Marvel Comics took the building blocks of the superhero set up by DC Comics and created something completely new. The House of Ideas’ heroes were able to connect with readers because of how human they were. They had the same kind of problems as the readers, their relationships with friends and family changing completely because of their lives as superheroes. Their romantic relationships ended up becoming some of the best out there; while they followed the “opposites attract” rule that was set up by DC with romances like Lois and Clark’s, they were able to create relationships that felt more real than the others.
Much like in the real world, there have been plenty of Marvel relationships that seemed like they would never work from the beginning but did. Comics are often a work of wish fulfillment, so it’s nice to see opposites come together; it gives people hope. However, some of these relationship go beyond unlikely and reach impossible territory. These five Marvel relationships are the unlikeliest, including Spider-Man’s first love.
Brian Michael Bendis has become a comic legend, his work on the Avengers and Daredevil making him into one of the most most important writers in Marvel history. However, Bendis in the ’00s and Bendis in the ’10s are two very different animals, with a lot of his stories in latter decades not really landing. I know this is talking a lot about a creator in a list where I’m supposed to be talking about a relationship, but all of this is very important. As a young Jewish reader, Brian had a crush on Kitty Pryde (it’s not just Jewish readers who get a crush on her, but all of us, male, female, or otherwise develop one eventually) and was known for shipping her with the main characters of his books, in what many figured was a way for him to be dating Kitty. When he took over Guardians of the Galaxy and All-New X-Men, he eventually moved Kitty to the cosmic team.
During this time, he had her fall in love with Star-Lord, Peter Quill. It was completely unexpected and it just never really worked for fans. That didn’t stop Bendis and Marvel from continuing to push it, with the two of them almost getting married (almost married a Peter two times, not a lot but still weird and all that). It’s an example of a creator trying to make their childhood crush date a version of them and fans have basically decided to pretend it didn’t happen.
Cyclops and Jean Grey are the boring couple that got together in high school and stay together forever because they actually love each other. Sure, there was the whole Madelyne Pryor thing, but she was just a clone of Jean so it kind of proved that they belonged together. And then Emma Frost would join the X-Men. Emma has always been something of a troublemaker and she decided that the most fun thing she could do was to break up a marriage. She took advantage of the marriage problems of the two – Cyclops had just gotten over sharing his body with Apocalypse and Jean’s powers were changing again – beginning a psychic affair with Scott in the guise of therapy.
Here’s the thing – Scott just isn’t the kind of person to cheat on his wife. There are a lot of bad things that you can say about Scott Summers, but he is loyal. He loves Jean in such a way that it’s honestly hard to believe that he would cheat on her, even if it was just in a mental thoughtspace created by Emma. You could make the argument that ‘Clops was in a weird place mentally and that’s why it happened, but it’s still always felt rather unlikely.
Scarlet Witch has become Sorcerer Supreme, reaching a level of popularity that is greater than anyone expected and becoming one of the defining members of the Avengers. She joined the team along with her brother Quicksilver and Hawkeye, the three former villains working with Captain America and gaining the trust and respect of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. She was a member of the team when the Vision joined and ended up having a fascination with the synthezoid. The two of them would end up getting closer and closer, finally beginning a romantic relationship that would lead to their marriage. It was a huge moment for both characters and their romance has become one that helped define them.
Wanda Maximoff had a terrible upbringing and she was looking for love. Her falling for a robot is honestly one of the better outcomes for someone who has what are basically nuclear weapon-grade daddy issues. However, the fact that it even worked out at all is the unlikeliest thing. Wanda putting the moves on a robot and the robot responding will always be one of the weirdest in the history of Marvel Comics.
Hank Pym is one of first major Marvel heroes of the Silver Age, but he never reached the popularity of characters like Iron Man or Thor. Hank first appeared as Ant-Man, using his Pym Particles to shrink down to insect size, with a helmet that allowed him to communicate with ants and stinger blasters. However, this wasn’t the only bug-themed tech he created, because he also made the wings and sting blasters of the Wasp for his girlfriend Janet Van Dyne. Hank was a scientist divorcee and Jan was a wealthy Manhattan socialite. We were meant to believe that the two of them met and hit it off. There’s no way this would have happened.
Now yes, opposites attract and all that, but Hank isn’t the type of person who fits with someone like Jan. They are two people who just don’t even have enough in common to even start dating, let alone creating a long-term love that has seen them come back together numerous times. It’s hard to imagine what they even talk about when they’re not talking about superhero stuff, because they are just such different people.
Spider-Man is ostensibly Marvel’s most relatable hero, but let’s be real – very few people who find him relatable have been able to score the kind of women that he has. Peter Parker was introduced to readers as a massive nerd, back when that meant that you got ruthlessly mocked in person and beaten up. No one liked Peter, especially not the popular kids, especially not the one that he had a crush on, Gwen Stacy. Gwen was the most beautiful girl in her school and there was no way she’d ever get with a person like Peter. However, gaining superpowers changed him in a lot of ways and eventually, he and Gwen ended up together, with her becoming Parker’s first love. Her death was one of the biggest tragedies in Spider-Man’s history.
However, let’s be real for a second – there’s no way that Gwen would ever date Peter Parker. Gwen was the mean girl, the pretty popular girl who came off as vain and shallow. Sometimes, these types of girls will show hidden depths, like Mary Jane would in the years to come, but nope, Gwen Stacy was just vain, shallow, and mean. She treated Peter terribly; Marvel has tried to sanewash their relationship over the decades, but Peter staying with Gwen as long as he did was insane (they also play her as a liberal girlboss, which is hilarious because she was quite literally the Republican daughter of a police captain). She never would have gotten with him and he would have run away after a while of her terrible treatment.
What Marvel relationships do you find the most unlikely? Are you one of those people who think that Gwen Stacy was actually a good match for Spidey? Sound off in the comment section below.
