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The Superhero in Love
210 Plays3 years ago
We're switching gears this week for another episode focused not on a movie, but a topic related to superheroes—and that's the trope of superheroes in love. Y.M. Nelson, romance author and host of The Nerdy Romantics Podcast, is the guest this week to talk about some of our favorite superhero romances, some of the tropes of romance in superhero stories—both the good and the bad—and how these compare to other, non-superhero romance stories.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show.
This month, we're teaming up with Technically A Conversation, a podcast for curious people by curious people. Head on over to their site to listen to conversations on all sorts of interesting conversations, from urban legends, the supernatural and the occult, science, espionage, and so much more.
Patrons get to listen to episodes before everyone else and they also get access to my exclusive companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. If you want to join in, please consider supporting us through Patreon!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Greetings, we're technically a conversation, a podcast for curious people by curious people. Every week we take turns presenting a new topic and the other host has no idea what the topic will be. We strive to educate in a way that's loose and fun. Our topics are all over the place from light and funny to dark and sometimes spooky.
00:00:22
Speaker
Some of the topics we've covered include urban legends, civil rights activists, vampires, pop culture icons, the supernatural and occult, spies and espionage, science and astronomy, and other weird and random things.
00:00:38
Speaker
If any of these topics interest you, give our podcast a shot. Listen and subscribe at TechnicallyAConversation.com, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Parental advisory, we might use strong language.
Guest Introduction: YM Nelson
00:01:10
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. Today, we've got a really interesting show. A few months back, you may remember we didn't cover a movie or a TV show, but we covered a topic talking about superhero politics. And today, we're going to be doing another type of topic-based episode because I recently came into contact with a romance author who's also a fan of superhero movies. So I thought this would be a really interesting topic to talk about, and we'll be talking about
00:01:40
Speaker
the idea of romance and superheroes and all of that stuff that's kind of connected with that. And that is YM Nelson. How are you doing today? I'm good. How about you, Perry? I'm doing good. Well, thanks for agreeing to come onto the show and for agreeing to come out to this topic that just kind of came to me off the top of my head when we were discussing stuff. I love it. Before we jump into the topic though, why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?
00:02:08
Speaker
All right, great. Hi, everybody. I'm YM Nelson. I'm a contemporary romance and romantic women's fiction author. I also created and I host the Nerdy Romantics podcast. It is a reader entertainment-based focus podcast. And it really started out of my love of nerd pop culture.
00:02:36
Speaker
I'm going to put that in quotes because I don't know if that's like a real thing or if it's a real thing. Okay, good. Great. I'm so happy. So I love nerd pop culture, but I also love love stories. And so I just wanted to kind of talk about that.
00:02:56
Speaker
at the same time. So that's why I created the podcast. I am a die hard, I'm gonna say TNG and thereafter Trekkie.
The Origins and Evolution of Superhero Characters
00:03:09
Speaker
I have love for the OG Star Trek, but I haven't watched a lot of those episodes. But as far as superhero goes, I grew up on the X-Men cartoon.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yeah, same here. And yeah, and there was also a cartoon out when I was a kid called Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. And I know I'm thinking that's not from an actual comic book. They made that for TV and then they did the comic book after.
00:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. Well, kind of. Yeah. So the show was it was actually originally supposed to be the human torch in it. But because it's issues, they couldn't get him. So they created Firestar for the right for the show. And then later she got favorite character. And then oh, really? OK. Yeah. And later she had introduced in the comics, I think in New Mutants or X-Men. And then she became a member of the New Warriors and later the Avengers and
00:04:05
Speaker
I think now she's with the X-Men. I'm not sure. I'm not 100% up to date on what she's been up to lately, but they didn't necessarily have like an amazing friend's comic book, but they've done kind of like callbacks to it in the comic books. The ultimate Spider-Man comic. They had this period where like you had Iceman and Firestar in it for a brief period. And they've done a few other like little callbacks to it here and there.
00:04:30
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. That is so cool. I will say for your audience, my audience kind of knows that I'm not a comic book reader, but I consider comic books like canon. If there were no comic books, then we wouldn't have all these amazing films.
00:04:50
Speaker
You know, there are times when I'm watching those films and watching the TV shows and I feel like I just have to go and research. I have to go and find out, was this in the comic book? What was this like? Did this really happen? And so I'm kind of a little bit nerdy like that, but
00:05:10
Speaker
But yeah, a little bit more about me. I pretty much have been writing since I was 12. And so I've been writing romance and love story. Well, really love story
Blending Geek Culture and Romance
00:05:20
Speaker
since I was 12. And I've also had this kind of nerd bit a little bit and they did not combine until like, you know, kind of recently when a high school friend of mine
00:05:36
Speaker
wrote, she wrote a fantasy romance series called the Siodrassian Chronicles. And she's got two books out of it now. Her name is Bethany divorce, by the way. And when she was writing those books, she had her heroine of those books be a gamer. That's like what she did as
00:06:02
Speaker
like her job she was a gamer and I was like this is really cool I think I need to kind of mesh my my passions a little bit here and so um you know since then I found there's really like a whole sub genre of geek romance out there and you know they're doing everything from gaming to talking about superheroes to talking about
00:06:29
Speaker
just geeking out on TV, old TV shows, TV culture, things like that. And so I found my happy place. So here I am. Yeah, it's been interesting because traditionally, and you probably felt this too growing up that I did too, is that there's like this separation between the geek stuff and the romance stuff. Yes. And never the twain shall meet. It's kind of like what we've always been led to believe, but
00:06:58
Speaker
In the past few years, I've also noticed this increasing union of the two.
00:07:04
Speaker
I think we could probably credit, if I was gonna find something to actually credit it, I think you could probably look at stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Vampire Diaries, and that whole paranormal romance thing is kind of like bridge the gap between those two. That's what did it. I think that's what did it, yeah. Yeah, and so, but it's funny when you think about it, because you go back to even the earliest superhero stories, there's always been romance, so heavily big. Of course. I mean,
00:07:30
Speaker
Stan Lee and Chris Claremont, when they were writing their comics, they heavily based it on soap operas. Oh, wow. I did not know that. I mean, that's probably why you were attracted to the X-Men in the first place, was all the soap opera dynamics. Oh, yes. Yes. It's total soap opera dynamics. Yeah. It is. And Stan Lee's Spider-Man was the same thing. It was soap opera with occasional superheroes thrown in.
00:07:56
Speaker
And so you've had all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always just been so heavily baked into the concept. And yet it's still something that people are just now starting to realize. It's kind of funny when you think about it that way. Yeah. Yeah. It really is.
00:08:11
Speaker
but I'm glad people are starting to think about it that way because it's just a cool place to be, at least for me it is.
Publishing in the Modern Era
00:08:21
Speaker
And about your, I didn't look too much into your publishing work, sorry about that, but are you independently published or traditionally?
00:08:28
Speaker
Right now, I'm looking towards doing self-publishing. I haven't put anything out. My debut novel right now is in a couple of contests right now, so it hasn't actually been published. So that's why I would probably say I'm not really sure if I'm going to independent or trad, but my bent is towards independent publishing. And I did self-publish a short story series.
00:08:56
Speaker
um you know and i like that i kind of like that avenue so if it doesn't get picked up um traditionally it will be self-published yeah i've been self-publishing for over 10 years now so i definitely know what that's like uh but i think the reason i bring that up is because i think that's another place where a lot of this um
00:09:18
Speaker
recognition has come from because in the traditional world you know you've got this idea of we have to hit the broadest possible demographic so we can't get too niche whereas self-publishers we can afford to to be more niche with stuff because we don't have the
00:09:35
Speaker
We don't have to meet the big margins that the bigger publishers have to meet. Exactly, exactly. And that's where you, you know, that's where you find all the, to me, and that's kind of where you find that whole nexus of nerd pop culture and
00:09:53
Speaker
and romance. Absolutely, yeah. To me, that's where a lot of those good authors, or they at least started indie, even if they didn't completely stay indie, they at least started indie. Right. You know, so, yeah. And it's just like you said, it's because we could just do more. Yeah, yeah. We don't have to worry about it. We don't have to lose anybody over ourselves. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's one of the nice things about
Iconic Superhero Romances
00:10:18
Speaker
it. But so, we're talking about superhero romance, and obviously, you know,
00:10:23
Speaker
There's always that question of the superhero and their love interest, right? Superman has Lois Lane, Spider-Man has Mary Jane, Batman has...
00:10:34
Speaker
whoever at the time it's always been a little bit. But there's always been like some sort of love interest character, like all the way back to the original Superman comics. So first thing I wanna talk about is what are some of your favorite superhero romances from the, cause I know you're mostly familiar with just the movies and the TV show. What are some of your favorites, the ones that you think really stand out?
00:10:58
Speaker
For me, my favorite growing up was the whole rogue gambit combination from X-Men. I just love their whole dynamic. If I'm looking back at it now, I would probably say it was kind of a friends to lovers kind of thing going on there. As far as the comic, it didn't get very far because
00:11:24
Speaker
their romance necessarily didn't get, as far as the cartoon, I'm sorry. It didn't get very far because there are secondary characters on the cartoon, right? But you kind of see it happening and it's always kind of made me wonder in the comic, did they really like it together? Did they get married? What happened there? But I just love them together. That's always been kind of my favorite.
00:11:52
Speaker
They officially they finally officially got married a few years ago. So I'm so happy. And she finally ended up getting control of her powers and all that stuff. So yeah, that happened a few years back. They they went back and forth a few times. There was some there's like on again, off again, periods, obviously. And then and then finally a few years ago, it just kind of like they settled everything and then got together permanently. So they had their their happily ever after. In fact, they had
00:12:18
Speaker
They had their own series together for a time. At first it was called Rogan Gambit. And then after they got married, it was called Mr. and Mrs. X was the name of the title. I love that. Oh my gosh. Oh, I'm geeking out right now. That is so awesome. I love that.
00:12:37
Speaker
And I guess what I will say for now, now my, and this is really just totally, totally, totally recently, because I just watched the Batman. We did a review on my podcast. That is not out yet at this recording, but I love, and I've always kind of loved this.
00:13:02
Speaker
But I especially love the way that it's done in the Batman is the whole Batman cap woman.
00:13:10
Speaker
you know, kind of dynamic, Batman, Selena Kyle kind of dynamic is really what they have going on. Cause she's not officially Catwoman there. You know, she basically is though. She basically is right. Right. Um, yeah, I kept calling her Selena and I was like, just call her Catwoman. Oh my gosh. You know, just getting on my nerves.
00:13:32
Speaker
But I love that dynamic in that particular movie because of the layers. And to me, this is where I think comic books and where romance really meet is because they're very much character-driven.
00:13:52
Speaker
It's all about character. And yes, there's a lot of cool action adventure stuff. There's other plot stuff in romance that happens, but it's really character driven and that's kind of...
00:14:09
Speaker
what you've been as a romance author, what you've been told all along is to write in a series. And part of the whole series thing is because people want to see these characters again. It's not necessarily because they want to see them do X and Y and Z and all that kind of stuff, but it's because they fall in love with these characters.
00:14:30
Speaker
And for me, what happened in the Batman that I have not seen in any other Batman movie is the fact that they had layers.
00:14:46
Speaker
You know, they have very complex layers. And you see this a lot with Batman, but you don't necessarily see it with Catwoman. She's just this sultry, slinky person that's going around. And she's a cat burglar. And she has two dimensions and a lot of things.
00:15:04
Speaker
But you know that that's not really just what she is. She has layers. She has depth. She has backstory. And you start to see that in the Batman. And that is what made me really love the whole electricity of them together is because
00:15:26
Speaker
They're foiled. To me, they're foils of each other. You know, Batman is this complex character. He's going through a lot of things. And it's exacerbated by the fact that he's got these very different personalities. As Batman, he is one thing. And as Bruce Wayne, he's another thing. And they fight. And those two personalities kind of fight each other at times. Right.
00:15:55
Speaker
You see that whole complexity happen there, but you also see it on the other side with Selena. She wants to fight the good fight, but she doesn't want to fight it in a good way, necessarily. She's like, okay, we're not going to do this the way you want to do it.
00:16:16
Speaker
You know, and so that whole dynamic and that attraction, it's just it's just magnified. And it's just it's delicious to watch. Yeah. I mean, also Zoe Kravitz. I mean, my God, I will watch that that actress do anything. She's amazing. Right. Oh, my gosh. She's totally amazing.
00:16:37
Speaker
Did you see her in the, she did the high fidelity reboot series on who? Yes. She was amazing in that. Like, I mean, when I heard about that, I'm like, really? You're remaking the high fidelity? Okay. But I gave it a chance and oh my God, that she was so, I wish that show got another season. Cause she was amazing. I know, I know. I was talking about that with, with my co-host after we, after we stopped recording, we were like, you know, we talked a little bit about it on the podcast, but then we, you know,
00:17:12
Speaker
you know, after that, we talked about, you know, what she's done. And then there's, you know, been a couple of things that she's done. And it's like, you know, I didn't necessarily like this, this particular movie, but I liked her in it, you know, but we definitely talked about High Fidelity. Oh gosh, she was amazing in High Fidelity. She was actually, she was so amazing.
00:17:34
Speaker
you know, we were talking forever, so.
00:17:38
Speaker
And I will say I'm probably old enough to have watched the John Cusack version, but I have not. Oh, really? Oh, you should watch it. I have it. But I will say that after I watched her do high fidelity, I went back to the and tried to read the book. Oh, OK. And it's not the same thing.
00:18:04
Speaker
I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute, where's the Zoey Sparkle? You know, it's like, it's just cause she wasn't in there. She brought that to herself, yeah. She really did, she's amazing. And also, and her mom's in the original High Fidelity.
00:18:20
Speaker
Lisa Bourdain. Oh, she is. I did not know that. So it's a nice little- I gotta watch this movie. Yeah, yeah. Her mom's got a really good role in that. She does a really good job in that. And it's a John Cusack classic, right? He's great in that. It's like him just, and he put his, and very much like she put her own stamp on the series, John Cusack very much put his own stamp on the movie. Because the book was set in London, I believe, and John Cusack's the reason it got moved to Chicago, because he's from there.
00:18:49
Speaker
Oh wow, I didn't know that. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, that's awesome. So yeah, that, and she was so good taking it back to the Batman. Like she, she's definitely my favorite cat woman. Like I, Michelle Pfeiffer is, is classic, right? You know, but, but especially when you compare it to the comics, like nobody has come closer to really grasping those different layers. Like you were talking about the way Zoe Kravitz has like, and the way she is this,
00:19:19
Speaker
you know, somewhat of a partner, but also somewhat of a foil, which was handled so much better here than it was in any of other movies. They kind of touched on that a little bit in, you know, The Dark Knight Rises with Anne Hathaway. They kind of touched on it a little bit in Batman Returns, but still at the same time, she's basically helping the main villain too in those movies.
00:19:40
Speaker
Whereas this, there's none of that in this movie. It's just, you know, she's pursuing them, but she's got her own agenda to pursue them. And it adds a whole new complexity to what's happening in the story.
00:19:51
Speaker
Yeah, it really does, it really does. And it really kind of makes you see, wow, this character has been underrepresented in almost just about every way that I've seen this character. She's just been totally underrepresented. And the fact that there have been literal movies made just from the Catwoman character, but they haven't even touched on this stuff.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's just my boggling to me and I'm just like, I can see a Catwoman movie being made. If she does it, if she does it, you know, and if they get, you know, kind of the same, you know, production team and directors and everything.
00:20:41
Speaker
I can see that being done and it not being, you know, a joke. Like some of the other ones were. Yeah. That was my first thought walking out. It's like, not the Batman 2, but I want to see the Catwoman movie with Zoe Kravitz. Right. Right. Exactly. I'm with you on that. I'm waiting for it. Now, for me, one of my favorite current superhero romances is, have you watched Superman and Lois at all?
00:21:09
Speaker
I have not yet okay so yeah i've seen i've seen kind of the um i've seen kind of where they're going with it on some other dc shows um cw shows um but i haven't watched that show yet.
00:21:25
Speaker
Oh, you gotta watch that, that's really good. And one of the things I really like about it is it so much feels like an adult relationship. Yes, I will agree with you on that because I think, what was the last crossover that they did? Infinite Earths. Oh, Christ's Son, Infinite Earths, yeah.
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah. So I think they were part of that, that crisis on infant and the nerds. And I totally got that feel as well. Well, yeah, there's that, there were that, speaking of that, I love how there are these scenes when Elizabeth Tullock's Lois Lane, whenever she meets these other supermen, right? When she sees Brandon Routh or when she sees Tom Welling, she's kind of like, oh, wow, look at that guy. Look at how big it is. And then Tyler Oakland's like,
00:22:10
Speaker
Really? Right. But what I loved about it is there's no petty jealousy about it, right? He doesn't get jealous and like start like, you know, you know, arguing with Brandon Routh or Tom Welling about any of that. Like there's not he's he's just more like excited that there are more versions of him in the multiverse.
00:22:30
Speaker
Right. Right. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. And on the TV show, there's a lot more of that because the whole, you know, the whole thing is devoted to the whole fact about them being parents and, you know, raising kids and everything like that. And, and there's this one great scene that I think really summed up when Clark
00:22:49
Speaker
She tells her she asked Clark to do something to be there, and he ends up having to skip it because he's got to do Superman stuff. And he comes back, and you know he apologized like I'm sorry you know I know and she's like, and she's, and she says to him she's like look.
00:23:05
Speaker
I know you had to do your Superman thing. I know it's stupid for me to be upset about it. And I understand all that, but I'm still, I just need a minute. And that was just such a perfect, cause you know, you see that hat, that trope, that's one of the tropes we'll probably talk about is the fact about the superhero missing out on something because he's got to do superhero stuff. And then the love interest being mad at them for that.
00:23:32
Speaker
And on the one hand, you think, okay, yeah, I kind of get that you're mad that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. But on the other hand, you know, he was saving a bus to school kids. So give the guy a break. So I thought that moment was handled so well in that series when she's like, I know you had to do this. I know people's lives were at risk and I understand all that intellectually, but I'm still mad about it and I just need a minute. And I thought that was such a perfect way, adult way of handling that situation. Yeah, yeah.
Traditional Romance Narratives and Superheroes
00:24:02
Speaker
I think with that whole trope of the superhero and the love interest who's most of the time not super or doesn't have any kind of powers in any way, I think the kind of closest trope for that in romance is, or the closest kind of character trope is the celebrity regular person.
00:24:27
Speaker
you know kind of mix and and there are several there are several that are out now that are just
00:24:37
Speaker
You know, it just seems like it's a lot more of them out now. And I see a lot of that kind of, that whole dynamic between the superhero and the not superhero. And, you know, as far as romances go. And sometimes they're done well. Sometimes it's like,
00:25:02
Speaker
What? What did you do here? Wait a minute. This is not, you know, I think the ones that are more so grounded, kind of like you're talking about with Superman and Lois, the ones that are kind of grounded in reality, even though being a superhero is not reality necessarily, it's kind of grounded in reality. It's those that kind of make the romance part of it
00:25:29
Speaker
cooler it just it makes it like more authentic I guess and um you kind of have to have those moments you have to have those those grounding adult moments to keep
00:25:44
Speaker
Readers in the romance story, if you're doing a romance novel with like a celebrity regular person pairing, you have to have those kind of grounding moments like that where they can relate to them. And the same thing with, you know, with superhero, not superhero, those little moments, those are the ones that, you know, make me think, wow, yeah, I mean, there really could be a Superman out there. And yeah, there really could be this dynamic.
00:26:14
Speaker
Going right. Yeah. And it's also strikes me as like having to be a very fine line you have to tell because you don't want the love interest to seem unreasonable, even if they've got a good reason to be to be mad, because I think right. And you can't push that too far. And I think the the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, they did that with Mary Jane.
00:26:32
Speaker
especially in Spider-Man 3 at the beginning, where she's getting very, you know, she's getting these bad reviews and he's trying to say, look, I understand what you're going through because I get, you know, I've had people massacring me in the newspaper as Spider-Man and all this for years. And she's just being, and she's just, she's saying, it's not about you, it's not about you. And she's just pushing it too far. And then you're just thinking like, you know, he's trying to help you out here and you're not responding. Exactly, exactly.
00:27:02
Speaker
I think with those movies and that dynamic, it was a little over the top. That's the whole authenticity thing that kind of takes you out of
00:27:23
Speaker
This being like a real relationship versus this just being something that the superhero and i think i think part of that is because of the director cuz sam ramy is a very over the top director. Which works really well when you're doing something like in the multiverse of madness which he was a mate which he did amazing with or if you're doing like.
00:27:43
Speaker
you know, drag me to hell or the evil dead movies, right? Being over the top works great there. But when you're trying to- Exactly. When you're trying to portray a romance and have it be like this slice of verisimilitude in the movie and you're trying to be over the top of it, it doesn't work so well then. Right, exactly. And it's, you know, it's kind of funny because like the Spider-Man movies now with, you know, Spider-Man and MJ and
00:28:11
Speaker
you know, what's happening there. Although I didn't see, I haven't seen the last one yet. Oh, you got to see that. Oh gosh. I'm like dying to see this last movie. I'm like, you know, but COVID has really scared the bejesus out of me. So I haven't been theater anything and
00:28:30
Speaker
You know, so- It should be, it's for right now because I picked it up on iTunes. I'm good. Yeah. Good. I'm glad. Okay. I'm going to, then I'm going to see it. Yeah. Very soon. But speaking of Spider-Man, the, I actually, I actually want to mention this because I thought another romance that was handed really well was in the amazing Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Yes. That was just like pitch perfect chemistry, right? Yes. Like that just, it just like,
00:28:59
Speaker
sizzled on the screen, watched the two of them together, which is why you could see why the two of them ended up dating in real life, because they had such perfect chemistry there. They did. They did. I totally agree with that. And I think, you know, I actually think that's kind of part of the whole thing is
00:29:18
Speaker
is that chemistry on screen, it has to, I mean that chemistry on screen, maybe even off screen too, the chemistry between the actors has to be there because the actors are doing these outlandish things. I mean, you know, Spider-Man's, you know, swinging around and climbing on buildings and all this other kind of stuff. So you have to have those, that
00:29:41
Speaker
That's part of the whole, I think, grounding part. If you don't have it in story, at least have that chemistry between characters happen so we can kind of feel it through the screen, in other words. And I think that's kind of, you know,
00:30:02
Speaker
that's kind of what makes those things sing. And then the newer Spider-Man, I think that's what makes them, those two come together and that whole relationship sing is that chemistry.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah. So let's talk about some of those tropes. Like what are some of the tropes of romance that you think are handled really well in superheroes stories and ones that maybe not so well? I'm going to say my first one, maybe that was done, I think not so well.
00:30:46
Speaker
Is that whole love triangle kind of trope?
00:30:53
Speaker
Um, right now it's not a very popular trope. A lot of, if you, if you, uh, you know, go to some, you know, very famous search engine book places, which will not be named, um, and type in love triangle romance, you're going to get a lot of, uh, love triangle romances that are.
00:31:19
Speaker
that are indie, that are under, that are kind of, you've never heard of these authors before. There are a lot of romance indie authors out there who are very well known. And a lot of them are not doing love triangles right now.
00:31:38
Speaker
They used to be really big when I was a kid. I don't know why not so much now. But one, and maybe it's because they're, you know, it's kind of a weird thing somebody's going to be if there's a happily ever after.
00:31:54
Speaker
somebody's gonna be left out in the co and a love crime. Unless you've got some kind of alternate, you know, something going on. An alternate lifestyle. But somebody's gonna be kind of left out in co. So it's kind of that whole,
00:32:10
Speaker
The love triangle thing kind of is one of those tropes that it kind of doesn't work right now. And it didn't doesn't really work in comics either. And the main one I'm thinking about is the whole Wolverine, Jean Grey, you know, Scott Summers, Cyclops, you know, love triangle kind of thing that happens, you know, that
00:32:33
Speaker
In the movies, it was just not done well. And to top it off, having Rogue have this crush on Wolverine in the very beginning, in that first X-Men.
00:32:50
Speaker
Maybe even the second one. There's kind of a little bit it was it was a little bit it was obviously some sort of. idolation for towards him or something like that yeah exactly exactly and so it's like to have that be on top of it i'm like this is just not done well, I just I don't.
00:33:09
Speaker
One of the big problems with that is also that just Cyclops in those movies was so underwritten,
Identity and Relationship Dynamics in Superhero Narratives
00:33:15
Speaker
right? His character was just very much. Yeah. Yes. And I think if you're going to have a love triangle to make it interesting, you have to have all sides of that triangle be very well developed characters.
00:33:26
Speaker
He was underwritten and on top of that, he did not come off very well. And I don't remember him being this cocky jerk from the cartoon. I just don't remember that. He wasn't my favorite character ever,
00:33:46
Speaker
But he just really did not come off well in those movies. So it makes him unlikable as like a romantic hero. You've got Wolverine who basically is running the show because we're following his story to the X-Men, you know? So it's like, well,
00:34:07
Speaker
he should get everything he wants. Right. Which includes Jean Grey. But that's not what happens. And we know that that's not what happens. But when you see that kind of dynamic, and yeah, for him to be underwritten and maybe written poorly, it makes that whole love triangle thing exhausting. Yeah. That trope.
00:34:39
Speaker
All right, so what are some other tropes or well, speaking of the love triangle thing, another one I want to talk about is I think this is probably specific to superhero movies or superhero stories in general, where the love triangle is the love interest and the superhero and their civilian identity. So the whole Lois Clark Superman dynamic thing. And that's another one that I think has gotten kind of played out.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, it's kind of gotten played out. And I will say there is one romance novel right now that I'm actually reading right now that kind of does a little bit of that. The hero and heroine, they have online profiles.
00:35:32
Speaker
And they don't know that they're each other. They don't know who each other really is. And the hero is actually also a famous person. So it's a celebrity, regular person, romance, which to me is kind of comparable to the superhero, regular love interest. But they also have these kind of secret identities going on where
00:35:59
Speaker
Um, you know, even though the heroine is a fan and likes the hero, you know, doesn't necessarily like what they're doing as far as their identity online. Right. Um, the name of that book is a spoiler alert by Olivia Dade. Um, but, um, you're right. It, you know, that, that's very rarely done enough, you know, for, for romance that's almost never done, but, um,
00:36:31
Speaker
As far as superheroes go, yeah, it's kind of like played out because to me, if a hero and heroine are going to get together or a superhero and a love interest is going to get together at some point because we see it and it's kind of, it's very thinly veiled a lot of times that this person is, you know, also this alternate superhero personality. And so.
00:37:01
Speaker
for these people to supposedly be in love or supposed to be together, it's like, you should know some of this. And I think that's kind of why it's a little played out because the shenanigans that superhero has to do to conceal their identity,
00:37:26
Speaker
you know, kind of become a little bit unbelievable, right? Right, yeah. And so if the love interest is this close to this person, then they should know. Yeah, yeah. And also it's something that has a shelf life because I remember, did you watch Lois and Clark back in the day? Yes, I did, yes, I love that show. That's like the perfect example I can think of because you have, the whole premise of the show was all hung on the romance aspect.
00:37:54
Speaker
And so it's this idea of like, you know, it's a love triangle between Lois Clark and Superman. That was the whole driving point of the show. And as soon as Lois finds out Clark and Superman are the same person, then all of that drama suddenly is gone from the show. And then they had to come out with increasingly, like you were saying, like increasingly outlandish reasons to keep things going. Like Lois was replaced by her clone at one point or, and then she had amnesia and like all kinds of nonsense like that.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yup, yup, exactly, exactly. You know, they did a little bit of that on the Wonder Woman live action show. They did a little bit of that kind of in the beginning where, you know, Wonder Woman and, you know, Steven... Trainer. Yes, Trevor. So, you know, we're kind of like, they weren't together and, you know, it's like, okay, Wonder Woman is, you know, it's just, it's so...
00:38:50
Speaker
But that was campy, right? Right. You know, and so to a certain extent, if you do it campy,
00:38:59
Speaker
you can kind of pull off a few things that you cannot do on something. Even with that Lois and Clark show, it was a little bit on the camp side, but it wasn't. It was drama. At least to me, it was dramatic. It was drama. It had a little bit of camp, but it wasn't straight campy like Wonder Woman was.
00:39:28
Speaker
You know, it's, it just becomes you're right it just becomes outlandish and it becomes harder and harder to do that whole love triangle.
00:39:41
Speaker
when one person is really too weak. Which is why I think a lot of the modern adaptations of Superman, they've shied away from that a lot, if you notice. In Smallville, Lois finds out that Clark has superpowers before he even becomes Superman. In the Man of Steel series, she finds out he's Superman right away. So there's no love triangle there at all.
00:40:08
Speaker
And I thought in Superman and Lois handled it a really well way because although he's keeping a secret from her at first, she doesn't go gaga for Superman. Like she's just actually kind of suspicious about Superman, but she's more attracted to Clark Kent, actually. And so they have a totally different spin on it where she's much more attracted to the man as opposed to Superman. Yeah, that's cool.
00:40:32
Speaker
I kind of like that. Yeah. You're just making this show even better. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. I just got to tune in. Yeah.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's, oh, you know, and even kind of, even kind of just the whole, I think superhero regular person trope in general. And it's romance equivalent, the celebrity regular person kind of trope. I think that whole trope, that's probably the biggest trope and the biggest similarity between the two.
00:41:12
Speaker
And I think there are a lot of instances where that is done really well. And you're mentioning Superman and Lois, that whole kind of dynamic. I think that's done really well.
Superhero Relationships in Film and Comics
00:41:32
Speaker
I liked Iron Man and Pepper Potts. Yeah.
00:41:37
Speaker
I just I love that the way that was done. I was on the fence about Thor and Jane. I was on the fence about them. And I think that that's partly because I'm on the fence about Natalie Portman. I don't know why. Not sure why, but
00:42:03
Speaker
Now that I've seen the trailer for the new store, I'm like, oh, this is going to be nice. I'm like, okay, I think I've got kind of a renewed interest here. I really want to see how this works out.
00:42:21
Speaker
But yeah, I think that trope and the romance equivalent of that trope, I think that's probably done the best. It has a lot of good examples. So what do you think about the opposite of that trope when it's two superheroes getting together? So for example, in the comics a few years back, it was Superman and Wonder Woman. You had Black Panther and Storm getting married in the comics a few years back.
00:42:49
Speaker
Batman and Catwoman obviously isn't the most famous one. What do you think of that trope compared to the superhero and the normal person?
00:42:58
Speaker
So to me, that trope falls more under, for me as an author, it falls more under a women's fiction kind of trope. And the reason why I say that, and not necessarily trope, but it falls more under a women's fiction kind of story. And the reason why I say that is because in a lot of those instances, if you'll notice, there's always tension, there's always issues, there are always,
00:43:27
Speaker
like getting together, breaking up, getting together, breaking up kind of thing. I will say this, when Black Panther came out, of course I did not
00:43:40
Speaker
I did a little research because I knew about Black Panther, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but we're getting into his world. We're actually going to Wakanda and I wanted to know everything that I could possibly know. And before that movie came out, that's when I found out that he and Storm were married. And
00:44:10
Speaker
Did they get divorced in the comics? I think it got annulled is how I know. Yeah, because there was it was during the it was during the X-Men Avengers versus X-Men event. And that's when they had like this hard split at that point.
00:44:24
Speaker
Okay, yeah, so, but of course at the time, well, of course at the time Black Panther was MCU and of course X-Men as Fox and Fox had not, you know, done that deal with Marvel, Disney, whoever they are now. And, you know, we weren't all like, you know, wonderfully excited about that. So I was a little bit,
00:44:51
Speaker
kind of going into Black Panther as far as that goes. I'm not disappointed about anything else about Black Panther. I will just say that is like one of those once in a lifetime, wonderful watershed moments. I went to the theater, saw it twice. That's the only movie, that's the only Marvel movie.
00:45:13
Speaker
that I've done that with. Okay. And I just, it was just amazing. But that was the one little nugget that I was like, oh gosh, you know, because of course, you know, he has this kind of burgeoning love interest thing. And it's like, well, it's not with Storm. So I want to see, and plus, you know, like I said, I grew up on X-Men and Storm,
00:45:42
Speaker
is just like one of my favorite characters. She was my favorite character kind of going in there. As far as love interest and as far as relatability, I love Rogue and Rogan Gambit. But as far as a solo character, Storm was it for me. A lot of that was about representation. But
00:46:04
Speaker
but you know she was everything and I was like Storm and Black Panther getting together this has got to I mean I've got to see this on screen you know and so um I was you know I was a little bit disappointed with that but I'm you know kind of like excited for that
00:46:24
Speaker
But in general, like the whole two superheroes kind of getting together, it's almost for us romance authors, it's almost like two alphas coming together, and that's not gonna work. Right, right. Two alphas coming together is not gonna work, because they're both controlling, they both want things their own way, there's gonna be problems, and more often than not, there's not an HEA. So if it's not an HEA, it's not a romance.
00:46:53
Speaker
if it's not a happily ever after, it's not a romance. And so that's why I put that more as a women's fiction kind of thing because women's fiction is very much about character, emotional arcs and characters being in one place in the beginning and then having these series of events and things happen where they end up in the emotional other place.
00:47:20
Speaker
And that other place may not have a happily ever after. And so that's why I feel like that's more of a women's fiction kind of thing. It's more of a relationship. In other words, some people say relationship fiction, but that falls under women's fiction. And it's because of all the kind of issues that go on between superheroes that kind of
00:47:49
Speaker
get in the way of keeping that happily ever after together. Or just it's just holding on by thread kind of thing right um I you know I like that dynamic, of course, but.
00:48:06
Speaker
You know, as for the romance part of me, it's not as kind of juicy, but it's very much a real thing. It's like real life, you know? It's kind of like these people have issues. They have powers and they have issues. It's like, dog, if I had powers, I'm still gonna have issues. But hey, I can relate to this, you know? You know, some other ones that kind of come to mind that,
00:48:37
Speaker
that I kind of think about. And I'm, you know, it's not necessarily done in the movie. Well, yeah, it's kind of done in the movies, but like the whole Fantastic Four, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic kind of that those kind of issues happening.
00:48:57
Speaker
You know, obviously the Batman catwoman thing, you know, being the most famous, those kinds of issues happening.
00:49:09
Speaker
Again, I'm all about, you know, seeing Storm and Black Panther. I actually want to see that happen. I want to see that happen. I want to see, I actually want to see a HEA. We need to go away from the comic. Let's not have the marriage annulled. I want to see an HEA for that one. Well, unfortunately, we may not get into the movie for a while now that Chadwick's gone. Exactly.
00:49:37
Speaker
you know, as far as, and they're going for that, they're actually what, trying to do a female black- I believe, yeah, I believe, I mean, nothing's been confirmed yet, and Natasha Wright has all that anti-vax stuff coming out about her now, so who knows what's going to happen with her.
Diverse Representation in Superhero Media
00:49:54
Speaker
But even if they do a female Black Panther, they could still do Storm and Black Panther because you may not know this, but Storm is actually bisexual.
00:50:06
Speaker
Oh wow, really? Oh gosh, that would be so awesome. In the 80s X-Men books, she went punk, right? She went full on punk and that was because, had the mohawk and everything. And one of the things is she had this, did you see the Wolverine movie? Yes, I did. The one in Japan?
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. Okay, so Yukio. I think I did, yeah. So Yukio from that movie, the one with the colored hair, the character from the comics, and she's very much kind of like this freewheeling mercenary type of character.
00:50:45
Speaker
right very much kind of like live fast die young character and obviously you know originally you know this friendship slash relationship with Wolverine but then she became acquainted with Storm in the 80s in the X-Men books and they had a whole there were some very strong subtexts going on there and I think the comics have finally confirmed that she is in fact bisexual
00:51:07
Speaker
And you bring this up, this kind of diverges a little bit from tropes, but I did want to kind of talk about that.
00:51:19
Speaker
the whole representation, the whole LGBTQIA plus representation and how that's making, especially even from the indie romance author perspective, that's kind of where you see a lot of that happening. And it's becoming a thing, it's becoming more prevalent. I wouldn't necessarily say a thing that makes it sound like a fad, which is not.
00:51:49
Speaker
it's about being represented. And it's one of those places that up until now was underrepresented, I felt in romance. Right. And that's what I was going to say. And it's also very much underrepresented in superhero stuff because you have
00:52:12
Speaker
The super, you know, if a superhero character is male, he's very male, right? It's like, and that's why I say when, you know, when two superheroes get together, it's very alpha, right? Because they both have kind of very stereotypical, you know, male kind of
00:52:29
Speaker
you know whatever and then you know if there's a character that's female it's it's very she's she's has at least some kind of sexualized whatever it's stereotypical sexualized very female so there's
00:52:48
Speaker
and then when they get together it's been male getting together with female always heterosexual kind of kind of couples there and in the big movies the big tv shows and i'm assuming also in the comics but it sounds like in the comics that they're making that turn as well there's been traditionally that's also been the case there's been some because they couldn't
00:53:11
Speaker
they weren't allowed to come out and be explicit about stuff. But there were hints of stuff in some of the, mostly I come from X-Men background in the comics, that's where I'm most familiar with, but there was definitely some hints like Storm and Yukio was one obvious one. Another one was Mystique and Destiny.
00:53:31
Speaker
And in fact, not only LGBTQ, but trans as well, because in the comics, Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother.
00:53:45
Speaker
And what Chris Claremont's original idea was is that Mystique and Destiny were gonna be Nightcrawler's parents and Mystique was gonna have the ability because of her shape-shifting to switch genders. So Mystique was intended to be a trans character was what his original intention for her was. Wow, cool.
00:54:07
Speaker
And see, if anywhere that you could do that, it would be in a superhero comic. It would be in a comic, you know, because there's this, you know, and, you know, me being a Trekkie, you know, there's a lot of that, a lot of
00:54:24
Speaker
What do they call it? Flash Vic? That happens and that's where you see a lot of, up until Star Trek, I guess Star Trek Discovery, there's a married
00:54:39
Speaker
There's a gay male married couple on Star Trek Discovery. But up until then, and Star Trek Discovery's only been out for what, three, four years? Yeah, and I think also the Star Trek Into Darkness, I think they established that Sulu in that has a husband.
00:54:58
Speaker
Right. Yes, they did. They did say that into darkness. But up until then, it's just been, you know, up until kind of very recently, it's been very heteronormative, very
00:55:16
Speaker
you know, gender specific, you know, male, female. And I'm thinking you have people that have powers, you have people from other planet or, you know, humanoids from other planets, you have, you know,
00:55:31
Speaker
People that can do different things, shape-shift, all of these kinds of things, and you haven't as much as you explore the human condition. Because that's really, like you were saying, you know, comics are soap operas a lot of times. And that's because, and romances do this well, it's because
00:55:54
Speaker
You can explore the human condition with the soap opera. And with, and sci-fi as well, Star Trek as well. I mean, it's really all about the human condition and about things that humans struggle with, but they can't seem to get past
00:56:16
Speaker
because they can't seem to see past it so why not do a superhero version of this where we just take this out of earth we take this out of whatever or we just you know make an alternate earth or uh an alternate universe and you know we deal with this and for them to have
00:56:39
Speaker
That blind side, that LGBTQIA plus blind side is up until now is amazing to me. So even if that happens, a Black Panther storm connection and they're both went, oh yeah, I'm down for that. One last trope I wanted to talk about was about the idea of fridging.
Tropes in Superhero and Romance Narratives
00:57:08
Speaker
the whole women in refrigerators trope. Do you know what, Neil, about this?
00:57:12
Speaker
I do not know about this. Okay, so this is a trope that comes from superhero fiction from the comic books. And it was coined by Gail Simone, who's a comic book writer herself. And the name comes from back in the early 90s, the Green Lantern, one of his villains killed Green Lantern's girlfriend and stuffed her body in his refrigerator.
00:57:39
Speaker
And the whole idea, and so that was the name of the trope, women in refrigerators, fridging as the shorthand for it. And it's been used to describe any time the woman in the superhero's life ends up being killed or maimed or something in order to motivate the hero to action. Right, okay, yes. Yeah.
00:58:02
Speaker
And I mean, you can see this, I mean, this is obviously an extension of the damsel in distress drill, right? Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, it's so frowned upon right now in romance, that whole damsel in distress, the whole rescue thing. I'm not going to lie, I write it all the time.
00:58:22
Speaker
For me, and I will say this, it's just kind of personal for me. For me, the whole damsel in distress thing for me is a little bit of kind of escapism for me, you know?
00:58:41
Speaker
I am a black woman in America and a lot of what we deal with is the whole stereotype that we are independent, that we are super women, that we can do it all of ourselves. But no, we are not superheroes. Even though I love a superhero, I am not one.
00:59:04
Speaker
And so it would be nice to have that moment where I could just, you know, if things get to me, I could be rescued. That's a good point. I never really considered that. That's a very good point. Yeah.
00:59:17
Speaker
I'm kind of all about that, but I would not want to be killed just to motivate a superhero. The other side of that, the martyr side of that on the superhero side of things,
00:59:37
Speaker
You know, it's a good character, as far as a woman's fiction kind of novel goes, it's a good character thing. It's done all the time. You will see that happen, that whole trope happen often. A character has had a serious death in the family and they have to figure out how to get over that, you know, or how to move on.
01:00:06
Speaker
what the family dynamic is going to be after that, who they are after that. You know, it's not necessarily a romance trope. It's very much a women's fiction kind of theme and as far as parallels go. Okay. But the damsel in distress is very much a romance trope and it's very polarizing.
01:00:37
Speaker
And for me, I feel ambivalent about it, to be honest, as far as superheroes go. You understand why they have to do it. You understand kind of what they're trying to do.
01:00:57
Speaker
I would say not at the expense of their love interest, which a lot of times is a woman, which is that whole thing. It's a lot of times it's a woman and it's a male superhero and that's how he's got to kind of deal with things.
01:01:17
Speaker
And it's not just weakening for, it's not just putting the woman in a bad light. It's like, wow, this is what this man has to go through to kind of be this superhero, you know? Right, right, yeah, yeah. Kind of weak, you know? Mm-hmm.
01:01:37
Speaker
And I think to mention the amazing Spider-Man movies again, because obviously they had Gwen Stacy dying in the second one, but one of the things I think they did well is she has a lot of agency up until that point, right? She's helping him.
01:01:53
Speaker
in both movies, like try and find the solution to the to stop the villain. I think that really helps the whole damsel in distress thing go down a lot easier when obviously, you know, if she's going to be in danger, she's going to need the superhero to come save her. But but but having her do something and have some contribution, I think makes a big difference. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And I think the the the one
01:02:22
Speaker
The one area where it's very, it's most poignant, but it's probably the worst representation of it is in, I can't remember which Christopher Reeve Spider-Man it is, but it's the one where Lois is, it's Superman. Did I say Spider-Man? Sorry. Superman.
01:02:50
Speaker
It's late here. It's okay. In one of the Christopher Reeve's supermans, the one where, you know, Lois is crushed in the car and he, you know, basically- Reverses time. He goes back in time, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's the first movie. The first one, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
01:03:20
Speaker
so long ago, but for me that it's almost like she was just an accessory, but she was enough of an accessory for him to, you know, so part of me is like, he loves her that much to go, you know, reverse time so that she can live, right? But at the same time, it's like,
01:03:48
Speaker
Why, why did we do this, you know it. it's fraught you know that that's the that's one of those tropes that is just for me it's just really fraught there's some.
01:04:03
Speaker
And that death scene actually, in Superman the movie, that death scene is actually pretty gruesome. Like they- It is, it is very gruesome. You know, for it to be, you know, those movies were supposed to be family movies and
01:04:19
Speaker
Um, you know, and of course, you know, it's back in the day where, you know, the threshold is, is lower. If something is PG 13 or PG, which I think that one was PG. That was PG. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. For something to be PG, that was really PG, you know, um, and for that to happen in a family PG movie. Yeah. That, that was very gruesome, you know, for that to happen. Yeah. You're right. It's.
01:04:48
Speaker
It's just, it's fraught. It's very fraught. But then, and then when it's done, when it's done well, you're right. The damsel that's in distress
01:05:05
Speaker
can't get herself out of distress until she really can. And you're really rooting for the superhero to come in and save her. But because you already have this feeling of she can do almost anything herself. And so when it's done well, it's
01:05:31
Speaker
We respect the love interest, you know, before that damsel in distress moment happens. Yeah. When it's not done well, like Superman, the movie, it's like Lois almost seems weak there. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:50
Speaker
You know, it's like, she's just riding in a car, you know? And it undermines a lot, especially a character like Lois Lane, who's such a strong character in general. She is, exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's like, she's a strong character. And even in that particular movie, she tries to...
01:06:09
Speaker
to portray that she is, right, by being kind of a loud, you know, I'm a loud New Yorker, you know, I'm kind of boisterous, right, you know, metropolis, excuse me, metropolis. And that was basically New York, though, in that movie. Right, exactly, it was New York.
01:06:27
Speaker
So, you know, she's trying to be that, but that whole scene just undermines everything.
The Role of Romance in Superhero Stories
01:06:35
Speaker
And it's because that scene is so powerful, it undermines everything that she is in that moment. And so she loses all that agency.
01:06:46
Speaker
So I think, you know, when it's done right, it can be very romantic, right? Because you're respecting and you're rooting for these people and it works. When it's not done right, it just feels like this love interest is just an obstacle to get the superhero
01:07:10
Speaker
to the next place, right? To be a better superhero or to be a superhero, go from being troubled to being a superhero, right? And getting that agency. Okay. This has been a great conversation. This has been a lot of fun. This has been fun. I'm so excited. Do you have any final things you wanted to say about romance and superhero stories?
01:07:35
Speaker
I just want to say that they're a lot alike. They are, yeah. And that, you know, you shouldn't dismiss them out of hand. There's just, there's something about having that romance element in a superhero movie or superhero story that just kind of
01:07:56
Speaker
it just kind of brings that realness and it just brings that, you know, something. It just brings that personality to everything. Right. You know, and then there's some relationships in superhero
01:08:11
Speaker
movies and superhero stories that, you know, you could see a romance happening, but romance doesn't necessarily happen. It may happen in the comics, but it doesn't necessarily happen on screen. I'm thinking about a Thor Valkyrie kind of moment.
01:08:31
Speaker
And those kinds of things, they just sizzle when they burn. Because it's really all about relationships. And it's all about relationships and about connecting to that character.
Conclusion and Call to Action
01:08:44
Speaker
Oh, Wyam, thanks so much for coming on the show. This has been a fun discussion. Do you want to plug anything before you leave?
01:08:50
Speaker
Well, right now, I do have actually, if you're signing up for my newsletter on YMNelson.com backslash subscribe, you will get a copy of Stardate, which is my Star Trek geek romance. Oh, yeah. So just go to YMNelson.com backslash subscribe and you can get a copy of that for free.
01:09:20
Speaker
Okay, great. Well, thanks again for coming on. It's been a lot of fun. And anytime you want to come back on, we'll talk about a movie next time maybe. Yeah, sounds good. I'm all for it. Awesome. Okay. That does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephiles. Superherocinephiles.com is the website and we are Supercinemapod on Twitter and Instagram. And of course,
01:09:41
Speaker
the Superhero Cinephiles group on Facebook. Please make sure to like and subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.
01:09:55
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:10:15
Speaker
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01:10:59
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.