Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Comic book romantic character relationships

I was reading an article from a few years ago called "Why can't superheroes be married." Here is the link. I'm putting this here, as the main source of the topic is comic book characters in general, but super teams like the Legion creates a bit of a different view on the subject, in my opinion.

The interesting thing that pulled me in was the discussion around Dan Didio's comment of "Heroes shouldn't have happy personal lives." Granted Didio is.... well.... Didio, so take his opinion for what its worth, especially since he's been sacked. While Didio upheld the long standing DC tradition of un-representation in the 21st century, the question is still interesting. Others think that all heroes need to have the romantic relationship at some level in order to have that person be part of the heroic journey.

So should a super hero be "Happy"? And when you then take that concept and move it to a team book like the Legion, does that kind of take mean anything at all? When you have a super team, there are a whole DIFFERENT set of dynamics that enter the mix with intra-team relationships that may or may not create happiness. I'd say that a lot of the Legionnaires are typically portrayed as enjoying the company of their internal clique, with a couple of exceptions, of course. But a team would put the happiness theory totally on its side just by its own nature, I'd think.

When I read that various writers or publishers have pushed against heroes being married or in long-term relationships because it makes them 'unrelatable,' I wonder what sort of sad-sack misanthropes these dudes are, or if they are just saddling us with the emotional fallout from their latest nasty divorce or something and are *themselves* unable to relate to a character who is happily married...

I think it only adds narrative options to have a character with deep personal ties to various supporting characters, including spouses, family and friends, and not necessarily just to be used as hostages or to be shoved in refrigerators! (An unfortunate thing that happens to superhero love interests and family members all too often, IMO.)

In the case of Legion, particularly, with such a large team, it A) lends versimilitude that at least *some* of them would be pairing off and / or settling down. and yet also B) runs the risk of just utterly clogging up the book with side-characters (which has been handled so far by having the love interests be other Legionnaires, or, at least characters we already have a reason to see regularly, like Shvaugn, and not yet another person that needs to show up regularly).

This was my thought as well. All writers are working from their own experience. That doesn't mean that someone with a an unhappy experience can't write about happy times or vice versa but it would tend to frame their world view and thus their tendency in plots.

Why can't superheroes have a happy personal life? I think this thought comes from feeling that no-one would be a super-hero unless their personal life drove them to it. If they had a happy personal life they would just live that. Sounds a bit narrow-minded to me. For every Punisher there is a Superman who just wants to do the right thing.

Normal life is full of good times and bad times, happiness and tragedy, tension and refreshment. For some they experience more of one thing than the other but it is always a mix. I have been "happily married" for 30 years. I know that is not everyone's experience but it is mine and therefore some others as well. When I say happily it doesn't mean without tension, drama, conflict, even some elements of tragedy. There have been times when both of us have wondered if we would make it, but so far we have in spite of certain personal challenges that I know many couples do not survive. Yet we are still happy to be together.

So my background and life says sure super-heroes can have happy personal lives, lives filled with tension and drama and conflict but still happy. I would think this can be even more true in a team book with the increasing number of potential relationships, both close and not so close. I think most of us Legion fans would agree that part of the draw is that the Legion often works best as almost a family, with its natural conflicts and struggles but a family that still pulls together in the end.

So I agree with what both of you have said.

(Incidentally I looked up some other articles by the same author and she goes on in a similar style about how comics treat super-heroes kids - generally not well, though I think part of the problem there is that tension between advancing the character's personal story and age and keeping them the same over time.)

Sounds like the same kind of mentality that led to retconning in Barry Allen's mom being killed, to give him a tragic background.

I didn't read the article linked, but I've always assumed the philosophy has been more about what TPTB think keeps readers coming back for more. Soap operas always had a get together/break up/get back together cycle with their power couples. If the couples simply stay together, soap producers feel viewers have few reasons to keep watching.

For ages, Spider-Man comics had a similar soap opera formula that was a big part of his book's appeal. When Peter got too serious with Gwen Stacy, they killed her off. When things were progressing with MJ, a break-up was manufactured, and Peter went thru a series of girlfriends. When Pete and MJ got married, Marvel soon got buyer's remorse, first trying to "retire" Peter with Ben Reilly in the clone saga and finally using the deal with Mephisto to undo the marriage completely.

I think Spidey and the perception of his being better single with story possibilities being more abundant was taken as a "lesson learned" by Didio and others, right or wrong. I think it has absolutely nothing to do with creators being misanthropes or whatever. It has everything to do with what they see as being a profitable business model.

I'm not saying I agree with them, but I feel that's the driving rationalization.

I haven't yet read the other articles from the original writer, but it's on my to-do list based on stile's comment. Also have zero information regarding Didio's views outside of what he's said publicly (although, I think he's treated the Legion like toilet paper during his tenue, so take of that what you will...)


I'll look up and respond based on what I read, but it is interesting, as Tim Drake comes immediately to mind. Tim's my absolute favorite Robin, partially due to me becoming aware of the greater comics universe at the time of the 1989 Batman movie and the Batman comics craziness that surrounded that, which included the Year 3 and Lonely Place of Dying stories. So Tim's journey hooked me. And I found it really refreshing and interesting that they took him as a kid who figured out Batman's deal and put him on track to be Robin - WITH PARENTS. Then they kill his mom as part of his initiation - but kept his dad around for a while, which I thought was a pretty cool choice at the time. Time moves on, and of course a "traditional" editor/publisher waves their wand and "all is made right in the DC universe" (ahem) and he's an orphan again. I will say, however, that I *really* enjoyed the adoptive relationship that TIm and Bruce had before the dark times. Before Damian.

Anyway, just to be clear, I'm super in agreement with stile and Set. Sure some superheroes, namely the money-printing machine named Batman, have a weird void inside themselves that no relationship could fulfill. But Superman? The rest of the JL? The Legion? I've always viewed them as kicking ass when called upon, then going home and being a normal person and, I dunno, studying law or art like Star Boy or something.

And the Legion or the Titans? I mean, come on. They're a bunch of super teens in a dorm w/o a chaperone. It may be short term relationships, but I'd give good money that most of them (okay, maybe not Vi) are having fun.


At the end of the day, these editors and executives are human beings, so it's most likely a combination of both. For something like the Legion, a HUGE chunk of the story is Soap Opera. Less so for Batman, moreso for Superman. Again, I think the mix changes a great deal on individual titles vs team books.

But editors at DC - and writers, as we've seen with Legion in the past - will attack a "problem" with what they see to be the solution based on their life experience. Didio's 10 years older than me, so I seriously wonder how I'd approach a lot of the same decision points if I were in the same shoes. DC seems to have a certain culture that I don't think I'd adapt to very well (or at least I hope so), but that speaks to the cyclical nature of things. A lot of the Legion writing, outside of Shooter, seems to be shifted to the "older souls" of the particular generation of the publishing at the time, which may explain a lot. I don't know. It may just be a situation of an older generation writing based on their own experiences, and our current culture accelerating at a rate people didn't expect.

I understand the idea that stories need conflict so you don't want every single character shacked up in a monogamous perfect relationship, but it's a poor writer who can't generate conflict in a happy relationship.

stile said it better so I'll just steal that
Both characters in a relationship should be fleshed out enough that they don't respond to the same stimuli as a single unit. There was an 80s Legion story where Jan took Shvaughn to Trom and they talked about how marriage is something important to her culture but not his; that's something which could conceivably be mined for drama at some point. There was a while where Mary Jane hated Peter being Spider-Man. Reed Richards has occasionally alienated his wife when he loses himself in his work. Dick Grayson had a massive issue with Kory's willingness to kill.

These are all things which only work because the characters are in a loving relationship, when you force everyone to have to be single you're just cutting off a whole branch of story ideas.

(I'm not even touching the idea that "heroes need to live in a state of constant tragedy" because that's such an edgelord sentiment I can almost hear Marilyn Manson playing in the background as I type it out )

LOL - I don't know if I'm familiar with the term "edgelord" but I love it. It just has that "DARKNESS....DEAD PARENTS" vibe that cracks me up

I guess that's the thing that you & stile have pointed out. Comic books always have some kind of soap-opera undercurrent. What better way to insert that kind of drama to add to the superhero's problems than with amped-up versions of the traditional relationship problems? As long as the writers avoid the normal tropes of putting the loved one in jeopardy constantly, it should be a good source of content for the story.

And I'm just gonna say it - Dick/Barbara works better than Dick/Kory.

ROY THOMAS! ROY THOMAS!!




How often this has crossed my mind. I have my own theory about it. I strongly suspect there are a lot of writers out there who are frustrated that the only way they can ever hope to make a living in comics is by working on CORPORATE-OWNED characters who've been around decades past their expiration date, and take out that frustration by TORTURING said characters and their readers by making sure they're MISERABLE, all the time.