Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel anticipated digital catfishing in Lois Lane Weds Astounding Man! (Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane 18, July 1960)
Catfishing, as you know, is a form of digital fraud in which someone creates a sock puppet fake identity on a social networking platform, often as part of a romance scam.
This story, drawn by Al Plastino, is one of those in which Siegel features characters in the grip of obsession. They virtually vibrate with unresolved trauma.
Here, Lois’s car engine dies on a lonely road and she’s confronted by a flying saucer carrying what amounts to a super-stalker, Astounding Man.
He instantly announces that he loves her and wants to marry her, having spied on her for years.
Ignoring the forest of red flags waving right in her face, Lois agrees to fly to Astounding Man’s planet, Roxnon, where he has built a “Lois Lane palace” and written “hundreds of volumes” in her praise. He also isolates her on a lonely planetoid, saying he can’t bear to share her.
Apparently impressed by this extremely normal behavior, Lois agrees to marry him.
In fairness to Lois, though, the story contains heavy hints that she is being mentally manipulated, i.e. mesmerized or drugged.
Astounding Man reveals his “secret identity” as the Oz-like Oogamooga, an ugly old man manipulating the Astounding Man android through a control panel.
Interesting when you consider that Superman was the alter ego, and sometime “puppet,” of the aging and often financially distressed Jerry Siegel, who turned 46 in 1960.
With Superman’s help, Lois out-catfishes Oogamooga, and marries the Astounding Man android off to a Lois Lane android.
As in several Siegel stories during this period, Superman remains largely passive. Although he assists Lois, Superman takes no punitive action against the alien who attempted to con and seduce her.
Maybe Siegel was disenchanted with his world-famous, immensely lucrative co-creation, a character that was then providing benefits to many others, but not to him.
Bruce Kanin said: I've lost track of how many Superman & Lois Lane stories about her falling for a Superman-like character from the future, in the past, or even in the present.
ReplyDeleteMy "love" emoticon is for these house ads. They were sensational ... and effective!
Mike Thompson said: "Also, can we talk about that look? Because the dalmation-spotted trim is a CHOICE."
ReplyDeleteMitchell Brown wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt’s the Dalmatian prints. No man can resist a woman wearing items from the Cruella De Vil line of business frocks.
Terry J. Wood wrote:
ReplyDeleteLet's face it: Aliens come to Earth to hook up with Lois!
George Blake wrote:
ReplyDeleteKeeping with the reports of the day about car engines dying when a flying saucer is nearby.
Reports of handsome UFO pilots, the so-called Nordics, made it into this yarn as well.
Bob Hughes wrote:
ReplyDeleteI get the impression that this sort of thing happens to famous people a lot. Even bloggers. Of course, now we just call them stalkers and no longer encourage them.
Mark Mills wrote:
ReplyDeleteWas this the guy she married but turned out to be a monster? (Actually, didn't that happen about 30 times?)
John Alderman wrote:
ReplyDeleteThey sure didn’t waste time getting the story going back in the day. Four panels and you’re right in the thick of it.
Mark Amundsen wrote:
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine the stories under her byline?
Nils Osmar wrote:
ReplyDeleteWho could resist a dowdy, boring, scheming, spiteful, petty, pesky woman like the 1950s/1960s Lois Lane? I'd have flown millions of miles to marry her myself.
Or perhaps to get away from her... not sure which.