Love and Marriage

    (Superior, 1952-1954)
™ and ©1953 Superior

Hard as it is to believe considering the formulaic rut that the romance comics genre slipped into following the arrival of the Comics Code, these books used to be among the most sharp and sophisticated comics on the stands. While few titles achieved the excellence of Simon and Kirby’s Young Love and Young Romance, some, like Love and Marriage, maintained extremely high standards of art and writing and obviously catered to adult readers. Love and Marriage, despite its innocuous title, features edgy stories of divorce and deception, seduction and infidelity, and violent emotional turbulence. The unsigned artwork savors more of Golden Age angularity and Charles Biro-style “comics noir” atmosphere than the well-scrubbed suburban fantasy look that came to dominate romance comics after the code. IW reprinted issues from the early 50s Superior Comics series in the mid-1960s, which, significantly, appeared without the ubiquitous Comics Code insignia.
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