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Lois Joanne Lane is a fictional comic book character who appears in DC Comics’ Superman stories. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics 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 in the nearly 70 year history of Superman comic books and other media adaptations. During the Silver Age, she was the star of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, a comic title that had a light and frivolous tone. 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 Aspects of Lois' personality have varied over the years (depending on the comic writers' handling of the character and American social attitudes toward women at the time), but in most incarnations she has been depicted as a determined, strong-willed person, whether it involves beating her rival reporter Clark Kent to a story or (in what became a trademark of 1950s and 1960s era Superman stories) proving to others her suspicion that her fellow reporter Clark Kent was in reality Superman. She also traditionally had a cool attitude toward Clark, who in her view paled in comparison to his super alter ego. At times, the character has been portrayed as a damsel in distress. Lois is regarded as attractive, but not in the exaggerated "supermodel" sense often seen in superhero comics' depictions of women. Her appearance has varied over the years, depending either on current fashion or (especially more recently) the way she's depicted in contemporary media adaptations; for instance, in the mid-1990s, when the series Lois and Clark began airing, Lois received a hair cut that made her look more like Teri Hatcher, and her eyes were typically violet to match the Lois of the television cartoon after that show began airing. Lois is the daughter of Sam and Ella 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," with Lois having been trained by her father in areas such as hand-to-hand combat and the use of firearms. Lois also has one younger sibling, her sister Lucy Lane. In the current comics, Lois is married to Clark Kent (and aware of his secret identity), but has kept her maiden name for professional purposes. Character history The comics have seen several incarnations of Lois Lane over the decades. Golden Age In the earliest Golden Age comics, Lois was featured as an aggressive, career-minded reporter for the Daily Star (the paper's name was changed to The Daily Planet in the early 1940s), 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 (usually thanks to Superman's efforts). In the Golden Age comics, Lois also had a niece named Susie Tompkins, whose main trait was getting into trouble by telling exaggerated tall tales and fibs to adults. Susie's last appearance was in 1955; subsequent comics presented Lois' only sibling, Lucy, as single and childless. After DC instituted its multiverse system in the early 1960s for organizing its continuity, it was deemed that the Lois of the Golden Age comics (i.e., comics published from 1938 through the early 1950s) lived on the parallel world of "Earth-Two" versus the then-mainstream (Silver Age) universe of "Earth-One." In 1978's Action Comics During the Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries, the Earth-Two Lois Lane was seen for one of the final times, as she, the Earth-Two Superman, and the Earth-Prime Superboy are taken by Earth-Three's Alexander Luthor, Jr. into a paradise-like dimension at the end of the story (after all the parallel Earths, including Earth-Two, had been eliminated in favor of just one Earth), after which this version of Lois was (seemingly) permanently discarded from DC's continuity. In 2005's Infinite Crisis miniseries, it was revealed that the Earth-Two Lois Lane, along with the Superboy, Alexander Luthor, Jr. and Superman, have been watching the events of the post-Crisis DC Universe from their pocket dimension. Out of the four observors, she is the only one who still believes that the new universe is just going through a rough patch; Superboy-Prime and Alexander Luthor are convinced that Earth is utterly corrupt, and Kal-L is slowly becoming swayed to their way of thinking. This version of Lois is frail, and died for reasons not explicitly revealed, though probably connected to her octogenarian status. This was the main reason for Kal-L's determination to restore Earth-2, as he believed that Lois' health would recover once back on her proper Earth. Despite the restoration of Earth-2, however, Lois Lane died in the arms of Superman in Infinite Crisis Silver Age As the audience for comic books began gravitating towards young boys in the mid-to-late 1950s, the Superman stories shifted in focus more toward science fiction-inspired plots involving extraterrestrials, fantasy creatures and bizarre, often contrived, 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. For Superman's part, his rationale for resisting her is that she cannot be trusted not to expose his secret identity to advance her career and marrying her would put her in too much danger from his enemies (ignoring the fact that his romantic relationship with her is already public knowledge). 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. Across this generation, she got married quite frequently, to other well known characters such as Batman and Jimmy Olsen (and various Superman pastiches) but these marriages were always annulled or otherwise forgotten. Lois became more and more popular during this decade, and after a one-shot story in 1957 in DC's title Showcase, Lois was given her own comic, titled Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane. Most of the stories in this title placed a greater emphasis on Lois' romance with Superman, and were drawn by DC comic artist Kurt Schaffenberger; indeed, Schaffenberger's rendition of Lois became cited by many as the "definitive" version of Lois, and he was often asked to redraw Superman comic artist Curt Swan's renditions of Lois and Lana by Superman comic editor Mort Weisinger. By the end of the 1960s, as attitudes toward women's role in American society began to change, Lois did as well. 1970s stories featuring Lois depicted her as being fully capable of taking care of herself, engaged in more solo adventures without Superman being involved, and her being much less interested in things such as discovering Superman's secret identity. For example, in her solo stories in Superman Family (an anthology title started in the mid-1970s from the merging/cancellation of several previous titles, including Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane and Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen), Lois regularly battled criminals in her investigations and defeated them with quick wits and considerable skill in the Kryptonian martial art of Klurkor, taught to her in the bottle-city of Kandor. After the 1985-1986 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths, writer and artist John Byrne was hired to revise the Superman comics, thus eliminating the Silver Age version of Lois from continuity; before this happened, a final non-canonical "imaginary story" Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? was written by writer Alan Moore, meant as a send-off for the "pre-Crisis" versions of the characters, including Lois. Modern Age
All Star Superman In 2005, DC launched a new All Star Superman comic series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, the series taking place outside normal DC continuity. In this storyline, they are not married, and although Superman has decided to reveal his secret identity to Lois, as of the second issue of the series, she refuses to believe him. At the end of issue Trivia In other media Image:Phyllisclois.jpg|Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane on Adventures of Superman Image:Neilll.jpg|Noel Neill as Lois Lane on Adventures of Superman Image:Patriciamarand.jpg|Patricia Marand as Lois Broadway musical It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Superman Image:margotkidderloiswiki.jpg|Margot Kidder as Lois Lane in the Superman movies Image:teriloiswiki.jpg|Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Image:Dana_Delany_Portrait_for_Wiki_03.jpg|Dana Delany, voice of Lois Lane on and subsequent Justice League cartoons. Image:ericaduranceloiswiki.jpg|Erica Durance as Lois Lane on Smallville | ||||||||||
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