Metropolis Mailbag: Best Lois Stories?
Anonymous asked:
Oh hey, I remember you guys from back in the day! Had no idea you were still going… anyway, if you have the time to answer, what are some especially good Lois stories (or just individual scenes) from this era? Anything that goes into her backstory at all?
What do you mean, “back in the day”? Are we officially retro now? Is someone gonna start a superman86to99 nostalgia blog?! I hope so.
Anyway, fun question! Technically, the “best” place to find Lois’ backstory would be the John Byrne-written World of Metropolis miniseries, which is where we find out that she was the first 8-year-old in human history to have a favorite newspaper reporter.
(It does make complete sense that she saw a guy yelling curses when she was 8 and said “that’s what I wanna be when I grow up.”)
However, that mini didn’t really dig into what makes Lois tick, plus it has some… unfortunate stuff that other writers wisely ignored (“adult Lex Luthor once videotaped teenage Lois Lane in the nude” doesn’t need to be part of the canon). The only Lois backstory that actually matters began to emerge in an issue Don wanted to single out: Action #597, which “has a tragic flashback of Lois’ father literally wishing Lois were born a boy, and explains a lot of her hard edge.”
That’s the issue where the Kents convince Lois that Clark and Superman grew up as “brothers” to protect his secret identity, another silly Byrne idea that future writers pretended to forget about. The stuff about Lois and her dad, on the other hand, became a permanent part of her character (I think it was even referenced by the recent My Adventures with Superman anime). Those flashbacks appear again in Action #655, a solid issue about Lois fighting stupid macho soldiers who evidently remind her of someone.
I think Byrne did a great job presenting Lois and Clark as people you could see falling for each other, but he was also obsessed with finding soap opera-like reasons to keep her mad at him. Once he left, his successors tossed that crap aside and got to work on building a believable relationship between them. I’m a big fan of Adventures #457, the issue where, after believing Clark dead and then, let’s say, “brain damaged” for a while (he’d been replaced by a simple-minded shapeshifter from another universe while exiled in deep space), Lois lets it slip that she’s interested in him for the first time.
On a similar note, Don adds, with Canadian spelling I dare not alter for fear of causing an international incident: “One of my favourite moments (and to me, the moment where the Jurgens/Ordway approach to Lois officially replaces Byrne’s) is in Superman #43, when the no-longer-Eradicator-influenced Clark apologizes for his jerky, Spock-like behaviour, and instead of lashing out, she relents and accepts his apology and embrace.”
(You just know Byrne would have squeezed 20 issues of drama out of this.)
Don: “From that point on, Lois is only hard-nosed in her career, not in her interactions with Clark (but still calls him a swine, which I loved). And then that’s followed up immediately by Adventures #466, which is, as far as I can tell, the first time Clark kisses Lois (and has major implications as it’s the first appearance of Hank Henshaw).”
(Poor José Delgado, though. He looks sadder than all those times a building fell on him.)
This, of course, leads to the engagement and Clark finally getting around to telling Lois that oh yeah he’s an alien. For me, the moment when their engaged relationship really kicked off is Superman #59, a.k.a. the “Lois and Clark talk in the mountains” issue. This not only deals with Lois’ feelings as someone engaged to a dude who constantly has to fly off to save the world from Solomon Grundy and such, but it’s also the point when the writers really begin to take advantage of the fact that Superman has someone to talk now. As in, without lying. (Sure, he could talk to Batman and other superheroes in the old comics, but not every issue and probably not while in bed.)
I’m also very fond of Lois’ storyline during “Funeral for a Friend”, which doesn’t shy away from showing that she’s going through the darkest time in her life, but she still finds the strength to get out of bed, put on a frog suit, and infiltrate a government facility to find her alien fiancé’s stolen corpse. All of that misery pays off during one of my favorite issues ever: Adventures #505, the moment when Clark finally reunites with Lois after the whole “dying and coming back to life” thing (discounting their brief but emotional meeting in Superman #81, which is also very nice).
That’s all I can think of right now, but if anyone’s got more suggestions for great Lois issues/moments from this era, go ahead and leave them in the comments (here or in the newsletter)! Thanks for writing in, here are 24 Baldy Awards:
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