The Demolition of Lois Lane

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Lois Lane is a staple in the hearts and minds of most every DC Comics fan…so what are they doing to her?

​Lois Lane is a bold, outspoken, risk taking fictional reporter for DC Comics. The character has been running through the pages of DC comics main
titles – Superman and Action Comics – since she appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938 alongside Superman. Since her debut, Lois Lane has been in countless comic books, held her own title and miniseries, and starred in many other forms of comic book media. Every Superman movie from Christopher Reeve’s Superman to Man of Steel, and TV shows like The Adventures of Lois and Clark, Smallville, and Superman: the animated series have featured Ms Lane in some form. She is one of the company’s most iconic female characters and she isn’t a superhero.

Yet, lately, with the launch of new titles and a restart of Superman’s story, we have seen less and less of the iconic reporter known as Lois Lane.​ For years, Lois Lane and Clark Kent were the go-to couple in DC comics. They went from flirting to dating to getting married; two out of three of those all happened before Lois even knew Superman and Clark were the same person – proving that a mask is no match for a good pair of glasses. Story lines like Kingdom Come, Injustice, and Infinite Crisis have all shown just how far Superman is willing to go for his beloved Lois Lane.

In the grand scheme of things she was a hard headed, black and white reporter and he was a high flying boy scout. They balanced out one another, each bringing something to the table the other didn’t have. Lois gave Clark a drive, and Clark gave Lois a home.

​However, with the start of DC’s New 52 in 2011, we saw Lois Lane taking a less important role in Clark’s life; the two are no longer married, they aren’t even dating. The writers and the company have decided to push her to the side as they start the re-telling of Superman’s story. Clark and Lois’s love had been written as two strong souls grounded on one another, and it was so powerful that the loss of it has caused a different crisis throughout DC story lines: the creation of a darker Superman than the one we’ve been reading about over the years. Lois Lane had a one shot title, and she played a small role in the Future’s End story, but she hasn’t been seen much after that; she didn’t receive a variant cover month like the rest of the DC characters that turned 75 years old in 2015, and she has been the only person to be overlooked for their anniversary so far.

Fans were hoping that she would once again rise up to the level that she was in past comics – yet, when Superman was romantically linked to the Amazon warrior known as Wonder Woman, fans slowly started to see where DC was going with their New 52 title and that was down a path without Lois Lane. By pairing the two super-powered beings together they ruined all chances of Superman ever falling in love with Lois Lane. How could he understand the needs and wants of a human being when he himself isn’t human, and his deepest romantic relationship was with a crime fighting, super powered, flying Amazon?

​The new title put a whole world between Lois and Clark, and as if that weren’t enough, they decided to put the two at odds – not in the form of fighting for bylines or Lois becoming jealous of Clark’s new Amazonian lover, but with June’s release of Action Comics #41, we find out that Lois Lane has revealed Superman’s identity to the world when he was at his weakest. This nail in the coffin has put an end to the hopes of Clark and Lois reuniting, and if DC doesn’t watch it, it may also put an end to their iconic 75 year old reporter as well. Continue to follow the demolition of Lois Lane in Action Comics #42 and Superman #42, both out now.

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About author

Sylvester Barzey

Sylvester P. Barzey is a father, a husband, and a soldier. Yet with all those titles, one of the biggest titles he relates to is comic book fan. Be it print, digital, video game or animated, if it’s got a superhero in it then he's all about it. That and zombies, but that’s another tale mostly told on Sunday nights at 8pm.

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