Superman #129 (1959)
by Bill Finger & Wayne Boring
cover by Curt Swan
Despite Lois attempting to get the spotlight on the cover…
…the real star if the issue is the OTHER classic Superman love interest.
We begin with Clark Kent reminiscing about his college years when he takes Lois to a game.
They’re not in an assignment, so this is one of the few times when we see her hanging out with Clark in their spare time.
After saving the girl in a wheelchair, Clark is immediately smitten by her ability to cover up his secret identity.
Next he has to deal with an exploding aquarium… as you do…
…when she demonstrates that she can talk to marine creatures.
Also she demonstrates that Wayne Boring has never seen an octopus.
Yeah nothing sketchy about this girl.
Her name is Lori Lemaris and her only rule is being home by 8.
Wait, the “school soda shop” is open that late? I’m not sure if this is weird or if I’m thinking of something other than a school cafeteria.
Clark is SO smitten with her that he keeps daydreaming during his classes…
…making me wonder what exactly he’s studying.
He must be in journalism, right? What are those courses?
It is kind of weird that they’ve dated for a while and he’s about to ask her to marry him… and he STILL doesn’t know what country she’s from.
As part of his initiation, Clark can’t leave the dormitory. But that’s nothing that a bit of arson can’t fix.
Clark proposes, but Lori drops a bombshell: she knows he’s Superman.
He also doesn’t care that she’s in a wheelchair, which is not something you see very often in 1950s comics. In fact, disabled people are quite rare in comics in general.
Because he rejects him, Superman decides to check out what exactly she does at 8 PM at home.
Well, at her trailer house that she brought with her.
He also finds it weird that she has a water bed.
Well just because it’s the 50s; if this was the 70s, this wouldn’t be weird at all.
Superman confronts Lori about her unusual sleeping habits, but they’re interrupted by a random catastrophe.
She insists on being brought there to help. Now if she had working legs, Superman wouldn’t find it odd that she thinks she can help stopping a burst dam.
As anyone reading my site probably already knows, Lori’s secret is that she’s a mermaid.
The mystery of how Superman is able to hold people like that remains unsolved.
The reason for the water bed is that mermaids must be in salt water for a little under half a day.
I’m not aware of other works of fiction where mermaids have this limitation, probably because it complicates making them interact with the surface world.
She’s a telepath because her people used to live on the surface.
Sounds legit.
This gives us the reason why Lori went to the surface, but it completely skips any explanation for why she can’t be with Superman.
Is it just me or Lois looks scared by how Clark was looking at her?
Historical significance: 8/10
Lori Lemaris becomes an important part of Superman’s life in the Silver Age. Unlike Lois Lane and Lana Lang, though, she’s not utterly insane.
She comes back soon enough, in Superman #135 the following year.
When she gets injured, Superman searches the cosmos for a way to heal her…
…only for Lori to fall for the alien merman that Superman brought to Earth to save her.
Lori was a recurring supporting character for years, until her death in the last issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986.
She’s still around, although it seems that lately she mostly hangs around Aquaman.
There is a post-Crisis version that follows the original more closely than the current one; more on her later.
Silver Age-ness: 2/10
Surprisingly little, all things considered. Although there’s that weirdly alien-looking giant octopus.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
This is one of the better Silver Age ones; in fact, it’s been re-done almost panel by panel decades later. Aside from the pacing, my only issue is that the story doesn’t really give any indication for why the relationship ends… Superman can breathe underwater and he clearly doesn’t have problems with her being half-fish.
Lori is reintroduced shockingly fast in the post-Crisis continuity, in issue 12 of the second volume of Superman.
Johny Byrne is going for a very faithful adaptation here.
But it also expands some details. It even answers my questions on what Clark was studying!
Also I believe John Byrne HAS seen an octopus.
Of all the things to change, the curfew is now at 11 PM.
Notice Superman this time is ashamed of creeping on her.
Byrne does a bit of, uhm, redesign on Lori’s look.
Byrne also addresses yet another of my complaints: Lori DOES give an explanation for why the relationship is dropped.
It also simplifies things by making the merman doctor she falls for being from her same civilization, instead of randomly being from space.
Since she was considered to have died in Crisis, Lori takes a long time to show up again.
By the time she returns, Clark is engaged to Lois. And to make it easier to integrate her into the supporting cast, Lori now has legs most of the time.
A pity she lost the wheelchair in the process. It was a nice touch and it could have given us a second DC superheroine in a wheelchair, after Oracle.
Although Oracle didn’t get topless nearly as often as Lori.
What else was in Superman #129 ?
The cover story is about Lois Lane becoming a ghost.
But she’s actually trapped in another dimension. Nice blurring effects.
The second story has Clark Kent being a fireman for a few days.
And finally we have a full page ad for the first Supergirl story.
Interesting letters: ah, these are the kind of answers I expected from Superman’s books.
I was wondering how long it would take.
The firefighter Superman story is weird – basically an excuse for a slew of panels of “Uh-oh, my clothes got damaged and my Superman suit is visible – I’d better contrive some wacky situation to prevent anyone noticing!” Not to mention Clark apparently can’t keep his identity secret without making everyone believe he’s completely incompetent!
The Atlantis merpeople backstory is adapted with a pretty decent amount of faithfulness in The Atlantis Chronicles mini-series.
Can’t explain the single eye on Boring’s octopus, but the mouth seems like taking the fact that octopuses have beaks and ignoring that they’re not placed like birds’ beaks.
Lori’s place in the Superman mythos is very interesting.
By her very nature she nevel will fully mesh with human culture or even much want to. To an extent she is a perfect proxy for the marvels and challenges of foreignhood, which I see as a core element of Superman’s appeal. To me, Superman is the ultimate, supreme immigrant, and the very opposite of a patriotic hero.
Lori herself is not inherently any more difficult for Kal to consider as a potential life partner than Lois or anyone else. On the contrary, settling with her would spare Kal the need for a secret identity altogether.
The end result is a subtle yet fascinating subtext that will accompany Superman from this point on; he is Clark Kent not because he needs to, but because he values the opportunity to mingle with human society. It is a choice that comes with plenty of challenges and drawbacks, yet he persists for decades because he sees value in keeping a human identity and attempting to understand humankind from the inside.
Lori’s place in the Superman mythos is very interesting.
By her very nature she never will fully mesh with human culture or even much want to.
As Bob Eubanks once remarked about mermaids on The Newlywed Game:
“Too much fish to fry—not enough girl to love.”