Did Jerry Siegel think Superman and Lois should Marry?

[Manakel]

Thing is people, characters, history...evolve. What he said at that time is a reflection of what people thought and things were at that time.
You can't expect at a company, to stay always the same unless you want to your business to go bankrupt. You can't expect to bring new people to the comic genre with the same art and phrasé you had 50 years ago. People become more modern each years, they evolve. Comics have to too and so do their characters.
The relationship between lois and clark evolved too and it's only natural. The "will they won't they" can only work for a time. When people love each other, they usually (not always i give you that) tend to get married and eventually have kids. I only wish this kind of evolution appear more often in the comics genre, like with wonder woman and steve trevor for exemple since it is a comparable relationship.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I remember reading in MEN OF TOMORROW that when Jerry Siegel was in the late 30s or early '40s he wanted to do a story where Clark revealed his identity to Lois and they get married right away. So at one point he did have different views but he might have changed them or rather since this is an opinion he gave for a DC fan-magazine, might just be toeing the corporate/company line rather than offering a full expression of his beliefs.

I personally think that the real reason Superman might have stagnated since the '90s is because so much time/talent/effort has gone to Batman and so on. People don't focus on building up Superman's rogues gallery and reinventing and reworking the minor-league villains into interesting figures and packing density there. Superman's corner has a ton of potential. I mean Bizarro alone is one of the weirdest and most inventive things ever and yet it's just sitting there gathering dust. There's a ton of ideas to cover and explore but people either want to cosplay the Donner movies or give us the umpteenth Kryptonian bad guy or Doomsday knockoff and more fanfiction about Luthor being some ultimate human.

[manwhohaseverything]

Storytelling conventions and audience expectations evolve. Marvel injected massive amounts of soap opera and made the character's personal lives central elements from.the jump and DC was left in the dust with their static generic superhero action tales. You can respect Seigels opinion and still recognize that it isn't necessarily correct. .

Marriage and commitment don't require a story to be subsumed with day to day minutiae. Bad (and frankly sexist) writing does. Just like bad writing would sink plenty of action movies.

And the idea that Superman can't compete in other genres is short sighted. Of course he can. He needs to. Romance is backed into the formula as much as anything else.

Ok, i will try to see it from.i am not much of a romace guy. Tell me or recommend to me, romantic superman stories that can compete with the greatest hits of romance genre. So, there is precedence to it. I know donner movies had the romance thing. But, that was a time when a flying man live action on big screen like it was pretty big.
Marvel injects personal lives, yes. But never at the cost of the fantastic.they even anounce their characters for getting the idea "the amazing spiderman", "the fantastic four", "the incredible hulk"... Etc. Superman doesn't need that ofcourse .but, Their attitude is'nt flips and fight are just superficial. look here, something interesting spiderman is stuck in a love triangle. They give their space to other side. But first side is pretty important. Again, siegel and shuster comics were bloody brilliant for its time. They would showcase clark movements in almost every issue. To showcase the sheer fantastic nature of it. The usage of strength, speed.. Etc were great. Punches felt like it. Superman was an actual strong man. Max fleischer just to the source material brought it to life (for a younger audience ofcourse).Again,you don't want a superman returns situation again.

Can you honestly say as a superman fan you don't care if a scene like this exists with superman or not? That you are indifferent to it. Regardless, that is lit. My man all might leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

[Yoda]

Ok, i will try to see it from.i am not much of a romace guy. Tell me or recommend to me, romantic superman stories that can compete with the greatest hits of romance genre. So, there is precedence to it. I know donner movies had the romance thing. But, that was a time when a flying man live action on big screen like it was pretty big.
Marvel injects personal lives, yes. But never at the cost of the fantastic.they even anounce their characters for getting the idea "the amazing spiderman", "the fantastic four", "the incredible hulk"... Etc. Superman doesn't need that ofcourse .but, Their attitude is'nt flips and fight are just superficial. look here, something interesting spiderman is stuck in a love triangle. They give their space to other side. But first side is pretty important. Again, siegel and shuster comics were bloody brilliant for its time. They would showcase clark movements in almost every issue. To showcase the sheer fantastic nature of it. The usage of strength, speed.. Etc were great. Punches felt like it. Superman was an actual strong man. Max fleischer just to the source material brought it to life (for a younger audience ofcourse).Again,you don't want a superman returns situation again.

Can you honestly say as superman fan you don't care if a scene like this exists with superman or not? That you are indifferent to it. Regardless, that is lit. My man all might leaping tall buildings in a single bound.

We've had this discussion like 15 times at this point so I don't see much value in going back and forth again. I'm not saying you strip all the action out of the stories or even drop them as a focus, you blend them. Like Marvel has done for decades successfully. You seem to interpret it as that, but I've never said that. You can have the character moments focus on romance and still incorporate plenty of action, especially in a superhero tv show.

Tell me or recommend to me, romantic superman stories that can compete with the greatest hits of romance genre. So, there is precedence to it. I know donner movies had the romance thing. But, that was a time when a flying man live action on big screen like it was pretty big.

But this is hilarious. If you can't make your point without ignoring the biggest most successful adaptation of Superman that focused heavily on the romantic story line between Superman and Lois, I don't think I need to argue anything more really.

[seismic-2]

It's not a "take", he's the creator of Superman.

He is the creator of the Golden Age Superman, a character who lived on Earth-2 and who married the Earth-2 Lois Lane in an issue published in 1978 (one year after the Siegel interview). That Superman went on to have many adventures as a married man, and he and that Lois both died in Infinite Crisis. The Superman whose adventures we are following now is a similar character, but he is clearly different from the Golden Age Superman. Jerry Siegel's opinions from 42 years ago are interesting and worth considering, but they are certainly not definitive regarding the modern character.

[Jim Kelly]

There was also a story in the daily newspaper strip where Lois and Clark got married--I think Alvin Schwartz wrote that one--but then they had to establish that this never happened for real because it contradicted the official story in the comics.

Which is the inevitable result of any marriage for Superman. He might be married in current continuity, but at some point someone is going to want to get back to the roots of Superman, at which point any stories about the married Superman are effectively what-if/imaginary/elseworld/alternate Earth stories. So Jerry Siegel was right--there should be and are more imaginary stories.

I'm not convinced that Lois Lane should always settle down and marry the Man of Steel. Maybe she wants to be free, maybe marriage isn't in the cards for Lois. Or maybe Clark finds another woman and decides to make a life with her. We should always have the chance to imagine other ways the story works out--and not be stuck with just one possible outcome.

[SiegePerilous02]

I have mixed feelings. In some ways, hes right, we've gotten more focus on the marriage and that relationship to the point you'd think there isn't much of anything else of importance that Superman sees or does. It's contributed to the overall "normalization" of Superman, to his detriment, and the to the detriment of Lois's character as well.

But that's the problem with ongoing continuity that isn't designed to end in general. All the novelties wear off. Clark and Lois getting married was a big thing at the time because at that point the "will they/won't they" stuff was the stagnant material that needed a shake up. And the marriage doesn't have to be boring; these are two weird ass individuals whose courtship over the decades has involved robot duplicates, inter dimensional travel, physical mutations, learning alien Karate in the Bottle City of Kandor, and alien invasions. They should not have a normal marriage. And the writing talent put on the book generally lacks the imagination to elevate Superman's world, so the whole thing is suffering, not just their relationship. So I don't think we should blame the marriage for everything or that Siegel is completely right.

I'm generally far more invested in, say, the Spider-Marriage than I am the Super-Marriage though. I view Lois as his soulmmate and his unspoken endgame, but I can live without them being married in the present. I don't think their day to day marriage, such as it has been in published materials, is enough to hold my interest for long. Something like the end of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" with them being married and having a kid is what I want their ending to be, but actively following them when they reach that point isn't something I'm personally clamoring for. Especially when it comes to the kid.

[Kuwagaton]

The spider marriage. Conway said no here and became a main contributor to that one. I like the idea of Peter growing up and not being some punchline, and doing those sort of things... but when he's more prepared for growth than Superman that's weird to me.

It's kinda funny how all the creators said no... I don't think they wanted to condone a marriage during a period where they were completely unable to make it work as a regular thing. But by no means was Siegel strict on that. He was alive long enough to nod the engagement era and Swan was thankfully around to contribute to the wedding special despite his own sentiments.

[manwhohaseverything]

We've had this discussion like 15 times at this point so I don't see much value in going back and forth again. I'm not saying you strip all the action out of the stories or even drop them as a focus, you blend them. Like Marvel has done for decades successfully. You seem to interpret it as that, but I've never said that. You can have the character moments focus on romance and still incorporate plenty of action, especially in a superhero tv show.



But this is hilarious. If you can't make your point without ignoring the biggest most successful adaptation of Superman that focused heavily on the romantic story line between Superman and Lois, I don't think I need to argue anything more really.

Sorry for the bad grammar.then again its pretty normal form me,lol.
I didn't. It was bad typing. Sorry about that again. Back to what we were discussing . is Donner superman considered as one of the greatest romantic movies? I haven't seen it any listings.As i said, that was when the spectacle of flying man from space and a big crystal fortress was pretty big. Now, it isn't. And I was genuinely asking for recommendations regarding superman's romance that can compete with other greatest romance specific portrayals. I am not much of romance guy. If it has superman in it maybe i will enjoy it. I want to know if it has a precedence.
Blending is fine. But, marvel rarely shifts main focus from the fantastic. Which is what i am saying. They should focus more on bringing quality action to tv than anything, else. Unless ofcourse, you can provide me with something that proves to me superman is hell of a romantic character. Donner Romance just didn't do anything for me.

[seismic-2]

that was when the spectacle of flying man from space and a big crystal fortress was pretty big.

It was well done, and big budget, but it was hardly original. We had been seeing things like that in movies since, um, forever. Christopher Reeve did not become the most widely recognized Superman on account of a crystal cave and a flying harness. Any actor could have played that role, if that's what mattered

Donner Romance just didn't do anything for me.

But it did a lot for the public in general. Christopher Reeve became the most widely accepted Superman because of how cleverly and playfully he handled the romantic aspects of the character. Most actors couldn't have done that so well as he did.

[Yoda]

Sorry for the bad grammar.then again its pretty normal form me,lol.
I didn't. It was bad typing. Sorry about that again. Back to what we were discussing . is Donner superman considered as one of the greatest romantic movies? I haven't seen it any listings.As i said, that was when the spectacle of flying man from space and a big crystal fortress was pretty big. Now, it isn't. And I was genuinely asking for recommendations regarding superman's romance that can compete with other greatest romance specific portrayals. I am not much of romance guy. If it has superman in it maybe i will enjoy it. I want to know if it has a precedence.
Blending is fine. But, marvel rarely shifts main focus from the fantastic. Which is what i am saying. They should focus more on bringing quality action to tv than anything, else. Unless ofcourse, you can provide me with something that proves to me superman is hell of a romantic character. Donner Romance just didn't do anything for me.

I wasn't mocking your grammar or anything like that. Sorry if it came off that way. I read the way you framed that point excluding Superman: The Movie, which I thought was a copout - basically show me Superman is a romantic character but don't use the best and most well know romantic portrayal of him.

I do think Superman: The Movie is seen by many as a really romantic portrayal not only of Superman and Lois, but romantic in it's portrayal of America and Superman mythos in general. I think it does compete with some of the great romance stories, because it's a super-heroic take on a romance. The story and portrayal of the characters all hold up (somewhat - the non-consensual mind wipe has not aged well) where the special effects don't anymore. So the continued popularity of that movie isn't based on action sequences, it's the story - and the romantic chemistry between Reeve and Kidder - which is really heavy on romance more so than any modern superhero movie.

As far a other portrayals, I think the last couple of seasons of Smallville work in that vein. With the future and closing sequence from the 200th episode, Homecoming, being probably the peak of that for me. As far as romance comics go, Superman: Secret Identity is an elseworld but it's 2nd and 3rd issues have a narrative that is heavily focused on his relationship with Lois. From Krypton with Love is one and that's by Mark Millar and he's not even a fan of the marriage, Glasses is another, Superman One Million and All Star Superman are ones that I consider a relatively romantic Superman stories. For Tomorrow's another with a really great reunion sequence. The Smallville Season 11 comics are relationship heavily in a way that didn't descend into worrying about engagements or whatnot, and I think show you can have a sustained narrative with that when the writing is up to it.

I'm honestly not entirely sure we're that far off, while I think I would definitely enjoy a pure romance movie and comic take on Superman, I'm in no way advocating for that to be the only portrayal. Could it be done successfully, certainly. I don't think anyone is now saying Joker only should appear without Batman just because they made a movie about Joker that doesn't factor in Batman. The same could easily be done with Superman. Or that it should be done to the exclusion of action. And I know you like the big punch sequence in Justice League 25, and that right there is more or less what I'm talking about. It's an awesome few moments of action that are built on 5 issues of character work with Superman and his family. That's what I'm looking for.

I do disagree that Marvel is more focused on the fantastic more than the characters. The way Marvel has handled the comics and the movies, particularly characters like Spider-Man, has been to have a heavy focus on the character elements and personal life. The whole "Parker luck" thing with Spider-Man is built off of that idea - that his personal life is a mess constantly. Those elements all play in together. Yes, he has cool fight scenes and action sequences, but to say that is why he's endured as a character for 60 years isn't true. It's the whole package that working together that built him up.

Look, the action sequences in Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2 are no better than those in Spider-Man: Homecoming or Far From Home. The interpretation of Peter Parker the character and the storylines are what makes those more successful movies. Action sequences make great youtube clips, but long term it's story and character that hold audiences.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

One thing that makes Superman different from Spider-Man is the fact that functionally...the Superman in the comics' today is not continuous to the character that appeared in Action Comics#1. Whereas Spider-Man is supposed to be, believe it or not, continuous to Amazing Fantasy #15. When Jerry Siegel says that Superman's marriage should happen in an Imaginary Story...fundamentally he's missing the point that for all intents and purposes, all we have today are Imaginary Stories of Superman. I mean the Superman of Action Comics#1 is Golden Age Superman (or Earth 1) and he married Lois. Then he got replaced by a Silver Age Superman who got a conclusion of sorts in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow (or maybe in another story somewhere, I am not too familiar with that). The Post-Crisis Superman of Byrne's Man of Steel fought Doomsday, married Lois and was brought back with Lois after "Superman:Truth" crashed and burned and New 52 Superman was killed (though he might have been brought back, don't know).

Basically since Superman's rebooted so often, there's no single version of Superman anymore so that means that there's not a lot at stake if Superman gets married or stays single. I mean when New 52 Superman came and they decided to avoid the Superman/Lois thing in favor of Superman/Diana, I disliked the idea and concept but it didn't affect me because well, it didn't change or alter the other versions of Superman/Lois who made it. This is also the case with Batman. The Batman of the Silver Age or the Golden Age got a happy ending with Selina Kyle in The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne and the Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight Trilogy. At the same time, I appreciate and respect Frank Miller's The dark knight returns and Bruce Timm's Batman Beyond which imagines Bruce as an old man who drove everyone away, never got married and lost all his good looks. To me, neither version cancels the other one out, although I will say that I think the ending where Batman ends up alone is the more truthful and satisfying take on the character. So when Tom King strung everyone along for the mammoth waste of time his "wedding story" between Bat/Cat, I honestly thought they should have gotten married because it's not like there's anything at stake if and when it didn't happen. Because it's not like Tom King is working on the one-true-real Batman anymore than Frank Miller/Chris Nolan/Bruce Timm were. It was a story without any real stakes.

Whereas when Spider-Man got married to Mary Jane Watson that was huge because that happened to the character from Amazing Fantasy #15 and in fact happened in 1987, the 25th anniversary of Spider-Man's origin and first appearance. It was actual lasting growth and change, and maturity. So there's a lot more at stake on a reader/writer level with Spider-Man's marriage than with any DC character because functionally it's more or less making a real canonical change. So the outrage when Spider-man's marriage was retconned in a turgid bad story was greater than in the case of say DC ending the Post-Crisis continuity and going with New 52. On a quality level, there are tons of great Spider-Man stories that work specifically with Spider-Man as a married man with Mary Jane as the most important person in his life -- Kraven's Last Hunt, To Have and to Hold, Doomed Affairs, Back in Black Web of Romance, ASM#300 whereas Superman and Lois have maybe not really had that, with them as a married couple. I mean there are great Superman/Lois love stories and emotional highpoints, but about their relationship as husband-and-wife maybe not so much.

[manwhohaseverything]

It was well done, and big budget, but it was hardly original. We had been seeing things like that in movies since, um, forever. Christopher Reeve did not become the most widely recognized Superman on account of a crystal cave and a flying harness. Any actor could have played that role, if that's what mattered
But it did a lot for the public in general. Christopher Reeve became the most widely accepted Superman because of how cleverly and playfully he handled the romantic aspects of the character. Most actors couldn't have done that so well as he did.

Having big budget doesn't negate it being great. As for originality, i haven't seen anything like it in prior films. Crystal fortress, i mean. As flying man that might not be as original. But it was very much rare compared to now. where that isn't enough to captivate audiences.
Again, i didn't say it didn't. It just didn't work for me. Romance is generally not my thing. As i said, i haven't seen it any listings.When it comes to superman romances i liked what smallville had. But i don't think it was meant to compete for romance specifics.

[Nelliebly]

He did not, but that doesn't mean Superman shouldn't be married because he didn't think it was the right decision.

I am against the marriage, but I would never use Jerry Siegel words as proof that they shouldn't be married. Superman has been around for 80 years now, and has been written and molded by over a hundred people across media. Superman has grown beyond his creators, and that's ok.

There has been some talk that Jerry Siegel did not think the marriage should happen because it meant Lois would have to quit her job. It has been said that he held the belief that once a woman married, she should quit her job and dedicate all her time to being a wife.

I want to say, there is no proof of this to be found anywhere. In all my time reading about Superman, I have never come across him saying something like that. I don't know where this rumor originated from but unless proof is provided, it should be treated as a lie.

Siegel was not a feminist and he didn't have a great view of women even by the standards of his time, but he wasn't so backwards thinking that in 1977 he thought a woman's rightful place was in the home.

Siegel's reasons for being against the marriage have been proven to hold no weight however. Superman was married in canon for decades and I don't think the married Post-Crisis years were worse than the pre-married Post-Crisis years.

I was the one that said that Siegel once said that he felt Lois couldn’t work as a reporter if she got married. I distinctly remember reading it years ago in an interview with the Superman homepage. I have searched everywhere for the interview and I cannot find it but that does not make it a “lie” and I don’t appreciate being called a liar as that’s a personal accusation. As a woman, I distinctly remember reading this because it bothered me and stayed with me for a long time after I read it. If I misunderstood what I read that’s very possible but that does not make it a “lie” and that’s an extremely harsh accusation.

It’s very possible that the interview I was thinking of where I got that impression was this exact interview and given the way Siegel talks here about marriage essentially only being about babies and boring daily life coupled with the content of a lot of the Silver Age stories wherein Lois was forced to focus solely on “domestic” pursuits as opposed to being able to both be married and have a career, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there is a vein of that even in this interview.

I have the deepest respect for Siegel and thank him for everything he gave us but he was, in this respect, acting as a man in the 1970’s and both the context of the interview and the general view on women at the time —which very much did place women in boxes of career gal or wife but, rarely, both (see Margot Kidder’s comments in the Being Lois Lane documentary where she talks about how the late 70’s felt like such an instantaneous turning point in so many respects) and that all very much impacts context here.

[marhawkman]

Well he's not saying he doesn't want to see them married in fact he states in that article he would very much like to see it happen. What he's saying is that his character would be overcome with pointless day to day fluff and minutiae of life that would come with it. He was of course completely right, I'm pretty sure in Siegel's darkest dreams he couldn't have imagine one day that Superman would have a mild panic attack while the Justice League brainwashed Batman because he was afraid of what might happen to Lois.

Yeah the overall point of the article is that Siegel felt that if he had Superman get married that would be part of the story. Not that all the stories would need to focus on that, but that it's part of the story now and can't be ignored.

Stanley Lieber had a similar reason for not wanting Spiderman to get married. But Stan eventually decided it was better having him married to MJ.