Posted in: Comics, Digital, Manga, Review | Tagged: a wicked husband, manhwa, manta, Saha, webcomic

A Wicked Husband: Manta Keeps Delivering What Romance Fans Demand

A Wicked Husband is the latest of Manta's bodice ripper romantic digital manhwa series that hits all the tropes romance fans look for.

Published Mon, 06 Oct 2025 13:02:04 -0500

by Adi Tantimedh

Comments

Manta continues to be the go-to for romance and romantasy webcomics with the delectably named A Wicked Husband by Saha, a title that sounds like a tease, a promise, a threat, or all three. And like many good romance novels – here translated to comics with that extra Korean manhwa flavour, this series is certainly all tease. Teasing is a major attraction for romances as long as the payoff is satisfying, and when have Korean romances and melodramas ever failed to deliver? That's the magic formula for the genre. Here we have a heroine forced to marry a prince that she may or may not be attracted to, though it looks like there are plenty of other men who might be into her. Every straight girl should have that problem, maybe?

A Wicked Husband is set in a fictional medieval world where the timid but plucky heroine, Aileen – you can tell she's smart because she wears glasses – finds her childhood friend, Archduke Cesare, returned from war, different from the boy she knew. Now battle-hardened, he's aloof, intense, enigmatic, and feared, Cesare suddenly proposes to her – to save her life. Aileen is the local apothecary and healer, and word got to him that she was concocting an addictive opioid, which is a crime punishable by death, though her reasons were to use it to treat badly wounded soldiers. He's very insistent that she marry him to be spared execution, which is already very iffy considering he's the one who's noticed and made the accusation, then laid the bait of salvation.

Don't you hate it when that happens, ladies? "Marry me or you'll be arrested and executed" is not exactly the most enticing proposal, no matter how hot the guy is, but maybe for some women, this is how you kick off a romantic relationship. And this being a romance manhwa, everyone in the comic is pretty. But wait, while Aileen tries to hold off on accepting – does she really have a choice? – Cesare's proposal, she has mysteries to solve, like her father's disappearance, which leads to more hot men from Cesare's retinue helping her out and protecting her as much as Cesare claims he wants to protect her. Hopefully, they won't try to blackmail her into marrying them with threats of death, even if she was in love with Cesare all along. Messy, but that's bodice-rippers for you.

So a few chapters in, Cesare hasn't become a husband is but he's already kind of wicked. The trigger has to be pulled sooner rather than later since the title of the series is A Wicked Husband. The early chapters suggest Aileen might end up with a reverse harem-type situation with several handsome men, including Cesare, looming around her. It's all very heteronormative and pre-feminist, since overt feminism would be considered a bug in this genre. The fans do not want any deviation from the formula of sexual tension, partly derived from threats of assault and constant will-they-won't-they on the way to the of-course-they-will payoff.

At least there are hints of humour where the writer might have their tongue slightly in their cheek, but it can be a bit disheartening to know that the tropes of the genre are set in stone because the fans demand it. The whole point of the romance genre is to stay in its lane. The heroine's agency is often passive and dependent on appeasing or placating the men. Again, You will like A Wickend Husband if this is the kind of story you like. The saving grace is the feeling that creator Saha might be more inspired than most and displays a sense of humour that will hopefully be used more often than in most romantic melodrama manhwa, serving as a break from the more cloying and retrograde stories out there.

A Wicked Husband is seralised on Manta.

A Wicked Husband

Review by Adi Tantimedh

7.5/10

Another romantic fantasy series about a timid but plucky heroine being forced into a marriage with an aristocrat under threat of death, but will find her inner strength while surrounded by her "wicked husband" and what looks like other handsome men as well - it's a common plot in the romance genre, but given the Korean manhwa twist with hints of a sense of humour, unlike many other series of this kind.

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