you can bet someone's shipped them with Northstar.
  • Storm gets her share as well, on account of attractive character design and copious doses of fetish material, Les Yay... especially when written by Chris Claremont. Ororo is hot enough that both Dracula and Doctor Doom have had a Villainous Crush on her.
  • Rogue much like Storm due being such an iconic and sexy Ms. Fanservice gets shipped all over the Marvel Universe besides the X-Men, she's probably the one of the few characters who can boast about having kissed Gambit, Captain America, Archangel, Wolverine, The Thing, Cyclops, Black Widow, The Juggernaut, Longshot, Colossus, Magneto and Deadpool in her life. Not that anyone would or should be proud of kissing Deadpool or Juggernaut.
  • Psylocke, for her reputation of sleeping around a bit, and for being the one who ran around for most of her existence in her "ninja bathing suit" costume.
  • X-23 has quite a few pairings, starting with normal ones with guys (Hellion, Juston) and girls (Jubilee, Dust, Mercury, Finesse) alike, through a few a bit more insane (Spider-Man, the Hulk), up to downright squicky ones (Daken).
  • Magneto also gets a ton of this, everyone from Professor X who he is Heterosexual Life-Partners with to Rogue and Mystique whom he has had relationships with in the comics and other media.

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