Lois
Lane
Lois
Lane is the primary love interest in the DC Comics'
Superman stories. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe
Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics #1 (1938). Lois'
personality was based on Torchy Blane, a female reporter featured
in a series of films from the 1930s.
Lois
is Superman's chief romantic interest and, in the current DC
continuity, his wife. Like Superman's alter ego Clark Kent, she is
a reporter for the Metropolis newspaper, The Daily
Planet.
Depictions of Lois Lane have varied, spanning the 70-year history
of Superman comic books and other media adaptations. During the
Silver Age, she was the star of Superman's Girl Friend. However,
the original Golden Age version of Lois, as well as versions of her
from the 1970s onwards, portray Lois as a tough-as-nails
journalist and intellectual equal to Superman.
Profile
Lois
is the daughter of Ellen and Sam Lane. In the earlier comics, her
parents were farmers in a town called Pittsdale; the modern comics,
however, depict Sam as a retired soldier, and Lois as a
former "army brat," born at Ramstein Air Base with
Lois having been trained by her father in areas such as
hand-to-hand combat and the use of firearms.
In
most versions of Superman, Lois is shown to be a crack
investigative reporter, one of the best in the city and
certainly the best at the newspaper she works at.
However, despite such brilliance, she has long been unable to see
through Clark's rather primitive disguise of glasses and figure out
that he is Superman - despite being the character who is most up
close and personal with both Superman and Clark.
Golden
Age
In
the earliest Golden Age comics, Lois was featured as an
aggressive, career-minded reporter for the Daily
Star, who, after Clark Kent joined the paper and Superman debuted
around the same time, found herself attracted to Superman, but
displeased with her new journalistic competition
in the form of Kent. Starting in the late 1940s or early 1950s
comics, Lois began to suspect that Clark Kent was Superman, and
started to make various attempts at uncovering his secret identity,
all of which backfired.
Silver
Age
When the reading
audience of comic books became predominately young boys in the
mid-to-late 1950s, the focus of Superman stories shifted toward
science fiction-inspired plots. Lois' main interests in various
late 1950s and 1960s stories became vying with her rival Lana Lang
for Superman's affections, attempting to prove Clark Kent and
Superman were one and the same, and tricking or otherwise forcing
Superman into marriage.
Superman's rationale for resisting her matrimonial desires was that
she could be trusted not to keep his secret identity hidden, and
that marrying her would put her in increased danger from his
enemies.This change in Lois' personality from her earlier 1940s
self might also be a result of American society's attitudes toward
women and their societal roles in the 1950s.
Lois became more
and more popular during this decade, and after appearing as the
lead character in two issues of DC's title Showcase in 1957, DC
created an on-going title for the character, titled Superman's Girl
Friend, Lois Lane beginning in March 1958 and running for 137
issues until September 1974.
By
the end of the 1960s, as attitudes toward women's role in American
society changed, Lois' character changed as well. Stories in the
1970s depicted her as fully capable and less reliant on Superman.
She engaged in more solo adventures without
Superman being involved, and was much less interested in
discovering Superman's secret identity.
Modern
Day Age
In
this modern version of events, Lois was portrayed as a
tough-as-nails reporter who rarely needed rescuing. She was
depicted as strong, opinionated, yet sensitive.
Another major change made was that Lois did not fall in love with
Superman. One reason was the revised nature of the Superman/Clark
Kent relationship.
In this new revised concept, it was Clark Kent who lived a life in
which his activity as Superman was decidedly secondary. Lois
initially resented the rookie Clark Kent getting the story on
Superman as his first piece when she had spent ages trying to get
an interview, but she eventually became his best friend.
Live-Action
Actress
Teri Hatcher played Lois Lane on the ABC television series Lois and Clark for four
seasons, starting in 1993, with the two leading characters getting
married during its run; this is the first television or film series
that showed Lois and Clark's romance fully realized.
On
the 2000s WB series Smallville, Erica Durance
plays a twenty-year-old Lois. It was not until the sixth season
that her character began to change into a more familiar Lois Lane
as she developed an interest in journalism, working at the tabloid
paper, the Inquisitor. She began to investigate and write articles
about the Green Arrow. At the start of Season 7, Lois is employed
at the Daily Planet as a reporter and shortly afterwards started
dating her editor Grant Gabriel, later revealed to be a clone of
the deceased Julian Luthor.
Actress
Kate Bosworth played Lois Lane in the 2006 Bryan
Singer-directed film Superman Returns. In this version, she has
given birth to a son named Jason White, who is later revealed to be
Superman's son.
Image Credits:
5. Apple Tree
8. Movies Media
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