The 6 Worst Comic Book Super-Husbands

6 Spider-Man AKA Peter Parker

Married To:

Mary Jane Watson

Good Qualities:

Spider-Man has a certain Hugh Grant-esque bumbling sweetness about him, and legs that go on for miles.

Warning Signs:

Spider-Man's a wisecracker. Everyone knows that, it's one of his defining character traits. However, audiences only have to tolerate Spider-Man's lip for 28 pages every couple of weeks, or a couple hours every few years. Imagine trying to live with the guy. Imagine trying to have sex with the guy:

"So I guess that's where I left that web-shooter!"

On top of that, he's a terrible provider. Costumed vigilantism gets you tons of headlines and the adoration of millions but the pay amounts to all the spare change he can salvage from window ledges and pigeons' nests. The good news? That's still more than your average freelance photographer pulls in.

The Clincher:

Spider-Man sold his marriage to Satan. Just read that sentence over a couple more times, let it marinate. Done? OK, allow us to explain:

Spider-Man, in one of his trademark haphazard attempts at doing the right thing, unmasked himself on national television. This led to the Kingpin putting a hit on the wall-crawler, and Aunt May eating the sniper round intended for her dimwitted nephew. With his former caregiver in a deteriorating coma, Spider-Man's angst began approaching critical levels, attracting the attention of the demon Mephisto.

Mephisto, feeling generous, proposed a deal to Spidey: Aunt May would be returned to full health, bullet-free, but in return ...

... he would have to give up his marriage to Mary Jane. For some reason.

Spidey hemmed and hawed for a while, but eventually came to the logical decision: Abandon countless future years of happiness with the woman he loves in exchange for giving his octogenarian aunt a chance to die of heart failure or something.

The marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson could be likened to a Toyota Prius with faulty brakes: Comfortable and reliable under most circumstances, but destined to eventually flatten itself against a brick wall. And ultimately, not worth it.

5 The Incredible Hulk, AKA Bruce Banner

Married To:

The alien warrior queen Caiera.

Good Qualities:

Say what you like about the Hulk, but he's reliable (to be fucking insane with rage.) Great teeth, too.

Warning Signs:

Aside from the obvious (that he may flip out, grow six feet, and demolish an entire city block because it was suggested they're getting a little paunchy) there's anatomical compatibility to think of. Bruce Banner may have the tiniest, most adorable member imaginable, but once he Hulks out, that thing becomes weaponized.

"Weaponized" is actually a literal description. Every single fluid the Hulk produces is so radioactive that a Hazmat team would rush into the bedroom every time he climaxes.

The Clincher:

The Hulk is cursed. A happy Hulk is not a Hulk at all, so in the comic book universe that means bye-bye to anything that might bring him peace (like, say, a happy relationship.) This is bad news for anyone hoping to settle down, maybe buy a house in the suburbs, and pump out little Hulks.

Case in point: When the Hulk took his second wife, Caiera (yes, he's been married twice) it was on a planet he'd recently liberated from a despotic overlord and saved from an alien menace. She was a proud warrior queen, making her capable not only of withstanding Hulk's temper tantrums, but also his immense mojo.

So, the Hulk basically became king of an entire planet, married to his perfect woman and is surrounded by people who love him to pieces. What happens?

A massive explosion kills everyone except Hulk. Insert trumpet going "Wah-Wah-Wah-Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

To be fair to Hulk, we don't really know how good of a husband he would be long-term, due to the incredibly short lifespan of his wives. And though it's probably not much consolation to them, nothing that happened to either of his wives was his direct fault.

The same cannot be said for the next guy on our list ...

4 Cyclops, AKA Scott Summers

Married To:

Jean Grey, AKA Phoenix

Good Qualities:

We won't lie, Cyclops seems to have the whole package: He's polite, clean-cut, great with kids, and ridiculously muscular. That's like winning the husband lottery, right?

Warning Signs:

Wrong. While Cyke might be the go-to guy for fighting colossal robots, you've got the wrong man if you're looking for someone to have a good time with. Summers is a little like the Hulk, only instead of transforming into a rampaging monster, he turns into sort of a dick. And never changes back.

He's the only man alive who can make beating the tar out of a gang of genetic freaks feel like work.

The Clincher:

The worst thing Cyclops ever did to his wife might not be the most heinous on this list, but it is without a doubt the dumbest. See, Cyclops was married to Jean Grey who, by the way, had psychic powers. When some of the spark went out of the relationship, Cyclops dealt with according to the true nature of his dickishness: by seeking sexual healing from another telepathic babe, Emma Frost.

Ms. Frost In Her Ongoing Campaign Against Subtlety

Thus they being a bizarre "psychic love affair." After all, how would Jean ever find out? Oh, wait. She's also psychic. To reiterate: Scott Summers, while married to a psychic of inestimable power, enters into a psychic affair with the sluttiest psychic in town.

Once Jean catches on, it predictably takes her about a thousandth of a second to tear into Emma's mind and break up the shenanigans, leading to this charming tableau:

Look at Cyclops' face in the above picture. It betrays one of two things: Either he's only just realized what a titanically poor decision he's just made, or he's still in the dark and is completely fucking flabbergasted. "What's wrong, honey? Why are you so angry? Oh, say hi to Emma, you know Emma, right?"

Meanwhile, in the back of his mind he's thinking, "Threesome."

3 Hawkeye, AKA Clint Barton

Married To:

Barbara Morse, AKA Mockingbird

Good Qualities:

Hawkeye has the typical cachet of better-than-usual abilities. He's an expert hand-to-hand fighter, accomplished gymnast, all of which we're assuming lets him perform admirably in the bedroom. If a cut-rate Captain America without the jingoistic overtones gets your motor running, look no further than Clint Barton.

"The High, Hard Shaft" and Other Titles That Marvel Editorial Overlooked

Warning Signs:

As hard as it is to be married to any superhero, it has to be harder to be married to a gimmicky B-lister. You have to imagine that as Mrs. Hawkeye you'd constantly be trying to boost his spirits with such encouragements as:

"I'm sure next time we fight Doctor Doom you'll get to do something before Iron Man carpet-bombs the area."

or

"You know, you'll be technologically relevant if we get sent back to the 16 century! It could happen!"

You wind up living with a man who has a crippling inferiority complex, often making weak attempts at justifying the whole 'bow and arrow' thing. For instance:

"Are you sure? 'Cause we could just untie--"

"NO IT MUST BE WITH ARROWS."

The Clincher:

Pop quiz, fellas: Your wife confesses to you that she was raped, and that she allowed the rapist to die after fighting him. Do you:

A) Wholeheartedly support her actions, only regretting that you weren't there to kill the man yourself.

B) Tell her that all that matters is that she's OK now.

C) Freak out, refuse to believe her, and take the side of the rapist.

If you picked an answer other than C, congratulations! You're not Hawkeye.

Yes, all of that happened to Mockingbird (the rapist was Phantom Cowboy, it's a long story). Mockingbird eventually tells Hawkeye of the events, and we are treated to this bewildering exchange:

By the way, as you can guess by the villain's name, he's a phantom. He doesn't actually die, he just inhabits another body, so basically his "death" was a mild inconvenience for him. Yet, Hawkeye takes his side. "Psychotic Phantasmal Bros Before Hos, Am I Right, Fellas!"

2 Yellowjacket, AKA Goliath, AKA Giant-Man, AKA Ant-Man, AKA Henry "Hank" Pym

Married To:

The Wasp

Good Qualities:

As you can probably tell from the many different names, Henry Pym is constantly finding new ways to make his 'growing and shrinking' superpower seem fresh, displaying a certain creative flair. He's also a whole hell of a lot buffer than you'd expect your typical super-scientist to be.

Warning Signs:

Not to put too fine a point on, but Henry Pym's kind of an asshole, and an incredibly sketchy one at that. If he isn't feeling insecure about his abilities ("I'm just not big enough!"), he's building robots who eventually go insane and murder billions galaxy-wide.

"Stay out of the garage, honey. I'm working on something."

The Clincher:

Oh, yeah. That's Pym giving his wife a good superhero smacking. According to the writers, WHAK is the sound it made.

That happened while Pym was facing an Avengers court martial for being a crazy jackass. This would have effectively branded him a supervillain and given Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America full license to tap dance on his skull. Pym, thinking long and hard, decided that the best way to convince his friends that he wasn't a threat was to ... build a killer robot to attack the court martial hearing. Wait, what?

OK, so his plan was to defeat the robot by himself, thus convincing the assembly that he was still a hero. The Wasp overhears Pym's deranged mutterings and plays Devil's Advocate, suggesting that sending a giant robot to attack your super-friends is, um, kind of insane. Pym refuses to tolerate any backsass to his genius, and fetches her a nasty backhand, knocking her unconscious.

Wow. Do they get worse than that? Cold, distant, and emotionally unavailable? Check. Gradually alienating all mutual friends and coworkers? Check. Verbal and physical abuse? Check. The only reason for him not topping the list being that there's one man who does it all better ...

1 Mr. Fantastic, AKA Reed Richards

Married To:

Susan Storm, AKA The Invisible Woman

Good Qualities:

A winning smile, a smooth talker, and a penis that can actually stretch a county mile.

Warning Signs:

Let's look at some examples of Mr. Fantastic's philosophies towards marriage:

Mr. Fantastic on Communication:

Mr. Fantastic on Reconciliation:

Mr. Fantastic on Shutting Susan Up:

The Clincher:

Let's be honest: any of the above pictures are enough to condemn Reed Richards as a lousy husband, and a total dick to boot. But we here at Cracked pride ourselves in going that extra mile when denouncing imaginary jerks, so try this gem on for size: Reed Richards shut off his own son's brain.

Young Franklin Richards, budding mutant prodigy and apple of his mother's eye, was an issue of some concern to his father. Franklin apparently had a godlike supply of reality-altering power, which Reed was afraid he might lose control of. His solution is enough to make anyone remotely familiar with an Oedipus complex bite clean through their cigars.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Coma Ray:

Reed "There's No Problem That Rayguns Can't Solve" Richards

Reed may look conflicted in the picture, but you just know that in the back of his mind he's going "Excellent! My calculations regarding the Vegetomatic Tranfusor were spot on! Truly, this a glorious day for science!"

The fact that Reed Richards is both the worst husband on this list while being the only one who's still married is probably a testament to just how good Reed Richards is at spinning his dick moves. Keep in mind, this guy got superpowers in the first place by taking his fiancee and her dopey teenage brother into dangerously radioactive areas of space (on said fiancee's dollar). That he became known as a superhero at all shows he is one smooth motherfucker. Well we're not fooled, Mr. Richards.