Matt's Top 5 Un-Romantic Characters # 2, Superheroes

Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my month long celebration of fictional characters who just don't have a handle on that whole "romance" thing. Yes, this month my list is dedicated to characters who are inept, unlucky, and or just flat-out awful human beings when it comes to love, but who still entertain me anyway. Already on our list we've had a visit from a Disney "prince" (# 5) a classic romantic comedy sleazeball (# 4) and possibly the greatest/worst dad in sitcom history (# 3), but in the interest of keeping things moving, let's move onto the fictional job that seems to attract more romantically challenged individuals than any other...

Yes, if you spend any time around here or my Facebook, you know that I am a big fan of superheroes. Hell, my first solo novel is all about them and their various problems. (After School Special, coming from Talos Press in Spring of 2016, yes, nice quick ad I slipped in there, no?). I knew when creating this list that there would be no way I couldn't have a superhero on this list, but that's when things got difficult. For you see, there are honestly too many superheroes with too many major romantic problems to easily pick just one. So instead I thought I would dedicate this entry to the career as a whole, since it seems the superhero community has a romantic failures rate higher than pretty much any other in fiction.

With the possible exception of being a doctor at Cook County General Hospital.

So, without further ado, I'll start digging into a sampling of DC and Marvel's best and brightest you probably wouldn't want to date:

WOLVERINE: Sure, he's gruff and he's buff and has that maturity thing that only living close to 200 years can give you, but his violent temper and track record of kinda, sorta, definitely forming obsessions of married women (hello, Jean!) doesn't make him the greatest dating material.

BATMAN: If you're looking for an emotionally unavailable man, Batman has to be right at the top of the list. Though he tries to portray a cheery persona as billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, in his heart he is all about the job, and his job is protecting what is arguably the worst city in the world from its flamboyant criminal sect. His crimefighting lifestyle will always come first, so much so that the only real way he really seems to form meaningful connections with women is if they wear a costume and threaten the city.

SPIDER-MAN: He's cute, he's sweet, and he's constantly in over his head, which probably leads to him making the majority of his awful romantic decisions. Like in his movies, where he constantly pushes away his beloved and usually winds up putting her in even more danger. Or like in the comics where he sold his marriage to Satan.

Yeah, comics are kind of weird.

GREEN ARROW: Going by Arrow, Green Arrow appears to have the problems of both Batman and Spider-Man (minus the whole selling his wife to Satan thing, but the show is still young). He's got the career-focused drive of Batman that will always place his romantic interests second and the ill thought out good intentions of Spider-man that has him pushing away love interests in the interests of protecting them while still managing to put them in more danger. Coupled with some serious trust issues and a bit of a superiority complex, and no amount of working the salmon ladder can make up for his deficits.

MR. FANTASTIC: What's worse than a superhero? How about a superhero who also happens to be a mad scientist? And I'm not just talking about an eccentric inventor style mad scientist, I'm talking about someone who regularly creates technology that could destroy the planet should it ever fall into the wrong hands (which it so often does). Yes, Reed Richards' focus on his science over his wife (or, well, pretty much anything else in life, actually) makes him a fascinating character to read but would probably make for a very lousy one to be married to. The sheer number of times these two have broken up and gotten back together because of his near insanity is impressive, even by the soap opera nature of comic books.

SUPERMAN: Seriously, Superman, what is up with you and Lois?

HANK PYM: This ever-classic picture of Hank responding to his wife's questioning him being a crazy jackass is really all that's needed here.

AND LET'S GET THE OBVIOUS OUT OF THE WAY: Even if your superhero partner is the nicest, kindest, sweetest individual in the world, the universe itself will almost certainly be stuffed into a refrigerator at one point, because nothing motivates a superhero in their soap-operaesque life quite like their beloved dying. So why take your chances? Just don't date superheroes.

So dear readers, who else loves the crazy love lives of superheroes as much as their heroics? Who are some of your favorite unromantic characters? Sound off in the comments below!

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-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)