Why Do Female Superheroes Rarely Date Normal Human Males?

There's plenty of cases of male superheroes dating normal women and plenty of cases of female superheroes dating male superheroes. But rarely do writers show female supers dating normal men. I'm aware of Wonder Woman dating Steve Trevor, Trevor Barnes and Tom Tressor who were human. And I know of She-Hulk's marriage to John Jameson. But that's it. Why do you think writers don't have female superheroes dating normal men a whole lot?

There's still a lot of people who react defensively to the idea of dudes needing to be saved by women, and being a love interest in a comic book is like walking around with a sign reading "Please kidnap me" strapped to your chest.

If you want a good example, the movie Salt. A huge deal was made about how it was written for a male actor before going to Angelina Jolie, but one of the big changes was that in the original draft, the hero's wife got kidnapped and tied up by the bad guys. When the wife became a husband, they had him get in on the action and then eventually just killed him, with the reasoning being that having a dude Bound and Gagged and needing to be saved by his wife "castrated" him.

Seriously? You're telling more Hollywood is so ass backwards when it comes to gender politics that they think killing a male character is a better fate than being saved by his wife.

Yes, they are so ass backwards.

Wow. I enjoyed Salt a lot more when I didn't know any of that.

But Comicwriter is correct. A lot of dudes just don't want to see Superpowers women date normal guys because them the balance of power is shifted away from them.

I expect it's the same reason that high-powered career women are much more often unmarried than high-powered career men. It may have something to do with a lot of men being intimidated by a woman who is more powerful than they are (or feeling that society will think less of them for being with a woman more powerful/successful than themselves — there's a tendency to view such a man as a leech). It may also have to do with the fact that men are not attracted to power the way women are. it's been observed that women will bend over backwards trying to get the attention of the rock star on stage, while the male attitude is "why bother? The girl selling tickets is just as cute."

In short, men tend not to be attracted to powerful women the way women are attracted to powerful men. I imagine all of the reasons I mentioned above are true to some extent.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for something to back this up, because it doesn't seem right. This seems like something Hollywood would think, not something that's actually real.

Personally I think its because until recently people generally looked down on the Non action guy.

edited 11th Jan '16 2:09:03 PM by DeanCole

I'm sorry...I should have said "why high powered career women are much less likely to be married to average guys than high powered career men are likely to be married to average women."

Don't really have any documentation; I'd be interested if there is any.

There's always the saga of Bill, Born of Bills, and his romance with Keldea from Thor.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

For comics, it may be the simple reason that female characters have seldom headlined their own books/strips. Characters who headlined usually had continuities built around them, and generally were romantically linked with ordinary people. If a female superhero is part of a team, or a satellite of a male character, she's more likely to be romantically linked to another super hero.

I remember Donna Troy/ Wonder Girl was happily married to Terry Long, an ordinary dude college professor, in the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans. Their marriage was positive and successful until sales started flagging in the 90's and it became a useful event to break them up (Terry suffered some character derailment, too; he went from being a kind of denfather to the Titans to a colossal, whiny jerk).

edited 11th Jan '16 10:44:57 PM by Robbery

That's definitely a factor. It's hard for Monica Rambeau to date a normal guy when she doesn't have her own title.

She-Hulk's dated normal guys - she was with Wyatt Wingfoot for a long time, and married John Jameson. Spider-Woman had a couple of normal guys as love interests during her original solo. So did Ms. Marvel in her original solo. (And then I think KSD just didn't feel like making romance a big part of her Captain Marvel run.)

Actually, I mentioned Monica Rambeau. During Stern's Avengers run, there actually was a guy she had a flirtation with, even if it ended up not going anywhere.

Though one interesting thing to note is that, with most cases of superheroines dating normal guys, the normal guys are often still adventurously inclined. Soldiers, cops, Wyatts - they date guys who are competent fighters. One of Spider-Woman's love interests was an actual goddamn ninja, for example. (Though her most prominent love interest was and will always remain Lindsey Mc Cabe, who I would love to see show back up in the new series.)

So, yeah, it's a combination of fewer opportunities and a reluctance to have men who are less strong than the women.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.

A powerful woman who takes interest in a lesser man is lowering herself. Her peers will likely tell her he's not good enough, even if they both otherwise have more money than any reasonable person could ever spend(Mariah Carey+Nick Cannon)

Men are expected to provide, so turning down good women in favor of more powerful ones is considered shameful and unmanly. It's a nice paradox, aint it?

The military alum turned flying brick turned cosmically powerful Miss Captain Marvel dating a restaurateur just won't do. He's not in her class physically, socially or financially, how could she entertain dating him over super powered movie star Wonder Man? Women have to work so much harder to be recognized, there's no way one would consciously go so far backwards in hierarchy! That's comic book reader mentality.

Easy. Wonder Man's a scrub.

I can think of several male superheroes whom no reasonable woman, super or otherwise, would consider dating.

Does the new Ms Marvel count? Because it's explicitly clear that Kamala and Bruno both want to get together, but Kamala's parents won't let her have a boyfriend, plus they insist she can't marry a non-Pakistani boy.

Ukrainian Red Cross

Was thinking of that example, although as of right now, they aren't a couple- he's with a seemingly normal girl (although one who rescued him in a stock "superhero girlfriend" type situation) and I think she's with Nova, right?

Ms. America also has a normal human girlfriend. Though that might play into the stuff discussed earlier about people being less uncomfortable with a girl in that role.

edited 12th Jan '16 10:35:40 AM by comicwriter

Right now, Kamala's not with anyone. She turned Bruno down because she wanted to focus on being a superhero. She and Nova have a rather adorably antagonistic relationship.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.

As Indirect Transport mentioned in 13, there is at least the perception that a powerful woman wouldn't be attracted to, or at least wouldn't pursue an attraction to, a less powerful man because she sees it as lowering her standards. I'm not sure if this mentality is borne out in reality, but women's magazines/ online columns suuure talk about it alot. "You're a smart, successful, fabulous woman! Will you have to lower your standards to keep from being alone?"

Because All Amazons Want Hercules and Women Prefer Strong Men.

This might be silly of me, but if I were a comic-book writer I'd be a little wary of introducing such a character. It's not because of the reasons mentioned above; it's that fandoms being what they are, I'd worry that unless I were incredibly careful in portraying the character so as to avoid any possibility of such a charge, I'd get accused of creating an Author Avatar for creepy purposes. ("After all," thinks the lower third of the fandom bell curve, "it's what I'd do!")

Several female superheroes have lowered themselves to dating Hawkeye.

Because female Superheroes till recently (around the 00s to present) existed almost exclusively as supporting roles or on ensemble teams, there were a few solo Female ongoings, we had Catwoman, Wonder Woman sure, we had She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel, and in those titles they occasionally dated regular human guys, however because the disparity of titles starring female heroes and actual existing female heroes active a overwhelming majority dated whoever else was on their team or who ever book they were a supporting character in.

Yes it's terrible. Yes comics are trying to remedy the female led solo titles. However don't expect to see anything new in regards to the normal human dating super powered woman thing for a long time.

The girls from W.I.T.C.H and Totally Spies date several boys, I think.

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