hithere144-blog asked: IIRC, the reason given for wanting to make Peter Parker single again was "we didn't like how marriage made Peter (serious, sad, boring, various traits not in keeping with his 60's persona)"...I thought writers made Peter that way. Why does marriage in comics have to be written as a stifling albatross so often, especially where formerly single characters are concerned?
I don’t think you’re really understanding what the objection with a married Spider-Man was. It wasn’t so much that he was serious or sad or boring so much as it made him not feel young. Spider-Man is the greatest youth property ever created, and having him be married completely stepped on that. That doesn’t mean that other characters can’t be married, only that it’s a bad idea for Spider-Man. And really, the reason that marriage is so often written as fraught with conflict or difficulty is that stable loving relationships are dramatically boring. Conflict is at the heart of all stories, and particularly the interest in romantic relationships, who’s going to end up with who, who’s going to sleep with who, drives a lot of interest in characters of any sort. So it’s almost inevitable that even if you’ve got a couple that’s happily married, that’s only going to last for so long—because stories come out of conflict more than they come out of harmony.
