The 20 Weirdest Comic Book Couples of All Time

As a genre about people in colorful tights with incredible powers, superhero comics embrace weirdness wherever they can. However, cape and cowl stories tend to get more absurd the more they deal with the banal. In other words, superhero romances boggle the imagination.

What happens when people with perfect bodies and nearly unlimited power get together? Much, much more than you’d expect, especially when you throw in shape-shifting, time travel, and so many clones. Yet, even by those standards, these 20 relationships make for love at the most extreme.

Batman and Batgirl

This one’s less weird and more just gross. Batgirl is, of course, Barbara Gordon, the college-aged daughter of Commissioner James Gordon. Further, Barbara took the Batgirl identity without Bruce Wayne’s knowledge or approval, so she doesn’t have the same fatherly connection to him as do any of the Robins. Still, Batman cannot help but have some sort of father role to Batgirl, which makes their pairing (mostly in stories by Batman: The Animated Series‘s Bruce Timm) feel deeply uncomfortable. Fortunately, they are all non-canon… so far.

Captain Marvel and Stargirl

At first glance, the brief flirtation between Justice Society members Captain Marvel (today known as either Shazam or the Captain) and Stargirl just feels like one more uncomfortable age gap. At least, that’s what fellow JSAers Green Lantern and Flash thought when they saw the grown man Captain Marvel hanging around young teen Stargirl. Stargirl, however, knew the truth, that Captain Marvel was, in fact, a boy her age named Billy Batson, who turned into a powerful grown-up when he said the word “Shazam!” Recognizing the poor optics of the situation, but deeming it unwise to reveal his identity, Captain Marvel broke off the relationship and left the team.

Doctor Doom and Sue Storm

As we look forward to Avengers: Doomsday, quite a bit of hype has built up around Doctor Doom. And with good reason. Not only is Doom perhaps the greatest villain in all fiction, he’s become a god and conquered the world on numerous occasions. But that doesn’t mean that Doom avoids looking pathetic, which is exactly what happened during the 2015 Secret Wars crossover. Having gained the ability to rewrite reality, Doom creates a world in which he is the God Emperor and in which his nemesis Reed Richards does not exist. Further, Doom takes Sue as his wife and Reed’s children Franklin and Valeria as his own, which ends up looking less like a power move and more like an admission that Richards is the better man—an admission he had to explicitly make when Reed returns to reclaim his wife and family.

Doctor Octopus and Aunt May

Late in life, Aunt May marries Jay Jameson, father of cantankerous editor J. Jonah Jameson. It isn’t the first time May’s love life made Peter family to someone who hated him. Way back in 1974’s Amazing Spider-Man #131, May almost married Doctor Octopus. By the end of the issue, Spidey learned that Doc Ock only pursued May because the marriage could allow him to control a nuclear facility she inherited via a family member’s death. Yet, despite the obvious supervillain plot, the story has grown strangely sweet over time. As both Otto and May have become more three-dimensional, their near-wedding feels less like an evil mastermind’s plan and more of a missed connection.

Deathstroke the Terminator and Terra

Time to get icky again. The Teen Titans began as a team consisting of all the superhero sidekicks: Robin, Kid Flash, Aqualad, Speedy, and Wonder Girl. In the 1980s, the book was retitled The New Teen Titans and started embracing more soapy, complicated storylines. None were more soapy or more beloved than The Judas Contract by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller George Pérez, in which Deathstroke the Terminator sent a teen hero called Terra to infiltrate and undermine the Titans. We can accept that type of behavior in our supervillains, but we cannot excuse the fact that Deathstroke, a man in his mid-to-late 40s, was sleeping with the teenage Terra. It’s an unforgivable (and unnecessary) black mark on what could have been one of the great storylines of the ’80s.

Green Goblin and Gwen Stacy

Peter Parker always has bad luck, so it wasn’t too shocking when the 2004 storyline Sins Past revealed that Spidey’s late love Gwen Stacy gave birth to two children, children who now had superpowers and blamed him for their mother’s death. It was shocking, however, to learn that the kids’ father was none other than Norman Osborn, who had apparently seduced his son’s high school pal way back when. Making matters worse was artist Mike Deodato Jr.’s decision to draw Norman exactly like actor Tommy Lee Jones. Fortunately, this story has been completely retconned as a matter of clones and illusions, but the image of Tommy Lee Osborn nuzzling up to Gwen will never, ever go away.

Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Arisia

Yes, we’ve got to talk about Arisia. On the surface, Arisia is a standard-issue hot alien lady who joins the Green Lantern Corps and starts dating Hal Jordan, its most famous member. However, when Hal first met Arisia in 1981’s Tale of the Green Lantern Corps #1, she was just 13, and Hal kept calling her “little sister.” When Arisia developed a crush on Hal, she used her power ring to age herself up, which certainly caught his attention. Hal accepted her explanation that her people age quickly (what Star Trek: Voyager fans call “the Neelix defense”), but then writer Steve Englehart and artist Joe Staton kept having other Green Lanterns call out how weird it is that he’s dating someone who was a young teen just a week ago.

Harley Quinn and the Joker

Harley Quinn has been a fan favorite since she debuted in a 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Even after jumping to comics, Harley became a mainstay in movies, video games, and TV shows. However, she couldn’t escape her origin as a smart woman who allows herself to be so abused by her boyfriend the Joker that she destroys all of her identity to mirror his. Fortunately, entries such as Birds of Prey, or the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn and the Harley Quinn animated series have moved her into a much better relationship with fellow reformed villain Poison Ivy.

The Human Torch and “Alicia Masters”

The Fantastic Four are a family. And sometimes, things get strange inside families, especially super-families. Case in point: Johnny Storm’s marriage to Alicia Masters, the girlfriend of Ben “The Thing” Grimm. Alicia had always been Ben’s love interest, but when Ben decided to stay in an alternate reality, she turned her attention to Johnny. And Johnny, never one to turn down a date, reciprocated. Despite the very reasonable feeling that he was betraying his pal, Johnny married Alicia—and the two stayed married until “Alicia” revealed herself to be a shape-shifting Skrull called Lyja, sent to infiltrate the team.

Troubling as the whole debacle was, family can forgive a lot, and so all is well with the Fantastic Four. Ben and Alicia have long since married and are raising a pair of adopted kids. Lyja died, resurrected, and reformed. And Johnny… well, Johnny recently slept with Doctor Doom’s fiancée the night before their wedding, so Johnny’s still Johnny.

Iron Man and the White Queen

When Iron Man and the White Queen Emma Frost began dating in 2022, the coupling shocked everyone. After all, this was during the Krakoa era, when Emma and other mutants were living on their own sovereign island nation, and after the X-Men and Avengers have had a few fights. But the pairing soon made sense, as both Tony Stark and Emma were incredibly rich jet-setters who traveled in the same circles. Even knowing that their marriage was one of convenience to thwart the anti-mutant group Orchis, its hard to hate the couple, and Marvel is even currently publishing Iron & Frost, an alternate future tale in which Emma becomes the new Iron Man to honor her love, Tony.

Kitty Pryde and Colossus

Relationships in X-Men are always tricky, and not just for the usual superpowered reasons. Throughout his legendary 17-year run on the series, writer Chris Claremont was unable to make any of his characters explicitly queer, which resulted in a lot of symbolic and inferred pairings between, say, Mystique and Destiny or Storm and Callisto.

However, it’s one of his most steady pairings that stands out as the strangest today. Shortly after the 13-year-old Kitty Pryde joins the team in 1980, she catches the eye of teammate Colossus, who is 18. The age difference rarely gets mentioned in those original issues, but it’s hard to ignore now, even as writers keep putting them together. Hopefully, now that Kitty has left Colossus at the altar and now that she’s canonically bisexual, fans are hoping she’ll find a partner that’s more suitable, in every sense of the word.

Ms. Marvel and Marcus Immortus

To this day, Avengers #200 (1980) stands as one of the most ignoble, ugly comic book stories of all time. The storyline sees Carol Danvers, who was going by the name Ms. Marvel at the time, find herself pregnant and suddenly giving birth to a child called Marcus. She later learns that Marcus is in fact, Marcus Immortus, a time-traveling variant of Kang the Conqueror, whom impregnanted Carol with himself. Worse, Carol professes her love for Marcus and runs off with him, while Cap and the other Avengers let her go. Fortunately, a follow-up story not only revealed that Marcus used mind control on Carol, but also gave Carol the chance to chew out her heroic colleagues for not coming to her aid when something was clearly wrong.

Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch

“But wait,” you ask, “Aren’t they…?” Yes. Yes, they are. Ever since they first appeared as members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, siblings Pietro and Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have had a close relationship. Usually, that’s explained as a certain protectiveness the brother has for his sister, stemming from their rough childhood—a childhood that only gets rougher as Marvel keeps changing its mind about who sired the duo.

But in the oh-so-edgy alternate-reality Marvel series The Ultimates, Pietro and Wanda were really, really close. To be fair, the relationship is only hinted at, and even Wolverine‘s “eyewitness” account of the two together has enough plausible deniability for those who want it. But that’s not enough to keep us all from getting very uncomfortable.

Saturn Girl and “Lightning Lad”

The success of superhero deconstructions like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Rises gave everyone permission to get a little nuts with cape and cowl books, none more so than the Five Years Later run of Legion of Super-Heroes comics that published between 1989 and 1994, spearheaded by Keith Giffen, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, and Al Gordon. Among the oddities in the series was a retcon to a Silver Age story in which Proty, a shape-shifting glob of goo, sacrificed himself to resurrect the fallen Legionaire Lightning Lad. During the Five Years Later run, after Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl had long since married and had children, we learn that Proty’s actions did not bring back the hero. Instead, Proty simply took the form of Lightning Lad and has been living with him ever since. The story even hints that Saturn Girl, a powerful telepath, knows the truth about her husband and is fine with it.

Supergirl and Comet

Okay, it is weird that Supergirl once fell in love with her horse Comet. But in the context of the relationship we just described and the one we’re about to discuss, the Supergirl and Comet pairing is downright adorable, if anachronistic. In Action Comics #293 (1962), Supergirl learns that her super-horse Comet is in fact a centaur from the future named Biron, who had been cursed to be a real horse and was launched into space, where he remained until Supergirl’s rocket from Krypton set him free. As Comet, Biron loves Supergirl. And when a wizard turns Biron into a man, Supergirl falls for him. However, after Supergirl loses all memory of him, Biron decides that it’s better for her to live without knowing him, which somehow overpowers all the potential ickiness of the story and makes it one of the genuinely romantic entries on this list.

Superman and Lois Lane (Silver Age)

Superman and Lois are easily the best couple in comics. Except for that time in the 1950s. And for a lot of the ’60s. Heck, the ’80s weren’t always great… Look, for whatever reason, DC Comics decided that most stories about Superman’s supporting cast would involve pranks, especially Lois Lane stories. Way too many issues of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane were about Lois trying to force Superman to marry her, only for Supes to reveal that he knew all along and has been messing with her. Which means that comics’ greatest couple spent nearly 25 years acting like they’re in Phantom Thread, toxic playfulness on a super-level.

Superman and Wonder Woman

Despite what I said above, Superman should always be with Lois Lane. And yet, for some reason, DC Comics keeps floating the idea that Superman would find true love in the arms of his Amazonian pal Wonder Woman. To be fair, this pairing most often takes place in alternate future stories like Kingdom Come or The Dark Knight Strikes Again, in which Lois has died. But DC did briefly make the pairing canon with its New 52 reboot from the 2010s. Thankfully, that reality has been swept away and Superman’s back with his loving Lois.

Wonder Girl and Terry Long

Even for a superhero, Donna Troy a.k.a. Wonder Girl has a convoluted background. However, one of the most baffling things bout her remains her marriage to Terry Long. It’s not just that the bearded history professor was 10 years older than the teenage Donna when they first met, nor that he bore a strong resemblance to his creator, writer Marv Wolfman. It’s that Terry was the ultimate wet blanket, constantly whining about Wonder Girl doing Wonder Girl things.

X-Man and Madelyne Pryor

Everything about Madelyne Pryor is weird. A redhead who met Cyclops right after the death of his beloved Jean Grey, Maddie was later revealed to be a clone of Jean, and later she became the demonic Goblin Queen after Cyke dumped her for the resurrected Jean.

However, Maddie got really strange when she embarked on a romance with Nate Grey, the alternate reality hero called X-Man. Why? Because Nate is the son of Jean Grey, the woman from whom Maddie was cloned. Sure, there’s a whole reality and cloning to separate Maddie from Nate’s mom. But is that enough?

Yellowjacket and the Wasp

When MCU fans hear the name “Hank Pym,” they think of a likable, if somewhat confused, old guy and supergenius in the Ant-Man movies. When Marvel fans hear the name “Hank Pym,” they think of a very unstable man who beats his wife. The panel where Hank Pym slaps his wife Janet Van Dyne in 1981’s Avengers #213 has become legendary. But less is said about Hanks previous breakdown, when he took on the identity of Yellowjacket in 1968’s Avengers #59. Claiming to be a new person who murdered the untrustworthy Pym, Yellowjacket demands acceptance from the Avengers and marriage to Janet… and Janet accepts. Later, Janet explains that she recognized that Yellowjacket was Hank and just wanted to help him heal, which just sounds like the writers trying to justify a horrible relationship.