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Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.
07/19/2004
Where have all the marriages gone?
Sue Dibny is dead and I�m feeling vaguely sad.
I�ve spent the past week being a geek, wandering through assorted comic book websites and blogs, reading about new projects, and skimming over various tempest in a tea cup type arguments. During this purposeful waste of time, I came across reviews and message boards discussing the latest big deal, must buy miniseries that will forever change the DC universe. Normally worth a big yawn, since every company tends to have a big deal, must buy miniseries that will forever change the fates of all their titles and characters�at least until the next year and the next earth shattering, if not universe shattering storyline.
These storylines usually involve one bunch of oddly over muscled costumed folks fighting another bunch of oddly over muscled costumed folks. Way back in the day, if the story wasn�t too stupid, I might have been interested, but after far too many years of reading comics and reading the same stories poorly regurgitated over and over again, combined with a growing lack of interest in most super hero titles, I just don�t care anymore. Except that Sue Dibny is dead and I�m feeling vaguely sad.
The newest sales event from DC Comics is a miniseries titled Identity Crisis that is supposed to boldly change the moral pining of the company�s heroic characters, or something. I haven�t looked at it, and I doubt I will buy it, but from what I�ve read online, the first issue includes the violent murder of a relatively minor character, Sue Dibny, the wife of Ralph Dibny, a �stretchable� hero with the improbable name of the Elongated Man. While not an out and out comedic hero played for jokes, he was characterized as a lighthearted superhero who could stretch his body like a crazed rubber band because he drank a strange brand of soda.
The only reason he was even halfway not annoying was that he was happily married to an ordinary woman. They would occasionally show up in different Justice League titles, and when well written, it was clear that they loved each other. When not well written, they were at least stock happily married characters.
Except that Sue Dibny is now dead, and I fear her husband is in danger of becoming a brooding dark avenging hero, which would be a very odd stylistic choice for a fictional man whose main personality trait is that his nose would twitch wildly whenever he smelled a mystery. Truth is I�m not a huge fan of either character, but with her death, it feels as if I�ve lost a part of my youth.
When I was first introduced to comics as a kid in the seventies, there were several married hero characters. It was the tail end of a time when the tend was towards �realism� and �important issues�. This meant that creators would could write stories dealing with racism by introducing African American heroes & villains named Black Panther, or Black Lighting, or Black something or another man. It also meant that writers felt free to take married characters and show them having marital problems. If I remember correctly, around this time the Atom was divorced, and Aquaman�s wife Mera blamed him for the death of their young son.
In later decades, the trend was still so called �realism,� but reality had come to mean extreme violence. I don�t follow superhero titles very closely anymore, but from I know of the constant reinventing and recreations of superhero characters, few of the marriages I had read about as a kid still exist.
I think Aquaman is divorced, or at least separated and the last time I bothered to read his book, Mera was drugged, or insane, or otherwise mentally out of control, which was sad because I remember liking the two of them together.
Adam Strange was a science fiction adventurer married to a beautiful alien woman, except that when they were �updated,� in a �serious� story she died in childbirth, so that he could be bitter and sad. But in a different story, she somehow got better and is alive again. Except that it looks as if there is going to be new series were she, their daughter, and her entire planet all get to be blown up and dead. I assume that this means Adam strange will once again get to be bitter and sad.
In the seventies Hawkman and Hawkwoman were married alien cops who worked together fighting crime while wearing large wings and wielding ancient weapons. They were reinventions of earlier golden age characters, reincarnated Egyptian royalty who worked together fighting crime while wearing large wings and wielding ancient weapons. They�ve been reinvented yet again rather confusingly this time around as being all of the above, simultaneously alien and reincarnated. Except that he now appears to be older than she is. I�ve no idea if the apparent age difference matters or not.
Henry Pym and Wasp are two characters that are closely tied to the 70�s in my mind for no real reason, other than that was the only time I read the Avengers series. They both had size changing powers, except that while she was fairly normal (if dull), he was written as having a screw loose, and would go insane every few months, changing powers, name and costume. They got divorced and eventually someone decided to fill out their back story by deciding that in addition to his previously established bouts of amnesia, turning evil, building villainous androids, and other usual comic book symptoms of poor mental health, Henry also physically abused his wife.
Green Arrow and Black Canary were never married but they were portrayed as a cool couple. Interestingly, back then she was presumably more powerful than he was as she had superpowers and managed to fight crime while not tearing her fishnet stockings, while all he did was shoot trick arrows topped with boxing gloves. Someone wrote a story were she was assaulted and lost her powers, and in a later story he died. But he got better as superheroes are want to do, and is now back, better than ever, shooting people with real arrows, while she, well she still has no powers, although depending on who draws her, she still occasionally wears fishnet stockings. They are no longer a couple as far as I know.
The Flash was married, but then his wife died, except she didn�t because of time travel complications, then he died, and rather unusually for the superhero genre, he�s been staying dead.
There was a whole host of golden age DC characters from the forties, were the original versions of folks were eventually allowed to age and occasionally marry, but then a story in the mideighties wiped many of them out of official continuity, so �officially� the W.W.II fighting Wonder Woman never did settle down with Steve Trevor, Batman didn�t get Catwoman in the end, and Superman didn�t marry Lois Lane. There was a hyped media sales event were the modern current version of Supes and Lois married, so there is at least one happily couple out there, assuming they aren�t being portrayed as �realistic� that is.
And then there�s Elongated Man Ralph Dibny, and his wife Sue.
So where have all the marriages gone? A few years ago there was supposedly a trend returning to the �fun of superhero comics� with titles such as Tom Strong. It seemed an attempt to recapture something, a feeling of newness, of innocence, of youth. By the time I noticed it, it seems to be over, and it looks like grim and gritty is coming back again. Stories featuring incredibly powerful men wearing their underwear on the outside of their pants and women wearing next to nothing will now be getting �real� again, and in order to be real, women must be beaten and murdered so that a male superhero can brood, be dark, angsty, and avenge her.
It�s possible that this may be enough to get an angsty teen boy to
The teens I do see at stores, both boys and girls, tend to be looking at Manga titles, while the guys actually buying superhero comics seem to be in their late twenties or early thirties. From the wedding rings many of them sport, it looks that at least a few of the readers are managing to stay married, even if their fictional heroes aren�t.
Trends in comic books like all media are cyclical, although it seems that the quest for realism comes around faster and faster with each turn of the wheel. That�s not to say there is nothing wrong with addressing relevant issues in comics. It�s just that, why does relevant equal violence? Why is character growth dependent on having a destroyed relationship? Why is it necessary to kill off female characters for shock value to increase sales? Why is Sue Dibny dead?
-nico