The whole concept still seems to rub creators the wrong way. Many comics folks talk an enlightened game, but in practice there's lots of societal conditioning that's hard to shake. For example (and yes, these are vague, general impressions with notable exceptions), to many writers the idea of a relationship where the man is physically 100% at the woman's mercy seems disturbing and threatening on levels that, say, the physical imbalance between Superman & Lois Lane isn't.
But also, consider the implications of Sturgeon's Law: At least 90% of comics, like any other medium, tends to be hackwork. Give a superhero a non-powered civilian love interest, and what's the first thing a hack thinks of doing with that character? Damsel in Distress time! And the minute the "distressed damsel" happens to be the same sex as the creator, that trope's Unfortunate Implications fall pretty sharply into focus. Too uncomfortable to ponder, much less write about. Better to hook her up with another superhero, thinks our scribe, and make those inconvenient, irritating insights go away.
NOTE: None of the above observations should be taken as a suggestion that Terry Long was anything other than a man-shaped Summer's Eve-delivery mechanism.
edited 9th Apr '13 10:51:31 AM by Jhimmibhob
Well, that tends not to happen usually. Male muggle love interests tend not to get captured that often. They're either completely separate from the character's superheroing life, or they're a Badass Normal.
Anybody see the film My Super Ex-Girlfriend? It would seem germane to the discussion.
It's funny, cuz the first "normal" male love interest to a female super hero that I ever think of is Steve Trevor, and he was ALWAYS getting into trouble for Wonder Woman to bail him out of, at least during the Golden Age. Mostly because he was a soldier and danger was kind of his job.
Traditionally, it would seem as well that love interests exist to provide complications or motivations for the hero/heroine. I'm thinking Lois Lane getting tossed out of a plane (motivation) or Gwen Stacy thinking Peter Parker is a coward for ducking out during a crisis to turn into Spider-man (complication). Also, looked at critically, most super-hero love interests, classically, have been kind of self-absorbed jerks (again, by way of providing complications). I think audiences have traditionally forgiven that more from female characters than they would from male characters.
edited 9th Apr '13 10:44:06 PM by Robbery
I checked the Badass Damsel tropes for comic book examples and there's Barbara Gordan (who personally I think shouldn't count, as she a hero in her own right), Lois Lane and Mary Jane Parker.
Interestingly, in the Official Couple examples, there's only those two, Betty Banner and Sue Digby for Marvel and DC (non-powered anyway).
Writers seem use love interests as Damsels in Distress but that actually turns the fans off them so they get dumped and the writer brings in a new flame to play the same role and repeat the cycle.
Not sure what that has to do with the gender issue, but just an observation.
It's an apt observation.
Take MJ Watson-Parker, for example. Back in the 90s, MJ was actually a very unpopular character, with the biggest complaint being that she didn't really do anything besides the occasional Damsel in Distress moment. So what did Marvel do? They retconned Spidey's marriage to MJ and replaced her with Carlie Cooper, who not only didn't do anything but was also a blatant Relationship Sue.
MJ was unpopular? I always figured she was popular. Since she was always more than just a Damsel in Distress. Yes, sometimes she got put in danger. But not that often.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.MJ was enormously popular, when she was created anyway. Which, apparently, was annoying for Stan Lee and Marvel editorial, cuz they wanted Peter to be with Gwen, and nobody liked Gwen (well hey, go look at early Gwen...she looked and behaved like she could, and would, kill you with a cold stare). They did everything they could to make Gwen more popular (like softening her looks and, let's face it, making her more MJ-like) to temporarily giving MJ a seriously ugly haircut. And we all know what ultimately happened to both characters.
It is not hard to see the early Marvel writers were not intending for Mary Jane to become the Peter's spouse or anything more significant that a comical extra, dad.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackTrue Love Is Boring strikes again.
Mary Jane was popular when she was an achievement for Peter. Mary Jane was interesting, sexy, and feisty—unlike the kind of "good girl" Gwen (well, she BECAME a good girl, anyway). Peter hooking up with MJ was, for the readership, an escapist ideal.
However, when they became married, the writers had no idea how to write a marriage outside of ("wife nags" or "wife gets kidnapped"). They had no idea how to have MJ contribute to Peter's Spider-man career, so they always had her sitting at home hoping he was okay, whining for him to quit (only for them later to reconcile that he had good reason to continue) and then later have her whine about it again. I confess, when I first started reading comics in the 90s, MJ pissed me the hell off and I couldn't wait to see the two of them break up so he could hook up with Black Cat or Spider-woman or someone more interesting (and superpowered).
Did I mention I was a teen back then?
But yeah, part of the problem is that comic writers have no idea how to write romance without conflict, and readers rapidly lose interest with a stable relationship, which means that the Conflict Ball has to be held by someone to make things "interesting".
An imperfect way to prevent this is that one of these two parties has to "let go". Either the publishers need to accept that once they settle their relationship subplot they'll lose fans that were interested in that subplot, or those fans need to accept that the characters will change and find a new way to be interested.
Of course, the perfect way to fix this is to write an interesting marriage.
There's plenty of drama, plot, and interest to be had in a healthy, stable, adult relationship. However, Most Writers Are Writers has an unfortunate corollary: Most Man-Children Are Man-Children.
I always figured it was mostly editorial who didn't like the marriage, while readers were happy to see Peter and MJ together. I know I liked them married.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.Of course there is. The Dom Com couldn't exist if it didn't.
As it says on the trope page, that's a result of an Undead Horse Trope.
The Dom Com started out as a Slice of Life show about married life with wacky hijinks.
edited 11th Apr '13 8:49:39 AM by KingZeal
Mary Jane was not popular for a good deal of the nineties. So they killed her, which proved to be even less popular. I would say Marvel eventually did come to terms with the marriage and made it the readers okay with it. She was a fairly popular character with readers while I was reading Marvel anyway, she was supportive, self sufficient, a decent foundation to build jokes upon and unintentionally motivational. Aunt May became the unpopular one. The that happened.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackI guess I wasn't paying much attention to reader opinion in the '90s. I really liked MJ. I thought she was a great character, and a great wife. They had a wonderful marriage, and it was really nice to see.
X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.The problems are clear to see in stories like Maximum Carnage, where they had nothing for MJ to except pine. They actually cut away from the story several times to show MJ just sit at home hoping Peter's okay.
A similar problem happened during the Clone Saga, except MJ was pregnant at the time, so that was even more drama.
Keep in mind that I read a little of Maximum Carnage before I became a comic reader, and the Clone Saga was the first comics saga I actually followed. (Spider-man comics were available in my high school library.)
edited 11th Apr '13 12:07:36 PM by KingZeal
Yeah, that bugged me a bit. I could understand if Peter was still a rookie, still learning about his abilities. It's another when he's been in costume for a while now.
But who am I kidding? As long as the love interest is semi-good-looking, and can say "Help!" a different way each issue, that's all that matters, right? *
Embroiled in slave rebellion, I escaped crucifixion simply by declaring 'I am Vito', everyone else apparently being called 'Spartacus'.
Actually, this is something that haunts police wives too. It doesn't matter how long he's been in uniform, it just takes one punk with a gun getting really lucky, and then Peter's not coming home.
edited 11th Apr '13 2:55:56 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Yes, the problems in those assessments are "Maximum Carnage" and "Clone Saga", which were bad stories to begin with, Mary Jane may not have been popular with readers then but Spider-man as a whole was eclipsed by Venom then. Lethal Protector Venom. The nineties were just a bad time for comics period.
Still there was some good stuff like identity crisis and revenge of the sinister six (I hear some people hate the latter story but you know) where Mary Jane was not too bad.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Only Vartox should have that privilege mostly because he only owns like one full pair of pants.
edited 8th Apr '13 5:09:38 PM by Canid117
"War without fire is like sausages without mustard." - Jean Juvénal des Ursins