When it comes to superheroes, I consider myself to be mostly a fan of Superman. But, to be honest, who I’m really here for is Lois Lane.
That first season of The Adventures of Superman is my favorite because Phyllis Coates is an amazing Lois Lane. Smallville’s alright, I guess, if only I didn’t have to sit through three seasons with no Lois, then wait until the last third of the show for her to actually become Lois. Superman: The Animated Series is good because Lois is good! And… you get the idea.
It’s curious to me that in most people’s laundry lists of ideal Superman configurations, Lois’s role is not usually mentioned. There are endless discussions of whether the Kents should be alive or dead, how far back Superman and Lex’s relationship goes, if he’s Superboy in Smallville, if Clark Kent is the mask or his real personality, but I rarely see any of my main Lois sticking points: does she come up with the name “Superman”? Is she close to her dad, General Sam Lane? Does she fall in love with Superman or Clark? Is she romantically involved with either of them at all? (Okay, I admit, you’d have to be a really big Lois Lane fan to even know there are versions of her with no romance…)
Lois’s presence is taken as a given. Considering that both Superman and Lois Lane debuted in Action Comics #1, she was literally made for him! This also means the specifics of Lois’s involvement aren’t really important. What matters is that she’s there, supporting Superman and/or getting into wacky shenanigans. Part of this is the effect of years of misogynist writing that simply portray Lois as a Superman-obsessed fangirl, a pretentious woman who looks down on Clark Kent and needs to be put in her place, but modern writing isn’t free from flattening her either. As popular internet vernacular would put it, Lois is Superman’s unhinged journalist girlfriend/wife, and he loves her for it because Superman isn’t threatened by a strong woman (whatever that means).
This simple trope-ification of their relationship isn’t enough for me, though. Rarely do I see writing that’s concerned with Lois beyond her as a prop for Superman. And that’s a shame, because to me, Superman is only as good as his Lois. And unlike people who parrot this idea to show how much they Respect Women, I really mean it. I can handle many tweaks to the mythos, even the ones that could be dealbreakers for others, but one thing I won’t stand for is Lois being used as a prop. In short, I have a hard time caring about anything Superman that doesn’t care about LOIS.
So, naturally, one of my favorite takes on Superman is Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (working title Lois Lane’s Daily Planet). Created by Deborah Joy Levine and premiering September 12, 1993 – the same week as The X-Files – it’s kinda like its lighter, sillier, and somewhat forgotten cousin. Levine reimagined Superman as a leading man akin to classic screwball comedies and Nora Ephron films. Here, Clark Kent has more vitality, Lois’s barbs bouncing off him like bullets on his chest, unlike the meek coworker popularized by Christopher Reeve. The New Adventures of Superman subtitle recalls George Reeves’ The Adventures of Superman, an apt reference as Levine’s vision was not only compatible with the contemporary Superman status quo at DC but also to Reeves’ journalism-focused portrayal of the character.
The most radical departure of all is apparent from the beginning of the pilot. The first character we see is not Superman, nor Clark Kent, but Lois Lane, disguised as a man, returning to the Daily Planet after a successful investigation.
Previous TV versions of Lois were not damsels by any measure. Phyllis Coates (who also cameos as Lois’s mother in season one) in The Adventures of Superman was able to investigate on her own terms without Clark or Superman, bringing a confidence that goes unremarked upon while subtly pushing against our expectations of a woman during that time (and even now). Teri Hatcher’s Lois does just as much journalism, trusted to the point that a whistleblower scientist would directly consult her before anyone else, but this confidence is also filtered through a self-aware 90s feminist rhetoric. She has the career, but not the man, and the career is what’s causing her not to have the man. Her unwillingness to compromise her personality and aspirations – scaring away a date with a seminar on “Weak Men and the Wise Women Who Love Them” – hides the romantic at heart who cries while watching soap operas with a tub of ice cream. It’s part His Girl Friday and part proto-Sex and the City (if Carrie was a more serious writer).
[MY Carrie Bradshaw]
A Lois-centric take on Superman requires a few changes. Although Lois is often a symbol of women in the workforce, the history of her character is more complicated than her feminist reclamation suggests. The traditional conception of the Superman/Lois Lane relationship, where Lois is in love with Superman and ignores Clark Kent, often veers into misogynistic writing. It makes Lois look foolish and shallow, as if Superman’s machismo is what attracts her to him, unimpressed by Clark Kent’s plain exterior. It degrades her in a “nice guys finish last”, “all women secretly want jocks” way. She’s reduced to a cheerleader for Superman and a wild woman who only does her journalistic stunts for attention (from Superman). Even if her loving only Superman was still the popular representation of their characters, a modern interpretation needs to give Lois more interiority. Nowadays, Lois’s intelligence is emphasized, her stunts traded for legitimate investigative journalism. This version of the character should be able to see past plain exteriors and machismo.
Lois & Clark’s 90-minute pilot is functionally a romcom film, possibly to be circulated on the direct-to-video market if the series never got picked up. A romcom may sound like the opposite of what I want for Lois Lane. Lois in The Adventures of Superman scarcely had any romance, offering a surprisingly progressive take for the 1950s (and, again, even now). But for any social advancement made since then, this could not be done today as the triangle-for-two has been thoroughly codified in the Superman mythos. Since the romance with Superman must be there, then a romcom is the best way to give Lois a more rounded character. The conventions of the genre is such that the female lead gets as much (if not more) attention than the male one, and if Lois is usually only there to be Superman’s love interest, then try to flip it on its head!
The balance between Clark Kent and Superman in this series best illustrates its centering of Lois: Clark is confident and can keep up with Lois, while Superman is a bit shy and unsure of himself. Rather than being Superboy or training with Jor-El, he travelled the world, learning different languages and freelancing at various newspapers, only learning about Krypton as an adult. He’s the opposite of all her bad dates, who were too boring or too stupid or too intimidated by her, one the fantasy of a worldly, competent man and the other a prince from another planet. If Clark were portrayed as he was in Reeve’s version, it begs the question of why Lois would keep around someone who would only slow her down (and she doesn’t need a chaperone). And if Superman were portrayed the same, it would come off as eerily paternalistic rather than charming. In Lois & Clark, Superman/Clark is her friend and equal.
Lois & Clark’s attention to civilian life is strange for a superhero TV show, even having episodes where Superman is almost inconsequential to the story being told. Rather than sci-fi superhero wackiness, much of season one feels like a procedural drama, alternating between investigations for the Daily Planet and Superman interjecting when the need arises. Romance tropes abound, such as an episode where Lois and Clark pretend to be a married couple for an investigation, and another where a love potion wreaks havoc at the Daily Planet. And, as these tropes often facilitate, conversations about love and relationships usually missing from superhero fare also abound.
The commitment to centering Lois gradually erodes as the series adds more traditionally Superman plotlines (not without their own girly twist – in season four, after discovering he has a wife sworn to him from birth, Kal-El has to stop an evil Kryptonian from succeeding the throne). Still, season one, the only season where Deborah Joy Levine is the showrunner, has a distinct appeal (and in a way, is one of the only Lois Lane stories written by and for women). Lex Luthor (in an underrated turn by John Shea) and Cat Grant as series regulars made the recurring cast more well-rounded, offering consistent clashes of personality for our leads, and the writing for characters like Jimmy Olsen and Perry White was more than comic relief. Levine has made no secret of her indifference to Superman, hardly a fan of the comics herself. Instead, she preferred to focus on the relationship between Lois Lane and Clark Kent. Lois’s love triangle in season one is not Clark Kent and Superman, but Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. It’s a bit like Broadcast News, and in true soapy fashion, the season culminates in a wedding to Lex that Superman must stop. In any other setting, this story would be used to portray Lois as too shallow, but Lois & Clark presents both as dashing options with secrets she’s not privy to. There is dramatic irony in what we know about Clark and Lex, watching as she struggles between career, friendship, and desire. These are the type of adaptational tweaks that come about with a vision focused on romance above all else.
It’s no surprise to me that most hardcore fans do not like this series (a certain cast member aside), as the tone, along with many changes to the mythos, were made to serve Lois as a character rather than Superman. Do the people I see who clamor for a Superman romcom know 1. it already exists and 2. it won’t be for the traditional comic nerd? But more than that, even if a romcom with Superman were attempted today, it certainly would not be like Lois & Clark. Actual quality notwithstanding (I will defend the first two seasons), part of the reason I love this series is that it seems like a minor miracle it even exists. Before everything had to be made for the median fanboy audience, the superhero/romcom/procedural mashup is the kind that could only exist during the 90s. As special effects budgets have gone up, so too do the stakes. It can’t be as simple as working on a new scoop while slowly discovering you’re in love with your (superpowered) coworker every week anymore. There never was or will be a superhero adaptation like it again.
