Would The Promise Of Romance Make You Buy A Comic?

Hell no.

No. I'm cool with romances in comics but I don't buy stories just because of a romance.

Oh, by the way, this is about adding extra romance to superhero comics, not stand-alone romance literature in comic book form.

If it had a good romance and chemistry and I would buy the comic.....

Like I have bought Mr. Miracle and Big Barda comic because I love the chemistry between those two.

But if this is in any regard to the Superman/Wonder Woman romance comic, then hell no.

Well...That all depends.

Nah, I'm not a fan of romance myself.

Nah it wouldn't make me buy it. I'm fine with romance but if someone walked up to me and asked if i'd buy it simply because romance was guaranteed then nope. Story and character play a far bigger part.

It's so narrow minded to assume that romance is the only way to get girls to read more. Really guys?

No. Sure, romance can add an extra layer of depth to a book, but it's not what I'm primarily looking for and it's not going to be the main factor that hooks me in. To hook me in, I'd need to see what direction they're trying to take the book in, what creators are involved, and what characters will be featured.

I did, for the Magneto x Rogue one.

I'd buy a comic if it had:

Dick and Babs

Spidey and MJ

Lois and Clark

Jesse and Tulip

Bruce and Talia

Scott and Jean

These couples in no way hinder storytelling but instead enhance the experience. Ill go as far as to say the best stories in the world almost always involve strong passions and love being the strongest passion in the world makes the most cold hearted of us just sit back and say ,"Damn! Life really is worth moments like these!"

So yes a strong love story is something I always enjoy in a story provided it doesn't get too sappy (Im looking at Twilight and the all that rubbish) And yes, Ill even buy a book just because the characters involved as the ones Ive listed were done really well and made me enjoy the stories all the more.

Hell I read Blankets just because everybody told me it was a great love story.And I for one dont regret it at all.So I'm even ready to read about new unknown pairings but Most of the time I probably wont go out of my way to buy.

What I almost certainly never buy are stories about couples who have already been done badly once.So with regards the rubbish Superman/WW stuff I most definitely am NOT buying that crap.

Hope I answered the question.

Yup I would buy on three conditions -

1. It has to be about my fav characters.
2. It has to be good.
3. It needs to have some other things too like action and adventure etc.

I'm male, and I don't think female readers cares about romance more than male readers does.

Male, female, and other? 0.o Doesn't everyone at least identify as one gender?

@dabee: Some people don't identify as either, some identify as both. I don't know for sure if there's anyone on here who would pick the 'other' category, but I thought I should put it there just in case. Just didn't want to risk excluding anyone.

Not very likely, no.

@v_scarlotte_rose: Alright, I stand corrected.

I'm Female and I would not ever buy a comic book that had romance in it.

@betatesthighlander1: *Insert appropriate "THUMBS UP!" meme*

I'm a sucker for family dynamics, so not really no. Give me that and do it really, really well [Like Secret Six v2 well] and I'll pick up the book faster than you could say 'I'm getting emotional'

Don't get me wrong I totally enjoy a good love story...but I've never read a "good" love story in comics. Any attempt at a love story I've read in comics is more of a soap opera than a true expression of a relationship and connection.

The thing is though, I read my comics on my own. When I watch a movie with good love story, I'm never alone, it would feel sad watching a love story alone I feel like. I just don't think comics is the right medium to be used for telling love or romance stories.

I dropped uncanny x-force for this very reason thou. I have every x-force issue ever, of all the series, but just hate the new uncanny x-force so much I won't buy it even to feed my collection. Uncanny X-force totally became a major soap opera, and a poorly written one at that. Romance done poorly, like this is hard to read or stomach, I feel like the person writing this stuff is totally the stereotype nerd that has little to no experience in love or relationships. In which case, don't write about something you know little to nothing about. Love stories are suppose to pull at your heart, draw out emotions, a connection; I've never read a love story in a comic that's made feel any of that yet.

Overall I would say NO, but it's not an unbreakable "no". Comics doesn't seem like it would fit right with romance as much, since I feel romance/love stories become something else(something better) when you're not experiencing it alone. BUT I think it possible to have such a great love story, comic or not to be enjoyable. So it's 'possible', but I will not be surprised at all if a good love story is not told in comics within my lifetime.

I love romance in comics. As long as it makes sense.

I voted yes, but it has to make sense.

Superman/Wonder Woman, for instance, does not make sense.

i only care about story and romance has a tendency to make stories predictable and thus bland and uninteresting

No, I dont mind romance in SOME cases but its not something I look for in a comic book.

No. Romance works well when it occurs during an established comic with characters who have evolved for dozens of issues. If a comic is made with the sole intention of romance, it's forced and corny.

The only time I've really outright liked a romance in a comic was when the comic was mainly about the romance, it felt like the focal point and that made it work a lot better.

I put " I am female-no' because majority of the time no I wouldnt. However there are some cases, if the romance is of a queer couple then there is a chance that I might be more inclined to read it, because we do get so little queer characters in comics, and for a long time we didnt really have any in relationships, or showing that that they were in relationships. It was just like " oh yeah im gay". And then we dont really see them in relationships, or potential relationships.

So maybe I should have put yes idk.

It seems by "romantic", the creator in question actually meant "like Twilight":

I mentioned maybe, can we create a book that targets a little bit more of the female readership that’s been growing. And maybe a book that has a little bit of romance in it, a little big of sex appeal, you know, something that would, for lack of a better example, that hits on theTwilight audience.You know, millions of people went to see those in the theaters because it has those kind of, you know, subject matter. The drama, the characterization with love triangles and forbidden love and things like that.

The promise of a romance as a marketing tool to try and lure me in as a female reader would turn me off of a comic. It's insulting to presume that girls are only interested in comics (or are more interested in comics) when you throw in something that is stereotypically geared towards females.

I work in a comic book shop and I can school my co-workers (all male) on X-Men knowledge. I've been reading comics for three years and have read a damn good amount of both Marvel and DC that dates back over ten years.

When I pick up a comic, I want a couple of things.

Good writing.

Good characterization.

Good plot.

Good art.

Characters that I like, or that intrigue me and hold my interest and will eventually like. Ones that captivate me.

What I don't look for? Gimmicks that are intended to pull me in.

I don't care if a comic book has romance in it. The Bucky and Natasha romance in Cap/Winter Soldier was incredible. The Emma and Scott relationship in X-Men was captivating. But the book has to be built on more than that. Those were just sidelines in those books, a factor of it that meshed in with that was otherwise going on.

When a book is BUILT around a romance (and ugh, a terrible one at that, in the case of Wonder Woman and Superman), it's insulting. Stop trying to pull in the 'Twilight audience' and start trying to pull in a female readership through putting out books with well-written, badass females. Preferably written by equipped female writers such as DeConnick and Simone. Or writers who actually know how to write an in depth female character and not have her just be a chess piece on the board of a male player.

I'm a girl. I like comics. I don't want something written to pull in a Twilight audience. I want well-written, rounded, badass females. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.

DC, you're doing it wrong.

@v_scarlotte_rose said:

I don't think thats a good idea as far as that creator. The people who saw Twilight, how many of them are as excited or interested to see that replicated in a comic book? Also why would they want that in a comic book when they have Twilight, a movie and book franchise. Movies and comics are very different things. They offer very different experiences, creators more than most people should realize that. Twilight was probably really popular among females for the same reason Superman and Spider-man is really popular among males. Bella was a point of view character that was very easy for many to project into, and her supporting cast were created to serve her character in various ways. Same with Superman and Spider-man. Romance is a part of those two male characters as well, and really important to lots of their fans, but its a part of a package designed to try and give a full and complete experience. I can't imagine females are different in that romance should be a part of their fiction but not a necessity that warrants inherency within their stories hence not a good way for creators to lure them in, especially in the medium that is comics.

In comics, strong and deep characters and good creative and original plots seem to be the most common successful elements among books. Nyet oh well.

Even though I like a couple of romances in the comics, I definitely wouldn't buy a comic book just because it's all about the romance. I tend to buy comic books based on who's writing the story, which of my favorite characters shows up in the comic and whether or not the story has an interesting premise. For example, when I was reading Kick-Ass, I was mainly reading it because the premise about an average teenage boy becoming a superhero was really interesting to me and I usually love gory and violent comics and that comic is definitely violent, but that's what really draw me into Kick-Ass.

I even loved the romances that happened in the X-Men comics, such as Shadowcat and Colossus, Cyclops and Jean Grey and Rogue and Gambit, but they weren't the main things that drew me into the X-Men comics. What really drew me into the X-Men comics was how they approached the issue about the mutants' struggles in trying to be accepted into humanity and trying to fight their battles with that issue. If I wanted to read all about romance, I would pick up a romance novel and be happy with that.

@mercy_: You said everything I ever wanted to say and more.

Give me stuff more like Secret Six, give me good familial relations, give me friends acting as families for those who have been put through abuse and torture repeatedly by family members. Give me characters caring about each other as family members, not just romantically. Give me stuff like that.

That's one of the things I miss most about Wonder Woman to be honest [and why I downloaded all 220 something issues of V2 of Wonder Woman a couple of days ago]. I miss her being a sister to Donna and Cassie and to every other person that she is close to. I miss goo strong dynamics between characters that are able to weather absolutely everything. Don't give me cheap fights between characters just to fill up a couple of pages or whatever. I miss DC having characters with families. Did they really need to kill most of them off? [Cough Ma Kent, cough getting rid of Sin and Chris Kent, cough Iris and Wally not being parents anymore]

Give me those back and I might actually want to read new issues of their comics tbh. But for now I'll just download old ones for free so they don't get any of my money.

Not everything needs romance. It seems in all of media there's this obsessive need to put romance in it. In action movies, comedies, horrors... Comics.. Etc.. We're just getting fooled into thinking relationships are the most important in life, and it's not.

I agree with all this. I also love relationships where it's more like a familial feel than just romance. That's what I missed about the older X-Men comics was how everyone treated each other like a family and would try to protect each other during hard times. I miss the friendship between Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Colossus and that's not even romantic (LOL!) but it shows how much of a family they really were and I would like to see more relationships like that in comics.

I'd buy it if it was:

• Superman/Lois Lane
• Batman/Wonder Woman
• Batman/Zatanna
• Flash/Zatanna
• Green Arrow/Black Canary
• Question/Huntress

Make me buy a comic.... no.

Develop character and make the book more interesting with romance... yes.

Depends. I like a well written romance and think it adds a new dimension to a story when used properly. But if the romance just feels tacked onto the story to add drama and publicity then chances are I will want to avoid it.

I also don't like when they assume that if a female is writing a series than of course female comic book readers are going to read that series.

Im a male and I'd like a bit more romance in my DC comics. Now I don't mean take it over but add a bit more tender moments and fluffy stuff without losing the main focus of the plot or it becoming more important than the main plot/conflict. I'd love to see more hal x carol stuff and aquaman x mera ( actually aquaman has had some really sweet romantic scenes with mera latley, loving that series lol).

Plus funny to mention, the majority of fanfiction I read is mostly romance lol. I read bleach romance, and Dc romance too....but for life of me can't find any good hal x carol or aquaman x mera ones lol.....but I don't want my comics turing into some dramatic soap opera, hell no lol