Superman and Lois at 85

April 18th marks the 85th anniversary of the release of Action Comics #1.  This comic includes the first published story of Superman and Lois Lane.  

Originally, Superman was imagined as an unstoppable force for good and a champion of the oppressed.  This hasn't fundamentally changed, but the scope and scale at which Superman operates in comics and film has expanded to include liberating whole planets and more nuanced takes on what a man of steel can do and not be painted as a villain by the general public. 

In many ways, Superman is a combination of traits borrowed from existing popular fiction.  Doc Savage had a Fortress of Solitude, The Shadow had dual identities to fight crime, Zorro was out there swashbuckling and in a love triangle of which he was two sides.  John Carter of Mars was an alien on Mars whose origins on Earth made him super-human elsewhere.

In those first issues, by day, Clark Kent was hustling to cover the news and tell people what was up, and by night he was wearing a peculiar costume and righting wrongs despite the bullets, knives and large metal doors intended to stop a body from doing the thing that needed to be done.  

personal space, Clark

From the get-go, there was Lois - a colleague and firebrand unimpressed by Clark Kent and his nebbishy mannerisms, but swooning when this mysterious fellow leaped into action, often between Lois and someone threatened by whatever Lois was up to.  

It took some time for the science-fiction angle, beyond Superman's origin, to work it's way into the comics, but it did, and continues to do so.  Early stories were about slum lords, munitions manufacturers, gangsters and other threats ripped from the headlines.  Pre-WWII, Superman even famously dealt with Hitler.  His radio show took on the KKK.  

Eventually we replaced direct threats of our world with analogs and echoes of our problems.  Despots from nameless Central American nations became despots from distant planets.  Corrupt politicians and businessmen became rolled up in Lex Luthor.  

There's now 85 years worth of Action Comics.  Due to various publishing experiments, we're now on issue 1053 or so of the series instead of 1020.  That's a lot of Action Comics, but it's also just one of the many comics titles Superman has appeared in over the years, including his routinely re-numbered Superman main title.  I'd guess he's been in closer to 10,000 different comics, but that estimate is no doubt low.  That number doesn't include books, magazines, coloring books, etc...  

We've now had innumerable depictions in live-action and animation.  I'm currently a huge fan of Superman and Lois on the CW.  I look forward to James Gunn's coming Superman: Legacy.  My Adventures with Superman is a cartoon coming soon with Lois Lane's perspective as she encounters a young Superman.  DC Animation puts out a new animated Superman movie about every 18 months or so.  They're usually worth a watch on HBOmax.

I wasn't always a Superman guy.  I got into comics as I crossed into middle school, but I was in college before I *got* Superman.*  I've spent the past 25+ years or so collecting, studying and enjoying Superman as a lens into the past 85 years of media, consumerism, pop-culture and more newsworthy history.  But to say that I don't enjoy the visceral thrill of a man of steel who can fly and bend steel in his bare hands would be untrue.  I love all that stuff.  I love Lois Lane as the other central figure in the stories - a mere mortal who is all curiosity, energy and an unflagging sense of justice that both gets her into trouble and exposes the truth.

My own Lois, Jamie, has been incredibly understanding of me building my own Fortress of Solitude, and been, by default, along on this adventure since the beginning (we started dating around the time I was taking an interest in Superman).  I hesitate to think how much Superman trivia she has in her head at this point.  And so Superman has become an odd touchstone of our lives together.  

a recent art print by Julian Totino Tedesco

Over the few decades I've followed The Man of Steel, he's changed costumes, universes, marital status, and more.  But the writers who get him understand the core of who he is.  And who Lois is.  And sooner or later, we return to that baseline, married or pre-marriage.  

Here's to another 85.  May folks still be thrilled and inspired by The Man of Steel and World's Greatest Reporter for decades to come.

  

*you can enjoy the edgy stuff, too, but don't write off the core characters of your favorite comics worlds