I think Invincible by Robert Kirkman does a pretty good job of showing what a superhero comic can do when you allow the character to actually experience the passage of time and mature into older versions of themselves -- including marriage, having kids, etc. Mark Grayson and his dad both go through a lot of stuff and you get to see how everything plays out in their marriages, their relationships with their kids, etc.

Your comment about marriages over time calls to mind Kurt Busiek's Superman: Secret Identity which showed Lois and Clark's marriage moving through the phases of life, including kids growing up and leaving home.

I need reminders who is/was married.

At DC: Superman & Lois. Flash & Iris. Wally & Linda. Aquaman & Mera. Ralph & Sue. Some of the Legion. Most of the JSA.

At Marvel: Reed & Sue. Peter & MJ. Hank & Janet? Bruce & Betty.

Who else?

I appreciated the relationship of Clark and Diana Kingdom Come (1996) along with Barry and Iris from JLA: Liberty and Justice (2003). Its probably coincidence that Alex Ross was the artist for both, but marriage is depicted as such a natural, loving thing:



..free of the baked-in dysfunction so many comic book relationships suffer from, as if that should be expected. In just a few panels of the JLA tabloid and Kingdom Come, the reader can feel how deep the feelings are between the characters, and not sold in a sweeping, Hollywood way, but like someone took a couple of pages out something closer to reality.

I think the Huntress (original Earth-Two version) and the SPortsmaster and Punch and Jewlee were both married.  

Outside the Marvel/DC superhero box, one of the most significant comic book portrayals of marriage is Saga by Vaughan and Staples. The whole thing is one big space opera allegory about the travails of marriage. Having babies, raising kids, trying to earn money, avoiding drugs, saying no to affairs, introducing your wife to your parents (see below), avoiding bounty hunters by travelling in giant spaceship trees... all the usual married stuff.

The Creepiest Wedding Ever





This wedding had an element of novelty to it. Usually when superheroes tie the knot, it's to a fellow hero or loved one they've been chasing for years. But rather than do the predictable thing and marry Dick Grayson, Donna Troy opted for college professor Terry Long. Not only was he a perfectly ordinary DCU civilian, he was a good ten years older than his bride. Which, considering the book is called Teen Titans, is kind of creepy.

The effect this wedding had on the series was mixed at best. The wedding itself was handled well enough. Marv Wolfman and George Perez offered readers a spot of light in a series that had grown surprisingly dark thanks to storylines like "The Judas Contract." No power-mad villains showed up to spoil the festivities - just Donna's friends and family to celebrate her big day.

But it was not a marriage that lasted long, even by comic book standards. A subsequent storyline saw the Titans meet up with a future incarnation of their team and battle a crazy villain who wanted to destroy the universe. That villain turned out to be none other than Donna and Terry's unborn child. She was forced to renounce her godhood and eventually her marriage in order to prevent this villain from rising to power.

So basically, it wasn't long before darkness crept back into the book. And Donna embraced her status as one of the most convoluted and confusing characters in the DCU.


Source of the above information is found here.


Personal Notes

I read Teen Titans pretty much about 60-65 percent of the issues and I'm really surprised to see that no one not even mentioning the marriage of Donna Troy and Terry Long and I'm really surprised to see shaxper not even mentioning it. It was so bad in my own human opinion made Donna status in the DCU one of the most difficult characters ever and even that this article (see above) that their unborn child became a villain that alone drove her nuts and forced to renounce her godhood and that's why fans did not care for her at all.

That and other criteria (not worth mentioning) that made Donna a black sheep in the DCU and that's why no writer wants to take her on. That's why I have a hard time dealing with it and it's made me very unhappy that DC Comics made this character not loved anymore and this alone made me angry with Marv Wolfman and George Perez handling of Donna a dark character that left me very speechless indeed.

That's pretty much all I know of ... and I felt that marriage of Donna and Terry should never had taken place at all. Many of my friends at the LCS told me that this comic book above should never been printed and it's one of the most difficult one to read even today.

Members at my store are still talking about it today.