LOIS LANE #63 (1966)
by Leo Dorfman & Kurt Schaffenberger
This is one of the best covers ever published.
Perry White was appointed Senator last issue, and miraculously we pick up from that!
Perry’s replacement, Van Benson, seems like an enormous improvement for journalism.
Although he might be a bit of a sleazeball.
What kind of private club is this!?
Van Benson’s choice in eyewear is… weird.
Looks like he’s a member of an organization named S.K.U.L.
Lois investigates by infiltrating Van Benson’s apartment disguised as a bellboy, and she discovers he’s into some really, really weird stuff.
Okay, you might have guessed that Van Benson is some kind of supervillain. Nothing too weird.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the story gets reeeally trippy.
Yep! Take a good look at S.K.U.L. (Superman Killers’ Underground League).
Lois wants to get Superman on the case, but she has no way to contact him.
So she just decides to JUMP OUT OF THE WINDOW!!!
Superman, wait! This is your only chance to get rid of her!
Spoilsport.
Prince Sleazy to the rescue!
Lois doesn’t fall for his act, though, and decides to infiltrate into his club by cosplaying as Zatanna.
She doesn’t just do a cheap magic trick, though.
How did she do it? Why, she just borrowed some superpowers from Jimmy Olsen!
ALL OF THIS was just to get into the dressing room of the whip lady.
Lois finds clues that she’s a member of S.K.U.L. and she knocks her out with a sleeping gas provided by Jimmy.
Better not to think about Jimmy Olsen going around with sleeping gas in his pockets.
Lois finally participates in the S.K.U.L. meeting, and I think we can safely assume that Schaffenberger had some kind of skeleton fetish.
Am I hallucinating this? I think I’m hallucinating this.
Obviously Lois is randomly chosen as the one who will kill Superman.
I had to look up who Red Skelton was. I still don’t get the joke.
Unable to contact Superman, Lois contacts Lana Lang for suggestions. Rather than shoving Lana out of the window, they come up with a different plan.
But when Superman shows up in person, he’s anything but impressed!
That’s great, right? Just end the story right there and you have the best Superman cliffhanger ever!
Except we completely trash any potential LITERALLY NEXT PANEL:
WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!? WHY!?!?
This concludes next issue. I think we’re going to need a lot of drugs to get through this.
Historical significance: 0/10
Any hopes of Van Benson having an impact at the Daily Planet just jumped out of the window.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
As soon as the bad guys turn out to be skeletons, every bit of logic just goes off the window.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
The way the S.K.U.L. work makes absolutely no sense, but it’s a cool comic book visual that I wouldn’t mind to see again. There’s an organization named SKULL in 70s Superman stories, notable for introducing Atomic Skull, but it’s a separate organization.
Everything else, on the other hand, can easily be thrown out of the window.
Stupid Lois Lane moment
This moment now lives rent free inside my head.
In as far as it could be called a joke, the “Red Skelton” thing is based on the fact that Red Skeleton sounds vaguely the same and the head of SKUL is laughing as though it had just told a joke – that wasn’t funny. Just like the supposed joke involving the names. In 1966 everyone in the US would have recognized that name. He was a big deal in comedy at that point, and his TV show was enormously successful. These days, pretty obscure (he’s been dead for almost 30 years) but once you’ve heard that name you’re never likely to forget it. Because it sounds like Red Skeleton. Which is apparently supposed to be funny.