The Super-Reckless Lois Lane!

In the Silver Age Superman had more titles than the leaders of many small Central African states. There was his first comic, Action Comics, Superman, Superboy, Adventure Comics and probably a few hundred others. 

It was perhaps a matter of time Superman's supporting cast would get their own spin-off. So let's talk about Lois Lane. For those who have lived under rocks for the last seventy years or so Lois Lane was Superman's love interest  and then his wife.  Of course since 2012 the wife part no longer applies due to the DC reboot. The DC reboot is an attempt to do "new exciting things" with DC's properties. Now I'm all in favour of new exciting things happening in stories, artistic stagnation is a bad thing. But I've noticed that usually when comic book writers say that they want to do new exciting things they all too often just strip away actual developments the characters have undergone. The exciting new developments are in fact arbitrary regressions. 

So Lois Lane and Superman in terms of their dynamic have gone back to the Silver Age. This is not comforting. 

Lois Lane was evil in the Silver Age. Nearly all of her plots in both the actual Superman titles and her own spin off  (Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, a case of false advertising if I ever heard one) was basically about her lying to or tricking Superman in order to get him to marry her. Many of these efforts involved trying to figure out Superman's secret identity, because Superman is a genie, if you know his True Name you control him. 


I have always suspected Lois Lane of this era was written by a committee of misogynists dedicated to making the girls reading it hate themselves, and for the boys reading it to one day think that beating your wife is a little okay. 

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #101

P.S: People have given me mixed opinion on how big the pages should be. Please inform me whether this or the old size is better.

"Side effects may include albinism and breaks in outline."  

Ah I see, Superman has a fetish for suicidal women. That's why during his last hurrah in All-Star Superman he stopped to comfort that emo girl! Sorry guys but that thought ruined that series for me and it hurts less if I'm not alone.  

"My titanic strength and speed cannot resist the rejection of help from crazy ladies!"
-One Of Superman's lesser known weaknesses.

So how is Lois doing stupid, terrible things to impress or compel Superman any different then usual? The woman has nearly killed herself trying to gain superpowers for him hundreds of times. Which is really weird since Jimmy Olsen gets superpowers if he cuts himself shaving. Well he would if wasn't a weird perpetual-literal-man child and ever needed to shave. 

Wouldn't a really wild Lois Lane story be one where she pursues her romantic desires sanely and safely? Honestly posing on a biplane in stormy weather is like a four for her!

Lois of course does not get any input on the wedding plans. 

It is a misnomer to say Perry White perpetually smokes cigars. The thing is he's only ever had one cigar and it has never been lit. Perry just clenches it between his teeth all day long. 

Which no one here at the Planet would mind, everyone has their quirks, Clark thinks the glasses fool anyone except Lois, Jimmy seems to think he's fourteen, and Lois is bat shit for example. But we're beginning to worry, I mean has anyone seen him eat? Can.. can he even take it out any more? Plus I'm getting sick of him overreacting when people ask for a light. Why wouldn't they assume he carries some matches! 


And isn't there waiting period when you get a marriage license, one that's longer than an hour in most places? Metropolis is a wee bit too cool for Nevada. 

Also you know this has to be a dream or something because there's Lana Lang in the background without a self pitying thought balloon. Not sure how the blond woman is, Supergirl? Lena Luthor? Time travelling Jimmy in a wig?

Lois is such a self defeatist even her wet dreams never go well.

Here we have what I like to call "blissful marital masturbation". Whenever the comic was trying to trick people into thinking the two of them had gotten hitched the Superman's Girlfriend writers took great joy in describing their fake domestic set up. 

This fake wonder love shack is fairly low on the list all things considered, I mean compared to say basically the entirety of a miraculously jungle like Venus. 

Oh wait here comes the Anti-Superman Gang! 

I never got the whole "If Superman and Lois get married his enemies would smite her" logic. Even pretending they don't  already try that anyway and they never manage to kill her, why wouldn't they do that already? She's obviously a close associate of Superman, and Superman is terrible at keeping his affections private. It doesn't matter if he puts a ring on it Superman clearly likes it, Lois is already an obvious target. 


Also shame there wasn't somewhere more secure for you two to make a home, like the Fortress Of Solitude, or that Paradise Planet. And don't tell me those would isolate from the world cruelly she's already living in Blue Lagoon! 

Spoiler alert if you're an idiot : It's a dream so it doesn't have to make sense but the problem is it won't start making sense when we wake up!

"We did it guys, we made the invincible man-god hate us more than anything else in the world... hey I just remembered, kryptonite hurts him. We could have just used that in the bomb and killed Superman! We're fucked aren't we?" 

When is super heating explosives a not a mistake Superman? And Lois why are you a goner? I mean it couldn't be the impact of the explosion or you'd be atoms, radiation poisoning couldn't have set in this fast. Am I killing you by reading too much into your masturbatory fantasies you have in your sleep?

You know the weird thing is half the time when Lois temporarily/thinks she has/in an imaginary story marries Superman thinks she always continues to call him Superman. Not Clark or Kal, Superman. Makes her look like a power chaser or something. 

The car's mostly fine but the sudden stop snapped Lois' neck.

It's interesting that Clark and Lois express so much surprise at the invisible man, half the claims paid out by the Planet's health insurance are precipitated by super villain inflicted injuries. The other half are for Lois Lane's daily life.

And perhaps the man is collapsing due to the sudden return of his sight, now that light isn't being bent away from his corneas. The Lunatic Superman And Other Stories hopes you enjoyed it's brief science lesson, these comics will not offer similar courtesies.

Lois Lane can recognize Clark has a crush on her, but not that he's Superman with glasses? That's very specific brain damage.

I was going to chew out this comic for having scientists just jump right to the human trials, but on a closer reading they say "first human to test it" implying there were animal trials. This makes them testing the serum on a person even dumber. One of the main reasons we test stuff on animals is to asses the risks before trying it on humans. If Dr Locke's animal subjects have died in such great numbers that you've determined that the likelihood of death is  1,000,000 to 1, surely you'd hold of before testing it on humans? Or is this the basic operating protocol of Biomedic Laboratory Inc.?

Assistant: Well Doctor Locke the experimental regeneration treatments have caused the test animals to turn into ever churning piles of cancer and insanity.  

Doctor Locke: This does not sound feasible at all, try it on Wade Wilson at once! 

Actually I might be right about this place having a somewhat lax policy regarding human experimentation because Lois just signs on to test the different but equally stupidly deadly serum.  No waivers, no cool-down periods, Locke doesn't even offer her a token "Lois are you sure about this?", in fact he's pretty happy this young and vital reporter has randomly offered to basically die. Is this guy a product of Operation Paper Clip?! 


Also people in comics should stop experimenting on convicts. Either they'll die, turn into hideous monsters and swear vengeance on humanity and Spider-Man, or get superpowers, break out and surprise surprise, commit crimes! It's just never turned out well for anyone involved.

...I retract my statement Power Man. 

I'm noticing Lois is really smiling too much

Does Lois really think Superman will stop caring about her safety if she doesn't? Does she think this would be his reaction to her death. 

By Rao, Lois Lane has been brutally dismembered and shoved into my vegetable cooler! Oh well she didn't mind, now which LL is next...

God Lois is being creepy, killing yourself to get a bit of attention is not so much love as much as it is what 4chan imagines the suicidal to be.  


And where'd those other people in the room spring from?

Superman you don't need to marry her, you need to keep her in a very soft room.

  The other guy lasted long enough to get outside and died anyway but okay Lois is fine! So I guess the experiment was successful, America now has an invisibility serum that last for about a minute and will spare roughly one user for every 1,000,000 a painful death. Imagine how many schoolbooks could have been purchased or kids fascinated against polio with the serum's funding. Plus school books don't usually cause heart failure, except maybe the ones with McDonald's logos in the margins.  

And now Lois is quitting her job to be a super mercenary who advertises her services in "missions in incredible". You know what if this premise is followed through I take back everything bad I've said Superman's Girlfriend  Lois Lane #101 is the best comic ever. 

This comic was so even bitter hate filled sexists could enjoy the Avengers craze!  The  show I mean, did the original  comic team even have women?

 Oh dear I think my hopes of Lois the one woman A-Team are being dashed. Really I should be glad Lois isn't suddenly a Charlie's Angel, I mean this is only a week at most after she nearly killed her self and dedicated herself to trying again and again. It wouldn't be realistic if she was actually competent in just this amount of time. But nothing is realistic in this comic, couldn't I dream? 

But no I cannot because, if it wasn't obvious someone had to put those jewels in the ridiculously convenient place, how he knew that's where Lois would pick to land is beyond me but anyway....

What is he planning to do when he climbs onto her rock?

  

Yes Superman has staged everything including dressing up as the Yeti, to frighten Lois away from her path of suicidal awesome. Also Clark Lois is the same age as you, like late twenties early thirties, for the love of god don't call her a kid. Especially when you lust after her

"And I know her, oh how I wish I didn't..." 

 Not really sure why Superman thinks flying will give him away, he's far from the only person who can do that and who says the Yeti can't fly? Lois certainly wouldn't have any deeply held beliefs on the Yeti and what it can do, she never even thought it existed till right now.  

 Well that probably thought up at the three morning plan failed and Lois has a new job. This time it's piloting a pain constructed out of broken dreams and drunken engineering on behalf (I guess) of this chicken shit guy, Wings. And why is everyone in the world so willing to hire a woman who has no training in anything except journalism to do anything? I guess the racist caricature from the last exploit would have assumed that a woman who advertises herself for impossible missions has a diverse skill set.  But Wings has literally just fallen out of the fucking sky and some random lady has offered to pilot his theoretically flying death trap. If he accepts (which you know he will, did you see the first page)  he cannot possibly give informed consent since he's clearly brain damaged. 

"A boastful business card, that's all the convincing I need!" 

I really don't get why Wings want Lois to do the race. It can't be for financial reasons, he's not getting a cut of the prize, nor can it (sensibly) be a matter of pride or fame, because Lois would get both those things if she won.  Perhaps he wasn't going to enter the race at all, but likes tricking people into dying pointless insane deaths. Just last week he convinced a young black man to reform the Ku Klux Klan from within.

Also when did Lois learn how to pilot antique aircraft?

It was a daring to move to actually make planes out of cracker boxes

That glider trick is so dumb, it's completely deranged. But Lois just pulling it of is so amazing I have to give this page credit. For Amazon, or maybe Audible. 

Though how the fuck did she not fall to her death attaching the raft  under the wing?

Also does Superman realise other people were in the air with Lois? People who didn't have super-powered stalkers to catch them? That you've killed. 

Don't worry Lois, exposing strange minerals to herself never hurt Madame Curie. 

Hey Superman, Lois seemed to be doing pretty well in that race until you tried to kill her. Hell she responded pretty fantastically to your assassination attempt. Perhaps I was wrong about, maybe Wing could just sense true grit. 

Also Superman all those aviators in equally flimsy planes up there in your artificial wind storm, not going to just nip up there and rescue them? It'd only take a few second, if you just-oh well fuck them I guess. 

And for Lois' next job a scientist who wants to jump right to testing the mysterious what the hell on people. Someone who gasses anyone who doesn't ring the door bell.

Jesus can you stop meddling Clark?

What Lois is doing is impossibly dumb at least she has a humanitarian side. Also Dr Obviously Superman Judging by the last panel, hire me for your job. Now after a lot of testing I have determined humans don't like fire, acid or breathing heavier than air gases. Where's my money!?

Also if I am correct (which I am) and this is Superman, he's done a pretty good job disguising himself. Which makes me wonder why is he slothful about the one he uses every single day of his life. 

"Of course you had a superhuman ability, how else could a woman do the clever shit male characters  pull off all the time?"

Wait so Lois has had a superpower this entire issue? And that's the only reason she's been displayed courage, ingenuity or thinking on her feet? Oh and I was almost enjoying this... 


Hey on the subject of "super cunning" did the serum also contain the chemical code for how to fly planes?

Actually super-cunning is a pretty cool ability, it's funny with the invisibility serum the side effect is way more fun than the intended benefits. 

"It's a good thing Jimmy and Perry happened to both be the two greatest impressionists  on Earth, good enough to fool someone hoped up on brain boosters!" 

So Lois, a woman, could only do the usual comic book protagonist cool stuff because she was injected with a serum by a old man, and only had these adventures because of the stage managing and interference by the males in her life? Comic how many hookers will I find under the floorboards and in what stages of decomposition you crazy fuck? 

And does cunning mean you lack a self preservation instinct? I always thought that was the opposite of cunning, what's that word? 

And so we end this tale with Superman flying Lois home and giving his "I'm not ready to commit speech", which he'll probably give to Lana Lang this evening. 


Next time, The Anti-Superman Lois!