Masked vigilantes and mythically powered superheroes can do a lot of things us mere mortals and fraidy cats never could. They stand up for the little people when we cower in fear, take responsibility for their lives whilst we sit around on Facebook all day, bravely battle cosmic menaces when we're busy taking photos of it to send to our pals with a caption of "omg galactus!!!1" and a scared emoji. That's the whole reason we read comic books, isn't it? They're an escapist fantasy, a chance to look at a world as we would like it to be. It doesn't just stop with the heroic goings on, mind. The living gods that appear in the pages of Marvel and DC Comics also have a total handle on this relationship business and all. Spider-Man, the scrawny, bullied teen ended up dating a string of beautiful women and marrying an actual super model! Some of them may have died along the way, and the marriage might have been undone by magic, but it worked for a while! Batman, meanwhile, has clearly been reading Neil Strauss's book on pick-up artists The Game when he isn't pouring over old police files. The way he's treated Catwoman over the years it classic negging. And that worked too! Then you've got Superman, who has Lois Lane dutifully awaiting him at home, even if he disappears off to an alternate dimension for a couple of months, the playboy Tony Stark who slips away from one-night stands in a flying suit of armour, or even the chaste on-again, off-again relationship between Rogue and Gambit of the X-Men. How do they do it? How do they manage to save the world and maintain a happy relationship? Well, readers, we have the answers for you. As well as being great escapist fare, superhero comic books also have an untapped potential when it comes to advice about your love life. You may not be able to replicate their heroic feats, but you can definitely learn some of their flirting techniques. Here are just a handful of the most useful tips we've picked up over years of reading about superhero romance.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
