Which Marvel superheroes have been around the block?

The Marvel Universe is full of superheroes doing amazing things and fighting crime. It’s also full of a lot of soap opera drama. Many of these characters have had more melodramatic relationship twists than the Ewings.

The X-Men have always been the most soap opera team in terms of relationships, and Cyclops has probably been around the block the most. He had a lengthy courtship with Jean Grey that survived her death and later led to their marriage. While Jean was out of the picture, Scott married Madelyne Pryor, who turned out to be Jean’s clone. He was notorious for dropping Maddie and their son like hot potatoes once Jean returned. Scott and Jean grew apart and he became involved with Emma Frost, a relationship Jean pushed for beyond the grave, knowing that if Scott and Emma were apart, it would lead to one of those trademarked X-Men dystopian futures.

Professor X also gets around. He had a relationship with scientist Moira MacTaggert that ended after he went to war. Charles also had an affair with Gabrielle Haller that produced their son David Haller, otherwise known as the mentally unstable mutant Legion. Charles had no idea of David’s existence for many years. Later Xavier married his longtime love Lilandra, empress of the Shi’ar Empire.

Storm was married to T’Challa, Black Panther and king of Wakanda, but they divorced. She had a longtime relationship with Forge, the mutant who accidentally shot her and temporarily removed her powers (how romantic). Forge proposed to her but later rescinded his offer, interpreting Storm’s reserve (due to needing control over her powers) as reluctance to marry, although she was going to say yes. Ororo had a weird flirtation with Nightcrawler for awhile and they recently retconned it that she and Wolverine had been sex buddies for years.

Wolverine was involved with Mariko Yashida for a long time but she left him at the altar while under the influence of Mastermind. He later married the terrorist Viper out of convenience. Wolverine is so old that I’m sure he has had many lovers whose names remain unrevealed.

Colossus had an icky (unconsummated) relationship with Kitty Pryde when he was about 18 and she was 14 or 15. This ended after he cheated on her with the alien Zsaji while the X-Men were on the Secret Wars planet. Peter was too naïve to realize Zsaji was basically a prostitute so any feeling she had was not real, so he threw away his relationship with Kitty for nothing. Kitty and Peter later got back together and the sex was so good, she phased through the bedroom floor into the living room.

Havok and Polaris were perpetually engaged for many, many years until he cheated on her with some terrible throwaway character. Rogue and Gambit had a long flirtation but couldn’t consummate it since she would have absorbed his powers and memory by touching them. Rogue also flirted with Magneto and was retconned to have slept with the Sentry. Angel, Beast and Iceman had various relationships with civilians.

Daredevil is basically the Marvel Universe’s town bike (everybody gets a ride). He dated Elektra in college, dated former secretary Karen Page for years, married a woman named Milla, and almost married a woman named Heather Glenn until the Black Widow broke up their engagement on account of Matt only proposing to blackmail Heather. His legal partner Foggy later dated Matt’s ex-girlfriend Glorianna. Many people have pointed out that most of the women Daredevil was with ended up dead.

Dorky old Peter Parker has been one of the biggest players in the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man’s relationship with Gwen Stacy ended with her death at the hands of the Green Goblin. There were a string of attractive civilian women after that plus the reformed villain the Black Cat. Peter then married Mary Jane Watson, an actual supermodel. In one story, a character commented that despite Peter’s reputation as a science nerd, he got around pretty well.

Crystal from the Inhuman family also could git it. She was married to Quicksilver for years. She also had affairs with the Human Torch and the Black Knight, so she’s been with a few high-profile heroes.

Over at Avengers Mansion, the Scarlet Witch was married to the Vision, an artificial man whose brain patterns were based on the then-deceased Wonder Man. After the Vision’s personality got erased, she eventually ended up dating Wonder Man (basically the Vision’s brother) before parting amicably. The Vision had a few dates with Ms. Marvel.

The Wasp and Hank Pym were the other Avengers couple, who married while he was mentally unstable and divorced after he slapped her. After a few years they reconciled and were on and off. Hank was involved with Firebird and later Tigra. Jan had a flirtation with the Black Knight and the hero Paladin. She also slept with Hawkeye and had a pregnancy scare (the less said about that asinine story, the better).

Hawkeye got around for awhile. He dated the Black Widow before marrying and divorcing Mockingbird. He also had a thing for the Scarlet Witch that was mostly one-sided, although they did have sex while she was amnesiac (eww).

Captain America, Thor and Iron Man never got that much action. Cap had dated Sharon Carter, civilian Bernadette Rosenthal and reformed supervillain Diamondback but that’s been pretty much it. Thor has been with Asgardian goddess Sif and Jane Foster, the former nurse to his alter ego Dr. Don Blake. I think he also had a thing for Amora the Enchantress (also dating her sister Lorelei while she deceived him), but not much else. I assume since he’s 2,000 years old, Thor has had many more conquests than we’ve heard about. Iron Man hasn’t gotten too much action, except for an ancient relationship with villain Madame Masque. I once saw a flow chart of relationships of Marvel heroes and Tony Stark was the only one who didn’t have any lines between him and other characters.

At the Baxter Building, things have been mostly stable for awhile. The Thing’s only relationship was with Alicia Masters, the blind sculptress. After Ben was off planet, Alicia dated and later married the Human Torch, but they later revealed her to be a Skrull.

The most stable relationship of all has been the marriage between Reed and Sue Richards, which has been intact since the late ‘60s. These two have bickered and become estranged but they’ve always returned to each other.