When “Action Comics No. 1” debuted in 1938, it introduced the world’s first bona fide superhero: Superman, a k a bumbling journalist Clark Kent. It also gave us the patron saint of scrappy female reporters: Lois Lane, who’s been the yin to Superman’s yang ever since that very first comic.
“She’s been through all the ups and downs of the superhero industry,” says Tim Hanley, author of “Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet’s Ace Reporter” (Chicago Review Press, $18.95). “She’s also had her own adventures — and yet, all the attention goes to Superman.”
In this new history of the character, comics historian Hanley gives Lois her due, taking the reader through a chronology that has seen the character careen between being a helpless damsel in distress and a feminist role model — landing, in her most recent big-screen appearances, somewhere between those extremes.
After spending so much time researching Lois, says Hanley, “She’s kind of my hero now. There’s no situation where she’s not absolutely doing her best to get what she’s after. Even when she gets obsessed with romance in the ’50s and ’60s and goes after Superman — she’s going after him full tilt!”
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1935
Joe Shuster estate, J. Michael Catron, agent The inspiration for Lois Lane
We all know Lois Lane as a hardworking reporter — but she has a torrid real-life back story. Hanley says the visual inspiration for Lois was a model named Jolan Kovacs, who would go on to be romantically involved with both Superman creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. She married Siegel, causing a rift between the comic collaborators.
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1951
Courtesy of Photofest Journalist fave on TV
Hanley’s favorite on-screen Lois is Phyllis Coates, who played the reporter in the first season of the “Adventures of Superman” on TV in the early ’50s. “She’s fearless,” he says. “The show was really dark — it wasn’t about supervillains, it was about murderers and kidnappers. And Lois was in the thick of everything. She was fantastic.”
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1959
Supermanís Girl Friend Lois Lane #13, cover by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye, DC Comics, 1959 ‘Superman’s Girl Friend’ in comic books
In the late ’30s, the sharp-tongued Lois was a reporter in an era when very few real women got that opportunity. After starting at the Daily Planet as a “sob sister,” writing a column for lovelorn ladies, the author says, “She started to get front-page scoops around 1941 or ’42. I think her rise as a reporter reflected the rise of women in journalism. During World War II, with guys off to the war, we saw a significant rise in female reporters at newspapers.” She even got a short-lived newspaper comic strip of her own in the 1940s without Superman. “It was inspired by Jimmy Olsen saying, ‘You’re a great reporter, but you’re always getting scoops from Superman,’ and her saying, essentially, ‘Screw you, man. I’m gonna get my own stories.’ ” She’s also appeared over the years with the Man of Steel in “Lois Lane: Superman’s Girl Friend” comic books, including the 1959 issue pictured above.
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1980
Everett Collection A feisty icon
Margot Kidder’s feisty Lois in 1978’s “Superman” and its sequels (including 1980’s “Superman II,” pictured) remains the prevailing mainstream version of the character, says Hanley. Kidder also appeared in the third and fourth installments, though the outspoken actress remarked in a 2009 interview that she thought the fourth was “a dreadful piece of s - - t.”
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2016
Courtesy of Chicago Review Press The latest Lois
“[Amy Adams] spends the entire second half of ‘Man of Steel’ just looking on forlornly,” laments Hanley. “I hope they actually give her something to do in ‘Batman v Superman’“ (due March 25). Sidelining Lois is an indignity, he says, for a female character with so much juicy history — who’s held her own in the heavily male comics universe for more than 70 years.
