In honor of Valentine’s Day, your Blog@ cupids offer you a sticky-sweet candy heart of our own … our favorite comic book couples. While it would have been easy to offer up a list as predictable as a Hallmark card, we opted to skip some of the more obvious couples, like Reed & Sue, Lois & Clark, and Peter and MJ, and instead went for some that were off the beaten path:

Medusa and Black Bolt (Carla Hewitt)

If love is faith and faith is trust, then Marvel’s Inhuman monarchs know a little about everything. Black Bolt, cursed with incredible destructive power from a single syllable, and his lady love Medusa haven’t always been together, but their devotion to one another is nigh-unshakable. Medusa reached out to him as a kid when he was locked away from Atillan because of his birthright and they developed a secret sign language that helped him communicate. When she went missing and amnesiatically joined the Frightful Four, Black Bolt moved heaven and earth to find her and bring her back to his side as his Queen. When the Ruling Council denied them a child, something the two of them had a pretty big fight over, in the end they came back together to mourn their mutual loss. And when Black Bolt’s intricate plan to protect his people and foil his lunatic brother required his wife to sacrifice her own powers, she bravely her king’s lead.

Both of them are rather fantastic people: Black Bolt’s come into a recent bit of popularity since he’s been added into the Illuminati and was one of the rather awesome moments in Black Panther’s House of M tale, and Medusa has stood in for Susan Richards on the Fantastic Four, her hair alone an artist’s dream to get to sketch out. Both of them can hold their own in the face of danger but when the sum of their parts creates this bigger whole, two people devoted to their people and each other, you get a powerhouse.

It takes a lot to rule a country and when two people come together for a greater whole, you can build a foundation on which whole sci-fi cities are made. When people put their lives in your hands, there’s a level of trust there that when respected can only strengthen the whole. And just because he doesnt say ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean he won’t show you in other ways.

Fone Bone and Thorn Harvestar (JK Parkin)

He was a short, lovable foreigner who wandered into her valley and fell into a hero’s quest; she was his farm girl crush and, unknowingly, heir to the throne. They were from different worlds – and different species – so it was probably ill-fated from the beginning.

It wasn’t the typical match you’d expect in a fantasy comic, but Fone’s love for Thorn was so pure and sweet that you couldn’t help but cheer for the little guy to get the girl. He was quite the opposite of Prince Charming, but when push came to shove, he was there for Thorn when she needed him, and vice versa.

Batman and Silver St. Cloud (Tom Bondurant)

You’re going to throw things, because this is the couple I always select, but I still have to pick Bruce Wayne and Silver St. Cloud. I like that she’s perceptive enough to see, and fall in love with the real Bruce Wayne — not the fop, not Batman, but the guy behind both. Regardless, when she ultimately realizes Bruce is Batman, with all that entails, she breaks up with him knowing that Batman will always be in the way. (I’m pretty sure Silver was unique among Bat-girlfriends in this respect, until Matt Wagner’s recent take on Julie Madison.) Silver is smart and independent, not needing the company of a Bruce Wayne to complete her life, so the real issue thus becomes how much Bruce needs her. We don’t quite get an answer, although the argument could be made that the breakup helped Batman slide more into grim lonerhood.

The original Detective Comics arc (in issues 469-76) has clearly withstood the test of time, and her return in 2005′s Batman: Dark Detective thankfully didn’t diminish those ’70s stories. I think another installment is in the works, which would be appropriate given DD’s rather abrupt ending. However, if there’s no Dark Detective 2, at least Batman now has “hand….”

Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse (Chris Mautner)

Whilst we spend this Valentine’s Day gazing into our loved ones adoring eyes, let us not forget those of use who suffer the burden of unrequited love. And is there any love more unrequited than that of Krazy Kat for his “lil angil” Ignatz Mouse? I think not. May we all be as blissfully unaware of our beloved’s true feelings, and as steadfastedly resolute in our devotion towards them.

Sasquatch and Aurora (Michael May)

Everyone loves a pair of star-crossed lovers and they don’t get much more star-crossed than Walter “Sasquatch” Langkowski and Jeanne-Marie “Aurora” Beaubier. He’s a former pro-football player who’s managed to hang on to his science-nerd cred; she’s a French Canadian beauty who suffers from multiple personality disorder and is just as liable to slap you in the face as she is to tear your clothes off and go to town.

Unfortunately for Sasquatch, Aurora’s vixen personality was dominant when he fell for her in a classic Beauty and the Geek scenario. It wasn’t until he was well-invested in their relationship that he even realized she had a second personality. And that it wasn’t quite as interested in his advances as the first one.

And things weren’t so easy for Aurora either. Struggling with dual personalities is difficult enough without trying to fit a relationship into the situation. And Sasquatch could be a little whiny.

As hard as it was though, it was heart-warming to see that Sasquatch truly cared about Aurora and didn’t just drop her once he learned about her disorder. And it was even more heart-warming to see her respond to his love. Eventually, Sasquatch — never one to leave alone Things That Man Is Not Meant to Know — even figured out a way to merge Aurora’s personalities and “heal” her. For a moment, it looked like happiness might actually be possible.

But then Sasquatch goes and gets killed and his disembodied soul gets stuck in a robot and Aurora has Needs that a robot can’t fulfill (not without special attachments, anyway) and there you go. They’re done. Sasquatch has remained a more or less asexual bachelor ever since while Aurora has spiraled psychologically into a never-ending cycle of relapse, cure, and relapse again. But what did you expect from star-crossed lovers? A happy ending?

For a while though, there was potential. And for a while, they were happy. And it’s the memories of those times that make Sasquatch and Aurora a Great Comics Couple.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Comic Books, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.