When I say "Powerless" I mean as in, not having any super-powers. Why are comics and cartoons so opposed to this?
I love Clark's relationship with Lois. I love watching her being the obvious dom to the most powerful man in the universe, with her also serving as his main connection to humanity.
Same as Mary-Jane. The only difference between Lois and Mary-Jane is that Lois is an 8/10 whereas MJ is a HOLYFUCKINGSHITICANNOTCONTROLTHISBONER/10.
Now MJ has been quietly shuffled out of the picture, being steadily replaced by Gwen, I don't remember a single fucking thing Lois did in Nu-52 apart from get powers and then die (Again, ruining her candidacy for "Link to Humanity") And then we have the one that broke me...
I actually liked Julie in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, I kinda ignored Omniverse for a while, but I just watched it, wondering where the hell she was. Then about 10 episodes in, they reveal that she and Ben broke up completely without warning, offscreen. This is the woman who Ben fell in love with, who literally talked him down from becoming an unstoppable galactic conqueror. When he had both Ascalon and the Ultimatrix, he was all set to go completely mad with power, but she served as that link back to humanity, to be that reminder that he took up being a hero to actually help people, rather than to gather power for himself. Let's face facts, if it wasn't for her, the human race would be living as an annexed state of Bens new empire. So the writers just threw her aside so they could ship him with Aster, then saw that the fans couldn't stand the chirpy bitch, so they just kept throwing super-powered women at him until they stopped getting renewed.
Why can't we ever seem to just get a compelling story about a super-powered individual and a non-super-powered individual having a relationship and exploring how the power-difference affects them?
Jack Baker
Maybe writers finally realized that powerless gfs can't take super D.
Joseph Taylor
This is quite an interesting topic.
I don't want to blame feminists, but I think that's what everyone else will do.
Parker Sanders
i like "not a hero, no powers, but has a tool to help with danger" significant others. like julie with ship or mary-jane with her own web-shooter bracelets
Jeremiah Sanchez
Like April in TMNT?
Brody Lee
Because it's gay as shit? Every second we spend with those useles side characters is another second we don't see of character development, action, superheroism, humor, or anything worthwhile, because the very point of these characters is to kill the pacing by dragging the protagonist back to a pointless "human" core.
Nicholas Ward
>Obvious dom
She can't handle his hairy farmboy physique
Jayden Wood
Fucking hell, Liefeld, how do you keep getting past the bans? YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE!!!
Alexander Reyes
To be honest, this could really be the answer. I mean, imagine superman. He can't have sex with Loise with his full power, he need to restrain to not hurt her. This means bad sex that leads to sexual frustration. Sexual frustrations leads to anger. So did you imagine a superhero say "I don't want to stay with you anymore because the sex is really bad?"
Carson Lee
>This means bad sex
Just because he isn't putting her head through a wall? Nigga.
Leo Rodriguez
Fuck off, Kevin Smith
Most super heroes have enough control of their strenght that it's not an issue
Jason James
>He can't have sex with Loise
Of course not, his gal is Lois. Superman would never cheat.
Owen Carter
>being steadily replaced by Gwen main Gwen is still dead. Jackal's clone Gwens are all gonna die. Spider-Gwen has nearly half Peter's age and has only been teased as a love interest for Miles
Julian Clark
in a world where it's so easy to get superpowers you have no excuse for knowingly dating a superhero and not getting yourself something to defend against the inevitable kidnapping attempts
Jeremiah Brown
Who else complains about it? Even r9k doesn't even really complain about that.
More recently I think a thing has been to create more female characters by powering up the old girlfriend. Red She Hulk. Whor. Rescue. MJ got the fucking iron spider armor, which is only half on hating on the unpowered girlfriend but more as some sort of hackneyed female empowerment kick.
I'm not sure if Lana would agree with that.
Brandon Nelson
The whole "normal love interest gains super-power" is a terrible trend.
I fucking hated when Nu52 Lois gained Brainiac's powers during Nu52 Superman many cross-overs.
It's not interesting. You just turn the character into another generic hero or, worse, a generic antagonist for the hero to fight or attempt to save.
Cameron Butler
Lana is fucking Steel's BBC.
Jonathan Clark
You're ignoring the fact that post Crisis Supes is back and married to his Lois Lane. Read more comics instead of complaining. Or perhaps watch the movies. Or the cartoons. Or the live action shows.
As for Peter and MJ, Marvel is tossing you that Renew Your Vows ongoing. For however long that lasts.
Lincoln Cooper
>exploring how the power-difference affects them it's been explored. by and large the conclusion is that the non-powered person ends up the equivalent to an unhappy homemaker while their partner is married to their work. except they also keep getting kidnapped by villains they lack the mean to defend themselves against. culminating in said LI having 1/10th the agency of their partner and contributing very little to the story beyond being a mcguffin to rescue and being a shoulder to cry on.
Camden Wilson
Lana uses her vagina like it's a kryptonian imnmigration checkpoint. The Big Steel cock is only one of many.
Wait, wasn't steel married?
Adrian Scott
Well to be fair in the case of Ben 10, he still DID end up with a normal, human, powerless girl. Her name is Kai Green.
While she was still a shit character it does kinda prove your point a little invalid. At least in the case of Ben 10.
In DC and Marvel you may have something of a point
Jason Lee
I'm more concerned with why live-action girlfriends are being turned black left and right.
Wyatt Cox
>Every second we spend with those useles side characters is another second we don't see of character development
Holy shit.
Xavier Walker
Probably the same reason why most celebs don't date people outside their industry. I think it's realistic (even though superpowered beings aren't realistic)
Noah Jenkins
>very second we spend with those useles side characters is another second we don't see of character development
Colton Clark
Invincible got it right: "They never look up."
People without powers, people who aren't in that world - they can't relate to the kind of responsibility, stress, and trauma that supers have to put up with.
Imagine you're a Green Lantern, you've just come back from fighting an intergalactic war to save an entire quadrant of the galaxy, you saw horrible atrocities committed, saw your closest friend torn limb from limb by the Sinestro Corps, and were nearly killed alongside them.
Imagine you're a powered agent at the BPRD. You've just stopped a troll king from summoning an elder god that would have destroyed all life as you know it, and you've also learned the dark origin of your abilities which condemns you to a terrible fate.
Imagine you're a low-tier Avengers member who just narrowly survived defending the Earth from a Skrull invasion. You've spent the last two months in the field, living every moment in paranoia that your teammates, your peers, your friends, even your family and loved ones could be alien invaders.
... how the fuck do you go home and pretend to care or relate to your wife when she talks about Susan from Human Resources wearing an ugly top? Or how upset she is that she and her friend Janet had an argument?
Gabriel Myers
>tfw you see the sad look on your wife's face when you can't help but flinch and recoil when she tries to hug or kiss you, and you can't explain things to her because she'll never understand how it feels to have an alien take the shape of your loved ones while they violently torture you for information.
Gavin Kelly
Because they all cuck'd the fuck out of their BFs
Aiden Fisher
Can you link me to the artist?
Kayden Peterson
Here's a less retarded version.
Thomas Jenkins
Superhero genre is centered around action/conflict, and normals who don't possess powers are usually not in the center of said action so they usually get sidelined to support roles for downtime scenes.
Most of time I feel like this happens due to writing as there can be active powerless gfs/characters whose main function isn't just "I'm here for you". Like Lois's profession allows her to be active in both action and downtime(with the right writer) as her job is reporting on said conflict/action. But she can also be pigeonholed into the damsel in distress role, which can either be good or bad as it's a realistic consequence. That in itself can get old hat though. In context to plot there's also the difficulty of relating to a superpowered/superhero spouse I think it's easier to write Batman with Catwoman than a nonpowered/active love interest regardless if it's done well or not. The product of trends in writing.
John Harris
Pew pew lasers and punching things really really hard is apparently what passes for "character development" nowadays.