The DCnU Claims Another Superhero Marriage

?From Robot 6:

Although this won’t raise the pop-culture alarms that news of the end the marriage of Clark Kent and Lois Lane did, DC Comics has confirmed that another, much older union will bite the dust in the publisher’s line-wide relaunch: that of Barry Allen and Iris West.

The word comes this afternoon from editor Brian Cunningham, who writes at The Source
that Barry, like Clark, is a single man who’s never been married. … That’s right, as with Clark and Lois, post-Flashpoint the nearly 45-year-old marriage of Barry Allen and Iris West never happened. …

“If that upsets you, sorry about that,” Cunningham writes. “But I make
no apologies for opening up a traditional storytelling avenue with our
hero’s romantic life, something that’s been shut closed for a very long
time now. This is no indictment of marriage. I’m a married man and
wouldn’t trade it for anything. But in the realm of fiction, I feel
strongly that this change to Barry opens up fresh, new creative
directions and exciting new storylines.”

Brian Cunningham is actually a friend of mine, and a good guy. And I think he’s totally correct here — there’s a reason 90% of TV series and movies show people falling in love, not staying in love (one’s a narrative arc, the other’s not). And yes, kids are going to find a young, single Flash more relatable — and probably more interesting ? than old, married Flash. That just stands to reason. I don’t know that the way they’re erasing the marriages is much less grating than the way Marvel erased Spider-Man’s (okay, it is a bit, since no heroes have as yet MADE A DEAL WITH THE FUCKING DEVIL) but whatever.

But all I can think of this: Superheroes marrying has always been a bad idea. Unless the kids of the ’60s had a holy matrimony craze, The Flash marrying Iris in 1966 was a bad idea then, too. Which was why it was such a great idea to replace Barry Allen with the young, unmarried Wally West after Crisis on Infinite Earths… in a way that made narrative sense, gave a great close to a beloved character and added pathos to Wally instantly. AND THEN WALLY MARRIED SOMEBODY TOO. AND THEN THEY BROUGHT BACK MARRIED BARRY FUCKING ALLEN ANYWAYS. ARRRRGH.