Who are Pete Ross and Lana Lang to you?

[Bored at 3:00AM]

So as not to derail another thread, I'm moving this discussion over here.

Pete & Lana started off mostly as Jimmy & Lois knock-offs. Lana has made the most strides towards becoming a more unique character in the comics, but mostly by grafting elements from Pete onto herself.

However, given the wildly divergent characterizations of Lana across the comics, cartoons, TV, and movies, I couldn't really tell you what Lana's personality is. Is she the sweet girl next door that Annette O'Toole portrayed in Superman III? That's what Krysten Kruek's Lana started off as before completely going off the rails because the writers couldn't figure out what to do with her character. Or is she the sassy jet-setting supermodel of Superman TAS? I'm honestly not sure what the Superman & Lois's writers are aiming for with their depiction of the character.

Honestly, the only defining characteristic that seems to define Lana across most versions of her is that she's kind of a sad sack who has terrible taste in men.

And Pete Ross is even worse. Aside from being a bit of a rascal, I couldn't really tell you anything about him aside from his role as Clark's childhood friend. Who is Pete beyond that? This is not to say that I think Pete Ross should be a more important figure in Superman's story, but the lack of specificity to his character is kind of a bummer.

[Robanker]

So as not to derail another thread, I'm moving this discussion over here.

Pete & Lana started off mostly as Jimmy & Lois knock-offs. Lana has made the most strides towards becoming a more unique character in the comics, but mostly by grafting elements from Pete onto herself.

However, given the wildly divergent characterizations of Lana across the comics, cartoons, TV, and movies, I couldn't really tell you what Lana's personality is. Is she the sweet girl next door that Annette O'Toole portrayed in Superman III? That's what Krysten Kruek's Lana started off as before completely going off the rails because the writers couldn't figure out what to do with her character. Or is she the sassy jet-setting supermodel of Superman TAS? I'm honestly not sure what the Superman & Lois's writers are aiming for with their depiction of the character.

Honestly, the only defining characteristic that seems to define Lana across most versions of her is that she's kind of a sad sack who has terrible taste in men.

And Pete Ross is even worse. Aside from being a bit of a rascal, I couldn't really tell you anything about him aside from his role as Clark's childhood friend. Who is Pete beyond that? This is not to say that I think Pete Ross should be a more important figure in Superman's story, but the lack of specificity to his character is kind of a bummer.

Pete as a character is ultimately defined by his relationship to others. He's Clark's childhood friend. He's Lana's husband/ex husband. He's Lex's Vice President.

As a character himself, he's very much Mr. Generic once we leave Smallville and that's a shame, but frankly with the power creep in supporting casts eliminating civilians save the most crucial/nostalgic (Lois/Jimmy), this will not be changing any time soon. Why talk about Clark's friend when you can have Batman? Why talk about Pete as a non-powered friend when you've got Jimmy. Sadly, he's so far down the rung the only way you'll ever see him get developed is a long-form Smallville/Clark as Superboy project and even then it's a matter of time before we start seeing other young heroes and he takes a back seat.

Lana does show up more, but she goes from reporter to super scientist to Superwoman and everything in between. She either still pines for Clark or has her own thing going. She was either the girl next door or most popular girl in school. She usually has a character but there's no consistency. She's alike with Kara in this regard.

For my money? I think Pete works best as exactly what he is-- the bar. He's Joe Everyman in Smallville. Just a decent man who provides Clark a reference to what someone who is entirely unremarkable is like.

Lana, I think she's most engaging as the girl next door who stays in Smallville and becomes her own thing that isn't just Lois-lite. In my headcanon, she becomes the sheriff and something of a community leader.

[Vordan]

Pete Ross I think works best as a footnote. He and Clark were childhood friends but Pete never left Smallville and the two don’t have anything in common anymore. He doesn’t know Clark’s secret and he’s just kind of generic in every way. He works fine as a vestige of simpler times.

Lana in contrast I think is the one element of Smallville I would have follow Clark out of Smallville. In my ideal take she and Clark date but Lana is unable to cope with the stresses of being involved with Clark and ultimately leaves. I like the idea of her being an engineer and I love her and John Henry Irons dating, I see her getting into another superhero relationship after her failed one with Clark as a sign of how she’s matured since breaking up with him, I’ve written a whole bit on that relationship. Ultimately she’s the first person outside his parents who knows Clark’s secret, and she should be the one who encourages Clark to aspire to be more than just another farmer in Smallville. Her personality should be snarky but still encouraging and excited to see the outside world.

[SJNeal]

Honestly, I'm not crazy about either of them.

They had their moments during the Triangle Era, but since then I think the most I've enjoyed Lana is when Greg Pak was writing her.

[witchboy]

I think both characters suffer from consistent characterization because they were created as stand ins for Lois and Jimmy.
Lana was meant to fill the same role as Lois in the Superboy comics, and she did that well. Strong characterization wasn't a focus then, so she didn't get developed much beyond that for a long time.
The Bronze Age Lana did get more development, with her giving up on Superman and moving to Europe for a few years, only to return a little pretentious with an English accent. There were some interesting developments in the later pre Crisis years as Superman broke up with Lois and Clark dated Lana. In her last appearance in the Lois Lane mini series we learn Lana had been married and had a son in England, a baby who'd been abducted and was presumed dead!
Post Crisis every portrayal of Lana has been wildly different. Her defining characteristic is usually her unrequited love for Clark.
Pete has gotten even less development.
I like the characters, I like them to be Clark's friends, but they're second tier supporting characters. That's not a bad thing, as I think a larger supporting cast has more storytelling opportunities. Lana and Pete can languish in the background for years at a time until someone has an idea for how to use them.
Moving Lana into a relationship with Steel is a great way to use her in a different way. I'd like to see her stay out of the sad sack she sometimes can be and let her have a good life of her own.

[Quinlan58]

Pete Ross I've barely even seen, so I don't have much of any thoughts on him. I liked him in Superboy 179 where Clark meets him for the first time in a while and he's living in a poor people's settlement because his family has fallen on hard times. I feel like there's something there, his childhood best friend Pete being Clark's first big contact with the idea of how unfair the world can be (obviously not the case in that story where Superboy's already an established hero fighting injustice, but you know, it's the seed of something interesting, I think).

As for Lana... I like kid Lana a lot. I like her in the pre-crisis Superboy stories where she's this spunky girl who will call Clark out on his bullshit (while still being plenty immature herself), who also has a ring that lets her morph into various insdcts (such a conventionally un-girly powerset, which she uses to great effect) and has adventures with the Legion of Superheroes. I like her in All Star where she's annoyed at Pete and Clark for acting as if she doesn't have them both all figured out. I like her in those panels in Man and Superman where she (along with Pete) work as the symbol of everything Clark's leaving behind, a constant temptation for a simpler life, a fantasy that Clark must move on from.

And then there's adult Lana. She's done some pretty cool stuff over the years, but the defining moment of adult Lana for me is in her debut where she first meets with Lois, and they both pull out a signed (with love) photograph of Superman. It's clearly intended to position them as equal rivals for the affection of Superman... except Lois has one of the adult man and Lana has one of the teenage boy, so Lana looks like she's still holding onto the fantasy of dating her high school crush years after said crush has moved on. Be it Silver Age, Post-Crisis, Rebirth, there's always this undercurrent of Lana never moving on from her high school crush who is either interested in someone else or already married, and that is always really sad. I'll admit the few appearences of her I've read from late Bronze Age didn't have that awkward undercurrent, though, so there's probably some good material there that will change my mind, and that I haven't read the much celebrated Greg Pak reinvention.

[Jon Clark]

Pete Ross for much of his early existence had one defining trait- he knew Clark's secret and Clark was unaware Pete knew. He was made an honorary member of the Legion just based on this- Lana and Jimmy had to get powers before the Legion offered them honorary membership. Unfortunately time has moved on and now Lana gets in most new versions to be the secret-keeper in Smallville albeit with Clark being the one to tell her. And now that Superman has thrown away the secret, even the fact of knowing his dual identity isn't anything to distinguish Pete.

And Lana exists largely to be "the one who isn't Lois". Need a partner for teen Clark that fills Lois' role in Superman stories- Lana! Need someone who doesn't win Clark's romantic affection- Lana! Need someone to gain powers, since Lois is already equal to Superman without powers- Lana! Need someone to make lois jealous in a flashback tale before the marriage- Lana! She even gets to be a consolation prize for Steel

God I miss the Bronze Age when Pete and Lana had actual lives.

[exile001]

I like Lana as the childhood sweetheart that, when Clark needed to move on from Smallville, couldn't go with him. Maybe she knew his secret and didn't want to hold him back. Maybe Clark at that point thought he couldn't go forward to become a hero and put Lana at risk*. After reconnecting and reconciling as adults they're good platonic friends with both having moved on.

*I think Byrne's version of this is too harsh. Definitely have it more of a conversation with mutual understanding.

What major role she plays from there is almost irrelevant to me. She doesn't need to head LexCorp or join the Planet, that's not her place. She should just be a genuine friend to flesh out Superman's world.

For Pete, I mostly know the post-Crisis era on where he's not much of a factor so just having him as one of Clark's good childhood friends is fine. I liked him married to Lana as it solidly kept her and Clark's relationship non-romantic - though some writers tried to creep the love triangle back in there in the 00's to zero success, because who would believes Superman is going to cheat on his wife.

Also, chuck in Kenny Braverman as a friend/rival. I really liked him and Conduit's arc.

I very much like a Clark who had friends as a child and wasn't a loner. He doesn't have to be the most popular guy at school but I'm not keen on the trope of him being bullied loner hiding his power.

[HsssH]

She even gets to be a consolation prize for Steel

This is one of the reasons why I don't really like that relationship. Other being what Robanker wrote about power creep. I'd love for Superman (and Batman for that matter) to have some supporting characters that are... normal human beings? Not superwomen, not super engineers, not in relationships with other superheroes. Just a normal human being. I like the idea about her staying in Smallville and becoming a sheriff or some kind of a community leader. You know, living her own life, having her own family and so on.

I think the main problem with Lana is that she is popular enough to have people talking about her so DC tries to find a place for her and I feel like every attempt to do it has flopped and backfired in some way. I think that her appearing in flashbacks and having a bigger role once every couple of years when Clark visits Smallville is good enough.

[kryptonian]

I feel that Lana and Pete suffer from redundant character syndrome the second Superboy becomes Superman


The only reason to reference their existence is when you need them to fill in a specific role in the present day(Superman & Lois)

[Frontier]

Clark's childhood friends who can never quite be what they aspire to be.

[Jim Kelly]

Jimmy Olsen and Pete Ross both have freckles. There the similarity ends. I didn't like the suggestion that Pete was meant as a Jimmy copy when it was suggested on that other thread.

I am listening to THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN radio series (one episode a week) and I'm currently hearing the story that introduced Jimmy Olsen--red haired, freckle-faced copy boy. He's just a kid. He's not Clark's contemporary. He's not going to high school with Clark. He doesn't know that Superman and Clark are one and the same.

On the radio show, Olsen comes from humble beginnings, in a crime ridden neighbourhood, supporting his shop owner mother. He's not a small town hero.

Granted Jimmy's back story keeps changing in the comics. And he eventually ends up living as a little kid for a short time in Smallville. Although not much was made out of that.

Jimmy became a comical character. He was always having difficulties with women and struggling to please Perry White and having weird transformations. There's supposed to be a big age gap between Jimmy and Superman--it's strange when actors close to each other in age are cast in these roles.

Blond Pete Ross was the same age as Clark. He learned that Clark was really Superboy and after that he helped Superboy, without the Boy of Steel knowing it. He's on the square and doesn't have the peculiarities of James Bartholomew Olsen. He's a Norman Rockwell youth in a Norman Rockwell town.

I grant that classic comics are casting their characters all from the narrow field of white males, without any real diversity--so they are all bound to appear the same. But you could just as easily say that for Wally West, Roy Harper, Snapper Carr and Binky Biggs.

[Jim Kelly]

Lana Lang is more like the female Jimmy Olsen--at least in the classic comics. They both have archaeologists for fathers and go on wild adventures. Lana was even more elaborate in personality than Lois. She was a super-hero, travelled to the 30th century. She was a big city girl living in a small town, always meant for a larger stage. And when she wasn't having adventures with the Legion, she was spending her vacation time on digs with her dad. As an adult, she was in the glamorous world of television broadcasting, always on camera and in the spotlight, rather than behind the scenes in the world of print journalism. Going off to Europe made her even more posh. Her beauty was obvious, whereas I'd say Lois Lane never stood out in the same way (which might be why Superman loved Lois more, she wasn't as vain). Lana moved on from Superman and had other lovers, like Vartox.

I feel like in the post-Crisis comics, with Lana forced into the background, Wonder Woman took her place as the main competition for Lois Lane. It makes better sense in the Byrne GENERATIONS that Lana ends up as a near immortal super-hero having adventures with Superman in the far future.

[Yoda]

Pete is kind of a nonentity to me at this point. Even during the Triangle era he was always just kind of there. The most interesting thing he had going for him was when he might have been Ruin, but even then he got passed over.

Lana I mostly find irritating. She’s Clark’s small town girlfriend he has to grow beyond. Whether it’s because Clark can’t be open with her or she can’t deal with his secret, that’s all she should be. Her existence at best is to set up what makes Lois more special. But there’s this weird undercurrent where she always has to be something extraordinary or special because no matter what she’s always going to be second to Lois. It’s like obvious overcompensating. Even the supposed “best” use of her in the New 52 was because Pak wasn’t allowed to use Lois. So we got uberLana.

[Nelliebly]

I think Superman and Lois has done a decent job with Lana so far. There is a bit of that over compensation present (it definitely felt like they were trying to hard to make her heroic in episode 10 when she gets taken over by Lara) but, in general, I think she’s been ok.

Superman and Lois’s Lana addresses the fact that Lana has been kind of a sad sack and, at times, kind of a fake. She puts on a fake smile front to the town of Smallville but, in reality, she was in an unhappy marriage and had never left the small town. She had a brief relationship with Clark in high school but she seemingly dumped him for Kyle and then Clark took off after his father died and didn’t return. By the time he comes back, she’s engaged to Kyle and Clark is sad for like 30 seconds until he meets Lois in Metropolis and then never looks back. Lana is forced to reconcile to Lois that Clark came back home more confident and, frankly, sexier after he got with her. Lana tells Lois that she realized when Clark showed back up that he had met someone —it was clear he had become a man. And the boy who was so unsure of himself had been replaced by this hot man. The show hasn’t really explored the steps she’s taking to make a new life for herself but at least the elephant in the room about how Lana hasn’t been honest with herself has been addressed. This Lana isn’t lying to herself anymore.

The friendship between Lana and Lois also feels the most genuine on the show that it’s ever been. Part of that is because the show, thankfully, isn’t playing around with the marriage nor are they trying to bait shippers. Clark is happily married and isn’t looking at anyone but his wife and Lana respects that and genuinely loves Lois. Lana and Lois’s love for each other feels more pure here distinctly bc it’s not about a man between them. Lana is just part of their family.

A lot of credit for this can apparently be given to the actresses themselves as apparently Bitsie Tulloch told Todd Helbing from the start that he had to be extremely careful to avoid ever putting these women against each other and she told him “these are grown women, not teen girls.” So good for Bitsie.

As for Lana’s future on the show….that’s more uncertain to me. It does feel like they still try to overcompensate for her distinctly because Tulloch’s Lois is such a badass that when they try to make Lana one it does feel just a tad forced. So I hope they just keep portraying her as the sweet family friend trying to figure her life out. And I hope they avoid the temptation to make her Superwoman for several reasons. One, that would really cut into Jordan and Jonathan’s story 2) we don’t need more Super people taking time from Superman —that’s a problem in the rest of the Arrowverse 3) it would cut into Lois‘a story as Lois is the female lead on this show and not Lana. So who knows. But I’m hoping for no Superwoman here.