How do Lois Lane, Iris West, and Linda Park compare?

[Dred]

Lois and clark were mandated to not get married because a tv show was airing. Death was one of the reasons they used. They used many other excuses afterwards as well. Lois makes money for the company as part of brand superman to an extent. So there is mandates put on for restriction.

Great, yes, there were tons of things deemed more important to Lois and Clark than Lois and Clark's relationship. This is not the case with Wally and Linda. That is the difference.

This isn't really an argument. Wally and Linda started later and got further sooner. Because a majority of their comics were about their relationship when that is definitely not the case for Superman and Lois. When you are comparing them this is one of the obvious comparisons. Wally and Linda's romance was more significant in their comics. A higher percentage of Wally West comics are about his life with Linda than the percentage that Clark's is about Lois.

[Dred]

Can't agree with this either. Now, Lois had ghastly times, but started fantastic. Silver age was dreadful for her. Iris was good in the silver age. She was a supporting character, not the hero, but she was not a conniving, marriage-chasing user trying to get a hero to marry her (hi, Lois and Steve in your worst representations that I erase from my mind). Iris was pretty much ignored in the bronze age, only showing up occasionally to nag or serve dinner until killed off, I admit. Terrible use of what was an enjoyable character to me

The most common thing Iris did in the Silver Age was complain to Barry that he should be more like The Flash. She was absolutely AWFUL in the Silver Age, just like Lois, because she was treated as this stereotypical nagging woman. Half the time she was involved in a villain plot it was the villain trying to kidnap her and force her to love them because that was all she was good for. I'm seriously not sure where you're getting this silver age picture of Iris but, man, I could not stand her in those stories. She was like the archetypal example of everything wrong with men writing women in the 60s.

I don't agree, either with the notion of comparing pre-bronze-age and modern characters on an even playing. The entire genre and writing for the medium is just too different for it to be fair for them to be put head to head, IMO. And a longer history and more writers means more variability and inconsistency (for heroes, too).

You don't have to. Wally and Linda's entire relationship takes in post crisis and you can flatly compare it to Lois and Clark's relationship during the same era. Clark proposed to Lois before Wally and Linda ever shared a furtive glance. My point stands, even stronger, in that sense. I guess Barry and Iris get left out in the cold on that one.

I don't like the idea of any of the heroes not being heroes if they never met the women they fell in love with. It's an insult to them. They were all heroes without input from those women. Because that's who they are. It's the same way I disliked using Jonathan/Jor-El to instruct Clark to be a hero or Barry needing death as a motivation. It lessens the heroism, and makes the character more passive or reactive than proactive.

I agree but I don't think that really...applies or matters to the love interest topic at hand.

[Digifiend]

Lois and clark were mandated to not get married because a tv show was airing.

That's wrong. They actually ended up getting married BECAUSE it happened in the Lois and Clark TV series.

[manwhohaseverything]

That's wrong. They actually ended up getting married BECAUSE it happened in the Lois and Clark TV series.

From what i know before it. They stopped that marriage which lead to the death of superman.

Great, yes, there were tons of things deemed more important to Lois and Clark than Lois and Clark's relationship. This is not the case with Wally and Linda. That is the difference.

Ofcourse there is. They fight for truth and justice, Not love and romance. I don't understand this logic. They had an antagonists fighting relationship, they became partners, they revealed their secrets to each other, adopted another one and lost him before,They were a childless couple who got themselves a miracle.

[Dred]

From what i know before it. They stopped that marriage which lead to the death of superman.

Ofcourse there is. They fight for truth and justice, Not love and romance. I don't understand this logic. They had an antagonists fighting relationship, they became partners, they revealed their secrets to each other, adopted another one and lost him before,They were a childless couple who got themselves a miracle.

Right. Love and romance was a more significant part of Wally West's Flash run than it was to post crisis Superman. I'm not sure what logic you're failing to understand. I didn't even think this statement would be controversial. Waid literally described his near 8 year run as a love story. It's why Wally and Linda's relationship progressed more and, in my personal opinion that is definitely not your opinion and I'm not forcing you to agree with me here, better than Clark and Lois' in the same timespan. It took significantly longer for Lois and Clark or Barry and Iris to hit the same relationship goals as Wally and Linda. Not for some lack of love or anything, but because when you dedicate a significant amount more of your storytelling to the relationship it consequently progresses faster to us in real time.



Oh, here's a fun difference that also separates Linda and Wally from the other two. Wally never catfished his significant other for decades, or ever at all. Though it was a lot easier as a public hero, it certainly made their relationship a lot different. A public superhero romance affects stories a lot differently than a private one. Lois and Clark stories would often have people thinking Lois was in some sordid, secret affair with Superman and that would lead to misunderstandings or have colleagues undermine her or whatnot. Whereas everyone knew Wally and Linda were an item, which meant people knew the bias was there!

Thankfully the public generally loved Wally so it worked out. I'm just glad my favorite comic couple never had to have some painful Mea Culpa about secret identities. It's my least favorite thing to do with romance in superhero comics and Barry and Iris and Clark and Lois were two of the worst ones about it for a long time. It's one of the reasons they are my favorite couple.

[Frontier]

I was wondering if it was Vicki or Iris who mentioned a rivalry with Lois...

[Lightning Rider]

Damn, some really interesting debates spun out of this. Pretty happy about it.

A while ago I made this venn-diagram sorting out Barry and Wally's similarities and differences. What might one look like for the 3 of them? There's some good material in this thread already, but I want to zero in on particular personality traits and maybe even just everyday preferences.

[Noodle]

That's wrong. They actually ended up getting married BECAUSE it happened in the Lois and Clark TV series.

From what i know before it. They stopped that marriage which lead to the death of superman.

It's both. They were going to get married because of the show, but the show wasn't at that point yet so they did the Death of Superman to fill the gap until it happened on the show.