The Secret Six is DC’s Perfect Chance to Bring Back Romance Comics

Back in the day, romance comics were one of the most popular genres on the scene, rivalling and sometimes surpassing the superhero and detective genres. They sold many, many copies in their heyday. Even the legendary Jack Kirby was a major force, credited for helping to create the genre. However, while there are a few series and characters that fans still clamor for, the romance genre of comics is effectively dead. Like many great genres, the censorship enforced by the Comics Code Authority forced them to play it too tame. There have been some unsuccessful attempts to revive the genre, such as Marvel’s abysmal Trouble series back in the early 2000s, but it never took off. That is until now, where DC has the perfect chance to fully revive the genre in Secret Six.

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Secret Six is a, fittingly, six issue limited series by DC that follows a ragtag group of villains and now heroes that team up to get dirty work done. This incarnation of the team shows Jon Kent Superman, his boyfriend Gossamer, Dreamer, the quasi-undead Deadshot, Black Alice, and Catman all reluctantly coming together to find the amnesiac Amanda Waller before the evil organization Checkmate either gets access to the memories hidden in her mind or, failing that, kills her. Everyone has their own reasons for trying to find Waller, and the only thing they have in common is that they all hate at least one other member of the squad. So how can this intrepid team of c and b-listers (and Jon Kent) revive a dead comic book genre? It’s because it already is a romance comic.

Secret Six is Unabashedly Sexy, Messy, and Fun

This series acts as a direct followup to the end of the “Absolute Power” event, and nobody here is in a good place. And that’s before getting into the tangled mess that is their interpersonal relationships. Superman and Gossamer’s relationship is half on the rocks because Jon has forgiven Dreamer for her actions under Waller’s thumb, but Gossamer still wants to throw her out a window. Dreamer, meanwhile, is torn between her drive to kill Waller and her obvious feelings for Superman, who is the only person who has never turned his back on her. Black Alice is clashing with everyone else while clearly having a crush on Dreamer. And then there’s Deadshot and Catman, who keep flipflopping between trying to kill each other and giving off sexual tension so thick Superman’s heat vision can’t cut through it.

Any member of the team has more romantic drama than a CW show and it’s great. Their messy entanglements are set against a backdrop of increasingly raunchy locations, such as the supervillain club they spent the entirety of issue #3 in. This is a soap opera in a way most other comics refuse to be, showing characters well past the limit of their emotional bandwidth dealing with complex emotions as they either try to save the world or meet their personal goals. It’s just as much a superhero/supervillain story as it is a messy adult romance. One panel shows Superman and Gossamer arguing about their relationship, and two panels down they’ll be fighting Checkmate’s goons. The series tackles mature themes and situations in a way that harkens back to the earliest romance comics at the height of their popularity, before the Comics Code Authority.

This Series is the Perfect Romance Genre Appetizer

This comic book is perfectly priming its readers for a wider series of romance comic books. It masterfully mixes superhero storybeats with romantic subplots and makes both equally as interesting. This isn’t a new thing for superhero comics. After all, Marvel’s earliest successes were based around this mix of fantastical elements and human drama. However, in more recent years it’s much more common to see that drama take a backseat to action and superhero cliches. This isn’t a bad thing, I love action and superhero cliches, but this comic shows that there is a market for sexy and rabid stories, and that market is starved.

Romance sells, especially dumpster fire romances, and Secret Six leverages that in the best way possible. It wraps the romance genre inside of the comfortable superhero comics we all love, and makes the readers appreciate that style of storytelling. After this series ends, I imagine there will be plenty of fans hankering to find a comic that scratches this specific itch, which makes it the perfect time for DC to relaunch the romance genre. This series is the perfect bridge between the two, so DC should get started making whatever’s on the other side of that bridge.

Secret Six #3 is on sale now!