(warping noise)
- [Narrator] In some ways, Superman and Lois Lane
are the perfect couple.
Their love has endured through super Ant Invasions,
Hitler clone attacks, and even an ill-fated boxing match
with Muhammad Ali that Superman lost?
But we're not interested in those vanilla stories
of heroic rescues and... (reedy music)
Love conquering everything, except Muhammad Ali.
This is a show that dives right into the bonkers,
the embarrassing, the unbelievable bits of canon
that Superman would probably laser
right out of our brains if he could.
We're talking Lois trying to kill herself
for Superman's pleasure,
the seduction of multiple babies,
and Superman transforming his girlfriend fat
and also an entirely different race.
(yelling)
This is "Canonball".
(upbeat music)
(water splashing)
Superman and Lois is the latest CW show
set in the Arrowverse
and it promises to adapt their famous,
long enduring relationship
in a grounded and thoughtful way.
(birds chirping)
- Yeah, I do, I do have super-smell.
- [Narrator] You know, basically the exact opposite
of how it goes in the comics.
Yeah, things get pretty dicey in print.
For example, Number Four.
Lois tries to hook up with the baby version of Superman,
more than once.
Back in the 60s,
before Lois Lane and Superman tied the knot,
Lois and Lana Lang engaged in a continuous battle
for bachelor Superman's affections,
going to extremely unhinged lengths to catch his attention.
Easily the creepiest, most disturbing plan
they ever concocted was brainwashing Superman
into loving them when he was a baby.
The story starts with Superman saying goodbye to both girls
as he heads off to his fortress of solitude
to do youth restoring experiments,
as one does.
A few hours later, Lois finds Superbaby on the street
and assumed Superman got stuck in child form,
as one does.
Instead of helping return Superman
to a form that can legally consent,
Lois puts them in some kind of horny detention
where she hypnotizes him and forces him to profess his love
in caveman English.
Which she seems to think will make them wanna marry her
after the whole baby thing wears off.
Lana walks in on this Freudian nightmare
and she wants in on this torture sesh.
The two women tag team traumatized young Supes
by forcing him to practice proposing,
kiss them both on the cheek,
and spanking his bare, invincible ass.
Are they conditioning him for marriage
or joining Greek life at a state school?
When Superman shows up the next day,
un-hypnotized and de-babyfied,
the ladies are pissed at Superman
that all that brainwashing and ass slapping
was all for nothing.
Superman. Bizarrely is oddly okay
with them trying to seduce an infant
but he is curious about who that bisbendxed child was.
He takes the girls back to his man-cave
where one of the super machines explains that super baby
was actually from a different dimension
and their brainwashing actually worked
that particular Superman returned to his reality
and promptly proposed to both Lois end Lana
and then presumably inked a five season deal with TLC.
And that's not the only time Lois tried
to seduce a literal child, as we can see
in his comic clearly meant to catch future
sex predators titled
"The Romance of Super Baby and Baby Lois."
Lois snaps a sneaky pic Superman while he's changing
in the hopes of discovering his identity
because I guess Clark Kent never took off his glasses
to wipe them down or something.
While she doesn't initially plan
to do anything with the photo
she suffers a traumatic brain injury that makes her evil
and tells Superman that he must either marry her
or she'll release the photo and reveal his identity.
These are all textbook concussion symptoms.
Superman's brilliant plan to stop Lois is to fly her
to his fortress of solitude in the hopes
that she gets up to some stupid (beep).
And it works.
Within seconds she sprays herself with a random bottle
of what she thinks is perfume
but it's actually de aging spray.
Superman figures nobody will let him legally marry a child.
And the day is saved.
(operatic tune)
Until the unthinkable happens
and Luis sprayed Superman turning him into a child as well.
(bright upbeat music)
They continue de aging until they're ultimately both infants
which is unfortunate for Superman
because apparently the legal age of consent
in the Fortress of Solitude is just an Equal Sign.
Their nuptials begin as they're pushed down
the isle in strollers,
but when the preacher demands they say, "I do"
all Lois can master is Goo-goo
because you know, she's a (beep) baby.
And while the rest of this makes perfectly legal sense
the words Goo-goo are apparently not legally binding.
So the marriage is off all as well
and Lois promises to never again
use anything as dark and twisted
as blackmailer pedophilic hypnosis
to trick Superman into marrying her.
Number three Luis uses attempted suicide
to trick Superman into marrying her.
1970s "The Super Reckless Lois Lane"
begins with Superman finally proposing the Lois.
Everything is going great until boom.
She's literally nuked to death by Superman's enemies
but then twist it turns out the whole thing was a dream
and Lois wakes up extremely disappointed.
You think she'd be thrilled to not die
in a nuclear Holocaust,
but evidently her takeaway from the dream
is that Superman will never marry her
because he's always gonna be worried
about bad guys trying to hurt him by dropping nukes on her.
Lois wants to convince Superman
he doesn't need to worry about her.
So she sets out to prove that she's not afraid of death.
She does this by attempting to kill herself
over and over and over.
First up, she agrees to become a test subject
for an invisibility serum
even though the previous guinea pig died
in front of her in like 12 seconds ago.
And apparently the odds are 1 million
to one that it won't kill her
which is almost certainly not how odds work,
but regardless this stuff is apparently very lethal.
But Lois doesn't care because then she tells Superman
I'm not afraid to die!
Maybe then you'll marry me!
Fortunately, the serum works
and Lois uses her brief moment of invisibility
to suck on Superman's lips without his permission
which as we're learning is pretty on brand.
When it wears off she tells supes
that they should get married now
because look how brave she is.
But Superman says no way would he marry a woman so reckless.
So Lois does the sensible thing and quits her job
puts an ad in the paper saying she'll do anything
as long as it's dangerous.
And then commits to a series of absolutely bat (beep)
suicidal stunts in the hopes that will somehow prove
she's wifey material and not at all unhinged.
In her quest Lois battles a literal Yeti
for some jewels, survives a plane crash
by tying a wing door back midair
and just leap straight into a pit of fire.
No questions asked.
And she survives it all.
Because Superman himself apparently rigged each scenario
to ensure her safety.
Which definitely saved him a lot of OSHA paperwork
but it didn't really solve his core problem.
Luckily Lois' little bout of courage
was only a lingering side effect from the serum.
It eventually wears of and she returns
to her cowardly, mortal ways.
Superman assures her they'll still get married someday
but you know, not anytime soon.
And from that point on they enjoyed a stable
supportive relationship, right?
Number two, Lois gains weight.
And Superman's a super jerk about it.
Issue Number Five of Superman's girlfriend, "Lois Lane."
Begins with a titular Lois
witnessing a "Deliberately planned killing,"
which is objectively one of the worst types of killing.
But this is in the late 1950s,
and instead of sending Lois to trauma counseling
for witnessing a violent murder.
She's pretty much immediately onto our next big story.
Interviewing some nutcase who invented a Growth Ray.
He claims the Ray's only intended for normal (beep)
like growing plants.
But he also says it makes things plumper
which is the word normally reserved for not plants.
- Save me.
- [Narrator] And sure enough, he uses the ray
to plump up Lois.
So now Metropolis' finest investigative reporter
is twice her original size
and terrified that Superman's love for her
won't also double.
- I'm a cow.
- [Narrator] Thankfully, her fears are unfounded
and Superman continues treating her like a human being
worthy of love and respect.
Is what we'd say if this was a comic book,
not written in the madman era.
- [Soldier] Vigorous chest massage if that doesn't work
mouth to mouth.
- [Narrator] The man of steel calls, the newly stout Lois
quite the load over and over and keeps reminding her
that she's twice the size of his usual girlfriend.
Lois realizes she'll now be forced to shop
the progressively named Fat Girl's Shoppe.
Even the narrator lays into her
with captions referring to "The Pudgy Planet Reporter,
The Rotund Reporter"
and most unimaginatively "Lois Chubby Lane."
Join us next week for the adventures
of the Lois "Fat Tub of Lard, who should be ashamed
of herself" Lane.
And remember this was published back when Superman could
push planets from their orbit without breaking a sweat.
Makes no difference to him
if you're 10 or 10,000 pounds.
He was just being an (beep).
Even worse it turns out Superman himself
made Lois gain weight to hide her identity from that murder.
He explains this to her with the logic
and suspicious calm of a guy with a pocket
full of roofies saying,
"No I knew you wouldn't consent
if I told you, but it's for your own good."
- Why did, why did you kiss me first?
- I didn't get to that be later.
- [Narrator] And this, despite the fact
that this is a universe where you only need
a sturdy pair of non-prescription glasses
to hide your identity for decades.
But thankfully Superman takes out the murderer
who still recognized Lois by the way,
because it's not like he was suffering
from face blindness.
And Superman promises never to transform
Lois into some kind of offensive stereotype ever again.
Number one, Superman turns, Lois Lane Black.
All right so this isn't the most romantic storyline
between our two star cross lunatics,
but it is absolutely the most offensive.
Back in 1970 DC decided they'd had enough of racism
and figured they should solve the problem
once and for all.
To that end Superman's girlfriend, Lois Lane Number 106,
starts with Lois heading to the part of metropolis
known as Little Africa. Okay of to a great start!
- Oh God.
- [Narrator] But hey, at least Lois' heart
is in the right place.
She intends to head down there to report on something.
It's never really clear.
Just that she's going to go there
and learn about "Blackness."
And hopefully you're in a Pulitzer for doing it.
- [Man] What a scoop.
- [Narrator] Lois travels around Little Africa
but everyone either avoids her
or calls her Whitey the Enemy.
Surely this has nothing to do with
her waltzing around asking people
to tell her what it's like to be all black and stuff.
She figures it simply because she's White.
Naturally, (soft music)
she draws the conclusion that there's just no way
she can ever truly understand the experience
of being Black in Metropolis.
And results to be a being a better ally,
by ,just kidding, she has Superman turn her black
so she can blend in and get a real scoop.
The now black Lois has many adventures
including befriending that guy who called her the enemy.
But since Little Africa is the Wild West of Metropolis.
He is pretty immediately shot by some drug dealers.
Lois donates her blood to save him,
and just as he's about to wake up
her blackness fades away
and she's back to being White.
And just like that, the day is saved.
A black man learned a lesson about tolerance
and Lois Lane learned what a good person she is.
But the real racial test actually came a bit earlier,
when it's still Black Lois goes up to Superman
and demands to know if he'd be willing to marry her,
even though she's Black and he's White.
He doesn't directly respond but he does clarify
that he's an alien, so race stuff
doesn't really matter to him.
And she explains to him that,
sure okay but you still look White
and that's what really matters, right?
Would you be willing to marry a Black Woman,
Son of Krypton?
But before he can respond with a super "it's complicated"
she transforms into a White Woman
and they just dropped the whole thing.
And that's how DC comics ended racism
and proved love conquers all.
Except again, Muhammad Ali.
(operatic tune)
(bright music) - Ooh Superman,
how does it feel to be so thoroughly steward?
Well, another fortnight, another Canonball.
Do let us know in the comments if we missed
any of Superman's Follies.
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if you enjoyed today's episode.
And if you didn't enjoy it,
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