Lois Lane is Superman's girlfriend, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and a mom. Though this
character is as old as Superman himself, there's still a lot about her most people don't know.
This is her story, one dazzling Daily Planet scoop at a time.
Lois Lane was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster right alongside Superman himself. Her
characterization sprang from a number of places, including 1930s movies and Siegel's own wife.
Back in 1988, the Superman writer shared that he wanted Lois to be a hard-nosed working girl,
rather than a damsel to be saved by Superman. He based her partially on
the character of Torchy Blane, a fictional journalist who searched
for scoops in Depression-era double features. He told Time magazine,
"What inspired me in the creation was Glenda Farrell , the movie star who portrayed Torchy
Blane, a gutsy, beautiful headline-hunting reporter, in a series of exciting motion pictures.
Because the name of the actress Lola Lane appealed to me, I called my character Lois Lane. Strangely,
the characterization of Lois is amazingly like the real-life personality of my lovely wife."
Siegel and his wife Joanne were actually brought together by Superman: She modeled
for Shuster's original drawings of Lois Lane, and went on to marry Siegel over a decade later.
Even in the earliest Superman comics, the dynamic at play between Lois Lane
and Superman is multifaceted. Lois is frequently unimpressed by her coworker Clark Kent, only to
be dazzled when she is saved later by the heroic Superman. This is established in Action Comics #1,
when a date between Clark and Lois goes haywire. The date didn't exactly start on good terms,
either; Lois accepts the date out of boredom, saying she'll go out with Clark
"for a change." When a guy interrupts their dance later that evening,
she excoriates Clark for not standing up to the bully. When Lois steps in and slaps the jerk,
Clark mutters his approval under his breath: "Good for you, Lois!" But of course,
he follows up in a much louder voice, telling her to stop. He loves her for being the kind of
woman who can't love the man he's pretending to be — a juicy drama fans have loved ever since.
Lois' character is built on the tension between her competitive relationship with Clark Kent,
and her desire to unearth Superman's identity. On the one hand, Clark Kent is her rival at work. The
pair regularly duke it out to land scoops and earn the favor of their bosses at the Daily Planet.
But of course, Lois' journalistic instincts come into conflict with her burgeoning attraction to
Superman. She's into him, but she just can't stop wanting to unearth the real identity of
Metropolis' defender. The mystery surrounding Superman and Clark Kent is a key component of
Lois' stories in the first few years of the character's history. Frequently in these stories,
Superman has to fight off the villain of the week while hiding his identity from Lois.
"Happened to be in Niagara Falls… and Clark… Clark is not around as usual... "
Superman changed with the times and so did Lois Lane. The '50s and '60s marked a dramatic
shift in mainstream comics toward the cosmic: Sci-fi plotlines flourished and alien nemeses
rained down on Metropolis. While Superman was off fighting stranger and stranger threats,
Lois launched her own incredibly successful series. Superman's Girl Friend,
Lois Lane was one of the best-selling titles of the early '60s, frequently showcasing
the reporter hatching bigger and bigger plots to convince Superman to marry her.
Lois was rebooted after DC's' seminal '80s event Crisis on Infinite Earths.
In many ways, this was a return to form: The wannabe wife vanished, and the hard-nosed
reporter of the '40s was restored. This Lois doesn't rely on Superman for rescue
and is depicted as a tough journalist willing to put herself in danger to get the truth out there.
Though Lois is still enamored with Superman, and increasingly, with Clark,
he's not the only focus of her romantic exploits. She is shown throughout the '80s and '90s having
relationships with other Metropolis bachelors, while occasionally going on dates with Kent.
The relationship between the pair grows with time in an organic way. It took until 1996
for Lois and Clark to finally get married. They've largely remained together ever since.
The first kid Lois and Clark call their own enters their lives much like Clark entered his
Kansas parents': Chris Kent falls to Earth in a Kryptonian spacecraft. Lois and Clark
take him in as their own, learning later that he is the child of Superman's nemesis, Zod.
Chris' arrival on Earth creates a gateway that Zod uses to travel out of the Phantom Zone,
where he's been imprisoned. Zod attacks the Earth and attempts to reclaim Chris
as his son. Being raised by the Kents, however, he rebels against his biological father
and protects Lois and Clark from Zod. After a war between Zod and Earth ensues,
Superman is able to send the evil Kryptonian back to his prison dimension for good. To keep
Zod from escaping again, Chris sacrifices himself and voluntarily goes to the Phantom Zone as well.
Years later, Superman and Lois go on to have a son of their own
named Jonathan Kent, the DC universe's current Superboy.
Over the years, writers have found ways to make Lois a little more than human.
In early takes on Lois, she occasionally finds herself in possession of powers with a shelf life,
often through fabulous feats of super science.
Whenever Lois briefly becomes a superhero, she takes on the identity of Superwoman, and feels
what it's like to live as her ultra-powerful boyfriend. Generally speaking, she's a fan.
A few very different takes on superpowered Lois exist as well. In a parallel timeline,
Lois and Clark are both killed by Darkseid and his forces from the planet of Apokolips . Her
father Sam survives and manages to upload her consciousness into a robotic body,
making her that universe's Red Tornado. Lois teams up with the
few surviving superheroes of Earth and works to expel Darkseid and his army.
Other mishaps and dream sequences have turned Lois into Elastic Lass, Green Lantern,
and even a bad guy from time to time. In one alternate timeline where she marries Lex Luthor,
she becomes the supervillain Leopard Lady.
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