Comics are mostly about superheroes and supervillains battling, and that is what built the genre into the powerhouse it is—the battle between good and evil. However, one thing that Marvel Comics has always prided itself on is creating heroes that seem like real people, and this means adding in real-world problems.
Since the start of Marvel Comics, they have focused all sorts of relationship dynamics and showed the superhero life affected their lives as lovers and friends. The first superhero team, The Fantastic Four, was about family. Everyone from Spider-Man and Iron Man to Storm and Cyclops felt the tragedy of lost love through messy breakups in the pages of Marvel Comics.
10 Reed Richards And Sue Storm
When it comes to Reed Richards and Sue Storm of The Fantastic Four, it isn't really talking about their messy breakup—it's figuring out which messy breakup to discuss. Honestly, no couple in Marvel Comics have had more breakups than Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. There was the breakup when Hate-Monger manipulated Sue and turned her a little more risque, which frustrated Reed to no ends.
At another time, Reed decided Sue's place as a mother was at home caring for their son, which caused her to walk out on him. The biggest breakup though came in the Civil War storyline when Reed took Tony's side, and Sue was solidly in Cap's.
9 Black Panther And Storm
Another war that split up a married couple was when The Avengers battled The X-Men. Black Panther and Storm have known each other since childhood, and ever time they fell in love. They ended up marrying in 2006, and Storm left the X-Men to join her husband as the new Queen of Wakanda.
However, when the X-Men and Avengers began battling due to fears of a returning Phoenix Force, they ended up on different sides. When a Phoenix-possessed Namor destroyed Wakanda, Black Panther blamed anyone not fighting on his side. He had his marriage to Storm annulled by the High Priest of the Panther Clan, ending their marriage once and for all.
8 Cyclops and Madelyn Pryor
Cyclops is a jerk. He has proven over the years that he has a single-minded vision, and nothing else matters when he has his mind set on something. After Jean Grey died, he soon met her doppelganger, and, instead of thinking something was wrong about that, he married the woman—Madelyn Pryor.
Scott and Madelyn had a baby, and then Scott left both of them alone in Alaska to return to the X-Men when he learned Jean might still be alive. While Scott might have planned to go back to Madelyn, seeing Jean was alive made him forget about his wife and son pretty quick. By the time he finally checked in on them, both were gone. We won't even get into Scott later having a psychic affair with Emma Frost while with Jean.
7 Hank Pym And Janet Van Dyne
For years, Hank Pym was considered a wife abuser to fans of Marvel Comics due to a panel that drawn differently than the writer intended. In what was supposed to be an inadvertent slap, the panel showed Hank Pym purposefully slapping Jan. This moment led to the divorce of the Avengers and Hank's eventual court-martial when he tried to make things right.
However, the Ultimate Universe decided to do full speed ahead and made Hank a full-fledged domestic abuser. He didn't just slap Jan; he beat her enough to put her in the hospital. He then used his powers to send ants after her there to torture her. Finally, Captain America had enough and put Hank in the hospital for his actions.
6 Peter Parker And Mary Jane
Peter Parker has had a few relationships in his comic book career, as the nerd has hit it off with everyone from Liz Allen to Black Cat. But the two relationships that stand out above the rest is Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson. While Gwen died at the hands of Green Goblin, the one-time nerd Peter ended up marrying supermodel Mary Jane, and they lived happily ever after.
However, this is comics, and nothing is forever. When Aunt May is on death's bed after being wounded, Peter meets Mephisto, who does what he does best, offering Peter a deal. Mephisto will save Aunt May if Peter wipes his marriage to Mary Jane out of existence. Mary Jane accepts the deal, and history is rewritten so the two were never married.
5 Daredevil and Karen Page
Daredevil has never been lucky with ladies. There is no reason to rehash the relationship between Daredevil and Elektra because the two were enemies almost as much as they were lovers. However, the one relationship that ended worst was the one between Matt Murdoch and Karen Page.
In the pages of the comics, Karen and Matt had an intense and powerful relationship. However, Page left him, and it broke his heart. That wasn't messy, but the breakup got very messy later after Karen became an adult film actress and developed a drug addiction. She then sold Daredevil's secret identity for another hit, and Kingpin used this to destroy Matt.
4 Black Bolt And Medusa
It is hard to be the king. Black Bolt was King of The Inhumans, but he was also secretly part of the Illuminati, a secret organization intent on keeping the world safe and hiding dangerous things from everyone—including their loved ones. Medusa is a strong-willed and powerful character in her own right, and she is much more than Black Bolt's wife.
When Black Bolt makes a decision that affects The Inhumans to save the world, it shatters everything. To help stop Thanos, Black Bolt sets off a Terrigen bomb over the Earth and creates new Inhumans all over the world before he goes into hiding. Medusa finally finds him, brings him home, and then banishes him as king, breaking up their marriage as well.
3 Hawkeye and Mockingbird
Mockingbird had already enjoyed a successful superhero career by the time that she met Hawkeye. Clint was a chief of security for Cross Technological Enterprises when he and Mockingbird were kidnapped by Crossfire, who tried to use hypnosis to force them to kill each other. Hawkeye used a sonic arrow to disrupt the tech but ended up with hearing damage as a result.
Right after this event, Hawkeye and Mockingbird eloped and married. With such little time together, it was not a surprise it didn't last. However, before their split, they won fans over in the pages of West Coast Avengers. Their marriage splintered when Mockingbird killed a man who drugged and raped her, breaking the Avengers no-kill code. Their split intensified when several world governments used Mockingbird in a plot to infiltrate the Avengers Compound.
2 Scarlet Witch And Vision
The relationship between Scarlet Witch and Vision was always a strange one. Wanda was the daughter of Magneto, and Vision was a synthezoid created by Ultron using the body of the original Human Torch and the brain patterns of Wonder Man. So, the daughter of one of Marvel's greatest villains married a synthezoid... and they had kids.
That final part is where everything went wrong. The kids were created by Wanda, although it was later proven to be Mephisto's actions. When Mephisto reabsorbed the children, Agatha Harkness wiped them from Wanda's mind. Finally, their marriage took its final step when Vision was almost destroyed and stripped of his emotional capacity, their marriage annulled.
1 Colossus And Kitty Pryde
When the relationship between Colossus and Kitty Pryde started, she was a teenager, and he was more of a big brother character, although she was always attracted to him. When Kitty finally grew up in the pages of Marvel Comics, she was finally able to start a relationship with the Russian mutant.
However, Colossus broke her heart. With Kitty Prude on Earth, Colossus was transported to Battleworld for a contest with the Beyonder. While there, Colossus cheated on Kitty with an alien named Zsaji. He then returned to Earth after Zsaji died and broke things off with Kitty. The good news is that he paid for it, as Wolverine set him up to get beaten severely by Juggernaut while he just watched. After the fight, Wolverine explains honor to Colossus.
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