Starting on this with thoughts on all the stories in Young Romance:
Batman/Catwoman in “Think it Through”:
Easily the worst story in the entire issue. It’s better than most of Nocenti’s work on the Catwoman book at the time in that it at least doesn’t read like one of Neil Adams’ first drafts while on mescaline, but that’s about it.
Her idea of how Batman and Catwoman meet is so drab and boring, and she manages to get both characters completely wrong. Like, Selina’s whole thing is she robs from the rich, why does she need Batman to tell her not to steal from the needy? Why is Batman telling her what she should steal and who to steal from in the first place? It’s just so WRONG it kind of boggles the mind.
The art by Emanuela Lupacchino was really good, though.
Aquaman/Mera in “The Lighthouse”:
A marked improvement, though still just an okay story. The story of the two lovers is kind of old hat and distracting because, well, I’m looking for an Aquaman and Mera story. I guess it’s written in a way that makes the two lovers analogous to Arthur and Mera, but not in a way that really felt all that interesting. I guess since the regular Aquaman book was already had a strong focus on their relationship they felt like they had to do something different here, but…it just didn’t work very well for me.
Batgirl and Ricky in “Dreamer”:
Oh man, I forgot all about Ricky. That was a weird story. Like, I get that Gail/Fawkes thought someone who was also crippled by crime, but different in that he’s from the wrong side of the tracks could make for an interesting romantic partner for Barbara, but I just don’t think it really worked out all that well. It just feels super forced and kinda cringy.
Apollo/Midnighter in “Seoul Brothers”:
Again, super weird story. Like, there’s two people, one of them at least acts like he’s not really interested in or can’t be in a relationship with the other, so the other just has an empty hook-up at a bar. Uh…Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess? And I like Simon Bisley’s art well enough for certain stories, dude was made to draw Lobo stories, but putting him on this was…certainly a decision.
Nightwing and Ursa Major in “Another Saturday Night”:
What, and I cannot stress this enough, the frick? Nightwing gets dumped by some random chick, meets another random lady, gets a date with her, and gets ghosted the next night? Sheesh, it’s like this one-shot is trying to do the opposite of getting one in a Valentine’s Day mood.
And who doesn’t like pepperoni on pizza? I mean, I get it’s kind of the basic white girl of pizza toppings, but yeesh!
Superman/Wonder Woman in “Truth or Dare”:
My thought after reading all the previous stories in a meme, hidden for naughty language.
I mean, this still has it’s problems. I never fully got what the two song ladies were and what their purpose/plan was. I did like the first few pages where Clark and Diana are just having a good time at a dinner, y’know, nice V-Day activity, and I liked the idea that Clark was able to stop Eros’ love bullet and loves Diana because of who they are and not by the whim of the gods.
Overall:
Really, outside of the SuperWonder and Aquaman/Mera story, everything else felt kind of terrible, to be perfectly honest. You know, sometimes I scoff when I hear people say that DC/editorial/Didio make these couples suffer because he doesn’t like superhero marriage, but considering this was the best kind of couples they could have highlighted for this kind of one-shot, it makes one wonder if they might have had a point…