Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading in Comic Books.
- The fan community of the Marvel Universe has long had rumblings of accusations that twins Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were more than a little too close to be "just" siblings. This becomes canon in The Ultimates.
- Iron Man and Captain America have a tendency to go on about each others' eyes, risk life and limb for each other, do "buddy breathing", and that's not even touching on the time Cap rescued Tony from a burning building and the cover made it look like a romance novel, or Tony's speech to Steve's dead body in Civil War: Confessions. In an Alternate Continuity, Captain America married a female version of Tony Stark. Not only that, but Civil War never happened because they were together, and the world was actually a better place with their combined awesome.
- X-Men characters Juggernaut and Black Tom practically lived in Ho Yay territory. Their concern for each other was unusual for villains and went beyond concern for a friend. Cain was so frantic when Tom's powers went haywire that he went to the X-Men for help, and Wolverine even called him out for caring more about his "boyfriend" than his own stepbrother. When he slept with She-Hulk (later Retconned into an alternate Jennifer), the way he said "Sometimes women are just plain better" sounded like he actually tried both.
- Batman and Superman aren't as prolific, but they have their fair share of Fumbling. There is an Elseworlds set in medieval-ish Japan where "Superman" made out with a female "Batman".
- Lenore and Ragamuffin from Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl. Ragamuffin is portrayed as a monster at first, a vampire who massacres and eats people alive. He also wants to kill Lenore in the very first episode in which he appears, even though he doesn't succeed because he's trapped in a rag doll. In the later volumes, he cares for her so much that he becomes overprotective and focused only on defending her when she gets in reckless situations. Even when he returns to his old vampire self, he remains by her side and puts himself in danger for her.
- Venom, or more specifically, Eddie Brock and the Venom symbiote. While at face value nothing about them seems like anything hints at romance, especially with other adaptations where the symbiote is usually portrayed as a feral parasite, these two have a lot of moments where one could assume that their bond is romantic, to start, the symbiote had a long history of wanting to be with Spider-man and Eddie's first encounter with the symbiote was on a church of all places, they eventually start developing a very close bond to the point one could even die for the other and don't like to be apart, and on top of that, Eddie is usually bare naked under the symbiote. Its unknow if Venom's creator Davi Michelinie intended it to be romantic, but in Venom's second arc, there's a psychologist that describes the symbiote's feelings for Peter as similar to romantic and Peter tries to convince it into leaving Eddie by undressing himself. And this doesn't stop, by now, plenty of other writers not only have hinted it as being romantic but state it, having Eddie describe his bond with the symbiote as something beyond marriage or the symbiote describing their first bonding in the church to be similar marriage. Even writers who want to write their bond as toxic still keep the romantic overtones in some way or form.
- A-Force managed to do this twice. During the Secret Wars (2015) miniseries, Lady Loki and America Chavez's relationship came off as way too friendly to pass for a mother-daughter relationship, and in the ANAD continuity, Singularity is supposed to come off as a little-sister figure to Nico, but was so chummy that one letter asked if they were going to become an official couple.
- Archie Comics: Betty and Jughead have never been depicted as a couple or implied to have feelings towards each other, with most fans even interpreting Jughead as being gay or asexual. However, it's very easy for readers to pin them as a Beta Couple to Archie/Veronica, and they've been shown to be close friends in many issues and different series. For example, Life With Archie: The Married Life has Betty state that the person she missed most in Riverdale was Jughead. As Ascended Fanon, the live-action adaptation Riverdale pairs them up.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): Dr Starline idolizes Dr Eggman, forgoing sleep just to find Mr Tinker and restore him to his former glory (i.e Dr Eggman). When he succeeds, he happily helps his idol to create a Zombie Apocalypse only to go behind his back to summon The Deadly Six to control the Metal Virus. After getting fired for effectively making everything far worse, he takes it badly with reaction to Eggman giving him the boot is often compared to that of a jilted lover. In Bad Guys, Zavok even tells Starline that he doesn't need everyone with Starline acting as though Dr Eggman broke up with him. Imposter Syndrome shows that his plans are heavily inspired by his idol and that he acts as though Eggman rejected him and that Metal Sonic is the third wheel in their "relationship" and has a relapse after finding out that Dr Eggman kept the action figure of him. Issue 50 takes this to it's logical conclusion with Dr Starline's dialogue reading like a Stalker with a Crush pleading with and trying to please their crush, with Dr Eggman rejecting him completely and calling him clingily. If anything, Dr Starline is one of the biggest examples of Ho Yay in the entire comic and his entire character arc is basically a limerent obsession that very much ends in his death.
