Tying Lois

In the 1960's and 70's DC Comics published a seemingly endless number of spin-off comics featuring nearly all of Superman's friends and 'family'- Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl, Krypto the Superdog, Superboy and even Supertramp.

Superman fought Muhammed Ali. Supes lost in a repeat of the Great White Hope fiasco...I think space aliens intervened to make it a fair fight. Anyone got a copy?

Anyway, the longest running one was Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane. It was the book that Superman editor Mort Weisinger would assign to writers and artists he was miffed at. It was intended as a sort of punishment, but some of the writers may have enjoyed themselves, perhaps too much.

One has to wonder at the 'creative process' behind this cover. In the illustration, Superman's two rival 'girlfriends ' have grown tired of Superman's unwillingness to commit and decided to put themselves in suspended animation for 5,000 years to punish him. The note at the foot of their iceboxes reads:

"Goodbye Superman! We're tired of waiting for you to propose. When we wake up in the future , you'll be DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! Lois and Lana

That's a pretty hateful goodbye letter. Vicious and frigid.

I must admit that I'm appalled at Supe's reaction to this. He's agonizing over what to do when what he should be saying is:
"Thank God the two most fucked-up bitch-persons I know have removed themselves from my life for 5,000 years. I'm freakin' Superman- I should be able to find a girlfriend that isn't completely insane. "

Instead he's acting like a SuperWuss.




After Julie Schwartz took over as editor he tried really hard to boost sales. Lois Lane was tied-up and threatened with all sorts of bizarre defilements every thirty days. I'm not sure exactly who these comics were being marketed to and apparently neither was DC Comics; eventually they stopped publishing Lois Lane, but not before she got into some pretty interesting binds.


These covers
are fairly blatant examples of fetish art, yet they were approved by the puritanical
Comics Code Authority,
which once refused to 'approve' an issue of Amazing Spider-Man because it featured drug use.
In the story , a druggie got high and flipped out and Spidey had to save him from leaping to his acid-induced death, so it wasn't exactly a pro-drug story, but the mere mention of dope, even in a negative sense was considered to be unsuitable for children.
Marvel Comics ( with Stan Lee calling the shots) published it anyway, without the CCA seal of approval. This was very controversial at the time and some newsstand distributors wouldn't carry it but I have always been grateful to Stan Lee for having the balls to tell the CCA to get lost , helping pave the way for the 'Non-Code'
"mature readers'' books that came later.



Lois should be grateful that Superman never seemed into getting down with her. As writer Larry Niven points out in his essay Man of Steel , Woman of Kleenex:

... Superman's sex problems are strictly physiological, and quite real....Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles "a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack." One loses control over one's muscles.

Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?

Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.

Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)

I wonder if this is why they don't show 'Smallville' on my local cable?

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Covers found here.