Some people on my Twitter feed have been arguing that Lois should get her own alternate cover for Superman Unchained#1, because of her "important role" in the Superman mythos, but really, she's just a Jenny-come-lately. After all, Superman made his debut all the way back in June of 1938 in Action Comics#1 on Page 1. Lois didn't make her debut until Action Comics#1 on Page 6. Page 6!
Let's put that in perspective: The wife-beater appears earlier than Lois -- he debuts halfway through Page 5. Should the wife-beater get his own cover, too?
Oh, sure, you say, but she's the earliest consistently-appearing character in Superman history other than the big guy himself, right? Well, what about George Taylor? He also appeared in Action#1, and he's a more consistent part of the Superman mythos to boot. Why, he's appeared in a few stories in the first year of Grant Morrison's Nu52 Action Comics run, and before that he was in the Bronze Age Mr. And Mrs. Superman backups and...some of the late 70's Green Arrow/Black Canary stories in World's Finest. Top THAT, Page 6 Girl!
More importantly, Lois Lane was never a decent match for Superman. In fact, Lois wasn't originally intended to be a love interest for Clark/Superman in the first place. The internet says so! And you can always believe what's on the internet, can't you?
Why, just look at her introductory panel in Action Comics#1.
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| Yeah, this SCREAMS "intended love interest". |
You call THAT an "intended love interest"? He's not even spying on her text messages!
Yes, Lois was patterned after Joanne Siegel, who just happened to be writer Jerry Siegel's wife and the woman he called his "soul mate", but that's irrelevant. Because when a male writer is writing a male lead character and then patterns the most prominent female character after his wife and soul mate, he's never intending her to be the love interest, is he?
And what did
Jerry Siegel know about how Superman and Lois should be interpreted, anyway? He only
created both characters. Big deal! How could that
possibly stack up against the
vast combined comic book wisdom and understanding of the man who introduced
DC's premier mystery man by
revealing his origin right out of the starting gate, the man who designed a
bare-midriff costume for a
non-powered Gotham City vigilante who had
previously been stabbed in the stomach, and the man who retooled
Captain Marvel's Shazam's origin to include
Billy Batson calling the Old Wizard a pedophile?
"Lois was originally intended as Superman's love interest". How ridiculous! Next you'll be telling me how Marvel mutants are a metaphor for marginalized minority groups!
Why, look at how wonderfully Superman and Wonder Woman work together!
In that very issue, Superman spells out why The Greatest Romantic Pairing In All Recorded History is vastly superior to Clark-Lois:
He's got a point, Lois. How could deep conversations with you about things like world affairs, journalistic integrity, and the complications of maintaining a human/superhuman relationship possibly compare with the sheer awesomeness of being able to mansplain how to eat dinner in a public restaurant?
What better display of how Superman's love for Diana greatly overshadows his slight feeling for Lois than these sage words from Princess Diana herself?
Proof positive that he
couldn't care less,
amirite?
And why
should he? She's nowhere
near the
attractiveness level he deserves. Why, look at how
unsexy she is!
What
does he see in her?
You want
proof she's unattractive? Just look at the
homely plain Janes who have
played her over the last quarter-century.
Total
dogs, right? Not a
sexy or glamorous bone in their bodies!
And
speaking of sex, there's no way Superman could
ever have
sex with Lois.
"Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex", remember? Because the
key to
great sex is just a matter of being able to
pound as hard as possible and
nothing more, isn't it? It's the
core principle of the
Kama Sutra! That's why Clark needs Diana. Clark and Lois have
never had sex in their
entire 75-year history. How could they? It's not like past Superman writers could have the two
consummate their relationship and
couch it in a clever G-rated code word like, say,
"Beef Bourguignon", could they? Impossible!
Why, look at a
comparably-matched couple like, say,
Nolan "Omni-Man" Grayson and his wife
Debbie. He's from an alien race with
Kryptonian level strength and she's an
ordinary Earth woman. There's
no chance of poor Debbie even
surviving, let alone
producing a child who would grow up to become a
Kryptonian-level strongman himself and
star in his own solo comic, catapulting
Robert Kirkman to stardom and helping revitalize
Image Comics. No fucking
way!
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| This comic? Could NEVER HAPPEN! |
And look at how the revised Nu52 status quo
greatly benefits all the key characters in the
Superman/Wonder Woman mythos:
It benefits
Steve Trevor because it frees him of the restrictive role of being Wonder Woman's mere human boyfriend and allows him to fulfill the role he should've been playing all along:
Leading covert government teams and
being the next Rick Flag.
It benefits
Lois by
simplifying her character arc. Why waste all those pages actually
showing what a great reporter and woman she is when all you need is
the occasional splash-page narrative infodump? And why bog her down with the whole
"journalistic integrity" narrative? Give it to
Clark instead!
It benefits
Wonder Woman by freeing her from the burden of being
self-sufficient or
being best at anything or
having her own narrative. When has she ever had the chance to utter such dialogue as "Clark, people actually eat with
UTENSILS? That's
AMAZING!"
Best of all, it benefits
Superman by letting him do what he
should have been doing all along:
BEING BETTER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE AT EVERYTHING!
Let's face it, there's
nothing Supes can't do
better than anyone else in the DCU. He's
more impervious to magic than
Wonder Woman's magic-proof weaponry! He can
out-report Lois! He can
outsmart Batman! He can
outrun the Flash! He can
outswim Aquaman! He can
out-bullshit John Constantine!
He can even
out-head-trauma Hal Jordan!
Before, we were bogged down in the
silly idea of Clark and Lois somehow being
equals.
This?
MUCH better!
And now for a....
***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!*** Not only will I be writing the new "Fuckin' A, Superman And Wonder Woman!" blog from now on, but I will also be accompanying each blog post with a video version of each post I do! You'll
finally hear what I sound like. You can hear the first video installment
HERE!
(Special thanks to
Tom,
Brian, and
Mary for words, ideas, and opinions that I have
ripped off outright drawn upon for inspiration in writing this post.)
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