LOIS LANE #4 (1958)
Written by Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Alvin Shwartz
Pencils: Wayne Boring, Kurt Shaffenberger
This is an anthology; let’s go with the first story, “Super-courtship of Lois Lane”, which is also the cover story.
It starts with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen covering an experiment about hypnotic tape recordings:
Obviously, Jimmy gets the idea to use this amazing technology to convince Clark Kent to propose to Lois Lane, since this will make Lois stop chasing Superman (somehow).
It goes as well as you’d imagine.
So Jimmy asks Superman to tell her that she has no chance to marry him.
Jimmy is a crappy friend, but in this era Superman DOES tell Lois that he doesn’t want to marry her twenty times a week, so it shouldn’t be that hard.
It goes as well as you’d imagine: Superman proposes.
Only it’s April 1st. Lois naturally assumes Superman is cruel enough to do this as an April’s Fools joke:
Lois then decides to test Superman, forcing him to “break the promise and ruin his joke”.
First by compelling him to never put on his costume for 24 hours:
Then by making him wear a tuxedo:
But Superman is still set on marrying her, much to her despair.
Or at least I think she’s supposed to be in despair in this panel. Is it just me or it looks like she’s really enjoying herself?
But the next day is April 2nd, meaning it wasn’t a joke, meaning Lois is really about to marry Superman!
Then… get this… Jimmy Olsen puts on an oversized mask of Clark Kent (that he made by himself and that apparently he brings with him at all times). And when he pretends to fall into a river…
…Lois shouts “no” and runs to save him.
And since she said “no” at the altar, Superman is happy to fly away knowing that he ruined her life.
Nice wink at the fourth wall, jackass.
The second story is “Lois Lane, working girl”.
Which is a weird title. I thought being a journalist (even a terrible one like Silver Age Lois) WAS considered a job.
Which, of course, starts with Lois Lane deciding to become an actress because a random stranger she met in the street told her he could make her famous.
Sounds legit.
Unfortunately, Lois gets the role of a poor working woman, but since her hands don’t have a single callous she needs to find a job to get her hands dirty.
Which… this is 1958, would ANYONE be able to see her hands with that much detail? Even on the big screen? This wouldn’t be a big deal even with today’s high definition!
So Lois gets her new job… as a “pretzel-bender”. With a boss who hates her guts because, in order to get Lois her fake job, he can’t give it to a woman who actually needs to work.
This is supposed to be our bad guy, people. The fact that he’s drawn as an ugly man, perhaps even sub-human, makes the story VERY uncomfortable.
To sabotage her, he puts CONCRETE into the ingredients.
It doesn’t work because Clark Kent shows up to eat the concrete pretzels anyway.
Next he fixes the machine so that it’s too fast for Lois, but thanks to Superman’s interference, she comes up with the “brilliant” idea of Pretzel Fingers:
Sounds legit. And definitely not disgusting.
After this amazing idea, Lois comes up with a publicity stunt: appearing on a TV show for people with unusual jobs.
It’s “What’s my job?”, where the contestants have to guess the job of the contestant.
Possibly without being given any clues, considering the answers seem pretty random.
And come on, it was supposed to be an unusual job! You’re all guessing normal jobs!
Somehow, this makes her more famous than being the love interest of an alien god.
Which ruins her career, since now when people see her the thought of her being a pretzel-bender makes them laugh.
Because a dramatic actress can’t have worked a low-paying job.
So, to recap, Lois Lane took away a poor woman’s job in order to throw away her career.
Alright, then. The first story was stupid and the second was crap. What do you have, third story?
Cowgirl Silver Age Lois Lane. Great. Because THAT’S the woman you want to own a gun.
But at least it takes place in DUDE CITY!
Where they don’t just give you a cowboy outfit, they also give you REAL GUNS.
Sounds legit. Any chances this is NOT in Texas?
After some shenanigans, she gets a concussion and now she thinks she’s Annie Oakley.
Because of course she does.
Note the telepathic doctor who apparently can read her thought balloon.
And since we need to cram as much clichés here as possible, she can’t find out she’s not Annie Oakley or it will cause serious damage to her mind.
Considering Lois will become considerably crazier as the Silver Age goes by, for once this DOES sound legit.
You know where this is going: Superman has to use his powers to convince her she’s the best sharpshooter in the West, or something like that.
Not only that: he has to make her believe that he’s Jesse James. I’m skipping some of the context, but believe me, it doesn’t make more sense IN context.
Since she doesn’t kill him she suspects he’s Superman, which snaps her back to reality.
And she accepts that they didn’t kill each other because, thanks to a “freak coincidence”, all of their bullets collided in mid-air.
Sounds legit.
Historical significance: 0/10
As typical of this era, nothing from these stories will be used or referenced again.
Silver Age-ness: 5/10
Outside of the focus placed on the attempts to marry Superman and the general stupidity, there isn’t all that much Silver Age around.
Does it stand the test of time?
First story: 1/10. Are we supposed to root for ANY of these characters!?
Second story: 1/10. Lois is HORRIBLE in this. And the attitude towards low-paying jobs is disgusting.
Third story: 6/10. It’s full of clichés, but at least it’s not offensive.
Stupid Lois Lane moment
The story thinks it’s the way she sabotages her acting career, or how she falls for Jimmy’s trick. I say it’s thinking that Superman would go to THAT length for an April Fool’s joke.
Stupid Jimmy Olsen moment
So many choice for such a short story! Is it mind-controlling Clark to distract Lois from Superman? Is it breaking her wedding and crushing her heart? No, it’s not figuring out that Superman and Clark Kent are the same person when they are CLEARLY under the same hypnotic command!
Isn’t she supposed to be a journalist?
Apparently it doesn’t take much to convince Lois to leave the Daily Planet!
That should be a crime
If you need to hire an actress for a few days, don’t take the job away from someone else!
Nice job breaking it, Lois
Her acting career. Hopefully the pretzel-bender gets her job back.
Cowgirl Silver Age Lois Lane was relatively badass, but for the other stories.. well… what do you think, Jimmy Olsen?
Yeah, that sounds about right.