THE SUPER SEX WAR

In Bob Hughes' commentary for SUPERMAN IN THE FORTIES, he notes that part of the character's appeal was that he was "a Personality." And I agree that Siegel and Schuster did succeed at imbuing their star with a persona that was inspired by earlier heroic icons (Tarzan, Douglas Fairbanks, myth-heroes like Heracles and Samson), but managed to have its own unique appeal. However, within the five volumes-worth of stories in SUPERMAN CHRONICLES-- which gives one a chronological look at every aspect of the feature's narrative development save the contemporaneous comic strip-- there's hardly anyone else in the feature who possesses any "Personality." Even by the standards appropriate for action-melodramas, Siegel's villains and victims all seem like the equivalent of theatrical spear-carriers, who exist merely to heighten the gloriousness of the hero-- with one exception.

In terms of narrative Lois Lane, being stuck in the middle of a sexual triangle comprised of herself, the hero and the hero's secret identity, was in the same position as the lady loves of earlier heroes like Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel. However, there were some differences in the precise persona evoked. I confess I have not read the original prose adventures of the latter two characters, and am dependent on knowing only the cinematic adaptations (as I suspect may've also been the case for Siegel and Schuster)-- but in any case, I suspect that even back in the 1930s few people would've know the names of the female leads in the Zorro and Pimpernel sagas. The movie-versions present the audience with women who are "holding out for a hero" as they scorn the wimpy secret IDs of the main heroes, but the ladies don't seem to have any significance, any personality, independent of the heroes. They are the prizes for which the hero strives.

Lois Lane is different. In ACTION COMICS #1 (June 1938), she is only introduced after Superman has resolved his first two cases: saving a woman and a man from a a false murder charge and then saving a woman from an abusive husband. She's first seen at Clark Kent's workplace, grudgingly agreeing to give him a date after implicitly having turned him down many times. The two of them go out dancing but are interrupted by a tough gangster who takes a liking to Lois and tries, with several buddies to back him up, to shove Clark out of the picture. Lois, a typical spitfire type, repulses the gangster with a slap and storms off in a taxi after expressing disgust at Clark's unwillingness to fight. As with Zorro and the Pimpernel, Superman's rationale for his alter ego's cowardice is to protect his altruistic mission, though the first two heroes have a better excuse in that they are merely skilled mortals surrounded by powerful and hostile regimes. Superman's masquerade is a bit more counter-intuitive, since he is as a god in mortal disguise, who can and does frequently thumb his nose at cops and armies in the early stories. Not surprisingly, critics like Jules Feiffer and Gerald Jones have commented on the apparent masochism of Clark Kent's self-abasement-- but though this is a pertinent notion, it's incomplete as stated.

Lois is the key. Lois is not just a frail flower in need of rescuing, as had been many romantic leads before her, but a heroic Personality herself. She does need rescuing over and over-- so much so that eventually the trope was ripe for parody-- but it's only because of Tyrant Biology, not because she is incapable of heroic grit herself. She's demanding with Clark because she's demanding with everyone, in accordance with another 30s persona publicly nurtured through the cinema: the tough-minded lady reporter. Unlike her later incarnations early Lois possessed no real martial skills, though she was occasionally known to take a poke at this or that thug. But the lady reporter's attempts at heroism aren't viewed as ridiculous, though on occasion she might be judged foolhardy. Admittedly, there are many minor stories where Lois' role is reduced to spear-carrier status, but the number of times that she did show admirable gumption demonstrate that Siegel deemed her a Personality in her own right.

Gerald Jones points out that ACTION #5 (October 1938) is the first time the hero really starts performing Herculean feats: holding up a broken trestle so that a train may safely cross it and blocking a flood of waters from a broken dam to save mere mortals from doom. But this ode to super-masculine power starts out with the declaration of a gender-war between Lois and Clark. Lois (described as being consigned to writing "sob stories" in #1) tries to get her editor to let her cover news of the breaking dam. He refuses her because she's a woman, giving Clark preferment (his reputation for wussiness being forgotten). Lois sends Clark on a wild-goose chase and then rushes into danger in order to prove herself with an eyewitness account. After Clark's editor fires him (temporarily of course), Clark uses his super-powers as an equalizer to catch up to his curvaceous competitor (If Lois thinks she's going to scoop me, she's badly mistaken!") However, by saving the train-- which Lois happens to be on-- Superman makes it possible for her to reach the dam, even while he's busy trying to hold back its torrent. Superman rescues the ambitious lady reporter from the flood and blocks the flood by toppling a mountain into its path, but then he faces a real challenge: a grateful woman, implicitly aroused by his masculine performance. He accepts her kiss after some initial reluctance, but then takes her back to the nearest city with a rejoinder that may not be entirely a joke: "I've got to bring you back to safety-- where I'll be safe from you!" Ironically, his maybe-joking protestation of fear is counterpointed by Lois confessing that she's gotten over the fear she had of him in their first few encounters, and professing her love. Naturally, Superman escapes her attentions with a cavalier wave that some deem sadistic toward his secret rival, but then returns, as Clark, to receive her scorn for not being the he-man that Superman is.

ACTION #6 (November 1938) also contains a brief sequence in which Lois tries to manipulate Clark while Clark lets himself be apparently manipulated while laughing up his sleeve; it ends with Lois trying to pin the hero down once more while he leaves any future meetings "in the hands of fate." Then, jumping over a number of spear-carrier tales, we come to NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR COMICS #1 (June 1939). The bulk of this story is of little interest, until the last pages, when Lois becomes positively aggressive in her pursuit of the Man of Tomorrow. When the hero leaps clear of a crowd of well-wishers, Lois impulsiveness jumps on his back so that he carries her away. Superman's response is a bizarre one: he performs an aerial somersault in the hope of scaring her off. Lois' response once they land is far cooler than the hero's: she suggests that they do it again (which may be the closest the couple would ever get to having sex in that era). She kisses him again. He escapes, though his flustered condition is much more evident than it was in ACTION #5. And just as he did at the end of #5, his return to the Clark identity once more insures him the wrath of Lois' biting tongue-- which I assume Feiffer would judge yet another manifestation of masochism; better the biting tongue than the Toothed Vagina...

ACTION #22 (March 1940) is the first part of a two-part story which is best known in that the second part introduces Superman's most durable foe, Luthor. The first part, though, is noteworthy in that it's the first time Lois becomes jealous of another woman's attentions to Clark, the "worm" Lois supposedly despises. Indeed, the other woman is the first character in Superman comic books (again, not addressing the comic strip here) to share Lois' "LL" initials: an actress with the doubly seductive-sounding name of "Lita Laverne." Those aware of the Superman mythos will recall how characters with the same alliterative scheme proliferated in later years: plain old "Luthor" finally acquired the given name "Lex," etc. In any case, though Laverne isn't much of a character (the actress moonlights as a spy for foreign powers), she also resembles Lois in being ambivalent toward Clark throughout the story for reasons the plot doesn't really explain. Clearly, she's simply a version of Lois recast as a straight villainess, and thus a continuation of the sex-war.

1940 was also the year when Jerry Siegel submitted the never-published "K-metal" story in which he would've ended the triangle by having Superman reveal his dual identity to Lois, which would've ended with an equal partnership that might have eventually led to the marital status the characters currently enjoy. Since Jones has provided a detailed study of that story (spiked by DC, who preferred the status quo), I refer the curious to his account. But also in that year comes my last example of Lois' status as a character of heroic proportions, for a tale now titled "The Construction Scam" (SUPERMAN #6, Sept-Oct 1940) concludes with Clark saving Lois' life by infusing her with his Kryptonian blood. At the end of the story Lois not only makes a full recovery but adds that "I feel stronger than I've ever felt." It's been suggested by some fans that Siegel might have pondered converting Lois into a "Superwoman" via this transfusion, perhaps for a spinoff feature. Perhaps here, as in the K-metal story, Siegel was trying to give Lois a more substantial role than that of imperilled maiden; one in which she too could participate in the super-powered fantasy (and maybe be a more tenable sex-partner than your average mortal woman). If such was Siegel's intent DC must have spiked that too, for from then on Lois would go on displaying her lady-reporter gutsiness but still needing to be bailed out by a man. This would lead in time to Lois becoming dingy enough, in some stories, to pitch herself off a building in order to make Superman save her, even when he was nowhere in sight.

This, then, is why Feiffer's notion of "the Man of Masochism" is not quite complete. It overlooks the fact that since in those days the characters could never be married or exchange more than kisses, the sadistic/masochistic byplay was not simply a metonymic substitute for sex (metonym: "this is put for that") but a metaphorical evocation of sex (metaphor: "this is that"). And I'd further argue that the conceit wouldn't have worked as well as it did without Lois being a demanding spitfire of a woman, a Beatrice fit for a super-Benedick-- even if both characters would become somewhat blander over time. Arguably in later eras the metaphorical sexcapades took other forms, such as giving both of them numerous clones of one another with whom to enjoy short-lived romances-- Lois getting with some other caped swain, and Superman hooking up with some other lady with alliterative "LL" initials. But all of these were just reiterations of the sex-war in new terms, and of a never-overtly-consummated hieros gamos between a woman of Earth and a man from the heavens. And that symbolic substrate is one of the aspects that still makes the early Siegel-Schuster stories valuable despite all of their other deficiencies.