7 Spectacular Superhero Romances

Silk Spectre II and Dr Manhattan

It was surely doomed to fail, this relationship between the young Laurie Jupiter – also known as Silk Spectre II – and the man she assists, Dr. Manhattan, in Watchmen. It was doomed, only because he once accidentally disintegrated himself in an Intrinsic Field Subtractor, and was reconstructed as an irradiated, glowing, immortal being with the ability to see all of time simultaneously. With the best will in the world, even a superhero human isn’t going to stay in a relationship with a man who was suddenly turned into a God – especially when he pulls stunts like replicating himself during love-making so he can simultaneously go back to work.

So, despite her love for Dr. Manhattan, Laurie is unhappy and dumps him – fleeing to the arms of a mortal man in an owl costume instead. But the most important moment in the relationship between this God and this woman occurs after her leaving – and it is when he transports her to Mars to argue in favour of saving humanity.

You see, despite his awesome powers, Dr. Manhattan is subject to a public manipulation, whereby he is accused of causing cancer in his loved ones, and suddenly reviled by the populace he has been working to protect. Rejected, he departs Earth, leaving the human race vulnerable at a crucial moment at the height of the Cold War. Though he has been abandoned by Laurie because of his lack of emotional availability, she remains the only human being with whom he can most effectively communicate, and so he abruptly whisks her through time and space to have a conversation, free from distraction.

In that conversation, Laurie and Dr. Manhattan discuss the whole of her life, and debate the nature of humanity – concluding that every person is, indeed, a miracle, and therefore worthy of his protection. She may have chosen the Nite Owl over him, but Dr. Manhattan’s respect for his former lover ultimately saves the world.