One of the most famous heroes ever to come out of comic books isn’t from another planet. She doesn’t have super strength. She can’t outrun bullets. Flight? Nope. Ninja fighting skills? Another nope. In fact, she doesn’t have any super powers at all. And still, she’s been one of the most enduring heroes in pop culture since her first appearance all the way back in 1938. I’m talking, of course, about Lois Lane.
As with most iconic characters, it’s easy to list the things that make Lois Lane, well, Lois Lane — traits that go all the way back to the beginning when she debuted alongside Superman in Action Comics #1. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster, and inspired by fictitious reporter Torchy Blane and real one Nellie Bly, Lois is an ambitious journalist who will always go after the big story. She’s smart, brave, fearless. She rushes headfirst into danger, which has occasionally created the need for Superman to save her (he also routinely saves the planet, so we can’t hold that against her). Lois hates bullies. She respects the truth more than authority.
But if your first reaction to her name was, “Oh, Superman’s girlfriend,” you wouldn’t be alone. When Lois led her own comic book from 1958 to 1974, a feature in the top ten comics list moving 550,000 copies an issue at its most popular, it was called “Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane.” It’s more than telling that her love interest status came first, as if it was the most crucial thing about the character. Lois Lane’s relationship with Superman/Clark Kent is important; at its best, theirs is a true partnership of equals, with each making the other better. But Superman – love him or not, and I do – has never been what makes Lois such an important character.
As a girl, I first encountered Lois Lane in the form of Margot Kidder in Superman: The Movie. Who was this fast-talking, funny, gutsy reporter who argued with her boss? Like Clark Kent, I was enchanted the moment I saw her. Here was a confident, competent professional woman. She reminded me of my other hero – my mother—and yet I’d never seen a woman portrayed this way on the screen.
It hasn’t all been Pulitzers and empowerment where Lois is concerned, though. Her haters would have just as easy a time coming up with a list of negative traits they might claim define her. Comics historian Tim Hanley has just published a new critical work examining Lois’s 78-year-history, Investigating Lois Lane: The Turbulent History of the Daily Planet’s Ace Reporter. In the introduction, he points to the shifting versions of Lois over time and observes that she “embodies the progress and struggles of American women, an ongoing cycle of advances and setbacks.”
In “Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane,” she was frequently taught lessons by Superman, who she mercilessly pursued in the hope of getting him to put a ring on it. Other stories have pitted her against women defined as romantic rivals, like Lana Lang or Cat Grant. But writers like Marguerite Bennett, Greg Rucka and Kurt Busiek have written the first lady of DC Comics as unforgettable, and her many mass media incarnations are rightly beloved. Erica Durance, Dana Delany, Terri Hatcher and Margot Kidder command armies of admirers for their portrayals.
The latest movie Lois, Amy Adams, will soon grace our screens again in “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Amy Adams is a perfect example of the ways in which each era is reflected by its Loises. While the character has had a tough time of it in comics in recent years, Adam’s Lois is whip-smart and critical to Superman saving the day.
And my own new young adult novel series featuring the character finally gives Lois top billing. In Lois Lane: Fallout, Lois is finding her voice and career path. She’s also finding out who she is. Sure, she has a long-distance friend she knows only as SmallvilleGuy, but she’s his hero, not the other way around. School and its structures of authority may not reward her, and usually make her life more difficult, but my teenage Lois Lane is more than up to the task of being who she is anyway. In that way, she’s just like all the real-life girls who could have inspired her—and who I hope she will inspire in return.
In an era when we routinely see young female actresses ambushed with the question of whether they are feminists or not, Lois Lane is more relevant than ever. I think her answer would be, “Yes, aren’t you?” She’s a character who speaks to all of us just plain human girls and women, a character who tells us we can do or be anything, that we can have it all, no matter how hard the world tries to get in our way.
- Gwenda Bond’s Lois Lane: Fallout is available from the Guardian’s bookshop.
