Lois Lane
Entry updated 29 March 2025. Tagged: Character, Comics.
DC Comics character, long described as Superman's girlfriend, who in canonical Comics eventually became his wife and the mother of his son, though she has usually remained single in films and television programs. She has inevitably had many sf adventures, including some striking transformations, though none as bizarre as some experienced by her colleague, cub reporter Jimmy Olsen.
She has been part of Superman's universe since his debut in 1938, as a female reporter for the Daily Planet who was initially portrayed as attracted to the powerful Superman but contemptuous toward her colleague and his alter ego, the seemingly frail and unmasculine Clark Kent. While soon accepting Kent as a friendly colleague, she developed a curiously bifurcated relationship with Superman; on one hand, she loved him, and Superman occasionally responded with romantic gestures, but on the other hand, she was determined to prove that Superman was really Clark Kent, so she effectively functioned as his adversary in many stories, as she sought to reveal his most closely guarded secret. Her relatives are annoying niece Susie Tompkins, who vanished from view in 1955, and a younger sister, stewardess Lucy Lane, only infrequently featured in Jimmy Olsen stories. After some solo stories and two 1957 appearances in Showcase, she was given her own comic, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, in 1958, which lasted until 1974, when it was absorbed into Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen under the new title The Superman Family (also featuring Supergirl), with occasional new Lois Lane stories, until the comic ended in 1982. She has more recently starred in some limited comic series, some taking the character in strange directions, and is still prominent in Superman stories.
On various occasions she has temporarily gained Superpowers, usually using the name Superwoman; was once refashioned as a new version of the Superhero Red Tornado, has frequently travelled into outer space (see Space Flight); and once entered the Phantom Zone (see Dimensions). She has been transformed into a baby, a teenager, an old lady, a fat woman, a witch, a woman with an enlarged brain, a mermaid, a centaur, and a woman with kryptonite vision; in 1970, as DC belatedly developed a social conscience, she chose to briefly become a black woman in order to personally experience racial discrimination (see Race in SF). Several non-canonical "Imaginary" stories portrayed her as Superman's future wife, though she was also envisioned as the future wife of Supervillain Lex Luthor.
Predictably, as a female protagonist in an earlier era, she often had stories involving romances. She has had brief relationships with various men, including an Alien Superhero, Batman, an Arab prince, a wounded veteran, and a purported resident of Krypton, and she has been jealous on several occasions upon discovering that Superman has become attached to another woman. However, the typical denouement of such stories is that these affairs were actually all the result of a misunderstanding or a hoax, as the comics maintained that Lois Lane and Superman stayed faithful to each other, even though they never got married. (The usual explanation for this was that Superman feared having a wife would put her in constant danger.) The red-headed girl that Superman went to high school with, Lana Lang, was also brought back as an adult to serve as a recurring rival for Superman's affections. But as the television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997) awkwardly inched toward their eventual marriage, it was decided that they should get married in the comics as well, and that to date is still the case, though one never knows what will emerge from DC's next reboot.
In other media, Lois Lane appeared alongside Jimmy Olsen and editor Perry White in the Superman radio programs, serials, and television series The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) without being the centre of attention. However, the film Superman (1978) and its sequel Superman II (1980) were largely about Superman's love for Lois Lane, as other supporting characters were marginalized, and this pattern has generally been followed in later films and television programmes. Indeed, she has been titularly announced as Superman's costar in the series Lois and Clark and Superman and Lois (2021-2024). Changing times have caused her character, both in comics and films, to become more independent and empowered, relying less on Superman's help, and in the film Superman Returns (2006), she has formed a lasting relationship with another man while Superman was absent, and she is raising a child who is apparently Superman's son – developments ignored in later sequels and television programmes. Again announced as a major figure in the 2025 Superman movie, Lois Lane seems destined to remain the most prominent supporting character in the Superman saga. [GW]
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