Action Comics #1004 (spoilers)

[Naked Bat]

When his “understanding” of her doesn’t fit with the majority of her history, then perhaps it’s a bad understanding? And why on earth does a 50 something white man get to be the authority on who Lois is? The women I follow in the Superman fandom have been extremely put off by this. Why does this 50 year old man get to explain to US about what a “modern” marriage is for this woman? Is that not a job better suited for a FEMALE writer who actually walks in our shoee? Why do these older men keep getting to be the sole voice in telling us who Lois Lane is? Where is :: our:: representation?

And I never said that I was the only one who was married or a parent. But I do know that half the guys on this thread lecturing us about marriage and “how marriage needs tension” are not actually married nor do they have children. So while they are entitled to their opinions? They don’t ::actually:: know or have frame of reference.

The only way to actually have an honest portrayal of Lois as a married woman and mother is to be more inclusive to female writers and editors. Kelly Sue Deconnick recently said at NYCC that Lois Lane was the one character she was dying to write because she related to her. Where is her chance? She’s a best selling writer. In the meantime, I’m not impressed with yet another 50 year old man trying to define modern motherhood and marriage for me. No thanks. We deserve better.

he does get to be the authority on who Loïs because he is the one who writes the stories she's featured in, not you, not the women you follow in the superman fandom, not me either. While I'm all for women writers, black writers, asian writers, I totally disagree with the notion that only a woman can write a woman in a faithful way. If the next writer is a woman and she does a good job on the title, I'm all for it. If Kelly Sue Deconnick gets the gig, and she does a great job on it, awesome. But she's not and Bendis has the right to tell the story he has in mind. He created a very compelling woman heroine in Alias, so there is no doubt in my mind that he's a writer capable of writing great women, even if he's a man.

I happen to agree with you about marriage not needing tension to be interesting, even in fiction, and this is definitely not an approach that I'm fond of when it comes to the super marriage (I'm all for a super marriage showing them as equals who support each other), but in my private life, I happen to have several friends, married with children, who have this kind of tension. Some married friends of mine, who have a daughter, chose to leave separately, while still being a couple, for reasons more or less similars to Lois. So it does'nt strike me as ringing false, especially since said friends are in their 40's.

I'm not disagreeing with your points per se, especially when you say there should be more female writers and editors (the more diverse the voices, the more interesting the work imo, and it's obvious men and women have very different views on a lot of things, which is great), but I think it's important to accept that with characters with such a rich history, not every writer will write a take that is compelling to us. And complaints about their work are certainly legit, but said writers staying true to their ideas is legit as well imo.

[Nelliebly]

I do think this may be bit narrow minded. If certain people were only ever allowed to write specific stories because of who they were in terms of sex, race, age, we wouldn't have as big a library of (largely good) fictional work spanning several mediums that we do today.

.

So it’s “narrow minded” now to want equality? Your point might have some merit if we actually ::had:: diverse writers in the Superman office but there hasn’t been a female writer on the books in like 14 years and the office was notoriously run by an ACTUAL sexual harasser until very recently making the office a legitimate hostile place for women to be employed. This has actual impact not just on the real life conditions in the office but is literally reflected in the CONTENT of the books. So I will not apologize for saying that I’m sick of all these “defining” stories about marriage and motherhood for Lois being written by men not when we have clear evidence that female writers have not gotten equal opportunities to contribute.

[Nelliebly]

he does get to be the authority on who Loïs because he is the one who writes the stories she's featured in, not you, not the women you follow in the superman fandom, not me either. While I'm all for women writers, black writers, asian writers, I totally disagree with the notion that only a woman can write a woman in a faithful way. If the next writer is a woman and she does a good job on the title, I'm all for it. If Kelly Sue Deconnick gets the gig, and she does a great job on it, awesome. But she's not and Bendis has the right to tell the story he has in mind. He created a very compelling woman heroine in Alias, so there is no doubt in my mind that he's a writer capable of writing great women, even if he's a man.

I happen to agree with you about marriage not needing tension to be interesting, even in fiction, and this is definitely not an approach that I'm fond of when it comes to the super marriage (I'm all for a super marriage showing them as equals who support each other), but in my private life, I happen to have several friends, married with children, who have this kind of tension. Some married friends of mine, who have a daughter, chose to leave separately, while still being a couple, for reasons more or less similars to Lois. So it does'nt strike me as ringing false, especially since said friends are in their 40's.

I'm not disagreeing with your points per se, especially when you say there should be more female writers and editors (the more diverse the voices, the more interesting the work imo, and it's obvious men and women have very different views on a lot of things, which is great), but I think it's important to accept that with characters with such a rich history, not every writer will write a take that is compelling to us. And complaints about their work are certainly legit, but said writers staying true to their ideas is legit as well imo.

I never said that only a woman could write women. But, as I said below, there hasn’t been a female writer in the Superman office for over a decade and we know, for a fact, that women were kept out of the office because of Berganza. It’s the elephant in the room that no one seems to want to address. So I will not apologize for feeling intensely frustrated with what Bendis is doing here and intensely frustrated that, yet again, year after year, there’s no diversity in terms of voice and control for Lois. That is not fair. It is not equality and it’s upsetting especially when we are dealing yet again with very sensitive topics like marriage, career and motherhood from her POV.

Bendis can do whatever he wants. He has more privilege and power than I or any woman for that matter will ever have and he doesn’t often do a good job of sharing it. (see his most recent Wonder Comics that didn’t feature one female creator) and I will speak my truth and criticize him when I feel it’s deserved and here? I feel it’s deserved.

[Nelliebly]

Also, so are we just continuing to ignore that Jor-El is a murderer because it is absolutely ridiculous that Lois would have left their child alone with someone she didn’t trust and KNEW to be that dangerous. I don’t care if he had a growth spurt and I don’t care how powerful he is. She wouldn’t just leave her son. But at this point, I guess Bendis is just retconning everything he wants (he certainly retconned Lois never writing/working) so was guess we are to assume he retconned Jurgens work out? I have no idea but it makes zero sense.

[vasir12]

My main problem with this issue is that Lois didn't feel the need to talk to Clark about her decision to change how the relationship worked while leaving Clark worried on her whereabouts. All if this could have been done more healthily with communication.

Also Lois and Clark leaving Jon with a murderer is still weird.

[rpmaluki]

So it’s “narrow minded” now to want equality? Your point might have some merit if we actually ::had:: diverse writers in the Superman office but there hasn’t been a female writer on the books in like 14 years and the office was notoriously run by an ACTUAL sexual harasser until very recently making the office a legitimate hostile place for women to be employed. This has actual impact not just on the real life conditions in the office but is literally reflected in the CONTENT of the books. So I will not apologize for saying that I’m sick of all these “defining” stories about marriage and motherhood for Lois being written by men not when we have clear evidence that female writers have not gotten equal opportunities to contribute.

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying in my post. I'm not bemoaning representation. Heck if I was American, I'd be classified a minority and I do care that we have more of it bts as an underrepresented fan. Diversity is a great thing, but at the same time you can't limit characters to only be written by people of that are the same sex, same orientation, same race or even age group. It's a narrow viewpoint. I don't mean that as an insult. If that's how you take it, then I don't know what to say. You are disqualifying Bendis because he's a middle aged white man and he wrote Mile Morales and Jessica Jones so clearly he's not a limited writer in terms of writing outside his demographic. I don't believe only women can write women characters who are in a marriage any more than I believe only men can write male characters etc. I'm judging these books on what's on print as I have every book before Bendis since I started reading comics, not on what DC should be doing bts. That's a very different conversation altogether.

[DragonPiece]

Thoughts on the issue
1.Like Superlad said, those scenes with Superman at the planet are some of the best Bendis has wrote Superman so far.
2. It's hard to really understand Lois's POV since we still don't know how much she is lying, I am sure she still loves Clark/Superman and she wouldn't lie about Jon, but it's clear she is ying about something here.

[manofsteel1979]

I haven't read the issue yet and won't until tonight, but I think pro and con we need to remind ourselves things can be so much worse. Not that long ago we had crap like Clark feeding Lois to the Parasite to protect his identity and crap like "Truth" which screwed up Clark, Lois, Jimmy and many other characters who had the misfortune of appearing in that storyline.

Before I get people accusing me of being a Bendis apologist or a sexist etc, I'm not condoning anything within the issue as I've not read it yet, but so far Bendis would have a long way to go to reach the levels of craptastic depths of depravity and creative bankruptcy of just a few short years ago. It can always be much much much worse.

[rpmaluki]

I haven't read the issue yet and won't until tonight, but I think pro and con we need to remind ourselves things can be so much worse. Not that long ago we had crap like Clark feeding Lois to the Parasite to protect his identity and crap like "Truth" which screwed up Clark, Lois, Jimmy and many other characters who had the misfortune of appearing in that storyline.

Before I get people accusing me of being a Bendis apologist or a sexist etc, I'm not condoning anything within the issue as I've not read it yet, but so far Bendis would have a long way to go to reach the levels of craptastic depths of depravity and creative bankruptcy of just a few short years ago. It can always be much much much worse.

So much this!

Bendis isn't hitting the spot by any stretch of the imagination (it could take a turn for the worst, I know) but what I have read from him so far, isn't like that and will NEVER ever top that nonsense.

There are hints to where he's taking the story and I'm curious about where he's going with it. If he crashes and burns everything around him like we've seen in parts of N52. I will be among the first to want him gone ASAP before he could cause more damage.

[DragonPiece]

EDIT Nevermind

[Kon93]

The issue itself was good,nice Lil moments here and there,I really only had 2 problems with it.

If I read her calling him baby one more time I'm gonna scream.plz tell me ALL of you got that same feeling,and very early in the issue.

The 2nd issue is that lois has got to be mentally manipulated somehow,because no mother is gonna leave her kid out in space,and with a bad grandpa,and then comeback and hide from her husband,or at least not call him up and say I'm back.she must have been given a mental suggestion or 2 out in space.

Oh and how did she get back from space? If jor dropped her off why didn't he have jon visit his dad while they were dropping her off,that makes no sense either.

[rpmaluki]

Thoughts on the issue
1.Like Superlad said, those scenes with Superman at the planet are some of the best Bendis has wrote Superman so far.
2. It's hard to really understand Lois's POV since we still don't know how much she is lying, I am sure she still loves Clark/Superman and she wouldn't lie about Jon, but it's clear she is ying about something here.

It's her being secretive about why she's not come home and this book she's working on. I would certainly love the communication channels to be open and free but Bendis using this book angle to keep us readers in the dark and it isn't great because of how it has affected Superman well. I think that is the biggest misstep of the issue (arc so far). Lois is going at a million miles per hour and Clark is left groping in the dark like the rest of us and that shouldn't be the case. I am sure it will turn out that she had a really good reason behind it but because of the slow pace, it's becoming aggravating, even to me.

That whole "baby...baby...BABY!" is unforgivable imo. I hate the term even with a couple as deeply in love as these two. I do think Lois can do better (and has), maybe that and the frenetic way she talked is an indication that her mind's been tampered with but I doubt it.

[DragonPiece]

It's her being secretive about why she's not come home and this book she's working on. I would certainly love the communication channels to be open and free but Bendis using this book angle to keep us readers in the dark and it isn't great because of how it has affected Superman well. I think that is the biggest misstep of the issue (arc so far). Lois is going at a million miles per hour and Clark is left groping in the dark like the rest of us and that shouldn't be the case. I am sure it will turn out that she had a really good reason behind it but because of the slow pace, it's becoming aggravating, even to me.

That whole "baby...baby...BABY!" is unforgivable imo. I hate the term even with a couple as deeply in love as these two. I do think Lois can do better (and has), maybe that and the frenetic way she talked is an indication that her mind's been tampered with but I doubt it.

yep, all we keep seeing is poor Clark confused while Lois makes a million decisions without consulting him. It's not really fair to him as a husband, she is really using his easy going trust to her benefit. Not many other husbands would be ok with this and not have many questions.

I know we are supposed to get a "love conquers all" vibe with this issue, but it's hard to feel that moment is earned because we are just in the dark as much as Clark is.

[Naked Bat]

I never said that only a woman could write women. But, as I said below, there hasn’t been a female writer in the Superman office for over a decade and we know, for a fact, that women were kept out of the office because of Berganza. It’s the elephant in the room that no one seems to want to address. So I will not apologize for feeling intensely frustrated with what Bendis is doing here and intensely frustrated that, yet again, year after year, there’s no diversity in terms of voice and control for Lois. That is not fair. It is not equality and it’s upsetting especially when we are dealing yet again with very sensitive topics like marriage, career and motherhood from her POV.

Bendis can do whatever he wants. He has more privilege and power than I or any woman for that matter will ever have and he doesn’t often do a good job of sharing it. (see his most recent Wonder Comics that didn’t feature one female creator) and I will speak my truth and criticize him when I feel it’s deserved and here? I feel it’s deserved.

You're right to explain your point. I will never dispute that. And like I said, I actually agree with several of your points. I may be a man, but that doesn't mean that I don't want women to be treated as fairly as men. Quite the opposite. The berganza stuff is awful and sadly, we live in a world where this kind of thing still exist.

[Miles To Go]

yep, all we keep seeing is poor Clark confused why Lois makes a million decisions without consulting him. It's not really fair to him as a husband, she is really using his easy going trust to her benefit.

And it's this that dismays me and probably a few more people, some fans critical of Lois or disapproving of the Clois relationship are going to interpret Bendis' take on this situation and use it as ammunition to deconstruct and assassinate her character in debates unless we get more clarity.