Right from the start of Marvel's Silver Age renaissance, Stan tried to give us a triangle involving the Thing, Sue Storm and Reed Richards. Once he'd realised that was never going to work, he quickly switched to Reed, Sue and the Sub-Mariner, which had an overlapping triangle of Sue, Namor and Dorma, just to complicate things to the max.
When it came to Marvel's next hero, the Hulk, Stan initially resisted the temptation but, finally, we got a triangle of Bruce Banner, Betty Ross and Glenn Talbot.
Spider-Man flirted with a three-way struggle between Peter Parker, Liz Allen and Flash Thompson but that never got past the planning stage and, instead, we got Peter Parker, Betty Brant and Ned Leeds before the strip subverted Stan's norms and gave us two women - Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson - briefly competing for the affections of the world's biggest self-declared loser before it all led into a triangular tangle between Harry Osborn, Mary Jane and Peter Parker.
Even Captain Marvel had to face the three-cornered nightmare, as he found himself competing for Una's attention with the evil Yon-Rogg. Admittedly, it wasn't much of a competition, as Una couldn't stand Yon-Rogg.
We even had the unlikely spectacle of Don Blake having to compete with his own alter-ego Thor for the affections of his nurse Jane Foster. I do remember Stan later making tentative moves towards a Thor, Sif, Balder triangle before the presence of Karnilla put a stop to all that kind of thing.
And wasn't there some weird love triangle going on in the early issues of The X-Men, involving Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X? Given that she was a schoolgirl and Professor X looked to be about fifty, I cannot help feeling that was a love triangle too far.
Having said that, Stan wasn't totally obsessed with such threesomes. I don't remember there being any love triangles in the pages of Ant-Man. The winsome Wasp may have been routinely portrayed as flighty but she seemed to know exactly what she wanted, even if Hank Pym wasn't always depicted as being able to match her decisiveness.
Nor were there any triangles that I can remember in Doctor Strange. The strip featured both Clea and Victoria Bentley but I don't remember them competing for the good Doctor's affection. The Silver Surfer never had to battle with another for the attention of Shalla-Bal, unless you count Norrin Radd, Shalla-Bal and Galactus as a love triangle.
I have to say no, they were not a good idea. They may have been triangles but they mostly seemed to go round in circles, generally going nowhere and quickly growing repetitive, their sheer futility making every character involved seem socially illiterate.
Clearly, they were an attempt by Lee to add extra drama, conflict and intrigue to the stories but, for the most part, all they really did was make it starkly clear just how tiny the supporting cast of most Marvel strips was and how weirdly claustrophobic a Marvel hero's world really was.
Anyway, regardless of that, my vote for the best one goes to Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker, simply because it was a lot more fun than the others. Neither Gwen nor MJ seemed to take it very seriously and it didn't involve the hero worrying about his beloved being more interested in a love rival than she was in him. Peter Parker's big problem was a surfeit of female attention, not a shortage.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. You may have other thoughts. To be honest, I'm not convinced you do. I'm not convinced anyone does. I have a feeling I may be the only one alive who cares about Stan Lee's love triangles.
Anyway, if you do have thoughts, on which ones you liked, which ones you hated and whether their presence was a chore or a delight, you're free to express them below.
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