Happy Valentine’s Day.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed wading through the ones we’ve found as much as we’ve enjoyed finding ’em. The day is here, so look quick and go do something with that special someone.

Close to one billion Valentines are sent each year; whether that be via mail or hand delivered. At last count, and that was 2010, an estimated 15 million e-valentines were sent.

The next time you shell out money for a valentine card, thank Esther Howland. Don’t look for her on Facebook or any other social media outlet. She’s been dead since 1904.

Her father owned the largest book and stationary store in the city of Worcester. He catered to his daughter’s wishes importing paper lace and floral decorations imported from England to create her own valentine cards. Her family was conscripted to further the endeavor. One brother with particularly good penmanship wrote the inscriptions. Her other brother who was a salesman began hawking the cards. Orders flooded in and friends and other family members were recruited to keep up with the deluge.

By 1850 she had turned the family business into an annual $100,000 success story. She retired in 1881, selling the business to the George C. Whitney Company, the New England Valentine Co.

With one last Valentine’s Day card to post, let’s go with Marvel’s Logan/Wolverine. While he may not seem to be the playboy Tony Stark is, Logan has had his share of lady friends. For example: Storm, Jean Grey, Mariko Yashisda, Mystique, Domino, Rogue, Silver Fox, Elektra, Itsu, Yukio, Black Cat, Lady Deathstrike and Snow Bird.

Again, happy Valentine’s Day, from us to you. We hope you like the card.

And, lest we forget, everyone should show their teacher a little love on Valentine’s Day.

Often there is that unrequited interest a student will show for their instructor. As long as it doesn’t progress to the point of the Police’s Don’t Stand So Close to Me, there’s no problem. Teachers actually receive the most Valentine’s Day cards each year. Next are children followed by mothers and wives.

The tradition of exchanging cards in the class room began more than 70 years ago. If you’ve been following the postings this Valentine’s season, you’ll have seen cards dating as far back as 1940. It was recorded that Fred Roth, a fourth grader in a small farming town in Lewiston, Minnesota, gave his sweetheart, Louise Wirt, a Valentine’s Day card in 1917. He may have started the tradition that continues to this day.

The card reads, “Forget me not!

I ask of thee

Reserve one spot

In your heart for me.”

The two would eventually marry. The card has outlasted both and now is in the possession of their granddaughter.

While this card is plainly geared for a more platonic relationship, Captain America, or Steve Rogers, has had his share of romantic interests.

Cap’s first love was Betsy Ross. Not the one believed to be the mother of the American flag, but a character introduced in the pre-Marvel era. Ross was also the Golden Age super heroine Golden Girl.

1979 Captain America Valentine Card

When Marvel brought Cap back, his history was retrofitted with another first love named Peggy Carter. Like her predecessor, Peggy was a woman Cap met during the war. All evidence of Betsy was dispatched with and Peggy essentially took her place sans super powers. Instead, Peggy was a member of the French resistance. It is unclear is she even knew Cap’s real identity.

When Cap met his fate in the waning days of World War II, Peggy suffered amnesia.

Cap would later meet Sharon Carter. When he was initially unfrozen, World War II was only two decades old, so Sharon was made a younger sister of Peggy. As time passed, her heritage was changed to grand niece to better fit the real passage of time. While they shared a strong bond for many years, their time together passed and the two became close friends instead.

Bernie Rosenthal entered the picture in the early 1980s during John Byrne’s historic year-long run on the title. At one point the two became engaged, but the nuptials were curtailed when Bernie moved to Ohio to attend law school. The two remained close after and she even represented Bucky for crimes he committed as the Winter Soldier.

Love is never simple. Especially in the Marvel Universe.

Geoffrey Chaucer penned Parliament of Fowls in 1382. The poem was a dream vision of birds searching for their mates:

In modern English:

“For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day

When every bird comes to choose his match

Of every kind that men may think of

And that so huge a noise they began to make

That the Earth and air and tree and every lake

Was so full, that not easily was there space

For me to stand – so full was all the place.”

The earliest reference to February 14 as a celebration of love is in the Charter of Court of Love. Issued in 1400 by Charles VI of France at Mantes-la-Jolie was to host a feast, love songs, poetry competitions, jousting and dancing for members of the royal court. Included would be a portion of the festivities where lovers disputes would be heard and ruled upon.

1940 Superman Valentine

Jumping ahead a few centuries, The Young Man’s Valentine Writer was released by a British publisher. The volume was a primer for young lovers to compose amorous verses. By this time a limited number of cards were pre-printed to be sent to loved ones. In 1835, 60,000 Valentine cards were mailed within the United Kingdom.

That number would increase to 400,000 when postage rates dropped in 1840.

Valentine’s Day has only found more traction with the passage of time until it celebrant spent in excess of $25 billion dollars in 2024. That breaks down to over $181 per person.

The Superman card representing the continued countdown came from an era where much less was spent on sappy salutations, but the point came across anyway.

What a complicated web Stan, Steve, John and all who followed have woven for Spider-Man over the years.

Little did studious Peter Parker know when he attended the science exhibit his life would change forever. One spider bite later and Marvel’s flagship was born.

Whether it was the radioactive spider or Peter coming of age, the floodgates of romance burst open. His first lady love was Betty Brant.  J. Jonah’s secretary and the freelance photographer discovered some workplace chemistry ’till reporter Ned Leeds intervened.

Leeds’ interest and Betty’s eventual hatred of Spider-Man would end the romance almost before it began.

Waiting in the wings was Liz Allen. Liz began as the BMOC’s girl, but later found herself swayed by Peter’s low-key charm. Fate intervened with an uncle turned super villain and Liz would fade from the title for a decade or more.

Eventual wife Mary Jane Watson began as a blind date Peter ran as fast as he could from. Even after they began dating, he had eyes for a curvy blond, then involved with his friend Harry Osbourn.

Peter and Harry eventually swapped ladies and Gwen Stacy became his first true love. She would meet with an untimely end courtesy of Harry’s father Norman, aka the Green Goblin.

Mary Jane returned as an on again-off again girlfriend. Peter would even propose to her while still in college. She would decline the offer and head west.

Betty Brant, estranged from her husband, would return for a brief time and Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, would enter Peter’s life as an admirer. They were an item until Peter learned Felicia was only interested in Spider-Man.

In grad school Peter would meet Deborah Whitman, but he was never as serious about her as she was with him.

Mary Jane would eventually return and this time accept his proposal. This would last until the One More Day story arc.

All this, plus a super-hero career. Wow.

Wonder Woman is featured on this 1978 Mark 1 and DC Comics collaboration for a little steamy come on.

With Superman raking in big bucks from the big screen, Wonder Woman was tackling the small screen. The Lynda Carter vehicle would run three seasons, 1975 to 1979, on, first ABC, then switching to CBS for seasons two and three.

Her origins date back to 1941 and All-Star Comics issue eight. The Amazon was the creation of polygraph inventor William Moulton Marston with the suggestion she be a woman by his wife, Elizabeth.

Much of her early career would be shaped by Moulton’s somewhat speculative personal life and marriage arrangement with his wife and live-in friend Olive Byrne.

Early issues featured both male and female domination situations, but any overt connotations were neutered by the Comics Code when it began to police the field.

Over the years Diana Price/Wonder Woman would be linked to some of the biggest names in DC Comics, most notably Superman and Batman, but more the Man of Steel.

Yet, her true love of decades was Steve Trevor.

Iron Man is the hero, while Tony Stark is the playboy.

Created in 1962, Stark was an early victim of the conflict brewing in Viet Nam. Misadventure led to the Howard Hughes illustrated surrogate’s heart issues requiring an outside power source to permitting further function.

And, a good thing, too, considering Stark’s other real life inspiration was silver screen Lothario Earl Flynn.

While most of Stark’s trysts are short lived, he has had his more serious entanglements. Employee Pepper Potts was one of the first comic book conquests. She would eventually marry another Stark employee, Happy Hogan.

Roxie Gilbert was introduced to spice the title up. Her plot twist branded her as the sister of Iron Man villain Firebrand.

Another relationship was curtailed when Whitney Frost became Madam Masque.

Bethany Cabe helped Stark dry out when he hit bottle’s bottom during Demon in a Bottle. Cabe would end the relationship for her husband she didn’t know was still alive. Ironically it was Iron Man who found him.

Bringing back the femme fatale, Indries Moomji helped ruin Stark and bring down Stark Enterprises.

The Avenger would mix business with pleasure by dating both the Wasp and She-Hulk, aka Janet Van Dyne and Jennifer Walter’s respectively.

His playboy ways were even expounded upon by Robert Downey Jr. in the big screen adaptation.

Yet, somehow Shell Head finds time to run a company and play hero. Hard to tell what his real super power is.

Here’s another sheet of DC Valentines with some thought behind it.

The Batgirl is very corny, but has come cool cache, too. Superman, Robin and Aquaman are ones you pass out to people you aren’t worried about impressing.

Plastic Man on the other hand…

Well, be careful who receives this one or you may get a restraining order in return.

While we’ve discussed Superman and Aquaman’s loves, the other two are more intertwined. Batgirl and Robin, Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson, have a long history of romantic involvement. Their involvement extends from from the printed page to small screen.

The Hulk doesn’t normally inspire fancies of Cupid, but ol’ Jade Jaws has had his share of romances. More so than his alter ego Bruce Banner.

His first, and truest, will always be Betty Ross.

Betty has been around since Hulk (1962) one. In true Marvel manner, she is the daughter of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, Banner/Hulk’s oldest nemesis.

The two were romantically involved off and on throughout every incarnation of the Hulk’s books. They eventually married in Incredible Hulk (1968) 310 in 1986.

Next in Hulk’s black book would be a toss up. Caiera Oldstrong is his baby mama, but Jarella was pure puppy love from the dawn of the Bronze Age.

Jarella became the Hulk’s love interest, not Banner’s. When Hulk was miniaturized, he found himself ruler and betrothed with the princess of Ka’i. Their love couldn’t last as Hulk found himself yanked from the micro verse.

Caiera would play a lead role in Planet Hulk – Incredible Hulk (1968) 92-105 – becoming his wife and bearing their child, Skaar. Her death would result in the World War Hulk story arc that spanned most titles in the four color Marvel Universe.

As another famous green celebrity once said, “It’s not easy being green.”

And, since women love the bad boys, let’s throw one of the founding members of Batman’s rogues gallery in for good(?) measure.

Edward Nygma,..

Wait, does a name like that make you wonder about predestination?

Anyway, Edward Nygma, or E. Nygma, first donned his green togs in Detective Comics 140, October of 1948. Bill Finger and Dick Sprang are responsible for the criminal mastermind hobbled by the obsession to incorporate riddles and puzzles into his crimes.

His Golden Age appearances were limited to his debut and Detective Comics 142. Presumably the Riddler was a guest of the state until the Silver Age when, upon his release in Batman 171 he continued his criminal career.

Since then, Nygma has made up for lost time never far from a comic book appearance throughout the ensuing ages and crises.

And, if you’re curious as to the answers on the Valentine, it’s printed upside down in the lower left hand corner and the title of today’s post.