Did DC deal Lois Lane a lousy hand?

[DochaDocha]

Some random things:

1) Billy Batson and shapeshifters are two such examples of comic book characters who should have pretty strong secret identities, but the catch was that they just had to make sure nobody saw them transform to and from their superhero to civilian identities. I also think characters who wear full masks would work, but like the first two examples, eventually the weakness in their plans to hide their identities from the public would be shaking spies and other snooping people off their trails so that they don't get tracked to their secret headquarters/homes/whatever. If Spider-man and Batman really existed, they'd eventually be found out, not because people can see through their disguises, but because eventually someone good at spying will eventually track them down.

2) About the nickname "Smallville": I went to high school in Peoria, Illinois. It's not exactly a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, but a bunch of suburban kids from Chicago liked to think it was practically podunk, filled with nothing but cornfields and cows. Two girls I knew from college both independently (as in they probably never met one another, even until now) started calling me "Peoria" now and then. There was never any malicious intent involved. Maybe they were a little snobby about small towns, or maybe they just thought Peoria had little to offer in terms of being an enjoyable place to visit or live, but all in all I knew it was just good-hearted ribbing. The irony, though, was that I spent most of my time living in the Chicago suburbs, but why bring that up and ruin their joke? I figured Lois' "Smallville" was the same, except maybe Lois was a little flirty about it whereas these gals were not flirting, heh. I'm sure in Earth-63, where baby Kal-El's ship crash landed in the Metropolis burbs, and Superman moved to Smallville and met country gal Lois Lane, she'd just call him "City Boy" or something. Considering that the "Smallville" nickname is often credited to Dana Delaney's Lois from STAS, I feel like if you actually watched the show you'd understand it's not a nickname meant to be cruel. That Lois is a little bit snooty when it comes to country folk, but it's just part of the characterization. She's no nonsense, and I think it's also almost militaristic, too. IIRC, this Lois was also an army brat, and her "Smallville" comments are almost like a drill sergeant's randomly chosen nickname for a new trainee. Cartoon Lois' impression of Clark is that even though he was hired to be her partner, he was clearly less experienced at reporting in the big city environment, and being hard on him was mostly her way to toughen him up for his own good. She was also naturally impatient, and easily frustrated, but Clark Kent can be a frustrating guy, often times intentionally.

[Tayswift]

That might be an irritant for you, but for anyone under the age of 35 that's ancient history and not something that would have been part of their contemporary Superman reading life. For them, for most of this period, Superman has been married to Lois Lane and Lois has known that he was Clark Kent--and even aiding him in keeping his identity secret.

So if the argument is that Lois is seen as ignorant by the readers and that explains why DC has downgraded her character, it doesn't make sense for the current era. It may be that contemporary readers look back at the comics that existed before they were born and see that Lois Lane as so stoopid--but that Lois was part of a time that is long gone. It wouldn't be unusual for these readers that Lois was so stoopid, because I find that a lot of contemporary readers think everything was so stoopid before they were born. Lois, Superman, Batman--it doesn't matter who, they just shake their heads and are at a loss to understand what was the attraction of those comics compared with what they know now.

So I return to my earlier observation that it's only in recent times that Lois Lane has become unpopular--at least in the comic books. She was always popular before that, so what happened to make the publisher and the readers turn against Lois?

You don't have to look in the deep dark past for that answer--it hardly seems likely that DC is trying to repair some damage from a previous continuity that most people never experienced firsthand. I suspect it's actually the marriage that created this pushback against Lois Lane.

In other media, where Lois has been a popular character, she is usually NOT married to Superman. If there is a marriage, it only comes at the end of the story (e.g. SMALLVILLE). And with LOIS AND CLARK, many feel they jumped the shark when those two kids jumped the broom and the series slid downhill after that. In the decade before this one, DC editors and writers were struggling with the marriage and reader interest in her character fell. Some just wanted Lois to die.

I see this as analogous to the pushback against Batman and Robin following the '60s TV show. Even though the Dynamic Duo had been highly popular, they were now toxic in the view of fickle comics fans. Something had to be done to distance Batman from "Camp." So most of the old costume villains were put on hold, but more importantly Dick Grayson left for university and the Dynamic Duo was split up. Lucky for Robin his character didn't suffer too much for this; however, that Dynamic Duo was gone for good.

My theory is DC wants to put some distance between Lois and Clark to remove the memory of the marriage, which they see as one of the problems of the old continuity. Unfortunately, Lois Lane has had to take a backseat when she used to be one of DC's most popular characters.

DC has been hiding and not paying atention to her, nothing to do with marriage. Lois still has tons of fans on comics, she still popular but Dc is doing anything to end that recently. Heard of people not supporting lois after the last issue of superman.

Lois and Clark was cancelled, it would continue but the best producer got out and the plot got too stupid. Smallville they got engaged and lived together and it had one more season on comics that worked very well.

DC didn't jumped the shark with marriage, they jumped the shark on reboot ending the marriage and distancing lois from clark. a status quo has nothign to do with DC screwing the lois character

That's the thing, though. HE had to reveal it to her. She almost got married to the guy and never figured out it was the man she had fantasies about for years, but with a pair of glasses. I'm sorry, but you can't pretend that you don't see why some people think it doesn't make her look all that bright.

she did suspected clark was superman or something very close, clark even said that both him and superman were from the same city to tip off lois. when he did reveal she wasn't that much surprise, she just said everything now fits

[Jim Kelly]

Let me make a small point here. I'm trying to figure out what's in the mind of the publishers, edtiors and writers at DC--not what's in my mind. I think LOIS AND CLARK could have been good with the marriage--it was really other things that hobbled the series. And there were a lot of good comics with the marriage. But I think--I think--some people look at these things superficially, trying to work out how to boost sales, and they say--oh, it's the marriage, that's our problem. And I think that might explain why DC is screwing around with Lois Lane in their comics. I have no way of knowing what really goes on there--so I'm trying to guess what's their thought process. I'm open to other theories.

[Airtrap]

Let me make a small point here. I'm trying to figure out what's in the mind of the publishers, edtiors and writers at DC--not what's in my mind. I think LOIS AND CLARK could have been good with the marriage--it was really other things that hobbled the series. And there were a lot of good comics with the marriage. But I think--I think--some people look at these things superficially, trying to work out how to boost sales, and they say--oh, it's the marriage, that's our problem. And I think that might explain why DC is screwing around with Lois Lane in their comics. I have no way of knowing what really goes on there--so I'm trying to guess what's their thought process. I'm open to other theories.

Lois or the marriage were never the problem for Superman (maybe one of the many "problems" but not the main one), there are always people who will not like a specific partner (that's why Batman has a rotating cast of Girlfriends) or relationships in general that's a given, they don't read Superhero comics for romance, the're here for the monsters.

The problem was mainly the quality of the main continuinty Superman books (pre and post New52), for a long time his books where somewhere between mediocre and terrible, in my opinion. When people ask for Superman recommendations the answers are almost always out of continuity stuff, origin stories mostly. They must have figured "ha people like single Superman at the beggining of his career", which was just the wrong conclusion. They liked those books because they were good and not the main line schlock (mostly).

All-Star Superman is maybe the best Superman book and Lois is a big part of it but in the time All-Star Superman is not something too build one, it's a fairly definitive story, it's not like Batman Year One where people can build decades of new story around it in comics, movies and games.

[Jim Kelly]

All-Star Superman is maybe the best Superman book and Lois is a big part of it but in the time All-Star Superman is not something too build one, it's a fairly definitive story, it's not like Batman Year One where people can build decades of new story around it in comics, movies and games.

So do you think the powers that be actually know where they went wrong with Superman? Or are you arguing that they got it all wrong and still don't know what they're doing?

When I read ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, I saw points of overlap between it and what was in the then current Superman by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. It seemed possible that some of that continuity could bleed through into the ongoing comics. It's not like after One Year Later there was clear continuity laid out for Superman (SECRET ORIGIN came much later) so it was always possible to amalgamate the Grant Morrison Superman with the mainstream comics.

Even if they didn't do that, they could have just unilaterally said that ALL-STAR is now the official version of Superman. At the very least, they could have done prequels to the book. I was always confused why they didn't monopolize on it more.

RETURN OF THE DARK KNIGHT and KINGDOME COME weren't in continuity either and they had what seemed to be closed endings--nevertheless they fed back into the ongoing continuity and generated sequels. Even Year One Batman wasn't the accepted continuity until it was made the accepted continuity--and over the years more of Batman's past was overwritten to fit a Year One vision.

[DrNewGod]

Lois or the marriage were never the problem for Superman (maybe one of the many "problems" but not the main one), there are always people who will not like a specific partner (that's why Batman has a rotating cast of Girlfriends) or relationships in general that's a given, they don't read Superhero comics for romance, the're here for the monsters.

Batman doesn't have a steady girlfriend because we need reminders that he's obsessed to a degree that almost makes him superhuman. Superman needs a steady girlfriend because we see how he's not like the rest of us every issue and need something to remind us how he is like us.

[DieHard200904]

I'm not talking about the Supes/WW-ship (which I hate with the passion a Boston Sox Fan holds for the Yankees). Nor am I talking about the recent events. I'm talking about the roots that shaped Lane in the popular culture.

At her worst, Lois Lane:
- Is too $#%(ing dense to figure out who Superman is, in spite of spending generations staring both him and Kent in the face.
- Is a conniving shrew, constantly out to expose Superman's identity to prove her own cleverness.
- Is a hopelessly pinning broad, constantly out to entrap Superman into romance.
- Is a Mean Girl that never grew out of it, based on the way that she treats Clark Kent.

Now, I don't claim that's all there is to her, nor does it completely encompass all the ways that writers have characterized her over the decades. I do wonder, however, if it could have been different.

I once heard that writers in the early 1940s wanted Superman to reveal his identity to Lois, to basically change their relationship to something more like that shared by The Flash and his girlfriend, Joan Williams, and they were told no. Had that happened, would a lot of the negative stuff that came to be associated with Lois also have happened? In saying no to making Lois Superman's confidant, did DC deal the character a lousy hand?

Comics in the earlier days were not gritty, nor serious, nor exactly consequential. In the 1940s, it would pretty much be a comical story where Lois figures it out, finds that knowing his SID is overrated, and things go back to normal. Having some sort of continuity was also not part of comics like it is today either, comics back then were either some kind of detective drama, or the light hearted campiness that made up Superman for most of his history.