DC Comics
- From Catwoman to Rachel Caspian, even Batman can't seem to hold a stable relationship with any of his love interests and whenever he attempts to get married (as seen in Batman #85), it often ends with negative results. The most obvious answer is that crime-fighting comes first. Catwoman herself even lampshades this in Batman vs. Two-Face in which she admits that Batman's first love will always be fighting crime.
- Batman also lampshades in the 1966 episode "Scat! Darn Catwoman" that "A wife, no matter how beauteous, or affectionate would severely impair my crimefighting." For this, Catwoman gives up, and then accidentally commits suicide by falling into the water.
- For Batman's struggles in Mask of the Phantasm, see Films - Animated below.
- Again in Brightest Day, Deadman gets the same treatment: while he's resurrected too, and starts to appreciate his new stab at life by romancing the overtly cute and lovely superheroine Dove, he gets returned to his undead state, the Entity using his life force to resurrect and empower the new iteration of the Swamp Thing. All the while with Dove still able to hear his disembodied voice, but tearfully aware of their separation.
- The Flash: Wally West and Linda Park. Linda faces the perils of supervillains moreso than any other superhero Love Interest due to Wally discarding the use of a Secret Identity for most of his career. Meanwhile, Wally himself, due to being a Cosmic Plaything and Creator's Pest for someone obsessed with making DC True Art Is Angsty, gets to suffer the most due to the constant reboots. It's revealed that he was Ret-Gone for nearly half a decade because of being trapped in the Speed Force. In DC Rebirth, one of the first people Wally tries to reach out to in order to escape was Linda, but she has no memory of him, completely negating The Power of Love that used to tether him to the physical plane. After many more hardships Wally manages to rescue his and Linda's kids (who were also victims of Ret-Gone) and return them to Linda, allowing her to remember everything, but apparently at the cost of Wally losing his humanity.
- Hawkman
- Hawkman and Hawkgirl. If they acknowledge their love for each other they will be killed by their reincarnating archenemy. Because Destiny Says So.
- In Blackest Night #1, finally Hawkgirl admits that she's fallen in love with Hawkman. Immediately, they are killed and turned into Black Lanterns.
- In Brightest Day instead, while Hawkman and Hawkgirl get briefly resurrected by the Life Entity and freed by their curse, the same Entity turns Hawkgirl into the latest air elemental, barring her from living her last life with Hawkman.
- Superman:
- Krypton No More: Invoked. Superman believes any romance between him and an Earth woman is doomed to failure.
- In Superman's Return to Krypton, Superman goes back in time and gets stranded in Krypton. There, he falls in love with Lyla Lerrol, and since he cannot get himself or anybody out of Krypton before its demise, he decides to get married to her. Nonetheless, he gets blasted into space, gets his powers back, and realizes he cannot return to Lyla again because he needs to go back to his own time because Earth needs him.
- Nightwing and Starfire are often portrayed this way. Even when they were the Official Couple of the 80s New Teen Titans book, one of the most prominent aspects of their relationship (and one of the things that made it so iconic) is that they came from vastly different cultures and upbringings, yet they loved each other enough to make their relationship work.
- Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen (2019): One of Jimmy's ancestors, Jimberly, and one of Lex Luthor's, Hannah, fell in love, despite the decades-old animosity between the family. For a while, the relationship flourished in secret, driven partially by the disdain of their relatives. The relationship ended tragically with Hannah's father shooting her beau in the leg while other relatives held her back. While they married other people, their illegitimate son ended up tying the Olsen and Luthor bloodlines together.
- Wonder Woman: Diana's relationship with Steve Trevor is a non-fatal example, as she cannot commit herself to him until the world is rid of evil.
Marvel Comics
- Another Marvel example is Thena of The Eternals and Kro of the Deviants. Kro is far more powerful than most Deviants, and unlike most of them, seems immortal, like the Eternals are. He and Thena fell in love more than twenty millennia ago, but as their respected races are mortal enemies and would never approve of their relationship, they've been forced to keep it secret. They've actually been more successful than most examples of this Trope, having two children as a result, Donald and Debora Ritter (Thena concealed this from her fellow Eternals by using her own powers to secretly transfer them, as embryos, into an infertile human woman; the twins didn't learn who their true parents were until adulthood.)
- The Incredible Hulk: Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. His uncontrollable transformations into the Hulk have made him a fugitive wanted by the United States military. Not to mention Betty's father, General "Thunderbolt" Ross, harbors an intense hatred of him.
- Spider-Man: Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were forced into this by One More Day. Stan Lee even labels them this in his afterword in the OMD Trade Paperback. Fortunately, they're still very much together in the MC2, Ultimate, and Newspaper Strip continuities, the latter of which continues to this day. Nick Spencer brought them back together in the very first issue of his run on Amazing Spider-Man, following Dan Slott's departure. Fingers crossed...
- The ice goddess Kelda and the mortal fry-cook Bill in the recent Thor series.
- Ultimate Spider-Man: Peter and Mary Jane end up as this, what with the former being Killed Off for Real. It's subverted later on, when it turns out he's not actually dead and they elope together.
- X-23 and the time-displaced Angel. No matter how strong or not their relationship is, it will ultimately end because at some point he must return to his own time. Their final breakup doesn't even occur on panel, and when he does return home they don't even say goodbye.
- Asgardian wolf prince Hrimhari and Rahne Sinclaire of X-Factor. The first time they got together, they had to part when the X-Men left Asgard. When Asgard reappeared on Earth, Hrimhari and Rahne were reunited, only for Hrimhari to give up his own life to save Rahne and their unborn children.
- X-Men:
- Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Often described as destined soulmates who were meant to be yet have been through so much tragedy, including death and destruction.
- Gambit and Rogue have long been one of the cruelest examples. They've been deeply in love for years, but Rogue's inability to touch a person without him falling victim to her powers keeps him forever at arms length. She eventually managed to figure out how to avoid this problem, but that initially made it worse; it started a fight with Gambit, who wondered if their relationship would have been anything more than a "one night stand" if they had been able to touch from the start. She seems to have gained full control of them and reconciled with Gambit following the events of X-Men Legacy.
- Young Avengers: Cassie Lang (Stature) and Nate Richards (Iron Lad) seem destined to be star-crossed lovers, separated by centuries and because Nate's destined to grow up to be the evil supervillain Kang the Conqueror.
Crossovers
- In Marvel Versus DC, Robin and Jubilee were instantly smitten with each other when they met; angst ensued since they were supposed to fight. Knowing the stakes, they agreed to go with through with it and that there'd be no hard feelings, and Robin managed to defeat Jubilee without actually hitting her. From there, they enjoyed their remaining time together before being separated for good.
Other publishers
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Among Donald Duck's various love interests, his relationship with Reginella is this: Reginella loves him, Donald has shown every time he'd marry her in an heartbeat, but she is the queen of an alien planet and her duties toward her people takes precedence on everything, and every time said duty forces her to send him back to Earth. All their encounters end with them forced apart by their responsibilities, culminating in them erasing their memories of each other and breaking the link due the combination of their separation and her psychic powers was making her create potentially apocalyptic floods with her Gray Rain of Depression.
- A Love Like Blood: A male vampire and a female werewolf fall in love when both their races are at war with each other. The woman is killed by vampire and werewolf soldiers while pregnant with their child.
- Ms. Tree: The titular character found herself in that situation when her stepson fell for the daughter of the boss of the Meurita crime family. Subverted, regardless of her opinion of this situation, she considers the matter purely the kids' affair and enjoys seeing the girl's mother's attempt to keep them apart backfire into strengthening their relationship.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW): Princess Celestia and a good version of King Sombra. Separated by different universes due to Celestia's friend Star Swirl realizing that both their kingdoms need their ruler more than they need each other.
- Nikolai Dante: the title character and Jena Makarov end up in this situation because Nikolai is an illegitimate scion of the Romanov family, who eventually go to war with the Makarovs.
- Raptors: During his travels, Drago fell in love with an Indian woman who was enthralled by an immortal sorcerer. He tried to kill the sorcerer (which didn't work) to free her, but was ultimately forced to leave her for good. However, this did result in him fathering a son he didn't know about.
- Requiem and Rebecca in Requiem Vampire Knight. In life, Heinrich was a Nazi and Rebecca was Jewish, and their romance turned destructive when he found this out. After reincarnating in Résurrection, he became a vampire (obviously) and she became a lemure (a tortured spirit bound to Hell until her tormentor is killed). They do resume their relationship again in a healthier fashion, though its not helped that they belong to different factions fighting each other, or that Requiem's mentor, Otto Von Todt, was the guy responsible for her suffering and her murder. Requiem could very well bite her and make her his blood slave, but he wants to release his love interest from this wretched existence.
- Scott Pilgrim: In order to date Ramona, Scott must battle her seven evil exes. At the climax, they defeat Gideon with "Power Of Love".
- Thanks to Executive Meddling, this seems to be the case for Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Princess Sally Acorn - whenever these two get together, something bad happens to one of them - Sonic gets launched to the other side of the galaxy, Sally falls for Monkey Khan, then she later gets turned into a robot.
- Star Trek: Debt of Honor: T'Cel and Jim Kirk share a kiss (and possibly more) after escaping the destruction of USS Farragut, but she leaves the Space Station where they took refuge in order to draw off Romulan ships investigating the incident on their border... and turns out to be half-Romulan herself (her mother was a Romulan shipwreck survivor rescued and mistaken for Vulcan) and reappears many years later as a subcommander in the Romulan Imperial Fleet. They're still shown to have feelings for each other. At the climax, T'Cel plans to take her Bird of Prey through the dimensional portal to explore it and invites Kirk along. He declines out of a sense of responsibility to keep the Enterprise-A from suffering a similarly ignominious fate to her predecessor.
