Spread the Love: The Greatest Love Stories in Comic Books

This article covers the best love stories in comic books from DC, Marvel, Image, and others.

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Love is all around us, especially when it comes to the stories we enjoy returning to over and over again. It’s practically a force of nature (just ask Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn). Whether we’re talking super heroes and super-villains, intergalactic rebels, or just regular people, love is a constant — in one form or another.

Sometimes love inspires us to be our best selves, like the heroes of DC. Other times, love is a dangerous fuel for the flames of conflict. Love persists during war and everyday life, and occasionally it even wears us down, as we’ll see with an iconic Marvel couple. But throughout our favorite fandoms, you’ll find love in every corner. Here are the top 10 greatest love stories in comic books.

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Alana & Marko

• Book: Saga
• Publisher: Image Comics
• First Appearance Together: Saga #1 (2012)

Saga is, at its core, a love story. The epic sci-fi extravaganza is all about relationships, plus what we’ll do to keep them going — or what others will do to ruin them. At Saga’s center are Alana and Marko. Alana is from the planet Landfall while Marko hails from Landfall’s moon, Wreath. Landfallians have wings and Wreathers are horned magic users. The forbidden interspecies couple gravitates toward each other even though their planets are at war.

Despite the animosity between their cultures, they find true love in the middle of a battle. Then, they go on the run to protect themselves and their child from those who mean them harm. Talk about star-cross’d. Their daughter Hazel narrates the entire series from a future perspective, herself representing everything Marko and Alana fought for and loved about one another.

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Jon & Suzie, Sex Criminals

• Book: Sex Criminals
• Publisher: Image Comics
• First Appearance Together: Sex Criminals #1 (2013)

Sex Criminals is a comedy crime series published from 2013 to 2020, with a TV series in development at Amazon Prime. It’s about a couple who can stop time when they achieve satisfaction, advertised as being, “For mature readers, DUH.” But if you think you know it all from that alone, you’ve got another thing coming. The series deal with hookups, sexual shame and liberation, discovering your identity, and all the other messy ins and outs of relationships. Through it all, the love between Jon and Suzie remains the core of the story.

What makes their relationship stand out isn’t their strange mutual ability to enter “The Quiet,” but the many forms their love comes in. It’s dancing on a pool table to your favorite song or talking all night at a party. It’s being afraid to admit your true feelings and giggling at immature jokes. And yeah, sometimes it’s robbing banks together, and even growing apart. Jon and Suzie are relatable, flawed, and their story is a naughty romp from start to finish.

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Eric Draven & Shelly

• Book: The Crow
• Publisher: originally Caliber Press, now Sumerian Comics
• First Appearance Together: The Crow #1 (1989)

Where love goes, tragedy often follows. And in the case of Eric Draven, from that tragedy a hero was violently born. Eric and his fiancée Shelly were attacked by a group of thugs. Both were left for dead after Shelly was raped and Eric was paralyzed, forced to watch his fiancée’s murder. This grisly ending proved to be a dark new beginning for The Crow.

Eric is then resurrected by a crow spirit, and his undead life takes on meaning once again. His sole mission is to hunt down each of Shelly’s killers until they pay for what they did. Love twisted by vengeance is a brutal, but fascinating, thing to behold.

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Orpheus & Eurydice

• Book: The Sandman
• Publisher: DC
• First Appearance Together: The Song of Orpheus (1991)

We all know the heartbreaking story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Presented in Greek mythology, the tale introduces us to two young lovers. Eurydice’s life is cut short, and Orpheus rescues her from the Underworld. He is allowed to take her from Hades on the condition that he does not look back — but Orpheus does in fact look back, and his late wife is doomed. In The Sandman, Orpheus and Eurydice suffer the same fate, but there is added tragedy due to Orpheus’ dad being Dream — and his aunt being Death.

Dream refuses to help. Death cannot change her nephew’s wife’s fate. She bargains with Orpheus to help him travel to the Underworld, but for a price. When Orpheus is unsuccessful, he remains immortal and is subsequently torn apart by the Maenads until he is only a severed yet conscious head. The poor boy lives forever pining after his lost love and grappling with the guilt that comes from his decision to glance at her in those final steps.

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Lois Lane & Clark Kent

• Publisher: DC
• First Appearance Together: Action Comics #1 (1938)

Name a more wholesome love. We’ll wait. Superman and Lois Lane are famous throughout pop culture, transcending even the vibrant panels of the comics from which they originate. As both work and life partners, Lois and Clark are journalists together at the Daily Planet in addition to raising their son, Jon.

These two are the true definition of a couple who will cross leaps and bounds for each other (in Kal-El’s case, often literally). However, they also balance each other out. Lois provides much-needed grounding for a super hero who so easily transcends the atmosphere. Did somebody say couple goals?

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Batman & Catwoman

• Publisher: DC
• First Appearance Together: Batman #1 (1940)

Of course, we also have to include the Bat and the Cat. Far more dysfunctional than their Metropolis counterparts, Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle spent most of their years playing a game of will-they-or-won’t-they. Selina, after all, was a villain (or antihero, depends on who you ask) who constantly robbed everyone in Gotham. Bruce was the stoic Batman meant to protect Gotham from criminals. So why were they so drawn to each other?

Over the years, Batman and Catwoman have turned their playful passion into a profound romance. There’s still excitement, but they’ve changed for each other in ways that have benefited them both. From enemies to friends to lovers, Batman and Catwoman have endured the craziest things DC writers can throw at them. Now that’s soulmate behavior.

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Peter Parker & Mary Jane

• Publisher: Marvel
• First Appearance Together: The Amazing Spider-Man #42 (1966)

Mary Jane Watson may not have been Peter Parker’s first love, but she is his most enduring and beloved. Their romance together is arguably Marvel’s most beloved pairing and they find ways to get caught in each other’s web time and time again.

Much like Lois and Clark, Peter and Mary Jane balance each other out. Mary Jane reminds Peter that there’s more to life than simply being Spider-Man and Peter — well, it’s probably very fun swinging from the rooftops by web-shooters. Though many obstacles have interrupted their path, there is no doubt that Spider-Man and Mary Jane will continue to spin through the Multiverse with each other, one way or another.

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Scarlet Witch & Vision

• Publisher: Marvel
• First Appearance Together: Avengers #76 (1963)

Not all love ends in success — but even failed love can still bring about wonderful change. Back in the early days of the Avengers, the team accepted many new members who would not have fit in elsewhere. Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch, was a former villain and the daughter of the infamous Magneto. Vision, on the other hand, was a synthezoid caught between circuitry and humanity.

Against all logic, they fell in love. They had two sons together, Billy and Tommy, and they forged a makeshift life as a suburban couple. Of course, through the meddling of Mephisto and chaos magic, their sons were ripped away and the marriage began to crumble. For many years, Wanda and Vision could not be in the same room without intense tension. Their hearts were truly broken at the other’s hands. Now, they’ve managed to mend some fences and are even serving as Avengers together again. Plus, their sons are Young Avengers and Billy is part of his own power couple with his husband Hulkling.

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Charlie & Vita

• Book: Crowded
• Publisher: Image Comics
• First Appearance Together: Crowded #1 (2018)

What’s the one thing everyone loves that absolutely never puts a strain on any relationships, familial or romantic? That’s right, a cross-country road trip! Well, okay — Charlie and Vita from Crowded had the odds stacked against them from the start. Vita is a 1.4 star-rated bodyguard and Charlie is her new client, who has woken up to discover a multi-million dollar crowdfunded assassination campaign targeting her. All Vita has to do is keep her alive until the campaign ends. Sounds easy enough, right?

Crowded is a riotous adventure of reluctant allies to lovers. As the days go by, it’s a miracle that Charlie’s even still alive, even if it’d be easier for the gruff Vita to claim the bounty on her pretty pink head. The duo persists through perilous pit stops aplenty, headed for the headquarters of Reapr, the killer crowdfunding platform. It’s a high-octane comedy adventure that proves you just can’t kill love (but you can sure try).

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Laura Wilson & Cassandra Igarashi

• Book: The Wicked + The Divine
• Publisher: Image Comics
• First Appearance Together: The Wicked + The Divine #1 (2014)

The Wicked + The Divine is known for its melodramatic relationships. Characters fall in and out of love, betray and lie to each other. Also, a lot of them are dying every issue, so it’s difficult to maintain a relationship with any partner. Laura Wilson, briefly known as Persephone, hooks up with a few members of the Pantheon. She finds a good time, a wild time, or a great party. Never does she find understanding or commitment.

That’s where Cassandra comes in. A skeptical and critical Norse god, she and Laura initially irritated each other a lot. Then, they began to see each other as friends. By the end of the series, we find out that Laura and Cassandra both survived and got married. Laura admits Cassandra was hard to love, but she sounds like she genuinely cares about her when she tells her ex about their time together.

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What are your favorite love stories in graphic novels? Have you found your Marvel soulmate or your DC soulmate yet?

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