Married SuperMen

There is a storyline that just finished in the SpiderMan book's where they ret conned his entire marriage , as part of his attempt to save his aunt, Peter Parker cuts a deal with the devil of the marvel universe and is no longer married to M.J. and does not know that he was ever married to her(yes , some comics are still that silly). Anyway some of the fans were in uproar and since this seemed to be an editorial driven story, Joe Quesada said he doesnt like the concept of married super heroes, and that there is no story he can tell with a married superhero that he can't tell with an unmarried one, but there are plenty of stories he can tell with an unmarried superhero that he can't with a married one.
And I think , that he is ofcourse talking rubbish. When Clark Kent married Lois Lane, i had to get Craig's mother , then on a cruise, to stop at a port and buy me the wedding of Superman comic book , and it was too good. It was sentimental, mushy , it had all the writers and artists of the comic book present at the wedding , and it was fun. And now it is tough to imagine an unmarried Superman, and the stories havent suffered much (though there are still bad superman stories as there always were). And if you ever read Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow story, that really is a perfect send off for superman, the way superman should end, and what do you know, in the end he is married to Lois Lane with kids. Some things are just meant to be.
Batman though is a different character. You would never expect or want to see him married and settled down with kids. Batman is an obsessive character and remove the obsession and he no longer is the same character. Batman is the loner.
And so it's not a question of how many different types of stories you can tell (someone has said there are only 7 seven types of unique stories in the word and everything else is a mixture of the 7 in varying degrees) , but it is how well you can tell them. Keith giffen and J.M. de matteis used humour to depict The elongated man and Sue dibny and it worked, till Brad Meltzer , for reason's best known to him killed off Sue. But if you read the next mini by Keith and J.M. written after Identity Crisis but placed before Identity Crisis timewise (yes comics are still that confusing) where you as a reader know that Sue will die but the characters themselves don't , it was both funny and touching and bittersweet , and how many stories can claim to be all of those?
And if you read 52, with a suicidal Ralph, who is finally reunited with Sue, oh wow, what an end , and a new beginning,try telling that story , Mr Quesada, with an unmarried superhero.
the problem with the comics though is that they run for a long long time. and just like any soap opera that has outlived its welcome, the writers try to find new (old) ways to shock the audience and get them interested again. And unfortunately all are cliches (infidelity. misunderstandings over infidelity, death, divorce, memory loss, etc etc.) and all of these solutions taint the characters. Can you imagine clark kent divorcing his wife? No? how about we kill her off then? get a new romantic interest and a new wedding? would sure boost up sales!
and I guess that's why Vertigo with it's mostly finite in time stories which have a beginning middle and end , turn out to be written so much better than the unlimited batman/superman.

Kingdom Come

For those who have read Kingdom Come and marvelled(!) at the art , only to realise on subsequent readings that what made this book great was not (just) the artwork , but the writing and the story, here's a tale for us
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17538

Expect this article to make sense only after you've read Kingdom Come.