Wonder Woman w/o Powers Pt. 8: Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane #93

How swiftly life can change, even for a super-heroine! In a matter of months, Wonder Woman lost her Amazon powers… and her sweetheart, Steve Trevor, was killed! So naturally, reporter Lois Lane is willing to help the unfortunate ex-Amazon any way she can! The trouble is, Lois finds she has helped W.W. right into the arms of Superman… and it looks like marriage will soon make a permanent thing of…

The Superman-Wonder Woman Team!

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Lois Lane imagines marrying Superman, “Oh, Superman, darling! You’ve made be the happiest girl on Earth!”

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She then imagines Wonder Woman marrying Superman, “Oh, Superman, darling! By marrying Wonder Woman – you’ve made me the unhappiest girl on Earth!”

When Diana Prince invites Superman to join her in putting on a circus for charity, Lois has nothing to fear… or so she believes…

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Since she has no powers, Diana asks Lois to persuade the curator of the Metropolis Science Museum to let her borrow a mercury stone that will allow her to defy gravity.

When the audience shouts their approval with such calls as, “He should marry her!” and “Kiss her, Superman!” Lois has a dream that Superman and Diana are wed and are proud parents of a super-son.

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The next morning, Daily Planet editor, Perry White, assigns Lois a series on the private lives of Superman and Diana Prince.

What’s the matter with me? Why does my heart ache so? I can’t be jealous of Superman and Wonder Woman! They’re really not an item! And she wouldn’t do anything to hurt me!

Part II: Assignment: Heartbreak

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Present simply to record their daily activities, Lois becomes increasingly distraught as the two heroes become chummy and their apparent affection for each other is recognized in public.

They are the most celebrated couple in the world! How can I compete with her?

Realizing she needs to be transformed, Lois enrolls at the “Salon of Swing.”

That night, Lois dreams that she battles Diana and Superman exclaims, “I wouldn’t have believed it – if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes! Lois has become a better Wonder Woman than the original!

Diana quickly bests Lois and flies away with Superman, who comments that he wishes she were super-strong and invulnerable so his enemies couldn’t harm her. Diana spends the next 4+ pages trying to prove to him that she is. When she somehow does…

Part III: The Super-Bride’s Secret!

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Lois eventually learns that the real Diana Prince is locked in the basement of an old house and that Ar-ual, a convicted villain from Krypton that escaped from the Phantom Zone, is masquerading as her. She wants to marry Superman because, as his wife, she’d never be suspected of ruling the crime world on Earth.

All ends well as Superman tells Lois that he had decided not to marry Wonder Woman, anyway, and Diana says that as much as she admires Superman, she’d never compete with Lois for his love.

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Thoughts

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Wow, as far as I can remember, I’ve never read a story from Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane. I’m surprised by how plot-heavy this one is, yet how typical I imagine it is. If anything can make Diana’s male-motivated actions in the pages of Wonder Woman seem legitimate, it’s Lois’s actions here.

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About halfway through the issue, if not sooner, I realized where the story was going and that it was not really Diana who was spending time with Superman. Then, I was surprised by how deep into the villainess’s backstory writer Robert Kanighter went. The story under-promises with plot, yet over-delivers with detail.

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I can’t say this makes me eager to read more Lois Lane; however, I am intrigued by the concept. I guess it’s supposed to be a romance comic, or even just a woman’s perspective of the adventures of Superman. It’s certainly not a pro-female comic, though, because it’s the male, Superman, who gets his girls out of trouble.

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Title: Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane

Issue #: 93

Cover Date: July 1969

On Sale Date: 5-13-69

Writer: Robert Kanighter

Artist: Irving Novick

Editor: Mort Weisinger