The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1998: Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #98, January 1970

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I recently took the plunge and actually sorted out some comics from my collection to sell. You know things are getting bad economically if I'm resorting to this, but it was really very self-serving. For the mere price of a few old Claremont X-Men comics, I was able to garner enough credit at Purple Gorilla to pick up some really cool old Silver Age comics. Today's politically-incorrectly-titled issue was one of them.

(And I've just noticed, having the picture before me as I write, that Lois is looking pretty sexy in this apparently quite sheer dress she's wearing.)

Given that Lois is meant to be a perfect foil for Clark, a lot of the time in these older stories, she's portrayed as being much more flighty than we might expect of our contemporary Lois. The story from the cover, for example, is about Lois being in a play about Samson and Delilah, and Lois is tricked into believing that one of her fellow actors is actually Superman when he disguises himself. This really plays into Lois' inability to see past Clark's glasses. If she's so in love with Superman, but couldn't tell that this was just an actor playing him, perhaps she's the one who needs glasses.

That said, the stories herein are also wonderful examples of the toothless nature of Superman's stories at the time. Remember, superhero comics had fallen out of vogue a couple of decades earlier, and with the introduction of the Comics Code, stories had to both conform to a ridiculous standard while also appealing as widely as possible. This could be why many of the plots in Superman comics from this era resemble sitcom plots to me. They're very surface, mildly entertaining, and certainly not in danger of offending anyone.

Unless, of course, you're reading from the future, in which case we wonder why Lois didn't just ditch Superman and find someone who didn't gaslight her every day.

 More to follow.

 Further Reading and Related Posts

Lois's adventures continue in Superman Family, a few of which I've read.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1561: The Superman Family #193, Jan.-Feb.1979

Supergirl and the Doom Patrol finally meet! After the villains are defeated, and the chaos subsides. Supergirl says thanks, and lets them get back to their vacation. All in all, not the Patrol's finest hour.

A while back, I read the issue that follows this one, an issue that finishes up a number of the storylines I've read in the last few days. I'm going to have to read it again, I think, just to get a bit of closure. The Doom Patrol are absent from comics for a couple of years after this adventure, and it's a very different version that we'll see next. But that can wait til tomorrow.

If you're looking for a stereotypical DC comic of this era, Superman Family is pretty much it. It's kind of a last gasp of these versions of the characters, as the Crisis looms in the not too distant future. Superboy's Smallville backstory is never quite this naive ever again, nor Krypto's inner dialogue so wry. Lois loses a bit of her independence in losing her own feature. So, despite what I've called their unremarkability, their naivety is charming enough that I'd recommend giving them a go.

"I'd hoped my little absence wouldn't undermine our splendid relationship!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1560: The Superman Family #192, Nov.-Dec.1978

I think the thing about these stories is that they are, for the most part, unremarkable. It's not that they're not good stories - they're wonderful, silly, weird stories, just not remarkable ones. I get the sense that writers and artists were starting to really feel the stifling shadow of the Comics Code at this point, especially those creators who had come up through a more revolutionary culture than the generation before. You can see this in the pushing at the boundaries in some of the stories, most interestingly the Krypto feature. The Dog of Steel is involved in some inner city gang trouble, but it all turns out okay. Perhaps that's the problem - everything turns out okay in these stories. There never really seems to be too much on the line.

That aside, the Doom Patrol feature in this issue, and last, is odd. It's touted as a team-up with Supergirl, but the two haven't even come close to meeting. And the Doom Patrol's part of the story seems fairly straightforward, and really could have featured any superteam. I think that if you're going to have a guest star, you have to respect the version of the genre that star comes from. I'm prepping a post that is the first article I ever had published, and it thinks about how we can reconcile a satiric or parodic comic like Doom Patrol, Ambush Bug, or Hitman, with the more serious fare of the Batman books, for example. I explain it through inflection theory, which very quickly would mean that if the Patrol are guesting in Supergirl's feature, there should be some specific reason it's the Patrol. Just as if she were guesting in their book, there would have to be some reason it was her.

I'll try to get the article up soonish.

"Gosh, Supergirl---you're even better than the Bionic Woman!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1559: The Superman Family #191, Sept.-Oct. 1978

A little less than a year later, the Patrol return to assist Supergirl in her series in the anthology title The Superman Family. Although the stories are, for the most part, the generally pretty undramatic fare of comics in the throes of the Code, I have a soft spot for these kinds of series. These, to me, are comics aimed squarely at kids, and at giving them a fair bit for their hard-earned money. Some of the stories are standalones and some are parts of series. They're all well-rendered, much in the vein of the era, like their stories. One thing I will say for this era of DC is that despite having some lackluster stories, their artists were still top of the line.

The Patrol stumbles into trouble today while on holiday in England. I suppose that's as good a place as any to find them, and let's assume that some strange case took them to the United Kingdom. They don't actually meet up with Supergirl in this issue, though both she and the Patrol face menaces that are affecting local gravity with some pretty catastrophic consequences. I'll likely get sick of writing it, but they act very much like superheroes here, saving people and trying to stop the menace, and there's nothing wrong with that, but usually it's more of a struggle for the Doom Patrol to act like superheroes. More often than not the situations within which they find themselves remind our heroes of just how fragile they really are, which in turn prompts them to adopt more unorthodox thinking. Not so with the New Doom Patrol. They wade in, hands blazing, and blow things up.

(Oh, the Lois Lane story today has the intrepid reporter tracking down a baby trafficking ring and just about beating the leader of it to death. Literally. She has to be pulled off at the last moment. It was pretty intense, and not at all what I was expecting from this series.)

"For all our insecurities, it seems we have some use in this world, after all!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 844: Superman Family #194, March/April 1979

It's no secret that I have a thing for the Man of Steel. He was the first superhero. How can we not revere him, even in some small measure. For me, though he hasn't always been my favourite character to read, he's always stood for the best that superheroes, and by proxy of their metaphor, we, can become. Ben Saunders, in his book Do the Gods Wear Capes? labels Superman as the Platonic good in fictional form. I think I agree, though he's not always been treated as such.

Superman Family is a cool comic - I like the idea that rather than buying four or five different series, you can get this one that includes stories about all of the cast of the Super-titles. What I didn't realize about this comic, which I picked up on the cheap from the Calgary Expo this year, is that it's the last part of a multi-issue story which I actually have the previous bits of. So I could have read the story in proper sequence, had I just glanced at my collection before reading it. Ah well. These things are likely to happen, really.

The central story features art by John Calnan, an artist I've never heard of before. I'm torn about his style, and really it's over one particular aspect of the art: The characters all look like they're posed action figures. Part of me loves it, and part of me hates it. There's a staticness to the movement and pose of the characters that almost pushes into the realm of the uncanny. But on the other hand, it takes that stylizedness of superhero art and applies it to the motion of the comic, not just the appearance. And I can't decide whether it's brilliant or mediocre.

Also, whoever drew that cover has no idea how human (or Kryptonian) physiology works. Unless Supergirl has a rubber spine.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 625: Millennium Editions: Superman #76, July 1952 / April 2000

This comic, or its original anyway, is where it all started, where the tale that, of late, has culminated in the reviled Dawn of Justice film began.

And it's a pretty bad story, really. Set up like the beginning of some strange buddy-cop movie, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne are unexpectedly made to share a cabin on a cruise they've both booked. Trouble on the dock before setting sail requires a costume change from the two, so they turn off the lights, only to have their identities revealed as the light of a fire shines through their cabin window. Of course, Lois finds her way on board, and for the most part Superman worries that she's fallen for Batman more than he worries about capturing the jewel thief who is aboard.

But wait. It gets so much worse.

The second story (which is actually a pretty good one), follows Superman as he tries to make the dreams of a young man who wants to be an FBI agent come true. The man is paralyzed by fears, and kept from becoming what he wants to by some physical problems, so Superman secretly uses his powers to help the young man succeed in his various jobs. But the man, Joe Harris, is too honest to take credit for what he sees as coincidences, and quits each job, rather than continue under false pretenses. It's actually an interesting articulation of Superman realizing that he can't simply use his powers to make everyone's lives better; rather, he needs to help people embrace what is special about themselves in order to make a difference. Eventually realizing that Joe has remarkable knowledge of detection and criminality, he gets him a job as an instructor for the FBI.

And here's where it gets worse:

The final story in the issue is basically Lois Lane trying to play pimp for her roommate and Clark Kent, so that she'll have Superman all to herself. It's awful. Lois is awful. Superman is awful. Even Lorraine, Lois' roommate, is a simpering fool who agrees to Lois' plan to marry her off to Clark. Thank goodness she has a change of heart, and ends up with someone she loves, and who loves her. But this last piece is definitely a great example of how horrendously bad the superhero tales of the 50s could get.

Onward.