In the 1960s, Lois Lane acquired super powers with such frequency that she sported her own recognizable green-and-yellow super costume for appearances in Action Comics and Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane.
Lois acquired her costume — even as her romantic rival Lana Lang got a yellow-and-purple one — in Lana Lang, Superwoman! (Lois Lane 17, May 1960).
In The Battle Between Super-Lois and Super-Lana! (Lois Lane 21, Nov. 1960), writer Jerry Siegel and artist Kurt Schaffenberger reflected the ambiguous attitudes of the era, trivializing women’s power as often as they celebrated it.
Instead of corralling killers or blowing out forest fires, Super-Lois and Super-Lana whipped up super-pancakes and super-pizzas in their efforts to impress Superman. So fevered were their desires to marry him that they even engaged in a super-catfight.
Siegel and Schaffenberger brought Lois’ costume back in The Reversed Super-Powers! (Action Comics 274, March 1961) when Superman’s anti-kryptonite experiment accidentally transferred his powers to Lois.
Something was there, in the American air, beyond all the condescending silliness. The cultural gravitational pull of this theme of an empowered Lois Lane has been strong enough to affect even the Superman stories outside the comic books.
In the final episode of the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman, All That Glitters, Noel Neill’s Lois gained super powers.
And in the 1990s TV series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Terry Hatcher’s Lois accidentally siphoned Superman’s powers to become Ultrawoman.
Ironically, Margot Kidder, the actress who played Lois in the four Christopher Reeve Superman movies, predicted this turn of events. She was unaware that the characters had become engaged and then married in the comic books, but she wasn’t unappreciative of the changes.
“She’ll have to get some super powers next,” Kidder said. “As women’s liberation goes on, that’s how it should be. Know more and do more. I’m all for it.” She added with a laugh, “But skip the marriage. And make sure he does the cooking.”
