Yes, Lois!

Somewhere on one of the endless parallel Earths, Roy Lichtenstein painted Yes, Lois! He released the piece to great fanfare (and puzzlement) in 1964, a few months after reading Action Comics #296, in which Superman exposes himself to Red Kryptonite so that he can communicate with the space ants who kidnapped Lois Lane. Considering the effects of Red K on Kryptonians are generally unpredictable, Superman was taking quite a risk here, but it paid off. It turns out the space ants were just misunderstood. Once again, Superman uses brains and compassion instead of brute force to resolve conflict. Way to go, Man of Steel! Oh, and nice homage, Roy. 
 

On Wings of Eagles

With thanks to Jeff S. for the inspiration. 

They arrived by Eagle, of course, setting down gently on launch pad three, the pilot expertly firing the retro-rockets just enough to not quite overcome the tug of the Moon's one-sixth gravity. 

Flying would have been faster, Clark thought to himself in the passenger compartment. But then, there's no reason for Superman to be on the Moon, is there? 

An Australian accent crackled over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at Moonbase Alpha. We will be debarking in a moment, once Eagle Four has reached its final berth in the landing bay." 

"That's Alan Carter," Lois whispered, pointing at the speaker grille above the cockpit door.

"Gee, Lois, you think so? There's got to be more than one Australian assigned to Alpha..." 

"I know that voice. I interviewed him a few years back, when he was moonlighting as a voiceover artist playing villains on those silly cartoons about Superman and the Justice League." 

"Gosh, I didn't know he did voice overs. But then I'm not really into cartoons," Clark said. 

"Attention passengers - I'm opening the doors. Head to the reception area to be guided to your ultimate destination on Alpha. Enjoy your stay." 

Lois and Clark milled out with the other passengers, looking inconspicuous in their Moonbase guest uniforms--what amounted to tan slacks and long-sleeved tops, each with a thick green stripe running down the left side of the ensemble. 

"Honeymoon suite," Lois said as they reached the reception kiosk. The Alphan attendant smiled widely and handed them each a small, roughly cylindrical device. 

"These are your commlocks," the attendant said. "They'll open your suite and any other publicly accessible place on Alpha. I highly recommend the sun room - it's very relaxing and great for people watching," she smiled coyly, eyeing Clark. 

Clark blushed as they moved past the reception area and into the white plastic catacombs of Moonbase Alpha. "Gee whiz, Lois, I hope you're not thinking of that sun room suggestion. It's a little, uh, racy for our story, don't you think?" 

"Clark, don't worry about looking all scrawny and underfed in your swimsuit. No one will be paying attention to you. Besides, if we're going to get the real scoop on the rumors of rip-offs and kickbacks in Moon tourism, we're going to have to check out all the attractions at some point."  

"Uh, gee, Lois, I guess you're right." 

The honeymoon suite proved quite decadent. The room was cavernous, the ceiling crafted from a gigantic dome of transparent aluminum. The view was magnificent, with the glorious blue-green Earth hovering overhead. 

Lois immediately began stripping out of her Alpha coveralls, causing Clark to abruptly turn his back like the gentleman he was. 

"You know, I think I will check out that sunroom," Lois said, rifling through her travel bag for a suitably scandalous bikini. "I could use a little relaxation after that long flight. And it should be a great spot for gossip." 

"O-of course, Lois," Clark stammered as Lois primped in the mirror, tch-ing at every perceived flaw. To distract himself, Clark scanned the base with varying combinations of telescopic, microscopic, x-ray, infrared, radar, and ultraviolet vision, admiring the intricate mechanical and biological systems that kept the Moon community safe and functional. People really are a marvel, he thought, smiling to himself. 

But when he scanned beyond Alpha's walls, across the stark, dusty moonscape, he saw something alarming at one of the nuclear waste dumps. Clark's eyes widened as his Kryptonian senses revealed a catastrophe in the making: Somehow, the spent nuclear fuel was approaching a critical mass that should have been impossible. In seconds, it would produce an explosion that could crack the Moon in half--or worse. 

Moving faster than the human eye could see, Clark peeled off his Alpha uniform and eyeglasses, stuffed them into a drawer, and vibrated his molecules as he took flight, soaring through the transparent aluminum dome without shattering it, passing between atoms like a spectre. 

Lois felt only a strong breeze. She turned around. "Clark?" 

But Clark, moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, was already on the far side of the Moon. 

Despite his great speed, he was a second too late. The freighter Eagles would clear the explosion - barely - but it was too late for Clark to halt the reaction. In slow motion, he watched, horrified, as a great plume of nuclear fire erupted. He'd failed--

--or had he? Defying logic, the reaction's energy wasn't being released in one terrible burst; instead, it was spraying out like a rocket engine, putting immense pressure on the Moon, shifting its orbit. In fact, Clark calculated, there was enough energy being produced to send the Moon flying off into outer space with sufficient acceleration to eventually reach relativistic speeds. 

He couldn't let that happen. An eyeblink later, Clark - Superman - positioned himself directly opposite the nuclear waste dump, on the Moon's so-called "near side," relative to Earth. He pressed his hands flat against the Moon and pushed, his tactile telekinisis augmenting his Kryptonian strength and, importantly, preventing him from simply drilling through the satellite like a missile. 

The pressure was immense. Superman's mighty thews strained, and if he could have broken out into a sweat, he would. 

The reaction on the far side of the moon roared in silent rage, throwing all its vast power into propelling the Moon beyond Earth's reach, into the starlit eternity. It was an irresistible force--but there on the other side was Superman, the immovable object. Impossible pressures threatened to crush the Moon, but it held fast. 

On Moonbase Alpha, over three hundred men and women were violently tossed to and fro as the entire satellite trembled. It felt like the end of the world. 

But, over the course of several long, agonizing minutes, the nuclear fire burned dim and finally flamed out. Clark relaxed the force he was applying, steadily, carefully, and at last backed away from the grey surface. He flew past Alpha, scanning for casualties, finding none. He waved at the awestruck Alphans as he flew past the windows of Main Mission, offering them a reassuring smile. 

"You picked quite a day to visit your old stomping grounds, Commander Straker," said John Koenig, newly-installed leader of Alpha.

"So it seems," Straker said blandly, though in truth he was as amazed as everyone else. 

Lois was just picking herself up off the plush carpet of their suite when Clark reappeared, glasses and all. 

"What was that?" she exclaimed, her hair adorably mussed. 

"Looks like we might just have a bigger story to write, Lois," Clark said, and turned to wink at some audience unknown and invisible.

Superman Temporary Tattoos

Here's another surprise I found while decluttering my library. It's a collection of temporary tattoos meant to promote Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, a new (as of the early 1990s) television spin on the Superman mythos. I believe they must have come packaged with Lois & Clark trading cards, which I have not recycled, as is the fate of these tattoos. Fans certainly had a decent range of colour schemes to choose from. 

New Superman & Lois Trailer

 

I will admit I prefer the classic Superman trope--that is, the Clark/Lois/Superman love triangle, with all its painful angst--but judging by the trailer, this looks like it might be a half-decent take on a Superman and Lois who've taken the plunge, gotten married, and raised a family. 

DC Editor for a Day

Let's say, for some insane reason, DC Comics decided to give me editorial control over their line of comic book titles, but only to the extent that I could create a slate of comics based strictly on existing characters.  

Well, I'd create the line that I would want to read, without regard for sales viability. Here's what it would look like, imagining that each title has an incredible creative team: 

 

Superman Books

Action Comics (anthology led by Superman, just the way it started back in 1938)

DC Comics Presents (Superman team-up stories)

Lana Lang (Lana Lang, on-again off-again girlfriend of Clark Kent, goes on archeological adventures from Qurac to Skartaris to Atlantis) 

Lex Luthor (diabolical tales of Lex Luthor's infamies great and small) 

Lois Lane: Woman of Steel (Lois Lane's adventures as a brave, bold reporter) 

Man of Tomorrow (Superman's adventures with the adult Legion of Super-Heroes)

Man of Steel (Superman's adventures as a radical 

The Private Life of Clark Kent (Clark Kent's day-to-day adventures in journalism, dating, grocery shopping, etc.) 

Supergirl (stories of Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin) 

Superman (Superman's main title, with his biggest adventures)

Young Clark Kent (Clark Kent's life in Smallville, as his powers were developing; frequently crosses over with Legion of Super-Heroes, below)

Batman Books

Batgirl (the adventures of congresswoman Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl, in Washington, DC)

Batman (Batman's main title, two-fisted street crime adventures) 

The Brave and the Bold (Batman team-up stories) 

Legends of the Dark Knight (Batman stories told from the perspective of his villains) 

Detective Comics (anthology led by Batman, just the way it started; detective stories) 

Team Books

Birds of Prey (Batgirl, Black Canary, Huntress, and Hawk and Dove fight street-level crime) 

Blackhawks! (a squad of pilots from around the world fly into danger wherever they can find it!) 

Doom Patrol (DP members from all incarnations of the team gather to fight the weirdest threats ever) 

Freedom Fighters (the heroes of Earth X have freed their world from tyranny, only to be stranded in ours!) 

Gorilla Soldiers (Congorilla, Detective Chimp, Beppo the Super Monkey, Angel and the Ape, and xx versus their arch-rivals the Ultra-Humanite, Gorilla Grodd, Titano the Super-Ape, and Monsieur Mallah and the Brain.)  

The Haunted Tank (ghostly adventures in World War II) 

Justice League of America (DC's greatest heroes team up to face the biggest threats) 

Justice Society of America (the greatest heroes of the 1930s and 40s fight the Nazis and other fascists and mad scientists) 

Legion of Substitute Heroes (good-hearted Legion rejects try to do the right thing despite their shortcomings) 

Legion of Super-Heroes (dozens of super-powered teenagers of the 31st century explore the galaxy and combat interstellar evil)

Secret Society of Super-Villains (super-villains work in secret, hatching sinister conspiracies to rule the world--but can they avoid killing each other?) 

Suicide Squad (super-villains and anti-heroes reluctantly work together under threat of government sanction, performing secret missions so dangerous that not everyone comes back alive)

Suicide Squad Secret Missions (Suicide Squad anthology)  

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps (anthology series about the non-Terran Green Lanterns) 

Titans (generations of sidekicks work together to prove themselves) 

The Other Heroes

Animal Man

Aquaman

The Atoms (scientists Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi explore the microverse) 

Black Canary

Black Lightning

Blue Beetle

Captain Atom

Elongated Man (back to the original concept, the Nick and Nora Charles of the superhero world; lighthearted mysteries of the jet set) 

Fury of Firestorm (Ron Raymond and Martin Stein take back the Firestorm matrix - but they're not happy about it!) 

Flash Legacy (anthology of stories of the fastest men and women alive, from World War II to the far future) 

Green Arrow

Green Lantern

Hawks (the adventures of Katar and Shayera Hol, police officers of Thanagar) 

Hellblazer

Red Tornado

Shazam! and the Marvel Family

Swamp Thing
Vixen and Bronze Tiger (solo adventures of the Suicide Squad team-mates) 

Wonder Woman

Zatanna

A pretty solid selection of titles--at least from my selfish perspective. 

Super Adjective Theatre

Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane ran for several decades. Always a strange comic, it got even weirder in the swinging sixties and seventies when its writers started portraying Superman as a sexist dope just so he could be an effective foil for Lois' revitalized feminism. Superman sure looks like a stuck-up member of the establishment here, a far cry from his origins as a populist radical.

I find their final exchange hilarious, but on reflection if Superman were a real person I suppose it would be only natural to pepper your language with super-this and super-that, especially ironically. If I had super-powers, I'd constantly say things like "I'm super-writing this press release!" or "Oh oh, I've got to super-unplug the toilet again!"

Meanwhile, Sylvia would probably say "I'm getting super-tired of this routine. Please find some  new material."

The New Daily Planet

For the fourth or fifth time in his long publishing history, Superman's backstory will start all over again, and the character's status quo is being considerably shaken up. The new Superman will have lost both his natural and his foster parents, and he'll no longer be married to Lois Lane (indeed, because of the twisted logic of retroactive continuity, the marriage never happened at all).

Some readers in their 20s and 30s are livid over this change, feeling that "their" Superman is being taken away. I understand those feelings; I had them in 1986, when the Superman I enjoyed in childhood was erased from comic book history and replaced by John Byrne's take on the character. But I'm older now, and in the interim I've gone back and read most of Superman's adventures, from the 1930s onward. This isn't the first time the character has started over from scratch; it's not even the second or third. The Superman of the 30s is a very different animal than that of the late 40s, who is different than the character of the 50s, the 70s and on and on. Superman endures because he evolves, and there's joy to be had in discovering the adventures of each and every iteration of the legend.

There's one artifact of Superman's backstory, however, that is coming dangerously close to dating the character: his day job as a "reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper." Big newspapers certainly seem to be on the decline, and one wonders how long printing presses will continue to run. If the New York Times struggles to retain its traditional audience, how can the Daily Planet fare?

The solution is actually relatively simple. Traditional journalism may be on the wane, but society will always need the fourth estate. Perhaps the new Daily Planet shouldn't be a traditional newspaper, with offices in a skyscraper; perhaps instead its footprint should be more diffuse, an online news source of truly planetary scope, with citizen reporters blogging from all over the world. Lois and Clark and Jimmy Olsen would have to be multidisciplinarian ENGs, able to write, shoot video and photos and submit material online. Perry White could be the last grizzled relic of traditional publishing, facing a whole new learning curve as he struggles to ride herd on his younger, hipper employees. Imagine what Jimmy Olsen's flikr account would look like; imagine the sardonic, no-nonsense tweets Lois Lane would produce. Imagine how mild-mannered Clark Kent would navigate the merciless flamewars that so often erupt on social media!

The business viability of news reporting remains a problem; advertising revenues won't cut it. Perhaps this new Daily Planet could be publicly funded, maybe as a subsidiary of NPR. Or it could be funded by donations; certainly DC philanthropists such as Bruce Wayne or Oliver Queen would donate generously.

The only problem I see with this new milieu is the lack of natural storytelling opportunities that arise in a traditional workplace. Gathering together in a central location from 9 to 5 provides a convenient setting for drama or comedy, and having all of the Planet employees telecommuting presents new storytelling challenges, not least of which is that it makes it almost too easy for Clark to slip away during emergencies to change to Superman. Maybe Perry would insist on mandatory weekly meetings just to reconnect, traditionalist that he is.

This idea isn't at all radical or new; when television news seemed to be eclipsing newspapers back in the 1970s, Denny O'Neil tried a similar trick, giving Clark Kent a new job as a TV anchorman. That change lasted fifteen years or so, until the Byrne reboot, which reestablished Clark as a Daily Planet reporter once more. That return to the status quo was still tenable back in the 80s, but perhaps not so much anymore. Clark Kent should remain a reporter...but the character's writers should recognize that the nature of his job is evolving before our very eyes.

Besides, I think it would be interesting to read Clark Kent's Twitter feed.

P is for Principles...and Perry White

While re-reading my old Superman comics, I came across this panel from Action Comics #670, published back in 1991, during the last recession. Here, Daily Planet Managing Editor Perry White expresses his outrage, disgusted by the owners' decision to freeze wages and lay off workers - including Jimmy Olsen. Even Lois Lane and Clark Kent, newly engaged, lost their staff positions and were forced to do freelance work for the paper.

Perry's outrage certainly captured the zeitgeist of the era. I was just out of university and struggled for years to find meaningful employment, and of course others were even worse off. I finally landed a job at a non-profit in the mid-90s and started selling some freelance articles and haven't really looked back since, though like most people I've suffered my own economic ups and downs. Now Albertans (among most others in the world) are facing tough choices in the wake of high unemployment, wage freezes, rollbacks, unfavourable contract negotiaions...the same old 90s story all over again. Perry White wasn't just speaking for reporters, but for people like the public sector workers of Alberta, the teachers and nurses who sacrificed so much during the Klein years. Many of them left, including some friends of mine, and Alberta is certainly feeling their absence - despite the current downturn, we're still dangerously short of health care professionals.

You don't balance the books by breaking the backs of your workers. Seems like common sense to me, but it seems we have few political leaders willing to take the long view.

Clark's Secret

This series of panels has lived in my memory for decades. It's the denouement of a story from an early 1970s issue of Action Comics.

I'm not sure what it is that grabs me. Part of it must be the pacing; slow, deliberate, highlighting Clark's seeming dejection. Then the reveal - Clark and the reader understand the irony of Lois' pronouncement; it's a secret that he's sharing with us.

And perhaps it's a message of solace to the typical reader - young boys and teenagers. Maybe it doesn't matter if the girl of your dreams doesn't respond to you; you, after all, know what she's really missing. That's powerful comfort for an awkward age.

Atomic Innocence

Clark, you were so damn naive.

/Frank Miller Batman

Super Fashion Disaster

I didn't know that Diana (Wonder Woman) Prince owned a "mod boutique" until reading this 1969 issue of Lois Lane. Groovy.

Superman claims that the wig isn't his bag because it'll increase his wind resistance when he flies. Uh...you're Superman. You can fly through the sun, and you're worried about the drag from a wig? I guess he was desperate for any excuse to get out of Diana's little game of dress-up.

Needless to say, this issue's plot revolves around Lois' perennial jealousy over Wonder Woman. At this stage in comic book history, Wonder Woman was operating sans super-powers, using martial arts mojo and feminist determination to demolish her foes, so for once Lois thought she wasn't a threat...until this little scene. Why Lois keeps on pining after Superman I'll never know.

Especially when Lana Lang is single. You're young, Lois - experiment a little.

Super-Sexist

Superman remains my favourite fictional character, but like any imaginary person he is vulnerable to editorial corruption. Witness this panel from a 1968 issue of Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane:



"It's a miracle you got out of that missle range with your 36-24-36 still intact!"

Gee, Superman - it's a good thing that Lois, as the hip 60s broad she is, doesn't mind being completely objectified. I've been as guilty of objectifying women as the next guy, but come on - you're Superman. You should hold yourself to a higher standard.

And in the very next instant, after delivering a line like that, you propose? In the most offensive manner possible? Lois doesn't seem fazed, though.

"He's proposing, just as the time-scope said he would!" Apparently, the time-scope said Superman would propose as a thuggish lout.

Those of you familiar with the comics may wonder if this was one of the infamous "imaginary stories," or if Superman is under the influence of a magic spell, alien mind ray, or the like. Nope. This story happened in the prime continuity of the Earth-1 years, and Superman was in his right mind. In other words, there's no excuse for his behaviour.

Well, except maybe one. Stories in Lois Lane, as one might expect, bore a lot more resemblance to the romance comics of the day than other superhero books, and extremes of male and female behaviour were often portrayed in all their histrionic glory. Lois and her female supporting characters were obsessed with marriage and romance; male characters were just as stereotyped. Plus, as the viewpoint character, one might wonder if Lois is a reliable narrator or not.

Ah, I'm just making excuses.