Welcome back! In the last part of this series I decided to take a look back at the early adventures of Lois Lane, Superman’s long time love interest. This was well before she was a strong female role model, a functional human being, or sane. To say that her relationship with Superman was unhealthy is the biggest understatement of comics anyone could possibly make.
Previously, we saw how Lois Lane came up with bizarre schemes to try and trick Superman into marrying her. That was just the tip of the iceberg and it gets worse from here. This time around we’re going to look at how Lois Lane’s love for Superman takes some very bizarre turns.
Lois Lane and the Babe of Steel
From Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #3
The Set Up
In this story, the Smallville Orphanage — where Clark Kent was adopted as a child — has moved to Metropolis. Nobody explains why, but I suspect that it is some kind of tax dodge. Apparently, this is big news to the Daily Planet so they send both Clark Kent and Lois Lane to cover the story. It’s there that Clark uses his x-ray vision to peer into his personal file and spies something that can compromise his identity. Since there is apparently no way he can eliminate this evidence right on the spot he decides to take the only logical recourse: traveling back in time to remove it in the past.
Now, the thing about DC Comics is that their rules about time travel make no damn sense half the time. Case in point: In this story, Superman travels back in time and through some half-assed understanding of the Pauli exclusion principal, Superman’s past-self gets transported to the present.
Lois comes across the Superbaby and upon seeing a baby version of the man she loves she does what any responsible adult would do: exploit the baby’s super powers to advance her career.
The Execution
Lane’s scheme involves showering Superbaby with gifts before having him fly her somewhere to get a scoop on a story she is investigating. Given how horrible Lois is at her love life, you can bet she is ill prepared when it comes to caring for a child.
This becomes apparent when she takes him to a toy store and tells him he can get anything he wants. Naturally, Superbaby wants the life-size train the toy store has on display as part of a marketing gimmick. When Lois tells him he can’t have it, Superbaby responds by throwing a temper tantrum.
The clerk above tells Superbaby he can take the massive train home, for free, if he can lift it up, what happens is next is obvious. This makes the clerk faint, and Lois then manages to convince Superbaby to settle for some rattles instead. You got to love how Lois thinks a toy meant for infants is suitable for a toddler. Still, it stopped what could have been an incredibly destructive tantrum, but I’m going to chalk that up to luck over anything else.
Misadventures in Babysitting
Lois then has the baby take her to a remote location to try and get the scoop on a scientist testing out his new “mechanical mole” device. Unfortunately, Superbaby mucks it up by playing with some rattlesnakes, thinking they are toys. Even though they have no way of hurting Superbaby, Lois Lane still panics.
What follows are two more attempts to get scoops. First, Lois attempts to prove that a local amusement park has unsafe equipment by putting Superbaby on a faulty Superman ride. She then gets a cop to watch as the cable holding the baby in the air snaps. Superbaby can fly, obviously, but it also happens that Lois also grabbed the only near-sighted cop on the whole damn force. So the cop sees nothing and leaves. Not long after, Superbaby decides he wants to go on a merry-go-round and in trying to land on the ride, crashes right into it smashing it into smithereens. Even though Lois basically has her story, she is so mad at Superbaby that she drags him off the property.
Lois next tries to play the role of a paparazzi by trying to snag a photo of a visiting royal. She gets Superbaby to fly her onto his private property to take the photo. To placate the child, Lois gives him a ton of gum. Superbaby then chews it all at once and blows a massive bubble. When it pops, the king thinks its a bomb going off and calls for security. Lois and Superbaby then have to hightail it out of there before they get arrested.
That’s When Things Got Weird
Back at Lois Lane’s apartment, Superbaby asks Lois for a cookie from her jar. She berates Superbaby for being “bad”, even though everything that went wrong was all because of her stupid idea.
Now, Superbaby takes Lois’ commands literally and punches his fist through the jar to get at the cookies. What happens next is well….
Lois takes the baby back to the orphanage and berates him the whole way. Suddenly, Superman returns from the past sending Superbaby back home. As it turns out, Superman needed to go back and switch out his indestructible Kryptonian baby booties from his file so nobody would find out he was really Superman.
Now, let’s just back up here for a second: It’s already pretty well established that Lois Lane is in love with Superman. Despite this, when she suddenly finds herself with the Man of Steel’s younger self her first idea is to exploit the baby for her own personal gain. Then she spends her whole time berating and putting down said baby when he doesn’t follow her orders, which are all horrible.
What makes this all the more disturbing is the fact that this is probably how she’d treat any baby including her own. Gee, Lois, do you think maybe Superman doesn’t want to be in a relationship because he has horrific childhood memories of you using and abusing him?
Hey, if this didn’t get weird enough for you this next one’s a real kicker…
The Amazing Superman Junior
From Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #6
What Happens:
In this story, Lois Lane wants to get the scoop on a new rocket that can travel the speed of light. However, the scientist who invented it doesn’t want anyone near it until his tests are complete. Lois then fakes sun stroke and the only shady place they can put her is… you guessed it, on the rocket.
Superman learns about this and decides to teach Lois a lesson about tricking people into giving her what she wants. They launch the rocket and make it look like Lois returned to Earth some 100 years into the future. The writers probably researched the concept of time dilation from a cocktail napkin for this plot device. To help with this plan, Superman also gets the help of Batman’s boy sidekick Robin, because reasons.
That’s When It Gets Weird, and Somewhat Inappropriate
Suddenly, some guy called Superman Junior shows up, he claims to be Superman’s son. Lois is upset that Superman apparently got married and had a kid with someone else. However, this lasts only about a panel because she immediately starts romancing Superman Junior. Worse, Superman Junior is totally into it.
Again, let’s back this up here for a second: Lois Lane is in love with Superman, apparently. Yet, when faced with the fact that he is now an old man and he has a son, she immediately latches onto his son. Sure, they’re physically similar in age, but come on, there’s nothing right about any of this.
The Plot Twist is Creepier
As it turns out, Lois Lane figured out early on that this was one of Superman’s trademark hoaxes. So she decided to turn things around on Superman. See, Superman Junior was actually Robin the Boy Wonder. Wait, what? How did Robin acquire powers like Superman? Well the explanation is so stupid, I’ll just post an image and let you drink it in:
How did Lois Lane force Robin into turning the prank around on Superman? Lois threatened to figure out Robin’s secret identity. How would she do that? Well, apparently she keeps the fingerprints of six different boys in her purse.
Until this story, the youngest person Lois Lane regularly hung out with was Jimmy Olsen. Suddenly, we find out that she has been hanging out with six young boys long enough to get carbon copies of their fingerprints!
I…. I… Wow… Just wow…
Okay, I need to take a break from this. We’ll be back with more moments of Lois Lane insanity soon. But before we close, you are probably wondering what type of person actually read these insane comics. Glad you asked. Here’s one of the letter DC Comics published in the back of a Lois Lane comic book: