1 Gwen Stacy. The girlfriend of Peter Parker, she is killed by Parker’s enemy the Green Goblin, who actually knows Gwen in his alter ego of Norman Osborn. Years later, in the “Sins Past” storyline in The Amazing Spider-Man, J. Michael Straczynski wanted to reveal that Peter accidentally got Gwen pregnant and she gave birth to the kids in the story secretly. These kids would be artificially aged and then confront Peter. However, Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada would not approve the storyline, so Straczynski was forced to change the man Gwen had the affair with to Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin. Besides being a bizarre story (secret children who age extra fast?), it also gave us an image that will be seared into our brains forever—Norman Osborn’s “O” face.
2 Alexandra DeWitt. The girlfriend of Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, Alexandra is killed by a rogue government agent who is trying to gain hold of Kyle’s Green Lantern ring. In a most gruesome turn, she is stuffed inside a refrigerator and left for Kyle to discover. This led to the term “women in refrigerators” to describe the device of killing off women in comic books to advance the plot of their male counterparts.
3 Mariko Yoshida. Wolverine’s fiancée, Mariko, is forced to renounce him when she assumes the leadership of her father’s Yakuza crime family. She is soon poisoned and faces a slow and painful death. Unable to bear her misery, Wolverine ends his lover’s life.
4 Silver Fox. Another tragic end for one of Wolverine’s lovers. Every year on Wolverine’s birthday, his old rival Sabretooth hunts him down and fights him. One year, Sabretooth discovers Wolverine’s girlfriend, Silver Fox, and makes a pass at her. When she rejects him, he murders her.
5 and 6 Karen Page and Elektra. Daredevil’s girlfriends might be some of the most vulnerable. His nemesis Bullseye kills both Karen Page and, later, Elektra. (Although Elektra herself is an assassin, so it’s not like death is a shocking result in her line of work.) In addition, Daredevil later marries a woman named Milla Donovan, who is subsequently driven insane by another of Daredevil’s enemies. Daredevil should likely just omit his dating history for future dalliances.